Episode 56 - The Sculptor's Influence: Michael Anschel's Unique Path to Design and Build Mastery

Apr 7

Episode #56 | Michael Anschel | Design & Build Mastery

Michael Anschel from OA Design+Build+Architecture talks about the transformative experiences of stepping away from his business to travel, the artistic influence on architecture, and the power of company culture. Mark & Michael dive deep into the importance of building sustainable systems within the business and the emotional impact of remodeling homes, all while sharing personal anecdotes, from skiing dreams to building a passionate career. Don't miss the wisdom these seasoned pros have to offer on shaping not just buildings, but the very foundation of a thriving business.

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About Michael Anschel

Michael, a nationally recognized expert on high performance buildings, resilient design, and excellence in business, writes, trains, and speaks for numerous publications and events around the world. His building assemblies of been published in numerous publications including the US Department of Energy. He is the Owner of OA Design+Build+Architecture, an award winning nationally celebrated firm enjoying 29 years in business.

Born in Minnesota, he won a full scholarship to Bates College for Genetic Engineering. However A pre college trip to China turned into 2.5 years of study in Beijing before returning to the U of M. Among his credits include hosting a TV show in China, Writer for the Beijing Review, and teacher for the Japanese government.

As an Instructor at Boston Architectural College, one half of the Green Police, Host of the popular Building Resilience Show, and contributing editor to ProRemodeler Magazine, Michael is dedicated to sharing best practices and continually improving the remodeling industry.

Resources

18920 Park Ave_011v2 - Michael Anschel.jpg

Mark D. Williams
Today on the podcast, we had Michael and shell from on a design build and architecture and awesome conversation, I had three pages of notes, we definitely went off script, but it was really personal, really interesting. I think you're gonna enjoy this one a lot, especially the business owners, there's a ton of things that you can apply to your business, kind of level up some of your operations, kind of maybe even step away from kind of the day to day role. We talked a lot about how an owner can if you're looking at the business and working on it, how you can start to see things that if you're in the day to day, you really just can't see. And so I found this conversation to be extremely helpful, I hope you do as well. And now without further ado, onto the episode. Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with Michael and shell from OMA design, building architecture. Thanks for coming in. Michael,
Unknown Speaker 0:49
happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
Mark D. Williams 0:51
So you're in Minneapolis here. Same with me. And I think a couple of months ago, I met you for the first time I've been aware of your company because I live in Minneapolis for a long time now. And you were speaking on a greenPath panel with Pat O'Malley and a few others. And I want to have you on immediately because your knowledge in the space of performance enhancement, if you will, to miss coin that is like you're a bodybuilder that you dose on the weekends with EPO, and now but just your knowledge is pretty incredible. And so I want to talk about that today. But before we do, and you're too humble of a guy, so I'm going to brag on you. So I was doing a little research before he came and for the audience that doesn't know who you are. And I'm really intrigued at your path. But I just want to read I think you have a better bio than maybe Henry Kissinger. So audience Check, check this out. This is a tall, tall order. But so you at a young age were involved with the Guthrie Theater here in Minneapolis, then you had a passion for the sculpture in the arts, you deferred college, you traveled to China from 92 to 95, where you learn Mandarin, then you went to Japan to 95 to 96, you were a TV host, a foreign language editor at the university, a preschool teacher, the head of the English department of the Japanese Embassy for school in Beijing. And then you came back to get an art degree and a Chinese minor at the U of M. And I'm thinking like is that it? So Oh, and by the way, you're a cellist of 44 years. So I mean, that's crazy. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how this all unfolds, because I have to imagine it shows up in your work all all over the place. Well, I
Unknown Speaker 2:28
mean, you just you just laid it all out there. So they're
Mark D. Williams 2:32
all done performance enhancing drugs,
Speaker 1 2:34
you forgot that I actually was supposed to go to Bates College in Maine, I had a full ride, I was going to be a genetic engineer. That was I wanted to get for real, I wanted to genetically modify food crops to grow in brackish environments. And I wrote a little thesis on that. And that was, that was where I was headed. And I went to China, just to have a little break, like a couple months, opposite side of the world, the most different place I could think of and got there and thought, wow, I got nothing prepared me for what it really was, like what that country really was like, and I saw I enrolled in university there and deferred my scholarship. And then I defer to the second time and then when I went to deferred the third time, they told me that I needed to show up to give the money to somebody else, but that that they would hold the scholarship for me for when I was ready to come back. And so I've I always kind of secretly threatened my family that I'm going to call up Bates College at some point and say, I'm ready. That'd
Mark D. Williams 3:33
be great to get an honorary degree. My goodness. So what was it about living in China? That sort of I mean, you had this interesting, early career. I mean, tell us a little bit about your involvement in the Guthrie Theater and just your interest in sculpture and art? Because, you know, looking at your website and looking at the work that you do, I don't I can't think of anyone that I know, certainly not locally, that kind of has the stylistic the style that you have in your homes, I have to believe it's been informed a lot through your experiences.
Speaker 1 4:01
Yeah. Yes, it has. And I thank you. I'm glad we want to have a distinct look. But I also think that I used to joke that as someone who wanted to really love sculpture, that I found a career where I would get paid well to sculpt. And the medium is just larger and a little bit more different. But the the relationship between form and function in my background, and sculpture was luxury ceramics, right. But the ceramics tradition of teapots, and all that is always this, this marriage of form and function, how far can you push the form without damaging the function, right? You don't want to be fully just utilitarian. There's an opportunity for beauty. And I think the same thing is true for homes in the different spaces. And I tried to take that approach. Like where are we? How far can we push the form and still have it be super functional, but also be aesthetically really interesting and really engaging and really unique? And for sure, definitely there's, there's Asian influence, Asian architectural influence in the work. But you know, the funny thing, frankly, right. Also, you know, his work is largely Barrett borrowed from Japan as well. And so I think that Minneapolis already has a tradition of borrowed architectural styles from the east. So yeah, there How was that for an answer? That's
Mark D. Williams 5:26
great. What do you you know, it's interesting, my sister in law, went to St. Olaf and was a sculptor as well. And interestingly enough, she now she is not really involved with that. That seems like sometimes people that have a in she is different in different ways, but she did no longer sculpts and so in fact, I had some one time offer to Hey, I'll buy you a wheel again. And I one of the things that I wanted to do some pretty sentimental person is for every client that we built a home for, I wanted her to create a custom, you know, you know, tableware you know, plates that was trucked to each client, I thought that would have been an amazing way to a support her her love of the industry. But I think she sort of fell out of it just because sometimes it can be a real crime when you make your passion, your job. And so I think, you know, hopefully she rediscovers her way back into it. But, you know, this was before you were in college. So were you actively sculpting in high school? And when did your parents were involved? Or how did you get into sculpting? So I guess, I
Speaker 1 6:24
don't know, I don't know how I got I liked clay. I always liked playing with clay. And my parents definitely encouraged me to, to explore the arts. It was high school, I had this teacher, John Cantor, who he was one, he was one of the you know, these teachers that you remember, they're great for many, many reasons, happened to be the ceramics teacher. But his philosophy and outlook on life was really the thing that that resonated with me. And he would always encourage us to, you know, to play with the clay. And it was less of it was more like a philosophy class that happened to involve clay. And he encouraged me to do post secondary at the University of Minnesota. And so I studied under Tom lane, and Kurt, Hoard and guide Baldwin over there while I was in high school for two years. And that's when I did the majority of my sculpture. Because then I was off, you know, in Asia doing other totally crazy, different things.
Mark D. Williams 7:19
So funny you say that I'm thinking I went to chess High School, which is not that far away from our recording. But when you said teachers, I mean, to me, it was Mr. Jacobs, he was a shop teacher, Mr. Finnegan was a language teacher, and Mr. Powell, who I ended up later, doing some coaching with but just the, it's funny how these people, you know, 30 years since high school, leave a mark in your brain. And I love the idea that he taught you to play with clay, it's even kind of fun to say, but like, the idea that you're following passion, and you're following creativity, and that shows up so much and building. And hopefully, if you have a passion for something, it's a lot, I think a lot of people that become business owners, you have a passion for something, because I don't think you can be continued to be a, you know, an owner of any company without passion. And I think if you, I think sometimes when people get burned out, myself included, you sort of have to find ways to reinvent yourself or find a new outlet for creativity. And frankly, this podcast is that for me about two years ago, I was completely burned out a building in just a moment, not really from building but probably from some of the client experiences. And just, it was my time to run into a couple bazaars. And now I can officially consult because I've been through some some tougher, tougher experiences. But for me that the podcast was kind of my new passion thing that really sort of allowed me to expound on my creativity and the things that I was interested in. So let's get you started with that, and then, you know, turn it, turn it around. Tell us a little bit about before we start talking about building and some of these other things. A cellist I mean, that's not a common instrument. I only think of it one time I had it. We started this informal book club, but you probably read at the Cellist of Sarajevo. No, I have not read it. Fantastic book, write that down. It can't see that I'm reading it. It's a it's only like 120 pages. It's about a famous cellist. That was that in Syria EVO during the Civil War would go in at night after the bombing, he would go into the middle of the latest crater that was probably still burning or whatever, and he would play his cello in the middle of this war torn country. I can't remember now because it's been 20 years since I read the book, whether it was a real account or whether it was fictitious, fictitious that's a new word. Whether it was fiction or not, or nonfiction, but that I've always thought of that when I it was this he basically in a time of war. He used his cello to calm the people and speak to the people it's a beautiful book
Speaker 1 9:40
that sounds awesome. So your your mind did something during COVID He did a bunch of things where he went out and played in public spaces, you know, just as we were all kind of like trying to figure out what to do and what we couldn't do and could and all that stuff. Yo Yo Ma did something kind of similar where he went out and played all the in these big open public spaces with no arms. there, and then people would show but it was like it was yo yo maya was like, best cellist on the planet is just outside playing and smiling and he really kind of similar message, right? It was music is an international language it It bridges all of the cultures, period. And I, I fell in love with the cello when I was five. My parents took me to see Rostropovich play a concert. And I don't remember any of this, I was told that this is what I did. I turned to my my mom and I said, I want to do that. Wow. And I do remember watching him play and he's a very animated musician. He he leans into his instrument, he kind of moves around, he's very all over the place. Like, doesn't just sit back in his chair. And I think that that amount of energy really excited me. And then my parents said, Well, if you want to play that will support that. But you have to commit to playing it for 18 years? Well, that's a big, that's a big commitment for a five year old. You're like, yeah, totally,
Mark D. Williams 11:04
I'll do that. I can't get my lego set for like five minutes, much less eight years, wow,
Speaker 1 11:10
I was frequently reminded of the promise that I had made, you know, through the many years when I didn't want to play but then you know, you turn like with many, many crafts or businesses, right, there's this initial interest and excitement. And then there's the slog, right, the hard, hard slog, you know, the instrument doesn't do what you wanted to do, the sound isn't beautiful, you're not creating beautiful music, and then it, then there's this moment where you can put the bow on the string and pull, and beautiful things come out of it. And then you get to and then you get to enjoy it. And I think for me, that's the like, that's when you get to play when I think John was saying play with clay. It was like, eventually you're gonna get it'll just be fun, you're gonna have lots of failure. But if you are, if your approach is that it has to be perfect on the outset, you're just going to be frustrated.
Mark D. Williams 12:03
And it's like that saying, I'm gonna butcher it. But essentially, if you do hard things, things become easy. And if you make easy choices, things are going to be hard. Oh, yeah. And I think that's true of practice. You know, actually, I'm listening to a book right now about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and just, you know, this relentless pursuit that they had at their craft. And, you know, we see the games and we see the winning highlights but the ruthlessness in which they, you know, and this is across all sports, right? It's the Lance Armstrong's, it's the elite athletes are, what are musicians, whatever it is to their craft, we see the end result, and I think homes are like that, too. I mean, I think people glorify an Instagram, and rightly so, you know, the end result, but most people aren't posting the pictures of, you know, someone up to their knees in mud, or the wall that collapse because it wasn't found, you know, wasn't done correctly, or you had to cave in or you didn't, you know, the insurer the, the neighboring lot, you know, instant, just crazy stuff. And so anyway, it's all of that, that really informs the beauty sort of on the end,
Speaker 1 12:59
yeah, and I'm a next I would extend the metaphor all the way through just bet general business, there's lots of businesses out there, we pay attention to a few of them. And they tend to be the All Stars of business, they tend to really, I mean, they've they've put in really hard work at building their culture, building their systems, building their process. So that was, it looks easy. But that came after 20 or 30 years of not easy, and working towards refining and continual improvement, right? I mean, if we look at like a company like Medtronic, that was small, and, you know, not not wildly successful, and then they had a blank on the name of the CEO who came in and really just worked the company, in a very methodical, very careful, very open kind of way and built this incredible culture of internal leaders that made this company is now one that we all look to and admire.
Mark D. Williams 13:58
I've mentioned it many times in the podcast. I first heard it from an Engel Breck aeons, Pella windows and he was on Episode one actually. And he said that culture Trump's strategy and what you just mentioned was you know here and I know I can picture
Speaker 1 14:12
I say I say culture Trump's systems with similar same the same idea Yeah, yeah. And it
Mark D. Williams 14:17
just this culture that if you and I think it's even with hiring I heard recently too. It's only because again, this book date but Michael Jordan, someone I think it was the the Houston Rockets that you're selected Hakeem Olajuwon because they wanted to send her and Portland Trail Blazers, were going to either pick David Bowie, who no one even knows who he is anymore. And or Michael Jordan, and they called Bobby Knight who was coaching USA basketball. And back then I believe it was the amateurs. And so Jordan was there. And they asked Bobby Knight, what who should he pick? And he said, You should pick Michael Jordan. He goes, we need a senator. He goes well then put Michael Jordan at center but you should need to draft Michael Jordan and they didn't they drafted David Bowie. Oh, no way and the rest is history but I And the reason why people are wondering like, why is this make sense, but it's culture. So he was the culture fit, he was the talent, figure it out, systemized, like hire the talent, hire the skill, and then figure out a way after I don't actually think I've done a very poor job of that, over my career identifying, you think, Okay, here's my need, then I go to try to find it versus finding the skill. And then, you know, figuring out how it adapts to the company, or how it can build it even around my messaging. Yeah,
Speaker 1 15:25
you asked, we were going to this USB, like, things that will be useful for people to hear. And we're way out of sequence.
Mark D. Williams 15:35
Oh, you mean talking about the 1993? Draft? Pick?
Speaker 1 15:37
No, no, no, no, no, but but the, but that, that idea, it took me many this is this, you know, this is 30 years of trying this business, right. And I, it took me a long time to realize, a you can't change people, their strengths are their strengths and their weaknesses or their weaknesses, but that you build the position around when you find the right individuals, you build a position around the individual and you tap into what do they what do they get excited about? What are they really interested in. And then you build the position so that it's 80% of that, with only 10 to 20% of the stuff that they don't love. And then you go on you find somebody else who really loves the stuff that that previous person didn't like, and, and they kind of build on each other then and then they feel they're able to be supportive. And they can hand off tasks and say, Hey, I don't love doing this. I know you enjoy doing this. Can you step in, and it's it makes it much more cohesive family type network?
Mark D. Williams 16:39
I mean, when you're describing that originally, it sounds like you're almost you know, you were using a business. But you know, your ring was up. And I was like, that's like a marriage proposal. Right? Yeah. I mean, you're picking Like, who do you want to build this team around? I mean, there's so many relationship examples between building a home because a it's so personal, I mean, the job, the work that we do, there's very few careers where you're as personal with people, you're in their lives, you know, their kids. I mean, you know, things that most people don't know about them. I mean, I've interviewed clients before. And I mean, one of my first questions will be, especially if it's like a young family, like, you know, are you planning on having children? And if so, have you discussed how many? And it's like, well, you know, I've had it before, where a client actually told me they were pregnant. And I said, Have you told your parents and they said, We just told them yesterday? So I'm like, wait a minute, I'm like number three. And like, if a guy had never even met before, right, but the point is, it's really personal. Yeah. And
Speaker 1 17:30
sickness. I mean, you we have, we had a fantastic client, her mother, her father passed away. And then her mother had a stroke and an aneurysm. And they came to us, like, we got to figure out, like, mom's in the hospital, but they're gonna let her come home. And we got to figure out how to care for and build a space that will support her. How do we add to the house, single family, family living, but also it's got to be fully, like Ada and supportive, and at the same time, can't be exposed to anything, right? It's just fragile. Like, you're working with people who are oftentimes going through crisis. And you get to be this. Like, I think it's awesome. Like what a great place to be called in to help people when they're truly in a time of neat I,
Mark D. Williams 18:18
we just heard a story. And it just happened to be my dad, I had my dad on over Christmas. And his episode was, I don't know, five, six ago, and he told a story that I had never heard before, where it was someone was using their life insurance policy to pay for the build. And if the husband didn't pass away, they couldn't afford the build. And, and he and he didn't mean it as a joke. But he said he passed away right on time. So the home could be but they knew about it. But like talk about a motion? Yeah, I've never heard one quite like that before. And so he's the payout to pay for the house. And I hope no one else has to ever go through something quite like that. But I think they also they would have felt a lot. I mean, imagine how personal that house would have meant to that. To that surviving wife and their children. Like that would have been pretty powerful. Like, our our dad, you know, in many ways is the foundation that this house was built on. It's pretty powerful story. Yeah.
Speaker 1 19:08
Yeah. And the experience, it's, it's not an object. I mean, I think guess the house is a physical object, but it isn't an object, right. It's imbued with experience and emotion. It's where we have the most intimate moments of our lives, right. And you're involved in creating or modifying that space with them and that experience of creation with them. You are part of that. And there's a huge responsibility that comes with that, which is maybe my my biggest challenge with the people in our industry who approach this as some sort of a battle or a fight against the consumer where the consumer you know, and don't realize that this is a it's a, you're, you're there to guide them, you're their advocate to guide them through a process. It's a huge role to take on.
Mark D. Williams 19:57
Yeah, and I think too, you know, both of us remodel and build new and there's pros and cons to both. And I love both and it's, you know, just as a craft, I like it. There is something different about uh, I'd be curious to ask your thoughts on this. I'll actually I'll before I bias you do what how would you describe a remodel client? As a stereotype? Compared to a new home client? Have you thought about like the personalities? In terms of?
Speaker 1 20:26
So if it's Yeah, I mean, so I think that the lemon an add a distinction, new home custom for a client versus new home spec, because this new home spec has no client agreed, right? Yep. Yeah, let's do that. And new home custom is lots of decisions to be made. But they're all being made without a thing that exists. And so you're working with a lot of ideas, and it tends to be a harder for them to to envision and harder for them to feel solid. And during construction, there can be Oh, I didn't realize that, right. But also a little more removed, they're not living through it, they're not in it. And in some ways easier to manage, remodel, super, super personal, they've lived in that space for some time. They feel the house shake, you know, we encourage them to move out because it's, it's traumatic to fill your house shaped like that. And everything is precious. And and it's much more delicate, the amount of time that I put into an estimate for client management under remodel maybe five or six times that that I would put into management of a client for its new construction or where they're not living in the space. He's never heard a
Mark D. Williams 21:50
describe like that. But I understand what you mean. My my, what were you gonna Yeah, well, yeah. So here's mine, I think a new home is more aspirational. And it's a dream, right? They're trying to they're trying to build something that they don't have that doesn't exist in to your point, a lot of them can't envision it. In some ways, it's easier. But the expectations are so much higher in the sense that, you know, I try to not dissuade but educate. You know, for one thing, there's no such thing as something that's perfect. And so, you know, I right away, actually, usually in the first meeting, I'll do this analogy about, you know, trucks coming off an assembly line, and, you know, whatever, and they're still, they're still callbacks on them. I mean, you're building a one of a kind house outside in the elements. It's amazing, we get as much right as we do the true. I think our remodel client, the expectation, because I laugh because like, no matter what you do, even if you're terrible remodeler, it's still gonna be better than whatever they had. And unless you're doing okay, you're gonna disagree with me. But yeah, it should be it should be. But my my point is, the bar is really low, like you're there to, you know, expand the kitchen or do a new kitchen, or, you know what, now I get if you go into the restoration stuff, that's a different conversation, haven't done a lot of work there. But, you know, usually, you know, you're coming in, you're fixing, you know, you're doing an addition, you know, creating space, there's no bathroom, on the main level, I mean, my point is, is like you are solving some major needs. And I feel like when people have lived in a home, you're solving something that's pretty critical to them. And they're like, Oh, they're so thankful. I feel like the thing, not that people that you build a new home aren't thankful. And maybe I shouldn't compare them. But I guess it is, I feel like the depth of their Thankfulness is on a deeper level, because they've lived in this space, they've had memories that are already there. And sometimes there's some really cool sentimental things that we can go to either keep or accentuate or honor. So that it's there. And I want to that's part of the story of that home. Maybe the people that bought it from and because not everyone remodeled from or the original owners, either right. Sometimes, you know, Will Will you know, someone will be coming in from out of town or whatever moving the house is
Speaker 1 23:52
100 plus years old. Right. So your third, fourth, fifth sixth honor sometimes Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 23:56
for sure. Yeah. So anyway, that's just that would be my perspective on some of the personality traits. I think a remodel client tends for me tends to be easier to police as a general rule. So
Speaker 1 24:07
it's such an interesting, yeah. I was thinking while you were while you were talking, and I was listening, try not to think at the same time and just like, hear at all. But then I thought, I just two weeks ago, I had an email from a client that we remodeled their basement, I don't know, six or seven years ago, and we put in a stage like they had a tall ceiling basement, and this is an Minneapolis home. So it was rare that we have high ceilings. We remodeled their basement, put in a stage and it was I think the third or fourth remodeling job that we had done for them. And they wrote this really sweet short email, do they just saying, you know, during COVID When we are at home, the basement was the sanctuary and the stage got so much use and we thought about you guys every day. And I just had to like send you a quick note to say thank you that kind of connection. It's not, it's not the first one that we've gotten from a client from 10 plus years ago where they come back and they're like, hey, this was really meaningful and valuable to us.
Mark D. Williams 25:13
I mean, I think that's, I think that's amazing that they would, they would contact you and even even sure that because it would mean a lot to you specifically, and especially when you think back and, you know, I like it when they send you I like, I love getting the Christmas cards, I think that's my favorite thing about being a builder is getting all the Christmas cards and seeing these families, and a lot of them are on the front porches, or they're in their living room. Yeah. And the spaces you created for them. Yeah. And I think that's super, super empowering, that
Speaker 1 25:38
I was gonna make it comment that on the remodeling side that I think there's, I find more difference in the price point. And the client that comes with the different price points, give me
Mark D. Williams 25:53
an example of not following you.
Speaker 1 25:54
So it's dangerous waters here. A buddy of mine used to save for them. They were when they interviewed their clients, they first came and asked us if they had kids. And if they had kids, they knew that the remodel would go pretty well. And if they didn't have kids, they knew that there was going to be a little bit harder to get through that process. If you've had kids, you've had a messy house, you've had chaos. You've been through it, you know, and if you haven't, I always think of the National Lampoon family Christmas, where there's all
Mark D. Williams 26:30
the family next door. Yeah, and
Speaker 1 26:32
they can't tolerate anything in there. So everything is pristine and perfect. And you know, if you're looking to live like that, then remodeling is chaotic and difficult. But I've also found that the people, our clients who work for a living, are super appreciative of the people who work for a living as well. And our clients who are in the other end, where money they have more of it, let's just say can sometimes be more difficult, it can be more demanding and less understanding than those who, you know, they know where every dollar comes from and where it goes. But they're the most the most generous, they're the ones who are more or less likely to, you know, bake cookies for the electricians or leave some sodas out. And it's it very, very different experiences.
Mark D. Williams 27:18
I think it's interesting. You've touched on I agree with a lot of the things that you shared. I think it's interesting, because I think to humanity is really important. And I think when if you're in a remodel, and I do whatever I can to ensure that the couple is not in the home, or their family is not in the home because it's so disruptive. And I know and I say guys, I we had a COVID baby and remodeled our house and lived in a VRBO while we delivered a baby. And really like it's a terrible idea. Like I'm telling you, this is terrible. Like Listen to me, like you're paying me money for my opinion, I'm telling you move out. And so but people do it, man, people try so hard to stay into their home. And you know, sometimes, you know, you have to play the safety card, which is true safety, but also, you know, the lead based paint stuff, and it's just not it's just not a good idea. On so many levels, the home will take longer, it will be more expensive. You will dislike your remodeler more to some varying degree because you're there every single day and everyone who had remodels knows what I'm talking about, no matter what the schedule says. There are times where someone won't be there that day on like a new home. You're just not there watching him. Yeah, it's the same process, but you're held to a higher standard. So there everything's pros and cons. I guess what I was gonna mention you. You'd mentioned about Oh, the humanity baking cookies. I had one client, her name is Sandy. We built two homes for a remodel. And then she built a new home a couple years later, cool. And she used to make like Benedict Arnold's or not Benedict Arnold, like, eggs benedict. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so you already know what I'm talking about. But it's funny because actually, a friend of mine just wrote a book about Benedict Arnold, and I'm reading hence why that Freudian slip there. So she would make them Eggs Benedict and my framers and I said, Sandy, I love it, but you got to stop. They're never going to work for another person ever again. And these framers were just constantly like, Oh, we love Sandy. She's amazing. And it does make a difference. Hot day. You know, I've had clients bring out you know, a cooler full of popsicles, ice cream treats, cold drinks. I mean, you know, they're working so hard on their home and I love it means a lot to me. It's a little bit like the kid example. You know, if someone comes up to me and says, Your kids are amazing, you're like, Ooh, you know, you get this huge, elite, elated. High, right? Because you love your kids. Someone else is showing you that you love their kids. It's a little bit like the trade partners. When someone comes up to you be like, I really appreciate Todd, your trimmer, his attitudes, amazing or Richard cabinetmaker. He does an amazing job. It really, to me, it does two things. It makes me like that client more to another level, because I'm like, they're taking the time to tell me that not they're not nagging at something. They're like, passing along, like you let him know, I really appreciate the work that they did for me. And everyone works
Speaker 1 29:51
harder for that person as a result. 100% right. If they, if they do those things where they show appreciation, then the time When they come in, they say, Hey, that one spot over there. I'm not, you're gonna have no problem. Nope, done. Gotcha.
Mark D. Williams 30:04
100% Yes. I mean, it's it's a people thing. But,
Speaker 1 30:09
uh, you keep saying people and humanity. And I think, again, like big takeaway, it's not a transaction. It's not an Amazon purchase. It is a long engagement. It is. I mean, it's a very long engagement. If your design like we have designed, it can take up to a year to go through that whole process. And then we've got construction, which could be it could be three months, it could be a year could be a year and a half. That's a long time to be in a relationship with somebody. But if you start not treating them, like part of your community, and you start treating them like a checkbook, and they start treating you like you're just a robot show, then it's bad.
Mark D. Williams 30:46
Yeah, nobody wins. How long? I want to dive into some of this, but we you know, we left off, we got on a sidetrack here. It was a good one. No, it wasn't good. It was a wonderful one. I enjoyed it. How so you came back? How did you get into building did you start out so the original name was Ogawa and shell correct. And now it is on a design build architecture. Walk us through how that started. And,
Speaker 1 31:09
sure, so I came back to the States at the end of 95. And was going to go back to school to university Minnesota, and picked up a part time job at Linden Hills co op in your perishables department. Oh, very well. And friend of mine, he was a musician came in one day, he's like, Hey, I need you know, 20 bucks cash, you want to help me out? I got some handyman work. And I was like, 20 bucks. Cash. Sounds pretty good. Sure. So I was doing a little handyman work and, and wonderful person, wonderful musician, great friend, terrible business person. And I learned quickly, like what not to do. And I'm a little competitive. And I thought, you know, I could, I could do this a lot better. And so I started my own company, and I hired him briefly.
Mark D. Williams 31:58
So he immediately started so you had one bad example you like immediately started a company kinda like
Speaker 1 32:03
that. Yeah, like, this is amazing. Awesome. I started a company when I was in China as well. totally logical, yeah, totally logical. And indeed, I kind of grew from restoration work, which, which I really enjoyed, for into remodeling work, and then into design and construction, and then into architecture and construction. So it's, it hasn't followed a path and I didn't set out to build a design build company. It was more working with my hands and being outside felt good. And I was enjoying it. And I was enjoying working on these, you know, the Queen ends and restoring moldings and plaster in it, keeping the jobs interesting and exciting. And every time I would start to get a little bit bored with what I was doing, I would set my sights on like the next what I thought was the next level. I was on a project in Kenwood. We are painting their house, beautiful, beautiful house, and they were moving in and I was doing all this painting and I saw on the kitchen table they had a brochure from Voinovich. And Voinovich has been around a little longer than we have. And I thought, oh, man, they didn't call me. And they were planning in addition, I hadn't built in addition, why would they even ask me about that, right. But I immediately set my sights on that. While we got to be the next Voinovich, and so we became kind of a and by the way, Peter Voinovich and I are great friends, and we go skiing and snowboarding together. And but it grew in that evolution. So there's no logical path that I can say like, it wasn't what it should be. When you start a business. It took me 15 or so years to sit down and say, I need a business plan. I need to write up my mission, vision and value statements. I mean, give ourselves purpose. It
Mark D. Williams 33:50
seems like most companies as I've interviewed people, very few people have a prescriptive path. Yeah, almost all of it is following their passion, their creativity, competition. I mean, in that sense, I love that story that you're paying. For sure. You're like, oh, well, I can do that. Why would they? Why would they not call me? I'm like, I don't know, because you don't have a website? Because you've never done one. Yeah. But why would we let that get in the way like, you know, and so I find that, you know, I think there's a lot of value in planning. That being said, I think there's more value in passion and energy. And obviously, the best combination is a little bit of both. But I mean, if you don't, you know, we used to always argue my cousins and I would always argue in the argument was, well, actually, I'll ask you the question. Sure. What is what is harder to dream or to achieve?
Speaker 1 34:38
Oh, oh, silence on a podcast is a bad thing. Is it harder to dream or to achieve? I mean, I feel like it's a trick question. So
Mark D. Williams 34:54
but that's based on my logic doesn't matter, right?
Speaker 1 34:57
It's achieving achieving Isn't isn't hard. achieving your dream may be hard. Like, I'll, as an example, right to make sense of that what I think I said. So if I wanted to be rich, and the goal was achieving wealth, pretty easy to do, right? If I wanted to do sell windows, siding, roofing, I could do that. And we would have more money. But I don't think there'd be a lot of happiness involved with that. If you're gonna be a financial planner, I don't know there's are lots of paths towards wealth, that just require that you do the task, and you do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And there's a path. And then there's the things the crazy dreams that you have about what you could do. And I could create an the Green Star Program is a good example of like, let's create a Green Building Standard. And then let's spend three, three years, and hundreds and hundreds of hours trying to build a standard, right? That's really hard work easy to have the dream hard to make the dream real if it's a good dream. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 36:09
I think it's nothing. It's a great response. I don't think there's a right answer. My answer, and one that I still believe is that if, if you don't dream it, what is there to achieve, and like, what it's a little bit like, you know, those those famous things, like, if you like the things that you write down happen. And so like, if you don't write it down, it's less likely to happen. So they've correlated all these, you know, brilliant people like or successful people, whatever you wanted to, you know, whether it's a Steve Jobs or, you know, Elon Musk, or Rockefeller, or whoever, but you know, you look back at their journals, their notes, they actually wrote things down that they wanted to do. And then later on, they achieved them. Sometimes you write stuff down and lose track that you did it and later on, you do it, and you forgot, you wrote about it. So the point of it was just like dreaming, I guess where I was going at this of having a plan is super helpful, but having the idea. And then supported by the plan is ultimately the best plan. But anyway, the whole point is just to free people up to dream, actually, it wasn't planning on sharing while I was playing most of the stuff we're talking about. But here's an interesting one, you should play with your, with your staff, I did it with my staff, or the holidays. And it's something that my dad did with me. And I still do it probably every couple of years. And I find it really interesting. It the whole point of the exercise is to get people to think outside the box. And you know, people always talk Oh, if I had a lot of money if I had a lot of money. And we've often said, Okay, what are you going to do with it, because most people have not thought about, they only want it but they're they're talking about the TV, but not talking about the dreaming side. So the challenge of that is set, usually it works really well. When you set a get a Sandglass timer, and I like to shorten the time to be shorter. So say, seven minutes, no more than 10. And we set the budget at 500 million, you get a pencil and you go spend 500 million in seven minutes. It's most people have a really hard time doing it. Yeah. And it's really fascinating to watch what people spend it on it because you're talking about a massive amount of money, the heart to spend it is, yeah, unless you were to get started. Once you've done it a few times, you can get really creative. You know, I have 10 $10 million homes all over the country all over the world. I mean, so you can start doing it being ridiculous. Anyway, I only bring that up now of of challenging your mind. And you know, whether it's your art or I know you're an avid outdoor enthusiast, you know, resetting your mind, however you do it, whether it's exercise, or literature, or reading or conversations or whatever it is. It helps inform you in your job, whatever it may be, maybe, I mean, if you're listening this podcast, you're likely in the construction world. But if you're not welcome and become a builder, yeah, it's a great job. Yeah, that's great. And so anyway, the whole point is just to keep on kind of exercising your brain and seeing because there's so many things inside of you that you don't know what sometimes you needed the brochure Voinovich to be like, Oh, I can level up my business. And I think that's what's really helpful, it doesn't come out of competition is great. When it's harnessed correctly, it doesn't usually come in my experience, it usually doesn't come out of envy. Or it's like, I find a lot of encouragement from my peers. And I do think like social media, to me is extremely powerful motivator in a good way. I think you have to be careful, that doesn't become toxic, obviously. And you're not always comparing yourself to other people in a negative way. But like, I love to see what other people do. I'm like, that's amazing. I want to try that. So
Speaker 1 39:22
yeah, what you're describing to me what I what I'm hearing is possible, like so what what when when I looked at that brochure, it wasn't oh, I want to crush them. Right? That wasn't it was that's possible. There's plenty of room. But it's more like that's a possible thing. Yep. Right. And when we see that social media content where someone creates something like Oh, okay, what knowing it's like that was the first person who ran like a six minute
Mark D. Williams 39:51
mile Roger Bannister wrote a four minute mile and then within the year seven people, I think within a couple of months, right and we don't know any of their names.
Speaker 1 39:59
And but it was Once someone did it, it became possible. And so it was doable, right example? And I think so if you look for inspiration, if you look at people who are successful or companies that are successful, and you say, Okay, well there is it is possible to be successful in this thing, or it is possible to build a business that is fully transparent, or it is possible to build a business that does green building, or that does fruit super niche, whatever, right? Knowing that you can it can be done is half the battle. You know, because I 100%
Mark D. Williams 40:31
agree with, I think that's amazing. So what would you say, is your superpower now? Now, if you've developed because you've been 20 years, 30 years old? This is your 30? You're 30? I mean, walk us through some of your milestones in your career, I was just I was actually on someone else's podcast earlier this morning. And they asked me a question like, at what point in your career? Do you feel like you've changed levels? And it got me thinking, I think, you know, for me, personally, I think there's been maybe three or four sort of glass ceilings, if you will, that you sort of bust through, and it's kind of messy and bloody on the way through, and then all of a sudden, you're at another level. You know, I guess your journey, if you were to look back now, what do you think were some major things that sort of took you to another level to where you are now.
Speaker 1 41:14
getting myself out of the field was a major level, handle,
Mark D. Williams 41:21
how did it all sorry, I'll let you all write them down, and then
Speaker 1 41:25
go ahead, getting myself out of the field. And then getting myself out of running production, and then getting myself out of designing everything. And then getting out of the way.
Mark D. Williams 41:44
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 41:48
Major, those are major moments. On layered on that. Our first edition is a vivid vivid memory. For us. I had the journal license, I'd never built an edition, told the client, we could do it, I think they knew that we had never built in addition, went to the library, did a lot of reading, had the journal like construction handbook on the job site along with a couple other books. And we are hand framing this edition of Bird's Mouth rafters and the building inspector walked on site for inspection. And I was like, Oh, the books are sitting out there, I gotta click hide them. And he saw them. And he saw the books. And he said, you know, this is the first job site I've been on where I've seen someone looking to the experts on how to do this. And that building inspector became one of our close friends. And I realized inspectors are your friends, and someone to lean on. And that that was pivotal in changing how we thought about the other trades, and building an integrative or an integrated design approach or integrated building approach where we bring everyone in and we try to get our H back electoral to have a conversation in the office over the drawings, utilize everyone's knowledge instead of needing to be the smartest people in the room. And then I think the last event, maybe last milestone, most recent most recent milestone would be slowly slowing down and not not chasing and being not trying to grow. Maybe that's the better one to say. The decision, we made a decision a couple years ago about the size of the company and what we want it to be. And I had heard all you know, through life, you got to grow otherwise you're dying. It's not true. You're very much alive and very much alive. And actually, the people who said that their businesses have long since disappeared. You can very much find the space where your culture is good, your rhythm is good, your tempo is good. And you're you actually play really well in that and be that thing and get okay with that, in that that was a big one. I think getting okay with hey, look, we're, you know, we're for four and a half million. And that's, that's a great place to live.
Mark D. Williams 44:18
I feel like you could write a philosophy based on what I don't know if you were intending to say this. But as you said, it's very rhythmic out of the field out of production out of design out of the way. We'll have to come up with a way to say out of slowing down or whatever because we got the 5050 is out of the race out of the race. Yeah, um, there we go. I think it's really mindful of what you're sharing I feel and we will dive a little bit into this and just to give us context, how big is your company now?
Speaker 1 44:41
So we are 1213 people, okay. When we vacillate but I'm between 10 and 14, depending on the economy and internships and stuff like that.
Mark D. Williams 44:50
Are you talk to me a little bit about self performing? I'm guessing yourself perform a little bit of framing some trimming or what are you self performing with that I assume yourself performing with that number of people on your staff?
Speaker 1 44:59
I try not to perform. Yeah, I try not to do anything. Yep. I got we so we have four carpenters, so that do framing and trim. I know
Mark D. Williams 45:10
you mean you're awesome carpenter studious carpenter and your ninja carpenter. I love your naming was excellent. I liked that.
Speaker 1 45:16
We tried to have fun with it right. And then we have design and architecture in house. So. But that's the extent of what we we see self performing. We don't have an electrician on staff, we had a tile setter on staff once.
Mark D. Williams 45:33
Yeah, that's a lot of tile that to do. Yeah. And
Speaker 1 45:36
there's, you know, pros and cons to having things in house, you technically can make a little more money on the app on the front end, but then you're warranting more. And it's your work on the back end, and tile happens to be high warranty callback thing. And so turns out, that was a really dumb move on my part. I haven't stopped making mistakes that for sure. Continue that is just tells me you're still alive in
Mark D. Williams 45:57
your human. So how did you walk us through, I think we'll spend the rest of the podcast I had a whole nother we got two pages of notes I want to talk about, we're gonna have to bring you back in to talk a little bit about energy efficiency and your green path. But this is too interesting to stop. Tell me a little bit about because I think a lot of people listening in myself as well, I was never in the field, I'm not a handy person. So my next one is going to be out of production. But let's let's take each one of these as, as maybe one or two things that you noticed and what what it took for you to get out of each one. And some of the things that looking back, you can say you give some perspective on so one of them is out of the field. How did you know you needed to get out of the field. I mean, a lot of builders are very talented. And you know, I've heard this thing which really applies to almost everything you're saying, which is if you're working in the business, you have a job. And if you're working on the business, you have a career you have a business. And so I think a lot of us myself, that kind of it's like a Louisville Slugger over the head, you're like, oh, man, I have a job. Because I'm working in the business and I need to spend time working on it. So I think guess what that perspective? How did you know it's time to get out of the field? And how did you do that,
Speaker 1 47:00
I'm going to add a third piece to your list. And the third is I own the business. And that's, that's totally different, as well. So I got out of the field a because mostly because it hurt. You know, working in the field as hard and I was doing drywall and concrete and digging and framing and my body hurt my hands hurt I was you know, going to shiatsu three times a week and the chiropractor twice a month just to stay, you know, in healthy, but also wasn't able, you know, I wasn't able to respond to clients appropriately. And then, you know, there's this fear when you hire people to do the work, but they're not going to do it the way you would want it done. And so then that from there you develop Stan, I mean, this is my brain is how it works. Okay, so I have to develop standards and protocols for this is how we do a particular thing and then teach that to the people you bring on. Did you write it
Mark D. Williams 47:59
down? Like a standard operating procedure? Or it wasn't something you? You know, you told them? Or how do you describe that to the next people?
Speaker 1 48:06
That's fantastic question. Sometimes written down, sometimes described, sometimes demonstrated. Now, of course, we have drawing, we have all of our section details. And we have all of our standards. And we have all of these things written into our into our descriptions. But we are always working on refining that. So that we can more clearly communicate between the office and the field, how we want something executed. I do a lot of work these days with protrayed craft.com, which is a website that has a lot of training videos on how to do installations. And it's been a lot of fun to go back out in the field with my guys, and have them walk through and demonstrate on camera how, how we should be flashing windows or how we should be installing our building papers. And then to have that content be available. So that if you have somebody new coming on they they can watch it being performed, right, and that other companies can then look to that and see oh, okay, that's how it should be reformed. And if you don't speak English, or Spanish, or whatever your language might be, you've got a visual like you could watching someone perform the installation. So that's been so that that's, you know, lots of ways to communicate the how that's actually what makes human beings extra special is that ability to pass on information and build off of that. And then mostly, maybe the piece to add would be it's it is difficult. And it's not going to be the way you did it. But if you hire people who are better than you who intimidate you that's usually a good strategy because they're, you know, they bring more to the table than than you did. And so that became part of the strategy was like hire carpenters who make me look bad, right, right. That's way better for the company and hire designers and architects who can draw circles around me and hire people. You know, our General Manager is a much better communicator and understands people and likes people. A more than I thought so. So owl trellis I guess I'll trellis credit for that one he made he, I saw him in electronics, and he said totally inappropriately, if you I'm not going to say but he said, basically, you need to hire people who are bigger than you and stronger than you and more intelligent than you.
Mark D. Williams 50:27
I mean, it seems like a lot of I mean, a lot of people that are successful, that is the approach that they understand, because they understand that really, nobody can build a company alone, nor who would want to frankly.
Speaker 1 50:40
Yeah, I mean, this, I would say it's the opposite of the Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs approach, right? You know, who is all ego? This is? You check it at the door, right? It just has no business. Ego has no business in the business. Yeah, how? So?
Mark D. Williams 50:55
That was out of the field, how do you get out of production, and out of design, and sort of out of the way I find that, you know, this is advice for myself is like, I've reached the point where, you know, I'm in the visionary seat. And I like sales. I like those things. I mean, I would say operations would be, you know, you mentioned before about the 8020 rule, find someone to do the 20% of the things that you don't like to do. And that's their 80 rule. Right. And so that's, I know what I need sort of define, but how did what was your What was your 20%? What was the thing that you didn't enjoy, that you had to hire to sort of, you know, get to this next level, get out of production get out of design. So
Speaker 1 51:30
I think it changed changes over time. And it becomes the thing that you're it's the thing that you resist, right, wherever, wherever the company would bottleneck. First of all, that was a thing we had to explode. Right? And so it was, it became quickly, like, keep things off of Michael's desk. Right? That's what I think they just said, that's where that's where they go to die. And, and, and you probably want, you know, clients, some clients want to work with my great heads up, you know, it's going to be different than if you worked with one of the other staff. Just, that's if you want to sign up for that, but you know, enter at your own risk, right? Because Michaels gonna be here and he's me there and I don't deliver as well as my team does. So I think it was more like recognize each of those places. And then and then blow it apart. And I, the bigger the biggest piece, and that is, after you do two or three times, it's okay. But the first couple of times was that giving up of control, and being okay with it, and being okay with having things not necessarily work out and maybe losing some money in the process, because there were mistakes were made. And it's easy to walk in and be mad about it and say Oh, I would never made that mistake, but I would have made some other mistake. And a good employees only make mistake, that mistake, they'll make it once and then they won't make that mistake again. And
Mark D. Williams 52:54
so I had someone that I listened to quite often has shared before, an interesting concept that if you can find someone to do your job within 60% of your efficiency, you should hire them. Which is a hard thing for most owners to think like man, man 60% is a 40% fail. And then his comment was, they can't stay at 60%. But you have if you're not going to allow people to fail, you will fail. And I think that's really valuable advice. As you try to hire people and I don't know if I'm actually I don't think I've done a good job or not kind of done a good job with that. Not that I don't trust people. I just don't think I do a very good job of I think I'm an optimist, which makes me a very good remodeler makes me a terrible evaluator of people, because I'm like, Oh, they're gonna be amazing, you know, they can do a great job. And like, you know, I'm just not that objective. I think I just, I'd like people to have too much.
Speaker 1 53:46
So I'll add to that one. The the other, the other constant, right? Well, the other the constant in life, right? Just change, right? Everything in the universe is destined to change, and everything is right on schedule, right. It's, that's it, period, period, period. So whoever you hire, and you've assembled the perfect team, someone something's going to change, someone's going to leave, something's going to happen you you will never have the perfect team, you will never get to step back. And and it all just runs smoothly. That's it and in this knowing that, you know, we have a we have an expression in the company, we say no sacred knowledge, nothing lives on your local computer, it lives in the cloud. Everything is shared. You get hit by a truck tomorrow, the client project needs to still move forward, you decide to leave the project still needs to move forward. And and as the owner you can't get so attached, that you think or that you become fully dependent on not not that the person is not important, but that that you can't find someone else for that place. And so you've got to build the position. And you got to build the company to be resilient and be able to weather those kinds of shifts and changes that is really hard to do, I don't have a formula. And I don't have like a pithy saying that I can, like throw out there other than to be aware of it. Because some business owners really get freaked out like they lose somebody and like, what do I do? And you know,
Mark D. Williams 55:13
I think, you know, we've had it before where we've lost people, not by choice, but by happenstance, economic downturns, things like that. And, you know, maybe a year or two before he thought, Man, how could we have ever survived. And then after it happens, you're like, actually, that was a blessing in disguise, I didn't realize, you know, that there was more room to grow here or, you know, this person's skill set how this pack or your attitude about it, or, you know, it's funny, because sometimes when people are gone, your your past clients, or current clients, or trade partners will be like, Oh, this that nothing? Yeah. Exactly. Like, what did you get? You know, did someone lock you up, you couldn't say anything? Yeah. And so it's funny how, and I think just that perspective, as you get older, is, I would extend that to the owner, to think that you're not replaceable is a grave mistake, as well. And to keep on innovating yourself, and the things that you bring in, or if you're going to try to grow and sell the company, obviously, you have to create a system, I think that's what you were meant by, you know, in the business, on the business, on the business, you know, once you own the business, now you have an asset, and you could actually sell it because there's a process and things like that, which does make if you don't have land and a lot of other assets, it is hard to build a construction company, or sorry, sell a construction company or so on hold it. And and so, you know, I wish someone had told me that, you know, 20 years ago, Hey, Dad, if you're listening, that would have been helpful 20 years ago. But the point the point of it is, is nobody tells you that when you start, right, I mean, you're you know, you started on a lot of passion and a lot of creativity and away you go and very few in this goes back to the plan thing. You know, if you were thinking about the end in mind, in the beginning, there's be so many things you would do differently. I know for myself, obviously.
Speaker 1 56:51
Yeah, yeah. So knowing that you're replaceable as the owner, so, so important, and so liberating, once you get there, and like, I can be replaced, that wouldn't be a bad thing. Or like,
Mark D. Williams 57:07
I'll let you finish. Go ahead. No, no. Well, like vacation I've heard before and to that, like, you know, a lot of owners think well, if I'm if I miss an email from gone a week, and I think as you have kids, and you start to prioritize schedule, and you prioritize, there's certain things in your life that help bring clarity to this. And I'll just share this personal story that that is something aspirational that I want to do. And two things one, I do send a lot of emails, and the best comment I've ever heard about getting less emails is send less emails. So I'm guilty of that myself. Okay, so that's check number one. Number two is, have you ever found that when you leave magically, your inbox isn't actually as bad as you think it's going to be? Because somehow, it's like, how did everyone know it was sort of gone. And like, turns out, they didn't really need you. And they're just fine. And if you keep solving other people's problems as the owner, then you will always be stuck solving their problems for all time. And then I guess the last thing I'll say on this is like, you know, if you can't build your business in a way that you could be gone for a week, two weeks, a month, or whatever your goal is, and I think I don't think IBM does it anymore. But years ago, they I think it was like every seven years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever it was, they did I'm forced six months sabbatical, or maybe was a year, okay, which I think is genius. Yeah, you get into, you know, back then was called IBM, the, you know, the, whatever, that wasn't a great company, and was then is now but like the point of it is is like they made you leave because they realized that after 20 years, there's so many things that you know, you could go you had your routine, you would just enter again, you're just doing it to break up and you'd be a better employee and person by doing it after and I. The reason I bring this up is my wife and I have talked about it. My kids were not ready yet. We're probably seven, eight years away from doing this. But I remember we took four months off one summer when I was a kid, we traveled to Europe and I didn't live in China, Japan for seven years or five years. But but the idea is like, you know, to it doesn't have to be Europe, it could be anywhere you go camping, go the Boundary Waters, you could build a cabin in South America, you could, you know, build a house, I would love to volunteer in a third world country and do something I couldn't just vacation for a year, go crazy. I need it, for sure. And for me personally, and so but it's something I also want to expose my kids to, you know, travel on these things. But if you can't build the business in a way that it can survive without you, I can't realize that dream. And so that's sort of a dream that I have that I now have to sort of back up with some operational things. And just because it's a way it's a way doesn't mean I can't start working on it now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 59:29
So you said exactly what I was going to say as my second point, which is perfect, which was stepping away from the business is, is the other thing that you've got to learn to do. And it was I want to say was like 2002 there abouts. And my wife at the time said, you know, you got to you got to do you got to figure out a way to dial work back. And you got to figure out a way to step away for a period of time and it was that same mindset So the first was a week of no phone and no email. And it was very, very, very hard to do. Putting somebody else in charge. And then the next year, it was a month
Mark D. Williams 1:00:12
for no email. No,
Speaker 1 1:00:13
I had an emergency email. And I had one person in the company had it and if it needs, it was like if you apps it's like an emergency.
Mark D. Williams 1:00:22
Yeah. Where did you go? Or where where do you where you here locally in Minnesota still are you are traveling traveled. One
Speaker 1 1:00:27
of the trips, went to Peru, Bolivia, Chile, traveled all around there. Another one of the trips, was going back to China and traveling all around there again, eating good food, love this. Yes. And so also difficult to reach me. Right. And, and what it showed me when I came back, was yes, I was not as needed as I thought which was huge. But also, the parts of the company that really needed to be worked on, were now very, very clear. And I was so out of the day to day that I could see very clearly where the pain points were in the company, so that I could go and be useful, fixing and tweaking those and all of the areas where I was actually not needed. And we came up with this theory called Mastering the gray, which is about building systems and protocols for all the stuff that is buildable for, like you answer the phone on the second ring, this is what you say, these are the things that are easy to write down. And if you do that, then you've got all this bandwidth for the stuff that's really like the last 20% That's impossible to build systems for. But now you get the bandwidth for it. You're
Mark D. Williams 1:01:30
talking about habit stacking, I mean, essentially, you're doing if you do a habit, you don't have to think about it. If every single morning you get up and run one mile, five miles, whatever it is, after a while it's no longer a choice. It's part of your habit. And you know, anyway, yeah, but like I again, going back to this book and listening to Michael Jordan, he would step on the court, every time he was struck with chess passes, the greatest player that's ever played basketball would do a rudimentary chess pass, because that was his habit before the game, he would tie up he would, he would take a new pair of shoes in lacing them up new every single time out of the box, because that was his habit. And you know, the second ring, the you know, this is part of the day I answer emails, whatever it is, if you start, you're gonna create more time, because now you're not thinking about what to do.
Speaker 1 1:02:14
Yeah. And you build it for your team, right? You build their habits and for them so that now they're they're all functioning and they're flowing with the same
Mark D. Williams 1:02:22
How do you get buy in from your team? Because, you know, you might have a great idea. I might have a great yeah, how do you empower them to have a great ideas, but also because it might work for you and I but what if they don't want to do it?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:32
I mean, I'm a benevolent dictator,
Mark D. Williams 1:02:33
I'd say this is the best. I think my wife is also benevolent dictator. Sorry.
Speaker 1 1:02:41
Yeah. So I will add I, I kind of semi retired for two years. I mean, I got to the point where I was, I'd started my consulting firm, verified green, I was traveling around the country on the speaker circuit, doing green building, high performance building, building science education, I was on working for Department of Energy on the build America research team, I had, maybe I would say, and I was ski, I became a ski I got divorced and became a ski bum for three months and was traveled around Colorado and I put in I say, two to four hours a month into the business. And, and it was great for two years. And then I realized, like you talked about at the beginning of the show, culture matters. And I had built systems and processes for everything except for culture. And there was an erosion of culture that had that was starting to take root and it became it became a bigger thing and we had to let some people go and make some changes. But it became really clear that the owners job not necessarily to dictate the day to day or definitely not to dictate the day to day and definitely not to be involved in most projects. But to help set the tone for culture or to hire someone to set the tone for culture and to pay attention to it you know, it's like finger on the wheel. But you got to have you still have to look at the road and have your finger on the wheel there's got to be somebody that you put in place or you yourself have to be that that tone or that voice that just helps keep that culture side alive. So that was one of my big mistakes that I
Mark D. Williams 1:04:21
and there's we like I said we're definitely having to get back on there's way too much you and I have to talk about plus our cameras didn't work which is fine as long as the recording works. One of the things that I guess two questions I have I should have asked at the beginning where did the original name of the company Ogawa come from? Sure.
Speaker 1 1:04:40
So my first ex wife was Japanese. Okay. And I hyphenated my last name because I was you know, progressive thinking, dude, and I named the company after my last name like a lot of people use their names to their companies, which also you should never do. It's like great,
Mark D. Williams 1:04:56
I terrible idea. 100% agree. I wish again, someone had told me Yeah, hey, don't name it makes it impossible to sell. Yeah. So.
Speaker 1 1:05:04
So that's where the name comes from. We used to tell people when they'd ask about Oh, who's so where's the guy? What do I get to meet a guy? We would say, Yeah, you know that the Tourette's is really we just keep them locked up in the basement. He's
Mark D. Williams 1:05:14
bad. So now it's okay. All right. I guess last question is what are you excited about for, you know, this year. So up and coming. excited this
Speaker 1 1:05:25
year is well, we're remodeling the Pillsbury castle. That's very exciting. That's the name city showcase house. And we're in this very unique position where we're we are managing seven remodelers under us and 15. Designers. Wow. Which in a $7 million, you know, 10,000 square foot 110 year old castle to that that's a fun,
Mark D. Williams 1:05:50
I don't even know where that is. Where is that? It's
Speaker 1 1:05:52
across the street from the Minnesota Institute of Arts. Okay. In the Whittier neighborhood, super cool project really exciting, a lot of fun, but definitely one of a kind. And in good fun for us. And I turned 50. So trying to think of something I wanted to go skiing and Afghanistan. Because why not? My wife put the kibosh on that might be one
Mark D. Williams 1:06:17
of those missing hikers actually my sister was in acrylic, Stan and Kazakhstan during a civil war, rock climbing. And she had she had to bribe some Russian guards to get off to get on the airplane and to get out of the country. And they wanted to go to Afghanistan rock climbing, but just previously, there had been some rock climbers that were they might still be in Afghanistan. It's not Yeah, your wife biomedica. Yeah, yeah, she's
Unknown Speaker 1:06:39
definitely the I do.
Mark D. Williams 1:06:40
Are you doing right? backcountry skiing men as well.
Speaker 1 1:06:42
So yep, I just got back from I was in Whistler for a week and then I was up in Montana, for a couple of days white fish, or were rescued white fish and blacktail. both Yeah. And great powder day and my 10 year old is at the point where he can, he can we can put them on a on a good black and he can ski through the powder and the moguls and keep up. And that's
Mark D. Williams 1:07:02
so I lived out there for 25 years. He had a cabin there for 25 years. We go one week in the winter in one week in the summer, so I did my first ultra marathon last summer up whitefish mountain. So where are you ski? Yeah, you run out from whitefish. I saw the little trail. Exactly. So yeah, that's what we ran. And anyway, I saw one of my friends who actually organizes the whole thing at IBS at the International balco show last week, and I saw you there as well. So my fall Raven pants. Yeah, exactly. We had a lot to catch up on off air here. So I saw I was there for the for pelas innovation, and I was working closely with Pella. You were at the display booth right across what were you doing? I saw that you were doing some stuff, right. And the outdoor exhibit there. Yeah, so
Speaker 1 1:07:41
that's protrayed craft.com. So I also work for STC horizon, which owns pro Builder Pro remodeler magazines. I used to write for Hillywood. Back when cellfina was running remodeling magazine. And we have a show called the building resilience show. We just are finishing filming season three, and we're going to start filming season four of that you can find that on YouTube. It's exciting. And there's a big education portal that's being launched. I think it's called construction pros Academy. Lots of tutorials, how to videos, kind of like we talked about. And yes, pelage new program, a new product. Super excited about we're hoping to get them in into one of the shows and show off. I
Mark D. Williams 1:08:27
got to check out to the IG channel. But I got to raise Jesse Kath, because they had the two clocks up there. Yeah. So it was all about although I'm I've installed two windows in my life, and they're both last week. And I'm not sure they would hold out water. But man was fast.
Speaker 1 1:08:40
We had a skills challenge on our stage. And we had someone install one and 51 seconds. The Pella window. Yeah. 5151 seconds. Wow. But we actually, we're not going to talk about the windows eight. Yeah. But there's lots of talk
Mark D. Williams 1:08:53
about innovation is pretty legit. It'd be interesting to see if they license it to other window manufacturers. Because when I asked I asked I so I'm pretty well connected with Pella and I said, That'd be amazing. And they said they want to see how it goes first over the next six months to a year. But I'm going to have one of the innovators on the podcast. So I met someone from the r&d department that was four years in the making. And I think it'd be really cool to talk about just the amount of innovation and time and patents and how you know, now that I look out a window so I was on a site last week where I was filming and they've got 26 nails on the next year you're nailing plans to you know, it's like 13 misses was three minutes. So like this is crazy. And now that the pellet has come out with this, you know this cool clip on the inside. It's 12 screws versus 26. And you're like, wow, not only are you saving time, resources, but one person can do it versus a team. I just feel like there's some huge things that can come down with that
Speaker 1 1:09:45
there is and there's a bunch of stuff that Pella did that they didn't know that they did when they did this on the building performance side. The most notable being because the attachments on the inside and there's no shims because they're structural brackets. There's no note when you go to insulate around the window, there's no thermal interruptions. Yeah, the other thing they did is because the structural attachment is on the inside for exterior insulation, because it's an adjustable bracket. So you've got two inches of insulation on the outside, you're not fastening your window through all that. Now you can extend the window out to the face of the foam or the face of the sheathing, zip bar, and there's no penetrations. So there's, there's the thermal break is gone. There's no need for thermal box or any kind of bucking of the Windows, you can deal with all the insulation changes that are coming to the building codes. There's no shimming which is huge. And then the flange on most Windows isn't a watertight seal. And so you have to you know, when you tape a window, you have to get the tape onto the unit, the frame of the unit and most window installers don't know that. We see that defect all the time. But the flange that they built because it needed to be flexible is heavy rubber. I mean, it's amazing. So it's a watertight flange like they solved like four problems with
Mark D. Williams 1:11:05
unintentionally but I mean that's the whole point of innovation right? It's cool is on the way to path one thing you saw five other things smoke and they're gonna do a great work with it. Welcome. I will have all the your websites in our show notes as well. Cool out. Thank you very much for coming on. Appreciate your time. And anyway, we'll we'll see you next time. It was a pleasure. Very good.

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Episode 56 - The Sculptor's Influence: Michael Anschel's Unique Path to Design and Build Mastery

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