Ankit Sharma - The Simple Secret to Having Short Effective Meetings

Dominic Rubino: Today's podcast is brought to you by answerswanted.com. Answers Wanted is a

service for businesses who know they want to get the right kind of content in

front of the right kind of viewers, you know, pictures like your latest beautiful

install or the award you just got. If you have questions about showcasing the

pride and quality you put into your work, getting more of the right kind of traffic

to your website, or if you're a supplier to our industry and you want to have a

clean e-commerce platform that speaks to our community, then

answerswanted.com can help. Check them out on the web at

answerswanted.com. It's spelled just like it sounds.

Ankit!

Ankit Sharma: Hey Dom, how's it going?

Dominic Rubino: Good. How are you? Nice to have you on here with us.

Ankit Sharma: Thank you. I'm very grateful you thought about me, so happy to be here.

Dominic Rubino: Well, absolutely. You know the industry, and I know you've got some pretty

interesting management tools that I actually got to see the other day. I thought,

"What a great way to introduce that really important subject to the community

here," which is the cabinet makers, architectural woodworkers, furniture

makers around the world who listen to this podcast or watch the video.

Ankit Sharma: Right, yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised you found that interesting, because for us it's

just day to day ops, right?

Dominic Rubino: [inaudible]

Ankit Sharma: After you said that, I realized it's pretty unique. I've never seen it in other

businesses of our kind.

Dominic Rubino: Right.

Ankit Sharma: I know most of our customers don't do it, so yeah.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah. Well, before we get into it, I'll give just a little preamble as to how I

happened to be at your office for that internal operations meeting. Then we'll

talk a little bit about what that meeting was. The goal here is we want to

educate the community of architectural woodworkers and cabinet makers, and

kitchen and bath, closet, everybody that we know and deal with, why you have

that specific management tool and what value that brings you as an owner,

because you probably hear some of the same things that I do, where people say,

"We already have too many meetings. Meetings go on forever. Nobody likes

them. Nothing gets accomplished." Your meeting, that format that you used,

which I'll just tell everybody now is called The Huddle, big complicated word,

The Huddle.

Ankit Sharma: I'm pretty sure I stole it from somewhere.

Dominic Rubino: I know where you stole it from, because I use The Huddle all the time.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah.

Dominic Rubino: But it is an interesting tool, so let me give everybody here just a little bit of

context and background.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah.

Dominic Rubino: [inaudible]?

Ankit Sharma: Sure. That'd be great.

Dominic Rubino: I'm very fortunate to be in the same city as Ankit. We are in this same industry,

this general industry of woodworking, but we're also in a business group

together called Entrepreneurs Organization. I would imagine some of the people

listening are in EO as well. EO has 160 chapters around the world. It's people

that, we run businesses as entrepreneurs, but we also study and make a habit of

learning the best ways of doing things, I guess is the best way to talk about that,

right?

Ankit Sharma: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

Dominic Rubino: I put a request out to the EO Vancouver community saying I needed to practice

my TED talk really badly. Thankfully, you said I could come and practice on your

poor team.

Ankit Sharma: We were excited to have you, Dominic. We actually every week, we have lunch

and learns, and we usually play a TED talk on TV.

Dominic Rubino: Oh.

Ankit Sharma: To have a real TED speaker come and in talk to us, and give us a real TED talk in

front of us, it was fantastic. Yours was especially, it was a very relevant topic for

us that we all enjoyed.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah, thank you, but it was nice to speak to your group. The reason that I put

that frantic request out to our group is because I had just spoken for my kid's

school, to all the teachers, and I blew it. The 15 minute talk that you saw at your

office, I actually, for some reason, I got caught in a loop in my script, and I only

did it for five minutes at my kid's school.

Ankit Sharma: Oh, wow.

Dominic Rubino: So anyways. This isn't really adding value to our listeners here, so I'll move off it,

but it was funny. Thank you for having me in. I guess if anybody wants to see the

video, maybe we'll put it in the show notes, the link, or you can find it on

YouTube. Actually, you guys have a link as well, because one of the people at

your office, your social media director recorded it and posted it under the Kitply

channel.

Ankit Sharma: Correct, yes.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah, so there's lots of ways to find it.

Ankit Sharma: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dominic Rubino: Everybody listening, leave nice comments. I'm just kidding.

Ankit Sharma: It's about family. It'd be really awkward if they left non-family-oriented

comments on here.

Dominic Rubino: No, you're right. You're right. Okay, so let's get into the topic today, Ankit. You

use this tool called Huddle.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah.

Dominic Rubino: You use it as a management tool, as the leader, as the owner of your company.

Why do you have a meeting like this? What's the reason that you would even

have this when we already have enough meetings, and we're already busy

enough day to day?

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, so I have, I've thought about that actually, Dominic, and we were thinking

about eliminating it at some point. Then there was a time when we never did it.

I'll transition from when we didn't have a Huddle, to the time when we had a

Huddle every single day, to the time we decided to scale back on that Huddle.

The reason we decided to do a Huddle is because we felt that people didn't get

a chance to connect with each other and to understand what everyone else is

doing. Really has allowed us to not only connect with each other in different

departments, but also understand what goes on in the other person's life. When

The Huddle, someone brings up an issue that they're facing in that day, or a

positive thing that's happened in their day, now the whole company can cherish

that moment or actually provide support. That's what we really get. We really

get a lot of cultural involvement, engagement, and empathy built up for people

within the organization for each other.

Dominic Rubino: Interesting that you say empathy. Then do you view Huddle as a way to

reinforce your culture, like who we are at Kitply?

Ankit Sharma: Yeah. There's different components to The Huddle. We'll get into that in a

moment, but basically at the end of every Huddle, though, we have what's

called a gratefulness exercise. What we do is everyone puts down one name on

a small piece of paper, something like this, and folds it up, puts it in a pot, like a

fishbowl, and then whoever won it last time gets to pick a name. We pick a

name, and that person wins it.

Whoever's name is in there, also there's a core value attached to it. We have

five core values that we live by, and everyone in my company, including the

warehouse people, can actually identify what those core values are. We identify

someone who has lived one of those core values in the last few days since the

previous Huddle. Then in this moment, whoever wrote that name recognizes

the person that they saw were living that core value. [crosstalk]

Dominic Rubino: It reinforces it.

Ankit Sharma: You're taking a moment to recognize and be grateful for another coworker for

living one of your core values. I cannot express the strength of that for your

culture and your engagement in the organization.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah. It's such a powerful tool. It's so simple. It's not a very long meeting. How

long does your Huddle go for?

Ankit Sharma: We have to tame it a little bit. It's important. The reason we scaled back from

being every single day to only twice a week is because we found it was dragging

a bit. Our Huddles are no longer than 15 minutes. That's the absolute max that

they're allowed to be.

Dominic Rubino: I love it. 15 minutes. Then just so we know, how many people are on your team,

so that other business owners listening know how fast you get through

[crosstalk]

Ankit Sharma: It's about one minute per person is what you're looking at.

Dominic Rubino: One minute per person.

Ankit Sharma: One minute per person.

Dominic Rubino: How many people on your team, Ankit?

Ankit Sharma: There's 12 people right now.

Dominic Rubino: I'll bet you right now people are listening. They're walking their dog or they're

on the airplane, and they're saying, "What? You get 12 people through an

effective meeting in 15 minutes?"

Ankit Sharma: Yup, and it's powerful. You've lived through it, Dom.

Dominic Rubino: I teach it. I'm a big fan. That's why I walked in and I saw you guys doing it, I was

like, "This is fantastic." It just works. It's so ... It works because it's not

complicated.

Ankit Sharma: It's not complicated, and there's actually good feelings associated with it for

everybody in the organization.

Dominic Rubino: Right.

Ankit Sharma: We walk out of it feeling good.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah.

Ankit Sharma: It reinforces it every single time as well, so people are looking forward to going

in there.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah. You know what I just realized as we're talking about this is that I didn't

give any context behind who's Ankit Sharma and what's Kitply, because I know

somebody out there listening right now is thinking, "Okay, Dominic's got some

guy named Ankit. He runs a unicorn farm. They produce candy floss clouds. Sure

it works for that industry, but ..." I know we did this in the wrong order, but who

is Ankit and what is Kitply, if you don't mind.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah. Hi, everyone.

Dominic Rubino: Backwards we did that, yeah.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah. Let's get the sequence right for The Huddle, but the podcast can go on a

different format.

My name is Ankit Sharma. I'm the president and founder and CEO and the

everybody at Kitply Industries. I started this business about eight years ago with

my wife. I had a passion for woodworking. Wasn't born into it, but I worked for

somebody else, got an interesting concept that I felt that I could go over and

build a niche on. I decided to run with it. It's been the hardest, the most difficult

journey that I've undertaken in my life, but it's been also the most rewarding. I

really, really enjoy being an entrepreneur, and on top of that being in

woodworking.

I have a passion for wood. I think that wood, as a natural substance, is an

amazing product that we should all be using more of, and using it sustainably,

and growing it sustainably, using it properly. That's the reason I built my

business.

It's a distribution company. We import or source 20,000 products from all over

the world. We have customers all across Canada. We're looking at expanding

internationally this year. I just think that the number one thing that I care about

most is our core values and our people. That's who has built our business up.q I

feel really grateful to be connected to people like Dominic as part of the

Entrepreneurs Organization. I think that woodworkers in general, we need to be

more involved with each other and building community. That's a quick snippet

of myself.

Dominic Rubino: Quick snippet of yeah, okay, so why you're on a woodworkers' podcast. I think it

is important to say, you're in this industry. This Huddle format can work even if

you're not a unicorn farmer making, what did I say? Candy floss clouds or

something. It really works. Sometimes people think it's a little bit out there, but

it's ... I know that one of the things that you put together for me, and I saw it on

the email that you sent in preparation, was you actually shared your Huddle

outline with us as a [crosstalk].

Ankit Sharma: Right.

Dominic Rubino: What I'll do is I'll put that in the show notes.

Ankit Sharma: Yup.

Dominic Rubino: And we'll put it on the website so people can download. That's okay to share?

Ankit Sharma: Absolutely. Please do. I put some effort in. I have sourced it from some places,

but that is our version of it. It's not the version that everybody recommends

doing, but that version works really well for us, and it's kind of evolved into that

over time. It didn't start that way.

Dominic Rubino: Let's go back here for a second, because you said this is the hardest journey

you've had. I know you run a very nice business there. Where would your

business be if you didn't have a management tool like this [inaudible] lead your

company, and get everybody on board? Where would your company be?

Ankit Sharma: I can very easily answer that question, because I've been in a spot when I didn't

have one of these. That was when we were about a third of our size, both

financially and in the number of people. That was our biggest hurdle, was to

actually grow our team. We were struggling to add people, and when we would

add somebody, we would lose somebody else because of engagement. I really

don't think that we could've grown the way that we have and preserved the

culture of the organization, added ... We have three people coming on board

within the next month alone.

Dominic Rubino: You hired three net new people?

Ankit Sharma: Three net new people just in the next month alone. Literally, a year and a half

ago, Dominic, we were five people. We've gone from [crosstalk] five people

[crosstalk] to 15. Everyone's still connected to each other. Everyone's positive

about each other and takes a moment to be grateful to the other person. I don't

think I could've accomplished that, let aside the financial results, which have

been really good for us, and the result of all the hard work that we've done, but

the positives in the culture of the organization is what I'm really proud of.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah. It's great to hear that. I didn't realize you'd grown that fast. For those

people that don't know, the labor market right here on the West Coast right

now is insanely tight. It's so hard to find people. The fact that you're bringing on

three people is impressive. I guess they can feel that when they walk into the

company, that this is the place they want to be.

Ankit Sharma: We do multiple levels of interviews. Parts of our questioning is just to make sure

that they fit. That's the number one thing we look for. I guess we're already a

little bit selective when we hire people-

PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:14:04]

Ankit Sharma: So, I guess we're already a little bit selective when we hire people so they're

more likely to stay with us, but at the same time when we do onboard people

we do it in a very systematic way including them in all the huddles, and so I

think people get a flavor of our organization before they actually come on

board.

Dominic Rubino: Perfect, then you onboard them and it's part of the culture that this

communication is what you do. I think all of us as business owners have heard

that cashflow is like your organization breathing. We send out invoices, we get

money in, and that keeps us alive, but the other thing behind that is

communication is the same. I'm a business coach, so I look at these things all

the time and I visit lots of different companies in any given year, and quite often

communication is the key issue just from, let's say, the front office to the

manufacturing floor there's broken communication. Things get done wrong, or

inefficiently, or there's mistakes, or there's deficiencies that just didn't have to

be there. There are double orders, or not ordered on ... all of the things that we

see because communication was missing. I'm going to-

Go ahead.

Ankit Sharma: One thing I'll say that cash is king 100%. I believe to the core of my heart, and

you have to as a startup. As a startup entrepreneur you can't live without cash,

but I wonder if I can get some of the listeners, or our viewers to ponder ...

Imagine you had a business that was cashflow positive and it was sustainable for

you, but it was a horrible place to be. You hated being there. Your staff hated

being there. You had ridiculous turnover. You were constantly hiring people and

firing people, and reprimanding them, or they were not getting along. What

would that feel like? Yes, cash is king, but I think culture ... What was it? I can't

remember who it was ... Maybe it was Peter Drucker or somebody said, "Culture

eats strategy for breakfast." I would agree with that.

Dominic Rubino: You know, every company has its own culture, but it's up to the owner whether

they're driving it or somebody else in their company is. Right?

Ankit Sharma: Yeah.

Dominic Rubino: Unfortunately, many of our listeners just like in companies I've had, and maybe

other ones you've had in the past where I haven't been proactive about building

the culture, what it means to part of this company, where I've had maybe

somebody in another position who's really social and outgoing in their own way,

and the culture revolves around them, not around what the company needs to

be. It is always for me taken it off the track. I used to have a residential painting

company, and I've had situations there where the frat house guy comes and

starts painting for me, and he's popular, and he's good at bringing people

together better than me, and suddenly the company was just a place for him to

socialize and he was actually influencing things more than I was. That was bad

for cash. It was bad for clients. It was bad for operations, and I wish I'd known

about tools that we use now all the time like huddle.

Ankit Sharma: Mm-hmm (affirmative). The other thing I would say, actually if done right a

huddle will actually improve productivity in your business. It'll shine light on

people who are performing and who are not performing, who are connecting

better with the other people, and so they'll end up either leaving themselves or

picking up their game.

Dominic Rubino: Right, so that's a good point. Do you have the document in front of you? Can we

go through just the high points of just what the agenda is for the huddle

because I think it's important for people to understand that the agenda is

exactly the same for every huddle meeting. You don't have to come up with a

new agenda.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, so we've played with it for a while. We got it from a few different places.

We looked at Scrum. We looked at Scaling Up, we looked at EOS, and a few

different ones, and everyone had their own version of it. This is what I would

call the [Kidplah] huddle. It's not for everybody, but I think it works for the

organization of our type. I actually don't honestly believe that this is ... For

woodworking, if you're in woodworking this would be a good one to follow

because it incorporates the entire organization. Literally everybody from

warehouse to front desk to sales to account receivable to finance, everybody in

this huddle [inaudible]. This is not a huddle just for two or three sales people.

This is not just a huddle for the warehouse guys this is-

Dominic Rubino: Or just for executive management, or something.

Ankit Sharma: Exactly, this is the whole entire company. Yes, there is a cost associated with

that when 15 minutes of the entire company in whatever dollar per hour that

you're charging, and maybe make it half hour because they got to come

prepared for this meeting, and they leave with ... Probably half hour to 45

minutes is what they're really needing to spend for this. I still believe this is an

absolute must for woodworking organizations to implement. This is what's going

to separate us from the unicorn, [crosstalk] candy floss companies that you're

talking about because we have to look attractive to people. We have to

preserve the culture of the organizations too. This is our version of it. I've got it

open in front of me.

Dominic Rubino: Just a reminder to people, this is available for download. Thanks for sharing with

us. I'll put it in the show notes. I'll have it on the website available, and thanks

Ankit. So, walk us through the format. This is the agenda that follows every

single meeting.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, so the first step is to make sure you have a huddle leader. It starts with

the very top. It has to be you as the CEO, or the president, or general manager

of the organization, whoever's decided that they're going to implement, it has

to be them. You have to lead by example, you have to show up excited and

super enthusiastic about this because it's going to be hard. Especially in the

beginning you're going to have people come in there and like, "Dude, literally I

just stopped what I was doing to come in to this stupid conversation that you

want me to have right now." And what is the purpose of this. That is going to

happen ... Can you see me?

Dominic Rubino: I can. There's just a little bit of a glitch right now in the video, but we should be

okay. Let's keep going.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, so literally that has to be addressed 100%. There's no alternative to that.

If the leader of the organization comes in half assing it it's not going to work. So,

be super excited, acknowledge that guys this is going to feel awkward, this is

going to feel unconformable. I'm not even sure how this is going to feel, but I've

heard really good things about it from other people, so we're going to try it.

Let's try it full heartedly for a month and see what happens.

Dominic Rubino: I like that. That's how you introduced it to the team as that, hey we're going to

try this, and we're going to try it for a month and commit to it, so that they

knew that even you were learning as you tried it.

Ankit Sharma: Exactly. We're all entrepreneurs, we come back ... Even senior management

come back and we want to implement new things even though the staffs going,

"Oh my God. Here he is coming back from another event that he wants us to

[inaudible]. Podcast that he learned something new on that he wants to

implement." It's important that we choose our battles throughout ... things that

we're going to implement. But this, if you're going to decide to do, and I highly

recommend you do, come super prepared and excited for it, and pick a time

that you're going to do it at. It's important that time is an ideal time in the sense

that it's a little bit of a lull in your business in general so it allows you to ...

increases the motivation in the organization a little bit [inaudible] people as

well. So, we have two huddles in a week. We used to do once every day and we

found that was just ridiculous, it was too much. It wasn't enough change in our

organization so we started to scale back to just twice a week, and it works really

well.

Dominic Rubino: What days and what times do you choose just-

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, so the specific times that we do it on is on Tuesdays at 2:00 PM and

Fridays at 11:30 AM. It's 2:00 PM. It's not 2:07, it's not 1:54. It has to be a

specific time that it must happen every time. Some things will come up,

someone will be on a phone, and you got to wait for them for a couple minutes,

it's okay, but try and start at the very same time every single time. It's like you

brush your teeth at night, you can brush your teeth in morning after you week.

So, it has to be in that format. Make sure it's valuable. People should come in

and walk out of it thinking that they actually learned something from it, and

then hopefully positive. The closest thing I can imagine is like a sports team

huddle. I put that example in here-

Dominic Rubino: I love it. Yes, you're right.

Ankit Sharma: Right, so I don't know how many people have played team sports, but when you

go into a sports team huddle everyone gets together and when they're done it's

like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to make this happen," like super excited,

jacked up when the finish the huddle. That has to happen as well.

Dominic Rubino: Great, so let's go through the agenda here because you've got some

components. They always follow the same flow. How do you start it?

Ankit Sharma: So the very first thing is obviously greeting. You'll be surprised Dom, how many

people go into meetings and they don't greet each other, or they may randomly

say hi to the person that's sitting next to them, but that's it. It's got to be like

family when you meet family and friends, and you're excited to see them. So,

we always start with a, "Hi everyone. This Tuesday 11:30 and we're excited to

be here," and we always begin with, "Good news." It's an important time to

recognize whatever good is happening, so from the previous huddle to the next

one ... The next one you basically want to share anything important about

opportunities, meetings, [inaudible], accomplishment. It can be work related,

non-work related, doesn't matter, but we just share good news. That is a good

portion and not everyone shares, and some people will share more than others.

Sometimes you'll find that over first two or three huddles nobody's sharing

anything. It's okay, you can be the one that shares. It's okay to prod in the

beginning like, "Hey, but didn't you win that? Didn't you get that account?

Didn't you get that customer order?"

Dominic Rubino: Did you help that customer with that lost order, or didn't you match that color

for some of our finishers here who are listening-

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, or you got rid of that dead stock, or you were able to help this person ...

Anything that you think is an [inaudible]. It's important to get that out. So, I'm

starting with positive news. The next thing is a top task. Just basically top two or

three things that everyone's working on, and just quickly have them make sure

that people are ready for them before they come to the meeting they're not

thinking and everyone's like, "Oh, yeah. I forgot what I was working on." No,

have them ready in front of you, and the way we do it is we do it on a Google

Doc. It's prepared, and everyone can see everyone's, so they're shared all the

time. You're not just coming up and making something up.

Dominic Rubino: Let me interrupt you for a sec just for clarity here. You do the good news part

and you kick everybody off. Then top tasks, but under top tasks you ask every

single person around the huddle their three to five top tasks. They say it out

loud, and it's shared on a Google Doc so everybody can see it, and so they're

prepared in advance, right?

Ankit Sharma: Exactly, yeah.

Dominic Rubino: Something we've missed here, where is everybody sitting during this meeting?

This is going to blow some people away. Ankit where is everybody sitting during

this meeting?

Ankit Sharma: Yeah, that's a really good point. I'm glad you caught that. You're not allowed to

sit. You're not allowed to lean on a wall. Speed is key in this huddle. You don't

go into [crosstalk]-

Dominic Rubino: Power meeting-

Ankit Sharma: Huddle and lounge around on bean bags, no. A huddle is done ... It's no leaning,

no sitting, stand up. It's uncomfortable, so you'll go faster. That's just the way I

recommend. So, huddle sheets have to be completed in advance, preparation is

key. That's the way you'll make sure that it gets done fast. Look everyone in the

eye, tighten up the circle so people aren't looking outside, checking out on their

phones, or your emails, or phone calls ... No, just look everyone in the eye, and

if you've got a guest in your office at that time happen to be, and just like you

were at that time, we brought you in-

Dominic Rubino: And you introduced me to everybody.

Ankit Sharma: Yeah. I said, "Hey everybody. We got Dominic in the office. We're going to do

our huddle, and he's going to be a part of it." We've had lots of guests. We've

had [courtyard drivers] attend them, we've had ... Literally people are like,

"What is this organization?"

Dominic Rubino: But then you stand out as different than every other organization, right?

Ankit Sharma: Exactly.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah, good call. Sorry to interrupt you. So, we have good news, we have top

tasks where you go around. What's the next agenda item?

Ankit Sharma: So the greeting, sorry, good news, and then top tasks. Greeting isn't as

important. People usually just go into good news. So, greeting, good news, top

tasks, and then you quickly get into anybody, if there stuck on anything, or if

they need something from somebody. This will again be an issue where people

won't have anything. It still happens, but you'll have to end up prodding

sometimes, or volunteer to be the first one to do it. It's okay if someone else

may not have the exact answer, but you're just like, "Hey man, I'm really stuck

with that client I was trying to close on," or "stuck that we're not able to

produce 60 boxes per day," or, "able to source that special color of edge

banding that we were looking for."

PART 2 OF 3 ENDS [00:28:04]

Dominic Rubino: Special color of edge banding that we were looking for. So, whatever it is that

they're stuck on and someone else has to commit to help. If they don't, we prep

about that and can be recognized later. But it just, you want to get something

out that someone else says, "Yeah, I can help with that."

Today I had a coaching meeting with a client, and the stock that came from one

of the guys was that, the CNC was being set so that, after the cuts were made,

there's an onion skin left. It's doubling the work that has CNC is supposed to

save you the time for. So, he was expressing his stock and it led to a little

discussion, which is fine you can have the discussions. We need to move them

off to the side.

But, how interesting that we have this machine, these very expensive machines

that can do everything and that the person, the operator running the machine

was just leaving it shy of cutting deep enough. I think he just didn't want to hurt

the backer board or the blade. Use the thing, right? We need to work. This is a

production facility, every company will have its different stocks or needs, and

it's okay to bring those out. I'm not attacking the person, it's just the situation or

the problem. Let's just get it on the table we'll figure out a solution. No big deal,

it's just another day in the company.

But, thankfully we know that info. Imagine the labor that went into just fixing

that little CNC setting, it's just a setting thing. Like you said, "It's different for

everybody." But we need to know those stocks, and we need to know the needs

that people have that's holding them back from doing their jobs.

Ankit Sharma: I think you've touched on a really good point there Dominic, was to not blame.

Our stocks or needs are never done from the standpoint of blame. They're

always done from the standpoint of they're very constructive, they're done from

the perspective of I need help. I'm stuck because we're ... whatever it is. You're

never blaming one person. You're putting it out as an opening need, or a stuck

point.

You will get to a point where, just people will stop to. Even if someone were to

accidentally say it in those words, people will stop seeing it that way, hopefully

because it's not supposed to be that. It's supposed to be a moment to be

grateful for it.

Speaker 1: Perfect, I'll stop interrupting.

Ankit Sharma: So, when you got stuck or need points out of the way, and then you get into

appreciation and recognition. This is uncomfortable for people to do in open. If

you were to ask them, " Hey, do you have somebody else you want to thank."

It's like I don't know. So, that's why what we do is we use these sheets of paper,

small sheets of paper that we end up in the huddle-

Dominic Rubino: So, it's anonymous?

Ankit Sharma: It's totally anonymous. You write the name down of the person, and we chose

to have a core value attached to it, because we find it's a good way to remind

people that we have core values. But some people don't have core values in

organizations. So, they can just in that case, they can just write the name of the

person down, and whatever they thought was a quick blurb about why they

thought they wanted to thank that person.

We fold it up, you put it in a fishbowl and whoever won it last time, picks one

piece of paper up and all people that are doing it. One person's name comes out

and everyone's like, Yay and we celebrate with a clap or applause.

Basically recognizing that person and whoever his handwriting, whoever wrote

that, it can be multiple people wrote that name in different pieces of paper. But

whoever his name came out, I'm now actually speaks out and says, well, I want

to thank John Nick because he took the opportunity to blah blah, blah, blah

blah.

Dominic Rubino: Interesting. I can see how you use that to reinforce and establish the culture,

and you have a strong culture that everybody's happy. There is numbers on the

board, all the numbers are pointing in the right direction, which is up into the

right.

Ankit Sharma: That's actually a good point. One part that we didn't talk about in this huddle is

we report on our results as well. So, that's only once a week. So, on our second

huddle, the one we do on Friday is actually a longer huddle. The reason the

huddle itself is only 15 minutes or under, but the remaining 15 minutes we add

what we call an update on the key performance indicators.

So, that maybe a different podcast. I'm not going to go into the long version of

that one today, but that's something to add on. Add on his recognition of where

the company's at for everybody, not just for your sales people, not just for your

senior management, but even your warehouse guys knows what you're doing

and probably financially, and all of those things. I know there's people who are

feeling uncomfortable with that, but what we'll talk about that at a different

podcast.

Speaker 1: Maybe it is though.

Dominic Rubino: I agree with you though. We need ... those numbers have to be shared

somehow. Because, I can't fix ... I don't understand the importance of fixing my

part unless I realize how it's affecting your part. Whatever that might be.

If we've got a day's cash outstanding problem, when the accountant says their

thing, and the warehouse person understands that, that particular account

where we still haven't collected on has a problem. When they see that order

come through, and they should look at it and go, "Okay, I remember hearing

about this one, I better make sure this one gets out right away." Or they might

say, "Hey, where are we supposed to send this order? Because I understand

that, that company hasn't paid their outstanding ... " Whether it's a change

order or PO, that those are the loops that we as owners actually want.

So, there is a big benefit to us in sharing that kind of info if it's shared the right

way.

Ankit Sharma: The other big thing Dominic it does, though I agree with all those points, but

one thing I'll add is that, they also bring a culture of ownership. When people ...

it's like when you're driving your car, imagine it didn't have a pedometer, you'll

just keep going. You have no idea what you're doing, but when you've got a

pedometer in the car, or a speedometer, I should say, you can see what speed

you're going at.

Not just you, other people in the car can see it too. And your daughter from the

back seat says, "Dad, you're doing 30 over the speed limit." Even though she's

not on the driving seat, she can still influence it, right?

Speaker 1: Louis lets ... yeah.

Ankit Sharma: So, that's a good point as well. People will see things that are happening in

someone else's apartment, and they'd be like, " You know what, actually I

worked somewhere else and they did it this way and maybe you can do it. " So,

that's the one thing that would come out of that as well.

Then, when you're done recognizing the last thing we do, and it's not for

everybody but for us it works really, really well, is we do a cheer. That cheer is

basically, that's what we get from a sports huddle. I mean it works, and

sometimes it's like a high five cheer "Guys, yes," and ours specifically is " Kid,

kid, let's do it."

Dominic Rubino: That's good, it's energizing, right?

Ankit Sharma: Yeah.I mean it's ... our job is to drive the culture and the energy in the

organization. If you were to end that meeting with " Alright everybody, let's go."

Well everybody leaves depressed, there's not enough coffee they can get in

their system.

Imagine that on the Tuesday at 2:00 PM and you leave out, super excited,

pumped. And, it's like, wow that feels good. Your day just started again almost,

you've got a couple hours left to finish your day. So, maybe it may be a boost of

productivity at that moment again.

Dominic Rubino: Well, I think your results speak to the success and the purpose of having this

huddle because I do hear, and maybe you hear this from other people, other

business owners you deal with. But look, we have too many meetings. Meetings

take too long, nothing gets accomplished. I get that. If you're doing meetings

wrong. This meeting here is very efficient, you get through 12 people in 15

minutes. You're about to add three people. How much time do you think that'll

add to a normal huddle?

Ankit Sharma: No more than a couple of minutes. I think it will be more than two or three

minutes.

Speaker 1: It's very fast, very lighting around, and that also lends itself to the energy within

the company, right? We're here to get things done, we're a company that's

growing. There's momentum. It's got all sorts of positives around it, I love it.

Ankit Sharma: You want to huddle leader, like I said," You start out with you being it," but

eventually you want to delegate it to somebody. You don't want to be the one

that is responsible for doing a huddle, and now it's at a point where I can be

away for two, three weeks or not be in the office for whatever reason or, be

traveling and I can't be in that hole for whatever reason. The huddles still

happen and there's a leader that's making sure that everyone is actually

showing up, and doing what they're supposed to.

Dominic Rubino: I'm glad you said that.

Speaker 1: That's a really good reminder Onkit because as owners we do travel sometimes,

or we have meetings or conferences we've got to go to. That doesn't mean that

operations shut down, huddle must continue. It is part of what we do, and it's

nice to have that other person or people who can run the huddle.

I've had it a couple of different ways in my companies, because I've had larger

companies where not everybody was comfortable with speaking. You are

running the meeting and it's not fair to put them in that position. When we've

got lots of other people who are happy to jump up on the front of the

whiteboard and do it. Then we've also had other organizations, or I've had

organizations where everybody wants to get up and talk. So, we just do it, do it

in order, but I thank you for that reminder because it is important that huddle is

bigger than us.

Just like, no offense Kit Flier is bigger than you.

Ankit Sharma: Absolutely

Speaker 1: Right, you'd now given at that momentum and that push, and if you were not

there for a month, huddles still happens. Information still flows and as long as

the team keeps showing up, the company will keep running.

Ankit Sharma: Right, Yeah.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah, wonderful. Well let me just remind everybody, this has been an excellent

interview. Thank you Ankit, you've done a lot here. So, we have the PDF of your

agenda for the huddle, thank you for sharing that. I'll have it in the show notes

here in the podcast. You'll be able to download it off the website. If anybody

wants to get in touch with you at Kip fly. How do they do that?

Ankit Sharma: They can contact you, and then you can refer them to me. I'm just kidding. They

contact me directly please, they can email me. My email is my first name AnKit,

A-N-K-I-T at kit ply, K-I-T P-L-Y Dot CA. Yes, we're based in Canada. So Kitply.ca,

or they can also call me if they want to. I won't give my direct cell phone here,

but our office line is 18777 Kitply, 18777 Kitply.

I'm very grateful to be able to do this for your viewers, Dominic. Thank you for

thinking about me.

Dominic Rubino: Yeah, absolutely. I wonder if now's a good time for me to share a secret with

everybody.

Ankit Sharma: As long as it involves you keeping your clothes on, and I'm okay with that.

Dominic Rubino: Oh Jesus well that took a turn. So, for everybody listening or watching, I'd like to

let you know that I've asked Ankit to join in the podcast as a special feature.

I was so impressed with the way you're running things there. I thought that you

could do something I've wanted to do for our community for a long time, and so

what you're going to be doing is taking success folks that we would all recognize

from anywhere around the world, like you might take a Jim Roan quote, or a

famous football quote, and you're going to do a little piece that we're going to

add into podcasts going forward on taking that success quote and, looking at it

through a woodworker's lens.

Ankit Sharma: I love it, I'm really excited. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, that's a great idea and

Dominic, I'm looking forward to having that additional value that we can give

back to the community because we need it. I like to, I always remind the ... and I

got this from another company that's in our industry, is that the stuff we make

is the first thing people see when they wake up, and the last thing they see

when they go to bed.

Dominic Rubino: It's kind of Nice, isn't it?

Ankit Sharma: Yeah. I have a real passion for woodworking and I absolutely agree with that

Dominic. It had just .... now I can't ever not see it when I obviously, because

we've got our wood colored glasses, wood stain glasses that we walk around

with all the time now. But I do think that, just our products literally RV or from

their beds to their, to our cabinetry, to our-

Dominic Rubino: The kitchen ...

Ankit Sharma: To their RV's, to their boats, to their yachts, to they're everywhere. I mean

schools and it's just, I'm amazed by the quality of work that our industry spits

out and I have a real passion to support them, and help them grow and stay

competitive in the longterm. As a 3d printing and all these other crazy

technologies come around, and try to challenge our craft.

But I do think that there's a need for us in the longterm to.

Dominic Rubino: Perfect. I agree. Well, okay. Thank you so much for joining us today as a guest. I

really appreciate having you here. And, everybody listening, thank you for taking

the time, we do appreciate it. I know you're busy, you've got bits, you've got

accounts receivable, you've got guys that didn't show up today, you've got lots

of things going on in your life, and yet you took a few minutes to get educated a

little, bit.

Gain some new perspective on how to run your business faster, better, smarter,

stronger. So, I thank you for doing that and joining us. Have a great day

everybody. Thanks again, and Ankit thank you as well for joining. Have a great

day.

Ankit Sharma: Thanks [00:12:59 Foreign Language].

Dominic Rubino: [00:12:60 Foreign Language]

Ankit Sharma: Bye bye.

Speaker 2: Every craftsman has their favorite power tool and every business owner should

have their favorite tool power. Elwood Pens makes beautiful handmade custom

pens. If you've been thinking about doing something different, something classy

for yourself or your clients, think about getting something classic, stylish,

different, an unforgettable Elwood pens. These pens are handcrafted by Dylan

Thompson McCain.

Now I've met Dillon and I've seen his pens in my hand. They are stunning works

of art. He uses Birdseye maple, and exotic hardwoods from around the world.

Learn more about Elwood pens on Facebook. Just search for the term

@ellwoodpens. Beautiful works of art.

PART 3 OF 3 ENDS [00:41:56]