Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by Mitre Brands University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sheri Conner and I am your host.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: No matter what, no matter how big or small or whatever type of business or organization it is, it's people that will build it and maybe build it to be amazingly successful and maybe not. But no matter what, people are behind it.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: And so we always win when we invest into the right people.
[00:00:38] Speaker C: Good afternoon.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: We are here on the Clear Impact
[00:00:41] Speaker C: Podcast and today I'm sitting with our CEO Matt DeSoto. Welcome back.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Hey, thanks, Sherry. It's great to be here.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for making time. We're in our new studio and we don't have all the fancy schmancy things quite yet, but it's good enough for us. So that's of plenty.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Plenty fancy for me.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: Yeah. So one of the things that has been so empowering and also uniting for us as team members is the Mitre DNA. And I wanted to take some time to chat with you about that today. And so obviously you're the CEO, you've been the CEO for a number of years, but the DNA, where did that come from? How did that start?
[00:01:17] Speaker A: It's a great question. And I'll back up to when we acquired Milgard in 2019 and. And then shortly after the pandemic came upon us, and we navigated through all that. And so it took some time, really, to get culturally integrated. And Milgard had a great culture, and I would like to believe it, it still has an awesome culture, albeit it has changed since the combination. And we had the guiding principles at that point. Those were created in about 2014, 15, somewhere in that timeframe. So we had the vision, the purpose and our quality pillars, etc. But I was on a flight, it was maybe in 2022, I believe, into 2022, and we had already started to talk about the concept of acquiring pgt. And I happened to be alone on that flight. Usually I'm with other folks. And it was a longer one, maybe a three or four hour flight. And I just started to jot down what matters to Mitre. And the way I was thinking about it was like MITRE further explained, you know, the guiding principles with a little bit more. And so I literally, on a notepad, just started to jot down some thoughts, things that I felt were critically important to us as a team. And so I took the notepad when I got back from that trip and typed it up, send it out to the leadership team and said, hey, how do you all feel about this. Do you feel like it describes who we are, it describes what's important to us and is it something that might help us talk about the Mitre culture in a way that has greater consistency and hopefully the ability to create more buy in and higher impact? And took us maybe three, four months to get the wording right and alignment, stack hands, if you will, that this absolutely was who we are. So that point forward, then we just started to include it in presentations. So at the beginning of the presentations we have our guiding principles. Now we have the DNA as the next slide and just started to talk about a DNA point at every discussion. Not all of them, just pick one. And now what is turned into is the ability to right up front when we're talking with a new team member, someone we're recruiting, someone that's already on the team, a new supplier, a customer, this is like a little bit more about us. And if it's not who you are and it's not who you want to be, it's probably going to be tough for us to get along. On the other hand, if you like it and you can align with these words and hopefully see them in action, not just words on a page, then maybe things will go a lot better because we'll understand each other better from the beginning and of course have alignment of what we're trying to accomplish and how in life and not just like in Mitre life, like life, period.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah, no, there's some powerful statements in there and I wondered if it was more of an internal focus that now, I guess it has sort of bled out right into, like you mentioned, customers and suppliers. One of the things that came to me recently was that there were a couple of new ones added. And so I was like, oh, okay. I haven't memorized them yet, but I know I'm pretty familiar with most of them. But there are two new ones. And so I would love to know how that came about and why those are being added.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: It's a great question. This started last summer, so summer of 25, where we now are over a year later after the combination of Mitre and PGT Innovations. And we have been doing a lot together, like a lot of things have been changing. I'd like to believe that the large majority of them are being looked at as positive changes and felt as positive changes, but nonetheless there's been a lot of change. And all through that, one thing that has been occurring is that the market has not been as supportive as what we had underwritten, if you will, using A financial term when we put the two businesses together. And so through a couple of board meetings in a row, we were showing results that were not in line with what we had modeled out. And I found myself saying a fair amount. We're focused on controlling the controllable.
We can't control the market, the size of the market, we can control how much of the market we go earn.
[00:05:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: And we can't control what our competition is going to do. We can control our own performance, we can control our own on time info, we can control our own pricing structures and our own quality of team, our own systems, et cetera, et cetera. So that then led to, in the fall, looking at the DNA one evening, just saying, maybe we need to add a couple of things here. If we're all saying it a lot and we believe in this, then let's get it on there. So controlling the controllable was number one. And I think it's a very simple concept to understand. And by the way, it's applied many times throughout the day. And it said to me, like, I'll get down a path of talking about something and one of our leaders will say, hey, do we really think we can control that? So it's fair game. And I say, yeah, you're right, we can't. Let's move on to a different subject. So I'm partial to all of them, obviously, but focusing on controlling the controllable is number one. And then the other thing that as we were looking at it and going to add that one, it dawned on me that we had nothing that specifically called out our focus on philanthropy and giving back and the communities. You know, it's on our guiding principles. We talk about the community, but we aren't specifically calling out giving back. And so that was where the second addition came from. And it's not only a responsibility, it's a privilege. The better we do, the more we can give, but the more we need to give. It's important for advancement, not just advancement of a MITRE team member and family. Clearly we always want to help our team members and families if they're navigating something. But we also need to be very active in helping the the communities evolve and what's important to the communities. The communities give a lot to us and we need to make sure we do our part in giving back. So that's really where that came from. It was, I guess, a miss on the original draft of the DNA that we didn't have something that specifically called out how important it is in our Culture to give back.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: We are sharing our expertise around all topics relating to the window and door industry. Whether you are a customer selling our products or a homeowner doing research, the Clear Impact podcast provides helpful content that makes an impact. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I love that. And that was one of the big things.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: When we were acquired two years ago,
[00:07:55] Speaker C: we had all of these philanthropic efforts that we had been doing and all these connections and partnerships and nonprofits in our area that had really come to depend on us.
I mean, there's like a thousand nonprofits in Sarasota county, so there's no shortage of ways to give.
But we were nervous about how that was gonna go. And so when we first learned, like, no, there's a whole foundation, there's a whole formal process, there's a whole, like, infrastructure for this that anybody can get involved in, it was like, oh, it's gonna be better. And it has been. And so we've been able not only to continue those existing partnerships for the PGT folks, but, but also expand and have more people involved. Instead of just a few executives having their hand in something and being on boards, it was more global for us. And so it's so nice to then understand the Milgard story and how they were very philanthropic and how MI was like that before you guys bought anybody else. So it's a nice alignment for all of us to be able to do that.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: It's just part of who we are.
[00:08:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: And I love hearing you talk about that, because the most important part of the foundation is team buy in. And our team members feeling as though that they have a say in what we do and the work that we do in the community.
That's the point. I mean, there are certainly some broader efforts that we work on, and there are certain causes that we continue to support year after year after year. But I strongly believe this to be true. And that is, it's not a pet project, right, of one individual. It's got a team of people involved in every single effort that we support. And that's really important that it's not a CEO's initiative, it's not the CFO's initiative, it's not one shareholder's initiative. It's the team that cares about the community.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: No, that's wonderful. And so I have a copy of these printed off near my desk, and I look at them and obviously been asking team members and people as they come in for podcasting, which one is their favorite. And so how do you. I mean, obviously These are things that are very integrated into your thinking and your way of operating. But how do you keep them fresh for yourself? Do you have them posted somewhere? Like, how do you do that?
[00:10:08] Speaker A: It's a bit all over the place, which is, I guess, how much of my life operates. And the first thing I would say, or respond rather to that question, is that I largely authored it. So it's not too hard for me to recall these points, just given the fact that I firmly believe in each and every one of them. But I do have a few things that I've seen our team do, and I try to do as well. One is, let's have it in a discussion, so when we're getting a group of people together, it doesn't have to happen every time, but just someone at the table. Hey, you got a DNA point you want to talk about as an example, at the end of our monthly financial review, I used to talk about a common purpose moment and something I witnessed either with a supplier, customer or team member. And now I've transitioned to DNA moments. So here's a DNA moment that I caught in the last month. And so it can just be random. That's one thing I think helps. It makes it a little bit more comfortable to talk about and let people get context around it as compared to just reading the bullet point.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: But the other thing, and these, I think I've shared this with you before. A couple of them, you know, come up on my phone every day, one at 5 o' clock in the afternoon. And that's the only barriers that exist are the ones that we choose to create. And then another one comes up at 7 o'. Clock. And that is we're humble in our approach and confident in our ability. And there's. I guess I initially put those there before the DNA was ever called, that they were just reminders to myself that as the day was coming towards a business day close, of things that are critically important as we're continuing to go down this journey and live the vision that we've established for mitre.
[00:11:43] Speaker C: I love that. Yeah, I have little sticky notes that I put on my monitor, like underneath, and I have a couple things written down there that I like to remind myself about. And so one of them, and this was actually on my whiteboard, is hope is not a strategy. And I don't know if you're the original author of that, but that's something I heard you say once and I wrote that down. And so I think all those little things definitely help us to stay focused and to stay encouraged because it can be tough. You know, some days are harder than others. And so having those positive reminders and recognizing that we're part of a larger organization and that we're all rowing in the same direction is really helpful.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing that.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: It is not on the DNA, but it's something I firmly believe in.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: And I don't know who originally said that.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: I can't take credit. I stole it from somebody.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: It might have been like Yogi Berra or somebody, some famous coach.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: We'll have to look it up.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll find that out. But anyway, is there anything else we need to mention about the DNA?
[00:12:41] Speaker A: I would say in closing, there are so many of them. I mean, hopefully it's not so many that our team members are bored by it. But it's hard for me to pick out any one in particular that I would view as my favorite.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: And yeah, I was going to ask you. I mean, you came up with all of them, right? So.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Well, and I said that earlier. I mean, I had the initial pen, but the team worked on it together. I want to clarify that. But the one and these two, I think really go hand in hand, the way I think of them. And the first one is, we always win when we invest into the right people.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: And over and over I've thought this, and I need to say it more that businesses, any organization is not built because of a product or a system or a building or whatever it might be, it's built by people. And no matter what, no matter how big or small or whatever type of business or organization it is, it's people that will build it and maybe build it to be amazingly successful and maybe not. But no matter what, people are behind it.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: And so we always win when we invest into the right people and it connects to another one, I think really tightly. And that is we dream big, we set goals, and we get to work. Because when you have the right people, your dreams can be bigger, your goals can be bigger, and of course, the work output is always going to be better.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Right. When I worked for a nonprofit, we had a saying that we said around volunteers, and that was, people are more important than the job they do.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: And that's especially true when people aren't being paid.
You want them to come and do the task that needs to be done because it's essential to have the tasks done. But also, these are people who are giving their time, and I think that can still carry over into the paid environment. I'm not a volunteer, but I want to still think I'm more important than the job I'm doing in terms of humanity and such. And so I feel like that carries here.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Well, I'm glad that you feel that way. Words are empty without the right feeling and emotion behind it, so thanks for sharing that.
[00:14:36] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. So, just to follow up, I Googled real quick. U.S. army General Gordon R. Sullivan is generally credited with coining or popularizing the phrase hope is not a method, ie, strategy. So he wrote a book by that. And then Vince Lombardi said, hope is not a strategy, fear is not an option.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Like it? Yeah, I like both of them. Well, thanks. I got some take home value out of that.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: How about that? We learned something today. Yeah, you did awesome. Well, I appreciate your time, Matt. Thanks for coming in and chatting with me and shedding some light on the DNA. And I look forward to incorporating more of that.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Cool. I always enjoy catching up. Thanks, Sherry.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: All right, thanks.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: See ya.
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