Growing Positive Culture with Rob Lindemann
Rob Lindemann is the CEO and owner of Lindemann Chimney, the largest chimney sweeping business in the country. Rob is also a current board member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and even has a patent for a chimney inspection device.
Lindemann Chimney is a family chimney sweeping business which Rob inherited from his father. The company operates in the Chicago area.
Want to hear more from Will?
Subscribe to Culture Czars podcast on:
In this episode, you will learn:
[0:44] Introduction to Rob Lindeman
[4:26] How Rob established the company’s core values
[15:29] How does Rob maintain the core values?
[23:24] Rob recounts when he turned a bad culture around
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Connect With Will
Episode Transcript:
Speaker 1: From core values to valued culture here is your host Will Scott interviewing another CEO about leading culture in their company.
Will Scott: Hello listeners, and welcome to another Culture Czars interview where we talk to CEO's that care about their corporate culture. We call this series From Core Values To Valued Culture and Rob is Culture Czar at Lindemann Chimney. Hi, Rob.
Rob: Hey, how ya doing, Will?
Will Scott: Good. Great to talk to you again. Rob, I'm particularly interested in this interview and talking to you about your story, and I hope you'll share it, but to me it's not just about the business it's kind of a personal story to you about how you started the business and how you sort of switched from family ownership. But before we get into that, just start by telling us a little bit about Lindemann Chimney.
Rob: Yeah, so a kind of joke in our industry is, becoming a chimney sweep is nobody's plan A. So, it's mostly like plan J or H, but-
Will Scott: But for you it was plan A.
Rob: I think I was about the closest human to having becoming a chimney sweep as plan A in the United States.
Will Scott: So you were born into it.
Rob: Born into it yeah. So my father who was a fireman on the north shore had off days that they work 24 and they're off 48. And on his off days he cleaned gutters and eventually got into the chimney cleaning business. So it was really a side business while I was growing up through junior high, high school. And college is when my dad retired and started growing it a little more aggressively. But it was just something yeah I always was following my dad around being his little buddy helping him do odd labor jobs.
Will Scott: So you did as a boy actually go out on sites working with your dad?
Rob: Sure, yeah. Some of the best memories I have are us working together-
Will Scott: Oh that's great.
Rob: About 13 years old and up cleaning gutters and chimney work, yeah.
Will Scott: Learning the business, yeah very cool. And exactly what are the services that you provide apart from the obvious of chimney sweeping, what else do you do at Lindemann?
Rob: Yeah. So, about half our business is in the chimney service line of work in the Chicago land area. So we clean them, re-align them, repair them, install gas appliances. Pretty much anything that you would need done for a fireplace and a residential home. We do some commercial jobs, work for some universities but most of our business is residential homes in the Chicago land area. Fixing them, make sure they're safe and working properly.
Will Scott: Yeah and funnily enough I think you did just about all of those services in our home.
Rob: Yeah, yeah.
Will Scott: Everything from fixing the chimney to installing a gas appliance and it was a beautiful job. I was remarking earlier how well you guys seem to work together 'cause we had about three or four different trades at different times, but the hand off between them was seamless and the communication I think speaks to your culture.
Rob: Yeah, the guys take a lot of pride in what they do, we do it at a really high level. We are the largest chimney company in the country, and so we do an extensive amount of training and we work really hard at it, and the guys take pride in their work. But like any business the most challenging part is communicating and trying to do that effectively so you don't have three different guys that are all trying to do the job right with misinformation. That would make things frustrating so yeah ...
Will Scott: Well, congratulations Rob. That's pretty cool to be the largest in the business nationally.
Rob: Yeah it's been a fun journey.
Will Scott: And speaking of journey how did it begin for you? Remind us why did you originally establish core values and begin down that road?
Rob: Yeah well, when we started the business it was smaller. There were about three, four employees, maybe five when I got out of college and, we were trying to do things right and do the best job that we could, but I found it was sometimes frustrating. One example I could give, we had an employee that ... remember those Nextel phones?
Will Scott: Yes.
Rob: That had that little chirping.
Will Scott: I'm old enough.
Rob: Once a day my phone would go, Dooott, and I'd get that and the guy would be like, 'Hey Rob, are you alone?' Would be the first thing he'd ask and I'd say, 'Well, what do you mean am I alone? I mean, there's like six of us here. Like, which of the other five people do you want to talk behind their backs?' Right? And it was stuff like that, that seemed like increasingly frustrating where what we really wanted to do is to be able to go out there and serve the customers and create a work place where we were just relying on each other, having fun doing it. Kind of like a functioning athletic team where you're just enjoying it and it was a lot of times painful.
Rob: A lot of office politics and this is all new, I got out of college and I didn't know what I was doing. Didn't honestly particularly think I was going to be running a business it was just kind of something that I grew into. My first appeal was working outside, working with my hands and working with my dad. And in short order I was less in the field, less working side by side with my dad and more running a business. So it was something I had to kind of figure out in a hurry.
Will Scott: Yeah, I know that was kind of a sudden thing for you. And you tell a story that makes a great point there. And so I guess you also wanted a culture that was more open, where you didn't have to hide stuff and talk behind each others backs.
Rob: Right. So that was December of 2000 and I was struggling a lot. I ended up getting stress-induced shingles, the business was growing, I hadn't really done a good job of building behind myself. I would just take on more and more and more. I wasn't married in those years, didn't have kids so I could just lean into all the work and you know, enjoyed it to the point where the business kind of was its own monster, right? And I didn't effectively delegate and build people beneath me, and ended up kind of having one of those mid life crises in my twenties. So I kind of crashed and burned, and that's really what the impetus to creating the core values was. I just felt like I got it all wrong 'cause it was unsustainable, it wasn't a lot of fun, and I don't think the people at the time were particularly enjoying it either.
Will Scott: Was there a moment that you realized why did you start with core values, why did you think that was going to be part of the answer?
Rob: Well, it was where the most frustration was. It was like, 'Ah, if we could just all be kind of rolling in the same direction things would be a lot easier.' And it was those frustrations that seemed to cause the largest problems. So you know, I didn't know much. I joined EO at about this time and started learning about all these things. Reading some books, at that point I hadn't read a book since high school and I'm pretty sure it was the cliff notes version of the book. Somehow I got through college hanging around all these EO guys in my forum and they're all running these great businesses and saying, 'Hey, you ever read this book Good To Great?' or this or that? And I'm like, 'No, I haven't read any of these.' So I just really started to absorb how do people normally run businesses and that hit a lot on culture and core values.
Will Scott: Okay.
Rob: Just reflected quite a bit on what that meant for our organization 'cause we had really nothing of the sort.
Will Scott: And what process did you use, Rob to discern your core values?
Rob: So, it started out, my cousin who was my dad's first employee, still works for the company, it started really with Mike. It was like, if I had ten guys like Mike things would be great. Not a lot of drama, hard working guy, always seemed to have the company's best interest in his mind and was a pleasure to work with.
Rob: So, I actually followed him around for a couple days. Riding in the van and just looked at everything, from what he did in the morning to what he ate, how he approached the jobs, and found out what was the unique qualities he had that I liked and thought that we needed to have more of to build a company. No major process behind it, just kind of looked at other companies that I admired and said, 'Okay, I like this, I like that.' Some of my EO buddies, I'm like, 'Oh, that was interesting.' I think empowering work environment is one of our core values, and I think it came from John [inaudible 00:10:11] I think they had something similar, I could be wrong, but-
Will Scott: Hey Rob, before you say anymore of these ... your phone is slipping I think. Yeah there you go.
Rob: As soon as you said that I realized I'm actually [inaudible 00:10:22]
Will Scott: I was starting to lose ya.
Rob: As I was going lower, my phone was going higher. It's like I'm sinking.
Will Scott: Yeah, it's so cool that we can do this on the phone. But yeah, so you started to talk about one of your first core values.
Rob: Yeah, so I kind of sat down and mostly I went over them with my cousin Mike and a lot of them were just from me. You know, these were companies that I admired, and put them together and tossed things around and kind of used the litmus test like this employee that would call me and ask if there were anyone in the room, right? With the core values like filter that out would it hit something that says, 'Ah, that's not really an empowering work environment, we don't give and receive unquestionable trust.' And it was starting from a default of like, suspicion or trying to catch someone doing something. It bothered me.
Will Scott: So in my process those are two things I encourage. First of all, what are the CEO or the owners, the founders values but also maybe what's one of the values of one of your best employees and in your case that's Mike. And so you sort of got words from that and then you wordsmith the words into what you're talking about. So empowering work environment was one of them, what's another core value at Lindemann?
Rob: One's pretty much what I think everyone strives to is customer service.
Will Scott: Okay.
Rob: Which I've tried to do that at a big level and I think everybody strives to do that. No one's like, 'You know, I'm really going to try to be the low cost mediocre service provider.' I suppose people do, but that was one and that meant a lot like in our space, is that we were going to do it right and in the early years there wasn't knowledge on how to do it right even. I mean, we were kind of pioneers. But that was a commitment we made that we're going to do the job right or we're not going to do it. I just felt we got to be rooted in that. Another one was integrity, got to have uncompromising integrity when we're out there because there's all sorts of circumstances, like you don't know the first thing about your fireplace, right?
Will Scott: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rob: And you've got to be able to trust every person that I sent to your home that they're going to diagnose the problems properly, we're going to fix them properly, they're going to respect your property, your family if they're there. I mean, we're in and out of people's homes so we've got to have guys and gals with integrity that appreciate the opportunity we have to serve the customers. So those were a couple of the first ones, but the empowering work environment is, I think always will be the most challenging to maintain for us.
Will Scott: What do you do to try and maintain that one?
Rob: Hiring. Hiring the right people I think is important.
Will Scott: That where it starts, huh?
Rob: Yeah. So at our best we try to use the core values at a filter towards hiring. Like, 'Does this person represent all these values of our company.' And then stand firm to them throughout their career at the company. And there may be points at which they're on the line and that's where we’ve got to part ways, because it's not a good fit. And it's challenging, but the empowering work environment is one of the more softer ones, right? So like if we went to your home and they just didn't do a great job, you were dissatisfied, you didn't like it, we're going to hear pretty quick. There's a feedback loop that's fast and immediate.
Will Scott: Yes, from the client, yeah.
Rob: The customers will tell us and even honesty and things like that it's you know, if people aren't honest with the little things they're not going to be honest with the bigger things. That's usually easy to smoke out, but you know, how people are acting with their peers, on the job site, in the office, that's where it gets a little more challenging 'cause you got a lot of different personalities, right? And just the human condition sometimes is pretty messy and we always remember-
Will Scott: I don't know if you meant to use the pun there, 'Easy to smoke out,' but is that something you use around the office? Smoke out the issue?
Rob: No, it just dawned on me. Smoke it out, right. Yeah.
Will Scott: So do you have a process that you use I don't know, in nomination system or anything that just ... do you try and use the words every day ... well, what do you do to kind of make the core values come alive and thrive in the organization?
Rob: Yeah, so I'll sit down with the new hires, and that's part of the process and go through kind of the history of the company, the core values, the vision, where we've been, where we're going, and talk about that when we hire a new employee.
Will Scott: Okay.
Rob: And then weekly meetings specifically for the service guys that are out in the field where we talk always about sales, safety, and service. So those are the three things we talk about. And I'll come on or my cousin Mike will once or twice a year talk about the core values of the company as a reminder, this is what we're trying to do. And celebrating, we're recently starting little gold stars for guys that customers call up and say, 'Al, he did a tremendous job,' and recognizing that, that's a core value of ours, exceptional customer service and celebrating when we win.
Will Scott: Yeah, very cool. How many core values do you have by the way?
Rob: I think it's six.
Will Scott: Okay, and do you think most of your employees could recite all of them, or four out of six or something like that?
Rob: Well, I'd love to say they could recite them all but I think four out of six would be fairly good.
Will Scott: So you're using them to that extent where there's that kind of awareness about them.
Rob: Yeah.
Will Scott: And one question I'd like to ask is as a CEO of your own company you've got a lot of things to prioritize, right? You've got to prioritize making sure you make a profit, and you're growing the business and you're satisfying clients, and marketing. All of those kind of priorities. Where does managing culture fit for you in that mix of priorities?
Rob: I'd put it right up at the top. And to be frank, it's a lot easier to manage the culture when it was smaller. It becomes a little more challenging now that I have managers and so forth so they have to carry that out. So it becomes a little more challenging, but in my opinion if the culture is humming the strategy that you're going to implement works. People are just willing to push it forward. But if the culture piece is off ... we've had periods where we're spot on. People from the outside would walk in the building are like, 'Something's different here, why is everyone all happy?'
Will Scott: That's cool.
Rob: That sticks out as one of like the high points and we've had our slumps to where we had issues and growing pains and other things and throughout those waves, the times where the culture wasn't as strong as it could have been, it was terribly hard to execute on even the best strategies. But the flip side was like you can't lose when you've got everyone rolling in the same direction.
Will Scott: That's beautifully said, Rob. So that's why it's worth investing in culture, right? Not that it takes a lot to invest in, but you can get a huge return and it's more fun.
Rob: Sure.
Will Scott: And as you say, if you've got the culture clicking and everyone's on board then everything's easier. Whereas if it's the alternative everything's hard, you know?
Rob: Yeah, I don't know what the appropriate amount of time is, but you're right it is probably the one area you get the biggest return on the investment of your time. And ultimately it's up to the owner or CEO to hold that 'cause it's my job. So when the culture's off I'm not doing something in my job, I'm not inspiring or instilling enough of that vision and the values of our company in the people that are managing it for me.
Will Scott: Yeah, you got to be the biggest culture czar in the place.
Rob: Yeah, absolutely.
Will Scott: So have you found that it's to do with the mix of the people you have. So everything's going great and the culture's feeling strong is when all the people basically are feeling the culture and when it's not so good, usually you've got one or two people dragging things down. Has that been your experience?
Rob: Yeah, that seems to definitely be the case. And then often times it's hard to act on that. We don't really have a hard, fast metric on how this person is firing on our core values, right?
Will Scott: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
Rob: How is he or she creating an empowering work environment? How are they working with others? It's kind of a softer item. I suppose there are some tests that you can use, but often times they're performing well under all circumstances.
Will Scott: I'm sorry.
Rob: So I got to take a top performer who's just a little grumpy and say, 'Alright, this isn't a good fit.' And those are the really tough decisions.
Will Scott: Yep, but usually when you make those and you exit those folks, usually everyone breathes a sigh of relief and it feels better and now you can go on. But it is hard, it's really hard for some ... particularly if you've got a good engineer or somebody that's really good at executing, but they don't fit the culture it is harder to let them go, but usually it's the only effective way in the end.
Rob: Right, and it's tough. And my default is always to see the good in people so there's part of me that's like, 'Well, eventually the others will pick this person up,' but you know, in my experience, if it looks like a snickers bar, it smells like a snickers bar, it tastes like a snickers bar it's generally a snickers bar.
Will Scott: Hey, I've got another food analogy for you, when I was growing up in Zambia my boy scout master used to say, 'cause he would talk about a troupe and you didn't want to have any bad members in a troupe or it brought the whole troupe down and he would use the expression ... we grow monkey nuts in Zambia, or peanuts basically, and he would say if you have 10 nuts and one of them is bad and you eat them altogether they all taste bad. And a sort of similar analogy is in our companies that we're only as good ... I always find this rather hard to say, but we're only as good as our worst employee.
Rob: Yeah, sure.
Will Scott: 'Cause our worst employee can bring us all down but also if they're having an impactful touch with a customer and it's not the right kind of touch you know, just ... we're only as good as our worst employee.
Rob: Yeah, that's the challenging part. I say, business would be easy if it wasn't for the people.
Will Scott: Yeah, I know.
Rob: The employees, the customers, we're all human and like I said, at times it gets messy, but-
Will Scott: People sometimes say to me, 'Is it possible to change culture?' 'Well, yeah it is if you change people.' Usually you have to change the people that are sort of at the bottom of your core value measurement. So yeah. And can you think about any bigger stories, which is the story you tell when you get the chance about somebody who demonstrated a core value at some point in the company's history?
Rob: That's a good question. You know, the story I most often tell is what it felt like when it was broken, and like where we wanted to go towards and describe the company that we want to be in. My default is really we all want to show up here and enjoy work, because we're here almost more than we are at home. And building the company I was like, I didn't want to build a company that was miserable to be at. That's kind of the default and there's experiences of you know, when we have fun. Whether it be the company picnic or holiday party or conventions where we all get together, it's that piece where we're bonding and having a good time and really enjoying working hard and moving things forward. Those are kind of the experiences I generally share.
Will Scott: So, I think a lot of CEO's avoid the softer side of running a business. Kind of talking about feelings and values, but boy if they do it's usually worthwhile and of course it creates an environment of more fun as you were just saying.
Rob: Yeah.
Will Scott: So Rob, as always really appreciate the chat and thank you for going through those questions. Is there any sort of final tips that you'd leave with our listeners around culture.
Rob: Yeah, I would say you can't address it soon enough and hold it tight. I feel pretty fortunate that I kind of had a crisis or defining moment where I felt I got it all wrong and I found that a lot of entrepreneurs have that moment. One of the fellow chimney companies out in Nashville Tennessee speaks at our trade shows and stuff, talks about the moment he went and drove by his parking lot and there's all these beat up trucks and his wife referred to it ... had some comment and goes, 'Oh, looks like such and such convention.' Don't say their name. And he's like, 'I want to have people that are driving nice cars and feeling great about what they do and proud of ...' so he had that moment where he essentially let everyone go but himself.
Will Scott: Wow.
Rob: And said, 'I'm going to build a company then is much different than that.' So, I've heard a lot of those stories where you almost had to start over or reinvent yourself. I just feel fortunate that it happened early enough that it wasn't ... we were small enough that it was easier. I think if you get a larger company I think it'd be really hard to do. The kind of cake is baked already.
Will Scott: Yes. I think especially it's easy to focus on the business and the business heuristics as opposed to the people. And of course, our businesses are basically about people and we're working with people. So focus on the people part first and then the business tends to flow a lot easier. Yeah, I guess that's the story you just told. Well, that's awesome. Thank you very much, Rob. And really appreciate you taking the time to share this with us today, and to our listeners thanks again for tuning in and get more interviews like this from CEO's who care about their corporate culture at cultureczars.com. Thanks a lot, Rob. Cheers.
Rob: Cool. Yeah, thanks a lot.