Difficult Leadership Lessons as an Elevator Company VP | Jeff Pugh

In this episode, I interviewed Jeff Pugh about his journey from an apprentice in the elevator industry to becoming a Vice President. We dove into his mindset transition from a worker to a leader, including many difficult lessons learned along the way. Jeff discusses some of the tough decisions necessary for preserving a positive work culture, stepping out of one’s comfort zone for personal and team growth, and his experience with turning around struggling branches. 

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Transcript:

Jeff Pugh (00:00)
I have a team that was supposed to do this stuff, but it was just easier for me to get it done. ⁓ You know, and a person I had promoted to a sales manager and I kept doing my same old thing, right? And she kind of came into my office one day and she’s like, why did you promote me?

Matt Allred (00:03)
That’s so true.

Jeff Pugh (00:15)
And I said, because you’re doing a great job. You lead the team. You have all this She goes then, why are you doing my job?

Yeah, point taken. ⁓ So whether you know how to do it or not is not the point. The point is you have a team, you have to trust your team, you put them in the position to be successful or not. And again, if you’re not failing, you’re not learning. I learned that my role isn’t to know how to do everyone’s job, it’s to support them.

Matt Allred (00:45)
Hello and welcome to the elevator careers podcast brought to you by the Allred Group. I’m your host, Matt Allred. When talent is mission critical, call the Allred Group. With industry expertise, top talent and exceptional customer service. You need the Allred Group on your side. Your priority is our priority call now 404-890-0445

Matt Allred (01:10)
In this episode, I interviewed Jeff Pugh about his journey being an elevator a vice president. We dove into his transition a leader. of the tough decisions involved in maintaining a positive work culture, stepping out of one’s comfort zone for personal and team growth, and Jeff’s experience with turning around struggling branches.

Matt Allred (01:30)
Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Pugh (01:32)
Thank you very much for having me.

Matt Allred (01:33)
Thank you. I’m excited. I enjoyed our other conversations. I’m looking forward to getting to know you a little bit better and obviously sharing some of your story with our listeners.

you’ve made a journey from apprentice to VP. What was it that made the elevator trade stick for you?

Jeff Pugh (01:52)
⁓ For me originally, was the pay. It was a good job, it was good pay for not really knowing a lot about elevators. But as I grew into the

position or as I grew into the industry, it’s really the niche of the industry. There’s only so many people that can actually do this. I love the opportunity that, you know, within a few short years you are at your full pay potential as a mechanic.

and the technical stuff really intrigued me. There’s so many technological advances with these things and people really don’t understand how these things work. They push a button, they get in, it takes them where they want to go, but the mechanics behind it are extremely ⁓ detailed and very interesting to me. So yeah, then there was lots of places to go. I could move

and that’s what really got me was that.

Matt Allred (02:43)
Yeah, how long before you, kind of clicked inside you when you’re like, yeah, this is it. here.

Jeff Pugh (02:49)
I would say it was probably in my second year ⁓ as an apprentice. The first year I’d missed the cutoff for the schooling, so it was just on the job training, which is fantastic. But then as I got into school and it’s a short year really, from September to kind of May, and it’s one week, sorry, one day per week. Yeah, I think that’s what…

I was like, this is really neat. You know, I get to work, I get to learn. ⁓ I don’t lose any time off work like they do with electricians and plumbers that have go to school. And then I got that much worse than the trade itself as it was building these elevators.

Matt Allred (03:27)
Right, right. When you mentioned a minute ago just kind niche nature of the trade and how it grabbed you and obviously kind of applying the schooling along with the on the job, what was it about that apprenticeship model or maybe the field time that really shaped your growth the most?

Jeff Pugh (03:44)
Well, I think for me, I was very fortunate and I got to work with some really, really good

They only mentored me ⁓ on the technical side, but they really pushed me ⁓ to do better, to be ⁓ a good union guy, but also to be a good company guy.

Matt Allred (04:03)
Mm.

Jeff Pugh (04:04)
It was that that really shaped me and I really wanted to perform. I wanted to perform for them, I wanted to perform for the company. There’s a thing that elevator guys have, or maybe a lot of people have, but when you’re driving through a city and you see all these skyscrapers and towers, you’re like, I built that one or I fixed that one or whatever.

So it was a proud pride thing for me.

Matt Allred (04:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I’m aware of that. I’m having done a little bit of roofing in my college days, know, drive past a house or a building and hey, you know, I did those shingles, whatever the case may be. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned, you know, that they kind of pushed you to become better. What specifically did that look like? Because I know that can go a lot of different ways, right? You know, depending on who it is and…

Jeff Pugh (04:41)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty neat.

Matt Allred (04:58)
how they perform, what did you find most impactful for you?

Jeff Pugh (05:02)
Well, I

think they gave me the opportunity. as you’re going through constructing an elevator, there’s obviously a whole bunch of different things that go into it. But they gave me the opportunity where we would do one component together and the next one I would do kind of my own. You know what I mean? So they really challenged me to learn the trade, learn.

how things go. Of course they were there to support me and it was always safe. There was nothing unsafe. But it was more just, hey, okay, you’ve seen it once now or seen it twice. Let’s see what you can do. ⁓ So I think that was probably the biggest part of it.

Matt Allred (05:36)
That’s awesome. Well, obviously they’re believing in you, right? Showing you that, I’ve demonstrated, I believe you can do this. And here’s your chance to show me and holler if you get stuck, right? I mean, yeah, very cool.

Jeff Pugh (05:47)
Yeah, it’s one

of those things, ⁓ know, and I tell this to all the young guys that come in the trade is, you know, just keep an open mind, ask questions, be willing to learn. ⁓ I coach my son’s hockey and it’s all about effort and attitude. You know, you show up with the right effort and you put in the attitude, the right attitude, and you put in the effort, you’re going to be just fine.

Matt Allred (06:09)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So you talked about some of your mentors, certainly as an apprentice. other mentor influences did you have as you continued to through organization?

Jeff Pugh (06:22)
⁓ again, I had so many different ⁓ positive influences in my

I mean, you got to start from home. had a really, really good upbringing. Both my parents worked very, very hard. You know, they instilled the work ethic. They instilled, you know, the confidence to not be afraid to fail. You know, I think that was…

where I learned all that and I wanted what they had. I wanted the nice house and stuff like that. And I knew they had sacrifices. They worked long hours and…

Then when I got the opportunity to work with some of these great mechanics that were very well respected in the industry, I just took it and ran with it. Whether it was one of the old adjusters working on the 1960s relay logic stuff or the adjuster that was working on the brand new technology, I just took it all in

tried to learn as much as I could.

Matt Allred (07:15)
kind of hungry for, you know, just teach me, right? I mean, I’m sure that’s paid off many times over just your desire to learn.

Jeff Pugh (07:22)
Absolutely, yeah, I think that’s what it is. I wanted more, I always wanted more. And of course I failed. There were times where was blowing up circuit boards because I made a mistake. And it’s like anything, you get a new one, you put it back in and you don’t make the same mistake,

Matt Allred (07:41)
Yep,

yep, you gotta, mean, if you’re anything like me, I learned by doing the wrong thing. I learned to tie my shoes by tripping and landing on my face a few times. It’s like,

Jeff Pugh (07:51)
If you’re not failing you’re not learning, right? And I think the bigger picture is not being afraid to fail. There are so many instances where people are like, don’t want to make a mistake. Well, you’re not going to grow as fast as you could. So it’s OK to take a chance.

Matt Allred (07:54)
Yeah.

You can’t learn. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I making a mistake is part of the learning process. You can’t learn otherwise. So one thing about growing, moving up is a lot of people really seem to struggle with moving from doing the work to leading people to do the work. And what would you say was maybe the hardest part of that transition for you?

Jeff Pugh (08:29)
I think for me, you know, to be a leader, to be an effective

it’s really about connecting. You know, I think what I bring to the table is a little bit different. You know, I don’t have an MBA education. ⁓ I’ve got, you know, ⁓ a college background, you know, business management type thing. But I think for me, it’s…

I take those experiences that I learned from, I had some really good experiences and I applied them to what I do every I listen, I try and the team, with the individual of the team. And for me, it’s about being consistent. I was saying here, we don’t accept mediocrity.

If you want to be the best, can’t accept mediocrity. And so I try and instill that good behavior ⁓ into my teams, into the leaders of the branches and to their leaders of the field. Coming from the field, it gives me a different perspective than coming up on the sales side of things.

So it’s a different connection with the field. We can actually talk the language. So I think that helps as well.

Matt Allred (09:32)
Yeah, did you find it challenging to move into a leadership role or was it more just kind of a smooth, we’re just gonna connect I’m gonna expect you to perform? sometimes it can be a because maybe one week you’re peers and the next week you’re the foreman or you’re the superintendent and it’s like,

Jeff Pugh (09:52)
Yeah, think,

again, it’s all for me, was all in the experience and all in managing people. That was the hardest thing to learn. It wasn’t necessarily the job. Going from, you know, the field to the supervisor, I knew what those guys were doing. You know, I knew the day-to-day stuff.

So it was easy to relate to those guys. Where it was challenging was, like you said, going from, hey, we’re having lunch today to now I’m your boss. That was a little challenging. know, you know, I would never make them do anything that I wouldn’t do. ⁓ You know, I’d expect them to have their lunch and their coffee and whatever else. But I think it was about being related, relatable to them and say, hey, listen, guys, we got a job to do. How we do it in every building is a little bit different.

I trusted them. I trusted you the right thing. You know, and support them. Really, that was, that’s the biggest thing is just support them. And, you know, I mean, going from, you know, the supervisor to the vice president was, I think I’m answering a different question here, that was supervisor and district manager was the hardest transition.

I worked crazy hours to try and figure this thing out. I went from managing eight or nine mechanics that I understood their job to managing 20 people in the office, sales side, operation

trying to understand what a district manager is supposed to do from the numbers.

Matt Allred (11:18)
have a different skill set, right? I mean, you’re going from

kind of being able to touch the work to know you got to be two steps away from it just to see what’s going on in your office.

Jeff Pugh (11:29)
Absolutely and you know when when as supervisor, know, I could jump on a job site with a guy and just get my hands dirty Let’s do

when you’re when you’re a district manager, it’s trying to Appease so many different people so many different jobs so many different things you have the union you have to deal with you have the operations the sales they have You know my bosses and so on and so forth You know, so in some cases, you know, it got to a point where it’s just easier for me to do the work

you know, for example, like, ⁓ you know, for doing a sales meeting or whatever, I would go ahead and do all the updates and all that stuff. I have a team that was supposed to do this stuff, but it was just easier for me to get it done. ⁓ You know, and I had a person I had promoted to a sales manager and I kept doing my same old thing, right? And she kind of came into my office one

Matt Allred (12:09)
That’s so true.

Jeff Pugh (12:20)
and she’s like, why did you promote me?

And I said, because you’re doing a great job. You lead the team. You have all this initiative. I just started my appreciate sport. Bob Lash She goes then, why are you doing my job?

Yeah, point taken. So it went from a mindset change

hey, whether you know how to do it or not is not the point. The point is you have a team, you have to trust your team, you put them in the position to be successful or not. And again, back to the same concept, if you’re not failing, you’re not learning. And I learned that my role isn’t to know how to do everyone’s job, it’s to support them.

You know, and I always say that you don’t always have to have the answer. But you have to be able to get it for them, you know what I mean? So I think that explanation from going from a hands on to a support function, because that’s what it is. It’s really like a do it to a support. And then going from, you know, that transition from district manager to vice president was a relatively easy one, very similar to the

Matt Allred (13:04)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Pugh (13:26)
mechanic to supervisor. So now supporting branch managers and you know hey I did this for eight years I know exactly when they say hey you know I’m having this challenge yes I know exactly the challenge you’re having ⁓ and then the experience comes in where hey this is what I did the past it worked really

Matt Allred (13:27)
Okay, yeah.

Jeff Pugh (13:42)
or we create new processes or whatever the case is.

Matt Allred (13:46)
Yeah, yeah. When you talked about, you know, having to make mistakes, having, you know, that’s where experience comes from, right? So when they say, hey, you know, share some ideas or, hey, I need some help. It’s like, yeah, I tripped over this one too, right? And here’s what eventually worked and now I have something to share.

Jeff Pugh (13:57)
Yeah. Yep.

Absolutely,

absolutely. But again, it’s, you know, at the same time, you you want them to,

kind of go out on their own a little bit too. You want them to come in with a solution. You don’t just want to say, oh yeah, this is the answer. You know what I mean? No different than when you’re sitting next to your son doing math and it’s like, I know the answer, but you’re going to struggle. You’re going to get it. I’m not stuck going to give you the answer. You know what I mean? Unless of course it has to do sort of security or safety and whatnot. And then it’s all case by case, but typically it’s, hey, how are we going to get through this together?

Matt Allred (14:35)
Yeah, as long as it’s not, like you said, not dangerous and they’re not in peril, then the struggle is valuable. so, yeah, stepping back, biting your tongue, that can be, imagine, right, the hardest thing. And I know even, you know, just in my small company, right, sometimes I have to just wait and see what they come up with. And sometimes it’s so creative, it’s like, ⁓ I’m glad I didn’t say anything because that’s better than my idea.

Jeff Pugh (14:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

I think that’s exactly what it is. It gives them confidence, right? You’re trying to build confidence on them and if they come to you with a problem, right away it’s a conversation. What do you think? How do you think the best way to handle this? I already have my ideas, but like you said, you’re taking away their creativity and their thought process, right?

Matt Allred (15:21)
Yeah, that’s great. So in a previous conversation, you had shared ⁓ what I thought was a powerful analogy, just that toxic employees are like a cancer, either it spreads or you cut it out. And to me, that’s got to be one of the hardest things of becoming a leader. And so I’m curious, how do you assess when it’s time to make those difficult decisions?

Jeff Pugh (15:39)
Yeah.

⁓ Yeah, I mean you want to talk about failing. ⁓ You know, I’ve done this a couple of

⁓ And my, you know, my nature typically is I’m very forgiving and you know, I wholeheartedly believe in second chances.

And, you know, I always, for me, it’s, if there’s a big decision to be made, and it could be regarding an employee, could be, you know, a business decision or whatever the case is, you know, the hamster wheel is going 100 miles an hour. And, you know, if I can’t lay my head at night and that thing shut off, then I know it’s not the right answer or right solution. So, you know, for me, when it comes to toxic…

cancerous people. have let it go too long in a couple of cases. And what it does really is it just brings down the whole branch. It brings down the whole business.

whether you want to bury your head in the sand, it’s happening. And everyone sees it’s happening. And as a leader, if you don’t do anything, then you’re condoning it. So you’re accepting that behavior.

Matt Allred (16:52)
for sure, yeah. You’re responsible for it, essentially.

Yeah.

Jeff Pugh (16:56)
So

you have these guys, these people that are just killing themselves for you and then you have this other that aren’t, you

So really what happens can catch it pretty quickly. I can catch it pretty quickly now, but back in the day it’s like, oh my God, I’m going to have to do their job or I’m going to have to do this or someone else is going to have to. And the ironic thing is when I acted on it, when I was able to sleep at night,

All of a sudden it

like spring. All the flowers are coming back. The snow was melting. The dynamic of the branch and the business was fantastic. And all of a sudden there’s hands out, hey, I got this or hey, I’ll do this. And it created a completely different environment everyone was there to support.

And it was, like I said, was just like a huge weight lifted off everyone’s shoulders. You know, and that’s happened a couple of times. You know, and when I came out here, it was pretty easy to see that there were same same things. So it didn’t take long to act and rebuild the team, you know. So.

Matt Allred (17:57)
Yeah. How

do you go about having some of those conversations? mean, let’s say you walk into a new region and it’s having been through it a couple of times, right? It’s like, okay, I can see that, you know, maybe there’s an issue around so-and-so. How do you kind of wade into that to kind of start to assess?

Jeff Pugh (18:14)
Yeah, I mean, I think the important thing is to have conversations. because there’s there’s two sides to every story. And we’re so we’re so quick

Matt Allred (18:18)
Mm-hmm.

Always.

Jeff Pugh (18:24)
jump on one side or another without actually getting all the details. So, you know, I try and I try and assess everything on my own. I sit down the one on ones, you know, hey, what’s going really well, what’s not going well?

You know, at this point in my career, it’s not hard to look at the numbers and get a pretty quick assessment, whether it’s compliance, whether it’s bottom line dollars, sales or whatever the case is. you kind of target a couple of things, ask some questions and then make your assessment from there. I always believe, like I said, you set the clear expectations. Here are the expectations. You get the buy in. Do you agree or disagree?

disagree or hey what do you think and then you go from

and if the expectations aren’t then you have to move on.

Matt Allred (19:06)
Yeah. said that you kind of held on too long a time or two. My question is, what is too long? Is it more of a feeling of how it’s affecting the office two months? I’m just curious what you kind of…

Jeff Pugh (19:20)
So, you know what, it’s, there’s two things. One, it’s the attitude, the attitude of your people. You know, you can tell. You can just walk around, can tell people are just mopey or whatever. The telltales for me, sick days, you see people taking more more sick days, which is a big one. you look at,

the performance, is there performance issues? But yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing is just the temperature of the branch or the business to really identify this.

Matt Allred (19:46)
Sure, sure.

So I guess to answer my own question a little bit, if the temperature is dropping the amount of time may be irrelevant, right? Maybe you need to act quicker because it’s so toxic, okay?

Jeff Pugh (19:56)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. And one more thing I failed to

is the attrition rates. If people are leaving, people typically don’t leave jobs. They leave bosses, they leave environments. And again, if you have a stagnant boss or leader that doesn’t, I say boss, not a leader, because I think those two titles are completely different. ⁓ And I think if they’re not…

Matt Allred (20:18)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Pugh (20:20)
they’re not seeing change and they see the boss accepting the behavior,

a telltale sign as well.

Matt Allred (20:26)
Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thanks for digging into that a little bit more because, yeah, that’s insightful. So, you know, kind of back to, I guess, on a bigger scale, you you lead a region that covers a massive geography, ⁓ 400 people. What does culture look like at that scale?

Jeff Pugh (20:44)
Yeah, so it’s about consistency, right? And what I do here in Calgary is what they do in Edmonton is what they do in Saskatchewan,

you know, it starts from the top down, right? And when I go visit the branches, the first thing we always talk about isn’t about the profitability or the big sales. It’s about, everyone got home? Everyone’s getting home. That’s all that matters. And you build a culture around safety and compliance. The rest will follow. So when you’re leading, you know, 300, 400 people, it’s making sure that the leaders areas toeing the line, right? And making sure that we’re

Matt Allred (20:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Pugh (21:19)
all

in agreement with how we’re going. But that’s the biggest thing and to be relevant, know.

I have a thing I call the Follow Fridays and I will call one or two people that I haven’t talked to in a while. So it could be a mechanic in Saskatchewan, which I did last week, or it could be a sales guy in Winnipeg. And it’s just a phone call. It’s not an email, it’s not a text. It’s check it in, what’s going And I think with, hey, you know what?

Matt Allred (21:42)
Nice to have.

Jeff Pugh (21:49)
We all care for each other. Everyone’s listening. Wow, he took the time to pick up the call and give me a call. You know, and it helps me also get the temperature of the branch. What’s going well, what’s not going well. And I get it from the mechanics point of view, and I also get it from the office point of view. So I think that’s the biggest thing. I try and get out there myself to see everyone, you know, grab coffee with

Matt Allred (22:03)
Yeah.

Jeff Pugh (22:09)
It’s really just staying relevant, to be honest with you.

Matt Allred (22:12)
Yeah, well, and you talked about when you go visit, you’re not just hammering the financials. Obviously, the financials speak for themselves, right? You get the reports, you get the spreadsheets, you have access to their system. You already know those answers, and yet, I have been in companies in the past where, let’s go hammer those results. How do you think that would affect your people differently two your first meeting, that’s all you say, and then it’s like, by the way, how are you doing?

Jeff Pugh (22:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it sets the tone. It sets the tone of and it clearly demonstrates the priorities. If your priorities are numbers, well, then it’s numbers. And I promise you they’re not going to be as good as they could if the priority was the people. At the end of the day, the numbers are the numbers. But you need people to execute. You people to do the work. And if they’re engaged then the numbers will come.

Matt Allred (22:42)
for sure.

Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing to me how much better the numbers are when the people are happy, right? When the team is cohesive, it’s ⁓ amazing yeah, that some people don’t see it that way and they think they need to.

Jeff Pugh (23:19)
No, absolutely

not. again, it’s one of those things where, you know, pick up the phone. Pick up the phone. If someone calls you, pick up the phone. You know, I take great pride in that. My phone’s always on, whether, you know, good or bad, and on vacation, you know, they call, hey, you know, I need to talk to you about something. Sure. You know, because you can’t let that stuff fester, right? And you want to be approachable and available.

Matt Allred (23:43)
Yeah, that’s huge. ⁓ And you also mentioned in the past, you know, one of the leadership principles is that comfort equals stagnation. How do you intentionally stretch yourself and really help your team, you know, push your team or invite your team to do the same?

Jeff Pugh (23:52)
Yeah.

Well, it’s kind of what we talked about before, right?

you know, it’s enabling them to make decisions. It’s by doing things that make you

You know, having those tough conversations, whether it be with a customer, whether it be with a fellow employee, mechanic, whatever the case is, you got to get out of that comfort zone and you have to take a little more risk and do things that you wouldn’t normally do. and everyone knows that, you come to me with a problem,

you better have a solution or a couple of solutions. There are cases where it’s like, have no idea what to do here. But in most cases, you get them thinking and I don’t need an answer today. Go back home, think about it, whatever. But I think that’s the biggest thing is just pushing people out of their comfort zone.

I understand you’re a salesperson, but hey, why don’t you go do a site visit with an operations guy or vice versa. I think that’s the biggest thing is just push them outside of their comfort zone.

Matt Allred (24:53)
Yeah. Well, what strikes me there is that, you know, comfort zones exist because fear, right? It’s like, oh, hey, I’m safe here. I’m not safe over there. But what I’ve heard you say made it a safe place for people to get out of their comfort zone and an expectation that not only are you going to get out, but you’re going to be okay, right? The world’s not going to fall. You’re not going to, you know, you’re not going to die. Let’s challenge you to get beyond what you’re comfortable with.

and you’re going to learn something.

Jeff Pugh (25:23)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s like every experience, right? comfortable with being uncomfortable. You know what I mean? And you know, when you have all these different experiences and you’re like, wow, that’s a good one. I’m really not too sure how to deal with that right now. You write down, you think about it, whatever. And you know, that’s the biggest thing is just being comfortable being uncomfortable.

Matt Allred (25:29)
So true. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. And I think you allow the comfort zone to constrain you, it only goes one direction. That’s to continue to shrink versus pushing beyond it, to it, you’re going to grow it, right? You’re to have a comfort zone, bigger influence, bigger ability to make a change. reminds me, when you and I talked before, you talked over Ottawa and later, Calgary.

and how change happened fast. so talking about discomfort and comfort zones. What do you believe are the essential steps to turning around a struggling branch? And I’m sure a lot of it was outside your comfort zone.

Jeff Pugh (26:25)
Well, absolutely. Ottawa was different because born and raised,

I knew a lot of the people really well. Obviously, mechanics knew very well. So it was a little bit different because there’s a lot more personal ties. It was pushing myself as a district manager to form different relationships with everyone.

You know, as a leader, now not a friend, you know, and you know, that line, it was very difficult in Ottawa to get across. I mean, and it took me longer than it did, let’s say in Calgary, but that was the biggest thing was to understand, hey, listen, yes, we’re so cordial, we’re still, you know, acquaintances or whatever you want to, you know, the barbecues and all that stuff, that’s got to stop, you know, because it’s got to be equal. You know what mean? If they see a leader, a district going out for

with the same guys. It’s a perception, right? And when I came to Calgary, I knew some of the people already because of different meetings and whatnot. they knew who I was. I mean, I’ve been here 24 years, so I’m a fossil now. So when I came here, was, like I said, relatively easy to get in there.

Matt Allred (27:13)
Tom. Sure.

Been around a minute.

Jeff Pugh (27:32)
meet some people, coffees, what’s good, what’s not good. ⁓ The numbers were not great at the time. We had a couple of jobs that were not going well. then shortly thereafter, we had a good person leave.

And it was pretty evident, pretty clear that there had to be some changes here.

Matt Allred (27:51)
Yeah, yeah. mean, if you ⁓ start to see, a good person step away, you know, it sounds like you were at least keyed into, this, something’s got to change because we can’t afford that.

Jeff Pugh (28:01)
Yeah,

but there was dynamics here that just weren’t great. ⁓ Good people, really good people, smart people that cared, but the dynamic was not

And, you know, it was, okay, this has to know, I came here later in the year, and compliance was an issue. And, you know, at the time I was told, hey, listen, you don’t understand the Western way, everything’s fine.

Okay, I’ve been here five minutes sure, you know, problem. I look forward to learning the Western way and then I just said next year we’re not gonna be in the same position because if we’re not compliant next year, well then This is a problem for

We were not compliant again. And So I was like and I you know again coached the whole way through come up with a game plan processes

Matt Allred (28:39)
yeah.

Jeff Pugh (28:45)
So following year, made the change, made some moves, rebuilt the team. People here that were just dying to flourish, but they were being held back and stagnant. one of my favourite books there, it’s good to great. I’m driving the bus and I put the right people in the right seats. Some had to go to the back of the bus, some moved to the front of the bus.

Matt Allred (29:07)
So I’m gonna have get off the bus probably.

Jeff Pugh (29:09)
And there was a couple that actually, yeah, they had to get off. It was their stop.

Matt Allred (29:13)
Yeah. Well, and it sounds having the right people in the right seats and the right people on the bus is critical everything we’re talking about. From leadership to performance to making change. Because if you don’t have that, you got nothing, right? trying to swim upstream and losing ground.

Jeff Pugh (29:32)
100%. You have no chance. You really have no chance. mean, the business will run,

but it was, you know, people get hurt, that really bothered me and…

know, again, I come from the field, I come from that background, and there’s no reason for it. There’s no excuses, I believe that while incidents are not 100 % preventable, you cannot prevent every incident. There are accidents, are cold accidents for a reason, but I believe you can prevent an injury. If you take the right steps, do the right planning, making sure you’re not in the line of fire.

you will be fine and we’ve proven this you know we’ve proven this time and time again even some mechanics they they had to get off the bus too because they didn’t they just chose to work unsafe and that I mean when you choose to do that have a problem with it you know and I always argued that people are like I don’t have time to do this or I don’t have time to do that like you make the time and I promise you you plan your work and you work your plan

not only will it be safer and more compliant, going to do better And now of the fastest growing year-over-year regions. Profitability, we’ve been two years now incident-free, recordable-free, everyone’s happy. And the company’s moving in a direction at a very, very rapid pace. And the team is engaged, and we’re getting there.

Matt Allred (30:38)
Awesome.

That’s awesome. That’s It’s almost like they couldn’t see it, right? Just believing that it’s kind of a limiting belief. Like, I don’t have time to be safe. Okay, but if you start by prioritizing that, you’ll find out that, hey, not only do you have time, less downtime, you don’t hurt anybody or yourself, and then the time magically shows up.

Jeff Pugh (31:12)
It does and.

You know, again, I always use the analogy of people at home, right? You’re going to mount a TV on the wall and bring the TV down you don’t read the instructions. You don’t need to do that. You know, you go upstairs and you grab a couple of things. You’re like, oh, I forgot this. Go back upstairs. Oh, I forgot that. Go back up. And, know, now you’re making like five or six trips when you unloaded the TV, had you looked at everything you needed, you would have grabbed everything you needed and it would have been

Matt Allred (31:29)
That’s like, guilty.

Jeff Pugh (31:42)
one step, as it relates to safety, it becomes a little bit more compounded

what if you forgot your harness and they’re like, I’m just going to hop on this car real quick.

Matt Allred (31:52)
Yeah.

Jeff Pugh (31:55)
That’s when accidents happen, right? You know, we have a

And it’s everyday life, truthfully, where we have this, you know, we diminish the risks, right? And it’s one of our big things here, where we’ve done this so many times that we don’t even recognize the hazard, you how I, explain that is there’s times where we have to get other trades on top of the elevator to check sensors at the of the hoistway.

gets on there, we do our thing.

get the electrician on there, whoever, they’re like, my God, you guys ride on these things, you know, and they’re kind of, wow, this is crazy. But for us, it’s just, it’s like eating lunch, no problem.

Matt Allred (32:36)
Yeah,

he’s just walking a tightrope and hey, we do it every day. to your point, mean, in a fraction of a second, that could all change, right? With one little misstep, one little, you know, like I say, forget the harness, you know, whatever and it’s unforgiving. Yeah. Well, Jeff, I got one more question for you and I appreciate you being with me and, you know, it’s been a lot of fun. The final question, you know, as you look back across your career,

Jeff Pugh (32:40)
do it every day.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Matt Allred (33:03)
from handling tools, overseeing hundreds of people. What’s one lesson you hope that the next generation of leaders hears loud and clear?

Jeff Pugh (33:12)
think for me, if I had one, would say, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t be afraid to ask. I struggled with that a

you know, as I, an early manager, where I was afraid to ask for help because I didn’t want people to think that I didn’t know what I was

But in the reality that I just created more stress for myself and my family and everything else, You know, working 14, 16, 18 hour days just to try and get through when I could have asked someone, hey, what do you think about this? Or, hey, do you know about this? You know, and it would have saved me so much time and anxiety and everything else. when I relate that back to my mechanic days where you’re on a job site trying to fix something.

and you’re like, well, someone else must have faced this, right? And you call someone and you’re like, yeah, it’s this. Well I just saved myself two or three hours. I saved the company two or three hours. ⁓ I don’t have to bang my head against the controller.

Matt Allred (33:54)
Sure.

Jeff Pugh (34:05)
You know what I mean? And I could move on. So I think that would be the biggest thing. Don’t be afraid to ask.

Matt Allred (34:11)
Yeah, let me ask you just a little bit more on that. So as a leader, like you said, I’m afraid they won’t think that I know what I’m doing. Is it people on your team? Is it higher ups? What was the hardest group of people to ask?

Jeff Pugh (34:25)
when I first started as a district manager,

was really afraid about what people would think of me if I didn’t have all the answers I felt at the time that I needed to know everything right away. And I didn’t. I really didn’t. And, you know, truthfully, all I did was.

I had created more problems for myself stress wise than everything else. But I took away the power for my people,

I mean, I know how I feel when I have an executive call me and say, hey, Jeff, hey, how would you handle the situation or how would you handle this problem? You instantly get that feel of, my God, they need me, they want, and you feel inclusive, right? Well, that’s what I took away from my team initially. And now it’s the exact opposite. Now I really push people, like I said, out of their comfort zone. And hey, what do you think? How do you want to handle this? So that’s really what it was.

total perception thing. was not even

It was more just I didn’t want them to think that I didn’t know what I was doing. When in reality, I really didn’t know what I was doing when I first took it over. It was so true.

Matt Allred (35:23)
Yeah.

Didn’t want him to see the truth, right?

That’s awesome. Thank you so much for being with me today and sharing your insights over your career. It’s been a lot of fun.

Jeff Pugh (35:39)
I appreciate the time and the opportunity.

Matt Allred (35:41)
Yeah.

Matt Allred (35:42)
Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. Please visit our YouTube channel @ElevatorCareers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.