Today we're going to be interviewing Rocky Romanello. He has had an illustrious career spanning more than 40 years focused on supply chain logistics, retail sales, sales operations, all kinds of things at UPS, including the UPS Store franchise network. He became the Chief Executive Officer and Board of Directors for UniTek Global Services, a provider of engineering construction management and he is currently the founder and CEO of 360 Management Services, LLC. He's an experienced CEO, he's led one of the largest rebranding initiatives in franchising history. The UPS Store revolutionised the $9 billion retail shipping and business services market. And we're going to talk to him today about leadership and his journey and the advice he can give us for our growing companies. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google, podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com, which will give you exclusive subscriber only content, including a follow up summary on this very episode. 

Rocky, thank you so much for coming on. Welcome to the show.

Rhamy, thank you very much for having me.

So Rocky, you have I mean, you've done a ton. You're not a green new business owner who just started up last week. I'd love for you to tell me how you got to where you are today. I know you spent a lot of time at UPS. What was that like? And why did you wind up striking out on your own

Well, of course, it was a great career at UPS. It had a promotion from within policy, which I took advantage of. I actually started out as a part timer unloading trailers. I was working my way through college and I actually was going to college to be a high school history teacher and a baseball coach. And as I was working my way through school, I realized that the best leaders were those leaders that could get their people to connect the dots. So I never gave up my passion for coaching or my passion for teaching. To me, I just did it in a different classroom, which was the business setting. And so I always felt like I was still pursuing those passions of coaching and teaching. As I said, UPS had a promotion from within policy and my dad told me two things when I started the job. He has since passed, but he told me two things. He said, "Whatever they asked you to do, say yes and thank you, and then learn your job and learn some more.” And so for me, as I was working my way up through UPS, I learned and your passion is people in the processes. So for me, one of my most valuable lessons I learned early on, was I may not have felt ready for that promotion that UPS tapped me on the shoulder for, but what I realized is that there are times when you have to believe in your people until they're ready to believe in themselves. And you bridge that gap maybe of confidence, or you bridge that gap maybe of knowledge. And that to me, was probably one of my greatest lessons. As I was growing and developing and learning how to manage and manage large groups of people, I never forgot that lesson that I was taught firsthand by me being that person who was a little bit nervous and a little bit scared. But UPS, believing in me until I was ready to believe in myself. 

And then of course, I mean, you started with like, loading the docks. I mean, you started at the bottom and worked your way all the way through. I mean, you've learned every lesson along the way. Not every job. 

Yes, yes. And you know that, that valuable lesson for me was that it empowered me and gave me that confidence to manage because I was a part timer. I became a UPS driver. I drove from Plainfield, New Jersey. And so for me that valuable lesson, Rhamy was around me, was the fact that every new job I took on and as you spoke in the introduction, I was tapped on the shoulder when we purchased mailboxes and etc. We consequently, we branded the UPS Store, I took on that responsibility. And the first thing I did was go work a day in the store because I never forgot that the thing that helped me as a new supervisor was the fact that I could unload and I did unload trailers, I was a UPS driver. And that was such a valuable lesson to me. 

So in every job I ever got from that moment forward, the first thing I always did, especially if it was a job I didn't have experience and I went and spent the day. We purchased mailboxes, etc. I worked in a store, we purchased over 20 companies and built what's up today, UPS Supply Chain Solutions. I integrated those companies and had decided the world for UPS. Well, first thing I did was, "Let's go pick some orders. Let's go down on the floor." So I think that was a valuable lesson I learned as I grew and developed inside of UPD. And then as you said, I retired from UPS. And then I was recruited to be a CEO of a telecom company, we built cell towers, upgraded cell towers. And so every chance I got I went out to a site. I certainly wasn't qualified to climb, but I wanted to understand that firsthand and then started my own business 360 Management Services.

So when you decided to branch out and kind of run your own company, what was the impetus there?

Well, during my tenure at UPS and during that time when I had the MB/ UPS stores, the direct report. I met some of the most amazing entrepreneurs, some people that were just the best. I mean, they taught me so many wonderful things and I have such great respect for it. Printers and I looked at them. And I thought to myself, I don't know if I could do this job. I mean, there's nobody more all-in than an entrepreneur that a small business owner, right? I mean, at big companies, we say we have P&L responsibilities, but nobody has more P&L responsibility and a small business owner. At the end of the day, you hit the cash register to drop and pay your people, pay your vendors. What's left is what you take home for your family. And so I had such great respect and admiration for them. And so I thought if I ever had the chance, I would try but even today, I mean, I have a wonderful pension from UPS. So I mean, I'm not nearly as all-in as they are. And so I will always be that person that says, "I have great respect for that small business owner and I'm not sure I could do it." The way they've done it with taking everything they own and sliding across the table and saying, "I'm all-in." So I never kid myself that I believe I am as committed as they are. I'm committed to grow in this business and I'm excited about growing my own business but they have everything on the line.

Rocky, you've had this great career and now you've started a very successful company you're keynoting, you're interviewed constantly. But before you got here, I know you had to have had some hard days. So I think that our listeners, they look forward to this because we always have this as a recurring segment because everyone listening has made some pretty big errors and they want to learn from other people's. So Rocky, what I want you to do is take us to the experience, tell us the story of your worst entrepreneurial or management moment and how that happened. And what the mistakes were that you made to get there. It's a hard question. And I just want to preface because what I found in terms of response and listeners and everything else is the more you can illustrate the story the more results and feedback we get from our listeners.

Well, for me the biggest disappointment or biggest error always centers around the people side of things for me, because I think you can work through operational issues, you can work through P&L issues, but to me, the hardest and most difficult and most disappointing are the ones where you've identified an individual and I won't use their name, obviously, but it's crystal clear in my mind. We identify this individual and you believe in them so much. But the mistake was early on is that I believed in them more than they believed in themselves. I wanted more for them and they wanted it for themselves. And so what ends up happening is, you take this individual who has such promise, but is good where they are right now. And in fact, frankly, they're very happy where they are right now. And I see so much more than them. And so you're working and of course, they don't want to ever let you down. So you're talking to them about the next level promotion, taking on additional responsibility, maybe moving their family. I moved nine times with UPS and inside of UPS, everybody was moving, right. That was part of the promotion process. 

So here's this individual that I'm almost convincing them, that they want that next level and not because it was my best intention, where to help them get to that next level. But I quickly realized that the mistake I made and a disappointment for me was we took a good employee, someone who was very, very good at what they did. And now we moved into that next level, a level that they may not want it or they may not have felt comfortable with. And eventually they ended up quitting. And the sad lesson there for me was, I wanted more for them than they wanted for themselves. And I saw more of him or her than they saw themselves and that happens sometimes. And that disconnect is a terrible disconnect. Because not only do you have an unhappy person or a person that doesn't feel fulfilled, you actually end up potentially losing a very good person in your care or in your organization. And so for me, that's the valuable lesson. It happens a lot in small businesses too. By the way, you're the owner of the business and let's face it. What's your strength as a small business owner? Nobody's more committed. Nobody knows the business better than they do. Nobody could do the job better. And what's your biggest weakness? Nobody knows. Nobody's more committed than you who knows the business, right? So you have that employee and you're not allowing them to grow and develop into that job because you want them to be you. But you forget how long it took for you to get to be you. And so I think that those expectations are sometimes difficult and when you lose that good employer, you lose that good person is probably a better way of putting it. You really look at yourself in the mirror and you say, "Boy, I really failed this one, this was not good for that individual. Certainly not good for organization. And frankly, I made a bad decision."

Yeah. So I guess what would you have done differently if you're trying to grow an organization you've got, you need leaders, you need people who you can move up and you find someone who's outstanding at their current job. That's the normal way of figuring out who to promote, what would you have done differently with this particular employee that maybe would have helped you keep them well from them? Because maybe in two years, they would have been perfect for it. 

Yeah, tha's true. That's true. Well, I'll tell you. So from that, you're the people process, so you have the two most important things, people and process, that you take care of which is excellent. So for me, whenever something doesn't go the way I planned it to or hoped it to, it's all about process. Well, what's the process? So out of that disappointment or out of that failure came my people process. I appreciate you allowing me to use that. So from that moment forward, I had this process. When people would bring me a person for promotion or I would identify a person for promotion, the first question I'd ask myself, well, "Do I want more for them than they want for themselves?" Or if you brought me a name of an individual ready to be promoted, I would ask you, "Hey, do you want more for them than they want for themselves?" "No, no, no, they really want this." Okay. Do you see more in them than they see in themselves?" "No, no, no." Okay. So you get past those first two, then the three next key questions come in. And I've used this through probably of my 40-year career, probably 30 of them. As I kind of grew and was more involved in those decisions. The first question I'd always ask and this one seems a little almost rude, but it's not meant to be and the first question is, "Hey, if they didn't come to work when anybody noticed and then you like, "What? Are you kidding me?" All right, well, that's good. Okay. That's the first question. 

How about the second question? What wouldn't happen if they weren't here? So what's uniquely theirs? What's uniquely them? What processes in place? What wouldn't happen if they weren't here? And that's so important, because that starts to speak about a person beginning to be that next level before they are that next level. And then the last question I would always ask them is, and I would ask this to myself. As I identify key players, I would look at myself and say, "Okay, if we're in a room, if we got a meeting of 50 of our leadership team and the two or three of us, leaders that are running the meeting have to leave. And now somebody walks in and says, "We have a problem. We've got to take this. We've got to build a solution to this problem." Well, they're all peers. Well, Who's that? Who are the two or three informal leaders that step-up and take over? Are you that leader? Before you are the next leader and so that became my process to prevent what happened. And when I think back to that individual, he or she clearly was a great contributor and had some really great skills but they weren't the informal leader yet, they weren't the next level before they are the next level, there really wasn't a signature thing that they could call their own. They were beginning that process. And so I look back and I think, I was more excited about getting them to the next level than they were ready to get to that next level. And so I think that's where the process would have helped that situation because I would have had that conversation with him or her and said, "Listen, let's talk about your creative element. Let's talk about the next step. Let's talk about the additional responsibility." And then we would have talked about, "What's your signature element? What are the things that differentiate you from everybody else? How does your brand differ from everyone else's brand?" So I think that process is what I kind of put in after that. That difficult moment where we lost a really good individual.

Exactly. And you hit it on the head. And you've been on operations, you've been on the sales and acquisition side, entrepreneurs, business owners, when they bring on a client and they spend a ton of time and effort getting that client, they get them through the system. They onboard them then they lose that client. They immediately understand, I've got to put something in place. At some point along the way, I don't know if it's because we marketed to the wrong person. We didn't qualify that. That potential client or sale. We didn't figure it out. We didn't onboard them, right. We didn't set our expectations. They realize there's a problem in their process, but small business owners and even larger companies, they don't think in terms of people processes. You hit it on the head, which as you went through an experience, you lost a great employee who you spent time, significant money and investment on. And then you went back and said, "Where did we mess up?" And where you've kind of identified in your people processes cycle was there at the qualification stage, "Hey, before we put people into this position, we need to have a little process in place to say, do you meet these qualifications? And for leadership, you identified ways of getting there." That's outstanding. That's exactly what needs to happen. And that's why oftentimes, losing a client or losing an employee is the most important thing, the trigger for how you improve your company. When you lose a client, it makes you go back and go, "Alright, what did I do wrong?" The same thing should happen when you lose someone who you shouldn't. And you know who that is, that person on your team where you're like, "Man, I can't believe they quit and went somewhere else. Where did we go wrong?" Going back to that process is outstanding.

Absolutely. And if you think about true empowerment, is when people discipline themselves. And so for me, I think it starts there, the way you develop those processes is, I disciplined myself, I was more disappointed in myself. It's like, for example, at that time I was not at the most senior level, I went to the manager I work for and I'm explaining what happened. He's like, "Well, if he really wasn't ready or she wasn't really ready, we would have found that out eventually." And I'm thinking, though, it has nothing to do with that, I put them into position at the very least, we shouldn't have lost them at the level they were at. And so I appreciated them trying to be supportive of me but I was more disappointed in myself than he or she was with me. And I think exactly, I think that's the true sign. Are your people empowered to where they're disciplining themselves, where they're more disappointed in themselves? Because what ends up happening, you become the person who piles on as the leader, you become that person that helps them through that. Okay, well, what could you have done differently? But to me, it's always important when someone takes responsibility and ownership, it's okay, we make mistakes. It's okay, didn't work out. But do you own it? Do you feel as bad about that person leaving? Before you got to me, I shouldn't feel worse about that person leaving than you do as the person who put them in that position. So I think that's the thing I always look for, especially as the person making that decision. As an owner, are you more upset than that person left than the manager who was the direct report for that person?

Exactly. And it can apply to not just people but even operations. Same thing if you're looking at a subordinate manager and they let you know, "Hey, we screwed this thing up." And you are more messed up. You're like, "Oh, my God." This is a real problem and you don't feel like the person whose responsibility directly, his is emotionally on the hook for it, then it's like you may have the wrong person there. Someone needs to own us.