Kevin Hancock of Hancock Lumber: “Leadership power is meant to be shared and dispersed; Everyone is sacred, has a unique voice and an essential perspective to share”

…The main lesson is that leadership power is meant to be shared and dispersed. Everyone is sacred. Everyone has a unique voice and an essential perspective to share. Leadership is at its best when everybody does it.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Hancock, CEO of one of the oldest companies in America. Hancock Lumber was established in Maine in 1848. Today the company grows trees, manufactures lumber for global distribution, and provides building materials and construction services for contractors. The company has 550 employees and is a six-time recipient of the ‘Best Places to Work in Maine’ award.

Kevin is the recipient of the Ed Muskie — Access to Justice Award, the Habitat for Humanity Spirit of Humanity Award, and the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award.

In 2010, at the peak of the national housing and mortgage market collapse, Kevin acquired a rare neurological voice disorder called Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD). When his own voice became weakened he developed a new leadership style based on strengthening the voices of others. He is now a champion of a work culture where everyone leads and every voice is trusted, respected, and heard.

Kevin is a frequent visitor to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His first book, NOT FOR SALE — FINDING CENTER IN THE LAND OF CRAZY HORSE won three national book awards. His next book, THE SEVENTH POWER — ONE CEO’S JOURNEY INTO THE BUSINESS OF SHARED LEADERSHIP is scheduled for release in February 2020.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you share a story about what brought you to this particular career path?

Honestly, it’s not a career path I ever planned for — even though others watching me may have predicted it. I was born into a family business. Our company, Hancock Lumber, was established in 1848 and I am the 6th generation of my family to serve as CEO. Growing up, however, I never really contemplated coming to work for the company. I wanted to be a teacher and a coach and I immediately pursued that path after graduating from college. Three years later my dad, who was CEO at the time, was diagnosed with cancer. When this happened it caused me to rethink my plans and without much forethought, I joined the company. I was 25 at the time. Six years later my dad passed away and shortly thereafter I was running our company. There was no training or educational preparation. I kind of just got thrown into the mix and figured it out as I went along.

Can you share the most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career?

In 2010, at the peak of the national housing and mortgage market collapse, I acquired a rare voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia that made speaking for extended periods of time difficult. I suddenly had to learn how to lead without talking a lot. When it’s hard to talk you develop strategies for doing less of it and my primary strategy was to answer a question with a question thereby putting the conversation back on the other person. So someone would come up to me at work with a question or a problem and I would respond by saying ‘Well, that is a good question. What do you think we should do about it?’

Initially, this conversational approach was simply a voice protection strategy but over time I began to notice something very interesting: people already knew what to do. They didn’t actually need a CEO-centric solution to the vast majority of challenges they faced in the course of a day. People already knew what to do. Although I didn’t recognize it at the time, this was the beginning of a very different approach to leadership that I came to embrace based upon the notions of shared leadership and dispersed power.

A couple of years later I began traveling from Maine to the remote Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota — a place I have now been over 20 times. There I encountered an entire community that didn’t feel heard — that felt left behind and marginalized. The combination of my voice disorder and my time at Pine Ridge helped me realize that there are lots of ways for individuals or communities to lose a piece of their voice in this world. That’s when I began to see my own voice condition as a blessing and as an invitation to lead differently in a way that strengthened the voices of others.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey to becoming an author? How did you overcome it? Can you share a story about that that other aspiring writers can learn from?

Writing was something that I actually embraced when putting together my books — NOT FOR SALE: Finding Center in the Land of Crazy Horse (2015) and The Seventh Power: Once CEO’s Journey into the Business of Shared Leadership (2020). For obvious reasons, speaking was a huge challenge during this period of my life so, when I wasn’t able to say what I wanted, being an author really offered a safe haven for me. When I write I can describe what I’m thinking, feeling and experiencing in great detail, unlike my current reality. It actually proved itself to be pretty therapeutic.

Although I enjoyed drafting my books — there were three challenges I had to overcome. First was taking the time to write because I already had a full-time job as the CEO of Hancock Lumber. I would schedule some of my day but sometimes the words just wouldn’t flow. During those periods I had to be willing to walk away even though I had reserved the time to write. At other times the opposite happened. I was scheduled for other work but suddenly ideas for the books would just hit me. During those magical moments, I learned that you must write even if it’s inconvenient for your schedule. Next, I found it surprisingly difficult to stay disciplined during the editing process. It takes a great deal of patience and a willingness to thoroughly review an entire book over and over again. You get to the point where you are so over it you don’t want to change a single world. My final challenge was finding a publisher who admired my work and respected my own voice. You should be prepared for a lot of rejection. I like to remind people today that it only takes one single publisher to like your story and change your world.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I have made lots of mistakes along my journey. Most of them are not particularly funny because, as a CEO, mistakes are real and they almost always have an impact on others. That’s been one of my biggest and harshest realizations — what you do (and don’t do) directly affects tons of people.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

My biggest work initiative has been to change the very mission of our company from lumber to people. Our company grows trees and manufactures lumber for global distribution. We make trusses and other wood-based construction components. And we retail a full line of building materials for residential and commercial construction. That’s what we do and we aspire to do extremely well but that’s not our mission. Our mission is to add value to the lives of the people who work at the company and to make sure that they are having an engaging and personally rewarding experience. We want to be an employee-centric company that sets the flywheel of corporate success in motion at the point of the employee experience. As a result of this work we have been a ‘Best Place to Work in Maine’ for six consecutive years and our engagement scores, as defined by our employees through surveys, are near 90 percent while the national average sits at about 33 percent.

Can you share the most interesting story that you shared in your book?

Honestly, every story in my book interests me. It starts on a travel adventure that begins on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and ends in London, England by way of Kiev, Ukraine. It was a journey I never imagined taking. To give one example, my time in Kiev was quite interesting. I went there to interview two of the last remaining survivors of the Holodomor genocide (the forced starvation of millions of Ukrainians by the Soviet regime in 1932–33). There I interviewed Hanna Soroka and Mykola Onyshchanko thanks to the help of the Holodomor Victims Memorial. Both Hanna and Mykola were small children when the Holodomor occurred. Their stories of survival were overwhelming yet inspiring. That particular chapter focuses on the phenomenon of leadership ‘over-reaching’ as well as the resiliency of the human spirit. Across time, those who have the most power have often gone too far. Over-reaching ultimately however collapses back upon the people who do it.”

What is the main empowering lesson you want your readers to take away after finishing your book?

The main lesson is that leadership power is meant to be shared and dispersed. Everyone is sacred. Everyone has a unique voice and an essential perspective to share. Leadership is at its best when everybody does it.

Based on your experience, what are the “5 Things You Need to Know to Become a Great Author”? Please share a story or example for each.

First, you must write for yourself. “Great artists work for themselves,” as the saying goes.

Second, you must write from the heart. Stories must be authentic and writers must be vulnerable in order to deeply engage readers.

Third, you must write the stories that only you can tell. Stories that if you don’t write to them, they never get written.

Fourth, you must test your work before you publish it. Have a selected group read extended segments of your work so that you can get their feedback before the story is set and hardened.

Fifth, you must be willing to cut and delete — you must be willing to let major pieces of your work disappear. Pushing delete on a book section long in the making is hard to do but necessary at times.

What is the one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a great writer? (i.e. perseverance, discipline, play, craft study) Can you share a story or example?

Vulnerability. I bare my soul in my writing. To do this I always pretend I am writing just for me and that no one else is ever going to read it.

Which literature do you draw inspiration from? Why?

I like non-fiction. The truth creates amazing stories.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I want to revolutionize the place of work in the 21st century so that work becomes an exceptional experience for the people who have dreaded it traditionally for so long. I want to implement, perfect and spread the idea of creating employee-centric companies where the first priority of the organization is the people who work there. Adults in this world need a place to find their voice, know their worth and self-actualize and I believe the workplace can serve as just that. In this new type of company, profit becomes the outcome of a higher calling.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

The best way to reach and follow me is through my website at www.kevindhancock.com. On that site, you can simply ‘click’ and follow my blog. Also, you can message me directly on that site and, when you do, I will respond. In the 21st century, readers decide what gets read. My readers are an extension of me and I of them. They wouldn’t finish one of my books unless there was common ground there. As a result, engaging readers is a priority of mine. You change the world, one person, at a time, starting with oneself. I love to hear from people all over the world who have read my books. Responding is both a pleasure and an important obligation.