Leadership Insights for Manufacturers

Find out how Lenny Stahl’s leadership philosophy changed his entire company.

Building a great company is a marathon, not a sprint. In TANK New Media’s podcast, Manufacturing Growth, Krista Ankenman and team tackle growth challenges. In this episode, Krista talks with Lenny Stahl from Dakota Storage Building about leadership in the manufacturing world.

Seeking to Understand, Not be Understood

About four years ago, a friend told Lenny about Michael Hyatt, so he started listening to Hyatt’s podcast. That’s when Lenny heard about international leadership (aka servant leadership) for the first time. Up until that point, the only leadership philosophy Lenny knew was tyrannical — a top-down, “my way or the highway” style. As Lenny grew into his leadership role at Dakota Storage Buildings, he began to see that a dictatorship doesn’t work. Lenny started listening to more leadership podcasts and reading more books to find a better way of leading.

At one point, Lenny had Patrick Lencioni come to his business and do a seminar on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Lenny found it to be interesting and insightful, but most importantly, it opened Lenny’s eyes to the bad paradigms that were in place in his company. For example, Lenny’s nature doesn’t tolerate tardiness. So, when an employee arrived late, his tendency would be to lash out and show his displeasure. He wouldn’t pause long enough to find out the reason. Sometimes it’s a poor excuse. Other times, it’s significant, like getting word about a sick family member or a car accident. Often there’s more to the story.

Shortly after the seminar, Lenny learned about an online course from the author of the book, Leading Jesus’ Way. What Lenny thought was going to be a traditional online course turned into a roundtable discussion that included people from all over the country. While this nontraditional course seemed unappealing initially, it ended up being a nine-week course that changed Lenny’s life. His mentality shifted and his perspective on people morphed along with it. He learned that leaders must work on building their people, or the business won’t survive, and if people aren’t a priority, a toxic culture will develop.

From that point on, Lenny began investing in this team. It revolutionized how he related to his wife and children, too. It even impacted how he treated his vendors. Once proud of being known by vendors as a ruthless negotiator who didn’t have a strand of loyalty, his view drastically changed, and he quickly became embarrassed by his reputation.

Becoming a Mission-driven Business

Dr. Rick Culley, president of the Institute for Executive Development, said a company’s mission statement must address four quadrants: employee, vendor, customer, and investor. If those four quadrants are not addressed in how you conduct business, it’s not going to work.

As Lenny developed and began implementing his company’s mission statement and core values, he saw a decrease in internal drama and toxicity. In doing this, he gave his team clear purpose, vision, and expectations. While Lenny understands that his company will never “arrive” at a destination, and he will always be working to keep the team moving in the same direction, together.

While it’s easier to run a company strictly by policies and procedures, the people miss out. People are not machines; each individual has a heart and mind — and that’s what makes a company. So, when team members are not on the same page, they need a healthy and safe place for conversations. Lenny confessed that they never had internal conversations with employees. It just didn’t happen. However, with this leadership paradigm shift, Lenny is creating a safe place for conversations so that problems are no longer swept under the rug or dealt with in a passive-aggressive manner.

Lenny’s business coach told him to expect a total paradigm shift to take three to five years. Right now, Lenny and his team are going into their second year.

Greatest Business Challenges & Successes

Lenny has been with Dakota Storage Buildings for over 16 years, but about two years ago moved from General Manager to Co-owner/President. This change came with a mound of challenges, including a complete change in mindset. GMs tend to think differently than owners he quickly discovered. Even now, Lenny is learning how to put off old habits and develop new ones.

Another challenge is his ongoing work to change the way he leads the company with a people-first mindset. He’s learning how to slow down and treat employees like people, not like machines. That means pausing, listening, and offering a word of encouragement. While the purpose of this is not to expand the company’s wallet, when you develop people, you end up developing assets as well. It takes time to change a culture from push-push-push and go-go-go to one that encourages slowing down, breathing, and processing.

Another challenge that Lenny and his team are working through is becoming lean. Lean manufacturing improves efficiency, reduces waste, and increases productivity. This also opens the door for cross-training employees.

One factor that led Lenny to consider the lean business model was lack of labor. The labor shortage wreaked havoc on the production line. That’s when Kristen Dressler from Team Builder Recruiting suggested that Lenny take a serious look at the lean methodology. Lenny was so intrigued that he hired a consultant to create a lean plan that would eliminate waste at every step of every process. As with anything else, Lenny sees this as a journey for everyone involved, not a destination.

Looking Forward — The Future of Dakota Storage Buildings

Lenny is always asking questions; he’s always looking for ways to improve and be more efficient. He loves learning and being challenged personally and professionally. So, what does that mean for Dakota Storage Buildings? It likely means they’ll continue to experience the growing pains associated with all the challenges mentioned above, but it always means each employee will feel like respected and valuable contributors.

Lenny is currently reading through the book, The No Complaining Rule by Jon Gordon. This book highlights principles and actionable plans to win the battle against individual and organizational negativity. He’s also reading The Power of Positive Culture by the same author. It deals with culture-based negativity. Leaders should not allow negativity, complaining, or whining, but should deal with it head-on. Lenny’s goal is to implement positive feedback and assertive communication to grow a culture of helpfulness, positivity, and solutions.

Lenny plans to expand the company’s product line. But first, he plans to increase production and expand their footprint in their target markets. Ultimately, it’s Lenny’s goal to make Dakota Storage Buildings a household name.

Lenny has many more leadership insights to offer. To learn more about Lenny’s leadership philosophy, what he’s learning, how changes are going, and ideas for scalable growth, listen to the podcast episode, Encouraging Leadership: Insights from a Manufacturing Industry Leader. If you like what you hear, be sure to listen to Lenny’s other episode.

If you’re a manufacturing company like Dakota Storage Buildings and you could use some strategic marketing plans to complement your business plans, TANK New Media would love to help.