Jan 14, 2020
Cynthia Marquez: "Sometimes to begin a new story, you have to let the old one end." Author unknown. I am Cynthia Marquez and I am a Tri-City influencer.
Paul Casey: Keep reinforcing that everyone must place the common good of the team above their own agenda. If one area wins, the whole team wins.
Speaker 3: Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcome to the TCI podcast, where local leadership and self leadership expert, Paul Casey interviews local CEO's, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit executives to hear how they lead themselves and their teams so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success.
Paul Casey: Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Bob Wilkinson. He's the president of Mission Support Alliance and fun fact about you Bob is?
Bob W.: Let's see,, I'll go with I'm a big fan of candy corn. So some people love that, some people hate it. I got requested to have some desserts from my family, so I brought some cupcakes that are candy corn cupcakes, much to the demise of my daughters, who were very unhappy with that.
Paul Casey: I too am a candy corn fan. So we unite over that. Well we'll dive in after checking in with our Tri-City influencer sponsors.
Neal Taylor: Hello, my name is Neal Taylor. I am the managing attorney for Gravis Law's Commercial Transactions team. The CT team helps business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs accelerate and protect their business value. Today we're talking about employment law and alcohol and cannabis licensing. Josh Bam and Derek Johnson are both here with me now to describe those practice areas. Take it Derek.
Derek Johnson: Thanks Neal. I'm Derek Johnson, partner at Gravis Law. We find that many employers in Washington state simply don't have handbooks, employee policies, or any other written materials to protect themselves and their employees. Without having these types of policies in place, an employer can run into trouble by firing employees, even if the employee isn't properly performing or are causing issues at work. Even if an employer fire someone for performance issues, for example, but fails to take the proper steps, they may run into trouble by inadvertently exposing themselves to a wrongful termination suit. We build strong, predictable and protective employee policies to protect our client's business.
Neal Taylor: That's true. Thanks Derek. And having employment policies in place when you're dealing with cannabis or alcohol licensing is especially important. We know that clean employment policies, clean corporate structure, and having an attorney that can work with the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is critically important to protecting your business through licensing. The attorneys at Gravis Law have this experience. Visit us today www.gravislaw.com.
Paul Casey: Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities. Well welcome Bob. I was privileged to meet you at a Leadership Tri-Cities conclusion. You had come in, you had mentioned Mission Support Alliance had supported Leadership Tri-Cities and the class and you came in on the last day and you shared some leadership tidbits. I'm like, I want to interview that guy. So I remember that day.
Bob W.: I must have had some good notes given to me.
Paul Casey: Yeah so take us back a little bit. What did you aspire to be when you grow up? What's been your journey along the way to the positions that you're in right now?
Bob W.: It's interesting, I think my journey was a little bit by happenstance, but as I look back on it, it kind of ultimately fit where I really wanted to go in life. So my original career aspirations, like most kids my age at that time frame, was to play professional sports. And so-
Paul Casey: Of course.
Bob W.: Started off wanting to be a professional basketball player and height was a problem and had a significant influence in my life early by a high school football coach in a local community at Troxell, who really turned me on to football. And football became my passion. I went on to play collegiately and while I was in college, I was given the choice when I went from a scholarship to Montana State University, I met with the counselors about what career path to go and I said, "Oh I think I want to be an engineer."
Bob W.: And they proceeded to write down on a piece of paper how much it would take, time to take to be an engineer, plus go to practice, plus do all those things. And summed me up to 26 hours in a 24 hour day and I hadn't slept yet. So ultimately I went into general studies and started general studies, went to business, took a couple of business classes, thought I wanted to be an educator. Started to take a couple of engineering courses and ultimately ended up getting an electrical engineering degree. But in that process, and one of the things that... The second part of that, that I really always wanted to do was coach. I wanted to be a football coach, wanted to be a basketball coach, wanted to coach at high school and maybe even on a college level.
Bob W.: And ultimately I decided that money was more important to me than coaching at that time. Right, wrong, or indifferent. So my career started off in electrical engineering as a construction engineer. And slowly but surely kind of went from construction engineering, got thrown to the wolves right out of the gate, joined a group that had five or six project engineers that were running construction jobs and they all left in the first three months. So I was fresh out of college in charge of about $50 million in work scope that I really didn't know what I was doing. So I learned very quickly to rely upon a lot of people around me to be able to help me through that process, which was a big influence for the rest of my career to this point. And influenced a little bit from my dad.
Bob W.: So long story short is, that went into operations management and supervising and then eventually becoming more of a little bit of in the management and general management. And at the core, the thing that I probably enjoy most about what I do is I've come to the conclusion I really like building teams. And allowing teams of individuals, whether those are engineers or managers, or anything else for that matter, kind of centered around a common focus and executing to that common focus.
Paul Casey: The building teams part, was that from the sports or did you have some other lessons that sports sort of stayed with you and you bring to now leadership?
Bob W.: I think it's a little bit of both. I take a great deal of pride in watching people succeed at whatever they're succeeding at. Not everybody has the same trajectory or wants in their lives and not everybody brings the same talents to the table. The nice thing is when you can put them together. And I'll use it in a football analogy, when you have linemen, defensive players, offensive players, quarterbacks, receivers, but everybody's working to a common goal, it's truly impressive to watch. And I take joy out of that and I take joy in watching people do things.
Bob W.: It stems a little bit from me, my father told me when I was young and it has resonated with me for the rest of my life, is always try to get those around you that are smarter than you and more capable than you and let them be successful at what they are. And take every opportunity you can to learn from them. And so I've always attempted as best I can, no matter who I'm working with, for, or peers, or they report to me, to be able to find the highest, most talented people I can and help encourage them. And in the second time and then try to learn from them. Right?
Paul Casey: Yeah that's fantastic. Along your journey, were you sort of summoned into positions or to did you aspire to be promoted as you made your way up the ladder?
Bob W.: I would say I had interest in attaining the next level. I'm a highly hyper competitive person, so when I roll into a new role or opportunity, I'm always evaluating what it would take to be the person above me's role. I think that helps me provide them the service that they need to help manage up. But embedded in that, my opportunities in many cases stem from I've been a little bit young in my career in many cases into roles that I've moved into. And most of the roles I moved into for a period of time were roles that nobody else would take. They were troubled spots. I've had a couple of... One of my first plant manager roles that I was offered to take, the exiting plant manager that I was replacing, that he'd hired me into, told me I would be fired within a year. Not because I wasn't capable, because anybody that was in that role was not going to be successful.
Bob W.: So part of my journey has always been along the roles of we have a problem here and this is going to be nasty. And I was more than willing I guess to kind of step into it to try and make a difference. And really that difference in many cases just had to do with, back to the point of I've been very fortunate to have a lot of very capable people around me that I either reported to, that worked for me, or that I worked with. Right?
Paul Casey: I love that principle leading up that you said that you were always watching to see what does it take to do that job above you. And that's a great principle leading up for those that want to move up the ladder.
Bob W.: Yeah. For me, it wasn't so much necessarily to move up the ladder, but in order for me... If your boss isn't successful, you're probably not going to be successful.
Paul Casey: Very true.
Bob W.: At the same time, in order to make sure that I could meet my expectations, part of what I always try to analyze is how do I give my boss whatever they need? And or, how do I help my boss in their weak areas in some cases, right? Everybody's got weaknesses and how do I supplement those weaknesses to where they're not weaknesses for them? They're strengths. And so that's just something that I've kind of always attempted to do. Sometimes better than others, but it's something I've always attempted.
Paul Casey: Bosses love that.
Bob W.: Yeah. Sometimes.
Paul Casey: Well when you got in this position at MSA, what was your original vision and how has that morphed along your journey at the company?
Bob W.: Well my current position as the president at MSA has been interesting. I've been there almost now two years and so a couple of years before that I was offered to become the COO and at the same time was with my predecessor, the president of the company, Bill Johnson at that time and came into Mission Support Alliance. The reason, frankly why I was selected for the COO role was I was there to supplement his weakness area in that he hadn't been a long-term Hanford person, so he didn't know the Hanford landscape. But he was considered to be a very good leader and he is and was and one of the best individuals I ever worked for. So together, really what we came in to do was Mission Support Alliance is there to really to enable the other Hanford contractors. We're the supporting role to do all the things behind the scenes to really to allow the other contractors that are doing that critical high risk work to do that.
Bob W.: Being on the other side and being one of those other contractors at that time, one of the things that I think Mission Support Alliance was always struggling with was an understanding of truly what was needed on the other side to really truly enable them and be a true service provider. And what I mean by true service provider is not only give a service, but give a service in a way that they actually help them enable to do that. And so that was really what I aspired to initially as the COO and together as the president. And we made some adjustments, we brought some balance I think to people that actually spent time in the field and other venues with what I'll say, a kind of a commercialized approach to how to do that business and tried to meld those two together.
Bob W.: And I think we had some success with that. So when I became the president, it was really to kind of continue the journey of really enabling and streamline in that part of the process and continue with some of that momentum that we built. I was able to bring in a lady by the name of Amy Basche that I've worked with before, that's from the business side of the house, where I'm really heavily strong in ops, back to pick the right person for the role around you. And she's been an incredible talent that we brought on that's helped us really start to shift into the next phases of this larger Hanford landscape as the mission continues to now kind of shift focus into eventually doing vitrification.
Paul Casey: Yeah, I met Bill. Before I started doing this podcast, I did an old John Maxwell thing, which was take a leader to lunch and so I would do the same thing I'm doing now, asking questions to learn and grow myself. And Bill was the last one I think I had done that before I started the podcast and then the next month, he announced that he was leaving. And you were in that position of COO at that time. And he showed me in his office the... Was it an assessment that you guys took to what everybody's personality and strengths and weaknesses? Do you remember that?
Bob W.: Yep. Oh yeah. We use an individual by the name of Luther Johnson that kind of came in and really kind of did an assessment that really told you, basically from about two years, two on, what you really are as an individual at your root base. So when you're on your high, high stress, you go back to that root base. It really is the phase you're acting in now, but also the base. And so it was interesting. So there's the thinker, the harmonizer, a rebel, and a couple of other ones. And it was interesting. So the harmonizer is one that's really highly tied to emotions. And the video they show is basically a couple of people up on screen crying. And sure enough, I'm a harmonizer. So I'm sitting there watching this thinking, wow, that doesn't look like me. I don't remember crying like that.
Bob W.: But then we got into a little bit more depth about it's really about your emotions being kind of how you feel and what you do. And so anyways, Bill... Coupled with Bill, who's a strong thinker, who's a very logically based individual. And they start talking about the dynamics of how people interact when they have those different perspectives and they go on under stress. And so Bill and I were able to compliment each other very well there and it helped us give us insight on how to do that. Because Bill is very logical, very, very thinking, very smart. And of course I'm passionate about certain things, so we balance each other sometimes. And then sometimes we rotate it. So he'd always commonly joke that says, I just want everybody in the room to know that I'm the harmonizer today, not Bob. Right? So when he was being the nice guy in the room.
Paul Casey: That's funny. Yeah. I'll still never forget the answer when I asked him, "How do you achieve work life balance?" And he said, "It's the team I put around me." Which it sounds like that's your philosophy too, from what you've already said a couple of times today, is I know that when I leave work I can shut off. Obviously I can get an emergency call or whatever, but for the most part I know all my people are carrying out the mission. And that is my best secret to work life balance.
Bob W.: Yeah. And I think he's 100% right. I think in society we have a tendency to want to overload and within America, it's work till you drop. I think at some point you lose productivity if you don't have a fine balance of literally working and then having a balance of whatever your life is, to a degree, right? Whether it's your family, whether it's a hobby or whether there's having a balance. And I think a leader's responsibility is to ensure that they instill that culture by having the right amount of people and the right people in the right situations. And then making sure that you stay true to that.
Paul Casey: Yeah. Well let's go there. You mentioned culture, you mentioned teams. So when you build a team, you create a culture. I know that starts with getting the right people on the bus. So what are you looking for when you're hiring? How do you assess everyone's on the right seat on the bus? What are the values you try to instill? All that stuff.
Bob W.: Yeah so for me, I think it starts with when you go to hire somebody, you obviously need to make sure that somebody checks the blocks and has the skills that you're looking for. If it's an engineer, that they're an engineer. But that's really just I think a check in the blocks. For me, it's finding the right personality, the right type of individual that can interact and establish relationships and work in different cultures and climates and different people. And so to me, it's more the person, is who the person is, is more of a factor on whether they're going to succeed or not. From there I think it's when you get them on the bus, whatever the bus is that you're on. We all bring, even if we are a good relationship builders or good at working with other people and have a good skill set, we all have our natural tendencies, right?
Bob W.: Some people are really hard pushers, some people really need to digest information for a period of time before they can do that. And then it's really identifying that and taking advantage of that from a team perspective that allows that person to be the most successful that they can in that environment. I once had an individual work for me that was a strong thinker, super, super intelligent guy, and I got frustrated when I first started working with him because when I was younger in my career because I'd ask him for something and I'm a quick decision maker. I make decisions pretty rapidly, but he's not. He's one of those ones that really had to digest information and it took me a little while to figure that out.
Bob W.: But after I figured out that, okay, I can't give him something and ask him to give me an answer back in three seconds. It's not fair. He's not cut from that cloth. But if I give him something in advance and let him digest it and bring it back, usually what he always brought back to me was far better than anything I could have ever thought of. And so back to having the right people and then use them in the right situations. And that was a way to identify how to do that.
Paul Casey: Yeah, studying your people so you know how to custom communicate with them. That's good. That's good. How do you keep your people affirmed, inspired over the long haul?
Bob W.: That's a great question. I think that never ends. I think that's always ongoing. And I think that to a degree, it has to do with instilling value and purpose for everybody. Constantly evaluating that value and purpose, giving people a voice and allowing them to actually execute on that voice. So if you don't ask people for his opinions and don't allow people to act upon those opinions when you ask them and allow them to be successful, even though it might not be exactly what you wanted to do, you're probably not going to inspire them in a longer period of time to go off and achieve. And I think that is kind of an ever ongoing evolution that your kind of constantly evolving and constantly giving people opportunities and allow them to succeed in those opportunities.
Paul Casey: Yeah. So Tri-City Influencer, it sounds like giving people a voice really is critical for their full engagement. No one wants to get stale in their leadership. So Bob, how do you stay relevant and on the cutting edge in your industry and how do you foster innovation in your organization?
Bob W.: A couple of ways. That's a pretty round question or pretty large question. So I'll try to hit it in a couple of different areas. I'll start with the innovations. So we are in an ever evolving world right now that technology almost can't keep up with. We work in an industry that I work in with the department of energy industry that's highly regulated for a lot of reasons, right? There's a lot of hazards and you want to make sure to protect people. And those high regulations sometimes comes with a lot of hoops that you've got to jump through.
Bob W.: So part of ours for innovations is to make sure that we have identified the right innovation that we need to bring to the table that has the right purpose because the effort to go put that innovation in place is quite a large lift. But if you've got high talented people, which we have some very, very innovative people, we just need to let them, once again, tell them what's the right one... Or ask them what the right one was and let them tell us and then give them the backing to actually go do it. And so that helps them with the inspiration part.
Paul Casey: Yes.
Bob W.: Right? So that was the first part of the question. I don't remember what the second part of the question was.
Paul Casey: Staying relevant.
Bob W.: Staying relevant for me, from a leadership perspective and to me is I have always... I do a lot of reflecting on myself, probably to the detriment of myself. So I do a lot of reflecting and look at myself and then try to adapt or modify myself to continue to enhance my capabilities. But I don't look for radical changes. I think at the core is you got to know who you are as an individual and stay true to that, who you are as an individual. And then I take obviously leadership opportunities. I take some leadership classes and from those you get something, right? There's a little bit of something. So I always just try to find that little something, then maybe I can go make a change.
Bob W.: And then been back to the people around me, I learn a lot from those that I work around, watching how they do what they do well. Because frankly, I have leaders that work for me that are better leaders than me and in certain aspects and maybe all aspects. I have a great boss that I work with and I learn a lot from. So I take a lot of opportunity to try to learn from others and watch what they do well, as well as what they don't do well.
Paul Casey: That was fantastic. Every person and every opportunity is a learning experience. I used to be a school principal in another life and I visited 52 other schools for that exact reason because there was something to learn in each one of those schools that I... What is it? The R and D, rip off and duplicate? I think that's what it's called. A little R and D on those visits to make my school the best it could be. So yeah, learning is awesome.
Bob W.: The one thing I'd just like to add to that is I once went to a leadership seminar, it was women talking about leadership, inspiring leadership. And it was Carol Johnson from the local community that used to be a president of WCH back in the... Seven, eight years ago. And she said something that really resonated with me, is she said that she struggled to be a leader for a part of her career because she was trying to emulate her bosses. And her bosses were strong minded, strong willed-
Paul Casey: Totally different style. Yeah.
Bob W.: Yeah totally different style. And she just wasn't doing very well as a leader in that. And she finally realized that in order for her to be successful as a leader, she needed to be who she was. Which she's a very empathetic person, makes you feel very comfortable, very good with relationships. And she finally shifted to that. And she said that then she finally realized who she was and what her strengths were and stayed true to her strengths and tried not being somebody that she wasn't. And it worked well for her. She had a very good career and she was a really good leader and so that resonated with me a lot.
Paul Casey: Yeah, authenticity and staying true to your strengths. Well hey, before we head into our next question, asking Bob what a good day is for him, a shout out to our sponsors.
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Paul Casey: So Bob, what makes it a good day for you personally? When you look back at the end of the day and you go, it was a good day. What kinds of things went on in that day to make it a good day for you?
Bob W.: To me it was a good day is feeling like progress was made. I'm a very progress oriented person that I got to see something move forward. Sometimes that's a little nebulous on moving forward so and obviously finishing a project, making a progress on it. But to me, even more so is watching the excitement and folks being proud about what they do to deliver whatever that is. Watching the individual complete their task and in many cases watching a leader be successful with their group to show growth, to show accomplishment, back to that almost that coaching and that kind of that coaching, that teamwork part of it. Those are really important to me.
Bob W.: And then probably one of my best days is finding out well after something's gone a long time ago to talk about legacy and leaving legacy, about seeing somebody be successful that you had some positive influence on that may have been years and years past that now you're watching them in their career and in their role do well. Or acknowledge, hey, I just did something that you told me I could have done a while ago and look, I just did it right there. That is... It's almost-
Paul Casey: Like a proud papa.
Bob W.: It's almost like a proud papa kind of to a degree, But it happens a lot. Right? And so you just never know the legacy that you leave behind with you. And I think to me, that's an important part is to make sure you left things better than when you came in.
Paul Casey: Yeah. Because leadership is hard. So those moments where you get to relish in seeing someone in their sweet spot rock something with their team, is a very fulfilling leadership.
Bob W.: Leadership is a very up and down heartbeat type of a role, right? There are highs and there are lows and there are everything in between. And so you got to focus on the highs when you have them and try to minimize those lows, whatever they happen.
Paul Casey: All right, let's go behind the scenes in your life. Here are your best habits and your worst habits. Mr introspection.
Bob W.: I don't know that I have a good habit. I'm not so sure. So I think my good habit is probably that I recognize to a degree that I am average. So I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. I didn't get the best grades in school. I'd call myself a mediocre leader when it comes top to bottom. And I think I share the fact that I recognize that and use that to my leverage to allow other people to be better in those areas is something that I try to resonate and be proud of. Be humble about, to recognize that I'm not better than somebody else.
Paul Casey: Yeah, I was going to say humility is what you're trying to define.
Bob W.: Yeah. Yeah. And so my bad habits, some of my bad habits are... Geez, I've got a lot of them, right? I like to eat too much. I still eat like I'm a football player in college. I struggle with my weight. So my wife reminds me that I'm... She would define it as passionate about certain subjects that sometimes I really dig into and am hard to get off that subject. And I have a great wife and great daughters and great friends that remind me when I'm off center on something. With a baseball bat sometimes across the head to remind me that I should not be that way. So that's probably my worst habit I would say, minus my eating.
Paul Casey: So since you're introspective, do you have your own personal growth plan that every year you either re-up or modify or anything like that?
Bob W.: I don't know that I do. I don't have a written personal growth plan. I clearly have items that I am always striving to decide where I need to improve upon and evaluate. Being the reflective person that you called introspective, I think I drive my wife crazy in that I have a tendency when I know I have a big conversation coming up the next day with somebody that's going to be a potentially a controversial one, a hard conversation, I will play that conversation out in my mind before the conversation 55,000 different ways.
Paul Casey: That's called rehearsing.
Bob W.: It is to a degree. If this happens, this individual might react this way. I mean do they do that? And then on the backend of it is... And I drive some of my team nuts sometimes too is... And I'll do it off today too, is when I walk out of here after this podcast and this conversation with you, I will process this podcast and I will dissect it six ways to Sunday about where I did good, where I didn't do good, where I could've done something, said something different. I should've done that right. Oh I did this pretty well. And so my reflection is almost real time and never ending, which is I guess maybe a bad thing. Sometimes it's hard to get out of my own head when it becomes that. But that's just how I've always been.
Paul Casey: Yeah. The good thing is everything's worth evaluating. Anything worth doing is worth evaluating. So that's the good part. The bad part is that rehearsing in your head-
Bob W.: Stop the evaluation.
Paul Casey: Yeah. At what point do you just go, all right, it's over? How about a favorite quote? Do you have a favorite quote?
Bob W.: No, I don't know that I have quite a favorite quote. But I have up on my wall, one of the presidents, and I can't remember off the top of my head which one it is now, that really talked about the man in the arena. It's called the man in the arena if you look it up, right?
Paul Casey: Roosevelt I think.
Bob W.: Yeah I think it was Roosevelt. And in summary, it kind of goes along the lines of there is always those that are on the periphery of things, but not willing to step in the fight. But the man or in this case woman or person that's willing to step in the fight and have that move forward is really the true winner. And so to me is and it stems back to these roles that I've taken is, there are always those that are willing to sit on the periphery and throw rocks and stones at everything you do. But the people that I really admire are the ones that are willing to step in the middle of that arena and attempt to make it a difference. Right? To go off and try to do something to make things better. And so for me that's important and that quote resonates with me a lot. So I can't... It's about three paragraphs.
Paul Casey: I think it's whose face is marred with dust and blood or something in that one. I'll have to put that in the show notes. I'll dig it up. How about a book that every leader should read?
Bob W.: I like Maxwell books just because they're simple to read.
Paul Casey: Me too.
Bob W.: I like the 21 laws.
Paul Casey: Classic.
Bob W.: To me, I'm a simple digestive information and if you get things too technical, it just goes right on top of my head. And that one you can pick up, you can easy to resonate with, you can get your mind wrapped around it. For me, that one resonates well with me. I think every one of them you can learn from. It just really depends on what you like. Right now I got the General Mattis books, right? The Call to Chaos and I'm just getting into that. But I find him to be an incredible individual and somebody that I've always seen to be very forthright in how he talks to the point of being blunt, but in a way that doesn't offend. And so I think that establishing trust with people is willing to have a hard conversation and a hard dialogue to tell them the honest truth, which in society right now, today, in some cases people don't like, don't want to have honest truth conversations.
Paul Casey: True.
Bob W.: Or they can't have it in a way that doesn't completely offend the other person. Right? And so I'm kind of finding that one pretty intriguing and pretty interesting right now.
Paul Casey: So if you left a letter on your desk for the leader who came after you, there's going to be a day. All of these contract renewal things, right? There's going to be a leader that comes after you. What would you put in that letter to that person?
Bob W.: I think it would start with just trust yourself and trust the people around you. We in society sometimes have a tendency to not want to trust people around you or think that people are doing something with ill intentions. And I've said this and I say this to our company a lot and to our folks in leadership, that nobody comes to work or nobody does anything on a day with intentions of causing ill harm.
Paul Casey: Right.
Bob W.: They come to be successful and do something successful. So trust those around you, that they have a noble intention.
Paul Casey: Some positive intent. Yeah I love that.
Bob W.: Yeah they have a noble intention and then encourage them to attain that and give them the backing to allow them to do it and stand back and watch them do it.
Paul Casey: Mm-hmm (affirmative) any other advice you'd give to new leaders or anyone that wants to keep growing and gaining more influence?
Bob W.: I don't know that there's ever a new leader. I think you always in your life are always leading in some way or another. Whether you're trying to lead your sibling into a game or lead your parents into making a decision to give you McDonald's or whatever the case is. So my thing to new leaders is don't be afraid to be a leader. Don't be afraid to step up and take the assignments and don't be afraid to take the hard assignments. And then take every opportunity you can to learn.
Paul Casey: Good stuff. How can our listeners best connect with you?
Bob W.: Oh boy. Well I obviously am a Tri-Citian and I've been here most of my life. I work out at Mission Support Alliance. We're in both the Hanford system as well as in the Tri-Cities. You can hook up with me on Facebook or on LinkedIn. I'm a lot more active on LinkedIn than I am on Facebook. My wife, I let them do the Facebook stuff for me. I should probably do it more often, but I'm in both those LinkedIn and Facebook space.
Paul Casey: Yes. Love LinkedIn. Well thanks Bob for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place and keep leading well. Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend. Started a new aspect of my business called leader launcher. Leader launcher is for emerging leaders and young professionals who want to go on a leadership development journey. And so it's a monthly, two hour workshop on one leadership proficiency and then in between the months seminars is a mastermind group where you get to apply what you have learned with other leaders here in the community. So you can go to leader-launcher.com to sign up and hope you'll be a part of that community.
Paul Casey: Again, this is Paul Casey. You want to thank my guest, Bob Wilkinson from Mission Support Alliance for being here today on the Tri-City Influencer Podcast. We want to thank our TCI sponsors and invite you to support them. We appreciate you both making this possible so we can collaborate to help inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence. It's an Albert Einstein quote. "Try not to become a man or woman of success, but rather try to become a man or woman of value." KGF, keep growing forward.
Speaker 3: Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org. for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life or your team forward.
Speaker 3: Paul would also like to help you restore sanity to your crazy schedule and get your priorities done every day by offering you his free control mind calendar checklist. Go to www.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool. Or open a text message to 72000 and type the word growing.
Paul Casey: Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast was recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies.