953: Steven Richman - "Milwaukee Tool"

🎥 Dec 31, 2021 📺 Lou Diamond ⏱ 18m 👁 433 views

Steven Richman was appointed Group President of Milwaukee Tool in January 2007, and is responsible for all aspects of the business, to include: Milwaukee’s Power Tool, OPE, Hand Tool, Storage, PPE, Jobsite Lighting & Clean-up, and Accessory solutions; as well as the company’s Empire Level, and Imperial Blade divisions. As such, Mr. Richman oversees Global Product Development, Manufacturing and Operations for each division, as well as Milwaukee® Sales in North and South America. He has over 25 years of experience in the management of industrial, electrical, plumbing, and retail distribution...

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About Steven Richman

In an April 2020 podcast appearance, Steven Richman, CEO of Techtronic, discussed the concept of balancing different areas of life, comparing work to a rubber ball that bounces back while other aspects are like glass balls that can be damaged if dropped. He also spoke about the importance of spirit over specific religion, stating that people need to bring their spirit to family, health, friends, and work. Richman introduced the idea of "two G's" — grace and gratitude — as essential components for one's spirit. He referenced a podcast from San Quentin prison as a way to gain perspective and appreciation for one's own circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Steven Richman's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (22 segments)

Narrator0:02

Would you like to learn from those that are taking their lives, their businesses, and their passions to the next level? Bestselling author of Speak Easy and master connector Lou Diamond is here to connect you to some of the most inspiring and amazing people on this planet. Get ready to thrive loud with Lou Diamond.

Lou Diamond0:38

Welcome everyone to another episode of Thrive Loud with Lou Diamond, connecting you to the most inspiring and amazing people that are thriving each and every day. I'm your host Lou Diamond. Today on Thrive Loud, we have the group president at Milwaukee Tool. He oversees global product development, manufacturing, and operations for Milwaukee's power tool, hand tool, storage, PPE, jobsite lighting, cleanup, and accessory solutions. Under his leadership, he has helped grow Milwaukee Tool into a true power tool player. See what I did there? Thrive Loud listeners, Stephen Richmond, Stephen, how are you today? I'm great, how about you? Truly honored to have you on the program for multiple reasons. Got a chance to chat with you before we hit record, but maybe even more importantly, I am a huge fan of what your company delivers. I used to be a big fan of the home improvement TV show, and every time they got a little geeky when it came to equipment, they'd go 'ho ho ho' talking like that. But yeah, your company lives and breathes that every day. So what I would love to do is kind of rewind a little bit for our listeners. Let's talk a little bit about what you've been focused on throughout this pandemic and the transfer to where we are today and coming back to the work, because every leader has had challenges across the organization. Our listeners would love to hear how you have led it at Milwaukee Tool.

Steven Richman2:01

Well, I think first of all you have to say there's two buckets. There's a left side and a right side, and the left side clearly always is the most important, and that's people and culture. So all of the leadership at Milwaukee Tool, we've been focused on our people: what do we do to keep them healthy, what do we do to keep them engaged, what do we do to keep them in a positive mode during this difficult experience that we've all gone through over the past 18 to 24 months. And then the second piece is how do you keep the culture alive? We view those as the two bookends to our success, and making culture a priority has been a challenge but an opportunity at that same point in time. So that's been one piece. The second piece is from the business aspect: it's been how do we keep up with demand and how do we deal with the supply chain challenges that our teams have been dealing with night and day, from our manufacturing folks to our engineers and our development team to our sales and marketing people, clearly the supply chain team along that path, and how do we deal with that with our component vendor community as well as our manufacturing teams. And those two areas have been all encompassing for the past 18 months.

Lou Diamond3:25

Well, let's ask about your leadership style during this unique change. Obviously many components of your business have been essential across the world, so there really was never a pause button, but obviously how you handle this, and I love how you're focused on the people and the culture and making sure everyone is well. But for you personally, how did you have to manage? What changes did you have to go through maybe to best adapt and to best communicate to your organization during this time?

Steven Richman3:56

Yeah, first of all I would say it's not about me and how I'm communicating. It's about how our leadership team really took this as an opportunity to say how are we going to pivot, how are we going to quickly pivot, and what are we going to change? Because at our company, we've been a face-to-face company for so long, where our engagement has been with our people in the field, with our people on the job sites, with our partners from NECA or PHCC or whoever that would be out in the industry, and our distribution partners. And we had to pivot, and that pivot was how does our IT team get teams up and running to a level that everybody is educated, everybody understands how to use it? How do we create an operating rhythm, especially in the first six months, to say how do we communicate to all different levels of the organization? How do we do one-on-one communication to key leaders? How do we stay aligned? And how do we do that with the outside world at that same point in time? And that has been our focus. Clearly the first six months were more extreme with the combination of that and videos and voicemails and communication to the team across the board that the entire leadership team really embraced in a significant way.

Lou Diamond5:20

What do you think your most important customers and partners valued the most from you and your leadership team during this transition? Something that I think maybe you know, this company continues to grow, we're going to talk about that in our next question. I want to understand a little bit about how your customers looked at what you did maybe differently that really took them and kept them front and center during a challenging time.

Steven Richman5:46

Well, I'd say the first thing was engagement. Our perspective upfront, number one, we didn't lay people off, so that was a big aha. And our people, we told our people it's not about saving a couple of bucks now like many of our competitors did, which said we're going to say you're working three days a week or you're going to go on unemployment. Our viewpoint was with our customers, both our distribution partners and our users, was how is our team going to find ways to stay engaged? So was that going to be one-on-one calls with all the senior leaders from distribution partners to users on a consistent basis? And our team made that happen. Was that the viewpoint that our field leaders at lower levels were going to have one-on-one engagement in that same kind of manner? And to make that happen, yes, it was. So they took it upon themselves to say we must stay engaged, and the question is market by market, customer by customer, how are the different approaches going to be able to accomplish that objective to make sure that they understood that if we're having shipping issues, if we're having delivery issues because of supply chain, if their users need more repair of product, then we're going to find ways to be able to solve those problems and stay aligned in a significant way to always be there for them.

Lou Diamond7:14

For those listeners who are picking this up right now, obviously there's a passion and focus on the customer. What you need to know a little background here is since Steve has come to the helm and running as the group president for Milwaukee Tool, we're talking something like triple digit percentage growth since you took over, which we could look at and he'll gladly, as you could tell, he'll give the credit to everybody in the organization because that's the type of leader he is. I want to start thinking a little bit forward. How do you continue to build the momentum and the success? As you're thinking about, I want to understand maybe as we're right here at the end of 2021 recording this, what you're thinking about for next year and beyond.

Steven Richman7:58

You know, it all still comes back to the two bookends of success. And our success is people, the best people. How do we recruit, retain, invest in the most diverse, best employees of any company that is in the marketplace? And we mean the best. How do we align that with our culture in a way that is significant? And then how do we turn that into a one-team mentality where everybody understands it's not about the little individual piece, it's about how do we come together to be able to accomplish those goals? And our leaders, and I'll say that is our leaders are what makes that happen. And the top-level leaders throughout the company, what they are working on more than anything else right now is that next leadership group. How do they take that next level of leaders and prepare them to take over their jobs so that that will free them up more and more every single day? And that's clearly a number one priority for us to set the stage for the continued kind of growth of 20% plus per year that we've had for over 14 years and continue it as we go forward. And that's extremely important. That's the beginning of anything that we do as a company and as a business.

Lou Diamond9:18

Steve, I love asking guests in the program this question because it gives a chance for our listeners to really understand and decode what makes top performers like you thrive. Obviously incredible growth since you've been in this company. People will look at your bio in the show notes and can see you've had a history of great experiences with amazing products throughout your career, which means on most days, Steve, you are thriving. But we all have our days when we're a little off our game, we're not quite kicking on all cylinders, the car is not starting right away, we're not really thriving. On those days when you're having a little bit of trouble, what practice do you seek or maybe which individual do you seek out to get yourself back on the thriving track?

Steven Richman10:02

Yeah, I think it's twofold to be honest with you. When I'm having one of those days that is not up to par, there's two things that I tend to do. One is exercise, and I'm passionate about that, relieving stress, get it moving me in the right direction. And then it's who I'm going to talk to. And there's two bookends really: there's my wife Jan, who's at one piece, we've been together for a long time now since we were in college at UCLA, so she knows me better than anybody else. And then there's our leadership team. That leadership team is talking to Ty on the phone, talking to Daryl on the phone, talking to Tim or Shane or Grizz on the phone, Jamie or Bill on the phone. All of those leaders, and being able to talk about what we're going to do, what we need to do, and bounce the concepts or the ideas or the viewpoints, or even letting me get my voice off to them. And I can be pretty passionate, so sometimes I need somebody that I can give that perspective to, and either Jan or them are going to give it back to me and try to level set me in those bad days. But they have, like you said, like anybody, they have.

Lou Diamond11:25

I like it. Let's do the admin part of the show and then we're going to roll down Fun Street. Share with the listeners, Steve, all the places people can learn about you, about Milwaukee Tool, where you want to send them, or anything you're looking forward to in the next month or so that's on the calendar that you're excited about.

Steven Richman11:40

Yeah, clearly go to milwaukeetool.com and go to our website and see who we are and see what the company's about. The LinkedIn aspect of Milwaukee Tool as well is powerful because it talks about the employees. The employees talk about what they have done, the success they're having, the new openings of our building in West Bend or downtown Milwaukee building or Chicago expansion building or a Grenada expansion in terms of our manufacturing facilities in Mississippi. Any of those, all of those are great sites. Personally, I have a LinkedIn, I put a lot on there and communicate on there. All of those tend to give you information on what's going on with a company that's given about solutions and productivity, and clearly our people are spectacular.

Lou Diamond12:31

You ready to roll down Fun Street with me, Steve? I know it's in you. All right, first of all, let's start off because you shared with me your all-time favorite movie. Can you share with the listeners what is yours, the one that connects with you the most?

Steven Richman12:49

Yeah, you know, if we talk about a serious movie, it's clearly The Godfather. And I think it also goes back to my wife and I have watched that together so many times along the way, and the family has watched it together so many times. The music, the sound, the acting, the professionalism, the story, and the multiple storylines along the way, it's a big piece of it. Now if I go to the other side, the funny side, Animal House is clearly a piece that I can never forget, first time that I saw it and the friends I was with. So it's both ends of the spectrum.

Lou Diamond13:31

That's spectacular, that's definitely range. By the way, I love that they've been airing on different cable channels the whole Godfather series, and I keep forgetting that they made a third one. I pretend it didn't happen. The first two are so good. I understand they like to bookend stuff, they probably made a lot of money. Okay, we're going to do the speed round here. And this is how this works, Steve. I'm going to ask you something, I want the first thing that comes to your mind. Most of these things lift you up, motivate you, make you feel good, basically they make you thrive. You ready?

Of late, a song that you love to listen to or maybe one that pumps you up? A favorite food that is not a dessert? A favorite dessert? An activity you wish you did more of? An activity you wish you did less of? If I could snap my finger, where would you be? And last question: when you first came to Milwaukee Tool, out of all the tools, what was the one that was the cool one? I know that's tough. Alrighty, my buddies from Traeger will like that. So you basically did the David Portnoy version for cookies. I like that. I love cookies, I don't know if I would have the dedication to do that.

Steven Richman14:11

Dream on. Still an old song, but it pumps me up. Ribs, Traeger-made ribs. Chocolate chip cookies. During COVID, I went around and did a chocolate chip cookie tour to every place that sold chocolate chip cookies, I'd buy one and bring another one back for the family to split to figure out what's the best. Play tennis. Being in meetings. Positano, Italy. The first one was easy because we didn't have that many cool tools. The first one was a saw. Not even a question. The power tools are all spectacular.

Lou Diamond16:24

By the way, my garage has a bunch of them. I'm not as handy as I should be, but I want to thank you for all the safety measures you put on these products. With that, Steve Richman, truly a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for coming on the program. And special shout out to Stacy Hunky who obviously has worked with the organization. Thank you again for coming on Thrive Loud. Thank you.

Steven Richman16:47

And another shout out to Stacy. Stacy and I have known each other now for over 24 years when she was at Bosch. And you talk about somebody who not only has grown but leads in a way and teaches in a way, she's the best for the best. No question about it. Great to hear it. Thank you for coming again on the show, my friend. Thanks, have a great one.

Lou Diamond17:08

And to all the listeners out there, thank you for joining us. And until next time, keep driving onward and upward. And remember: be brief, be bright, be gone. Sing, sing, sing.

Narrator17:41

You've been listening to Thrive Loud with your host Lou Diamond. Check us out on the web at thriveloud.com and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook at Thrive Loud. And check us out on the Goodpods app at Thrive Loud, where you can follow, listen, and connect directly to Lou and all of the Thrive Loud episodes. Thanks for listening.