Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Brice Sloan is the founder and CEO of Sloan Security Group (SSG), a company that delivers award-winning installations, designs, and maintenance for perimeter security. Established in 1991 and based in Boise, Idaho the company was named most innovative company of the year in Idaho for 2018.
Brice has a broad range of professional experiences from journalism to running several successful start-ups. He also has 5 years of diplomatic experience with the U.S. State Department under his belt. Some of Brice’s many specialties include off-grid technology deployments, government contracting, small business start-ups, and security technology.
If you’re curious how someone like Brice approaches strategic planning and goal setting today’s episode is for you. In addition, you’ll also learn Brice’s thoughts on key things like the importance of transparency, how to track goals into completion, and the emerging generation gap, among many others.
Resources:
Read the Transcript Here:
Welcome to the Construction Goals Podcast, where industry experts and leaders reveal the good, bad, and ugly about strategic planning. I’m your host, Santosh. We will dive into the who, what, when, and how of goal setting in construction projects. Most importantly, why you should care. Whether you’re a seasoned leader or a budding entrepreneur, you’ll discover something new in each episode about how to manage goals better in the challenging world of architecture, engineering, and construction. Let’s get started.
Santosh: My guest today is Brice Sloan, the CEO of Sloan Security Group the leading physical security integrator with customers such as Facebook, Uber, Department of State, Department of Justice and Department of Defense. Sloan Security Group has been recognized as the innovative company of the year in Idaho for semi contractor and has been recognized with this award as a best place to work in Idaho. Brice himself has been recognized for several innovations and tools including an innovative use of mobile radar systems to track animals crossing roadways to alert motorists. Brice has served in the US State Department as a Foreign Service Officer. He speaks Hungarian and Romanian and is a triathlete. Brice also comes from a line of at least 4 generations of contractors. Brice, what an impressive background and breadth of experience. I’m sure you’ve seen a wide spectrum of how goals are managed and I know this series is meant to focus on construction companies or the broader AEC industry, but I’m really looking forward to understanding your perspective on how this industry might compare to what you’ve seen in government areas. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
Brice: Thank you. I look forward to the conversation.
Santosh: Brice, can you first tell me a little bit about what a physical security integrator does and what motivated you to get into this particular niche?
Brice: You know, like a lot of what I’ve done in my career is very much serendipitous. A physical security integrator, in our case, help people protect critical infrastructure usually headquarters, dams, embassies. These are facilities where you have someone with a gun nearby. We help people help companies move vehicles and people in and out of their facilities securely. We help them design, build it and then maintain the system.
Santosh: That’s amazing and that sounds like a very specific niche. So, what’s your back story? How did you get into this particular niche?
Brice: Well, the amazing thing is that we started out in forestry which is as far away from security as you can possibly imagine. In fact, we are based here in Boise, Idaho, one of the safest places in the US which has ironically enough very little need for our services. The back story to this really began as the forestry industry went away, we got involved in wildlife and highway fencing then we ended up working at an Air Force Base securing a bunch of bombing ranges. We’ve been in the business 28 years and in 2004 we got involved in the missile defense program up at Fort Greely, Alaska. This is Central Alaska where they do the cold weather testing. We built out sensor platforms around the missile silos as they would come online. It was at that time that we showed some innovation where we invented a form of vacuum excavation with a hot water wand that transformed how people did excavation in sub arctic.
Santosh: Wow.
Brice: Because of the lack of organic matter and so within weeks, everyone had adopted, it wasn’t an innovation we could really protect. Other people adopted it and then ran with it. But from that point on we ran with the defense program which Boeing managed and then we went down to the US Mexico border in 2006. We worked with Boeing for what we called Secured Border Initiative and then from there we got involved in progressively more challenging technical security systems as well as entrance systems. What has really changed is how we got involved in the Silicon Valley, with Facebook and Uber is that you really have this type of equipment that anti-counter terrorism equipment for entrance controls that is being adopted by the private sector whereas before it was only involved with the military, state department and we are now very much a part of helping project manage and design systems that really emerged out of the DOD/DOS arena for use in the private sector. So, we are very much a part of that.
Santosh: Got it. So, Brice what’s the most surprising thing you’ve ever seen on a job site?
Brice: This goes back to my very, very early days in my construction career when I was a laborer. I was feeling grateful to be a laborer on a construction crew. We were filling up a water truck full of water and the breaks gave out! The truck drove right into the middle of the reservoir. Only the very top of the hood was above the water and the driver had to scramble out!
Santosh: No one got injured?
Brice: No one was injured but it was amazing to see that water truck basically submerged…
Santosh: In the water?
Brice: In water.
Santosh: I’m glad you could look back and laugh at that but at that time it must have been pretty harrowing.
Brice: Oh it was terrifying to see that and how little you could do to change the outcome.
Santosh: Right. Leading closer to the subject of our conversation, I wonder if leaders feel that they are just sort of troubleshooting or putting out fires. You work in an industry where there is literally life and death kind of scenarios happening. Do you feel that creates a mindset where there is very little bandwidth for strategic planning?
Brice: Given that our background in construction goes back 4 generations, my grandfather was a paving foreman and did a lot of excavating work. His grandpa was a laborer, when there was work. Then my own dad was a backhoe operator and then later a civil engineer project manager. I think there is a certain amount of inertia in construction that you do what’s worked in the past and you don’t mess with too much success until things get really bad.
Santosh: Right.
Brice: You go out, you try to win jobs you bid, you pray, you execute on the jobs you get and hopefully there is some leftover at the end of the day and you have a new truck.
Santosh: Right. Right. Right. So, I like to understand how you as a leader approach strategic planning and goal setting with your team. How often is this done, who gets involved, what kind of tools do you use? How does it look and feel in your life?
Brice: I wish I could tell you I had a magic bullet and that I’ve got this all figured out. Our process continues to evolve as our business becomes more complex and we have more components to our success. We are very unique in that we both manufacture some of our own parts and pieces as well as have systems engineering and flight engineering. So we have very vertical integration and a very multifaceted approach. Every year it feels like I have better information and we are better suited to take in that information and drive goals based on better information about understanding but, I am always looking for better ways of taking goals, communicating goals and from both the tactics of how do you it to how do I communicate it better, so it’s more understanding. In the past I’ve had goals that I’ve started to communicate effectively even if I had them people weren’t aware of them or hadn’t really internalized those goals as being significant. And I say this coming out of a leadership meeting when we were basically making sure everyone is on the same page and understanding what the goals were and having that transparency to give people as we were reaching an agreement on what our timeline was for goals for 2020.
Santosh: Right. So what tools do you typically use in this process, what have you used in the past that has worked well?
Brice: Obviously spreadsheets and we’ve got CRM tools. We integrate a lot of that data into a dashboard tool called Klipfolio. I’ve gotten better and better about creating goals that are more transparent. I think as I’ve become stronger as a leader I’ve become better by communicating and being authentic and saying the temptations of a CEO where sometimes you are choosing to have clarity over harmony, so having clear goals can mean a lot of vulnerability. As you are exposing this what we are going to try to do and we may fail to meet these objectives.
Santosh: That’s very interesting, clarity over harmony. So, do you feel that the process of articulating goals jostles people around and may create some disharmony for some time but then leads to clarity?
Brice: Certainly. I think that oftentimes contractors can be very much on the side of harmony. If you say this is our goal for next year (2020) you are very much putting your ability to project the future and as you said, in the construction world, there’s a feeling that the future is a little bit out of control. Missing some jobs & missing some bids can completely change your reality. I think there is a feeling that hey, “we’re going to bid jobs and do the best we can and that’s as far as we want to go and try to plan”.
Santosh: What are some examples of goals that you’ve seen either in your organization or working with other contractors of other companies? They may be good or bad I just want to get a sense of what are some examples of goals that you’ve seen people use?
Brice: I’ve seen the example of someone flatly using 10% profitability and in fact the result was actually the opposite. The higher the goals were the results actually got correspondingly worse.
Santosh: Interesting.
Brice: The results got worse with higher goals. There became more and more apprehension about making goals at all.
Santosh: Wow.
Brice: Another example where we are is we are building the maintenance operations support part of our business, which is very much based on technician and nonprojects. It’s really making sure equipment is maintained properly, that we have a goal of building this part of our business each year as reoccurring revenue and we are continuing to grow that. We’ve more than tripled the size of the business. But in this case, we really have gone at it in a very methodical way of how do we grow business? Who do we have to get that from? What are the actions, contracts, clients that we have to be successful and are we going to achieve this goal and grow this part of our business?
Santosh: Right. So, those are great examples and now if you look at the process and step back as a leader what do you like about goal setting? Why is it something you want as a leader?
Brice: Setting goals is giving your people something to really understand your expectations, so there is no mystery. Nobody has to wonder what does Brice want as CEO? When he talks to me what does Brice really think and what does he really want? I want to have it all on the table nothing unknown, complete transparency so that everyone can focus on really taking care of business and not have to wonder what the boss thinks. I want it to be completely transparent. It will take a lot of work to worry and wonder about what the expectations are if it’s not clearly laid out. So that’s the importance of having clearly thought through goals as it creates alignment in the organization and also let people really focus on their jobs.
Santosh: Wonderful. What would you like to change about goal setting as a leader?
Brice: As we grow, our business will actually double in size this year and I think now we are probably top 3 or 4 in our industry. With that, you have a cascading set of goals and it becomes really hard to manage. So managing those goals where are we off? What’s going on? Having a clear visibility as you cascade goals down further and deeper into the organization and how they roll up, having visibility into that is really important. How do they come together to give your company direction.
Santosh: How have you seen goals being tracked to completion? What works well and what are some challenges you observe about tracking goals to completion?
Brice: It gets complex quickly. You can do 10 goals, any more than 10 goals becomes complicated, you start getting spreadsheets. I use a dashboard to complete my goals currently and then I actually copy them on a spreadsheet or Google sheet document. Being who I am, I have a set of goals that is current and then I have another set of goals that is kind of after the first of the year type goals then I will replace the initial set with the new goals. But it’s complex and it’s not very interactive.
Santosh: So you would like it to be more interactive and simpler for people to really latch onto, is that right?
Brice: Absolutely. Yeah. Something that reminds them, prompts them, helps us renegotiate them if that’s necessary. So they always know what’s the goal, are we on or are we off track so they can really focus on doing the things that matter.
Santosh: Right. What are some ways that you as a leader or your teams have dealt with changes in priorities and how do organizations react/assist with your goals, do you adapt to changes and priorities?
Brice: I am very careful especially as we’ve grown. We have 85 employees that carry out a number of different roles from metal, we have a fabrication business, we have engineers, project managers and within that I am really careful that my change is incremental. It’s really easy to whiplash an organization by sudden changes in priorities. When I change priorities I tend to do a very gradually, more of a tugboat approach then all of a sudden we go from one priority to another set of priorities otherwise it becomes really expensive. I’m very careful that I don’t do that. I don’t think it’s good unless there is some radical reasons for the shift. Our changes tend to be very incremental.
Santosh: Right. That’s great. So that means that you have that kind of continued focus to avoid rocking the boat too much, right?
Brice: Yes. For example, one change we’ve had in our business is that we’ve really moved away from the east coast to really more of a west coast focus or west Mississippi particularly. That took place over 3 years to make sure we could serve our customers there but the market had really expanded in the west. We didn’t need to serve the east coast. We had partners that could serve them better but we took 3 years to really re-define our geographic impact.
Santosh: Right. Typically is it easy to communicate those kind of changes? Is there a fairly involved nuance, a ripple effect of such changes?
Brice: Once you’ve estimated, you’ve given proposals it can take years to fully carry out something like that because you have commitments you need to live up to. We have a leadership team that’s represented from across the company. We come together every 2 weeks to discuss what’s working, what’s not working and what needs to change. So these changes can take place over a number of meetings as we see what works for the company. We work together as a leadership team coming together to discuss that.
Santosh: Perfect. That leads to my next question. How does your team service the learnings and improve on your strategic planning process over time?
Brice: Our strategic planning each year I think gets a little bit better. We’ve got a learning group in fact we use StrengthsFinder, it’s a method used by Gallup. We do StrengthsFinder across the board for our leadership and management team. Learning is the second strongest attribute within our company and every year we try to get a little bit better, a little bit faster and with more ability to focus on what truly matters. I think that I would say each year we get just a little bit better.
Santosh: How do you see that incremental improvement actually happening? Walk me through the process, do you get together and say “okay this is the set of goals that we had last year and this is how we did”, how do you actually improve your ability to do strategic planning together as a team?
Brice: So once a month, we have reviews, kind of goal reviews. Every 3 months we have strategy reviews and then every 6 months we have a strategy theme review and revisit our strategy so that we know we are focused on what’s truly important. It really goes to 1-month goal reviews, 3-month strategy reviews and a 6-month deeper dive.
Santosh: Typically is that the time you are looking at metrics and operational goals or are you also looking at developmental and change objectives? Is everything together or do you separate those out?
Brice: We are looking at an operational and financial objective on a monthly basis. Every 3 months we are going through more strategy reviews as to where we are. At 6 months we have a deeper dive to make sure what are looking at the right thing.
Santosh: Got it. So one thing I’ve done with various leaders is try to have you look back at your organization. You can answer this with a perspective of your organization or what you have noticed in the industry or both, right? But if you could rank on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being excellent and 1 being completely not in place. What would you say is the capability of defining goals?
Brice: Our goal as an organization as far as our ability to find a working goal?
Santosh: Yep.
Brice: I think we have a ways to go. I think we are very good at creating financial goals. We are getting better at creating supporting goals, getting better at strategy goals so we are probably an 8 or 9 when it comes to the financial part. The strategic goals, I would say we are probably a 6 or 7. I think there’s a lot of work to be done there.
Santosh: And how about communicating goals? You eluded to before but if you were to put it on a scale of 1 to 10 again, how effective you would say you are?
Brice: At this point, I would say I am a 5 in terms of communicating them and getting better 5 to 6.
Santosh: Okay. How about tracking goals to closure?
Brice: We have a fairly limited number of goals. We are good tracking goals almost to closure. We are generally very good at completing organizational projects and we are getting better and better but it seems like when we get close to finish that we get distracted by the next set of goals and the process of setting up new goals. I think what we will do better this year is we’ll review the goals. On January 15 we are going to be reviewing what happened in 2019 before moving on to 2020. I think we are very good at leaping ahead rather than reviewing what happened, what went well, what did not go well or where do we want to see improvement.
Santosh: What could you do to improve your strategic planning process and your goal setting process. On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you say you are?
Brice: I think that we are probably a 6.
Santosh: Okay.
Brice: If you want to look at it in terms of our results we have been successful in terms of our growth and sustaining a competitive position in the market. There still remains a lot around creating better definition of what strategy means, what the product look like, how do we review it. We’ve gotten very good at parts of it but I would say the entire process is still pretty rough.
Santosh: Right. And this is pretty consistent. Like you said, most people don’t see that rise in the learning side, it’s a consistent drop from defining, communicating, tracking and learning but it sounds like even with that there’s an opportunity to move the needle in each of those areas. Again, from your perspective looking at the industry or looking at the organizations like yours, what are some benefits that you think an organization could see, tangible benefits, where the rubber really meets the road from moving the needle in each of those areas up a couple of notches?
Brice: Certainly. Now, you have to know that where I come at it, when I start seeing where we are right now in terms of the strategy process is that several years ago we effectively had no strategy process at all. We’ve moved the needle a lot in terms of putting things together and getting people on the same page. So, I think we’ve moved a lot. I think there’s still a lot that could be done.
Santosh: Yeah. So from your perspective as a leader, there’s a general understanding that this is helpful and good but it sort of falls low in priorities. Clearly you’re not alone in saying that on a scale of 1 to 10 across those 4 different dimensions, there’s an opportunity to move the needle what tangible benefits do you see your organization or other organizations having from moving the needle and putting in the effort to do that?
Brice: Certainly. So, I look at that in two different ways. One is it’s the competitive advantage of having alignment, having everyone working towards the same direction and that means that you know where you’re gonna be at the end of the day. You look back and say you know what, that was a good year and that satisfaction that comes with it and everyone pulling together in the same direction. We all love when we are part of a high performing team that has the same goal to win and just score and creating a system of keeping score. That’s a great feeling to be a part of one of those teams. Also, I believe that the companies that can make a difference, that you can put a finger on what makes their company more competitive and understand the business model and can really make a difference. These are the companies that are going to do better in a recession where the market changes and you’re able to see those changes, think about those changes and be able to spear company resources where the market is going strong. A great example of this is we have a local company that set up a light commercial remodeling company business division just a couple of years before the economy went down. When the heavy part of their business really died back, owners did a lot more remodeling a lot less new construction and that light remodeling part of their business really picked up and provided them a buffer through the recession. So that to me is a great example of effective strategy that really protected them in a recessionary environment.
Santosh: That’s amazing. That’s the tip of the iceberg, right? But that’s a result of a mature process that led them to define that strategy.
Brice: Yes. I see them as really a leader in the strategy side and they saw some softening in the market they said you know what, we see a need for remodels and improvements, they did that and they have been very successful. Now ironically, in the stronger market that part of the business has not grown as much. But during a downturn, it really gave them a lot of market share.
Santosh: So you mentioned that possibly a downturn makes this important but is there anything else which is happening in the industry now that would make goal setting and strategic planning more important for leaders and for companies?
Brice: Certainly. I think there’s the financial part of construction and making sure you work in capital and everything also your capacity is where it needs to be but there’s also the use of technology within the construction world and you really have contractors that fall in two different camps. Those that can leverage technology to make their business more successful and those that can’t. But technology and making good investments in technology requires a lot of alignment within organizations. Otherwise, it is really hard to adopt technology successfully. Everyone has horror stories about technology that they couldn’t get their people to use or implementations that just didn’t go and part of that is not having the clear goal setting and alignment to make that possible. To be successful moving forward you’ve got to know how you can embed and utilize technology in your business.
Santosh: What do you think about the generation gap which is emerging? Does that make technology and everything you just said more difficult?
Brice: I think they are getting alignment and that means bringing millennials in. You’ve got a generation of contractors, baby boomers that are retiring, you’ve got new generations replacing them. You’ve got millennials that are oftentimes driving technology whether it’s iPhones or otherwise drones, sensors, internet etc. and getting everyone to work together really requires a level of coordination and strategy I think that we haven’t in the past needed.
Santosh: Absolutely. There’s so many goal setting and strategy frameworks, there’s so much wisdom out there yet there doesn’t seem to be enough adoption awareness and some cases even interest. Do you think infrastructure leaders and project managers really need to actively implement in mature goal setting framework and make this a priority for them?
Brice: I think that again it’s the traditional model of very leader focused, defusing authority is really important. For someone to drive strategy you really need to get collaboration within the company and outside the company. This requires a level of collaboration that many construction companies aren’t familiar with in order to get everyone on the same page and really go to a goal setting that is meaningful throughout the company.
Santosh: That’s the nature of the industry now, right? I mean that level of cross organizational, cross functional collaboration, that’s not new, that’s been there for a while.
Brice: I think in the past people were very focused on doing things and making things and I guess it depends on where you are in the industry. I’m guessing in the part of your engineering architecture that it’s probably been there for a long time but especially in construction, in the heavy construction world that it has not always been there.
Santosh: Got it. So with the increase of design builds, we’ve seen more of that?
Brice: Certainly. Now you have the specialty of the construction world and what you have is contractors aren’t just installing equipment. You are also maintaining the systems on bigger projects. You’re also maybe a part of the design partnering stage, maybe designing equipment. You’re maybe working with an architect to design equipment that matches specifications whether it’s green specifications or custom specifications to match the branding on a project, unique branding. There’s much more design that goes into it and it’s more of a design partnership. In our situations, we are working with architects like Foster and Foster out of London to design a unique barrier system that matches the company’s brand that provides both architectural and security performance in this setting.
Santosh: That’s fantastic Brice. So, lastly what advice would you have for budding entrepreneurs in this industry?
Brice: I think the security industry is an exciting part. In some ways, productivity wise it hasn’t changed much since the 70s. You have a tremendous impact of technology with radar, drones, photography, web platforms and project management tools. You’re delivering a product that is very tangible. For entrepreneurs specifically in the construction space you are getting to do something very exciting which is make something very tangible that people see and that’s something that excites me with our business. I can see we made that, we did that, we contributed here. I love the impact and tangibility that we offer in an otherwise service-based economy where you can do a lot and not have something that’s tangible. As an entrepreneur coming into this I would encourage you to say, hey, “what’s the impact I want to make?” “What are the kind of people do I need to make my business successful?” And know that it could be mixed of hard skills along with soft skills… motivating, setting goals, communicating, and collaborating that as a contractor you could be part of a team working with them, collaborating with another group to create something much larger than yourself and that’s super exciting. That’s what gets me out of bed.
Santosh: That’s really fantastic. Great advice. Brice, I’ve learned so much from this conversation and I’m really grateful for your time and everything that you’ve shared. Thank you very much.
Brice: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Construction Goals Podcast. I’d love to hear about your experience with goals and strategic planning, or answering questions you may have after listening to the show. You can e-mail me at santosh@goalcheck.in, or visit www.GoalCheck.in to submit any feedback or questions. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks for listening!
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Construction Goals Podcast. I’d love to hear about your experience with goals and strategic planning, or answering questions you may have after listening to the show. You can e-mail me at santosh@goalcheck.in, or visit www.GoalCheck.in to submit any feedback or questions. I look forward to hearing from you.
- Subscribe on the platform you listen to most: Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or Stitcher
- Leave an honest review and rating on iTunes. Your ratings help people find this podcast, and I read each and every review!
- Leave a note in the comment section below.
- Share this podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.
