Travis Klassen 0:00
Travis,

welcome to the value Creators Podcast, the exclusive Insider PodCast for the Klassen group. This is where we talk about how we create value, how we work lead and grow together and real stories from across the Klassen tree. I'm your host, Travis Klassen, whether you're in a machine at a desk or on the move, we're glad to have you on the Klassen crew. In our last episode, we introduced the idea of value creation, why it matters, and how it shows up at Klassen. But strategy alone doesn't build great companies. What really shapes a business is how people behave day in and day out. It's about how we treat each other, how we build trust, how we take ownership, grow through feedback, and show up for the team when it counts. This four part series is about the principles that guide those behaviors, the ones that hold us together when things are moving fast, and the ones that help us build something that lasts. Today, I'm sitting down with our CEO, John Mark Ferguson, as we take a deeper look into what we call the Klassen code. Okay, we're concluding the conversation on the Klassen code, once again, still in the van down by the river, and thanks to thanks to Chris for our recording studio.

John-Mark 1:19
If you see a van rocking, at least not,

Travis Klassen 1:24
oh boy. We're talking about the values in the code, and this will be our fourth and final episode on this one, at least this time around. Obviously, assuming this podcast continues, we'll continue to loop back on these ideas. So value number four is we own our freedom and responsibility. Do what you say you will do. Freedom to act comes with a responsibility to own outcomes. We strive to understand what needs to be done and execute it with diligence and care. We communicate proactively when we face challenges. We are empowered to act and accountable to learn. So what does freedom with responsibility look like?

John-Mark 2:09
I really like this value. I think there's it probably reflects on my part of my inner being of I desperately want freedom. I want to be able to act, but then I need to be held responsible, right? I can't run around and do anything I want, and so I have freedom to make decisions and on some things and but I'm also responsible for those right? If the decisions are poor decisions, I need to be held responsible for that, and I will own it, right? But this, this whole idea, is that human beings are made with with good, sound minds, and want to do a good job, generally, like when you're on a sailboat, generally, you want to ease your sales for more power. And I always have this vision of people need more freedom to kind of get more power blown into them. But that's weird, but this whole idea of like when, generally, when you have more freedom, you can use it really well. Sometimes that freedom is dizzying, but generally, people do amazing things when they're they feel free. And so I freedom comes with there's a lot there. You're not You're not encumbered by lots of things, and you're supposed to act you're not worried about what the other person, the rest of the team, thinks of you. They've got your back. Sure. That's also part of this freedom.

Travis Klassen 3:35
Right now we're in Episode Five, and that's the first sailing analogy that you've used as an experienced sailor. I definitely thought there'd be more of that coming. Maybe there's yet to come. I've been holding back. Actually, I'll bring a picture of your boat so you can you can remind yourself that's great. So freedom and responsibility, but freedom to act, the responsibility to own the outcomes. What about this idea of communicating proactively when we face a challenge?

John-Mark 4:10
This is something we'll definitely get better at, so that's why we're stating it here. We companies will get, from time to time, hit by things such as, there was COVID we've had in the last five years, we've had floods, fires, pandemics, it's been a rocky road and and we had this incredible team that dealt with all these problems, and we were trying to get ahead of it, even these tariffs. There were rumblings recently about the tariffs, and we tried to get out ahead of it and communicate with customers and with our team inside that, hey, we've got this. This is what's happening. This is what we're doing. Right? People are really concerned, and rightly so. And so we're trying to communicate with us. I probably have a proclivity to not as communicating as much as I should, and so this is just good for me. Good reminder. Me to continue to over communicate, where I would rather sit and and observe and watch and think than communicate. So,

Travis Klassen 5:09
yeah, I mean, that's part of the responsibility, I think the accountability. And you know, for as many years as I've been here, 25 or so, communication is the number one theme we talk about, you know, what can we do better communication? Like, oh, here's Klassen matters, here's the podcast, here's an email, here's the thing, here's a text message, communication, and I guess that's the same in any relationship, yeah, you know.

John-Mark 5:35
So how did communication go in the meetings, the safety stuff you just had?

Travis Klassen 5:39
Oh, yeah. I mean, like I said in an earlier one here, like we, we circled up everybody, 35 people in Abbotsford, 25 people in West Kelowna. That brought the Penticton team over another 12 or 15 in merit, and a bunch in Delta, like these. This, this team of people, as long as the opportunity is given, there's feedback and and so many good ideas come out. And like, when we talk about, like, I think I had seven minutes of content to share, and I said, then I'm gonna shut up and just listen to everybody. You guys know what we need to do and, and all our people need is the opportunity to share from their experience. Some of these, some of these people have worked here for 40 plus years. Some have worked in the same industry or similar industries for 40 years in other places, and they literally do know ways that we've tried and failed, right? So communication is this. We think communication is not we, but traditionally, businesses think communication is this, output one way. Okay, we have a message. We're going to spread the message. But communication is a dialog, and it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a participation between both people involved or groups of people to hear what there is, you know, so it went really well. I'm I told everybody at the end of each meeting, like, how blessed we are to have a team of people that is bought in, that's showing up for these safety meetings. You know, that's not necessarily the way people want to spend their time, that a lot of these are operators and truck drivers, and it's like we want to get in and do our job. But you know, to see everybody so engaged in the in the business, in this, in this invested in the success of the business and speaking the same language. I mean, I was inspired every time. Yeah, that's so awesome, yeah. How does this code in general, we've talked now about four values, valuing people, being honest and continuous improvement. And now talking about freedom and responsibility, I mean each of them kind of have that interplay with each other. I guess, before I move on to sort of the holistic part of the code itself, looking at this one word, it's just standing out to the accountability. And I think this is this speaks to this value of freedom and responsibility. But it also says we're putting ourselves out there right now with these episodes, with with publishing the code, with sending it out to everybody, we're saying, hold us accountable to this. So how does that? How does that look?

John-Mark 8:17
We are we're sharing this. We're talking about it. We are looking for buy in and then feedback. We want to be told where we're not, where we're missing the mark, and we will. We are committed to be excited for that feedback. There's no, no need for any of us to take offense. We will be thrilled for the feedback, and we own it. We do want to get better. And so, yeah, we're excited for your feedback. Excited to hear all the places we can do better, sure that we'll continue to do so.

Travis Klassen 8:47
In an earlier episode, you actually said, I love the way you put this, to accept feedback with excitement and courage, yeah. So what else you want to do? I mean, that's right, if someone shows up and they're, you know, generally, that type of feedback comes often with some emotion, yeah, right, somebody's fired up and ready to talk, yeah. And I love this excitement and courage hit me. What do we got?

John-Mark 9:12
Yeah, yeah, and like, and we should continue. This Is Us searching it out we want, and we will also go out and ask for more. And so thanks in for your future participation in that. Everybody,

Travis Klassen 9:25
yes, everybody, as you hear us talking, this is literally the conversation starter podcast. It's not about again. One way communication, our cell phones, our emails are published everywhere. The Support Team. You can contact anybody, your managers, our supervisors everywhere, is, is like, get this stuff and talk about it. That's what we're looking for.

John-Mark 9:48
Yeah, yeah. If you haven't heard about this stuff, talk to your manager, yeah, ASAP, and get him to find the stuff and start talking to you about

Travis Klassen 9:58
it. Yeah. That's really cool. Absolutely. Ly, and we will continue to find ways to spread this. I mean, we've effectively committed to becoming evangelists for the Klassen code and the four Ps and the way we do business, because if we focus on this stuff, we know we can scale totally. This is the foundation. This is the West is the foundation. This is the way. I love that one little Mandalorian throwback there. This

John-Mark 10:21
is the way on the tune was. It kind

Travis Klassen 10:25
of like I see that screaming sound.

John-Mark 10:27
Yeah, it's some really special instrument. I remember looking it up, but I can't, you can't remember it offhand. I'm

Travis Klassen 10:34
gonna, I'm gonna rip it and put it in the podcast. Q tune.

John-Mark 10:38
I'd love to get a seasoned assist from Disney. That'd be great for this. Yeah, if

Travis Klassen 10:43
we reach that far with this little internal podcast, well, something's working well, so the code like holistically. Now we've talked about those four values. So how does this code, as the foundation connect to the pillars and then the roof, or the ceiling of value creation?

John-Mark 11:04
Yeah, I think the I would just, I view the code as the foundation. The pillar sit on top of the foundation, the four P's, and then the roof structure has this Keystone in the middle. It is the customer, right? And then it has the two sides to it, right? We have, yeah, the employees and the shareholders. It's all part of it. And the first things first, if we lose customers, the whole thing falls, right? So let's roll over. The whole thing goes, actually, because you can't do any of that if you don't have a customer. But so, yeah, that's, that's kind of the visual image, we'll, we'll have some documentation to help, or visually to help with that. But sure, yeah, that's kind of how, yeah, and

Travis Klassen 11:48
there's, there's always that, there's, I'm always looking at some new, something new that's been drafted up that we want to share. And we'll continue to do that to sort of support and communicate this stuff. And we even talked about putting some of this stuff on T shirts and inside truck doors and, you know, just in neat, discrete areas of like, Hey, this is what we're doing here. And then further to this, we're talking about how to use, how we're planning on using this code, and again, kind of to bookend what we talked about in the first episode of this series. We all have a culture. The culture exists as is, where is today. What our attempt here is to do is to continue to bolster and improve that culture. So how do we use this code in hiring, in performance management, in development of our people?

John-Mark 12:32
Yeah, great question. The this code is what we want to use to retain, train and develop all the people in the company, right? And like, I think, in the onboarding process, people interact with this, they get trained in this way. And if they, if they deviate from this, we don't want that person to be on the team very long. And we then the people that do have these values, we want them to continue on and can continue up through the organization, right? And so yeah, it just, it's, yeah, that's why we have it here. We're asking for accountability and asking, do people want to participate in this company that has these values?

Travis Klassen 13:13
That's right? Yeah, and you're in your right. Retain, train and develop is how we we use it. It pertains to us, so we're ready, like you said, excited and courageously ready for that feedback. And then also, if we if this, if contraventions, best word I can think of against this code come to light, we'll have a process to talk about it, right, and people who are ready to adapt and improve their their various behaviors are welcome. We love that, the humility that comes with that. But there is a path or a process for people who who don't, and we, we don't want to go down that path if we don't have to, but we will doing it. So is there anything in this code that really resonates with you? I mean, I saw your eyes light up when we talked about freedom, because i freedom, because I know for years you've told me about autonomy and like people crave autonomy is totally right, just didn't understand it. In this concept, in this context, is anything really jumping out for you right now that you would connect with and hope to take away

John-Mark 14:22
the the Yeah, the the, if you, if you look at these things and you think through it, you're like, oh, man, I want to be a part of this company. Yeah, freedom, yeah, that's that's always near and dear to my heart. I, I love that the continuing, continuous improvement. One is always just like, Yeah, of course. Like, that's what you want to do. You want to try things. You want to give you want to be able to have the courage to do something in the grit, to see it through and and then just keep going. And like, on this foundation, I think we can really build something incredible. We've all. Already built something actually very incredible, and not very many people or companies are bigger than $50 million a year in Canada. Wow. We are a very small percentage of all the companies in Canada, and we're we have big aspirations, and we want to go a lot farther from here.

Travis Klassen 15:20
That's it for this episode of the value Creators Podcast. If this is your first time tuning in, make sure to check out previous episodes. Each one offers a unique look at how we create value together, one conversation at a time. On behalf of the support team. I'm Travis Klassen, thanks for listening. We'll talk soon. You