Lumber and Leadership
I recently went one on one with Kevin Hancock. Kevin is the CEO of Hancock Lumber Company, one of the oldest and best known family businesses in America. A recipient of the Ed Muskie Access to Justice award, the Habitat for Humanity Spirit of Humanity award, the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen award, and the Timber Processing Magazine Person of the Year award, Kevin is also the author of The Seventh Power: One CEO’s Journey into the Business of Shared Leadership.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though,what is the seventh power?
Kevin: The Seventh Power is you. The Seventh Power is me. The Seventh Power is the celebration of the individual human spirit. I learned about this concept during one of many trips to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A friend there was describing the symbolic meaning of the Lakota medicine wheel. That wheel is known to honor the “six great powers” (west, north, east, south, sky, and earth). But at the center of the wheel, this young man told me, a seventh power also exists. The message is that while we are all impacted by our external environment, we all each impact the world around us as well. The Sioux know that everything that exists is related. If anything is sacred, everything is sacred. The Seventh Power is the recognition of the innate sacredness that dwells within us all.
My book is about the benefits and the necessities of creating organizational models that honor the Seventh Power by allowing everyone to lead and be heard authentically as they are.
Adam: What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Kevin: Two in particular standout. First, in 2010, at the peak of the national housing and mortgage market collapse, I began to have trouble speaking. It turns out I had acquired a rare neurological voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia (SD). As a CEO, my voice was often my primary tool and suddenly I could not depend upon it. I quickly had to develop a new set of strategies for leading that invited others to become the collective voice of the company.
Second, in 2012, I began traveling from Maine to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. There I encountered an entire community that did not feel fully heard.
The combination of these two events created five personal learnings.
First, through my own voice condition I came to understand what it was like to not feel fully heard.
Second, at Pine Ridge I realized there are lots of ways for people to lose a piece of their voice in this world.
Third, I concluded that perhaps the very purpose of a human life on earth was to self-actualize—to come fully into your own unique and never to be repeated voice.
Fourth, unfortunately across time, leaders of established organizations had often done more to limit, direct, and control the voices of others than to liberate them.
Fifth, that’s when it occurred to me that my own voice limitations were an invitation to create a new leadership model that strengthened the voices of others and that as the CEO of a lumber company in Maine I had the opportunity to not just think about this possibility but to act on it.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Kevin: These are great questions for which there is likely no single answer. Leadership must be authentic to each individual leader. That being said, I believe that the defining qualities of an effective leader are self-awareness, humility, and the ability make others feel trusted, respected, valued, and heard.
In order for leaders and aspiring leaders to take their leadership skills to the next level they must turn inward and learn to focus on themselves. Leaders are used to looking externally and focusing on the behaviors and actions of others, but real change only comes from within. As Gandhi said, it’s about becoming the change we wish to see in the world. Therefore, perhaps counterintuitively, leaders need to worry about others a bit less and themselves a bit more. This understanding is actually a liberating one. For example, our company has 525 employees but as CEO I don’t have to be responsible for the actions of all 525. I need to be responsible for the actions of the one—me. Getting myself right is a pretty full time job but I have consistently found that the best way to help others is to focus on myself and be what I would like to see.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders? Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?
Kevin: My three best tips would be:
Lose the ego. You job is a role you play. Your identity as a sacred human being must transcend work.
Get out of your lane. When I first came into business 30 years ago, the practical wisdom was to focus, focus, focus on the narrow needs of your specific industry and business. Today, I believe that businesses and their leaders must see their roles more broadly. The purpose of any organization should be to advance humanity and uplift the human spirit and condition.
Listen for understanding, not judgment. The purpose of listening is to help others feel authentically heard.
Adam: What are the best lessons you have learned from leading a family owned business?
Kevin: There have been many. First, it’s much harder than it looks for every generation. Our company began doing business in 1848 and I’m part of the 6th generation of my family to work for the company. Each generation of company leadership must reinvent the business for the age in which it is operating. You can’t rest on what happened in the past.
Second, the most important goal for the members of the family connected to a family business is self-actualization. Each family member should pursue their own goals and aspirations. No family members should feel that they should sacrifice their identity or ambitions in order to ‘serve’ the company. Also, identity within the family should not be determined by who does what within the business.
Finally, what I love about a family business is the intimacy. A family business at its best is a very intimate place for employees and customers. The owners are visible and accessible and care deeply about the institution and the people connected to it.
Adam: What are the best lessons you have learned from leading a company that was founded in 1848? How has it stayed in business and continued to thrive for more than a century and a half?
Kevin: I like to say that the first key to being a 6th generation company is to have started a very long time ago! When you look at the oldest family businesses in America many of them are in New England and they are connected to natural resource based industries. In this sense, our company was lucky. We are based in Maine and we work with the state’s amazing natural forest resources.
I think we have stayed in business because the family has always been committed to the long-term best interest of the company and because we have always highly valued the people who work at the company. Finally, we have stayed humble. We recognize we have had a lot of luck along the way and that the past is not a guarantor of the future. You have to show up and earn your future every day.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Kevin: That’s a big question. When I first joined the company back in 1991, there was a picture of me in the local paper. In that picture I was wearing blue jeans and a Hancock Lumber sweatshirt. The next day my dad (who was then CEO) called me to say that he loved that picture because I was wearing blue jeans. “Never take your blue jeans off in this business,” he told me.
He had taken his off in favor of slacks and suits and I think he regretted that a bit. His message was right on. Our business is a blue collar industry. We are working with logging contractors, truckers, carpenters, mill workers, and so forth. That’s the heart of our company and industry. I have always worn blue jeans to work and remember my dad’s advice to this day.