Piloting Success: B.J. Slater’s Shift from Aviation to Entrepreneurship

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Casey Cease: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Casey Cease show. This is Casey Cease with my friend today, BJ Slater. BJ and I our friends met in Chicago at strategic coach and have really enjoyed getting to know each other the last couple of years. And I find his stories very interesting, his background in business and his life before that as a pilot, he’s in a family business which I think I know a lot of my listeners are in or around family businesses and know the joys and complexities that can come from such endeavors.

And I know I’ve consulted with a few family businesses over the years. And [00:01:00] there’s a lot of interesting dynamics that can take place in that environment.

And so BJ, I’m really glad to have you on the show today. Why don’t you just take a few minutes and introduce yourself to the listeners and then we’ll dive in. Okay.

B.J. Slater: Sure. Thank you so much for having me here. Great introduction. Yeah, my name is BJ. I grew up in the Chicago area, grew up kind of around our family business. We make water soluble fertilizers. So we basically package up these dry powdered fertilizers and send it out to greenhouses and whatnot.

And that’s been our family business for three generations. So I’m, I’m one of the third generation members of it. But I grew up coming with my dad to the business and working on the machines with him and doing all the stuff with him and the whole time wanting really to have nothing to do with it.

My head was in the clouds, I wanted to go fly airplanes or do other things when I was a kid. I didn’t really think about it as a career choice, but as I got older I knew I wanted to do something [00:02:00] technical, something, you know, aerospace related. I started out in aerospace engineering at Purdue University and then was one of the freshmen who switched out of engineering after the first year and went into aviation technology down there.

They turned out to have a, fantastic aviation program, which was very lucky cause that wasn’t what I originally went there for, but it turned out to be a wonderful school for that. And I had a whole, you know, I got all my certificates and ratings became a flight instructor, did all that stuff.

So many stories that I’m sure we’ll get into before eventually coming back to the family business again. And this was many, many years later, decades later, I came back to the family business joined my cousin as our parents were retiring. Got into the family business and went through this almost like a culture shock where I was used to being out in a different industry where people knew me basically for who I was [00:03:00] professionally.

They didn’t know me for who I was as a teenager or as a kid. And I came back to this family business environment and had that experience and also realize that a lot of my experience outside of family business was really helpful to me. And a lot of the aviation stuff, even though aviation and fertilizer have nothing to do with one another.

A lot of what I learned was really applicable and really helpful. And some of it was more along the lines of how I think about things, how I look at problems, how I interact with people and communicate things of that nature. We’re coming up time and time again. And so in my time with the family business where I’ve now been here 10 years, 10 and a half years I found that I’ve been reaching out to other, you know, I’ve, been involved with other family businesses.

I’m a member of the entrepreneur and family business council of Chicago. Which is a great organization of family businesses in this area [00:04:00] and through them have met with lots of other small business owners and family business owners. And I’ve seen a lot of the same dynamics that I was experiencing here over there.

And so I’ve just started to realize that. I have a lot to share, and so I’ve been through that organization, been able to kind of connect with people and, share some of what I’ve learned and some of my experiences and realize, oh, that, felt kind of good to do that. I really enjoyed, you know, being able to do that and help out in that way.

And so I’m starting to dabble in doing that more and more, which is how we ended up here.

Casey Cease: And I can’t wait to dig more into your stuff story, you know, it’s pretty typical for kids if they grew up in a family business to want to have very little to do with it, especially if they were put to work under the loophole of child labor laws for parents and to want to spread their wings and do something differently because, you know, I mean, like you said, you had an interest in aviation and flying and you went off and did that for several years.

So tell us a little bit about your flying career. And I would love to hear just how [00:05:00] that progressed. And then we can dig further into how you ended up coming back home and joining back up with the business. But let’s talk about the flying career. You, You went to school, aviation technology became a pilot and then you went out and started flying.

So let’s go through that.

B.J. Slater: I started out in West Lafayette, Indiana at Purdue. Went through my certificates and ratings. Generally the first job as a commercial pilot that you get once you earn the additional credential as a flight instructor is you become a flight instructor and you train other new pilots as they, come in.

And so I did that and a lot of people, a lot of pilots kind of view that as a kind of a necessary step on the career path to build experience. Most of them take it very seriously and they, see it as a, way to develop their skills and a way to sharpen their flying abilities.

Unfortunately, some of them kind of see it as just a way to build time until they get to the airlines and get a real job. I fell in love with it, I had no idea that teaching other people was something that I [00:06:00] was going to become so passionate about but it was just sort of that idea of, you know, one flying is usually something when someone is learning to fly, it’s usually something they’ve wanted to do for a long time.

And it’s usually something they’re pretty passionate about. And so when you get to help someone do that and achieve that, that’s exhilarating. And so I was kind of hooked on that feeling a little bit, but also just the process of breaking down complex information in a way that people can understand and helping them.

Grapple with the nuances and grapple with both the knowledge and the skills and kind of put all that together. I really enjoy that process, I really enjoy that kind of work which is something I discovered along the way. And I became a flight instructor, is actually in July of 2001. And obviously in September of 2001, we had the September 11th attacks which were [00:07:00] terrible for all, many reasons, so many reasons.

But it was also the start of one of the worst airline job markets for a long time. So I also had to remain a flight instructor for quite a few years. Which again I am, I actually enjoyed. So I did it for a long time, I think I ended up graduating 75 students at one level or another from private pilot through multi engine flight instructor at one certificate or rating level or another which is a lot.

And I had about 2,000 some hours flight instruction given, loved it. And then the airlines weren’t really hiring other jobs were kind of hard to come by. So I decided that I wanted to find another unique opportunity. And so I ended up applying for jobs up in Alaska to fly out in the, the Western Villages of Alaska, out in the bush out there and eventually landed one of those.[00:08:00]

So, moved up to Alaska for a few years and I spent the first part of that flying out of Bethel, Alaska and a Monica, Alaska. Which are two small villages and basically was flying a seven seat airplane where we were sort of the village taxi cabs. So we took the people around, we hauled the mail, we hauled cargo boxes, whatever needed to get around.

The airplane was the only way to do it. So that’s what we did and it was a lot of fun. Flying up there was kind of the wild west. And it was uh,

Casey Cease: I’ve watched life below zero, I’ve I’ve watched life below zero. the show, right? So I, feel like I understand exactly what you went through and I don’t think people, especially down here in the States especially down here in the South where I live, understand like what cold is until you look at Alaska.

And so you go from teaching student pilots how to fly planes and get certified to fly [00:09:00] planes to taking a job, being a taxi up in Alaska for these cities. So like, do you have any interesting stories that I’m sure you have several, but any of that pop up that, kind of really help you kind of tie up some from that period of time that helped teach you some leadership lessons from it?

B.J. Slater: There there were a couple, the the main one is this was at a time and in a part of the country, a part of the state of Alaska in particular, where pilots we’re often under a lot of pressure to bend the rules. You were expected to fly airplanes that were overweight, you were expected to fly airplanes that were out of balance, meaning that the center of gravity was too far back or too far forward.

Things that are strictly speaking illegal and also unsafe, but you can usually get away with doing them. And if you do them often enough you can kind of get a feel for how to do it without getting yourself into too much trouble. And so the accident rate in Western Alaska [00:10:00] during this time period was pretty high as a result of a lot of these things and a lot of these practices.

And so, what I found is that a lot of the time I was having to turn down flights or to refuse requests to do things that I wasn’t comfortable with. And you know, I had like station managers pull me aside and say, I know you’re new here, but when you become more experienced, we’re going to expect you to do X, Y, and Z.

And I just kind of smiled and I said, sure, whatever, you know, and knowing that, like, legally speaking, it’s the pilot who has the final authority there. And I kind of approached that whole experience from the standpoint of, you know, this is kind of an adventure for me.

I want to do it, but it’s not worth risking my career, it’s not worth risking my life. I’m not going to do it, you know? And so, a lot of it was actually learning how to say no [00:11:00] at a lot of different ways and also finding support because there were other, you know, you were with other pilots and they understood the pressure that we were often under. And I don’t want to characterize that everybody was this way or that every operator work this way, that certainly isn’t true.

But there were certainly individuals where know, you would face that kind of pressure and you’d have to be willing to stand up for yourself and be willing to say, no, I know what’s right and wrong. I know what I’m comfortable with and I’m not going to do what you’re asking me to do.

And that’s, you know, honestly, learning to say no is a really crucial leadership skill. Um, I find time and time again.

Casey Cease: No I, I mean, really when I first started doing the consulting and coaching side of things, you know, when I was in ministry, you know, everyone, especially when I was a Pastor, expect you to say yes all the time. But really it’s you begin harming yourself and other people by over yessing everybody.

And so, what I had to learn to do is start with no and say like, okay, what are my criteria for actually saying yes. Now, when it comes to things that are illegal or [00:12:00] unethical or unsafe, I can imagine that, you know, them wanting you to push the limits is profitability for them, but it’s a lot more risky for you up in the air.

And so, the importance of learning as a leader to say, no, it’s there. I believe it’s Henry Cloud and Townsend, they wrote a book called boundaries. And one of the key things that stood out to me from their book was, unless you learn to appreciate a person’s no, you will never really value a person’s yes.

And so, thinking through as leaders, the importance of balancing our yes’ and no’s appropriately, I think it goes back to our own individual core values and the core values of our organization that we have to really align with what matters. And Your core value was probably one, don’t break the law and even more important, don’t die.

And so, you, had your no, even though peer to peer wasn’t fun. It wasn’t, it was important. So talk to us a little bit about the transition. Okay.

you go from, I don’t want to work in the family business to I’m going to go to Purdue, I’m going to study [00:13:00] aviation, I’m going to get it become a, you know, I become a, a trainer for pilots to I’m up in Alaska and everything else.

What began the process of actually coming back home and starting up, you know, actually coming back to work?

B.J. Slater: There was a very particular moment after I had left this first company that I was working for in Alaska, I had found another job, flying uh, as a co-pilot first officer on a DC three, which if you’re familiar as a, an airliner from the 1930s and forties. This particular one was a super DC three that flew out of Anchorage.

And it took people to basically fishing camps and lodges and whatnot in different parts of the state. And, we had a flight where we flew out and landed on the bank of a river intentionally, that was our destination. And we let off the group of people that we had, taken out there and we picked up the last group that was coming back from [00:14:00] their trip and we’re going to bring them back to Anchorage.

And we took off from the, Sayu River and we were flying back to Anchorage and we flew over Prince William Sound on a absolutely gorgeous day, the sun was shining, the glaciers were gleaming, I’m in my favorite airplane of all time. I mean, these things are so rare, and I had an entire summer to fly in one hundreds of hours.

I got to fly this machine, get to know it. It was a bucket list item that I never thought I’d get to check off. And I had a whole summer to just immerse myself in it. And it is the most gorgeous scene out the window. And I realized in that moment that I’m not going to top this, that my Alaska adventure has peaked and I’m ready for the next challenge, I’m ready to do the next thing.

And one of the drawbacks to being In Alaska is that it’s darned expensive to live up there. And it was, I I was kind [00:15:00] of ready to, you know, I’ve always had an inclination to go into business. I had, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit and I wanted to kind of pursue that next and see where that led.

So I began by basically applying for jobs with larger companies that were based in other places outside of Alaska. And then I ended up working for one that was a FedEx feeder. So they’re a regional cargo carrier for FedEx and other companies. But I ended up getting involved in their cargo operation, started out at the Anchorage base and then ended up transferring to their headquarters near Spokane, Washington.

And when I was there, I actually moved into management and they had an opening in their program for the head of the safety program what they call the safety director. With my degree from Purdue, my past experience and everything else I took a shot. I was, you know, they hired me.

I was the youngest person on the leadership [00:16:00] team by about 20 years. And I had been in management kind of at the flight school I worked at before, but this was kind of, this was a huge step after only working for the company for a year or so.

And it was an outstanding opportunity and I learned so much and got to put to practice all the things I’d learned in school, all of the human factors training that I had been teaching pilots all these years, all of the the system safety and safety management systems, all the stuff that I had been steeped in up to that point actually got to kind of road test it and actually see it work in an organization.

And so, you know, these pieces start falling into place where first I started with this love of Aviation and then I had this love of teaching that came with it or fell in next to it. And then I developed this kind of love for this sort of the psychology of it, the human factors of it. And now I’m discovering this kind of organizational safety or organizational performance [00:17:00] piece of it. Which is really kind of where my decision to pursue a business degree came from.

So while I’m in management here at at the airline, which is again out and on the West Coast, I start my MBA program and I, you know, do two years of a executive MBA. I get that done. The intention at the time was to probably, it was to put on my resume and then hopefully seek other positions within the aviation industry.

That was, I guess, the plan at the time. And then in the middle of that, that’s where the opportunity came up My cousin, who’s now my business partner, had been working at the family business for quite a while. He knew that our parents were getting ready to retire, and although he was running the sales for our company he knew he needed someone on the operations side.

And so, he invited me to come partner with him and buy the business from our parents. Which again, kind of, [00:18:00] serendipity struck and I’m like, this seems like the right opportunity at the right time. So after, I don’t know, five years in Washington and that was the five years where I met my wife and we got married and all of that.

We ended up moving out to the Chicago area. And this first time I had been back home since I had left for college. And so that’s how I ended up back in the family business. And that was probably about the fall of 2013. So just

Casey Cease: Was that a, Was that just a no brainer for you? Like when your cousin approached you, did it click and was it immediately like, Oh, that makes a ton of sense. I definitely want to do that or was there any tension along the way?

B.J. Slater: There, there was some tension in my mind, it clicked probably a little faster than it should have.

Casey Cease: Why is that?

B.J. Slater: should have been a little bit more tension,

Casey Cease: do you think, Why do you think that’s the case?

B.J. Slater: I think because I’m a really optimistic person by nature. And so I think when I saw the opportunity, all I saw was the upside, like, Oh, this would be great.

It’s like, I’ve always wanted to run a business and here’s a [00:19:00] business. And they’re like, you know, it’s not, you know, I’m not inheriting it, but it’s basically mine to it’s already operating and it’ll essentially pay for itself. And then, we can do what we want with it. And I was focused on just the upside and totally ignoring the fact that there’s a lot of family dynamics involved.

And there’s a lot of other stuff involved and quite frankly, all of the human factors piece of it that I had been so focused on earlier in my career. I was totally ignoring at this point. And so, I thought, oh, this is a great opportunity. And my wife, who is smarter than I am especially in these situations said that’s true, but you have a complicated relationship with your dad and now you want to go essentially work for him until he retires.

And there’s a lot of things to consider, there’s the cost of moving, there’s all this other stuff. And so, there was, tension we kind of worked it out and essentially what we did is we negotiated back and [00:20:00] forth until we came up with a plan where my wife and I were comfortable moving across the country and relocating back here to take this on and to tackle this and that’s, where the adventure started.

Casey Cease: Yeah, what is it they say that the first generation started, the second one grows it and the third one destroys it? is

kind of the, the rule of thumb with family businesses and so when I realized that you were a third generation, I was like, this one might actually have a chance.

And the wisdom of your cousin to say, Hey, I’m good at this part, I’m not good at that part and I need someone that is really solid on the operation side in order to make this work, because I, myself, and more of a business development sales, marketing outreach type of person, I can do the operation parts, but not for very long and not consistently.

And so, but to get to that awareness where it’s okay, not to be great at everything, and then to reach out to a family member that you know and love, but you also know, non-professionally andsay, Hey, are you interested in doing this with me?

I think speaks a lot [00:21:00] about the wisdom your cousin had, but also the integrity and the way you carry yourself and him wanting you to come back and help do that.

So

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Casey Cease: you mentioned what have been some of the surprise challenges that maybe you weren’t expecting, and you don’t have to go into like, [00:22:00] You know, daddy issues or anything like that.

If you don’t, you can, I’m sure our listeners would love to sit and watch that, but what are some of

B.J. Slater: Plenty of it.

Casey Cease: What are some of the things that maybe you didn’t take in consideration that are worth noting?

B.J. Slater: Well, I, one of the ways I describe it is that spent 15 years plus college. So, I mean, all that time basically building my career in an industry where people were getting to know me as a professional. People were getting to know me for who I was, and essentially I left that and I came back to a place where the last time people saw me I was 18 and that’s who they remember me by and literally the people who I was now going to be their boss.

A lot of those people were there when I was a teenager and when I was the boss’s son. And you know, so that was a tough transition. And also in part, I think, because the aviation career was so different in part because I was in Alaska and just geographically, I didn’t get visitors all the time up there.

And [00:23:00] even out on the West coast, it wasn’t as common for people to come see what I was up to. I think that there was a little bit of a disconnect, even with my dad, where he, he didn’t quite understand we are, you know, my self image and his image of me didn’t drive. And this has much more to do with me than him, but I took issue with that.

And that was hard for me to adjust to and I looking back at it now, I realized that I came in here expecting that I was going to come in and show everyone how great I was running this business, how much I had learned and how amazing I was going to be and that I was going to get all sorts of validation and whatever.

And when none of that happened, I kind of parts of me that hadn’t come out since I was a young kid started reemerging again. And you know, I struggled with that. There was so just a lot of, like, I lost a lot of confidence. I lost a lot of the [00:24:00] kind of, just that clarity and focus that I had built up and the confidence that I had in addition to there were some genuine conflicts and genuine disagreements between the 2nd and 3rd generations over like the details of purchasing the business and how that was going to work and all these other things.

And there were a lot of things where you know our family tradition of avoiding conflict at all costs didn’t work in our favor. So it was something where things that could have been solved with a series of rational conversations, sometimes just built up until they became arguments or built up until they became just these emotional wrecks and in retrospect, a lot of that could have been avoided through better communication, through, I think kind of more realistic expectations, at least on my end, more realistic expectations about, you know, how this was going to go, what, you know, [00:25:00] how quickly things might happen What I was going to actually be able to accomplish and how people would react to that.

So I think looking back on it a lot of lessons learned there. But also there was a huge gap for me in recognizing that the organizations that I left, which were these developed mature organizations that were steeped in processes and documentation and procedures and training and all that other stuff where you come out of that and you come back to an organization where, you know, we just kind of do things the way we’ve done them and everything’s done by word of mouth and we don’t do meetings or manuals and things like that.

And you know, things are much more dependent on people’s personalities and their mood that day and then any particular, you know, framework or process. That’s a much more difficult environment to generate change in because the framework to do that isn’t there.

Casey Cease: So how, I mean, what you’re saying, I think is [00:26:00] one, I appreciate your vulnerability and sharing that, but I mean, you have an MBA, an executive MBA. How was that? I mean, did the previous generation have an MBA or any advanced learning or education?

B.J. Slater: No, not even college degrees.

Casey Cease: How was that? How was that received? I mean, so not only did you have corporate experience and more established corporations, you also have education and a master executive master of business. Was that part of what contributed to the conflict and the issues?

Just kind of you having a bit more experience and was it just difficult for them to accept that? Or was it? What do you think contributed?

Because the reason I’m asking is not as much to say, like, Hey, let’s dig everything up but I know there’s people listening that are either considering taking over business, family business, or involved in a family business that I think you helping kind of unpack that a little bit would be extremely helpful for them.

B.J. Slater: there, I think that did occur in, two ways on um, my dad’s side and probably for my uncle as well. Again, there was that view of, like, you know, I remember him from when he was a kid. And so [00:27:00] just not realizing what I bring to the table or not. More than that, I think it was just sort of a reluctance to even acknowledge that they would need to concede or to consider what my cousin and I needed to have happen or what our needs were in making this transaction work.

Sometimes that was part of it, they were comfortable, like to them, the business was working fine. They were comfortable with it and and they didn’t want to change things. And I, have a story that I’ll talk about with that. That I think is a good illustration.

But on the other side, on my end frankly, there was a little bit of arrogance. I felt that because I had those credentials that somehow translated to the practical on the ground, like, this is how we’re going to do this. This is how this is going to work in the real world, which doesn’t always translate, you know, that way.

And the only way to gain that knowledge and experience is to, to do it to actually go out and have the experience of trying to implement change or [00:28:00] trying to, you know, build a process or a system or trying to, you know, grow an organization or try to turn one around or try and build a team.

You know, the education helps, it gives you the background, it gives you a lot of things to look at, but it doesn’t give you all the answers. And I think that even though I tried my best not to, I had that attitude of maybe not that I have all the answers, but I had the attitude that I’ve got more of the answers than they do.

So they should listen to me, which wasn’t a great way to approach it. The story about my dad and me. And there’s this power dynamic, this father son power dynamic that showed up in an airplane one day. It’s a fun flying story that I like to tell.

So I was 20 years old. I had just gotten my pilot’s license and my dad was proud of me. And I I flew up to Chicago and I was going to take him flying. So I’m going to take my brother and my dad flying. They’re going to be my first official passengers as a licensed pilot. And it’s a beautiful day, we were taken [00:29:00] off from the Lansing airport and Lansing, Illinois on the South side of Chicago.

We climb in the airplane, we get ready to go, we get all buckled in, I run through all the checklists, we taxi down to the runway, and right about the point where we’re pulling out onto the runway to take off, my dad has this epiphany that we’re about to go flying in a small airplane, and if I screw up, or if I make a mistake, or whatever, there’s nothing he can do to correct it.

That for the first time, probably in our lives, his life is in my hand. And he had this like shift where he realized that he was now totally dependent on me for the first time. And it was sort of this comical, like, it kind of dawned on him. And as we’re like, lining up on the runway for takeoff, he got kind of flustered and he, didn’t know what to do.

And so he kind of just blurted out all of a sudden he’s like, [00:30:00] well, now don’t do anything stupid and I’m like, okay, dad, and it turned out to be a great flight. He had a great time and it was wonderful, but I still chuckle at that because I think that sometimes there is that moment where parents and.

I, I have a daughter and so I’m sure this is coming in my future too, but like parents need to realize that there’s a point at which their children, become capable and can do more than the parent can or can, you know, and so that was that and flying and I think in business, I don’t know we may have had a moment like that or maybe we never did, but But yeah, there was definitely some of that tension because we, we had very different points of view on the business and I don’t know that we ever would have completely aligned on any of them, but we definitely, as time went on, we got a little better about trying to compromise.

Casey Cease: I mean, the dynamics of families and fathers and sons anyway is, there is [00:31:00] that role confusion of, well, now that you’re a grown man and you have your own experience and your education and all that, is it okay that you’re more competent in some ways than I am in that transition? I’m certain it’s probably hard.

So how’s the business been since you and your cousin acquired it? Is it going well? I mean, is it struggled? Like, I mean, tell us a little bit about that.

B.J. Slater: We’ve grown pretty well. So we’ve owned it for seven years, six and a half, seven years now. And basically pre pandemic everything was, growing steadily. Things are going well. We had a lot of, we kind of went through some growing pains with finding the right people, which in a lot of cases meant losing or letting go of some people that have been with the company for a long time, but weren’t really right for the company. We had a long time manager who was really toxic and really not good for us.

And as is so often the case we kept them far too long, but when [00:32:00] we finally let them go as difficult and as painful as it was, things got better. And so overall things, we had different challenges that we addressed as time went on, things kept getting better and better.

The pandemic came along and at first, once we kind of figured out how to manage social distancing and everything else, the way, you know, handling all the same challenges that every business was trying to figure out, business for us actually started to take off. People were staying home gardening or buying a lot of stuff from garden centers and, and big box stores. And so there was a lot of demand for plants and, things that our, customers provide.

So we actually had a lot of business and things started to grow really fast and we picked up some additional customers and it got to the point where things grew a little too fast and we got a little out over our skis, so to speak, and then with the supply chain crisis and everything else we kind of ended up in like [00:33:00] a cash crunch where we were trying to balance production with everything else.

And I, you’ve probably heard me talk about this in coach, because this is some of the stuff that was going on while we were in going to coach sessions. But we’ve kind of, you know, managed to get through all of that. We’ve managed our way through and this year things seem kind of more normal where we’re kind of things are following a normal, like business cycle.

Things are looking up this year, it’s not quite as crazy busy as it was like a year and a half ago, but it’s busy enough that things are looking good.

So, overall sales are up. But for me, the thing I’m most proud of is the way the team has evolved, the way the organization has evolved and it’s a much better place to work and it’s we’re better at what we do. And I think we’re more effective at delivering the products to our customers.

And, you know, it’s [00:34:00] 1 of those things where I would love to be able to act like I had a grand plan going into it and like, yeah, we were going to do X, Y, and Z and we executed that and everything’s perfect, but it wasn’t that, it was trial and error and making mistakes and correcting and just kind of figuring it all out as we went but yeah, it’s overall things are looking up.

It’s been a good you know, 10 years. And I’m really very excited about the future because 10 years and I feel like I’m now I’m really getting the hang of it. So, Yeah, it’s been good.

Casey Cease: Yeah it’s, always fun when you’re starting to feel like you get your legs underneath you and your leadership is starting to fall into place and you’re able to look back and have made it through tough transitions with family, tough transitions with business and are heading the right direction.

So, what question should I have asked you that I didn’t ask you?

B.J. Slater: Oh, well, maybe you could ask me a little bit about like, what other lessons from flying do I still use?

Casey Cease: I mean, tell me some, I’d love, for you to tell us some more. Sure.

B.J. Slater: So [00:35:00] like, I there’s a couple of things that, I use all the time. And one of them is that is the idea about learning from mistakes and learning, like, obsessively learning from failure and understanding mistakes. Like it’s so common and I, see this all the time.

I’ve done it, like something happens and, you know, an employee makes a mistake and there’s a problem. We find out about it and the employee fesses up, says, yeah I, didn’t do what I was supposed to do, and then this happened.

And so we’re like, okay, we’ll be more careful next time or whatever. You know, and it’s. so ineffective, like, you know, it’s not. And the worst thing to do is to like, you know, punish the employee or fire them or whatever, you know, that’s, not at all what you want to do, but what you can do is you can look at it as a system And, and like, in aviation, we talk about, like, the discovery of human error is the beginning of the investigation, not the end.

You know, the media [00:36:00] always reports, you know, like when they talk about aviation accidents, they talk about pilot error. It’s like, Oh, it was caused by pilot error. Well, in the aviation industry, when we hear pilot error, that’s always the beginning of the story we want to understand why did that error happen?

And what were the things that led up to it? What were the conditions that caused it? It’s all of those other conditions that created the error, created the opportunity for the error or the misperceptions that led to the poor decision that caused the error. Those are all the things that you can change, those are all things you can build on.

And so kind of that systematic approach to failure. So like if something goes wrong, dig deeper than just like what was the most proximal cause of the failure? Oh, this person screwed up. Okay, we’ll retrain them. Retraining is such an easy thing to do that unfortunately has such limited benefit.

And this is really common in big business too. It’s easy to say, yes, we did something, we retrained him and it sounds good, but you need to dig [00:37:00] deeper, but like, you know, people generally show up to work wanting to do a good job.

And so if they make a mistake or if something bad happened it’s worth digging deep enough to come up with like the root cause or, you know, what were all the things that contributed and what can we do so that error becomes much less likely next time.

So that kind of mindset is a real big thing that I borrow from, from aviation. That’s one of them.

Another item is, making communication unambiguous or eliminating ambiguous communication. Communication when an air traffic controller gives a clearance to a pilot, the pilot has to read that back and then the air traffic controller has to say your read back is correct.

So there’s this cross check of like, this is what I told you, I heard what you said. This is what I heard. And yes, what you said is correct. So the miscommunication can be so such a big deal. Eliminating it can sometimes seem a little laborious. Like you’re doing a lot of extra work.

You’re doing a lot [00:38:00] of extra talking, but it can save a lot of trouble especially when you’re training somebody on how to do something new and, you know, you say, well, this is the process that I want you to use. And you demonstrate, or you show it to them, you explain it to them.

And then you say, okay, now can you show me that process? I want to see you do it and then you watch them do it. And then you can take it even one step further and say, how would you explain that to somebody else?

So you get to dig a little deeper in what their level of knowledge is or their level of understanding of what you’re communicating. And so that’s kind of academically a little bit of what I mean when I say eliminating ambiguous communication, but sometimes it can be something as basic as not making an assumption.

Just don’t assume that someone understands what you mean. Like if you say something to somebody and they say, okay, and you’re not sure or whatnot or, like in our workplace, we have a lot of people who speak [00:39:00] English as a second language. And so I might explain something and they might say, yep, I understand, I get it.

But it’s, it’s worth it oftentimes to find our staff interpreter and pull her aside and pull her into the conversation and say, Hey, this is what, you know, I need to make sure that we’re all on the same page. Can we go over this?

But it’s oftentimes miscommunications are, you know, something is communicated and it’s not understood. And there was never that attempt to verify that, like, you understand what I’m saying. Right?

You know, there’s just that, that last double check of like making sure that That you know what I said. It’s important. It can save a lot of trouble.

Casey Cease: Well, BJ, I always love chatting with you and hearing your stories, and I’m sure our listeners really benefited. Where can they find you online?

B.J. Slater: Mostly I’m on LinkedIn, so just BJ Slater on LinkedIn. And then I have a website uh, bjslater. com. or you can find me there. And that’s about it for right now. I haven’t done too much [00:40:00] else.

Casey Cease: I look forward to having you back, I’m sure, as you continue your journey of speaking and writing and all the other pieces that you’ll be offering and contributing. I’m sure we’ll have time to visit again on the show.

Thanks so much for coming by today. And for those of you listening, thank you for listening. Make sure to like comment, share, and subscribe to the channel. And we will be talking to you soon. Thanks BJ.

B.J. Slater: Thank you.

That wraps up this episode of the Casey Cease Show. Make sure to visit our website, thecaseyceaseshow.com, where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or via RSS, so you’ll never miss a show. While you’re at it, if you found value in this show, we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes, or if you’d simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too.

You might also want to check out our book for business consultation available at lucid books or double your sales strategy session at planify agency. Be sure to tune in next week for our next [00:41:00] episode.