Rising Stars: Meet Randy Powell

Today we’d like to introduce you to Randy Powell.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My early career began in accounting. I received my degree and masters in accounting, had my CPA, and filled accounting roles with a division of Stanley Tools and a consulting division of Deloitte. I was recruited to Kansas City when a large corporation called SPX acquired the Marley Cooling business that was founded in KC 100 years ago. After filling several finance roles both in KC and traveling globally, I was asked to prepare to lead the business someday by moving out of accounting and into a leadership role over two construction operations. I had zero experience, no technical skills, and was suddenly 100% reliant on hiring and motivating great teams. That really launched my passion for leadership and culture. As I traveled the country, I spoke with people about their leadership journey, what they had done to create great cultures and build strong teams, and brought those stories back to work with me.

Along with meeting and learning from hundreds of amazing and inspiring people, I quickly learned how powerful storytelling is for sharing lessons and creating a visual image for people about the concepts that are important for me in building a team. I could share a lesson in perseverance, grit, resilience and determination from a WWII veteran or Holocaust survivor, someone who started a business from scratch, a survivor of tremendous personal challenges, or someone who pushed themselves to some great physical achievement, and those stories and their leadership lessons resonated far more powerfully than anything I might have said myself. It highlighted to me that people actually want to see values like integrity, trust and respect being lived rather than just hanging on posters on the wall but never followed.

Numerous roles leading up to the head of a $500m manufacturing and construction business allowed me to develop my own entrepreneurial spirit that was already somewhere inside. I could come up with crazy ideas I would write on a napkin or draw on a whiteboard, and our engineering and sales teams could take those crazy ideas and turn them into products we would sell. The team I had around me in the Marley business was the highest quality, highest integrity, and most passionate group of people dedicated to service that I have ever been around. I was so fortunate to spend time with them and learn from them, and I woke up every morning excited to spend the day chasing another opportunity or developing some new and innovative approach to an old challenge. They made every day of my job there better!

Meanwhile thoughts began to form in my mind about my own entrepreneurial journey. Folks would ask if these crazy ideas I had implemented are ideas I would have pursued if it was my own money. I always answered with certainty that yes, I would, because I ran the business every day like it was my money. But that seed was planted, and I started to wonder if I really had the courage to leave and go out on my own. By 2015 I knew that my journey was going to soon take me down the path toward entrepreneurship, and I began to put plans in place for that transition. At the beginning of 2019 I told my team I would be leaving, which my team supported but which a surprising number of people discouraged. There were people who told me that leaving the safety of a large company was foolish, a big mistake, and that I would end up regretting it, and even that nobody in KC would be interested in meeting with me or talking to me if I wasn’t running a large company (that didn’t turn out to be true at all!) I was certain in my heart of what I needed to do and did it anyways. I left in 2019 and closed my first deal a month later to acquire Heartland Print and Design, a printing and marketing company in Louisburg.

As I continued to explore other entrepreneurial opportunities to meet my personal goals, I was asked to take on another role as CEO of United Rotary Brush, a Lenexa manufacturing company that had been recently acquired by a family fund from New York. This has provided a new opportunity to lead an organization that faced the challenges of ownership change right in the middle of Covid, so there has been a lot to do to help this new leadership team prioritize and focus on the things they need to do to build an awesome business. I have enjoyed watching this team overcome some of the adversity they faced during some challenging years to grow into a stronger, more cohesive organization focused on being their best.

One of the most fun and rewarding things I do came about as a result of early 2020 lockdown following the emergence of Covid. For several years at the Marley business, I wrote a letter weekly to everyone discussing who were people I had met and what leadership lessons I had learned from them. It allowed me to use storytelling to reinforce the values and culture that I wanted ingrained in the business. Early in 2020 after leaving that role, I was trying to figure out what the next iteration of those stories might be. Then came Covid! I suddenly could not meet great leaders for coffee or breakfast anymore and was stuck at home, and I did not like that one bit! As I started calling around talking to other business leaders, it became clear that folks were facing a high degree of fear and uncertainty and would talk about being unsure if their businesses could survive or rebound while the world seemed to be screeching to a halt. Knowing so many inspiring people I had met over the years who had faced tremendous challenges and obstacles in their own lives, I just decided to do a weekly zoom and invite someone who could talk about their own journey of perseverance, resilience and grit in the hope it would help all of us feel a bit more inspired that we could make it to. This became Lessons in Leadership, something I have continued to do now for over a year and a half. We have had incredible conversations with entrepreneurs, founders of charities, veterans, and leaders who have developed their own resilience and now share the lessons of their journeys with others. It has been one of the most awesome experiences for me to have seen life-long learners come together every week and listen to the stories of others.

A big portion of my life is dedicated toward friends, family and personal growth. I have a wife and three boys, and my life has been filled with great experiences we shared together. We love to hike, bike, ski, climb, and along the way the boys and I spent a lot of time together on their events and activities. All that time together made us really close, and I am happy that they still seem to like doing things with me. They all three now have awesome wives who seem a little unsure of me at times but who will eventually learn I’m not all that bad! (When I travelled internationally one of them used to tell her friends in high school she thought I might be an international arms dealer, and I thought that was kind of a cool image.) We have wrapped around us a great church family that is encouraging and always there to help others. I feel incredibly fortunate to have so many folks from church, folks from all around KC, and folks I have worked with that I find inspiration from and know would be there in an instant if I ever called for help. I am continually pushing myself into discomfort by taking on new things in an effort to make sure the boys still know I am the toughest! I ride my Harley, ride my bike, jog or do long backpack hikes, and have started new things like rock climbing and jiu-jitsu to accompany other activities like my life-long enjoyment of lifting weights. Reading is very important to me, and I believe everyone should be reading as part of being a life-long learner. I am a big believer that intentional discomfort from taking on new challenges is the key to personal and professional growth, and we should always be striving to learn new things.

Closing out 2021, I continue to learn from and be inspired by the incredible community of Kansas City. Business people help each other succeed. Folks reach out and introduce other folks to those who can help them find a job, start a business, get a loan, or get help to face the challenges in their life. We are part of a unique, incredible community where people genuinely like to help other people, and I am inspired every week to work harder and try to do more. I am pretty lucky!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I imagine everyone’s road seems bumpy to them, but I have discovered that the more you look ahead and the less you look down, the less the bumps of your own journey come to mind. That’s not to say that some people don’t have real challenges in their life, but I have seen people overcome tremendous obstacles and inequities in their life by focusing on who they want to be in the future, and less on what happened to them in the past. When I was learning to ride the motorcycle or learning to ski, I was told that you go where your eyes go. If I constantly look down at how bad I think things are around me, I am probably going nowhere because I am looking down and not looking ahead. I am not focused on moving forward, chasing dreams and pursuing the opportunities that lie before me to make a difference. If I only looked down I would focus on the doubters along the way who would have discouraged me had I listened. I have had my share of bad bosses, been in bad cultures, been cursed at and called all kinds of bad things, been told I was too poor, too country, too southern, not good enough grades, not the right schools, don’t have the “gravitas of a leader,” have “irrational exuberance” for believing in people, will never be anything more than a middle manager, will never be anything other than a flunkie…all those negative things others try to label you with to plant and water the seeds of self-doubt. I recall getting my first paycheck after college and going to open a bank account, and being told they didn’t want “people like me” as a customer because I was too poor and not their kind of account. That stuff hurts, and I understand how folks feel held back who have encountered those kinds of obstacles in life. Early on those challenges just made me more determined to go prove everyone wrong. That’s a pretty good fuel for a while, but it isn’t the sustainable rocket fuel that allows you to reach great heights. Trying to defiantly prove everyone else is wrong might get you started moving, but the booster rockets that put you in orbit ignite when you find that light within that you can believe in, and that assures you that your mission and your purpose are right and true and good. Proving others wrong stopped being so important, and learning from others who had done great things started to matter a lot more. I started talking to folks who had endured hardships far worse than mine, but who found the resilience, grit, perseverance, and determination to keep moving forward. They inspired me to focus on being authentic, to focus more on helping others be their best, and to get busy doing the things that would wake me up excited in the morning, the things that would excite me about being me. No matter whatever unfairness or inequity in life I think I encountered, I can look around and find someone with 100 times the burden who is still climbing, still moving forward, still making a difference. That motivates me to climb higher and run harder.

We live in a time where popularity and success are statistically measured more than ever. Social media and the news media stir feelings of doubt and fear that we never faced before. We must ignore those bumps in the road and remain focused on what we can do to make our homes, our businesses and our community better. Focus on your dream, focus on your purpose. I feel certain every morning that there is something I can do to make the world better for just one person, and I feel tremendous pressure to go out and do that. Perhaps we cannot change the whole world today, but we can change the whole world for just one person today. Remain focused on that and your doubters and your own shortcomings and errors will soon disappear in the rearview mirror.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Lessons in Leadership is one of the happiest things I have ever done, in that I get to learn from so many amazing and inspiring people every week. I not only learn from the speakers, who have often overcome incredible challenges in their own journey but from the community of people who show up and ask questions each week as well. Those questions and comments give me insights to the struggles other business and community leaders face, which often result in whatever challenge I am contemplating seeming much less unique or difficult. I often tell people Lessons in Leadership feels selfish because I just turn on zoom every week and let dozens of other inspiring people teach me about resilience, grit, perseverance, entrepreneurship, and their journey through life. I learn something every single week and am amazed on what people overcome as they pursue their dreams and fulfill their purpose.

Somehow find a way to surround yourself with at least a few life-long learners like the people who join me on Lessons every week. They look at the world and its’ challenges differently and see instead opportunity and promise. You can’t help but be a better person when you spend time with great people.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
First, Build Genuine Relationships based on trust, integrity, and respect. Meet everyone you can. Be genuinely curious about others, listen to their experiences and their journey. Don’t fall into the cheap trap of “ABC” or Always Be Closing – life isn’t a big sales call. If you are only focused on meeting people who can do something for you, or buy whatever you are selling, you will miss out on great opportunities. Just meet people to learn about them and figure out what you can do to create value in their lives. Ask about their experiences, their lessons from their journey, listen to their stories of resilience, courage, perseverance, entrepreneurship and innovation. You will meet more people, develop deeper relationships, and find yourself inspired in ways you hadn’t imagined. That one change in approach will alter the trajectory of your relationships.

Second, Identify Your Foundational Principles you will live by every day. Set your guardrails in advance, and be willing to walk away from conversations, relationships, even a job that requires you to violate those principles. If you insist on others being treated with respect, don’t allow yourself to be surrounded by others who don’t. If integrity is important to you, set a high standard and be prepared to walk away from influences that compromise that standard. The worst time to figure out how to navigate an ethical dilemma or a toxic culture is when you are in the middle of it. Set your rules in advance so you are ready when the storm comes, and it will. Most of the stupid things I have done in life happened because I had not decided in advance what I would do when that stupid idea came long. Don’t wait to decide who you want to be, decide now and be vigilant and ready!

Third, Understand Your Purpose, the thing that gets you excited and that you see in your dreams, but give ourself room for that to change and evolve. If you know what inspires you, you will seek out roles and relationships that are supportive of that purpose. You will look at potential jobs, potential bosses, even potential friendships differently because you will be so certain of who you are and what you should be doing that you will want to protect and preserve that dream.

Fourth, Embrace Leadership Over Managership. Be a Leader who is Confident But Not Arrogant, Courageous But Not Boastful, Humble But Not Fearful. Leadership is the confidence, courage, and humility to do great things, and inspire others to do great things with you. Managership is focus on self, on what others can do for you, and demonstrated in the Arrogance, Pride, and Insecurities that hold you back and prevent you from inspiring others. Have the confidence to believe you can be or do anything you set your mind to, the courage to try new things, and the humility to listen to and learn from others. If you think you are smarter than everyone around you, that you are superior to others because of their generation, or their background, or their experiences, or you bully or oppress others to cover your own fears and insecurity, you are not a leader. Great leadership is humble enough to listen and learn, courageous enough to make a decision and identify a direction, and confident enough to believe that you and your team can overcome obstacles and reach your goals. Marching confidently toward your dreams inspires others to believe in their dreams too!

Fifth, Lighten Your Load. The baggage of past failures and shortcomings is too heavy a burden for the race ahead. I often hike with a backpack with 70 pounds of weight, which is great for building up lower body strength and stamina. But I would never go try to sprint or run or bike a long distance with that weight, I know it would slow me down and hold me back. I have to lighten the load. We fill our backpacks with the mistakes we have made and weigh ourselves down to the point our past limitations keep us from moving forward. Don’t give yourself a life sentence for past mistakes – allow yourself some mercy and grace, learn from your mistakes, and keep moving forward. Your past burdens have made you stronger, now lighten your load and get ready to run toward your dreams.

Contact Info:

• Email: randy@leadershipwithrandy.com
• Website: https://leadershipwithrandy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/randallwpowell/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randy.powell.142/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRyi5zyge6SgsM6D-Emq0vg/featured
• Other: https://heartlandprintanddesign.com