J.J. Levenske

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141 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard Jan 2025

J.J. Levenske’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Home Service Expert Podcast · Building a Team That Builds the Business: How to Recruit Strategically · 3 Jan 2025 podcast

Okay, so here's the caveat. And again, maybe this just comes from experience and age. It's one thing for us as CEO or whatever C-suite to want to finally get over that hump of you're not a control freak anymore and you're willing to hire someone smarter than you in the room.

Okay, this is where the secret sauce to me, though, is the greatest companies two to three years from now will be the ones that can take that attitude down to three levels.

So when your VP can have that same attitude as you, where they're looking at whatever, you know, I think of a project manager or whatever, in your case, maybe a sales manager, and where they can just get excited about, hey, look at Susie. She is so talented. Susie, get in here. I want to talk to you. Do you have any aspirations of taking my seat? Because I'm going to help you get there.

Now, that person, they don't realize by doing that, you're making the company better and you're creating not an empath, but an environment and a culture where that just becomes almost intoxicating in a good way, right? Because you've proven it. All the stuff that you share on all your different media channels, when you get that right, the numbers take care of themselves.

And then everything else we've talked about, It's just attracted. It's attracted. It's attracted. But until you get that nucleus right. But again, it's really hit me over the last few months, Tommy, that you have to have that attitude just not in the C-suite.

It's got to come down at other levels where they cannot be afraid to promote within or without or from outside and have people come in that are smarter than them and explain to them. Use your own stories and testimonies to say, listen, I'm still working here. Because just like AI, okay? AI is not going to replace me. It's going to augment me. It's going to make me better.

But I then can clear a path for someone else and they can come in and do an even better job than me. Right.

How do you feel about cognitive versus behavioral type things?

Great question. We're probably where you were, you know, I don't know, two or three stages ago. So I'll answer it. Like I said, a couple of years ago, I got to CFO. Then in the last six months, I stepped down as CEO, got a CEO to come in that has been through all this for growth, acquisition, all that kind of stuff. And watching the demeanor of him back again to the EQ is very high. Okay.

And that was important to me because I couldn't replace me with just a, It was important that someone has done this before that was smarter than me in that capacity, right? But for me, the linchpin was that EQ part you talked about. So we're kind of building that out. We're looking... We've done a fractional CHRO right now.

And that's been a big, big deal for me because human capital is the last frontier for all of us. You can have systems, AI, all the things. We can talk about marketing. All of it's important, Tommy. But right now...

When I look at the companies that are going from good to great, to have Jim Collins quote, is those that are focusing on human capital and understanding how to leverage that, they're going to be the winner standing. And I think when you were on my podcast, we talked about is those that don't have that coupled with AI are going to be left in the dust.

And it's going to be a lot of roll-ups and a lot of M&A happening. Okay. Yeah. I mean, a lot. If you thought it was a lot in the past five years, it's going to even be, I think, exponentially more going forward.

But let me finish your question about the org chart. The thing it's even been in the last few months since we talked is that as I've done the deep dive in AI, is looking at how AI can augment every role in the organization so that the org chart starts to look different. I'm not trying to eliminate fluff, but I'm trying to eliminate fluff. And it's like, hold it.

I would much rather have someone that can succeed going this way or even horizontally. I don't care. It can be a mishmash. But use AI for what it's worth to eliminate jobs that aren't going to exist anymore. And I think that is where are we on the forefront of that? Hell no.

But I know that we're not at the tail end of it like a lot of my competitors are where they're just going, yeah, we're doing it. I got this and this, and I'm not going to demean any roles or jobs on the podcast, but there's going to be jobs that are eliminated. Okay. But that's fine. Guess what? Because of it, there's going to be new jobs over here that are created that are doing those.

So to answer your question, I think it's a dynamic org chart that we're looking at right now and how we build that out so that we understand the dynamic and the influence of change so we can embrace it instead of being fearful of it. Hopefully that answers your question on the org chart.

For me, I saw my glass ceiling though. And I said, I'm not the CEO at 500 million. I just don't have it in me because there's too many things that I have to have connection to. Primarily, I love the teammates, right? I'm still a builder at heart. So I want to be in the trenches with our people, knowing that I can help effectuate change to the marketplace.

So by looking in the mirror and saying that, yeah, I need that. I'm not arguing with you, Tommy. I'm just saying for me, it was very easy to give that up. Because now in the last six to eight weeks, I've had a lot more fun. Like I'm engaged again. Yeah.

Whereas I was getting disengaged as CEO because when you're going through hyper growth, you're pulled in directions that were not befitting of my talents. And so I looked at it going, oh, now I can get back. And I'm seeing a better interaction with the employees where like even today before coming here, it was watching them going, JJ, can you help with this?

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