Trusting Your Team

Reflections on lessons I learned from my dad – Part 2

During what some call the “reflection season,” I have been thinking about the lessons my father – who passed away this summer – passed on to me. Growing up with a single dad in a family with five kids was not without its challenges. Because of his job as a firefighter, he missed countless Christmases and birthdays answering the bell for others. We, as his children, also carried the weight of his sacrifice. We felt the absence, the emptiness of being alone on holidays and birthdays.

But as I look back, I understand that many of those double shifts he worked on Christmas and birthdays weren’t just about duty—they were about love. He was earning extra to provide for his family when money was often tight. I still remember the taste of powdered milk, the creativity of tuna toast, and how we shared clothes among the five of us. We spent our summers chopping wood, not for exercise, but because we needed enough firewood to survive the winter. We didn’t have heat in our home. Many mornings we’d wake up and see our breath hanging in the air because the temperature inside was as cold as it was outside. Then came the daily negotiation—trying to convince one of us to be brave enough to get up first and make the fire.

Even when we were without—without heat, without abundance, without him at every celebration—he was giving us the greatest lesson of all. He was teaching us resilience, self-reliance, and most importantly, that like his fellow firefighters, we could depend on each other. Those cold mornings when we’d huddle together, bargaining over who would start the fire, we were learning teamwork. When we shared clothes and made meals from whatever was on the shelves, we were learning resourcefulness. When we chopped wood as a family, we were learning that everyone contributes.

By the time we became adults, there was nothing the world could throw at us that we hadn’t already seen, already survived, already overcome together. We learned to persevere through any adversity because we’d been doing it our whole lives—not in spite of Dad’s service, but because of it.

And it’s precisely this trust in the power and promise of our teams – whether that be families, friends, or work – that I take to heart decades later. Now as CEO of a publicly traded company, there are times when I have to make the final decision, but I can assure you that I rely heavily on the expertise, counsel, and perspective of my team. I want to hear from those who are most likely to challenge my ideas and want to make sure everyone on the team feels like they are empowered. There is no doubt that my process for leadership is rooted in the spirit of teamwork I learned negotiating with my four siblings.

As a dad of seven, I can appreciate how much parenting has changed and how this level of independence so young just doesn’t fly. But the level of responsibility my dad instilled in us at a young age really was just trust from him that we would figure out how to take care of ourselves and each other together.