Tish Squillaro 0:00

Hi everyone, Tish Guilero. Welcome to Candy with Tish. As you know, each episode includes a leader telling their story, their journey, their wins, their losses, their challenges, their surprises. And today we have a special guest, Tom Farrow, who's going to talk to us about what it's been like managing and growing teams in a highly competitive market within the pharma industry. He's going to talk about the different ways in which he had to come into multicultural diagnosis, where he had to come into teams that were already working really hard and well together, but changes were on the foot. And Tom's going to share some of that journey. Just like the rest of the leaders that I always talk with, how they got there is the most important. Tom, welcome to Candor with Tish.

Thomas G. Ferro 0:43

Well, thank you for inviting me, Tish. It's a pleasure to be talking with you. You know, all roads lead to Brooklyn.

Tish Squillaro 0:50

That's right.

Thomas G. Ferro 0:51

I think your audience should know that we both originate from Brooklyn.

Tish Squillaro 0:54

And they should, and they should. And my roots come from Brooklyn and that never will change. I'm in Miami now. Where are you, Tom?

Thomas G. Ferro 1:02

I'm in New Jersey.

Tish Squillaro 1:03

Okay. I went a little further.

Thomas G. Ferro 1:05

A little further south.

Tish Squillaro 1:06

A little further south. But welcome. We're excited to talk with you. You know, I do think that companies that are small to mid-size have different challenges of growing from those much larger, larger organizations that are pretty established and have some, you know, fine frameworks already built in that aren't so easy to navigate. So I'd love to talk with you a little bit about that. I mean, you mentioned some pretty large companies that you work with, JJ, Stryker, I mean, some certainly very powerful large corporations. Can you share, you know, one of the growing pains that you had to endure when you built out teams in that confined environment of having a lot of structure?

Thomas G. Ferro 1:48

Aaron Powell First of all, it's about the people. It's the people that makes the organization work, it's what executes the business, and what delivers results. So it's very important to be at the pulse and not lose sight of people and the employees in an organization. And that includes networking through the organization, including all functional areas, getting to know their responsibilities, their role, also communicating the bigger picture to all the individual silos so everybody can be aligned together and know how they're contributing to the overall success of the organization. And that is critical. A lot of times that's overlooked. In my career, I've had some great leaders that I worked under, and I also had, you know, room for improvement leaders, if you will.

Tish Squillaro 2:35

Aaron Powell I say those are the ones you learn from as well, just on the what not to do. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Thomas G. Ferro 2:40

Yeah. You can't lead an organization or be in a leadership role behind a closed door. You have to be able to balance your time and effort. And you yes, you're managing a PL and you have responsibilities in that, but you also have to know what's going on in the pulse of the business. Not having that and having, say, a management team that all has this private section in a large corporation where they talk to each other, but you're really not at the pulse of the people and hearing information coming up. And not having that connection and interaction with people leads to what I call preventable mistakes.

Tish Squillaro 3:21

How did you do that? You know, by Tom, I mean that's a great point. Like meeting people, spending time with them. Some would say, I don't have time to do that. And lots of meetings get canceled with one-on-ones, or they don't have time to talk about how people are doing in their roles, and that leaves people with a lot of uncertainty. So how have you been able to get deeper into the org by connecting with people, understanding what's going on with them, cross-functionally know what your team's doing with other teams? What are some of the things you did to make that happen?

Thomas G. Ferro 3:54

Well, most people drink coffee, and large corporations have coffee stands. So I always try to go to a coffee stand and grab a cup of coffee, and there's always somebody there, and you engage in a conversation. You make it personal, get to know some people, know what's going on in their lives. One of the biggest lessons I learned is respect is earned. True. And that's one of the ways of interacting with people to show your personal side and show you're just a regular person.

Tish Squillaro 4:28

So keep it casual. So keep it casual. I do think sometimes people make it more um complex about organizing time and making time. It's more casual. And I do, you know, I do believe that pre-COVID, it was probably easier to find people in the kitchen. I mean, if you bring food, people will come, right? So you do get the ability to run into folks and create a casual but very deliberate conversation. How did you manage that with COVID, where it's not so easy to get a cup of coffee, you can't even find people, everything is very planned through Zoom. What did you use to navigate that relationship building?

Thomas G. Ferro 5:09

You can still have private phone calls with people and pick up the phone and invest that time. Is it more challenging? Absolutely. But it still comes down to is you're all a team and working together, and the relationships that were established pre-COVID will carry through COVID, just through candid conversations, one-on-one discussions. Still the same management approach where you want to engage people and get their input, what's happening, what's at the pulse of things. That's the only way you learn it. You can sit in an office and get all the reports you want and look at the reports. Sometimes you can diagnose issues, but many times it goes deeper than that. And I always manage under the mantra of you have to peel the onion back. You have to get at a root cause of a problem, and not necessarily if you don't do that, what happens is you wind up thinking you identified the problem, and really you're not. You're addressing a symptom versus the disease.

Tish Squillaro 6:12

Aaron Ross Powell Right. We're not solving the issue. We're just putting the band-aid on some of the things it's causing.

Thomas G. Ferro 6:18

Aaron Ross Powell And that leads to wasted resources in a large organization. It leads to bad decisions. It leads into change of direction, misalignment within the organization because it wasn't fought through or the problem wasn't truly identified that you're trying to challenge. No matter what quality of leader you are or how successful a business is, one thing we all know, there's always problems and challenges.

Tish Squillaro 6:44

Always. And it's not ever one person.

Thomas G. Ferro 6:47

Right. But it's very critical to identify those early before it gets worse.

Tish Squillaro 6:53

Aaron Powell True. And identify who it is involving, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Thomas G. Ferro 6:57

And that's where being involved with the employees and people and your management team, but it's a collective action. Everybody's part of the solution.

Tish Squillaro 7:05

Aaron Ross Powell And you're part of it as the leader. I do think sometimes, and I've said this before, when I meet a leader, could be CEO, COO, any C-suite member, and they don't bring themselves into the fold as part of the issue or the challenge. I know already they're probably a big part of the issue or the challenge, and they just have to become more aware. So I guess what I'm hearing is making the connection is number one in building teams. And you do it in a casual way. Don't make it overly complex. Do it with a human quality, a coffee. How are you doing? Let me just check in. What do you think of this going on? So it doesn't have to be that you have to go overly prepared. You're just having a casual conversation to learn about each other.

Thomas G. Ferro 7:50

Yep. And what problems they may be facing in their workplace.

Tish Squillaro 7:53

And learn what's going on with them. You know, sometimes an employee will be afraid to tell you what's going on with them. So how did you overcome that? Because you know, if you're the boss and you're saying, How is everything going? you're going to hear, fine, everything's just fine. Very rarely does someone immediately open up. So when do you know that you have to get them some sort of safe zone or comfort level to really tell you what's going on and not get past the nicety?

Thomas G. Ferro 8:19

Part of the answer to your question is, as I mentioned earlier, respect is earned. But one pathway to earn that respect is being demonstrating humility. Just because you have a title doesn't mean you could do everybody's job in the organization. You need everybody else to be able to work together and cohesively. So being humble is very important. And that's a pathway to earning respect with people. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Tish Squillaro 8:47

And it does let people feel comfortable. I know in my my job or for what I do for a living, I have to get people comfortable. They have to be willing to talk to me. And if I don't come across humbled or sometimes with a little humor, or put myself in their in their shoes to describe what I've gone through and share some similarities, people won't talk and they will feel either judged or as if I'm coming in to diagnose. And so I do appreciate that is that you have to make people feel comfortable. And the best way to do that is when you put yourself in a similar situation and talk about what you also don't know. And so I do believe that that helps bring that gap that might be happening when you are trying to learn a little bit more about someone or look to understand what's going on. So I like that those two components seem to be very easy things for people to do, but I don't know if we always think about it. We I think we overcomplicate things at times about being able to do that.

Thomas G. Ferro 9:49

Well, part of it is organizational culture where, you know, people have their performance reviews, and you know, nobody wants to show negativity that could be used against them. And that's a reality, you know, whether it's spoken or not, that exists in any corporation. And one of the things that I tried to do is, you know, sometimes a leader you have to take the first step. So when I my uh position with Zimmer Biomet for my immediate management team, I started out with, hey, this is what I'm good at, this is where I could use some help. Everybody has talent and skills. My job as the leader is to blend it all and assign responsibilities and talent to people's comfort levels and what they're good at. In doing that, you raise the performance level of an organization. And you also take away that fear factor of communication between management members or employees and managers. It's just everybody feels comfortable in an open environment. And if they're positioned for success, everything else will fall into place.

Tish Squillaro 11:01

Aaron Powell I love that, Tom. I mean, I do think sharing your value and your blind spots out of the gate give people comfort that it's okay to have blind spots. And let me tell you about my value without feeling like I'm too overly confident. And, you know, I've used different means other than me saying, and I use the dis profile as one element where I know people can learn about themselves and then use that knowledge to actually share it with others. But I love that you start it that way, you know, especially as the leader. You've broken the ice, if you will, to get people comfortable and for them to know Tom's real. He knows what he's good at and he knows what he's not good at, and he's gonna expect us to be able to fill those gaps with him. So I bet that has created an easier approach to building teams. What happens when you have folks who just are challenging? Like they just don't know how to work well with others because you know we can have the best person in the role, but the worst person to work with.

Thomas G. Ferro 12:02

Well, one of the virtues is is patience. Not everybody responds and reacts immediately. And sometimes you have to invest in people. When I first got into my position, most of the management team commuted from a distance. So the employees never felt they were engaged. Plus, they all sat in the executive wings of the office building. I came in and I said, Well, if I'm gonna turn this business around, I need to be with the employees in my group. So we can all have easy run into each other, my door was always open, there's good communication, there's an opportunity for people to get to know each other, understand what challenges everybody's facing, and how we can all pitch in and help overcome those challenges. Somebody's problem is not theirs alone. It really, if everybody works together, you don't know where good ideas come from unless you have a forum or create a culture that allows for that level of interaction. I took an office and there was one office available, wasn't necessarily the biggest office, but it was the one that was available, and I had what I needed. I didn't ask somebody else to move out of their office to make room for me. I just came in. And maybe that's a sign of humility or you know, my silent communication and letting people know that I'm approachable, um, a normal person, regular person, just like they are.

Tish Squillaro 13:33

Right. You immersed yourself with them so that you're one of them when it comes to brainstorming and being a sounding board. I mean, obviously you're the final decision maker, but to empower others, they also learn to watch you in the moment. So you could do your work where they can actually physically watch how you handle stress, work on a tough solution, and patience, which is a virtue, not many have, but let's just say we have the patience. What's the threshold when you've given someone enough of your patience and it's just not getting there?

Thomas G. Ferro 14:08

Yeah. Well, uh, there was one person that fit that bill. And I had he wasn't a direct report to me, but he was to one of my management people. I wanted to reach him, I wanted to understand where he was at, whether this was a fit, and I did that several times, but the behavior didn't change. And it really came down to the time, if I didn't see a commitment, a passion, and a willingness, if they didn't hit those three points, then it was really time to, you know what, it's time to part ways. Because you can't let one bad apple create a negativity over the culture I was trying to build.

Tish Squillaro 14:48

And it can.

Thomas G. Ferro 14:50

It had nothing to do with me, you know, his behavior and performance. It may have been his boss or his personal things, or he wasn't satisfied where he's at in his career. You know, there's a lot of different reasons. But as soon as he, you know, he didn't hit those three points I just mentioned, then it was time to you move on.

Tish Squillaro 15:09

And what were those three again?

Thomas G. Ferro 15:10

It was uh passion, commitment, and willingness.

Tish Squillaro 15:14

Which have nothing to do with the skills, right? They're all about behaviors to work with others, collaborate, be self-aware, have respect, very well. And definitely show you want to be there. And I do think that is something anyone can be able to show. You know, sometimes someone's in a role where the role grows bigger than them. And that's not their fault. I mean, I've been in situations where there were changes made because the business grew faster than the talent that was there. And it was a tough decision, but the reality was they couldn't scale into that role. But their willingness and their passion and their commitment were there, and still that wasn't enough, right? Sometimes that just is enough. In your case, you actually didn't even get any of that from that person. So that was for you the evidence. I'm not even getting that stuff. This is not worth my investment. Because it's not that one person becomes the biggest issue, but one bad apple forces the rest of us to make bad choices and bad decisions, which then impact everybody else, which then ultimately impact the business. And where is much at fault? Yeah, where is much at fault not stopping the bad behavior, not raising that that person's not acting professionally or effectively, and it then reduces the entire sort of leadership criteria of what's acceptable at the company. Now, were you able to make that change or was it much more difficult?

Thomas G. Ferro 16:42

Yeah, no, no, it was a I was able to make that change. And uh, you know, it was good for everybody. But the way I approached it earned the respect. I go back to respect is earned. And me investing time and trying to turn a negative into a positive, invest time with this individual, even though it was a challenge, demonstrated to the other employees what I was about and who I am as a person. That I'm fair, I care, you know, willing to listen and also have empathy. But at the same time, as a leader, you also have to lead the organization. So it became it became obvious it was that person's shortcut.

Tish Squillaro 17:23

Inability to do that.

Thomas G. Ferro 17:25

Inability is probably a better work.

Tish Squillaro 17:27

Now you've worked in very large, publicly global businesses. I work a lot with international companies, and I always know that you know communication, which is so critical for any company, and in particular leadership teams to be able to interact and collaborate cross-functionally. When you add the layer of an international, you know, multicultural approach to decision making, communicating, it becomes another sort of situation that has to be dealt with with delicacy, right? Because it's not about choosing, it's about really putting together. I bet you've experienced that in your journey. Maybe you can talk a little bit about a situation where the multicultural issues came from communication of different cultural backgrounds, language barriers, and how did you solve for that?

Thomas G. Ferro 18:22

Number one being myself. When I first started going to Japan, I didn't want to be Japanese. I could could never be Japanese. But I could learn respect and show passion about learning about their culture, their environment, world events. And that was a way of bridging the gap and earning respect.

Tish Squillaro 18:44

Yeah, I mean, I I have worked a lot with clients who have multicultural businesses and myself just having multicultural involvement. And the one thing that always rang through, and you hit it on the head, is immerse yourself to understand them. And they're very happy to show you and teach you about their culture, and they want to learn about your culture. So it's a it's definitely a shared experience. I do think what we try to do is change their culture into fitting our culture, no matter what cultures we're talking, because in business, we kind of operate under one framework and we make it very black or white around trying to fit it into this box. And I think you can do that in operational excellence only after you've at least understood where and why they say or do the things they do based on their culture. And even one of my clients actually hired someone to actually teach the US about the cultural dynamics of the other side of their business because it was really important that everybody understood, and not from hearsay or books that they read, but really to learn how to immerse yourself to work with mo with that new culture and you know, learn what their no or yes means and know what their pace means and and then come up with something you can all live with. So we don't have to choose, but we have to decide on something we can both live with and then move forward. And I do think that gets lost when we try to move too quick and just assume that they need to do it our way, because that makes it then a f a battle within the company.

Thomas G. Ferro 20:23

If you think about the way we do business in the United States, you could go meet a client, have dinner, come up with an agreement or an arrangement, then you fly back home, and you may not see that person again. When you're doing business international, it goes back to respect is earned. They don't trust somebody that comes in because they've dealt with Americans that come in or executives that come into their country. They have a meeting, yeah, everything is fun. They're drinking and, you know, having a good time and discussing business and opportunity, but then they leave the next day. And they never come back.

Tish Squillaro 20:57

And the follow-up is important, right? So I do think the follow-up. That's another great point that you bring up, Tom, is show up. I do think we have this global expansion that companies like to do, but then haven't built in, similar to you getting to know your people, make it casual, make it genuine, it doesn't have to be overcomplex. You need to show up at these different offices all over the world so that they can see that they matter as much as the rest of the business. And I do think that's another great piece of advice is I don't think people look at it from that lens. They always talk about the complexity of travel or being available or getting themselves there. And if you're gonna globalize, whichever way you're going, right, you need to build in the ability to have the structure to outfit what you started. Otherwise, you start to create this internal uncomfortableness among the people. And like you said before, when we first met, people are the most important part of the journey when building a business or building teams. And if you don't know them, and that means everything about them as much as you can, what their likes and dislikes are, and build a relationship with them, it's going to be hard to expect top performance because you're not even sure what they're capable of.

Thomas G. Ferro 22:29

Yeah. If you think, I'll use a sports analogy, and I'm an X-basketball player. If you're a coach, and I'll use Coach Kay, the retired coach at Duke, very successful college coach, building winning teams and great players that know how to play the game. Think about a coach managing a team and a manager leading an organization. We're leading a team. In our business culture, we have the bell curve in an organization. So right away, you know, as a manager, you're going to have to put so many people in the lower end of the of the bell curve. And, you know, you're kind of putting people in place before you even get a to be objective. Mm-hmm. Because your responsibility of managing people out of the organization. Now, if a coach has five starters, he doesn't need five scorers. He needs a team that plays together and not looking to manage one of those people out, but to maximize their talent and ability to win. And that's the difference between somebody, um a leader who's been in sports or a coach to one that goes into brings those skills into business.

Tish Squillaro 23:46

True. And there are many articles written and books written about the sports analogy on teams, building great teams, because it is very similar. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Thomas G. Ferro 23:56

Yeah, because everybody on that team knows, hey, this is the rebounder. What a great rebound. What a great defensive player. Oh, this guy scored 30 points. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Tish Squillaro 24:05

We don't always know. That's the key. And I think the leadership that you're talking about gets the team to know each other. Like I always do team off sites for any team getting out to do their strap planning or kicking off something large together, because the ability to know each other's strengths and also our blind spots is no different than when you're on a team to know who to throw the ball to, who do you have to utilize for certain positions. And it's not the one person, the leader's job to know everything. It is for each teammate to be able to know that about each other. And if we could just work, yeah, and work better with learning about those things about each other to build a team. There's only, there's, as they say, there's no I in team, right? And I do think that is true. And sometimes the leaders, not you, based on a lot of the ways you have done this, but the leader steps themselves out of the team and doesn't see themselves in the team. And that would be the number one challenge for that leader to grow a strong team, is they haven't made themselves part of it.

Thomas G. Ferro 25:09

Well, uh to tie that back to sports, the coach calls a timeout and it gets the team together. That's right. As the leader. And that's what managers have to do. You have to be able to recognize people's skills and talents and restructure sometimes and shift responsibilities based on that. I knew when I took over the six-year declining business that budgets are cut every year. So when I asked my team to put together our plan for the year, I said we want so much of it to have a budget behind it, which requires a budget, but I also want us to be creative. What else could we do without a budget? In case budgets get cut, we still have a shot of hitting our numbers. So there was one individual in the marketing group that was very very good in front of surgeons. He could walk the talk, talk to talk with the surgeons. Not every marketing person is has that strength. So I gave him a eight-year-old product that was on slight decline, and I gave him that responsibility to turn that business around by getting out, working with our distributors, getting in front of doctors, and converting accounts. And our budget was cut 60%. He grew that product line 20%. And that was planning in the beginning of the year. You know there's a problem in an organization when people are pointing fingers at each other.

Tish Squillaro 26:44

Absolutely.

Thomas G. Ferro 26:45

Sales didn't hit their numbers because there was a delay in a product launch. You know, we could all have excuses. But things happened. Sometimes they could they were preventable, sometimes they're not. But it's did you plan for it? Did you have a backup or contingency plan? Did you get your management team thinking along those lines on what do we need to do? And have conversations during the year, because there are certain signs of pivot points that occur.

Tish Squillaro 27:15

Aaron Powell And be aware of those signs, right?

Thomas G. Ferro 27:17

I do think that's if you recognize them early, you have time to react. Right. If you don't, then you're pointing fingers at the end of the year. And that's when you could tell a leader like a president level if they're really a leader or they let that culture exist on the management board.

Tish Squillaro 27:35

Aaron Powell Very true. And I think it's probably the one theme I consistently see when I'm coming into an organization to kind of help build that team chemistry, that alignment, that trust, is there isn't trust. And the finger pointing comes from lack of trust. And today you've shared a tremendous amount of different ideas that I know our audience will love. And I appreciate your time for this journey. And but I guess the bottom line, if anyone is just going to get a snippet here, is know your people, trust your people, be genuine.

Thomas G. Ferro 28:08

Empower your people too. Empower your people to do the job.

Tish Squillaro 28:11

Empower them and don't overcomplicate the fact that getting to know them and putting that time in is going to actually pay forward way more than changing your meetings around to take on a different either client meeting. The internal meeting should not be moved around as much as I see happen because the focus on the internal team is what gets to the external wins. So thank you, Tom, so much. It's been great to have you as a guest. I appreciate all the stories. I appreciate our Brooklyn background, and I bet you were real thrilled with the Knicks winning.

Thomas G. Ferro 28:45

Yes, I am.

Tish Squillaro 28:47

Good for you. Well, congratulations on that.

Thomas G. Ferro 28:49

Yep, thank you.