Welcome to GreatConversations, a podcast about leadership and life from GreatAmerica Financial Services. Mitch Leahy, VP and General Manager for our Office Equipment Group hosts our NextWave Series of talks with thought leaders and innovators from across the business world.
Today Mitch hosts Casey Lowery, President at Applied Innovation, a family-owned and run office technology provider offering technology, imaging, and automation solutions with locations in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida. Applied Innovation’s legacy goes back more than three decades, and Casey grew up observing and learning from his dad, John Lowery.
As a young kid, he always looked up to his dad and knew early on he wanted to follow in his footsteps. Casey shares his perspective growing up the young child of a business owner and paints the picture of what it was like in the early days growing up in a family business. He shares what he’s learned throughout life and leadership that’s shaped the way he approaches things today in his current role as President at Applied Innovation and talks about what it’s been like to lean into the ownership seat with the goal of staying family owned.
Listen to full podcast, or read the abbreviated interview below!
Keeping Up with The Family Business | Casey Lowery, Applied Innovation
Mitch: Hello and welcome to GreatConversations, specifically, our NextWave series, where we're talking to a number of different thought and change leaders within the office technology space. I'm excited to kick things off with a good friend of mine. He's a second generation leader, a Michigan native, a family man and president at Applied Innovation in Grand Rapids. I'm happy to welcome to the show, Casey Lowery.
Casey: Thanks, Mitch. I appreciate you having me.
Mitch: Thanks for agreeing to do this and helping us get kicked off. I know your schedule is somewhat bonkers with everything you have going on at Applied Innovation, so we really appreciate you taking the time to be here today.
Casey: Yeah! We've had such a great relationship with GreatAmerica, so it's hard to not want to reciprocate when you guys ask for something.
Lessons in Leadership and the Early Days of Applied Innovation
Mitch: We certainly appreciate it and we've certainly leaned on you many times over the last few years as we've gotten to know each other better. It's been a joy to be able to do that and build a little bit of a relationship.
I was hoping you could share some perspective on the things you've learned throughout your life in leadership that's shaped the way you're approaching things today at Applied Innovation. To start, you grew up in a family business, you saw your parents running Applied Innovation in the early days, you had a few siblings; was there ever an option for you not to be part of the organization or was that always part of your plan and the future you saw?
Casey: Well, I think my original plan was to be in the NBA.
Mitch: Oh, you too? Yeah. Okay
Casey: I was pretty I was going to the NBA and my brother was going to be on the same team as me, I'd say after that faded, which was early on, this is what I always wanted to do. I don't know how many next-gen people that are excited to get into the office technology industry, but I think it's been awesome to watch. From my family's perspective, it's been great to watch my dad and a lot of the individuals that have been here over the years have a ton of success. I always looked up to my dad, admired him, and just wanted to follow in his footsteps.
Mitch: In getting to know your family over the last few years, it's certainly admiration that is very much at the core, and an appreciation and respect certainly to both you and Kyle being involved in the business. When you were growing up, did you have perspective on what it was to be like a business owner and running the business? Your friends and their families probably had businesses in the Grand Rapids area too, but for others, maybe a normal job is working for somebody else. Did you feel like you had the perspective? Did you see sacrifice happening? I feel like you guys always had a pretty good balance from some of the stories you all share.
Casey: Certainly, things are much different now than they were when we were young. Back then, it was classic entrepreneur and classic family business; a lot of the Christmas parties for years were at my parents' house, so I felt like I knew a lot of the employees because they were with Applied for a long time, even going back to the early years. It’s kind of always felt like an extension of the family. But the gravity of it, that probably came a lot later. When I was growing up, I would never actually tell people that my dad owned a business. I just told people they sold copiers. Even as I got into the business, I never really identified as an owner, and kind of shied away from it. But I think at some point as a next gen, you kind of have to own that. You have to just lean into the fact that if the business is going to stay family-owned, that's the only real way to do it.
Perpetuating the Family Business and the Next Generation
Mitch: I understand that, and to your point there's quite a few next generation up and coming leaders who are very fortunate to have that family perpetuation in this industry, which I've always found to be very exciting to see how that transition works. Applied Innovation has been really thoughtful in how you're going to perpetuate a business. Like you said, that looks a lot different than it did 20 - 25 years ago when John and others founded it.
You mentioned folks aren't necessarily excited to get into the industry. I think they're missing a huge opportunity to work with some fantastic sales organizations and some well -run businesses. We were just talking before we got started about a peer group you've been involved with for a while. What gets you excited as you're talking to your peers who are running similar organizations, some of a similar size, some not, some doing different things?
Casey: When I first started in the industry, the first thing I did out of college, was go to work for RICOH for a couple of years. I really enjoyed the business. At the time, my now wife was going to transfer to a different nursing school, so it made sense to move back to Grand Rapids. I really felt like I would get out of the industry for a little while, do something else, and then potentially end up back here. I think the experience at RICOH was good because it gave me a different perspective than what we have at Applied Innovation. I really fell in love with the industry. So, I would definitely encourage any next-geners who are on the fence. To your point, this industry is full of excellent salespeople. As our industry evolves and moves into IT and automation and just overall diversification, it's an exciting time. I really do love the industry and I think what's really been fun in the last handful of years is giving people new opportunities to develop in their career. Maybe somebody started out as a delivery driver, learned how to connect a device, and then maybe gets into IT. For me, just being able to give people that career path has always really excited me at my core, and I think that's true for lots of family business. I'm a big fan of family business because they can have such a huge impact on the lives of the individuals that work in the business.
Maintaining a Strong Focus on Culture
Mitch: If there's one thing I've experienced about Applied Innovation, it's how you guys think of the entire organization as family, right? Working hard together, doing the things that you're trying to do year in and year out, but also making a tremendous amount of time for fun. You guys know how to have a good time and I've always enjoyed getting to see everyone coming together now that you've got so many locations. It's hard to make sure that culture stays tight knit and consistent, and that's clearly one thing you guys have been able to figure out over the years. Can you talk more about some of your progression through the organization to your role now? As you continue to expand your footprint, what are the things you're really focused on from your seat in order to continue to perpetuate that solid culture?
Casey: We were super fortunate to have an earlier appreciation and focus on culture. We learned a lot of that from you guys too. And there's other great examples across the industry too, but I think as we started to grow outside of Grand Rapids, we knew that we had to have a strong foundation so at our core, we were going to be very similar from location to location.
There is a book was called "Tribal Leadership," where they talked about culture and it explained how there are around 150 people per tribe or per group, and each one was going to have its own little subculture. For us, it's perpetuating our chemistry and the culture throughout our locations. I think it's great to perpetuate from first gen to the next gen because when you expand, you have this foundation laid where everyone agrees that these are the 12 elements of success. Here's the applied chemistry, and this is what we stand for. By clearing defining that, you get people who want to be a part of it. The storytelling around the elements has had such a huge impact on a way for us to keep that "family feel."
I'm sure there's still some people who would say, compared to 25 years ago, it doesn't feel as much like family as it did then. At the end of the day, it's impossible to go from 60 people to 500 and have it feel exactly the same. But we do something called a key person interview which is kind of a reverse interview of the new employees with key people within the business. One of my questions to them is always, "What was the experience like as you are going through the hiring process?" And a very common theme in their answers is that they got a good feel for what we were all about and felt like it was going to be too good to be true. A month or two down the road, it's virtually the same as what they were. To me, that's a good pulse to understanding if we are continuing to live what we set out to live? And even though we're bigger, are we still at our core believing in the same things that we've always have.
Hiring and Developing Talent
Mitch: It's so important to make sure you've got that right fit, right? As much as you want to find the right person, you want to make sure that Applied Innovation is the right fit for whoever it is that you're interviewing, regardless of what role they're in, whether it's a leadership role or a frontline contributor.
Casey: It's matching; we want to be a fit for them, and we want them to be a fit for us. Additionally, as much as we would love for people to stay here forever, we know that if we do a good job in developing them, there's a chance they're going to develop themselves out of a role. We've had people that have weeded themselves out because they felt like our hiring process was too long. To me, that's a win. We want people who are here and want to come here, and maybe they take a role that isn't the role that they want to be at someday, but they do it because they want to be a part of what we're trying to accomplish. They know if they come in and they develop, they can hopefully get to that role someday. That's what makes me tick.
Mitch: That tells a great story as a part of recruiting; we don't want you to just come here and be pigeonholed into whatever you do. If you'd like to work in that role for 10 or 15 years, absolutely. We'd love to have you, but we've got all these other things going on and we want you to find what makes you happy. I think that sends a very positive message to a lot of people who aren't with the organization and might be in the future.
Biggest Next-Gen Struggles
Mitch: You're working with a lot of different folks who are in your same age demographic. They're at the same point in life that you are, balancing a career and family and other hobbies and personal interests. What do you feel like people are struggling with most? You and I are both kind of in-between the millennial and Generation X period of generations. And we're looking at our companies going, boy, I've got folks on the end of the baby boomer spectrum all the way down to those coming out of college right now and just trying to balance that. What do you feel like are some of the common things that your peers and people you're engaging with are struggling with today?
Casey: I think overall, people in the workplace are more afraid to make mistakes. More people are involved in decision-making which is a good and bad thing. So, I really encourage people to screw stuff up because I think that that's how you learn. And I think from a customer's perspective, when we fail, that's when we have the opportunity to shine. One of the things we always talk about at Applied is that the manager is not necessarily the expert. Just because you're the manager doesn't mean that you have to know everything. There are better salespeople on your sales team than the sales manager, and that's okay. To me, it's about caring about people.
Another area I see people struggle in is looking at what their parents have or what someone else has, and they don't necessarily see the work that went into it. I think it's sometimes tough for newer folks to realize the grind that maybe somebody went through to get where they are today. It's easy to look at something shiny and say they want it, but you really have to work to that position. People have high standards and want things to happen quickly. As a family business, one of the things I'd say is we maybe don't always act as fast as we should, but hopefully people know that we have the right intent and we're trying to move towards making the changes we need to make. We're trying to get it right, it might take us a little bit longer.
Mitch: It's that fine balance between pushing forward and making decisions to get things done, but also being intentional and thoughtful. Like you said, it's a 500-person organization now and we need our managers and our leaders of team members to make decisions and make them quickly while maintaining perspective. It's good to remember the business isn't like a snow globe held up by toothpicks. If you pull one of the toothpicks out, the whole thing isn't going to fall and crash. We talk about this at GreatAmerica too because we have the same challenges. We've gone through some changes in in leadership over the years and it's getting people comfortable with the fact that we need others to step up and make decisions now. It takes constant reiteration.
The other piece that you touched on is how everybody sees the end result when it's gone really well and they'd love to do that too. However, when you talk about the grind and hustle; they have no idea what's gone into it behind the scenes. That's what I appreciate about this channel. Like your family, there are others who've also been doing this for 30 plus years and some that are maybe newer to the industry. But there's a real hustle that's got to be a part of your mentality to go out and make a sale happen. Then you've still got to figure out how to support it and do the next one and move forward. Do you feel like you're seeing the resiliency slip at all? Or are we as resilient as we've ever been in terms of business, leadership, and things moving forward?
Casey: I think some of that goes back to the matching. There's plenty of research out there about certain generations, maybe millennials are this way or baby boomers are this way, but I think individuals in the end of the day can behave within that group or they can behave in other ways too. I still think it goes back to matching into the hiring process and trying to hire people that are going to grind through and be resilient when times get tough. There are ways to do that in the interview process, but that's probably a longer answer than we have time for today.
Lessons in Leadership and Making Mistakes
Mitch: From your experience, both from the different roles you've held within Applied Innovation, and different exposure outside of applied, are there things you've seen done from a leadership perspective where you said to yourself, 'we're never going to do that."
Casey: I feel like one of the best predictors of a successful leader is if they care about people.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to be the type of person that someone would want to work for. When I see success or when I measure success, maybe as corny as it sounds, a lot of times you can just feel the energy of a certain team. You can tell if they are they on that right trajectory. Maybe they are not knocking the cover off the ball at the moment, but you can tell there are things happening in the background, and they'll have success in the future. To me, that trajectory is more important than the current results. It's funny that I say that because I think James Clear had a quote in his book that said something almost to that same effect, But for me, it's always been about what kind of energy is at the core and what's going on with the team. To me, that is a real good predictor of the future.
Mitch: I completely agree.
Casey: I know that there's tons and tons of mistakes we've made over the years and that's what they would call failing forward, right? I feel like that's such a huge piece of learning and feel like you learn the most from making mistakes. Early on when I was managing a sales team, I had a sales rep get a big win and it was a newer sales rep. When that happens, it's awesome, but it's also not awesome. Of course, the business is great, but did you establish the right habits to be able to get to there? Or did we get lucky one time and now are we going to now reproduce the bad habit that got the results? Sometimes that success can lead us in the wrong direction if it's establishing some of those bad habits. At the end of the day, making mistakes is how we learn.
Mitch: Agreed. I think, like you said earlier, it's giving people the "okay" to do that; an understanding that we expect you to make some mistakes.
It's a very manual, very involved, very personal business. You have to remember you're dealing with people on the other end of that transaction. When we interact with your customers too, we're going to make mistakes and we've got to give our people the freedom to do that and say, "Hey, we just need to learn from it going forward,"
Casey: Yes!
Lessons in Life
Mitch: I love that. So, where do people find you when you're not in the office being the leader of the organization?
Casey: Southern Little League at this time of year. For our three kids, we've got seven sports that they're in collectively right now. So, currently, they're in seven different sports. May is one of the most difficult months to do anything other than shuttle kids around now.
Mitch: And are we doing baseball, softball, lacrosse? I'm trying to think of all the sports that are active now.
Casey: Yes! Baseball, volleyball, lacrosse, and flag football. So, a couple of different teams.
Mitch: How many are you coaching?
Casey: Fortunately, I'm only helping with one. I don't know enough about several of those sports to even be able to help at all, but I am helping out with one of the baseball teams.
Mitch: I'm sure that is nice to prepare in all your free time. Do you feel like there are things you're learning in your career and in life that you're instilling in your kids and are you seeing any of those things come to fruition and they're soaking it in from dad?
Casey: Oh, I'd love to say that all my "wisdom" is being soaked up like a sponge. I think it's no different than coaching. When you are coaching your own kid, it seems that they don't really the feedback from you. Certainly, I try. Mike Riordan always talks about how the person that's talking is out of control. I tried to talk with my daughter a little bit about that. She's 14 and at a stage where she has some stuff to say to her parents, but you never know how the other person's receiving that. So I’ve tried, but I think they say a person has to hear something around 25 times before they remember it. I’m maybe at time number 10 at this moment.
Mitch: Well, stay on it. Stay consistent. I'm sure it is soaking in.
An Exciting Future Ahead
Mitch: As you're looking forward and thinking about what's going on this year and the next couple of years, what has you excited?
Casey: That's a good question. I talked a little bit about the industry in general; I am very excited about where we're at. I do feel like print has a long runway, but at the same time, our diversification strategy from an IT and automation perspective is super important to the business.
I'll kind of associate this back to our “Why”. Years ago, we had the managers either watch that TED Talk from Simon Sinek, “Start with Why." We had all the managers read the book and at the time we felt like we didn't have a why. We came up with our why, which is a passion for service, for people, and for business. We feel like if we are at service to one another, then and only then can we take great care of the customer.
Day one, my why was to sell as many copies as possible. That was my role. Then somewhere in the last 10 years it changed. The why shifted to creating a great place to come to work every day. Happy people take really good care of customers, and we just happen to sell copiers and IT.
I think the thing that's most exciting for me is creating a culture where ideas come from everywhere. We don’t have to invent an iPhone, but can we make a small tweak to how we're doing something?
One of the things that was cool was back when we got in the shred business about five years ago. We started to recycle some electronic scrap and then within the organization, some of our people came up with the idea to use those same providers to junk old copier parts. We got our technicians bringing in parts and keeping them out of landfills. To me it’s those small tweaks and innovations. It’s asking ourselves how we can continue to put things together a little bit better or make our offerings a little bit better, and just make sure that we're relevant 35 years from now.
I'd say overarchingly, the buy-in and desire of individuals here at Applied Innovation to always take things to the next level is exciting.
Mitch: Focus on taking care of each other and that will help us focus on taking care of the customer. In getting to know you, John, and others in your organization, I have no doubt you guys will figure out a way to continue to innovate. I'm excited for you guys, not only for this year, but for the future going forward as well.
Casey: I appreciate that.
Mitch: Absolutely, and thank you for being a guest today, Casey. We will let you go. I know you've got a lot going on; you probably have some practices or games to get to later this afternoon here and I don't want to make you late for any of that. We really appreciate you taking the time to be with us here and we look forward to talking to you again soon.
Casey: Thanks, Mitch. I appreciate it.
This has been GreatConversations, a business podcast from GreatAmerica Financial Services. We hope you found some helpful takeaways from this episode as you're charting your own leadership journey. We'd love to hear your feedback for future episodes. Reach out to us on Facebook and LinkedIn, or learn more at our website. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time for more GreatConversations.
Like What You Hear? Subscribe to Be Notified of New Episodes!
