1. business and industrial

AILERON
Building on Lessons
Taught & Learned
over the Last 20 years
Written by Bill Thompson
Photography by Wes Battoclette
Aileron has taught business owners how to professionally manage and
grow their companies for almost 20 years. During that time, the people
at the nonprofit organization also have been learning from the same
clients that they serve. In addition, the journey of the former Center for
Entrepreneurial Education parallels the greatest technological innovation
in history. Today, Aileron is taking its core concept of professional
management – the DOC System: Direction, Operation and Control – and
expanding it into new programs such as Tool Talks, and delivering its
message on new platforms such as online presentations, seminars and
interactive roundtable discussions. Aileron understands that business in
today’s world doesn’t stand still, but also knows that problems faced by
owners and entrepreneurs are common no matter the product or service
those companies provide.
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Proud of the Past,
Focused on the Future
Aileron founder Clay Mathile says entrepreneurs perform the most noble acts in a
free society by putting their capital at risk to create jobs for others. The organization’s
mission is to help those people realize their vision by developing a plan.
Aileron will spend this year preparing to celebrate its
20th anniversary in 2016. Although it is an opportunity to
reflect and celebrate the achievements of what began as
the Center for Entrepreneurial Education, president Joni
Fedders is focused on the changes that will define the
next 20 years and beyond.
“We started very program oriented,” Fedders says.
“Come to a course, we would give you an advisor, and for
a couple of hours afterward you could talk. That was way
back at the beginning.”
The beginning of Aileron was an idea in the mind of
Clay Mathile, who built the Iams pet food company from a
small family business in Dayton into an international giant
before selling it to Procter & Gamble in 1999 for $2.3 billion.
Mathile credited the concept of professional management for his success and set out to share what he had
learned. That led to programs in the cafeteria of Iams
where over time the DOC model was developed. That
consists of three fundamentals: Direction, Operation,
Control, and six disciplines grouped underneath – Leadership, Strategy, People Development, Business Structure, Performance Management and Culture.
The center offered programs related to those topics,
including the flagship Course for Presidents that was introduced in 2001. In 2003, Fedders was hired as the first
full-time employee, charged with building an organization that would help entrepreneurs for generations to
come. In 2005, the name was changed to Aileron, which
is the part of an airplane’s wing that helps guide the craft.
That same year, ground was broken on the company’s
architecturally magnificent campus in southern Miami
County, just north of I-70, which opened in 2008.
That is an impressive list of accomplishments, certainly
something to be proud of. But what truly excites Fedders
and others members of the staff and the nonprofit organization’s clients are the possibilities.
“We have been operating off of this very high-level
(DOC) model and it really resonates with people,” Fed# • LEAD The Leading Organizations of Greater Cincinnati 2015
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ders says. “(But) we needed to learn how to become a
learning and development organization: how do you
transfer all of this knowledge that we are exposed to
through our business owners about what’s working,
what’s not working.”
One of the beauties of Aileron’s mission is its interactivity. Clients who sign up for programs bring as much to
the table as they learn from the sessions.
The organization has tapped into that real-world knowledge for new programs such as Tool Talks. A small group
(no more than 10) meets for a short time (no more than 90
minutes) on a single topic that falls under the umbrella of
the six disciplines. A peer presenter (client or staff member) shares a tool (technique or solution), then the group
adds its input during a wide-ranging discussion.
Nicole Luisi wears multiple hats as Aileron’s Learning
Experiences product manager. She created Tool Talks
and has nurtured it from the beginning, less than two
years ago, serving as the facilitator for more than half of
the 17 sessions offered in 2014.
“As the facilitator, I hand out this road map,” Luisi says.
“I ask the presenter to share in one or two sentences what
they are going to share with the group. They will do that,
the (clients) will write down their issues, and then it’s on
to the Q&A, although I haven’t found the magic words
here because Q&A sounds so formal, It’s really just a conversation.”
The facilitator is crucial to Tool Talks because of the
session’s sharp focus and brevity. The peer presenter
concentrates on sharing the tool, so the facilitator makes
sure that the discussion stays on course and that everyone has a chance to contribute.
“They’re here for a reason,” Luisi says of the clients who
attend the sessions. “What’s nice about the ones on campus is I can see body language so I can ask for volunteers
or see if somebody is itching to ask a question.
“During the last 10-15 minutes, I ask them to write down
the next step they will take (with the new tool). I will also
write that down and follow up with them about 30 days
later. I’ll ask questions like, ‘What success have you found
by using the tool or some variation of it? What’s in your
way, what’s a barrier? Can we help you with more?’ ”
As will things Aileron, it’s not only the clients who learn,
but in this case the information Luisi and others get from
feedback goes into the organization’s institutional knowledge bank to help tweak existing programs or develop
new ones.
Fedders knows the original theory is solid, but is optimistic about the opportunity to expand upon it.
“We’ve spent four years developing a competency
model (to help clients implement professional management),” Fedders says. “The second part of that is how do
we use technology to enable that sharing of peer conversations or searching resources or being able to identify
where you are (in the program) or whatever it takes to
become a much more multi-faceted provider.
“We want to become part of people’s work week. This
shouldn’t be just a mountaintop experience where you
come for a day a year. It should be, ‘I need this tool,’ or
‘I’m struggling with this.’ I hope you can go on a forum
and find how other people are doing it or get another
idea from another business owner.”
The professional management concept is based on
the fact that business owners have common problems no
matter their line of work. After Seth Angle bought out his
partners to become the sole owner of Force Design in
Covington, Ohio, he knew he needed to learn about running a business. He was an engineer.
“During the president’s course, you take an assessment,” Angle says. “We completely flunked that. We
didn’t have a vision, a mission or any of that. So for me,
it was starting clear back and asking, ‘Why are we doing
what we’re doing? What do I want out of it? Why is this
important to me?’ ”
The answers to those questions are also likely to be
common to any business owner, but Angle’s assessment
was tailored to his company.
This is the key to the system. Aileron can provide the
map for business owners to implement professional management. Its track record shows companies that are able
to utilize its techniques will be more successful. But it’s the
clients who have to do the heavy lifting on a daily basis.
“(Running a business) is overwhelming,” Fedders says.
“I think when a lot of people come in here, the DOC model gives them a structure to say, ‘OK, this helps me get an
understanding of what all the pieces are, and I can focus
in one area and start to build that part of it.
“All of these people are used to working hard. As Clay
used to say, ‘An entrepreneur is somebody who is willing
Joni Fedders
to work 16 hours a day to avoid working 8 hours a day for
somebody else.’ ”
As technology connected people across long distances, it was inevitable that Aileron’s message would travel
beyond the Miami Valley. And while local clients describe
visits to the campus in almost mystical terms, the organization’s reach has expanded across the country.
Reaching those people is a priority.
“Right now, 40% of our clients are from around the
country,” Fedders says. “Our business advisors are very
tech savvy so they can do ooVoo video calls or conference calls. We’re serving them; sometimes they come
here for meetings, sometimes we go there.
“Before this campus existed, we operated for 10 years
in a (basement cafeteria) and had the same emotion.
The campus … gave us credibility in a bigger marketplace. Dayton people got it, but other people discovered,
‘These people are serious.’ I think online technology can
enhance that and how we roll it out can enhance it.”
It can be a fool’s errand to predict the future. But it’s
likely that there will always be people willing to bet that
they have a good idea for a business. And it’s a lock that
the folks at Aileron will be there to help them succeed.
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Tool Talks
Provide Tangible Value for Clients
The mission of Aileron’s Tool Talks program is very clear: It will provide a peer-proven
tool to add to the client’s management arsenal. The short, tightly focused roundtable
is designed to address real-life challenges faced by business leaders.
There are many roads to Aileron for business
owners and executives. As the reputation of the
nonprofit organization that supports entrepreneurs grows, leaders from around the United
States sign up for programs that teach the value
of professional management.
Aileron’s flagship is the Course for Presidents, a two-day session aimed for owners,
presidents and CEOs of privately held companies. Companion programs include Course for
Senior Executives, Outside Boards and Course
for Managers. The centerpiece is Aileron’s DOC
model, which outlines the three fundamentals
and six disciplines that form the foundation of
professional management.
Aileron’s commitment to its clients doesn’t
end with introducing these concepts, however.
As a matter of fact, it could be said that the real
education begins after that.
One of its most recent initiatives is Tool Talks,
a 90-minute interactive discussion on a single
topic led by a peer (Aileron client or staff member) presenter who offers a proven “tool” that
has helped solve a common business problem.
Nicole Luisi is Aileron’s Learning Experiences product
manager who developed the roundtable.
“The most important thing (about Tool Talks) is the topic,” Luisi says. “I will tell the people in the group, ‘Something brought you here today. This topic was relevant, so
write down your specific issue.’
“We’ve done some research and found that clients
don’t come because of the presenter, they don’t come
specifically knowing the tool. They have the same problem: it’s the topic.”
Those topics fit into one of the six disciplines of
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formance Management header could be Tool Talks
on holding employees accountable or how to hold a
performance review.
Chuck Huggins is the director of client development
at Aileron. He also does individual leadership coaching.
When he presents at Tool Talks, he gives the clients a
handout titled Energy Leadership Levels and Coaching
Approaches Summary. There are seven levels in the Energy Leadership category.
“I’ll take them through each of the levels and I’ll ask
for examples,” he says. “My tool is all about you, how
you react to situations. Leadership is all about influence,
how you influence people. That starts with how you act in
these situations.
“You can’t change other people, the only way you can
help them change is to change your own behavior and
how you react to situations.”
Huggins is a professional coach, but many of the peer
presenters are clients who have found a solution a problem that resonates with other leaders.
“(Tool Talks) is about sharing your story and experience about something that has worked,” Luisi says. “Or
perhaps didn’t work ... What’s interesting is that (clients)
we’ve asked (to present) are so humble, they didn’t think
they were worthy enough.
“But they are because we don’t present this as the only
way … it’s just a way. It’s more about the dialog and discussion of getting your specific issue addressed.”
The response to Tool Talks has been overwhelmingly
positive among clients.
“I love them: they’re quick, they’re fast, you get in and
out, they are on a specific, tiny topic,” says Scott Knowles,
president of Wolf Creek Co., a turf management firm in
Trotwood. “Whether I do everything they did, or take
parts and pieces and blend it into what I’m doing, all of
the (sessions) I’ve been to have been helpful.”
“(Tool Talks) is about sharing
your story and experience about
something that has worked or
perhaps didn’t work ... What’s
interesting is that (clients)
we’ve asked (to present) are
so humble, they didn’t think
they were worthy enough.
But they are because we don’t
present this as the only way …
it’s just a way. It’s more about the
dialog and discussion of getting
your specific issue addressed.”
– Nicole Luisi, Aileron’s Learning
Experiences product manager
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Nicole Luisi
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Chuck Huggins
Tool Talks will serve another role for Aileron. It is the
first recurring program to be offered online.
“Strategically, one of our priorities is to be able to service our clients no matter where they are physically,” Luisi
says. “So the default offering will be online.
“(Participants) will see the Aileron facilitator and the
peer presenter live. Then they will have a static photo of
each of the participants. It is limited to 10 people so it’s
still very interactive. You are encouraged to participate
face-to-face just like you would on campus.”
Most of Aileron’s new clients are coming from around
the country, not just southwest Ohio any longer. Leveraging technology to reach those folks is key to the organization’s growth.
Huggins was the peer presenter for the first online
session and he was happy with the format.
“I did the in-person one in the morning,” he says, “then
online in the afternoon. And it was really, really good. People were really engaged. They could see us, we couldn’t
see them, so as a presenter and as a facilitator, you have
to keep your focus on the camera.
“I didn’t see any drop-off as far as engagement in the
discussions, which I think is a testament to the design and
what they’re trying to get out of it.”
Tool Talks is only the first step in Aileron’s campaign
to engage its national clientele online. Jennifer Rohren
is a client development specialist who is working on a
new project.
“One of the initiatives is to roll out a new portal for clients so they can log in and engage with (the organization),”
she says. “We’re trying to bring new functionality and have
new insight into our systems and our online programs.”
In one of her other roles, Rohren helps clients establish a board of advisors. “I’m a matchmaker behind the
scenes between our talented contributor community and
our clients, so they can get access to resources and advice.”
If she needs a tool to help with her online initiative,
Rohren knows who to talk to for advice.
Jennifer Rohren
“One of the initiatives is to roll out a new portal for clients
so they can log in and engage with (the organization).
We’re trying to bring new functionality and have new
insight into our systems and our online programs.”
– Jennifer Rohren, client development specialist
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Engineer Designs Business
with Help from Pros
The owner of Force Design knew how to build machines for his customers: You have
a problem to solve, you devise a strategy, a plan and a task list, then do it. Aileron
showed him that building a business was very similar.
Seth Angle was certain about two things while growing up in Covington, Ohio.
He knew he wanted to be an engineer, so he took college prep engineering classes at nearby Edison State
Community College in Piqua during his junior and senior
years in high school before heading to Wright State to
earn his degree in mechanical engineering.
And he wanted to own a business.
Credit Angle’s engineer-like focus for becoming a successful engineer. But Angle credits Aileron for teaching
him to become a successful business owner.
Angle joined Force Design, which had been started in
the late 1990s by two friends, in 2000. Within two years,
he bought out his friends and found himself in charge of
a nine-person company that designed industrial equipment.
“I was an engineer,” Angle says. “All of my training was
as an engineer. I never had any business training.
“I learned about Aileron through a friend who owns
an IT business. I saw where it had made a huge difference in his business. We were at that point through the
start-up phase when we were doing what needed to be
done. Then we started to see that we needed to get a
little more organized.”
Angle took Aileron’s Course for Presidents in 2010 and
says he was “completely blown away.” He has been active
in the organization ever since, especially among his peer
group, which still meets once a month. And being the
good engineer, Angle can appreciate the value of having
Tool Talks in his management toolbox.
“The group is small, and one of the things that really
makes them work for me is having the facilitator there to
keep the discussions on track,” he says.
“They make good use of the time. I feel like I can go
there, get the information that is presented, see how that
input is taken by the other people and hear any comments on it. It’s an efficient use of my time. The facilitator
makes sure that one person doesn’t go off on a tangent.”
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These days, Angle might sit in on the beginning stages of a project, but he has embraced the challenge of
owning a business, and says that Aileron instilled the confidence and enthusiasm to do that.
“It was a transition that I had to go through, saying,
“OK, I’m not doing that anymore,’ ” he says. “I really, really
like running the business side, and I like it even more now
that I’ve had Aileron there to inspire me and show me that
it’s possible to do well.
“Part of the reason is because the business of a company is like a machine: there’s a problem and you find
solutions, strategies and all of the components of that.”
Sound like Angle has found the perfect tool to help
build Force Design for the future.
Seth Angle
Putting Customers First
Doesn’t have to be Exhausting
Garrigans was built on customer service, but the
business model of a single-location office supply shop
was becoming an anachronism in the age of big-box
stores. The family devised a business plan that helped
them compete in today’s economy, but the workload
began to take a toll. That’s when Aileron showed them
a different way to manage the company.
Julie Garrigan is a nurse. When she became the majority
owner of Garrigans, a commercial office products distributor that began as a typewriter repair shop before World
War II, it was fortuitous that she had training in triage.
“There is so much overlap between nursing and business,” says Garrigan, whose husband, Joe, is the third
generation of Garrigans involved in the family business.
“You’re taught assessment skills … you’re taught to plan
treatment.
“Communication, whether with different departments
or physicians, is among a wide variety of cultures. It’s the
same in business. Communication is key.”
Garrigan didn’t hide behind a closed door when she
became more involved in the business in 2003. As she
says, “I always had an opinion, so I said sure” when her
father-in-law asked if she wanted to join the company.
But having an opinion and communicating it effectively
are two different things. “You just keep doing the same
thing in your small business and you’re just trying to keep
up with the day and keep your people employed and keep
Julie Garrigan
everybody engaged,” she says. “But you’re just fried.”
As a nurse and as a business owner, Garrigan knows
that’s not a condition that’s conducive to good work. That
More good things, however, did come from that sesknowledge was reinforced during a Tool Talks session en- sion. One of the participants explained how they had intitled “Harness Your Energy to Unleash Your Potential.”
stituted “huddles,” where people from different depart“I think the big takeaway was go ahead and have a day ments meet briefly with their own agendas to identify
off,” Garrigan says. “It reminded me of the need to re- and solve problems.
charge myself. Working longer hours doesn’t necessarily
“We started doing that. It’s the operations people
correlate with getting more done if you are too tired to and the customer service people and … without superfocus effectively.
micromanaging, we came up with this idea to put a micro
“(Plus) your staff is aware that you are totally fried and site on our website so people can order their own custom
cranky and that’s not a good thing.”
rubber stamps,” Garrigan says.
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“It’s a super labor-intensive activity for customer service. It took a whole day to do stamp orders. But they got
it all set up and it works like a dream. It has saved us a ton
of hours, salary-wise.”
Garrigan is fan of Tool Talks for many reasons.
“I went to two on one day,” she laughs, “because I
couldn’t decide which I needed more. Tool Talks are really neat because it’s an interactive session. They are an
hour-and-a-half, so you get to totally absorb the information, but you’re not totally overwhelmed. Or totally overstimulated.
“There’s time for peer interaction, which is invaluable
because people in your shoes are sharing their experiences. (You see) you are not alone, you see there is a way
to get better at nearly everything you aspire to do. It is
so helpful to learn from others how they have handled
(similar) situations effectively.”
Garrigan probably can’t imagine it now, but there
was a time when Aileron was little more than a dream in
her mind.
“I remember seeing a picture of the Dream Room
in the Springfield News-Sun when they opened (the
campus in 2008),” she says. “I got kind of choked up,
it was bizarre. Then I was out toward Tipp (City) one
day, saw Wildcat Road and ended up just going up to
the campus.
“They gave me the tour, and when I got to the Dream
Room I had a … breakdown, it was ridiculous. I thought,
‘I have to do this, I have to do this.’ And then I realized, ‘I
can’t afford it, I can’t afford it.’ But after a few years, I just
thought I’m doing it. It was literally the scariest thing I
have ever done in my life.”
Keep in mind this a former emergency room nurse.
Garrigan is not comparing her fear to the life-and-death
situations she faced in the hospital, but explaining how
difficult it was from her perspective to think about attending programs at Aileron.
“To go to a business place when you are a person without a business background and say, ‘I need help, I’m vulnerable,’ whew, that was tough,” she says.
“I was very, very intimidated … I knew it had to happen,
but I didn’t know how to get there. I was afraid I wouldn’t
know the proper terminology. I was very much out of my
comfort zone.”
Garrigan wasn’t the first person who thought she
wouldn’t fit in at Aileron and she won’t be the last. But
as the reputation of the organization’s inclusive, welcoming atmosphere spreads, it’s likely that more people who
might worry will understand that there are no prerequisites.
Once they pass through the door, they find a community of folks like themselves.
“The people I’ve met in classes, social events or even
from phone calls I made prior to attending the Course
for Presidents have led to a network group of sorts,” Garrigan says. “The people … are more than willing to share
testimonials of their experiences. I called several business owners who had posted videos posted on Aileron.
org (when I was) trying to make my decision on attending
the CFP. Each and every one was immensely helpful.
“There is a huge level of trust among the participants
I have crossed paths with. There is a true spirit of service
to others there.”
And there is no better witness to the spirit of service
than a former nurse.
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Motivation Can Come
in Mysterious Ways
The month after Justin Long bought Reliable Industrial Products from his father in
2008, General Motors, a large customer of the company, closed its operations in
Dayton. A month later, another important client, Delphi, left. Long says there were
some sleepless nights during that period.
Justin Long and Rodney Bear appear to be somewhat
of an odd couple.
Long, the owner and president of Reliable Industrial
Products and U.S. Hose & Coupling, is the third generation at the top of Reliable and the founder of U.S. Hose.
Bear, hired as a salesman at Reliable by Long’s father, Ron,
now holds the title of vice president. That means he was a
good salesman, and when Long needed help managing
the companies he turned to a trusted consigliere.
What they share, however, is a passion that goes beyond filling the next order at the distribution firms. What
was a birthright for Long and a job for Bear has turned
into journey that has taken them to some unexpected
places together and an enthusiasm to not only grow the
business, but make it the best possible destination for
both customers and employees.
“I’m not an overly educated guy,” Long laughs. “Frankly, you don’t learn in a couple years in college how to run
a big company. I’ve never run a hundred-million-dollar
business. I don’t know what it takes to run a hundredmillion-dollar business. The people at Aileron do. And
that is why we started with Aileron.
“Aileron is a wonderful place just for motivation. You
can have a bad day, business can be off, sales can be soft,
it’s like taking a right jab and a left hook. And you can
go up there (to the campus), and from the statements on
the wall to success stories to other customers of Aileron,
all of their staff is just remarkably supportive. There are
guys there who are running huge companies who have
the same problems I do.”
Bear’s problems were not unusual for someone who
had spent his career in one field (sales) and was rewarded for his success by being promoted to another
field (management).
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“I grew up as a salesman so I wasn’t trained to be a manager when I got there to begin with,” Bear says. “Moving
into a management position just because you can sell, I
learned that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going
to be skilled at managing as well. Or that knowledge is
just going to come directly to you.”
“It’s not just the customer
experience, it’s the employee
experience that is critically
important, too. The better
experience your employees
are having on a daily basis,
the better experience they’re
having at home, the happier life
is all the around. And the better
employee they’re going to be.”
– Rodney Bear, vice president of
Reliable Industrial Products
Long and Bear credit Aileron for not only showing
them how to acquire knowledge, but how to build a network of people to reach out to for knowledge that eludes
them. Bear uses Tool Talks as an example of where to
look for help when you know you need it.
“I was running into real issues with holding people accountable,” he says, which is not unusual for a person
who is suddenly put in charge of people he has worked
with on more or less an equal footing for years. “We were
coming up on forecasting for the next year, and I had just
walked out of a quarterly meeting talking about accountThat direction is different from that of the company
ability and forecasting and the things I needed to do, and when Long started in the warehouse and making deliverI was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?’
ies in 1996.
“I just happened to pull up an Aileron newsletter and
“My dad’s dad was a 45-year NCR employee and I was
the Tool Talks schedule had those two topics (forecasting the son of a business owner,” he says. “In my dad’s eyes,
and accountability) on it. I immediately called and said he exceeded what his father did, in theory, income-wise.
sign me up.”
He had the sense of accomplishment and was happy with
Kismet or divine intervention? Neither man is claiming what he did.
a higher power at work, although Long says the Aileron
“I want to take that next step. I think that is where my
approach is certainly not business as usual.
drive comes from. I’m not comfortable with where we are,
“It took me a couple of years in this (Aileron) process, there is another level that we are trying to get to.”
but I finally started to get it,” he says. “You know you do
Maybe there is a higher level at work.
this for a reason. You spend so much time as a company
– I’m not saying me or Rodney – but we as a company,
we spend so much time with budgets and income statements and trying to get sales numbers.
Rodney Bear and Justin Long
“But if we don’t have more of a reason to
do this than that we are never fulfilled with
what we are trying to get. Core values are
what we work on extensively now. We’ve
been through whole-day meetings about
our core values: what we want them to be,
how do we communicate this.”
The longtime salesman-turned-manager
speaks the same language as the boss.
“One of our core values is family,” Bear
says. “ Family is very important to us as a
company and as individuals. We want to
encourage our people, that if their children
have something really important going on in
their life to be able to go be a part of that.
“It’s not just the customer experience, it’s
the employee experience that is critically
important, too. The better experience your
employees are having on a daily basis, the
better experience they’re having at home,
the happier life is all the around. And the
better employee they’re going to be.”
Bear has become a better employee because he has learned to trust the process.
“I went to those (Tool Talks) not really
knowing what to expect,” he says. “You can
see that I still have my notes from them and
the notes that were provided for the sessions. The reason I still have them is because
I found them to be valuable.
“There were so many different insights
that were shared in that session. It helped
bring clarity to things that we were already
working on. It affirmed that we were working on the right things, moving in the right
direction.”
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Solution to Roadblock
is in the Details
Tool Talks are led by business people sharing something that works well for them.
There’s no ulterior motive, it’s simply someone saying, “Here’s what I’ve found works
well to handle this (problem).”
Scott Knowles is similar to many Aileron clients in
many areas. He is a second-generation owner of a family
business. His education and training wasn’t in business
before he began running the company. And maybe what
resonates the most: the world is a different place since
his father, Bud Knowles, founded Wolf Creek Co. in 1961.
Jump ahead 40 years, and Scott Knowles was facing
a crisis.
“In 2001, I found myself at kind of a roadblock in many
aspects of the management of our company,” says
Knowles, who is president of Wolf Creek. He and his
brother, Chris, own the company.
“I was looking (for help). I ran across somebody who
said check out Aileron, took the Course for Presidents,
and it opened my eyes to several things. I learned how to
do professional management much better, which helped
me get over my roadblocks that I was running into.”
Those roadblocks, while specific to Knowles at Wolf
Creek, are not unusual to people who have discovered
Aileron.
“I’ll explain it very simply,” Knowles says. “I’m an engineer. I was never trained to run a business. Now I found
myself – second generation – president of a family business. I didn’t know there were certain ways to do certain
things. I didn’t know there were even certain thoughts
out there about how to professionally manage a business.
“I was getting caught in all kinds of traps, all kinds of
dead-ends. I was trying to plan the future and grow the
business and just operate it more profitably. Those were
my issues.”
Those issues had nothing to do with landscape or turf
systems, design and portable piping, the work that goes
on at Wolf Creek on a daily basis. Knowles knew that part
inside and out. It was his new responsibility – business –
that kept him awake at night.
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2014
“Aileron exposed me to a
whole bunch of people
who had experience in
everything, or at least some
things, about running a
business professionally. To
sum it up, it was like going
back to college and getting
my master’s degree. I didn’t
even know that I should have
gotten a master’s degree until
I connected with them.”
– Scott Knowles,
president of Wolf Creek
But engineers are smart folks. When faced with a
problem that they don’t have the right tool for, they look
for a place to find that tool. For Knowles, that was Aileron.
“Aileron exposed me to a whole bunch of people who
had experience in everything, or at least some things,
about running a business professionally. To sum it up, it
was like going back to college and getting my master’s
degree,” says Knowles, who actually did post-graduate
work at the University of Nebraska – Omaha. “I didn’t
even know that I should have gotten a master’s degree
until I connected with them.”
Knowles, who has been involved with Aileron since the
days it was called the Center for Entrepreneurial Education
and met in conference rooms at the Iams facility in Dayton,
typifies the company’s mission of paying it forward by having clients share their knowledge and experience.
“I started becoming active as a contributor, and have,
hopefully, helped others. That’s a learning experience
right there. When you stand up to teach, you really do
want to make sure you have all of your ducks in a row. I’m
working on my Ph.D. is how I look at it,” he says, laughing.
Even while he teaches, Knowles continues to learn.
As he says, you never know where or when you will find
something at Aileron that will transform your business.
This happened to him at a Tool Talks session.
“(This Tool Talks) was about whiteboarding, holding a
meeting using whiteboarding,” Knowles says. “I got a lot
out of this guy’s method that they hold meetings using
whiteboards that has helped improve the quality of meetings.
“They put the time down, keep people on topic, keep
people accountable for they said they were going to be
doing. As simple as that sounds, (it) really made a difference for me.”
Anyone who has ever sat through an interminable
meeting – is there anyone who hasn’t? – would love to
know the secret to running an effective and efficient
meeting.
“We have a lot of meetings,” Knowles says. “We’re a
company that is spread out in eight different cities. Most
of our meetings are conference calls, but we do get together and have meetings. But we weren’t having effective meetings, there was a lot of wasted time.
“This has helped me to make sure that our plans were
being implemented. Every team has operational plans
that we maintain. It helped me actually implement the
plan, to make it come alive.”
This seems almost too simple to comprehend: How
can improving the quality of a meeting have such a dramatic impact on a business?
Scott Knowles. Photo by Daniel Smyth
“It brought our plans to life,” Knowles says. “Now it’s
not just a piece of paper that’s shoved away and talked
about two or three times a year. Now it’s every time we
talk. It made everything focused around the plan.
“It’s like that stupid commercial where two people are
talking and one says, ‘Did you know you can save this
much money in 15 minutes?’ And the other person says,
‘Well, yeah, everyone knew that.’ I felt like the person who
says, ‘Hey, did you know?’ I didn’t know. It never hit upon
me to do meetings like that.”
You never know where people find inspiration. That
Knowles found it at a Tool Talks session isn’t unusual, but
what turned that inspiration into a valuable tool for Wolf
Creek was the fact that Knowles was prepared to see the
possibilities when the tool was presented.
Whiteboards might not be the solution that every
company needs to hold effective meetings, but somewhere during these seminars it’s very likely each participant will discover a nugget that will improve an area of
performance in their business.
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Youth Will Be Served
by Guidance and Experience
It is never business as usual when a son or daughter joins the family company and is
groomed to take over from the previous generation. It can be helpful to seek different
perspectives from people who haven’t spent their entire lives together.
Imagine this scenario: You are 27 years old, you have
“Obviously, we had to do it our own way for our combeen working in your father’s business for about five pany, but it was all right there in front of us. It was pretty
years and it’s time to make a decision: Do you want to incredible.”
take over?
That’s the beauty of Tool Talks, which focus on a single
Roy Eastman, who founded ElectroShield in Yellow topic among a small group.
Springs, Ohio, in 1976, had begun talking about retiring
“Somebody shows the tool, you ask questions, and it
a few years ago.
gets opened up to the whole room,” Nick says. “There is
Although Nick Eastman has been around the compa- somebody who has already developed something that is
ny his entire life, it’s a giant step to go from working for working, they present it, and then there are people like
your father to running the business. When he made the me who are part way through the process, but have more
decision, he was wise enough to seek counsel.
detailed questions.
“About a year ago, I was thinking about what I need to
“That’s Aileron in general. You may be around compaget done for the year,” Nick says. “At that point, I decided nies that are selling different stuff, but (the problems) are
I was going to take over the business. I knew I needed to the same.”
start developing a network of people that I could reach
Just like the real world.
out to.
Nick Eastman
“I talked to a friend who is a web developer … and he
told me about Aileron. I checked it out, took the presidents’
course in October, found out this is it, this is perfect.”
Eastman and ElectroShield – a distributor of electronic components – fit snugly into the Aileron wheelhouse:
a small, family owned business that can benefit from
professional management and a network of people who
have traveled a similar path in their companies.
“They (Aileron) have been instrumental in pointing us
toward goals and helping us achieve that,” Nick says. “It
has been very (eye-opening) for me. They have prepared
me to lead. The network of people that I’ve met is a very,
very important thing that I’ve gotten from them.”
Defining goals and offering support, both technical
and personal, is a good description of the Tool Talks programs. The one that focused on forecasts stands out.
“It happened right when I was in the middle of building a failed forecast,” he laughs. “Someone brought in
another forecast they had developed for their company.
I understood the value of what I was trying to create before, but I got to see the specifics of how you can do it.
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2014