Ted Turner, Master Certified Executive coach at ILEC. With over 40 years of leadership experience in the Engineering, Construction and Services industries, Ted has successfully managed large, complex projects in 31 states and 17 countries and four continents.
His professional credentials include General Engineering licenses in four states and contractor licenses in 12 states, as well as certifications from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, The U.S. Navy Facilities Engineering Command, The Board of Certified Safety Professionals, The American welding society, IMD Lausanne Switzerland and other entities.
He is co-author of the ACCE Decision and Risk Management Professional Study Guide, and his accomplishments have been featured in Popular Science, The San Diego Union Tribune, The Austin Construction News, and other publications.
As a business executive Ted has directed business portfolios exceeding $3.5 Billion USD to profitable, safe, and timely completion. An example of his entrepreneurial acumen is the recent development of a small specialty contractor from $24 Million USD to $140 Million USD in yearly revenue while increasing EBITA from 6.7% to 16.2%.
However, in Ted’s view those accomplishments pale in comparison to the successes in working with executives and others from around the world, bridging differences in culture, education, habit, language, religion, customs, experience, and attitudes to build cohesive teams of people that respect each other’s talents, show patience for their weaknesses, and embrace their mutual success.
Helping individuals and groups unlock their potential and realize successes they never thought possible have by far been the most rewarding experiences in a long and varied career.
Ted is a Master Certified Executive Leadership Coach, focusing on developing leaders, from C-suite occupants to emerging leaders, corporate culture, Diversity and Inclusion efforts, and team alignment.
Connect with Tedd on LinkedIn.
What You’ll Learn In This Episode
- Member participation – a two-edged sword
- Recruitment and retention
- The importance of strong leadership
- Leveraging shared values
- Diversity and inclusion
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Ted Turner and he is a master certified executive coach and he is here to talk about associations. Welcome, Ted.
Ted Turner: [00:00:33] Thank you Lee, pleasure to be back with you.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] Well, before we get too far into things, let’s talk a little bit about your coaching practice. I know you serve leaders in all different facets of business, but your background includes some roles in associations as well. So tell us a little bit about your practice and your background.
Ted Turner: [00:00:55] Well, certainly so my my background has been in construction and engineering for 40 years, large, major projects all around the world. And so as part of that, I’ve been a member of several trade organizations concerning engineering, construction, trade work, those kind of things. I’ve served on a number of committees, both at the local chapter level and at the national level advisory committees, as well as on the political action committees and and workforce development. A number of different experiences working with associations.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:31] So now for those people listening and that maybe aren’t members of associations left yet, why was it important for you to being a practitioner and working in the industry? Why was it important for you to not only join associations but also to take leadership roles?
Ted Turner: [00:01:50] You know, there’s a number of reasons why a person would want to get involved in an association. For me, I got involved at a early stage in my career and really didn’t know what to expect. I was there really to soak up the information at that point to learn from those that had been in the industry longer, to get the latest tidbits of information and research to be able to network and get creative ideas for different problems we were solving. I was very much into the educational part of the associations and all the unique things that they offered. And then as the years went by, I became more and more involved in setting the tone there and taking on assignments and working in an advisory role in different capacity. So my reason changed over time. I realized the power of having a lot of like minded people, whether you’re trying to affect ways to reach out to the community, ways to to fill gaps in workforce, ways to prepare the next generation of workers, whether it’s regulatory issues. There just was a lot of power and a lot of different directions that you could affect your industry, dealing with a well organized and and good sized association. And that’s true for whatever industry you’re in.
Lee Kantor: [00:03:11] So now since you have been on kind of experience in association at a variety of levels, can you share a little bit now using your master certified executive coach lens on what advice would you give the leader of an association in order to serve their members more to maybe increase retention or to recruit more people, maybe a more diverse group of people? What advice would you give those leaders of associations? You know, having kind of been there and done that in a variety of ways?
Ted Turner: [00:03:47] Yeah. You know, I tell you, that’s a very timely question. There’s there’s a fairly new survey out that shows that 45% of associations in the United States are reporting declines in membership renewals. Just last year, that was only 24%. So that’s that’s a huge issue that they’re facing right now. So so there’s the good news, bad news with that with associations. The good news is, is that leadership is agnostic. The traits that make a good leader in an association are much the same in any kind of an organization. They have to be a constant presence. People have to know that they can depend on them and know that they’re steering the ship with some constancy and some competence. They need to be vulnerable enough to listen. And especially in an association, these are all volunteers. None of them have to be there. They all have a level of passion about what they’re doing, at least enough to sign up. For some, it is just the level of passion that they think, Oh, this might be fun going to some of these mixers. For others, they are truly passionate about accomplishing something and they will jump in and they will work. So a leader of an association has got to have a very clear vision, has to communicate it very well to people so that they understand what it is they’re trying to accomplish. That’s even more important when you’ve got an all volunteer army, all these people have day jobs, right? And so motivating them takes some strength and it takes some some inclusivity.
Ted Turner: [00:05:16] It takes opening up your mind and explaining things and listening to the needs of your members. Because when you talk about retention, which what you asked about and getting new members, number one top priority, you’ve got to show your members value if you’re not giving. A value for their time and their money. They’re not going to stick around. Most of them are not in it just for the social aspect. Like I said, there are some. But you’ve got to give them you’ve got to give them value for their money. Are you helping their businesses? Are you helping their personal growth? Are you offering them products and services that will help them grow as business people or as researchers or as educators or as whatever the association is? Are you giving them unique things that they can’t get anywhere else? Are you helping them to leverage the power of that association? Are you fostering networking so that they can work within a group of people that have the same values? They’re just so many things there. If you’ve got some time, Lee, I can give you an example of some recent things we’ve done on this committee to meet the needs of the members. That I think is quite unique.
Lee Kantor: [00:06:21] Yeah. And you’re bringing up DNI diversity, equity and inclusion. That is obviously it’s a hot topic today and maybe it should have been a hot topic way before today. But how let’s bring that into play here a little bit, because a lot of associations, leadership don’t look like the members. And a lot of times if you go to the Web page of the leaders, they all look alike. And and it’s hard for some of them to make the shift to include other people that don’t look like them. So any advice or or counsel in this area is much appreciated.
Ted Turner: [00:07:06] Yeah. And like I said, that’s that’s the committee I’m serving on now. So that’s my focus now. But it all comes down to member value and diversity, equity, inclusion. Like so many things, we don’t make the shift until it either becomes too painful not to or until the lightbulb goes off. So many organizations wait until it’s painful to make the change. It’s smart to be on the front end of it. We just recently made a presentation to a to an association board about why it is monetarily and morally and every other aspect you want to make of it. Imperative to open up your doors and bring in diverse, you know, diverse attitudes, diverse experiences, diverse backgrounds, cultures. Open up those doors to those other ideas that you haven’t accessed in the past. The demographics of this country are changing that if even if you’re a cynical person, you just want to look at it at the bottom line. You’re not going to be able to attract intelligent and capable workers if you don’t start opening up your eyes and recruiting those that are a little bit more diverse. The demographics are just going to put us all in a bind if we don’t. Now, you couple that with the fact that there is some great talent that just has been ignored for a long, long time women and minorities and other marginalized groups.
Ted Turner: [00:08:34] There’s been no good reason to marginalize them. It’s just been our bias that’s done it and not that that’s always nefarious. Sometimes you just do what you’re used to doing. You just lean towards the people you’re used to see. But but there’s a huge wealth of talent out there that needs to be tapped into. And somebody will somebody will tap into that talent. So it’s either going to be your association or your company, or you’re going to be five years down the road thinking, dang, we really should have gotten ahead of this thing because now we’re hurting for people. We’re not able to compete because we don’t have the good ideas, we don’t have the new ideas, we don’t have the fresh perspectives. Just a slew of things. I know Toyota, when they first started making SUVs, they thought they had the perfect plan. And one of the women engineers walked out and said, well, this tailgate doesn’t work for me. I’m probably holding a baby and I’m trying to unload groceries. And this just flat out doesn’t work. None of the other engineers, all male, had ever thought about the practical application of half of their drivers. The female audience.
Lee Kantor: [00:09:33] Yeah, this is one of those things to me where associations really should take the lead. They have to be the role models for the industry. And if they’re not demonstrating this, making this a priority in the association, they’re really doing a disservice to their industry. I think that this is, you know, if their association isn’t doing it, it’s a lot easier for the industry members to say, you know, it must not be that important. But if they see the the associations leaning into this and doing this and behaving and role modeling this behavior, I think you have a lot better chance of getting the members to step up.
Ted Turner: [00:10:13] Yeah. And there has to be outreach. You have to reach out to those folks that traditionally have not been part of your association. And you’re right, if they haven’t been part of your association, then you’re probably not seeing them reflected in the leadership of your association. You’ve got to face the fact that that’s where you are and go out and show them the benefit to them to being a part of your group.
Lee Kantor: [00:10:33] Right. And at first, you might have to be proactive and go out and and kind of knock on some doors that you historically haven’t. And I don’t think it’s fair to say, well, they know where we are. You know.
Ted Turner: [00:10:46] It’s not fair at all.
Lee Kantor: [00:10:48] But a lot of folks take that that perspective where, hey, you know, we’re we’re out there. We’re it’s not like we’re hiding now.
Ted Turner: [00:10:56] You’ve got to be proactive. And as we’ve built the the participation in the women and minority owned businesses, we’ve been able to partner with municipalities and state, county, federal, you know, local port district to build some outreach programs and also to build some educational programs to get some of these newer women and minority owned businesses in those circles where they can network with those that they can do business with to to do some leadership training with them, to do some general business training with them, to give them access to things that an association buying in bulk, so to speak, can provide at a much, much more cost effective price point. Then they can get on their own hooking people up with mentors in their industries. So there’s a lot that you can do to show them that value, and then that value returns to your industry, to your association.
Lee Kantor: [00:11:50] And especially in today’s world where there is kind of a crisis of hiring and finding the right people. I mean, to ignore certain parts of the population seems silly.
Ted Turner: [00:12:01] We’ve especially in construction where my background is, for years we have faced a dearth of qualified people. It’s been really hard to find folks to fill those slots and it’s only going to get worse. You know, we’ve had something like 6.7 million people. If the workforce just 6.7 more than would have left because of COVID just decided to stop working. It’s just going to get worse. We’ve got to tap into those generations that are up and coming. And the greatest area of growth right now is in minorities in this country. So we’re going to come from that’s where the leadership is going to come from.
Lee Kantor: [00:12:37] So what is some baby step? What’s a baby step in association or a member company can take to attract a more diverse kind of base?
Ted Turner: [00:12:49] You know, it’s it’s hard to overcome inertia in anything, isn’t it? You said it earlier. A mindset has to shift. I was talking with a member of the board of this association. He’s an African American man who his first experience with this association was kind of standoffish, admittedly on his side. He didn’t see anybody that looked like him. He didn’t really have confidence that they were serious about integrating. And in talking to him just the other day, he made a comment. He said they’d been trying for years to do something and they finally decided to be serious about it. And that really is what it comes down to. They made the decision, you got to make the decision that this is something we’re committed to. You need to, again, coming back to vulnerability, reach out to those that have done this, that know how this is done. Reach out to the other associations. Reach out to the people who do this as a living within corporations that they have their outreach and the committees and initiatives. Learn the things you don’t know and start making those contacts and be aware that it may take time. You’ve got to build trust with people that you’ve never had a relationship with. We all like to trust the other human being talking to us, but we all have those reservations, no matter what the setting is. You’ve got to make the decision that you put in the time and you will put in the effort. And it really comes down to that. Nothing is going to start until you are dedicated to it.
Lee Kantor: [00:14:17] And and just like any change in an organization, it has a better chance of succeeding if it starts at the top.
Ted Turner: [00:14:26] Oh, yeah. I mean, you talk about initiatives and there’s lots of studies that show that over 70% of any kind of business initiative fails to reach its its stated goals. And that all comes down to leadership. So absolutely, if the leadership the association, the industry association you use, you’ve got a president or CEO or something, but then there’s usually a good sized board behind them. If they as a group and individually don’t buy in, give it the resources, give it the time, give it their personal clout. It’s not going to happen. Or if it does, it’s going to be much more difficult than it has to be.
Lee Kantor: [00:15:02] Well, Ted, thank you so much for sharing your insight today. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, maybe needs help with their association. You’re coaching practice is a great place to start to have these conversations. What is the best way to find you on the internet?
Ted Turner: [00:15:19] On the internet? You can find me at Ted Turner dot intelligent leadership e c that e c stands for executive coaching. So Ted Turner Intelligent Leadership E SI.com.
Lee Kantor: [00:15:33] Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.
Ted Turner: [00:15:37] Thank you so much, Leon.
Lee Kantor: [00:15:39] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.
