If someone were to ask, I would confidently say that my business partner was to blame. It was all his fault, and my job was to minimize his damage. I explored ways of leveraging him out of the company, but to no avail. He and my sister owned 50% and I owned 50%.

Things were spiraling out of control fast and it seemed like my whole family started taking sides. I remember my parents stopping me after church one Sunday when they heard about the division growing between us. From my perspective, my parents seemed to take their side and dad told me to "sell the damn business" if it was going to cause division in the family. I pressed back on that for about 90 seconds before my dad said that I had promised to sell the business before it would get in the way of the family. I had no memory of making such a promise, but he was very stern in asking me if I would defy my own father. Let's just say that Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2013 were very uncomfortable to me…as I pretended to be happy and whole with pain and bitterness in my heart.

When things seemed bleak and I felt there was no hope, my wife, Barb, told me about a conversation she had with a lady who owns a ballet studio in Cincinnati. This lady started talking about an executive coach that they utilize to help grow their leadership skills and business success. When Barb told me about the conversation, I was not impressed. I mean, I had big problems and the last thing I wanted was an executive coach/motivational speaker to give me ra-ra talk. No thank you!

Well, after some further consideration, I thought that if I met with the executive coach, it might further my opportunity to find a way to divorce my business partner. Maybe he would take my side and give me the advantage as the "better leader". Maybe meeting with him, would enable me to be free of my partnership.

After a few days, I reached out the executive coach, Chris Halter. He met with us three business owners individually and listened to us tell our stories. He later pulled the three of us together and Chris noticed that I wouldn't even look in my business partner's direction. It was true. I was so angry and frustrated, that I would not make eye contact with the guy who I've run the company with for 12 years. Again, I was hurt and feeling hopeless.

We didn’t know how to fix our problem, so we hired Chris and started getting help for our dire situation. Chris was really the perfect guy to help us in the situation that we were facing. About a week later, Chris and I were getting coffee. I was complaining about all the things my business partner was doing that was driving me crazy. Did you see how he ….? Did you hear him say….? I was on a roll being able to vent and share my feelings in a safe environment. Chris stopped me and said something like, "It sounds like you're really concerned about the impact Jason is having in your business." I was thinking to myself "yea, like no shit, he's a real problem"….but I said something like, "well, what I see is concerning to me." Without a pause, Chris said, "you know Tom, I'm not worried about Jason."

I was beside myself, are you saying you're worried about me? The audacity! I'm not the problem….my business partner is the problem! But, Chris pushed back at me and challenged me about my pride, my anger, and my resentfulness. He basically said that if I felt called to leadership, that it was time for me to grow-up and embrace a fuller dimension of what leadership is really about.

Thus, one season of my life ended in 2013 and for the next six and a half years, I learned about leadership through Chris, through books, through speakers, and through the At Work on Purpose community. I slowly learned to put aside my pride and embrace a learning mindset. After years of a relatively fixed mindset, I put on a mindset of learning and transformation. I became a student of leadership with a passion for relationships and culture.

It would sound cool to say that everything was great from that day forward, but that would not be authentic or honest. I can say that my relationship with the other owners began to improve as I learned to communicate, how to express myself in healthy ways, and how to build trust. So, in many ways 2013 represents the worst season of my life, and yet, in retrospect it was the very best thing that could have happened to me.

Within a few months of working with us, Chris offered to do an evaluation of our culture by individually interviewing each of our employees. I had though our culture was pretty good. I mean, most of the people on my team worked with diligence and tenacity. I had my doubts about my business partner, but I thought my team really liked me. Furthermore, we were profitable and growing each year. I thought that Chris would be impressed by the team we had built. Unfortunately, on the day of the reveal, Chris very soberly asked us to sit down as he asked us if we were mentally ready to hear some challenging news. Yea…it was ugly! He told us some good news about the loyalty of some of our team members, but then he shared some of challenges we had in front of us. He mentioned the silo'd mentality of many of the workers….where the sales team was frustrated with the art team - the customer service team was distraught with the assembly team - the shipping team was aggravated with accounting team and on and on it went! I guess it is not surprising that if the owners were a cause of division, it should not be a surprise that team fell into silos as well.

Our team was also riveted with sub-cultures as well. We had the drinking clique, we had the older clique, the church clique, etc. We were not a unified team…we were sub-divided and unhealthy. This was hurtful to me, because I really do have a heart for people. I had not intended to create a culture where people were not feeling heard and understood, but I my lack of engagement with the culture produced a bad crop of fruit. It was safe to say that our culture was toxic.

Transforming our company culture became a passion for me. Again, I embraced a learning mindset and set out, with lots of help, to rebuild our team and culture. This was going to require a lot of change! To start, we had to change how we recruit, how we interview, how we hire, how we onboard, how we train, how we evaluate, how we uphold standards of accountability, and how we fire.

Again, this was a process that we took years to refine. Armed with Core Values and a mandate for learning, change started happening. Sometimes it felt like 1-step forwards and 2 back, but in time we started gaining momentum and energy. Some of our team members embraced a new way of doing business, some people left and were replaced with people eager to learn and advance our company.

In 2013, we were in quite a hole. Yet, by 2019, we won top culture in the greater Cincinnati area designated at the Goering Center 21st Annual Family and Private Business Awards. It was such an honor! We took a toxic culture and transformed it to a very healthy one in six years. It was difficult…it was challenging, and some days I came home not knowing if we were ever going to break through and hit that tipping point. So being nominated for the award was a great honor, becoming a semi-finalist was awesome, but winning was a highlight to my career.

Strangely, near the mid-point of 2019, I started feeling restless in my work. It was not like me, but I found myself scheduling a lot things during the workday, watching the clock, and feeling like I was going through the motions. Good things had happened, I had turned over most of my responsibilities to our leadership team, and they were doing a good job. I had the feeling that I had worked myself out of a job. So, engaged in some additional coaching to clarify my next steps. And, after much reflection and contemplation, I decided to explore selling my portion of the company to pursue Executive and Life coaching. By this time, my business partners and I had developed a relationship with a strong level of respect and trust, and in February 2020, we agreed to a proposal to transfer my shares to them.

Now, I'm taking my 30+ years of experience in small family business and looking to help people avoid the pains that I've endured. Dysfunctional relationships? I've been there. Poor leadership? I've done that. Toxic culture? I've built those. Family division? Yep…that too. But, I want people to know there is hope! I've learned so much these past 6-7 years….and I believe I can help business owners create teams of unified individuals who are bound by mutual respect, who align to agreed values, and are motivated to fulfill an audacious vision of success.

Want to get out of that rut? Want to be a leader that impacts their team in both their professional and personal lives? Want to create a culture where people feel emotionally safe? Maybe you want to make strides in your relationships? Are you questioning if you're in the right career? In essence, I believe I can help people become better versions of themselves. I can help people become the leaders they were created to be….and let's face it, in this world people are hurting and in some cases dying from a lack a quality leadership. If you're ready to engage in discomfort in order to fire on all cylinders, reach out to me! Let's see if we'd be a good team.