Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Learn more about Joe’s work – and the progress on the new airport terminal – at https://flycolumbus.com/.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. The audiobook version is now available at  https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

– Why Your Old Leadership Style Doesn’t Work Anymore with Gill Hickman and Jorrit Volkers

– Coming Soon to a Business Climate Near You with Matthew Griffin

– Adaptive Leadership & Culture Change with Ron Heifetz

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

President & CEO Joe Nardone oversees the strategic operation and management of Columbus Regional Airport Authority’s three airports. Leading all aspects of the organization, he is specifically tasked with advancing air service development and creating partnerships to benefit the Columbus Region. Prior to this, he was CEO of the Wayne County Airport Authority in Michigan, including Detroit Metro Airport.

Transcript
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Maureen: [00:00:00] This is Innovating Leadership Co-Creating Our Future. I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf, the founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready. Helping us in this mission today is Joe Nardone, president and CEO of the Columbus Regional Airport Authority. We’ll be talking about his leadership journey as he continues to guide significant development efforts at the airport.

And underlying that conversation is the theme of. Leaders maintaining a sense of wonder, which allows them to create experiences for all of us that exceed our past experience. And Joe’s in the midst of that as he helps launch Columbus’s new airport.

Joe: It is great to be here. Maureen, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be with [00:01:00] you today.

Maureen: And likewise, I have long appreciated who you are and how you work, so I’m delighted that you’re able to join us today.

Joe: Thank you so much.

Maureen: You’ve overseen significant development efforts at the airport. Can you share your vision for the airport’s future and the strategic initiatives that you’re implementing to achieve that vision?

Joe: Well, thank you for that question, Maureen. We are so excited to be building a brand new terminal at Columbus Airports. is a very dynamic, what I call charismatic community. Yet the airport here is the only thing, as I like to say around here that’s older than me. It was opened in 1958. And they’ve been talking about a new terminal for decades. When I arrived in Columbus in 2018, during my interview process, our board said, can we build a terminal? I said, sure, let me figure that out. And I looked at the financials and they had $15 million. 15 [00:02:00] million towards a couple of billion doesn’t really go very far. So the last six or seven years, our team with extraordinary leadership of our board of directors has put us in a position to save $250 million, which

Maureen: Wow.

Joe: to convince the airlines to allow us to build this terminal because ultimately the airlines pay a big share of the bill. So the strategic initiative from. From the winter, or actually December of 2017 when they hired me through today has been our North Star has been finding a way to build a terminal. And there’s thousands of decisions, Maureen, that go into that process. So it’s cost cutting, it’s revenue generation, it’s all kinds of things.

But I have to really take my hat off to my board of directors, all of whom are the best of the best. We have the an extraordinary board of directors, leaders in the community. And our team, Maureen, our team, stayed with us. I, I describe it as Columbus [00:03:00] grit. As you know Maureen, I’m from Detroit and we have something called grit up there, and we had plenty of work to do and a lot of sacrifice to get to this point where there’s now about $200 million to construction that’s under, that’s been taking place over the last, uh, few months.

But since when we hired our architect in 2022, this has been a work in progress.

Maureen: When did you break ground?

Joe: We officially broke ground and there was a big event on December the ninth of 2024. But I can tell you that that was the formal event. We had been really working on this for some time. There had been a lot of, of projects that had been

Maureen: Yeah.

Joe: in advance of this project. There’s a lot of things that were underway, a utility corridor, different ways to make sure that when we get to this point we could actually execute.

So we put the, the, the, uh. of the basics in place, and now you’re really seeing the actual construction contract $1.6 [00:04:00] billion with the largest airport contractor in the us. We also Hensel Phelps, we also hired the one of the preeminent. Architects Gensler, who is the largest architect in the world, who’s designed airports all around the world to to have the best combination, the best professionals in the business to make sure Columbus ended up with the absolute best airport that we could build for them.

Maureen: And so that links brilliantly to this idea of a sense of wonder, what do you want people to experience?

Joe: So that’s a great question, Maureen. Columbus does have a sense of wonders. Columbus is a community that is on the grow, continues to grow, has very innovative leaders, has Ohio State University, has many universities, has many young people in this community. But the bottom line is we need to deliver the best terminal. Project that will deliver the best customer experience for everybody who walks through this terminal. We want people to say, [00:05:00] I went to Columbus and they had a terrific airport terminal, and we are about doing that right now. And it’s about, it’s not just seeing things, it’s not just about concessions.

It’s not just about curb front, it’s not just about the design. It’s about. The experience, how do you feel when you use the Columbus airport? And we’ve endeavored from the very beginning to make sure it was a good experience for people. I, I mentioned how, how exceptional our board is. Our board said, Hey Joe, we don’t want you comparing against any other airports.

We don’t want you comparing against other forms of transit. We want to compare you against LinkedIn and Apple and all the, the, the most progressive companies in the world that will give people the best experience and make sure they don’t forget Columbus or their visit here.

Maureen: You’ve traveled around the world. What was a characteristic of an airport that you felt really stood out what gives you the positive sense of wonder of I really want [00:06:00] to, um, engage with this community. And that engagement started with stepping off the airplane.

Joe: I just had an, an experience at Salt Lake City. Now this is pretty flatland. This is Ohio. We don’t have a lot of water and we don’t have a lot of natural features. But when I walked out of the airport at Salt Lake City and could see the Rocky Mountains. That was extraordinary. So while we can’t compare to that, that is, that brings a certain sense of place into that airport, right? So our sense of place, I can tell you that, we are creating, uh, beautiful vistas by, by having views of downtown from our concourse and from, we’re gonna have a grand marketplace where most people can see their gates from a central location.

So it’s the comfort and warmth of the terminal that we have now. We’ve pulled everything very close together. We have a consolidated rental car facility that’s close. We have a new parking structure that’s close, so we pulled everything together, [00:07:00] but it’s the warmth of Columbus in the most modern facility.

Maureen: A feeling of innovation and warmth really does seem to epitomize how we present ourselves. And airport terminals are not always known for their warmth.

Joe: Look, Maureen, the key is moving passengers right?

Maureen: Yeah.

Joe: honestly, airlines who pay a big portion of that, we have a very grand skylight called the Oculus in the middle of the central marketplace. We are going to, to provide and produce things that people, we will make Columbus airports unforgettable. But it’s the feel, so that’s hard to describe. There will be local, uh, participation in our concessions programs. We have, this is a fantastic food city, so we’re looking

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: we have to go through a very specific process because we’re, we have the FAA, we have a lot of things that we have to do, but sense of place. So, you know, you’re in Columbus, so [00:08:00] if you go to New Orleans, I haven’t been to the new. Terminal, but New Orleans had many of the restaurants that you fly to New Orleans and say, I want to eat at this restaurant. Well, they actually have it in their airport. So there’s some, it happens in Chicago. It happens a lot of places. We want people to feel we are the newest, most modern, but we’re also comfortable, and we’re also for people who we are what they call an origination and destination airport.

Maureen, you know that I ran a, a large hub airport, Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Uh, of the people that travel to Detroit never leave the terminal. The people that come and go from Columbus are either coming or going. Generally, we’re not a connecting airport. So you live here, you’re coming to visit family, you’re so, you have a specific purpose or reason to be in Columbus, and we wanna make sure that, that it’s exciting to the people that are coming.

Maureen: As the city evolves, so is our infrastructure.

Joe: It’s critical and, and I’m a huge supporter and [00:09:00] we’ve taken much into consideration on the public transit side. I worked with the former CEO of Coda, the, our bus system, Joanna Pinkerton. We have, uh, set aside space if we ever do end up with. Transit downtown, meaning rail, but we also have the opportunity at our ground transportation center to accommodate Coda Buses with the new bus Rapid Transit here.

So it all comes together. To your point, these are the things that separate many communities from Columbus, but we’re on it.

Maureen: You said 2017, you started with 15 million. Now you’re over 200. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced and what helped you overcome those challenges?

Joe: I’ve been very fortunate in my career and, and through my life to be supported by folks who, who helped me ultimately. Uh, as you know, I’ve worked at Detroit Metro Airport. I worked in the real estate development business. I was a, um, managing director of a plant in Europe where they didn’t speak my [00:10:00] language well.

Most of ’em spoke English, but it was in Belgium. And, and the, I would say that the concepts are the same in every business that we have worked in. Right? You have to be respectful. This is a very dynamic business, the airport business, but leadership is the same. So having worked in multiple different. Uh, different businesses.

It’s all about respect, decency. I remember when I got here, and it was a little bit of a challenge when I talked to them about culture. They looked at me like I had two heads. They said, what really is culture? And I said, and people would ask me, I would go to a big group and, and there was some resistance.

They didn’t, they liked it the way they were. And I get that. And I’m not, I’m not denigrating the way it was. But we run based on how we treat each other. This business is successful because we treat everybody with respect. Performance is also important. But we, we have situations. People have things going on.

Everybody has [00:11:00] something, right? So I would say the most important thing that has gotten us here was a culture shift, a culture shift of a more entrepreneurial business. Many airports are bureaucratic, I’m gonna be honest with you. We are different and we are blessed because we have a board that gets it. But. Leadership is leadership, but it really is evolving and it evolves and you have to stay ahead of it. And, and as we age, we have to understand what younger people want and how to deliver. So we have really worked at being a, an employer of choice, whether it’s our police department, whether it’s our administrative staff, whether it’s our people who, who plow the runways or accounting staff. have to want people to want to be here. So you start with respect.

Maureen: You and I were talking during C-O-V-I-D-A and. You have a workforce that predominantly needs to show up. Your TSA folks have to show up. Your guys, people plowing the runways need to show up, food service, [00:12:00] baggage, handlers, and they’re outside in cold weather and plow and snow and dealing with sun and, and everything else.

And. While airports were less busy, I know we flew in and out of Columbus several times during Covid. I, the airport was open, fewer flights, but you were open for business.

Joe: Yeah, and that’s a really good point to make as we talk about the fact that we saved $250 million plus or minus. We also had that little thing called covid in between. So it makes the, the accomplishments of our staff even more, uh, important and more meaningful. Uh, I can tell you I was pretty lonely. Uh, I mean, I’m old enough.

I don’t know if the two, I know you’re not Maureen, to remember the Maytag repairman. I would walk through the terminal and the only people I would see were flight crews. while I sent my whole team home, I came to work every day. Meaning the administrative people, not the people that are doing all the things that you described. But, but Covid affected us. [00:13:00] Uh, it affected employment, uh, although that seems to have swung back in recent days and months. Uh, but you have to keep that. You, you have to have courage to make the right decisions. You have to have commitment to continue on your mission, and you have to be undeterred because what will happen is people, and we’ve had this experience on this project, who think we’re not building it exactly the way they want us to build it are going to resist.

Maureen: That’s humans, right? That, that probably your team, people in the community architects. Engineers, everyone has a point of view.

Joe: We had a locker room mentality. We were continuing to power through. as long as we kept our North Star and on our project, we really feel like lifting up the community is critically important. We received some resistance from outside parties, from unions and from political leaders and others because they felt like we weren’t [00:14:00] making the right decisions, but we were not to be stopped.

I mean, you ca you have to, and that’s what I call the Columbus grit. We, we would not be here today if it was not for the, the, the. Impressive work of our team sacrificing understanding where we were going and making sure that we had each other’s backs. So if you have each other’s backs, look, we don’t all agree, we don’t.

Things happen. But as long as you continue following that path and treat people with respect and decency, and make them a part of the team, allow them to be heard and

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: move forward. had that sort of locker room mentality, and that’s why we are where we are today. And I, I have a great debt of gratitude to my team because they followed, uh, where we were going.

Maureen: I think the stat is something like a third of people will leave during a major transformation because, [00:15:00] one, just the economy’s changing, the world’s changing. Folks come and go. But also you are looking for something different during this era of the airport’s evolution than was expected before you were building a new terminal.

Joe: I had this conversation with one of the most influential business people in the community last night. I had dinner. With her, and we all know the easiest thing to do is status quo, If you come to work and don’t do anything, you’re not gonna break any eggs and you’re not gonna make anybody angry with you. Well, we had a very serious commitment to move this thing forward, and, um, you mentioned it earlier, there’s been great support from the business community. It, it always works this way, right? You, you might have 90 people in favor of you and 10 people who aren’t happy because they’re not controlling the process. And you have to focus on the 90 people. Sadly, and this is the truth about business, it’s also the truth. We talked about employees, you end up [00:16:00] spending most of your time on the people who wear problems. You spend 90% of your time on the 10% of problems. We now have a team and it’s evolved. It’s been seven years, and I will say this respectfully, people have washed out.

There are some very good people that just were not a good fit for this entrepreneurial run. Fast. Get to the finish line. Get results type of mentality. It’s different for airports. Airports are fine in many cases, just kind of evolving and existing. It’s somebody used this acronym the other or, or this saying the other day, either you’re going to control the fire or it’s gonna control you.

So we’ve chosen at Columbus airports to control the fire.

Maureen: Which is no small feat.

Joe: While we’re disappointed by some people that come and go, you end up with the people that are supposed to be where they are when you’re, when you need ’em to be where they are. The gentleman who, uh, who is working on this terminal project for me has, uh, has worked on three terminal projects, so he has experience.

He was working on the Kansas [00:17:00] City Terminal Project, which is complete, I don’t know if you’ve been there, but we

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: him over here to work with us on the Columbus project. So. You get the right team around you and you, it really is. And it’s interesting. I was talking with this business person, this businesswoman last night.

It’s really about DNA, what do people want? It’s the will, right? That gets you to where you have to go. Many people are smart, many people are talented, many people, but the will to succeed is the thing that separates us. And and you’ve seen, I’m sure you’ve seen the, the, the talk about grit and the

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: about this You know, it wasn’t always pleasant for me. The last couple of years

Maureen: Yeah.

Joe: were upset because we were moving forward without allowing them to tell us what to do. But we know how to run an airport and respectfully, people sometimes in this community and all communities, not just

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: want to feel like they’re in control.

And when you can do this, and we are an extraordinarily [00:18:00] independent authority. Many airports are run by cities or counties or the state. We are run by an independent authority, the state of Ohio. We are a port authority and that makes our board of directors the bottom line, the, the, the, it’s where the buck stops.

So that has been a real blessing. I. Frankly, that has helped us a lot when we’ve gone to get bond debt. That’s helped us when we’ve gone to hire architects because the decision making capability that we have at this airport system is quick. You don’t have to go to city Hall, you don’t have to go to the county commission, you don’t have to go to the state legislature.

We are an independent authority and all of those things put together in this big pot that we’re stirring has gotten us to this point because we would not have gotten here without this kind of flexibility.

Maureen: You didn’t start with 90 people agreeing with you and 10 disagreeing. You probably started with a lot less, and it was through. Untold number of hours meeting [00:19:00] and sharing your vision and taking input and refining how you were thinking that allowed you to create the support that the board could help you push this forward.

Joe: That’s true, Maureen, and it’s been very rewarding. It’s been a lot of work because

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: project, but it’s been extraordinarily rewarding. So I sit on the Columbus partnership with. 80, 75 or 80 other CEOs and their support has been unwavering. Now there’s a few who, who. Um, don’t understand what we’re doing and I’ve

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: right? An

Maureen: Okay.

Joe: I’ve run a real estate development business. I ran a, a steel business in Europe. I, I have run cities and counties and I’ve done all those kinds of things, which means I’m long in the tooth. But it also, but, but business is business. There are nuances to all of it. I mean, we’re a federally regulated industry.

There are a lot of things that are nuances, but [00:20:00] business is about. It ultimately is about your people and it’s honoring your people, respecting them, also, letting them know when it doesn’t work and maybe they should find another place. And those, as I like to say, those things stay with me probably more than they stay with the people that have to. But it is, uh, it’s about decency and, and about always being respectful to people, whether they’re part of the team. Or, or not a part of the team, because ultimately we’re all humans. We all have feelings, we all have ups and downs. We all have different levels of sensitivities, but ultimately the support the community, even though we’ve received some resistance from the unions and, and they wanted to control our project, um. It, it’s been, uh, it’s been rewarding. And by the way, we have at this point 80% union participation on this job. So they’re,

Maureen: Wow.

Joe: a, a lot of food on a lot of tables of union members. I.

Maureen: You talked about DNA and I just [00:21:00] wanted to amplify what you had said. We use an assessment that looks at the DNA for. Uh, processes, programs, and people, and how do we align a and having a differing DNA as the organization changes the, the required DNA is gonna be different and for both the organization and the precious humans coming to work every day, recognizing when those shifts no longer align and finding an appropriate exit is.

May be equally important to hiring in the people with the DNA that will align with your future direction.

Joe: I love that point, Maureen. So my career has been mostly change management and, and crisis management and fixing things that are broken. And it’s basically a finite time schedule, right? You go in, uh, [00:22:00] fix a company that’s heading towards bankruptcy. You go in and set up a, a company in Europe. You come into Columbus airports and turn it, turn over the table and, and make it not the bureaucracy that it was, but an entrepreneurial business.

However, it will evolve into the next step. So the people that are, that are really excited about doing turnaround business, which is what I’ve done in my career, mean that those same people are not going to sit

Maureen: Yeah.

Joe: when it, when it, when it’s a maintenance organization, when all you’re doing are the basics, because there’s not a project to do. it’s a really good point, and we’re all at different points in our career and we’re, we’re all, we enjoy different things. For me, it’s ma taking something that’s broken and fixing it and hoping the next person doesn’t break it.

Maureen: So you’ve created a more entrepreneurial, innovative culture. How do you go about. Shifting a culture, and as you’ve said, you’ve done [00:23:00] this in Detroit, you’ve done it in Europe, you’ve done it in other cities. What, what’s the general thought process and change management process to move how cultures operate?

Because I, that is in many cases, the secret sauce or the biggest barrier.

Joe: So we, we did, uh, ERP. We put Workday in here a a few years ago, and our human resources people, I give them a lot of credit, they started doing the change management before we started doing the implementation of the new software. So that was critical in our success. Getting ahead of it. I can tell you, and we all know this, change is a very difficult thing.

When I arrived in Columbus, there was. Okay, here’s a guy. He’s entrepreneurial. He let people go in Detroit because he had a culture that he wanted. If you’re not respectful to the people, you’re not gonna work here. Okay? You, you can, you can let somebody go. But if you don’t do that with dignity and respect, you’re not gonna work here.

We, we don’t go [00:24:00] for the yelling or the foot stomping or, or, or any of that stuff. But your question is really intriguing because the people who are here now run fast. And they run hard and they work a lot of long hours. And then we’ll be converting to a more of a maintenance organization the first quarter, 29, 29, when this business opens a brand new terminal. So I think the key is always hire the best people and people need to be able to pivot. My perfect scenario is that you can hire somebody who can work in all those environments. it doesn’t always work. Um, it will not be as much fun in 2029 after this terminal is open. Just maintaining because

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: another terminal for generations. So you try and find other things that you can get these folks to focus on. What’s our next business? Is it doing something? As you know, there’s something extraordinary going on down at Rickenbacker with Andel, with the,

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: technology. So [00:25:00] we’re able to pivot some of our people who are working on the terminal, move them down to really helping.

We’re very participatory. Um, it’s public knowledge. Andrew is leasing real estate from us at Rickenbacker, so. We have to get that project done. We have to provide a hangar work with them so they can pro actually, they’re building the hangar, but we have to provide them access to the airfield.

Maureen: The Innovative Leadership Institute emphasizes the importance of continuous growth and moving forward, especially in an era where we’re looking at AI and other fast moving changes. What have you done in your career to help you adapt and be able to navigate the challenges you’ve faced across industries and across countries, that that is a unique set of skills that many people would love to have.

Joe: Well that’s, that’s a fun question and I’d like to[00:26:00]

Maureen: Hmm.

Joe: time with you talking about that, but, but I think. For, for, for our perspective at Columbus airports and mine particularly, you have to get the basics right first. So you have to be, we have a situation where our terminal has to be clean and it has to be working, and it has to be fresh, and it has to be, you have to get the basics done. I think the real answer to that question is you have to set your ego aside when you’re a leader. You have to really be willing to listen and hear people. You have to be, you have to move slow in some space as people are evolving. But having worked in Europe, look, I walked into a lot of, I was, I was financing a business in Europe and, and most of the people I went and talked to, um, I had to learn how the bankers worked in Europe and I had to learn how, so I was the, the construction guy and the building guy, and the guy who did the m and a work.

So, so we were a small, not super small, but a business. So it’s the, the willingness to really learn anything that you have to learn. [00:27:00] Because look, I had to get an environmental permit in Europe and Belgium. They don’t have building permits like we have now that I’m going back a few decades, Maureen. So forgive me for that. But here you go. We just received thank you to the city. We just received a building permit on our project. When you’re doing a $2 billion project, you’re very concerned about a building permit because delays can cost you money, a lot of money and all the, all the teams. Um, but I, but I really think the, the biggest skill in that space is listening and continuing to be flexible and having to set your ego aside and say, I may have done this this way before, but I’m gonna do it differently in the future.

And we, we had technology in Europe that was nowhere else in the world. It was a, it was a. Sortation machine for heavy metals, uh, and non Ferris metals. And it was, it was revered around the world because we could separate aluminum from zinc, from copper, from stainless, and it was really a cool thing. And, and Europe, which is, [00:28:00] was, and still is, I think in some ways, many ways environmentally ahead of the United States.

They, they, they really wanted this technology because it works for them, right? they have a lot less space. It’s a lot tighter. They are much more concerned. I, we almost landed this thing in the Porter Rotterdam. And if you know anything about the Porter Rotterdam and you wanna talk about innovation, they basically built this huge port in an industrial area out of the sea.

They filled it in. I mean, there are innovative things that go in the most basic form. They built real estate. You’re familiar with Dubai and the Palm, where they

Maureen: Yeah.

Joe: this island, right? Um. So I think the, the, and, and I’m answering this generally, and if you want more spec specificity, please ask. But I think all is about the human heart, and it’s about

Maureen: Hmm.

Joe: willingness to succeed and about your willingness to know when to be humble and when to take charge.

And there’s a pivot there, right? So [00:29:00] sometimes as leaders, we have to be more autocratic than we want because the democratic process isn’t working and you really have to just pay attention it re as it relates to innovation. I. is so much going on around this ai, Google, if you Google something today, you get an AI response. It is, uh, airports are intuitive, right? So it’s trying to modernize what we’ve done in airports. With the boards, you don’t, you walk in an airport right now, we talk about innovation. You don’t really need to look at the board, right? You can look at your phone, you know,

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: taken off, you, you know, so many things.

So it’s kind of marrying the old comfort. With an old train station, with all the, the, the destinations up with the fact that that’s all at your fingertips. But as it relates to the leadership piece, Maureen, it’s how do you figure it out without being defensive, without being, uh, egotistical, without saying, I’ve done it this way before, so let’s continue doing that.

It’s really [00:30:00] about the human heart and about your passion for people and leadership.

Maureen: One of the things that strikes me is, especially with the volume of change and unpredictability that we’ve had during COVI post Covid, and not that the world wasn’t unpredictable before, but it’s seems to be escalating that idea that as leaders, we need to be continually growing and evolving just like our organizations do.

And for many of us, especially successful leaders, acknowledging that you’re doing your best and you’re still learning and growing along the way too. So you pointed to humility and setting your ego aside. And I’ve seen you do that, that, that you truly ask with an open heart, how is this going and, and how can I be better?

Which is [00:31:00] one of the characteristics that strikes me as what makes you an exemplar for others who are looking for, um, traits that help leaders become more effective.

Joe: Well, that’s very kind of you, Maureen. As I like to say, “experience doesn’t make you right. It makes you experienced.” So you need to take your experience and listen to everybody else and always say, maybe I’m missing something. I say that all the time, drives my staff crazy. other thing that I say that makes ’em crazy is I’m not telling you what to do, but this is where I, how I might handle this.

So, but, but truthfully, what am I missing? That’s a question I ask myself every day when something comes back to me that doesn’t intuitively f feel right, because, uh, you know, I’ve been in the management. I’ve been managing for a long time, and the minute you’re unwilling to listen to others, the minute that you’re unwilling to accept the fact that you were wrong on something, the minute that you’re not [00:32:00] looking at what could be is the minute you should stop trying to lead because you lose your, you lose your heart, right?

Because you don’t know everything. Nobody knows everything. I don’t know everything about this airport. We have, we have folks that know about this airport. What I know about it is the direction of the company and how we’re trying to make this a place. I, I just told a story this morning where we, if you don’t mind, we

Maureen: Yeah.

Joe: a certification for a police thing and we talk about culture a lot. I talked with one of our police officers who, who has a young child who’s having some issues, and hopefully that’ll all be fine. But the question I ask this police officer, when we’re talking about culture, so we talk about letting people go home if they have an issue. Don’t, there’s no question, my wife’s sick, get the heck outta here.

I don’t want you here. But I ask him, because police work is very intense, right? You only have so many people per shift, whatever. And I asked this man who I’ve known since I’ve been here, we, we developed a relationship. I said he, he told me that he had a child that is [00:33:00] having some struggles and having to get set on medication and doing these kinds of things.

And I said, has anybody ever told you you couldn’t go deal with this? he said, absolutely not.

Maureen: Hmm.

Joe: an issue, if I had to go the the police department. So remember, there’s multiple layers. Not everyone gets the memo. So what I heard from this young man. Was that the police chief and his lieutenants and his sergeants are all following the same culture that we’re trying to create by saying, your son needs you.

Get the heck outta here and come back to work when you can. And that’s really, really important to me.

Maureen: Thank you. So I wanna end on that note and summarize a little bit of what I heard and please jump in. So. Crucial is creating that culture of innovation and respect and being a cohesive part of the community and the, the story you told about the young police officer, it illustrates [00:34:00]beautifully that you set the culture from the top and yet it hasn’t worked if it hasn’t rolled down to the most junior person on the team because that level of respect.

Is expected for everyone in the organization, and the innovation won’t happen if everyone doesn’t both receive and give that respect to each other.

Joe: That’s absolutely true. And ironically I didn’t say this, but this police officer, the way we developed a relationship, I. And I’ll tell you one last quick thing was because he came to me, he was working the third shift, and I can tell you it’s hard to get me up at two in the morning to come and talk to our third shift people.

It’s not my favorite thing to do, I’m being really honest with you. But he, we talked about some things that we wanted that he thought could be improved because he felt like he could have an audience with me, and we developed a relationship. When we built our terminal, we met with every single [00:35:00]custodian and we started planning and designing this. met with all three shifts. We said, what can we do better? So we, it’s not for me to know how to, to manage that process. It’s up to these folks who are so committed to this airport that their, that their belief and, and their passion for giving, for having the cleanest airport in, in the country. know, Joe, you need to put an extra restroom here.

You need to put, you need to do this so we can deal with different religious populations. It was all about passion for delivering for people. I.

Maureen: And that circles back again to the respect for every work group in the organization that not all leaders work across and through the organization. It’s so easy to be incredibly busy and not make the time for. [00:36:00] Every employee group.

Joe: It’s true. And, and I think ultimately, and, and I know this is the focus of, of your podcast, innovation comes from healthy work environments. Innovation comes from the ability for people to speak up. Innovation comes from people even when they’re wrong. And they make, and, and, and something that they suggest doesn’t work out, that that doesn’t dissuade them from when they have a good idea to come back.

And, you know, because you’ve worked with our technology group, we’ve continued to innovate there and do newer and better. And talked about ERP and, and we have new technology and we have body-worn cameras for police officers and we continue to do things. Requested by the police officers, by the way, because the com, because it’s become so hostile towards the police officers that they wanted to protect themselves, uh, which would never happen 10 or 20 years ago when bosses wanted to put cameras on people.

They were like, no, we don’t wanna do it now. The police officers came to us and said, we really want this [00:37:00] technology. We really want this innovation because people are saying things about us that aren’t true. And, and the world’s evolved.

Maureen: And we as leaders are evolving with it, we hope.

Joe: That’s the most critical piece.

Maureen: So one of the other things you talked about is the DNA, and I heard that expressed in different ways, lifecycle of an organization going from bureaucratic to entrepreneurial, uh, having grit that that individual people need to have. The grit and the culture feeds also into the DNA.

All of those come together and are required. To create, hire the right people within your team on your board, and that impacts how you interact with the community and how you interact with the mission of building a [00:38:00] new airport versus we run steady state, state.

Joe: All true. And again, we don’t always get it right, Maureen. We, we make mistakes. We hire the wrong people. We, we, we do things, but it’s, I. It’s having been a real estate developer, I was told No, I, I like to say when we were trying to build a plant on the east coast of, of, uh, you know, it was up and down New Jersey and Maine and, and, and, and up the whole northeastern coast, new England, I, I get thrown outta every city hall between, um, Boston and Kenny Bport, Maine.

I mean, it, it just. you can’t be defeated. You, you have to just keep it going and, and sometimes it hurts, right?

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Joe: plenty of mistakes. A a, lot of smoke on the battlefield. But success because we just have to continue and, and stubbornness maybe is either a good trader or a bad trade, but there’s certainly some of that involved with grit.

Maureen: A third thing I heard, and it, it, [00:39:00] these weren’t your words, but the idea of collaboration with your board, with the community, with business leaders, with your team, that you, while you have more autonomy as an airport authority, you wouldn’t have gotten where you’ve gotten as a. CEO and President without cultivating those relationships, hearing the feedback negative and positive, and building alignment, which I’m assuming has meant micro adjustments and macro adjustments over time to ensure that you are meeting the goals of the largest group of stakeholders.

Joe: That’s absolutely true. And what I would say to that is, while we spent a lot of time, uh, dealing with naysayers and people who are not happy for whatever reasons. The [00:40:00] true story here is collaboration. It’s it’s cooperation, it’s leadership from our board. And they never blinked. I mean, they always knew, but, but realizing these people that are driving by have an opinion and they know nothing about really what we’re doing.

Our board sits in all these meetings and our board is participatory in our planning and our board knows how we’re spending money and our board manages and signs our documents when we go to the bond markets and sell a billion, $200 million worth of debt. And the bond rating agencies are saying, well, Columbus Airport, you really have something good going on there.

So, I mean, we’re vindicated through the business. Process. So our board knows this every step of the way. Our team knows this every step of the way. The second guessers and the people who are out there who, who for whatever reason wanna be heard, and with all due respect, they don’t know our locker room. Our locker room continues to flourish and, and execute.

Maureen: So I wanna [00:41:00] wrap up by, um, asking where people could learn more about the Columbus Airport and about you all.

Joe: Well, I’m not that interesting, Maureen, you can find out more information about the Terminal project at FlyColumbus.com.

Maureen: So thank you very much, Joe, and thank you to our listeners for joining us today on Innovating Leadership Co-Creating our Future. If you’re interested in elevating the quality of your leadership, the Innovative Leadership Institute offers — executive advising, and organizational transformation services.

Send me a note at inquiries@innovativeleadership.com, the the world’s most successful leaders are created here.

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