Question – what would happen to labor unions, if all of their members suddenly became owners of the company they worked for?
It’s a hypothetical question, but not entirely. Because I know a guy who runs a billion-dollar company in the home service industry, who recently restructured his operation in a way that turned 5,500 blue-collar workers – specifically, the guys who crawl underneath your house to fix your foundation and waterproof your basement – into owners.
The company is Groundworks, and full disclosure, they’re a sponsor of my podcast. But that’s not why I wanted to interview their CEO, Matt Malone. I wanted to interview Matt, because he’s done something with his company that I believe (and hope) other home services companies will do. He’s virtually eliminated the eternal tension between labor and management, by restructuring his company in a way that gives every employee a stake in the company’s success. Not just the executives, or the C-Suite folks – but the front line workers as well.
As you’ll hear in this week’s episode, I met Matt over a year ago in Virginia Beach, where he invited me to speak to his company on the day he announced the restructure. It was a remarkable event, which I wrote about earlier in some detail. https://bit.ly/3NiGLjm Ever since that post, people have been asking for more detail, so I thought Matt was the right guy to provide it. Hopefully, other CEOs in his industry will follow his example. I think it’s a damn good one. Our whole conversation is here. https://bit.ly/TWIHI408 A short clip is below.
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