Pamela Frost on Promoting from Within, Leading Through Change, and Keeping Work Fun at RND Automation
Manufacturing Happy Hour
Pamela Frost is President of RND Automation, a company that builds automated equipment. In this podcast conversation, Frost explains how they think manufacturers can keep good people and build a strong team for the future. Their answers draw on two decades at a family-owned automotive supplier, a short-lived retirement, and their current role leading RND through an acquisition and an expansion into a family of sister companies. Several themes recur: giving employees chances to try new roles, listening more than talking, being transparent during change, and making work enjoyable.
Twenty Years at Pridgeon & Clay
Before RND, Frost spent about 20 years at Pridgeon & Clay, a Michigan company in the automotive industry. They reached it through a personal referral. Frost worked several jobs while putting themselves through college, and at the time they were working in the steel industry on Michigan's Lakeshore. One of their steel salesmen called on Pridgeon & Clay. He told Frost that if they wanted a good long-term employer, they should apply for an opening there. Pridgeon & Clay is also in the steel business, and Frost was hired as a steel buyer. By the time they left in 2016, they had become corporate director of supply chain.
The host noted that staying at one company for 20 years is unusual. Asked why they stayed, Frost first described a feeling of déjà vu during their interview. It felt like walking into a place they had been before or belonged in. The setting, the way things were done, and the way the company treated its employees all appealed to them.
Over time, Frost said, it became clear that the company was people-oriented. The Clay family owns it, and it is now in its third generation of family ownership. Frost said the family treated employees like family. Just as important to them, young employees could move between jobs. If someone was interested in another position or department, that door was open. Frost describes themselves as having a short attention span and enjoying learning new things, so this mattered a lot. They listed the range of their own path: buyer, inspection and quality control, finance, and systems implementation work alongside IT groups.
Don't Assume What Employees Want
The host asked what other manufacturing leaders could do to copy that success with retention and internal promotion. Frost's main advice was to offer opportunities to people you might not expect to take them. Leaders tend to form opinions about what employees want, Frost said, such as assuming an engineer would never want to move into sales, or a salesperson into operations management. If you never ask, you never get an answer. Frost also said leaders often need to ask first instead of waiting for the employee to raise it, because the employee may not have thought of it either. Their broader advice was to be flexible and creative, and to make use of employees' curiosity.
On timing, Frost pointed first to the scheduled conversations: one-on-ones and review cycles. They recommended always asking about interests during those meetings. They also said informal moments can reveal as much. When a team comes together for a kaizen event or another lean activity, leaders can watch what each person is good at and then ask how that skill might be used later. Frost even mentioned Christmas parties and retirement parties. Watching how people interact with others there, they said, can show a lot about someone's skills and possible future just by sitting back and observing.
The host asked how often a move is something the employee already wanted versus something the leader has to suggest. Frost said most people go in a direction they already felt drawn to, partly because it feels safer. If they had to put a number on it, they estimated that 20 to 25 percent of the time, people surprised them by agreeing to try something new. Frost connected this to their own career: their curiosity was, in their words, "fertilized" by people who gave them opportunities. So it stays at the front of their mind when they look at others.
Coming Out of Retirement
Frost moved to Florida intending to retire, then returned to work at RND. They explained that retirement planning usually focuses on money: can you afford to stop working? Once you know you can, Frost recommends asking a second question: are you mentally ready? They were not. Apart from golf, they had no hobby that could fill most of their time, and they found themselves wondering what to do all day. They realized they could still contribute to a company or an industry, though they weren't sure what that would look like.
RND was looking for someone to lead its procurement, buying, and purchasing team. Frost applied, thinking it would be a good job to "coast into retirement." After they joined, a private equity group acquired RND. Frost said that opened up many visible opportunities, and they were able to take one of them. In their telling, they went from retired, to having a job, to rebuilding their career. They said they now enjoy the work, the people, and the industry, and are "full steam ahead" again.
What Drew Frost to RND
Asked what impressed them about RND at first, Frost went back to Pridgeon & Clay. There, a core group of employees had joined around the same time they did and stayed through most of their tenure, so for 20 years they worked with mostly the same people. At RND, Frost saw that staff had stayed with the company as it grew. To them, that said a lot about the character of the people running the business, the atmosphere, and the level of collaboration.
The host recalled an earlier conversation in which Frost called RND's talent beyond anything they had seen in industry. Frost explained that RND is an engineering company whose passion is automation, so it attracts creative, intellectual people with a strong continuous-improvement mindset. When a customer brings a problem, the team's creativity kicks in, and Frost enjoys watching them work together on a solution.
Frost stressed that this creativity follows a disciplined process. The company is not "fly by the seat of our pants." It works through defined steps to meet the customer's needs and to make sure what it builds is repeatable and has quality built in. They also described mutual respect among employees and respect for the industry. Employees want the product to reflect the company's personality and help customers enough that the customers come back with future projects. Frost said the camaraderie is fun to watch.
Operational Excellence Starts with the "Why"
When asked how to build operational excellence in a team, Frost said to make sure people understand the why. In their view, operational excellence includes a continuous-improvement mindset: making the work easier, better, faster, and more profitable, and bringing customers along on that same path. People need to understand why change is necessary, Frost argued, because the company, its product, and its employees all have to evolve to stay relevant.
Frost said understanding is not enough; people also need to be involved in shaping the process. They raised several questions leaders face. How do you keep the culture intact while the company changes into what it needs to be? How do you move from selling a product to selling a solution? And since today's solution won't be tomorrow's, how do you build an environment that can keep the company ahead? They added that it is important to celebrate the past, celebrate today, and look ahead to the future.
Leading Through Change: Model the Behavior and Listen
The host then asked broadly how to lead through change. Frost answered briefly: model the behavior, keep an open mind, and listen to employees, customers, and suppliers. They added the ownership group, which has its own vision of what the company should look like and also needs to be heard. Leadership, in Frost's description, means putting all those pieces together into a mosaic that makes people happy and brings them joy, while also paying the bills.
On using their own style and strengths, Frost said they try to use their ears and mouth "in the ratio that they were given to me": two ears, one mouth, so listen at least twice as much as you talk. They paired this with a collaborative environment. RND has very intelligent people with good ideas. The leader, drawing on the ownership group's direction and their own, lays out what the destination looks like, and the team helps decide how to get there. In Frost's words: "I get to point out the destination, they get to help plan the trip."
From Selling Machines to Selling Solutions
Frost described RND's historic strength as building automated equipment for customers, whether for assembly, inspection, packaging, or something else. The company had been fortunate that customers kept coming back. As they put it, "if we would build it, they would call."
To grow, and to work more closely with sister companies I Automation and Panel Tech, Frost said RND needs to do more than build equipment. The goal is to sell solutions rather than machines. That means approaching customers proactively instead of waiting for them. RND wants to offer not only machines but also robotics, vision systems, and, through its sister companies, electrical panel building (one sister company's core competency) and product distribution (another sister company is a distribution company). Moving from one product to many, and from a standalone company to a family of companies, opens up many opportunities, Frost said.
Prioritizing Around the Core Competency
The host asked how RND chooses what to focus on given how many options the family of companies offers. Frost clarified that they were speaking only about RND. RND is prioritizing assembly, robotics, vision, and related work because that is its core competency. If a customer also needs an electrical panel or component sales, RND can connect them with the right people at I Automation or Panel Tech. That way RND doesn't have to manage the extra work internally, since experts elsewhere in the group handle it.
Within RND, Frost said, the priority is whatever the customer wants. That might be a robot, a machine, a vision system, or spare parts and service for equipment the customer already owns. They said RND has the right team to support all of those offerings. The host observed that this setup is unusual: where other automation companies might need an outside partner, RND can hand work to a sister company in the same group.
What Excites Frost About the Future
Asked what excites them most about RND's future, Frost pointed to the collaboration developing between the companies and within them. They enjoy watching "light bulbs go off," creative ideas emerge, and solutions get put into place. Frost said they feel they have "caught lightning in a bottle twice," first at Pridgeon & Clay and now at RND, and they expect the sister companies to join that. They value working with a core group of people who keep each other going, enjoy each other's company, and collaborate. Frost acknowledged the group doesn't always agree, but said they still arrive at a solution, and they find being part of that evolution fun.
Fostering Collaboration During Mergers and Acquisitions
The host asked how to build collaboration as a company grows and brings in people who had never worked together. Frost said they believe there is "no such thing as too much information." People need to understand why the company is doing what it's doing and who the other players are.
Frost described the fear that mergers and acquisitions can cause. When new companies, cultures, or industries join, employees may wonder whether they'll be protected, whether their culture will survive, or whether their operation will be moved elsewhere. Explaining the goal and the reasons behind decisions keeps people from getting frightened and leaving over the unknown. Frost acknowledged the tension many companies feel: telling people everything means sometimes telling them things they don't want to hear. But if leaders hold back both the good and the not-so-good, Frost said, people will draw their own conclusions, which may be worse than the truth. Their answer is to be honest, open, and transparent.
As a concrete example, Frost described quarterly Fireside Chats. A fake fire is placed in the middle of the conference room table, and about 10 employees come in and can ask Frost anything: about the business, about Frost personally, or anything else. The employees ask about what they don't know, what they think they know, what they want clarified, and what worries or excites them. Frost called the results fantastic and the questions phenomenal. They credited one of the company's VPs with the idea. That VP brought the fake fire to the first session, plugged it in, told Frost to have fun, and left them to it.
The host summarized the theme as two-way communication: listen a lot, and when you speak, be transparent about both the positives and the challenges.
Keep It Fun
Asked if anything had been left out, Frost brought up something they had always emphasized at Pridgeon & Clay and try to do at RND: make sure people have fun. Work doesn't have to be tedious, they said. When people come together and enjoy each other's company, it helps a lot. Frost said nothing is worse than dreading going to work, and preventing that is a main focus. They also pointed to the job market: it's easy for people to find another job right now, so the company needs to maintain its culture and make sure people feel appreciated and enjoy their time there.
Frost's parting line summed up their outlook: "remember it's a team sport."
[Music]
If we were having this conversation today over a beverage, where in the world would that be? You can pick anywhere you like. Paint the picture of what that place would look like.
Well, first, it would be outside, so we'd need to be somewhere where the weather was good, preferably here in Florida in the wintertime, or maybe even Michigan in the summer. But I like to be outside, whether it's around a campfire or sitting on a lanai or on a patio, drinking an IPA, and I would be in heaven.
I love it. I could go for an IPA either at a campfire or on a patio; those all sound great. It's late spring here in the northern Midwest, where you spent a lot of time, so you know it's not really spring yet up here. We're still fighting through the latest snowstorm, but I like the vibe. And in true campfire storytelling fashion, we want to get to know you today.
One of the first questions: when I look at your background, you spent around 20 years working at Pigeon and Cray in Michigan in the automotive industry. I should say Pridgen and Cray, I think I mispronounced that.
It's actually Clay. Pridgen and Clay.
Wow, boy, all my notes are... all my...
But it definitely is in the automotive industry. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, in that case, Pam, the first edit of this episode is on me. So, Pridgen and Clay in the automotive industry. I'd be curious, can you tell us about that experience and what made this particular company stand out to you?
Sure. So, ending up at Pridgen and Clay: I worked my way through college, I worked a number of different jobs, and I was actually working in the steel industry over on the Lakeshore in Michigan. One of my steel salesmen called on Pridgen and Clay and knew that it was a great company, and he said, "Hey, if you're looking for a long-term, good company, I would recommend that you apply for the position that's open at Pridgen and Clay." So I did. They are also in the steel industry, so I actually was hired to be a steel buyer, and ended up spending the next 20 years of my career there, working for a wonderful privately held company. It was owned by the Clay family and still is. I worked my way from being a buyer when I started to being the corporate director of supply chain when I left in 2016. But just a fabulous company and a fabulous ownership group to work for.
And would you say that's what made it stick out? Because I feel like it's unconventional, even in the last 20 years, to stick with a company for that long. So I'm curious, you mentioned the leadership. Was that it, or were there other aspects that made it such a great place to be?
There were a number of aspects of it. I would say what was interesting to me is when I walked in for my interview, I got that déjà vu feeling. I felt like I walked into a place that I had either been before or belonged in, so it was very comfortable for me personally. The setting, how they did things, how they interacted with their employees, all of it was appealing to me.
And as I stayed longer and longer, what was very evident was it was a people-oriented company. Like I said, it was owned by the Clay family; it's currently in its third generation of Clays, and they treated us all like family. They also gave us a lot of opportunities as young people growing up and working our way through. If we had an interest in another position or another department, that opportunity was open to us, so that was very appealing to me too. I always say that I have a pretty short attention span, so it's always fun for me to learn something new, try something different, and expand my skill set, and Pridgen and Clay gave me the opportunity to do that.
So you highlight not only the family feel but the opportunity to move up from within. What advice would you give to other manufacturing leaders out there now when it comes to retention and promoting from within? How can other people replicate the success you saw at Pridgen and Clay?
Well, one is opening opportunities up to people that you may not think would take advantage of it. As leaders, when we're at work, we tend to formulate our own opinions about what our employees might want to do. Why would an engineer ever want to get into sales? Why would a salesperson ever want to get into operations management? If you don't ask the question, you're never going to get the answer. And sometimes it takes asking the employee if they would be interested in something new rather than waiting for them to come forward, because they may actually not have thought of it either. So to others in the manufacturing world or in the business world, I would say be flexible, be creative in your thoughts, and take advantage of the creativity and the level of curiosity that your employees might have.
Another question that just popped into mind from that: I think it's really important that you brought up the fact that you shouldn't wait for them; sometimes you as the leader need to take the initiative. When is that time right? When do you sense, like, "Oh, so-and-so is great in engineering, they might be great in sales"? When is the right time to have that conversation?
Well, we have our scheduled times that we meet with our employees, and that's one-on-ones or during the review cycle, and I would say always ask during those times. Another time is if you're involved with an employee during, say, a team you pull together for a kaizen event or a lean activity, or whatever the case may be. Watch what they're good at, and then ask the question about what you think that skill set they have could be used for in the future. So don't limit it to when you have a one-on-one, but use team opportunities or interactions that you're watching with other people to ask the questions.
Yeah, so what I heard is it's not only that formal time that you have set up, like the one-on-ones, but be cognizant of other opportunities, whether it's a team event or something more impromptu as well.
Absolutely. It's fun to have Christmas parties or retirement parties at work and watch how people interact with others, and you can pick up a lot about what skills they might have or what they might be able to do in their future by just sitting back and watching.
I'm curious, and this doesn't need to be an exact science or an exact number, but when you've looked at other people and helped them move into the next role, how much of it is a role that that person sensed they wanted to get into, versus you having the intuition, like, "Oh, I need to start gently nudging this person toward this role because I see it could really play to their strengths, but maybe they don't realize it yet"?
I think the majority of the time, people go in the direction that they already feel they may be interested in. One, it's safer; they feel more secure going into a field or a role that they already had an idea about. But if I had to put a number to it, I would say 20 to 25 percent of people surprised me and said, "Oh yeah, I'd like to try something new." If I take myself, I ran the gamut. I went from being a buyer, I worked in inspection and in quality control, I worked in finance and systems implementation, working with IT groups. So I know that my curiosity has been fertilized by people giving me opportunities, so it's in the forefront of my thoughts when I look at others.
Yeah. Well, speaking of career trajectories and going to a lot of different spots, I understand one of the latest chapters in your career was you went to Florida with the intention of retiring but ended up coming out of retirement to work for RND Automation. Why did you decide to come out of retirement and go back into industry? Can you share a bit of that story?
I certainly can. One of the things that you do when you're preparing for retirement is you think about the financial aspect: am I financially in a position where I can retire? Once you realize that you can do it, one of the things that I would recommend that everyone do is try to determine if you are mentally prepared to retire. And that I was not. I didn't have a hobby other than golf; I don't have something that I can spend the majority of my time doing. So it got to the point where I was just wondering what to do with my time, and I realized that I wasn't really ready to be done. I thought that I could still contribute to a company or to an industry; I didn't know how that would look.
RND was looking for somebody to lead their procurement, their buyers, and their purchasing team, so I applied for the job thinking that it would be a really good coast-into-retirement type of position. And then once I got here, RND was acquired by a private equity group, and so a lot of opportunities became very visible and very apparent, and I was just lucky enough to take advantage of one of the opportunities that was presented to me. So it turned out I went from being retired, to having a job, to now resurrecting my career and actually enjoying what I do, who I work with, and the industry that we're in. So here I am, full steam ahead again.
Yeah, and what I find interesting is you had such a great company and such a great experience working with Pridgen and Clay. I'm curious, what excited you about the RND team the first time you walked in the facility, or when you were really getting to know the leadership, the people there, etc.?
Well, I'm going to talk about Pridgen and Clay a little bit. In the 20 years that I was there, I was fortunate enough to have a core group of employees that was there for the same amount of time. They either started just before me or just after me, and they were there when I left, or they left right before me. So for 20 years I had the opportunity to work with the same employees. When I came to RND and I looked at the staff here and how the people remained at the company as the company grew, that of course was very appealing to me. That just speaks volumes about the content of the character of the people that run the business. It tells you about the atmosphere and the collaboration that goes on in the company, and it's just very, very appealing to me.
Yeah, I want to talk about the talented folks there at RND as well, because that's something you mentioned when we were talking, gosh, maybe about a month ago. You described the talent at RND as beyond anything you'd seen before in industry. So maybe provide a bit more color to that. How does that talent manifest itself, if you will?
Well, we are an engineering company, so we build automated equipment. Automation is our passion, and so of course we've got very creative and very intellectual people working here. They have a very solid continuous improvement mindset. So the customer comes and says, "I have a problem," or "I need a solution for something," and the creativity starts kicking in with this group of people, and it's just fun to watch them work together to try to come up with a solution.
I think how that's manifested is there's a very solid process of steps that we go through. As creative as we are, we're not fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants. We follow a process; we look to make sure that we're taking care of whatever our customer's needs are and making sure that whatever we're building is very repeatable and has quality built right in. The employees here respect each other, they respect the industry that we're in, and they really want the product to reflect what our personality is and to help our customers, so the customer will come back to us in the future with another opportunity. It's really fun to watch the camaraderie within the group.
So you talk about the respect the team has for one another, you talk about the processes that the team has, and you bring a lot of operational experience from your past career as well. Another bit of advice for the audience out there: what advice do you have when it comes to bringing out, let's say, operational excellence in a team?
Make sure that people understand the why. Operational excellence has built into it a continuous improvement mindset. How do we continue to make what we do easier, better, faster, more profitable, all of those things, and how do we introduce our customer to the same thing? So, understanding why change is necessary, because this has to be an evolution. Our company has to evolve, our product has to evolve, our employees have to evolve in order to stay relevant in our industry, in our business. So make sure that people understand why these steps are important, but then also engage them in what that process might look like. How do we make sure that our culture stays intact as we evolve into what we need to be to be successful tomorrow?
How do we transition from selling a product to selling a solution? That solution in itself can transition or evolve into something else, because the solution yesterday won't be what the solution is tomorrow. So how do we make sure that we're building an environment that can get us to where we need to be to stay ahead of the group? And it's important to celebrate: celebrate the past, celebrate today, and look forward to the future.
There's a lot in that answer. I'm trying to figure out which direction to go with the next question, because I'm curious to get some advice on how you lead through change. There were so many things you mentioned that had to do with change: helping the people understand why change is necessary, that was one; how you keep the culture intact when those changes are happening; and then, even more specific, transitioning from selling a product to selling a solution. So maybe I'll go back to that original broad question rather than focusing on one of those areas: how do you lead through change so that all those things you mentioned can happen, remain intact, etc.?
Model the behavior. Keep an open mind. Listen to your employees, listen to your customers, and listen to your suppliers. And we haven't even mentioned your ownership group. Our ownership group has a vision of what we should look like, and we need to make sure that we're listening to them too. And then the leadership part is pulling all of those pieces of the puzzle together and making this mosaic that makes all of us happy and brings joy to us, but also pays the bills.
It's funny, I think of the best leaders that we've had on this show, and modeling the behavior is something I've probably only heard a few of them say directly; some have hinted at it. But I love that first part of the answer, and everything you shared around listening as well. You can never hear that too many times, to understand that listening is one of the keys to making sure you're doing the right things.
On the subject of change, every leader has their own style and strengths. There are clearly a lot of different changes going on at RND right now, and you're part of those changes. So what advice do you have for manufacturing leaders about leveraging their own style and strengths to guide a company into the future?
Well, I'm going to say I definitely try to use my ears and my mouth in the ratio that they were given to me: two ears, one mouth. Listen at least twice as much as you talk. And also key to that is making sure that we create a collaborative environment. We've got some extremely intelligent people here; we've got people with really good ideas. So painting the picture of where we need to go, whether it's from the ownership group or from my leadership: this is what we want the vision to look like. How we get there revolves around the team. The team can have a say in the road or the path that we take to get there. I get to point out the destination; they get to help plan the trip.
I like that. I'd love to put this in the context of RND, a
A little bit, right, where we're talking about getting to the future, right? You know, we've talked a little bit about the strengths in the baseline of RND when you came through the door. Can you share a bit about the story of where things have been really strong, and then some of the areas you've been building up to provide a successful pathway for RND in the future?
Sure. One of the things that, I mean, RND as an engineering company has been very successful and very, very good at building automated equipment for our customers, okay, whether it's assembly or inspection or packaging or whatever the case may be. One of the things that we have realized is that we were very fortunate with customers coming back to us, so if we would build it, they would call.
And what we've realized as we try to grow and make this company bigger and integrate more with I Automation, which is a sister company, or Panel Tech, which is a sister company, as we try to build out this model that we're trying to envision and trying to create, we need to do more outside of just building equipment. So what other automation solutions can we provide? So rather than, as I said earlier, selling a machine, we're trying to sell solutions.
We go into a customer proactively, rather than waiting for them to come to us, go into these other customers that we feel like we can help, not just offer a machine solution but offer robotic solutions or vision or panel building, electrical panel building, which is one of our sister companies' core competency, or, hey, our sister company is a distribution company, so they can sell you the products that you need to do your job. So, you know, as we open up that vision from just one product offering to many, and from one company by itself, standalone, into a family of companies, it's opening up a whole lot of opportunities for us.
So that brings up another question: how do you prioritize all the opportunities that might be there? And I think you can have a really unique perspective on this, because the family of companies that RND is a part of is pretty vast, right? There are a lot of areas you could have doubled down on. You really highlighted solution selling, mixing and visions, going beyond just selling a machine to selling a solution. So how do you prioritize, hey, this is the area where we're going to double down, versus all the other ones that could be a good pick but maybe aren't the pick that you chose to go with?
From an RND perspective, so I'm not talking about sister companies right now, I'm just talking about RND, we are focused and we are prioritizing assembly, robotics, vision, those types of activities, because that's what our core competency is. If we have a customer that also says I need an electrical panel or I need component sales, I can shift their attention over to I Automation or Panel Tech and put them in contact with the right people over there to help them with that. So it's not something that we have to do internally all on our own. We've got the resources outside of RND that can help do that, and so we don't have to necessarily manage that extra auxiliary stuff. We have experts to do that within our own company.
What we're trying to do is make sure that we're spending our time giving our customer the solution that they want. So our priority is what is the customer line. If the customer wants a robot, that's the priority. If they want a machine, that's the priority. If they want a vision system, that's the priority. If they want spare parts and service to come in and help them with a piece of equipment that they already have, that's the priority. And we've got the right team in place to support all of those RND offerings.
And one thing that really stuck out in that answer was you prioritize your core competency, right? And you're in a unique position to do that because you can stay within the wheelhouse of the things you're really good at, and where other automation companies might need to go to a partner, per se, right, you can actually bring that to a sister company that still falls within the overall umbrella of companies. So I think that's something that's really unique about what you're doing. You know, as we get kind of towards the end of our conversation, I have to ask: what excites you the most about the future and the trajectory of RND Automation?
That's a great question. I'm excited about the collaboration that we are building between our companies and within. I mean, I really enjoy the people that I work with, and it's fun and it's enlightening to watch light bulbs go off and creative ideas come out and solutions be put into place.
I'm very fortunate that I've caught lightning in a bottle twice with two major companies that I've worked with, both Pridgeon & Clay in the past and with RND right now, and the RND sister companies also are going to fall into that. But I feel very fortunate that I have been able to work with a core group of employees like this that really, really keep each other going, have a good time. We enjoy each other's company, we collaborate together, we don't always agree, but we come up with a solution, and it's just fun to be a part of an evolution.
And I have to ask this because it sounds like, I mean, no doubt you walked into a strong culture, right? People were already collaborating in a lot of ways, right? But how do you foster that collaboration, particularly as the company grows, right? There are new companies that are a part of this now that people weren't collaborating with before. And I'm asking this from the perspective of any manufacturing leader out there that's probably like, how do I get my teammates working together, coming up with great ideas on their own, things like that. So how do you foster that collaborative environment?
Well, I'm a big believer in there's no such thing as too much information. You know, understanding why we're doing what we're doing and understanding the other players that are a part of it. So one of the struggles when you are part of an organization that's involved in mergers and acquisitions is you're introducing new players or new cultures or new industry into your umbrella, and what happens is people get fearful of that. You know, am I going to be protected? Is my culture and my company going to be protected? Are they going to pick this up and move it somewhere else? And so making sure that people understand what the goal is and why we're doing what we're doing is key to making sure that people don't get frightened and just leave because they don't understand the unknown.
And that's something that a lot of companies struggle with because, you know, it's like, if I tell you everything, then that means I might tell you something that you don't want to hear. But if I don't tell you the good stuff and what might not be so positive, then you're going to come up with your own conclusions, and your own conclusions may be even worse than what I could tell you. So let's be honest, let's be open, let's be transparent.
One of the best things that we've done here is we've implemented quarterly fireside chats. So we have a little fake fire that we put in the middle of the conference room table, and we bring 10 or so employees in, and they can ask me anything they want. It can be about the business, it can be about me, it can be about anything, and it opens up the dialogue. And they ask really good questions about what they don't know, what they think they know, what they want clarification on, or what might be frightening, or what might be really exciting, and it's just been fantastic, and the questions have been phenomenal.
I love really great tactical advice like that, having that literal fake fire in the middle of the table. I think it's a great way to get people to, you know, kind of roll up their sleeves, loosen up a bit, and just be open about it, right? Because it goes back to, I mean, at least a big theme I've picked up is two-way communication, right? A lot of listening, and then when you're talking, you've got to be transparent, right? Share the positives, share the challenges, be open about all those things. So I don't know, you might need to give away a free little fake fireplace with all your machines in the future.
I think that's a great idea that I've pulled. I've got to give credit to our VP of... the one that brought that into the first fireside chat, plugged it in, and he said, "Have fun, Pam," and he left us to it.
So I love it, great ideas throughout this conversation. You know, my last question, I ask everyone this: we've covered a lot of ground in the past 30 minutes. Is there anything you wish I would have brought up, or something you wish we would have talked about that just hasn't come up in the conversation yet?
You know, one of the things that we always talked about at Pridgeon & Clay, and we try to do here too, is make sure that we have fun. Work doesn't have to be tedious. If we can come together, we can enjoy each other's company, we can make fun at the workplace, and I think that it helps a lot. And you know, there's nothing worse than dreading going to work, and if we can do anything to keep people from dreading it, then that's our main focus, and we have to do that. It's too easy for people to go get another job right now. We need to maintain our culture and make it so people feel like they're appreciated and they have a good time when they're here.
Yep, adding that element of fun I think is the cherry on top of everything you've talked about around the culture, the collaboration, all the evolution that's taken place. I'm excited to keep watching what you do at RND. I've known about that company personally for years, so it's cool seeing you continue to take that company into the future. So with that, Pam, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to jump on today's show.
Thank you very much, and the last thing is just remember, it's a team sport.
Absolutely. Thanks again.
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