Dan Voit © Blentech
Dan Voit is the CEO of Blentech, an industrial equipment manufacturer specializing in advanced cooking and mixing technologies based in Santa Rosa, CA. It’s no simple task to run a profitable manufacturing company in the middle of Sonoma County, but with cutting-edge technologies like their CookerCloud coupled with an ultra-strong company culture, Dan and the team at Blentech continue to find ways to win and grow.
In our conversation, Dan walks us through his journey into the food sciences world and why he chose to step up as a leader at the company. As both a Chief Executive Officer and a seasoned CrossFit athlete, Dan shares several his key habits for setting and maintaining goals, and how he still carves out time to make culture-building at Blentech a top priority.
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3 Quick Things from this Episode
- Leaders must consistently model the desired behavior of the culture they want to build.
- Build time into your schedule to provide your team with genuine affirmations and feedback and understand the impact of their individual work.
- The whole person shows up to work. Develop habits that allow you to grow as a leader and as a person at work and in life.
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Tweetable Quotes
- “I don’t particularly believe too much in hierarchy…titles do not a under any circumstances correlate with the value that person brings to society or their job.” –Dan Voit
- “What you choose to put on your calendar is what you think is important.” –Dan Voit
Please Scroll Down for Full Show Notes and Recommended Resources from this Episode
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What We Discuss with Dan Voit
- Dan takes us back in time and walks us through his roots in food manufacturing, from California’s Central Valley to touring food factories with his grandpa in Guatemala City.
- Dan shares why he stepped up to the plate to lead Blentech during the 2008 recession, and his people-minded philosophy on weathering the storm of challenging financial times.
- Blentech’s Founder Darrell Horn established the company’s culture of innovation. Dan shares how Blentech maintained their strong culture even during a leadership transition across generations.
- Modeling the desired behavior at a leadership level of the culture you want to build – and doing that every day – is how you impact company culture.
- Dan provides some practical interview tactics for determining whether someone is a fit for your company.
- We kick off Round 2 as Dan shares a story about how the team at Blentech came together to overcome the most challenging situation they’ve ever faced as a company.
- Dan discusses the regular habits of maintaining a strong company culture. This involves taking time to affirm the work that his team is doing in a genuine, understanding way, as well as prioritizing 25% of his schedule on collaborative 1-on-1’s with his direct reports.
- You need a foundation of trust to have safe visioning for your company. Dan shares how he communicates and instills a vision for the future of Blentech.
- “The whole person comes to work every day.” Dan reviews his practices for tracking his leadership and life goals on a monthly and annual basis.
- In order to start thinking long-term – not quarterly – stop thinking about the goal as the end result.
- Post-it Notes are Dan’s tool-of-the-trade for ideation, and he shares other resources that allow manufacturing leaders to surround themselves with the right people and explore the range of human talent.
Recommended Resources
- CookerCloud, Blentech’s cloud-based historian that remotely monitors and collects secure data from food and beverage operations
- Double Double by Cameron Herold
- High Altitude Leadership by Chris Warner and Don Schminke
- Build a Tower, Build a Team, a TED Talk by Tom Wujec
- The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
- Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins
Awesome episode Chris and Dan!