15. What Can Business Leaders Learn from the Hurricane Irma Recovery? with Joelle Marquis

Define a clear mission. Identify your key stakeholders. Assemble the right team. Own the culture. Execute. Those are the keys to success that Joelle Marquis took to help her Florida community recover from the devastating damage caused by Hurricane Irma in September 2017.

In this episode you’ll hear how Joelle, a Senior Partner at Arsenal Capital Partners, sprung into action to help her community physically and emotionally recover from the hurricane and how the lessons learned can be applied in your next big endeavor.

Transcript

David Morris  00:09

Welcome to season two of the HiPER leadership Podcast. I am your host David Morris, CEO and founder of HiPER Solutions. At a HiPER, our mission is to bring positive change to the world. Leaders today are faced with unprecedented change, and yet even the best leaders have had to toss out their standard playbook and think outside the box. Our intent with the HiPER leadership podcast is to share best practices so that you, our listeners, can gain some actionable and practical approaches to your next big endeavor. Our guest in today's episode is Joelle Marquis, a senior partner at Arsenal Capital Partners, established in 2000. Arsenal's a major private equity firm that provides tactical strategies to help in constructing and elevating businesses across multiple industries, including specialty industrials and health care. Joelle and I first met through another colleague there back in 2010, and quickly discovered that we both have a shared interest in mission-driven leaders. Hi, Joelle. 

Joelle Marquis  01:19

Hi, how are you? 

David Morris  01:21

I'm doing good. I was just sort of reflecting back across all of the years where you get most excited, and it's where there's just like a mission that matters.

Joelle Marquis  01:31

Absolutely. Lots of energy there. And it's a place that I find myself drawn to whether it's professionally or personally, kind of that mission space.

David Morris  01:44

Absolutely. Well, you know, it's funny, as we were unpacking and doing a retrospective on a few of your chapters; here you are a senior partner at significant private equity firm, and have done so much transformation there. But I was sort of asking, ‘Hey, outside of work, what was an example of something that really stuck out on what you change what you made happen?’ and you started talking hurricanes.

Joelle Marquis  02:09

Yeah, we had lived in the northeast part of Florida. And back at the end of 2017, we had a major hurricane, Hurricane Irma, come through our area and did just an enormous amount of damage, there was significant devastation and loss in my own backyard. That effort and the work that followed in helping people kind of get back on their feet and recover from the devastation was the first thing that came to mind when you when you asked me about that.

David Morris  02:43

Especially for our audience that has not experienced a major hurricane. What did it actually look like? We were talking about...what 1,000 people's homes destroyed? Or how fast does it all happen and what did it look like?

Joelle Marquis  02:57

Yeah, so maybe I'll just share a little bit about what it was from my own lenses. I live on the water, and we heard that this hurricane was coming. And I have not always lived in Northeast Florida, so my exposure to hurricanes has been limited to a couple of decades, but [I] heard the hurricane was coming, and so [we] kind of followed the lead of a number of people around us and worked to help a number of older folks or people who were more infirmed batten down the hatches make sure that some of the nonprofit's had their windows covered and that they were not going to be at risk of damage from broken glass and heavy winds. Putting together sandbags, making sure that those were near areas that were [on] lower ground or people near the water. And it wasn't until about three hours before the hurricane hit that my husband and I turned to each other and said, ‘we've done a really good job of helping all these other people. There are literally no sandbags left in the county and we have not yet taken care of our own property.’ And there's just this enormous preparation that goes on and you end up with people on both ends of the spectrum. I think, like we do with any natural disaster, you know, some people prepare very intensely for it and other people are more lax about it. The grocery stores get emptied out. People hunker down, neighbors help neighbors typically. But when the hurricane hits, particularly in an area that has a fair amount of water, we live surrounded by water, lakes and rivers and creeks. When a hurricane comes through, the water rises significantly. So, you're not just dealing with the heavy winds of a hurricane; the intense speed of the hurricane, but you're also dealing with rising waters, which can cause sustained damage, like mold in a home and things of that nature, not just the immediate like broken glass.

David Morris  05:01

After it was over, okay, tell me a little bit about because you've done all this work beforehand, so you're probably off to the next thing. But all of a sudden, you got this tap on the shoulder, which is where the real work began.

Joelle Marquis  05:14

Yeah, so I found out very quickly that there were more than 1,300 homes in our immediate county that were flooded, there were about 460 that were really irreparable. And the damage was intense. And unfortunately, some people-it had been over 100 years since a rise like this-either didn't have flood insurance, or they were underinsured, particularly for flooding. And so, there was an absolute need to rebuild homes and rebuild lives. And it became apparent that it wasn't just going to be a few weeks’ recovery, or even a few months’, it was going to be multiple year recovery. So, our state senator, and our state representative Bradley and Cummings, respectively, had talked with their pastor and said, you know, ‘look, we would like to raise funds to help with the Irma recovery, we just need to understand what would the process look like of helping people? How could we find a trusted agent who would be able to kind of from a fiduciary standpoint, step in, and also from a trust and respect perspective, rally some team members to kind of chair this effort?’ So that pastor is the one who tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Would you come meet with Representative Cummings and Senator Bradley, and let's just throw this out there and see if there's some organized efforts we can pull together.’ So, we met and had conversation about what the needs were. And I would say, for me, I walked away with a clear understanding of what some of the needs were. And having focused on, you know, rallying people in difficult times, whether that's business or within the community, had a pretty good sense of what it might take us from a structural standpoint and an organizational standpoint. But the first step really was making sure that we trusted each other: was I able to kind of win the trust or respect of these two folks who really, for all intents and purposes, didn't know me. And if they did, it was kind of, I'm someone who occasionally volunteers in the community, and they might bump into me, right? So that that was really step one.

David Morris  07:37

What essentially was the [from] ask them?

Joelle Marquis  07:39

The ask at the time really was, ‘we think we have an opportunity to raise some funds for recovery. If we produce funds, we would like someone who we can just kind of turn those funds over to and who can make sure that people are assisted in various ways.’ That was kind of the scope of the work as it was defined. In order for me to sign up, it was a matter of doing this in collaboration and having them or their confidants open up whenever doors needed to be opened up. I did not want to have to run uphill to accomplish this. And so, they did that. They did a very nice job of teaming up with me and collaborating with other people in the community and we were able to build a great team of experts. We need[ed] project team members from various expertise areas pulled together. And then we had some amazing other people, I can speak to a few minutes about raising additional funds, and how do you pull the community into increasing the donations and then get rolling their sleeves up and getting actively involved as well.

David Morris  08:51

So again, in terms of the situation, we have 1,300+ homes affected, it’s probably over 10,000 people. And in a short amount of time, what you had to do is get a team together to ensure whatever funds or other resources were contributed, got properly deployed. And that doesn't always happen; a lot of the times, I imagine, that money can get wasted. So, it was really about optimizing the limited funds to get these 10,000 plus people back home alright.

Joelle Marquis  09:18

It was and I was absolutely committed to using 100% of the dollars that were either raised or donated to go directly to the recovery. We weren't going to have administrative costs, financial fees, or anything like that. We really want[ed] to turn dollar for dollar back over to the community. And David, one other thing, 1,300 homes and lots of just significant damage, but just to put it in perspective for the listeners: in one of the larger creeks that we have in the area, there was a 28-foot rise in the water level. 

David Morris  10:02 

Wow

Joelle Marquis  10:03

So, we're not talking about minor damage. And we're not talking about something that is a quick recovery. You know, we're not talking about a couple feet, throw some blowers on it and dry it out, this is major, major damage. Whole homes completely underwater.

David Morris  10:20

Yeah, that word mold really sticks with me. I mean, there's water doesn't just go away to your point. 

Joelle Marquis  10:24

That's right. 

David Morris  10:25

What was the total amount of time until you declared success? And then I want to get into some details.

Joelle Marquis  10:33

that we probably declared success, or at least I felt like we were on a great path towards success, I would say about two months in, because for me, once I'm able to see that the relationship building is underway and there's a structure in place of both sets of processes and practices, then for me, it turns into, we maintain this and we maximize the outcome. And so, it was a couple of months, when we had the team, had clarity, knew where the funds were going to look like and had a system to vet, really to triage, the initial set of cases that we had coming forward, and then had this kind of separate effort to bring people's attention through communications and PR, which then yielded us some additional funds to be able to continue the work for a longer period of time.

David Morris  11:27

Across [these] two months, I’m just trying to think about the first week or two in terms of the structure you put in place and the group norms, setting roles and responsibilities, etc. I mean, what did the planning look like in [that] first week or two?

Joelle Marquis  11:40

One of the big steps was identifying what kinds of expertise we felt we would need in order to make this happen, right, who are kind of the key stakeholders that we've got to put in place. And it started with having some people who really understood triage. So how do people apply for assistance? How do they get us help beyond just the tactical assistance of pulling out sheetrock and replacing wall structures? This is a very emotional interruption in people's lives. Family pictures are gone. Sentimental items don't exist anymore. It's not just what do I do about the physical? But what do we do, how do we step alongside these people from an emotional perspective? And so, case management was really important. How do we get that in place? How do we partner with FEMA and other governmental agencies? These are organizations I've had no interactions with up until that point. And so, who do we partner with? What already exists and is in place from either a federal or state and local governmental perspective? What do some of the other local nonprofits already have to offer? And how do we make sure that we're really leveraging all of the components of what those organizations are able to deliver? So, triage and case management was one important piece, and then how do we make sure that we're allocating the funds appropriately, we've got to go look at the properties, we need to have members of the team who understand how the whole relief and recovery system works. We need to have people who are willing to step up and project manage the efforts, making sure that we have housing specialists, people who know architecture and know the local ordinances, people who can review code and contractors who are willing to go out to the properties, lots of different components that we really had to bring together. And then the third piece, I would say, is fundraising and PR, and, you know, if the senator and state rep were able to raise funds, then you know, we also wanted to ask the kinds of friends and neighbors who were absolutely willing to step up with physical labor and assistance, but also financially. And so, we wanted to make sure we allow an opportunity for those people to give and we had some tremendous efforts from people around fundraising and a charity concert that I'm happy to speak to as well, where people really stepped forward.

David Morris  14:29

I've heard amazing things about that charity concert, really remarkable story. As we just think about leadership, because you've led teams in all different types of environments, what was the most important aspect or the biggest challenge you had to overcome in terms of getting this group of volunteers to work together as that team?

Joelle Marquis  14:46

It's probably the same answer for most teams: it's trust and respect, right? It's making sure that I'm providing respect to others, but also making sure that I take the time and effort to win their trust and their respect. And I think there's, there's a few parts of that, David, if you’ll bear with me here for a minute that, because I feel very passionately about this, it was something I bring in-I try to bring into all aspects of my life, I think trust is when we have credibility, and we have intimacy, we know people, we trust people, we are spending time with them. But we have to be credible also. You can ask somebody to do something, or work on something, but if they're lacking either credibility or enough knowledge and intimacy with what needs to happen, then you're really not going to be able to build a whole lot of trust with them. And then ultimately, it's a formula for me: trust is credibility times intimacy, knowledge, and divide that by risk. So, what am I risking in this relationship? And so, if I'm able to build that trust with me, and then I'm able to leverage that in other relationships, that allows speed, trust can take a long time to build, or you can find ways to build it in pockets that allow you to move at a much faster clip. And I think when you're dealing with, I'll call this a gray sky time, you need to be able to build that trust and respect faster. Blue sky times you have a different timeline and a longer horizon. But in in gray sky times, you have to lean in heavily on that trust component. And the other thing I'll say is, I'm a big proponent of assuming positive intent. In the Bible of Hebrews, it tells us to let us draw near with a true heart. And so, in the workspace, I think the true heart translates to positive intent and assuming that the people around me have positive intent, and they have best interests in mind. They need to see that in me as well, they need to see into my heart, that I have positive intent that my heart is true. I think that helps as well to build trust.

David Morris  17:05

Going back to the pockets of trust, or anything where you could do it other than one on one, how you did it a little bit more of a scalable way. What was maybe one moment in that journey, where you felt you made the most progress on establishing the trust amongst the people as much as between you and them.

Joelle Marquis  17:22

There's one in particular, although there's probably multiple examples, but one in particular was when I first met with the government leaders, and I'm in the room with them and they clearly see me as a woman who lives in the county who wants to help. And so very quickly I had to make it clear how I was a credible person that I wasn't looking at this project as somebody who just owned a chainsaw and helmet and chaps to go cut down some trees. And I wasn't just going to make meals for people, which is all very important work. But that given my professional experience, I was well equipped to get a team together, move the team quickly and once that credibility and trust was established, which happened in probably about a 5- or 10-minute period, the whole conversation just was able to propel itself at a much faster speed. Within 20 minutes, we were talking about logistics and specifics, and where could we get additional resources and we got some relationships with some doctors from some other states, and they would take their private planes in and help us triage some of the downed trees and homes. So, it just got to this place really quickly, David, that allowed us to get activated.

David Morris  18:37

Sounds like really the whole speed and everything similar to Stephen M. R. Covey podcast we had earlier. I think this is a really good example. What a terrific story, you know, just unpacking this a bit and thinking back to your career, everything in private equity, to before that. How do you hone this skill? What would you coin that transferable skill that can be used across any of these industries, that was really most critical in the success of this?

Joelle Marquis  19:06

Beyond trust and credibility, I think it's being relational. We need to build relationships around us, need to understand how the people within our spheres of influence think and work and where can we tap, not just what the capabilities are that we see every day, but understand what drives them? What is in their heart? What's important to them from a mission standpoint? What is the legacy they want to leave on the earth, not just in their family, but what kind of ultimate impact do they want to have? And to me that gets at that mission-driven leadership. And so, understanding what really drives people, and there's more than one thing typically, that if you can figure that out, then that can be applied in so many settings, right? So, for me, it's this wanting to help lift people up and get people in better places and invest my time and energy in communities where I know there's going to be a return on either my dollars or my time or my skills. And if somebody understands that about me, then there are a lot of places they could ask me to get involved or where I would be energized to engage. And so, it's tapping into that. What is that person's personal mission objective?

David Morris  20:27

How far back do you think that goes? When were you doing it maybe subconsciously, versus where you became more aware of it, as you know, really key leadership?

Joelle Marquis  20:38

So, I come from very humble beginnings. Mom and dad were blue collar, I grew up as a latchkey kid, oh, when my husband and I bought our first house, we used to go through the couch cushions and the car cupholders to get loose change to make the mortgage payments. We don't take where we are for granted, or what we've been able to do. And so, I think as I look back, it's something that's been really ingrained for a very long time. But in terms of actually thinking of stopping long enough-that's a big step-thinking about what is important, how have we done some things and then how do we want to leverage what we've done on a going forward basis? I would say the more intentional and structured thinking has probably been in the last decade, decade and a half.

David Morris  21:29

How would you counsel others to be able to get more in tune with doing this? As a leader, you can sit down and ask questions to each of your team members to see what matters, but like, what sort of the superpower here do you think and what's the technique you've honed in terms of quickly and efficiently really establishing that intimacy and getting that understanding of that other person?

Joelle Marquis  21:53

One of my favorite questions I love to ask my team members is, what impacts your decision every day to stay in contribute to our success? That's a question that cuts across every organization whether you're for profit, nonprofit, what is it that impacts your decision to be here every single day, to contribute here, stay here and be part of our success? And that requires a couple layers to be peeled back for someone to truly answer that question. That's one thing. And then I have a series of questions I ask myself, and it's important to me, for instance, that whatever culture I have, and it might be a different culture in a certain project or with a nonprofit group or my day job, there are different cultures in those places. But is it reflective of my heart as the leader? Am I taking personal responsibility for the culture because I can't delegate it, I have to be the ultimate culture-carrier. And then, ‘am I behaving accordingly?’

David Morris  23:04

Really, really practical and actionable. I'd like to close on putting your cap back on as a board member. And when you're looking at providing advice to listeners, whether you're a CEO, or governor or the president, and you're looking for these game-changing leaders, when you put that cap on Joelle and think about how you qualify a candidate for this trait, particularly somebody who's effective, you know, in May of 2021, on the tail end of this pandemic, the type of leader that's going to be effective at understanding their team members, establishing trust, what are some other ways as a board member, that you would help determine that that individual has this trait?

Joelle Marquis  23:50

I would want to understand historically, not 20 years ago, but in the last handful of years, how does the person think about listening? What have they actually done to listen and hear what people are saying around them? How has that listening evolved them to a different outcome than if they hadn't engaged those people in listening, right? Because in order to be trusted, or trust others, we have to listen, that also would want to hear stories and examples of how they've been open to new ideas and open to change. How have they gone ahead and implemented key change? Did the change have to be born with them? Or were they able to take inputs from other people? Were they willing to flex and listen to the concepts and ideas of the people around them? And then what were the outcomes? How did those efforts of being open and listening to people yield results? I think that's one of the best ways to understand where someone's really coming from. And the other thing is to just have a conversation with them about what is their mission? What is the reason that they've stayed? Go back to that question I shared with you earlier, what is the reason that they've stayed in the jobs that they've been in or on the projects that they've been in? What has it been about either the day-to-day decisions, or the strategy of that organization that impacted their decision to be a continued part of either that effort or that project or that company, and listening to what those answers are will give some really good insight into, you know, whether they are a mission-driven leader, or whether they are somebody who actively listens, or there's somebody who's going to pretty readily be able to build an establish trust,

David Morris  25:54

Yeah, and finally, just thinking about this last year, again, the pandemic in particular, and the CEOs that you've had visibility into who have performed the best by using this trait, I'm just wondering, what's different, like what is even more important today, that they're able to do then even before the pandemic?

Joelle Marquis  26:16

That's an easy one for me: it's having compassion, it's really understanding where people are coming from, meeting them there, and then being willing to formulate solutions and actions from that place of understanding. It might be that somebody has a, key employee, perhaps, has some issues with their family dynamic. It might be the working from home, it might be the transition back to the environment, it might be somebody who was affected medically from what occurred and might be someone who's dealing emotionally with some deaths or implications from the year we've had, it might be childcare issues, whatever those issues are, really understanding what are important elements to the people around us that we're depending on to get our work done, that we're depending on to see the kinds of financial results and economic impacts that we want to have, and being willing to meet them there. And then have them assist you and you work with them to formulate solutions on how to accommodate their needs, so that they can be 100% involved in the body of work and the mission that you need them focus.

David Morris  27:37

Is there no question Joelle that tripling down on this compassion component of it produced better financial results, just as you think about all the investments that you've had visibility into? I'm just trying to quantifiably be able to understand how significant that was.

Joelle Marquis  27:54

 Absolutely. Being able to focus on the compassion and meeting folks where they are, I think has allowed us to move faster, most definitely. We've been able to stay true to our mission orientation, we've been able to have uncompromising integrity. And people have been able to feel emotionally fulfilled, because they also were able to help others, right, whether that was in the workplace through mentoring, they learned additional compassion-related skillsets that will last them the rest of their career, they might have had to step in and mentor a teammate in a way that they may never have had to do before, they may have had to step up and address a gap in a talent gap that was created because of this. And so, they had to collaborate more as a team effectively. And there are also businesses that didn't survive, because they didn't take that approach. And we're dealing with an enormous talent shortage right now. And really, truly understanding how to help bridge those gaps is critical. We can't just look at this from a financial standpoint, right? I think most businesses are looking at their second half numbers and they realize that those impact or growth numbers for 2022 are in fact going to be affected by the fact that we can't get plant workers to come back to work, or because conditions are perfect for some manufacturing plants. The management team that's there is dealing with things that they've not ever had to deal with. And so, as leaders of those businesses, really understanding the complexities of the job at hand for our mid-level management, our senior management teams, our plant floor supervisors, I think compassion is absolutely critical. 

David Morris  29:54

Really remarkable. Joelle. 

Joelle Marquis  29:55

You know, certainly the last year has been an interesting period of time. But you know, as I call it, it is one gray sky period. There are a number of those, whether we're dealing with them regionally, nationally, or internationally and having the compassion, building the trust, focusing on relationships it is really important and I think a lot of that comes down to this mission-driven skillset or competency that, as leaders, we absolutely require.

David Morris  30:26

Well, Joelle, thank you. I have no doubt this is just the beginning of many more projects that you'll be involved in and hope that you'll come back and visit us. 

Joelle Marquis  30:36

[I’d] be happy to thank you so much for having me. 

David Morris  30:26

To our HiPER Leadership listeners, thank you for your continued support and feedback. Stay tuned this season for many more HiPER Leadership achievements. And if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the HiPER Leadership podcast to be the first to receive the new episodes. And if you have a big transformative program you're leading, visit our website to learn more about how we help align teams and stakeholders for excellence at HiPERSolutions.com