In this episode, Robert interviews Ray Isaac, who, along with his brothers, is a 3rd generation owner and leader of a company they’ve grown into a successful, multi-award-winning employer.

Known as one of the premier employers in New York State, Isaac Heating and Air has been selected as a Rochester Top 100 Company seven times in the past 10 years, is a two-time recipient of the Better Business Bureau Torch Award, is a Rochester Business Ethics honoree, and was selected as the Residential Contractor of The Year by Contracting Business Magazine. Both Ray and his father Jim are 2019 selections to the Rochester Business Hall of Fame.

Isaac believes in investing in others to help people grow true careers (vs. jobs), and has created Isaac Tec, a 4-year accredited training and education program, the only such program held by a Contractor. Through Isaac Tec, conducted at the wholly-owned Isaac Technical and Education Center, Isaac is transforming the future of education in the skilled trades.

Join Robert as he and Ray discuss topics such as becoming a leader by staying true to your authentic self, developing a passion for one’s own place in business, and how to spot a leader in the making.

Podcast Episode 8: An Interview with Ray Isaac of Isaac Heating and Air Conditioning  

Robert Mixon:  

Welcome everyone, to the Level Five podcast series: “The Leadership Journey with No Summit.” 

We’re privileged today to have Mr. Ray Isaac as our executive guest to talk about his leadership journey. 

You know, Ray’s career is a distinguished one here in Rochester, in the Western New York community — and across the country really. 

As the president of Isaac Heating and Air, he’s a third-generation member of this great company and he leads a force that is very diverse and very successful in even the most challenging environments, like the one we’re in. 

They’ve been one of the best companies to work for in Rochester and recognized in the Business Hall of Fame in this community, he and his father Jim, and 30 years of experience. 

I know that Ray Isaac has been there and done that… In a lot of the challenges that we as leaders face every day and along this journey… I really feel fortunate that he’s here with us and is going to share some of his insights along that journey, that hopefully all of us can take and use in our next steps along the way. 

So thanks Ray, it’s great to have you here. 

Ray Isaac:  

Thanks for having me, Robert. 

Robert Mixon:  

I wanted to ask you a few questions about your journey, and then Ray of course you know take it where you want to … but of course the Big Six principles that I’ve been talking about with different audiences, they all have some meaning to everyone, I hope, and I’d like to ask you first, is there a most important aspect of one of those principles, or your own leadership principle that has been sort of your guiding light over the journey that you’ve been on? 

Ray Isaac:  

Yeah I guess it’s one that has developed, it’s something that you really don’t know is so important… and is so apparent to you when you when you first start your journey… and obviously we’re talking on a normal journey, it feels like the current journey we’re on, ‘I’m on a boat and I just got thrown into the water.’ 

I think that’s what everybody is experiencing. 

Robert Mixon: 

Very true. 

Ray Isaac:  

…but actually all of these principles do come into play in this in this process, especially doing crisis management and crisis leadership. 

I said to somebody the other day, I said “this is an exercise in crisis management and crisis leadership, who knows if it’s going to be a case study — one way or the other.” 

It could be a success or it could be a failure. 

But really, the one I think the one important principle that I’ve always tried to be comfortable with is really: a self-awareness and a comfort in your own skin. 

That’s something I didn’t realize so early on… is that you know there’s so much pressure and as we grow up and as we develop… in school and in everything we do to you know preserve the core, protect yourself, look out for number one… never let anybody know that you don’t know the answer, never show vulnerability, never show a ignorance on something … and it is so liberating… it was liberating for me when I was able to really admit, that I don’t know anything … and that I’m at the mercy of a lot of things that happen.. but really being okay with not being an expert on everything… and being comfortable with who you are, and an understanding of who you are, and what your strengths and your weaknesses, your tendencies… all those things that they do analyses for and it was really that’s been the best thing that it’s ever happened to me. 

Robert Mixon:  

Okay, I certainly can appreciate that Ray, that self-awareness is hard in the sense of vulnerability… because I think early on, in the career for most of us we didn’t want to be vulnerable. 

You wanted to be strong, and above it all … when in reality, that I think our vulnerability gives us authenticity — which is a powerful factor in the leaders I’ve most respected. 

Let me ask you this follow-up here: what was your biggest mistake as a leader when you should have applied this self-awareness principle that you’re talking about, or observe someone who should have and didn’t do it … and what were the what did you learn from that experience? 

Ray Isaac:  

Yeah that’s a great question. 

I think the biggest mistake was created by a number of different things… the first one was really being an SOB, and that’s not only the what the SOB everybody thinks of, but it’s also the ‘son of the boss’ … and what I talk about when I do discussions on leadership, is what I call the ‘legacy trap.’ 

Here you are, the third generation of a business coming in with the last name of the business and … expected to do all these great things and then sometimes expecting to be your father either by yourself, or by other people. 

In my case, my father was probably one of the most influential and still is one of the most influential people that I’ve had the pleasure of molding me. 

Of all the books I’ve read and the speeches I’ve heard and the lectures I’ve listened to, the person I still quote the most is my father. Really he was giving us lessons back then, and he had like some hardcore principles that we were supposed to abide by — that I really never really paid attention to, until I understood them. 

The first one is your last name is a responsibility, it’s never a privilege. I thought that meant “hey I just had to work harder than everybody else and they’re just gonna do what I tell them to do” and his teaching was that “look, nobody cares what your last name is… they’re all here to do their work and to do the best job they can, and if they don’t agree with you they’re not going to follow you” … especially if they’re not trusting you, and that’s obviously the first dysfunction of a team is the absence of trust. 

Just because my last name was the same name in the side of the business, didn’t mean that people trusted me or wanted to follow me, or even cared what I had to say … so really it was it was something that was created on, and it took time to realize that… it took some beatings. 

We went through some battles with organizations over the years, whether they be unions or other companies, or you know opposing companies and competition… and that builds up anxiety… it builds up pressure, it builds up competitiveness, and all that stuff then all of a sudden creates this ‘preserve the core’… when I go back to ‘number one’ … not being comfortable in your own skin you almost go into survival mode… so there’s a lot of things that build into that… but really not being okay with who you are, and also thinking that you had to know everything… in starting off with that I mean what are you taught in school what are you taught in college is “hey you got your degree now go out and take on the world”… I remember going to my dad once and said, “dad I want to go get my MBA”, he said “that’s nice we’ll teach you the rest.” 

It was probably the best advice I ever got. 

Robert Mixon:  

I guess, makes a lot of sense, right. 

You know, I think. in a family-owned business… particularly with the name you know — ‘Isaac’ — the name of the company… you make a really a really powerful point, here is that you know, you can’t assume that that that makes you a leader … and I think your father Jim gave you some great advice and the fact that you’ve got to earn it, right? 

Ray Isaac: 

You’re right, and the other thing is — and I often say that this was most liberating moment in my life as a leader — was realizing that I did not have to be passionate about heating and air-conditioning. I thought for many years I did. 

When you look at the ‘three circles of the hedgehog concept’… ‘what can you be best in the world at,’ and I was pretty good at what I did… ‘what can you make money at,’ I was making some good money… and ‘what are you passionate about,’ you’re not in the middle… the middle of that Venn diagram if you have all three of those… and I had two of them. 

I was not passionate about heating and air conditioning… I languished. I actually had my resume out there, looking for another job. 

Here I was, the president of the company, last name on the business. one of the third-generation owners… and I was looking for a job. 

I was describing to a good friend of mine who was looking to place me … he says “you know what Ray I can give you anything, or get you anything you want, I can get you stock options, I can get you a nice leadership role in a company but I just have one question for you. 

“What’s that?” 

He says, “all these things you’re describing you want to do at this other company…” 

I said “yeah…” 

He says, “why can’t you do those at Isaac?” 

It was something I never even thought of before. 

I thought I had to be passionate about heating and air conditioning. 

My brother David is. He’s one of our service technicians, he’s an equal owner with me. He loves heating and air conditioning. Me, I love it, but it’s not the passion… that’s not what I come in to work for every single day. 

It took me some time to really find my passion. In writing a vision for the company and deciding: that’s the vision I’m gonna get behind. Really, it became improving the quality of life. 

That was right around 2002, 2003… when that kind of an epiphany happened. It goes back again, being comfortable in your own skin. I knew I wasn’t comfortable. I knew I didn’t want to be in the company for the reasons that everybody thought I was gonna be there for. I had to find that… and I’m lucky I did. I mean… it was it was kind of fortunate… otherwise I’d I could be working for some public company right now … and doing different things … and not having the opportunity I’ve had at the company. 

Robert Mixon:  

That’s a great story, Ray … a great story of discovery… and so finding your passion was in 2002 – 2003 timeframe? 

Ray Isaac: 

Right around there. It took us some time, that led to us really re-engineering the whole company in 2005.  

We went through a whole process of really finding our core values, and setting priorities in the organization of what we wanted to focus on first, second, third, and fourth… and we ended up coming up with those. Then, really creating a vision statement for the company. 

I was meeting with a good friend of mine — who we still work with 15 years later — we’re working through this process of re-engineering, he says “what’s your vision for the company?” 

I sat back and I’m looking through my desk drawers … he says, “what are you doing?” 

I said, “I’m looking for our vision…” and he just started… “you stop and think about what you just said.” 

He said “if that’s the case you’re blind”… 

I said “well … you know I have some ideas, but let me talk to our team” and he stopped me there again. He says “if this is gonna be your vision it has to be your vision… it’s gonna be something that you’re gonna talk about and drive in the company… it has to be something that you’re behind a hundred percent”… 

From that, I was able to craft a vision statement for the organization that really painted the picture of what we wanted to see. 

Robert Mixon: 

Great. You know, I talk about “Setting the Azimuth”… and you know the Azimuth has come from my experience the military … but really, that’s the cardinal direction of your organization. What’s your true north… mission, intent, values and culture… and I think the vision that you’re talking about captures all those all those elements but it’s got to be a drumbeat and not a one-off … you know, let me look in the desk drawer and see if I can find it. 

Ray Isaac:  

Right, yeah. I tell you, talk about those wake-up moments in your life. Yeah… they really didn’t make any sense, did it. 

We had a vision, and it was one of those typical ones of “being the premier heating and air conditioning contractor in Rochester New York and the upstate region, and blah blah blah blah blah”… nothing that anybody could get behind with any passion. It’s like, ‘yeah okay that’s nice, what else you got for me’… yeah it was a great process, but it took some soul-searching to get through.  

Robert Mixon: 

So, investing in people is what I understand really is your passion at this stage, is that fair?  

Ray Isaac: 

Yeah, I would sum it up as that. 

Robert Mixon: 

Is the ‘’training academy concept that you developed… which I think is really innovative … was that part of that passion for the investment in your team? 

Ray Isaac: 

I would love to say that was altruistic in the very beginning, and that’s what the reason we did it… really the basic reason we started our whole ‘university’ concept was: we couldn’t find qualified people. 

So we figured we’d do it ourselves. From that, has grown … I mean you know the mother of invention is necessity. So we had a necessity and we’ve ended up inventing a program that we’ve been doing for 22 years. 

It’s recently received some recognition and notoriety because, of a little bit of the outreach that we’re doing. Creating what we call ‘building careers for people, not just jobs’ but giving them the opportunity to develop a career, and be in a in a career that they’re happy with, and they’re passionate about. 

That has transformed, and we’re really at a point now, where we’ve created our own school. It’s a separate entity. It’s in a 30,000 square foot facility just down the street from us here. It’s got a 20,000 square foot lab with every single trade. So what everybody else in the country is discontinuing, we’re starting. 

They’re getting rid of the trade schools, they’re getting rid of the shop classes, they’re getting rid of these vocational education programs… and we started with just having a new facility for our heating and air conditioning, and that has now grown to be a multi-trades training and education program. That is something that we’re I think we’re very proud of. 

It’s more than just Isaac now … it started with that… obviously you know some good things start with selfish intentions …but it has grown into something much more than just a program for us. Really, what we want to do is give people an opportunity to have a fulfilling career. Something that they may never even knew was out there, or that they had a skill level for. Maybe we find that ‘hedgehog’ for individuals.  

Robert Mixon: 

That’s terrific. I really admire that focus that you have on people investing in a career, versus a job. I never really liked the term ‘job’ anyway… I always wanted to think of it as ‘a career path’… and hopefully other people in the companies that I’m privileged to be in would want to have that ‘career path’ and not just be a ‘job,’ which was more of a temporal concept…  

Ray Isaac: 

Yeah. 

Robert Mixon: 

How do you identify potential in your team members and managers to become leaders? Because performance is usually the default mechanism… I think most leaders I’ve been exposed to use you know the “well, he performs well so let’s promote him”… 

How do you identify potential? 

Ray Isaac:  

Well it comes down to the personality. They have to have a ‘likability factor,’ I think. 

If nothing else… if you don’t like somebody … at least you go back to that first ‘dysfunction of a team’… or at least in this case… the first function of a highly operating team, is that element of trust. 

You have to trust us. I’m just one of those people… if I don’t trust you, game over. 

I love “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Lencioni … because it really paints that picture… if you have a trust in somebody you can have a great argument with them. Believe it. 

I mean, that’s where everything good happens, is through those arguments and that struggle, a little bit of conflict. 

So I have to trust them, and if I have that trust then… I like to see what their self-awareness is. How do they have a difficult conversation with somebody. 

We use a testing process through the organization to bring people in, but then they have to be vetted through the organization. Pretty much all of our leaders except for a small handful have grown through the organization — they’ve really risen to the top. Not that they’re any better of a person than somebody else, but they have that skill set that allows them to have a difficult conversation. 

I have three brothers that are equal owners with me in the company. I report to them at our board meetings. Each one of them walks in my office. 

Man… I do not want their job — because they’re doing what they like to do! 

So… there’s a lot of great jobs out there … there’s a lot of great people, a lot of great careers … but they all shouldn’t be working together… so, I like to have somebody that is in a good place that they have that self-awareness… 

…that they have what I call, and what I’ve referred to as: ‘the three elements of a team player’ and I what I’d call …  I duplicated this from somebody else, most of what I talk about I’ve gotten from somebody else… 

…it’s like it’s like songs nowadays — nobody ever comes up with a original song… it’s a re-do of a Supertramp song or something like that… or Elton John… 

…but I like people that are humble, hungry, and smart. 

Robert Mixon: 

Yeah. 

I see Lencioni’s model in the “ideal team player” as well, right? 

Ray Isaac:  

Yeah, the ideal team player. 

I mean they ought to be humble. I don’t want to have egos. Here we deal with enough of those. We don’t have to have them on our team. 

I want them to have a hunger level for something. As I said, it doesn’t have to be heating and air-conditioning. I tell that to our new individuals in our boot camp program that are getting trained and educated for a career in heating and air-conditioning. 

I go in in the second week, and tell them, “look, if you’re not passionate about heating and air conditioning at this point… I’m perfectly okay with that — as long as you have a passion for something… and maybe this is a means to an end… where this is either part of your journey … or each and every day you love coming in and doing what you’re doing, but your passion is bass fishing… and this allows you to get out early, and hit the water early, and buy a nice boat, and spend time with your family and your buddies… I’m okay with that.” 

I mean we don’t have to be the be all and end all. I tell this to people when I do a keynote speech on “it’s only heating and air-conditioning… I mean we’re not creating world peace here.” 

We need to be okay with that — and again that goes back to being comfortable in your own skin. I mean I’m the president of a heating and air-conditioning business. My dad always said, ‘don’t take yourself too seriously, nobody else does.’ 

So… I like to have people that have that hunger… that have the intelligence level … and have that trust factor — that they trust their people, so their people then will trust them. That’s from another book that I love — ‘Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace.’ I mean trust begets trust… and trust begins with you. I like to make sure that they have that trust factor in them. 

Robert Mixon:  

Yeah… I think Stephen Covey calls it that “trust is the glue of life”… and I agree with that. I think it sounds like you do too. 

Ray Isaac:  

Absolutely. 

Robert Mixon:  

So, what do you think are the characteristics of a world-class culture… that ecosystem that you help to create in your organization?  

Ray Isaac:  

It’s kind of ironic … when I read that the question on the documents … I mean it’s ironic because we actually changed our vision statement — from what I wrote in ‘05 … to a new vision statement, “delivering a world-class experience.” 

That was our new vision. 

I was in an interview one day with an individual, and I am talking about the company — and I always I try to do every final interview in the organization… so that’s another way of trying to get the top, or people that you can trust in your organization… you be the person that interviews them — and I’m talking about a vision that was our original vision… and he looked me… says, “that’s your vision?”… I’m like, “well yeah.” 

He says, “well, that’s not what’s written on the wall, out in the lobby” … I said “well, that that’s actually the vision we changed it to.. but I still talk about this one…” 

It’s funny … that ‘from the mouth of babes’ — or new hires… 

He looks at me and says, “then then why do you have it?” 

It’s obvious that, you know what, you’re right. Within a week we change back. 

Really my thought of a world-class culture comes from that vision of and it’s really to sum it up is — “to create an enjoyable experience met with anticipation”…  

That’s the first sentence of our vision statement. 

Someplace where it’s fun, it’s energetic, it’s competitive, it’s results-driven. 

It’s a place where there’s no self-preservation. I mean when you join a pickup basketball game or flag football game, or something like that with your buddies … just fun and you look forward to it … and you’re not doing it for money you’re doing it because you just love it.  

That’s what I want in a world-class culture.  

Yeah we’re results-driven, we want to win, we’re competitive as an organization. Our mission statement is ‘lead at all levels’ … we need leaders at all levels, and we want to be a leader in whatever we do. But a world-class culture is one where the predominant thoughts and actions, discussions and emotions, in the organization revolve around people enjoying each other’s company… here for a shared cause. 

Realizing that we’re not creating world peace, that we’re here for a small part of maybe making the world better… but they’re here for the right reasons. There’s no false pretense.  

That has to start with me. As I said this the culture stunk because I didn’t want to be here myself. That was kind of a turning point when the leader of the organization doesn’t want to be here… how do you expect the culture to be? 

I actually do a I do a keynote called “never work a day in your life”… and I present that to groups around the country. 

I start that off with two qualifying questions — “first of all have any of you ever been reincarnated?” The last time I did it was down in Fort Worth Texas… there’s about 350 people in the room … I’m doing the closing keynote. I asked that question. Nobody raises their hand. 

I said “All right. Let me ask you another question. Who in here is a leader in your organization?” Pretty much everybody raised their hand. 

I said “All right… close your eyes… and I want you to answer this question by raising your hand. How many of you in here absolutely, positively, love going to work every single day no matter what day it is… two o’clock in the morning on a Thursday, or two o’clock in the afternoon on a Sunday… how many of you love going to work every single day?” 

My hand was one of the ten hands that went up.  

“Okay open your eyes and look around you.” 

Heard a hush coming over the room… I said, “You know what, that’s pathetic.” I said, “how many of you in here want this for your employees?”… and I show a slide of employees jumping up and down, high-fiving, just having a blast… and every single person raised their hand. 

I said, “well if any one of you is raising your hand now that wasn’t raising it before… there’s another word for it… it’s called ‘hypocrite’…” 

You have to demonstrate and practice what you preach in your organization and if you don’t love going in every day … believe me your employees are pretty smart, they’ll see right through that. They’re pretty intelligent people and you can’t pull the wool over their eyes.  

They know if you want to be there or not. 

Robert Mixon: 

That’s great. 

As far as advice for young leaders … what would be the one big idea you would impart to young leaders, regardless of their profession, if they’re going to achieve their potential… what would that be? 

Ray Isaac:  

There’s a lot of great tactics and things like that … but I’d go right back to the answer to the first one — create a better sense of self-awareness. Understand who they are. That may be through counseling. 

It may be through testing. We do a lot of analyses in our organization. We do what’s called a predictive index which gives us a profile of the individual. We also do a profile of all of our individuals who go through leadership training and education in the organization. 

We do a temperament study, which is a survey and we use that mix of those three together … that recipe… to really help them understand themselves better. 

We actually have in our office here, right on the door of all of our people in the company, that have offices here… they have their predictive index profile right on the door. Mine’s a ‘controller.’ I like to drive. I like options. I like to know the facts, and then I’m gonna make the decision. 

So when people go up to somebody’s door they can look right at their PI and say, ‘okay I know how to work with this person.’ 

… I think I might have taken a Myers-Briggs but I think that was after I graduated from college…. learning the rest of it from my dad… 

… I really don’t think they do a good service to people coming out of school, whatever school it is… They ought to do this in high school, just to create that self-awareness based on some sort of scientific analytics to know, ‘hey this is what I like to do, and this is how I like to do it.’  

Robert Mixon:  

… and what kind of person, what kind of inclinations, do I have. 

I agree, that would be very useful. 

I think these types of personality surveys that you’re talking about — when they’re employed with a number of other factors that you’ve talked about, then they give you a more comprehensive view of — ‘who am I, what do I represent… and who is she, and what does she represent… and how do we communicate?’  

Ray Isaac:  

Yeah… before you can deal with somebody else, you’ve got to know how to deal with yourself. 

What are the conversations you have yourself… what are you telling yourself. The psychoanalysis part is something that.. I really don’t think it gets enough service. I don’t think they do a good job in any of the college programs in that I see… they get into some of it in the MBA-type programs on leadership, but you shouldn’t have to go to a course on leadership to understand who yourself you are. 

Robert Mixon: 

Fair enough! I agree. 

Is there any other big idea you want to pass on to the audience?  

Ray Isaac: 

Ah! I probably could talk for hours. 

I like your question because it really does hone down to that that core of really leadership. As we’re talking and going through a crisis right now … and how we’re dealing with that. As I said… you’re making now day-to-day decisions, you’re making hourly decisions… and one thing that you know I think a lot of leaders maybe don’t appreciate when they’re starting out is that no decision exists in a vacuum. It really doesn’t. 

I find that when I’m watching the news reports… that you have the health professionals say, ‘hey everybody just stay home’… okay… I have employees saying ‘I want to come to work because I have to pay my mortgage, and I have to pay my bills, and I have to stay active’… you have the people on the financial side saying ‘get out and spend money’… I love ‘Good to Great’… I refer to it a lot… I love in there the exercise on “the beauty of the ‘and’ and the tyranny of the ‘or’ in leadership”…  

I don’t think the ‘or’ is the easiest decision you can make. 

I told my employees the other day — I do a nightly communication to all of them in a little email, just to know what’s going on — and I say, “you know the easiest thing we could do is just shut the company down…” 

That’s the ‘or’ — we can either operate a business, or shut it down — and we’ll focus on one or the other. 

I said, “the real work comes in when you focus on an ‘and’…” 

…when you’re focusing on the ‘and’ of a decision… have this – and – have that… and we do this every single day when we run 24-hour service. 

We have people that don’t necessarily want to get up at 2 o’clock in the morning to run a service call when it’s a blizzard out. The easy thing… the ‘or’ would be ‘we don’t run 24-hour service’… the ‘and’ is ‘we can run 24-hour service, but also structure a program around having people that want to do that…’ 

So, no decision that you make is gonna exist in a vacuum. There’s always 26 other factors that might come into play, and people that you affect in that process. As you grow throughout an organization, then you’re in charge of more and more people. 

If you think about it… if you’re in charge of 20 people… take that times 4.3… because the average size of a family in the United States is 4.3 people.  

That’s one thing my dad drilled into my head … he said, “you’re not just affecting yourself, the owners, or the employees, you’re affecting that times 4.3…” 

So, it’s kind of like ‘the 4.3 rule’ … whatever you do you’re affecting 4.3 times that many people. 

Robert Mixon: 

Great insights, Ray. 

I really appreciate the opportunity to learn from you today, and I know everybody in the Level Five audience is going to value the discussion that we’ve had, and the insights you passed on. 

So, thanks again for spending some time sharing your knowledge and insights, and I certainly wish you well — not only the current crisis but in your journey ahead, and the people that you’re leading so well. 

Thanks, Ray. 

Ray Isaac: 

Well, thank you, Robert, I appreciate it.  

Robert Mixon: 

We very much enjoyed the journey with Ray Isaac today, and look forward to more of our podcast series on “The Journey With No Summit,” as we will explore the expertise of other executives… as well as some lessons that we’ve learned, and I’ve learned in my journey, to help you in yours.  

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