Reach Success with John Fisher and T.H.E.M.

John C. Fisher is the President and CEO of T. Harris Environmental Management, an IWSCC Certified Supplier. John joined as at this year’s Reach Forum to share his experience, and this summer we sat down for an extended chat.

So for me, it was a natural progression. I joined the firm in nineteen eighty-eight. I have held many positions during my tenure and was initially hired as a project inspector. Over the following years, I acquired through external and internal training the knowledge base, coupled with my previous experiences to advance my position within THEM. As such, I attained the following positions, Project Manager, General Manager, Vice President & General Manager, Principal and Chief Operating Officer in 2000, President & COO (2006) and finally as President & CEO in 2010 and sole shareholder in 2012.

I’ve been always reaching for that. I guess I’m a natural leader, and I want to collaborate. I want to work with people. I wanted to basically control my own destiny.

There have been a lot of challenges in the business, because the founder did not believe in succession planning, – we lost a lot of people that ultimately ended up becoming competitors of ours.

I had a sense of loyalty to the founder. There’s always that hindsight that maybe I should have just left as well and started up my own business, but my sense of duty and loyalty to him… I decided to take it over and see what I could do with it.

COVID (and I know people are tired of hearing that), the pandemic had a real adverse effect on not only my company, but the whole economy. I am now in the rebuilding stage, where I’ve made a lot of changes in the last six or seven months that should have been done a long time ago.

So I kept my team together even though the revenue didn’t suggest that I needed all that overhead, and I’ve always been optimistic in the sense that the company would grow, and I needed that infrastructure for when we grew. So, that has been the real challenge.

At this point in time. I’m “right-sizing the ship,” per se, but making decisions for the company to grow. I probably won’t be around long enough to see that growth, because I am in a period right now where I do want to  transition out of my company. But I want  to do it the right way, not in a “mess” which was the state it was  when I took it over, to put it bluntly.

And finding professional support to help you with that process has been more challenging than I thought it would. This especially applies to  lawyers. I’m pretty simplistic in my approach, even though I think I have a pretty good business sense/mind. So, I see them trying to complicate things that don’t need to be complicated. Getting professionals to follow my vision has been tough.

[IWSCC] Do you find that you’re having difficulty finding those partners who you trust to help not leave behind that mess essentially?

Yes, it’s more on the professional side. Internally, we’re a small company, and it is hard to retain people in a small company because they may look at the senior management team and they don’t see a role for them in the next little while. I have made some recent changes in personnel that are allowing some of our mid-tier people or mid-career people to embrace that future. Make it their own and illustrate they have the capacity to do that.

You can’t be so ‘myopic;’ insular in the sense of thinking that what you have is going to  change and allow you to grow. You need fresh ideas,  minds, and  people. And they need to see that as well, that they have room here. There is a future for them here. That we don’t just train them very well to make them excellent people for larger companies. And I’m tired of doing that, to put it bluntly. I take pride in that we train our team really well, so they are well respected when they go to other companies. But I want to  keep them, you know?

I think it’s a dichotomous relationship. You have the aspect of it where I think it has been beneficial to have a disability in the approach you take to the people you’re dealing with, whether they are your own team members or your external clients and suppliers. Some businesses have probably not dealt with me and us because of the disability. They’ve come to erroneous conclusions about my cognitive abilities or my abilities to do things and they’re not willing to work with that. They make their impression and don’t want to  validate whether their impressions are correct.

Now, internally our company is a much more inclusive company. When we interview people, it is about the skill set and what you can bring to the team. I try and leave my biases at the door and look through the  lens of whether culturally you are going to  fit into the team. Whether the skill set will  compliment or add to what we’re trying to do, and I think that empathy is illustrated in that. It’s been a curse and a very good thing for growing my business.

If I illustrate to people that my disability is real, but it doesn’t affect your ability to contribute, or run a company, or run a board, then I’m doing my job as I see it. If people see me as a role model, great. That’s not why I do it, I don’t aspire to be a role model, but I do aspire to advocate for those that can’t or are too afraid to advocate because of their disabilities. Because you do get hammered a lot when you have a disability. So there’s many people I try and educate, and there’s many people that I know there’s no hope in trying to educate them. I let them wallow in their ignorance.

I think it is that I am where I am. I am an owner of a small business that, and anything  I have wanted to do, personally and professionally, I have basically been able to do. I sat on charitable boards. I’ve been involved on many committees. A lot of people come to me for advice, and they feel that my opinion, experience and views are valid and based on fact, and I do try to remove biases from what I say.

I despise groupthink. I applaud thought leadership. I want those divergent, contrarian views if they’re based on substance and analysis and metrics and facts. People have comfort around me to be themselves, to feel comfortable in discussing anything with me, whether it’s personal or business. And my opinions and advice, it’s not judgmental. What I say to people is without malice. People appreciate that. Maybe they don’t like what I’m saying, but, if you ask for my opinion, you’re going to  get it. So, I think that’s my greatest success.

I want to lay the foundation for whoever’s here, and if that means me staying around a bit longer than I anticipated, so be it. So that’s what’s next, it really is about continuing  the legacy of this company. Ensuring that, to be a little selfish, that I get the reward out of the hard work I’ve put in for the last 38 years that allows my wife and I to do whatever we want to do. The future is bright.

And I’m not naive. I know that with my neurological condition, lifespan will be compromised. I also am not naive to the fact that as I age my physical disabilities will get worse which may compromise my ability to speak and do other things. So I want to do as much as I can in the short term to fulfill what I want to do. Do I have a bucket list? No. I don’t believe in bucket lists. I believe in living. My motto is: “Life is good. It’s not fair.” Whatever happens to me, I deal with it. And just move forward. Be optimistic. Be happy. Try to be a good team leader. Try to be a good family man, friend, and try to be a good advocate for my suppliers and clients. So, that’s about it.