Training Through Losses for Championship Wins: Greg Zabikow’s Business Strategy Framework

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotus Bodie and today’s guest is Greg Zabakow,

Greg has a background in international business and finance, leading transformations at Cornerstone Building Brands and Evraz North America, and he led key treasury initiatives at Allstate Insurance.

He also holds an MBA from DePaul University, along with credentials like financial modeling and valuation analyst from the Corporate Finance Institute. Greg also earned recognitions as a competent toastmaster, reflecting his outstanding communication skills. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and

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To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, Greg Zabakow. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Greg Zabikow (01:34)
absolutely Anthony, thanks for inviting me in.

Anthony Codispoti (01:38)
So Greg, you’ve had a fascinating career path from retail banking to treasury work at Allstate and Aon, and then moving into manufacturing with a steel company. I got to ask, is there a common thread amongst these different roles?

Greg Zabikow (01:54)
Yeah, it’s interesting. My dad has a quote that he always would share with me or was, you don’t know what you want to do until you find out what you don’t want to do. And as you kind of unpack that coming out of college and finance roles, I would have bosses that would say, hey, can you work on this project? Can you take care of this task? And it wasn’t really technically part of that role that I have, but I just kept saying yes. And what I found is kind of that excitement doing things different beyond the traditional role.

and actually having some positive results. so again, asking yes when these different opportunities, or saying yes when these different opportunities came up really prepared me going forward.

Anthony Codispoti (02:36)
So it’s helped to get you more well-rounded in not just finance, but sort of operational business experience so that you can take that forward into each of the new roles that you have.

Greg Zabikow (02:49)
Correct, I had an opportunity where the CFO I worked for asked me what I wanted to do. And that led to getting into my first ⁓ operation situation, which when you start blending that financial experience with teamwork and in operations, it’s really a powerful tool.

Anthony Codispoti (03:07)
Yeah, that is a great combination. Now, one of the roles that you had is when you were helping a struggling pipe manufacturing business. Can you walk around some of the specific strategies that you used to help in that situation?

Greg Zabikow (03:25)
Absolutely. So when I came into that role, I was told three things. One, we couldn’t make a certain size product. We didn’t have a very good relationship with the union. And then our supervisory team was not as strong as they needed to be. ⁓ Debunked all three of those. The first part, really looking at what was the issue with a particular size product. ⁓ We make pipe and you thread the end of the ⁓ pipe. So find out who are best.

threader operators were and really building some training and knowledge around that in a way that supported the collective bargaining agreement. Then with the union, there’s a leadership structure. There’s that collective bargaining agreement kind of gives you the rules of engagement, but they’re just people, right? It’s not management versus employees or, or union. so connecting with those team members, whether it on their breaks, at their machines, getting to know them and finding out what got them to the tick. Cause we had a lot of folks that were

in that location for years. And so there definitely was pride of ownership and they really wanted to bring that out. So by building those relationships, we had success. And then the third part, I equate business to sports. So you’ve got either the scoreboard or the time clock and you know every day, whether you’re winning or losing when you watch a professional sporting event, that’s why I needed to provide the supervisors. We had some metrics showing those metrics real time and on a daily basis, friendly competition is a good thing.

And it’s amazing when you set an expectation of what you’re trying to deliver and communicate that in a very positive way how things turn around. So that was kind of the recipe for success there.

Anthony Codispoti (05:03)
So that last one, the financial metrics, okay, that sounds like a finance guy to me. that one I get. So the first two, you came in and they told you, hey, we’re incapable of making this certain size product.

What where did this come from you sort of coming in as the new guy not knowing anything about the pipe industry having the audacity to question that right because Clearly there are people who are much more skilled in manufacturing pipe and knowing what their ⁓ Capabilities are internally than you are What even gave you the idea to turn that one upside down and say let’s take a look at this

Greg Zabikow (05:42)
So my very first site management meeting, you’re talking through, I had three metrics, first pass yield, productivity and availability, which was what I was going to be measured against. And in a 24 seven operation, it’s really not 24 seven, you have a down period. And for this particular line, it was Thursday from 10 AM to 6 PM. And I went in that meeting and I said, okay, so during this down period, we’re actually going to do maintenance. And you would have thought I

you know, killed the sacred cow in that moment. Cause like we run through down days. It’s like, well, that’s why we have productivity problems. so again, to your point of I’m not the mechanical expert, but I’ll use that sports analogy again. You can’t run three hours a day and you can’t wake up and run the Denver marathon tomorrow. Right. And so to take equipment and let it quote rest, right. Clean it, oil it, inspect it, allowed you to control the downtime. so out of the

52 weeks, we probably had 48 of those weeks where we actually had down days. And now you had maintenance PMs, operator PMs, back to that pride of ownership, because the team members that were operating those spaces really wanted to make sure their equipment was cleaned and cared for. And so rather than breaking down Saturday at two o’clock in the morning when you have limited staff, you’re able to that product machine today. And next Thursday,

because you inspected it and said, that motor could be failing, you pre-planned that repair. And so again, the availability of the equipment went through the roof. so just the ability of being curious or asking the question of help me understand was really what helped guide me through that.

Anthony Codispoti (07:26)
And so you specific and that was really interesting what you talked about there in terms of changing the schedule up ⁓ as it pertained to ⁓ equipment maintenance. But one of the specific questions you asked is why can’t we make this in a different size? Yeah.

Greg Zabikow (07:38)
watching. And that’s the beauty

of not being that expert, as you alluded to, because we had team members, both on the management side and in the union side, been there 2530 years knew the equipment inside and out, heck, some of them actually installed the equipment. But being able to pause and look at that quote problem differently, we were able to identify opportunities, which was, hey, we’re not taking care of the equipment, no wonder it’s breaking.

Anthony Codispoti (08:06)
Mm hmm. And then that sort of second point that you talked about kind of the ⁓ union relationship. ⁓ I don’t have a lot of experience working with unions. What function in the company is typically spearheading that relationship? Is it HR? Does it come from somewhere else?

Greg Zabikow (08:26)
I think it varies in the structure that we had. was definitely the site management team, but also the company’s wide management team because that union structure existed kind of throughout our company. So that’s where that overall HR relationship would be.

together. So we have a vested interest, even though we may be trying to approach it slightly different. ⁓ We’re trying to feed our family, continue to have the business operating, and then create a product for our customers.

Anthony Codispoti (09:10)
you keep using the sports analogies. ⁓ Were you involved in athletics earlier in your life?

Greg Zabikow (09:17)
Yeah, obviously as a kid, the different activities that you participated in, but had an opportunity to swim in college. And that really became the crux of how I looked at things because you take swimming and by itself, it’s individual. But when you get to that collegiate level, your ability to win championship is based on all 22 happen to be guys on the team. And we trained with the gals as well. But that’s how you would win all 22 people.

having success in their events. And it really gave me a sense of how to approach ⁓ winning together, having a goal at the end of the year, which were these championships, and it really shaped what we did there.

Anthony Codispoti (10:04)
And so I’m not familiar with competitive swimming at any level, ⁓ particular college level. How is it that it becomes a team sport? Is each person sort of where they place adding some points to a team total?

Greg Zabikow (10:19)
That’s correct. So the conference championship is typically a three day event. got your prelims in the morning based on kind of your seed times that you have during the year. That will seat you into finals or consolation rounds. And then whether you place, you know, one through eight in that finals round or nine through 16 in that consolation room has a series of points over those three days. The maximum events will determine which

Team wins.

Anthony Codispoti (10:52)
Okay. And so how have you kind of carried some of those lessons from competitive team athletics into your working career?

Greg Zabikow (11:01)
This was, again, I think just the great lesson from my coach was Jerry Champer. And, you know, they would draw on the blackboard where we put our workout on what looks like a trophy. And so that was always the goal. And so as you start your season, kind of the end of August championship, the middle of February, it is so easy to say, oh, we’ve got a dual meet against this particular school. We should beat them.

That was never the goal. We would have sometimes a very hard workout on a Wednesday, have a meet on a Thursday and lose to a team that we shouldn’t lose. Also during the Christmas break, teams typically, we were in the North because we were in Illinois, would head down to Arizona or Florida to really have very intensive training, kind of what we called them two a days. So you’d really add your mileage and distance during that period. Some schools would actually.

have a short rest and do an invitation, they’ll meet and they would get some really good times. But we swam through that because the goal was the championship. And so I really looked at that in business. If you’re saying where you’re going, you’re not trying to hit a monthly result or a quarterly result. Where’s the company going? So that alignment to that particular goal, think not only carries over from sports, but carries over into business as well.

Anthony Codispoti (12:31)
So I’m a little confused. The ⁓ example that you used about hard workout on a Wednesday and losing to a competitor you shouldn’t have lost to on a Thursday. Was that a good thing that you did? Was that a bad thing that you did? How do you view that?

Greg Zabikow (12:46)
View that as good because it wasn’t getting, let’s say, monthly result in business. We need to hit a number. Same thing. You don’t get trophies for dual meet records. You trophies for winning the championship at the end of the year. So was keeping yourself consistent on what that real goal was, not kind of the, as I said, gold stickers along the

Anthony Codispoti (13:09)
Gotcha. So while it would have been nice to beat that ⁓ one school on a Thursday, hey, we’re okay not doing that because we’re getting in better shape for the end of the year. Our goal, our mission is the long-term vision here.

Greg Zabikow (13:25)
long-term vision. And so that has become my guiding principles from a leadership perspective 25 years later as I sit here and enrolls within business.

Anthony Codispoti (13:38)
Yeah. And then you lived in Amsterdam during the financial crisis, 08, 09, and then also worked in Calgary in Canada. How did these international assignments kind of shape your professional perspective?

Greg Zabikow (13:53)
No, definitely. First of all, thinking the executives that provided those opportunities, because it’s one thing to travel to a country on a vacation. I think you learn some stuff. But the global perspective I got where you actually live there, you move your family, you change your life, you know, how you get groceries in Amsterdam, actually took a bicycle to the train station to get so you’re actually living in and adapting to the culture of those situations.

⁓ In both scenarios, right, I had projects I was responsible for and change is hard when you’re dealing with your colleagues that you have every day in your office. Now you go to another country and you’re trying to create some level of change. You’re the foreigner. ⁓ In some cases, you are younger compared to the folks that you are working with, but you still had a project that you were working for. So whether it was making the regional treasury center, bringing activity,

to Amsterdam from Norway or Germany or Italy or Spain. was that ability to sit down with those country leaderships. And my biggest takeaway was around the diplomacy from that because again, those folks had to run an operator business while I was still trying to come alongside and make some changes. Again, driven by that financial crisis, trying to make sure we had our funds.

and cash in places that were a little more reputable from a banking perspective.

Anthony Codispoti (15:25)
Is there more detail that you can share about what it was that you were working through there?

Greg Zabikow (15:29)
Yeah, so ⁓ one of the elements of the EU, there’s different tax advantages and Netherlands had very favorable tax components and one of the big goals was to make sure you really had substance in those holding companies.

And so that was kind of the goal of the regional treasury center saying we weren’t only going to have the cash management investment piece, but we were going to have tax and legal and some level of management structure in place, guiding the different European countries that rolled up into that holding structure. In addition to that, it was kind of on the onset of the financial crisis where just having banking deposits in

local banks, which could result to business development for those local executives, weren’t always the safest places when it wasn’t just the company’s money, but we also in the type of work we did had fiduciary money. So it was really transitory for that 90 day period of time where you were holding it either on behalf of the insurance company or on behalf of the customer. And so you really had to take care and concern with where you were placing those proceeds.

Anthony Codispoti (16:42)
And you mentioned some of the, ⁓ I don’t know, bigger life challenges of moving to another country. You know, not just being there for a short period of time, but now you’ve picked up your life, your family, and you’ve got to adapt to a new way of life somewhere else. What was the biggest cultural shock or change that you had to adapt to that might surprise our listeners?

Greg Zabikow (17:05)
on the Amsterdam front, obviously language, right? And so you would start to be aware of different words that you would read on signs or hear, but definitely leaning into the colleagues that I had there. ⁓ the Netherlands is a place where people are, ⁓ multilingual. And so I could bring in.

phone bills that I would get or other documents and get it translated for me. And so you had to really humble yourself in that process because you didn’t know a lot of different things. But that was actually what made it fun, kind of that naivety of what this looks like. But really moving, and we had an 18 month old at the time, so you’re moving your little one and your wife and everything out to a country trying to find a place to live that you can. ⁓

afford in that situation. ⁓ We wanted to live in the city center area because we’re like, we’re never going to do this again. But really leaning into that experience. And my biggest takeaway was don’t go into that space as an American, right? You need to go in as a visitor. Really honor whatever cultural activities are there and not bring attention to yourself that ⁓ is unnecessary or doesn’t represent the environment very well.

Anthony Codispoti (18:25)
So you’re going into a zone of discomfort for you. And then after that period of time, you’ve got to sort of sink back into some solitude to recharge your batteries. And we talked earlier about, ⁓ we were asking the question about what was it, the pipe. Where does the audacity for Greg, who’s never manufactured pipe in his life, to come in and question that we can’t make this particular size product?

Greg Zabikow (18:36)
Very much so.

Yes.

Anthony Codispoti (18:55)
And you’re like, I just ask questions. And sometimes, using your words here, dumb questions. How has that ability to ask dumb questions really helped to influence the arc of your career?

Greg Zabikow (19:10)
There’s definitely a couple examples that have helped me through that. I remember growing up, know, dad had a car phone in the car and now we have a supercomputer in our pocket. And so it’s interesting where we’re quick to make changes in our personal lives and then sometimes leave practices in work that are maybe right at the time they were put in place, but maybe now they’re outdated. And so really it’s that sense of curiosity of help me understand.

Why do you do this? I’m not saying I’ve got an answer. It just, I’ve got a question here. And so that curiosity or naivety or perceived naivety allows entering into, let’s figure this out together. Cause I lean into time, emotional energy and money or capital being your scarce resources. And so we’ve got to be good about that. Hey, we make this report. It takes four hours a day every week.

Okay, who looks at that report? What decision are we making from it? Because if I can reallocate a team member to four hours of something else, hey, let’s do that. That’s a much better, more proactive use. My guess is that you’re allowing space for that team member to feel a little more engaged on doing a different task. And so, that’s kind of one piece. The other is ⁓ I have a lens of product.

or industry agnostic. That gets me in trouble in certain interviews or job search process, having been now in my eighth industry, but it goes back to everything you do is through and with people. And you’re putting a strategy around that. The widget or the product happens to be an output, but how you interact with people, how you look at the customer, how you use technology, the widget in my mind doesn’t matter, which allows me to say, hey, in this other industry,

We did it this way, why did we do it here? And so it’s that naivety that allows a curious question.

Anthony Codispoti (21:15)
You know, and I wonder, maybe this is an area where you can offer me a little bit of personal coaching, Greg, because I’m also a very curious person. I like to ask a lot of questions. And sometimes I find that the person I’m asking the questions to is really happy that I’m inquiring and digging deep and like, like, it helps them feel engaged and like, you know, I care in what they’re doing. And other times I think my questioning comes across as

finger pointing or ⁓ like abrasive or like I’m prying. And so I wonder how you approach, how you sort of lay the foundation so that people aren’t on guard, you’re sort of putting their guard down and they want to participate in that process with you.

Greg Zabikow (22:04)
Years ago, you’d come in to a boss’s office and present what you thought was the greatest idea since slice bread, and they were not happy about that. What I found is if this series of questions or idea doesn’t create that reaction of discomfort, it’s not change. And when you go, the realities are death, taxes and change. That’s the only known.

variables in life and so

at least planting that seed, you may not go into that problem solving conversation because this is maybe the first time you’ve presented that topic with the individual. So they are going to be guarded like, are you talking about? I have this.

Anthony Codispoti (23:00)
Maybe don’t go full press the first time.

Greg Zabikow (23:04)
It’s about planting that seed for a future conversation. And hopefully, ideally, there’s some initial credibility with that individual. If you don’t have that to start, it’s probably building that first. But as you have that credibility in that scenario, ideally, the candor should allow that dialogue. But it usually is a series of three or four discussions where at first I expect a visceral reaction. And so I’m not offended by that anymore.

but we’ll talk about it two or three more times. It’s the, hey, maybe I’m wrong with whatever’s being presented. ⁓ Give me a little bit perspective of why you think X is needed. And so it actually is then in a roundabout way, having them pause and think, because just look at the technology front. Hey, why we did certain things 10 years ago, absolutely worth the right answer. Now you have Amazon tracking to your home on the day you ordered something. So there’s just different expectations. ⁓

with that knowledge, the technology and, definitely on the generational front that I think requires you to have those types of questions.

Anthony Codispoti (24:14)
What’s a big fun project that you guys are working on right now at Rio Grande Company?

Greg Zabikow (24:20)
For a family-owned business that had a ton of success in the environment it was, some levels of technology existed to a more of a standard state. But now as we’re seeing customers want tracking information or inventory accuracy, or like I said, we’re putting

fireboxes in people’s house and so they want to see photos and so now there’s an opportunity of layering on operational technology. The other piece is I was really applauded the group the amount of data they had historically. You know go to some companies and just the historical information is out there have a ton of data.

My goal is to help turn that into information so you’re spending more time on the strategy, not creating the data, but actually using the information. And so there’s a couple projects in the hopper for that.

Anthony Codispoti (25:53)
wonder how you approach turning that data into actionable insight. Like I’ve had companies in the past where we had just mountains and mountains of data. We put them in databases and spreadsheets and try to analyze. Like surely there has to be an insight here on what’s working and what’s not. And a lot of times I just go cross-eyed trying to make sense of it. What’s your approach? How do you think about

More of a dashboard kind of a thing for most folks. Yeah. So let’s switch gears here, Craig. And I’d like to hear about a big challenge that you’ve overcome in your life. How you got through it and what you learned in that process.

Yeah, and I want to I want to spend just a few more minutes on this because you talk about it like, Oh, yeah, that must have been hard, right? You hurt your shoulder, you know, competitive swimming, and you you had to be in a sling and rehab, you know, okay, what’s next? But I mean, to really sort of dive into the emotional aspect of what that must have meant to you at the time. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna put words in your mouth and you tell me if I’m on the right track or not. Because I’ve talked with a lot of athletes.

but through some of my own stuff, when so much of your identity is wrapped up in something, whether it’s a career, whether it’s ⁓ a sport, family, whatever it is, and now that thing is taken away from you, it can be really destabilizing. It’s like, wait a minute, that’s what I did every day. That’s a big part of who I believed I was a competitor. I am a competitor. I thought I was a competitive swimmer. Now who am I? Where do I fit in and what do I do?

What do I do with my life every day? Now that that’s gone, it’s like, I mean, yes, there’s the physical pain and there’s the rehab that you have to go through. There’s sort of that physical aspect of it, but the mental, the emotional part of it, I have to imagine is way worse.

It’s interesting that you are able to look back at that with a sense of gratitude now and realize that your path may not have unfolded the same way. And why is that? Where do you think that you may have forked differently?

Yeah. You know, and I was just having a similar conversation with another guest and the same kind of message strikes me here is that it’s so hard to do in the moment, but if you can coach yourself to believe that the hard thing that you’re going through right now isn’t happening to you, it’s happening for you, meaning that there is some bigger benefit for you on the other side of this.

you’re stronger, you’re wiser, you’re better, you’ve got thicker armor, you’re better prepared for something that’s gonna come down the road. And sometimes it gives you that little bit of light that you need in that moment.

It’s something fun that you like to do outside of work.

Now I’ve just got one more question for you today, Greg. But before I ask it, want to do a few things. ⁓ First of all, anybody looking to get in touch with Greg, check him out on LinkedIn. Greg Zavakow spelled Z-A-B-I-K-O-W and we’ll include a link to that in the show notes for folks. ⁓ Also as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to addbackbenefits.com.

And finally, if you take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, we will be forever grateful to you. So last question for you, Greg, you and I reconnect one year from today and you are celebrating something big, fist pumping up in the air kind of celebrating. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from now?

So not just a triathlon, an Ironman triathlon. And what are the different, a half Ironman, okay, so what are the metrics, how many miles in the swim and the ride and the run?

All right, well, good luck with that. Greg Zabakow from Rio Grande Company, I wanna be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.