As the aggregates industry continues to move through a difficult economic period, tapping into all the potential assets is key to success, said Charlie Luck, IV, during a special AGG1 educational session on Values Based Leadership.

He said that, in talks with his father, the senior family member noted that during his 50 years in the aggregates industry, he’s never seen business conditions like they are now. In response, many operators are evaluating how to drive efficiency with equipment, such as crushing, screening, and mobile equipment, but they haven’t tapped all of their resources.

“This has been a really tough window,” Luck said. “Today is about a resource that we maybe haven’t spent as much time on, our human resource.”

Luck Companies have tapped that human potential using values based leadership and three key principals, he said.

1)    Our people have untapped potential.

2)    Leadership ignites that potential.

3)    Leadership is a conscious choice.

To begin the journey of values based leadership, the Luck executive team worked with Holt Caterpillar, which provided consulting services on values based leadership. That quickly led to some difficult lessons as they tried to identify and clarify values, and had sometimes brutally honest conversations about leadership skills, beginning with the executive team’s perspective on Luck’s leadership, which was sometimes, he said, difficult to hear.

“They were giving me gifts,” Luck said of honest critiques by his executive team. “I learned things about my team that I had never knew about my team.”

Values based leadership has changed how the company handles everything from identifying its mission and vision to changing a conveyor belt.

“Our safety improved significantly,” Luck said. “And our business results…began to soar. People were getting tools and training at work that helped them at the job as well as home.”