{"id":2466,"date":"2014-02-18T12:18:42","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/?p=2466"},"modified":"2014-02-18T12:18:42","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:18:42","slug":"corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Corner Office: What I Learned About Leadership from Arnold Schwarzenegger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This month\u2019s Corner Office spotlight shines on Martyn Hopper, executive vice president and CEO of the 1,600 member <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcoc.org\">Pest Control Operators of California<\/a> (PCOC), one of the nation\u2019s largest regional pest control associations.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2502 alignleft\" alt=\"Tweetables\" src=\"http:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/02\/Tweetables-icon.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"65\" \/><\/p>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 95%; margin: 5px; border: 1px solid black; background-color: #dcdcdc;\" width=\"\" cellspacing=\"3\" cellpadding=\"3\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border: 1px solid black;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Legislators make us bend over backwards to use the safest, most environmentally friendly chemicals we can\u2014until they have a rat problem at home. Then they want the strongest stuff we&#8217;ve got!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>PCOC members compete with each other during the day, but come together to network and &#8220;break bread&#8221; for the greater good through the association.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Working for Arnold Schwarzenegger, I learned you have to be a great listener and recruiter of talent. Choose the right people and then let them go. Don\u2019t micromanage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>Association Adviser: Tell us a little about the pest control industry and the PCOC.<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 102px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5px; margin-right: 10px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.naylornetwork.com\/NAY-ADVISER\/assets\/martyn%20hopper.jpg\" width=\"102\" height=\"143\" align=\"left\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Martyn Hopper, PCOC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Martyn Hopper:<\/strong> Like the pest control industry overall, we\u2019re growing steadily and have about 1,600 members, including 900 companies. You should understand that we\u2019re mostly entrepreneurs and small businesses. Our members have more in common with other California small businesses than they do with large national pest control companies. It\u2019s an interesting dynamic. Our members compete with each other during the day, but they come together [through the PCOC] to network, help each other out and &#8220;break bread.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: We understand that PCOC is among the few trade associations with a strictly enforced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcoc.org\/about\/ethics\/index.cfm\">code of ethics<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Yes. Back in the 1930s, we created the Structured Pest Control Association to protect consumers from unscrupulous operators. Since we\u2019re in California, one of the most highly taxed, highly regulated states in the nation, our members have to do their jobs better and more effectively than operators in most other states\u2014and so do we. As a result of the association\u2019s lobbying in 1935, the California Legislature passed the nation&#8217;s first structural pest control act and set up rigorous examinations for admission to the pest control field, licensing, reporting and strict work criteria. We&#8217;ve always been held to higher standards than other contractors and small businesses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: Your industry seems pretty recession-proof. That must be nice.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Actually, it\u2019s not. During an economic downturn, that\u2019s when people tend to forego their regular maintenance and inspections\u2014an important source of revenue for our members.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: What are some of the other biggest issues for your members?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> It\u2019s got to be environmental\u2014making sure we\u2019re not using the most toxic chemicals and compounds to do our jobs. Also, industry consolidation and succession planning is a big factor. We serve many family-owned businesses. Oftentimes the owner isn&#8217;t in a position to turn the business over to the next generation when he or she is ready to retire. Consolidation isn&#8217;t good for our membership and it\u2019s not good for the consumer, as they have fewer choices to serve them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: Martyn, you have a legal background. How did you get into the pest control industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> My background is in lobbying and advocacy. I\u2019m from the U.K., but I spent more than 25 years as California State Director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)\u2014the largest small business organization in the U.S. with more than 36,000 members in California. I was chief advocate for small business in California and helped draft many of the small business bills that have become law in the state including The RegFlex Act, The Equal Access to Justice Act and the Treble Damages Bad Check Law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: Tell us more about the RegFlex Act?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Sure. It refers to the Regulator Flexibility Act (RFA). It\u2019s something I started and helped push through when I was chair of the California Small Business Board under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger starting in 2007. Basically it says that federal agencies must analyze the impact of their regulatory actions on small entities (small businesses, small non-profit organizations and small jurisdictions of government), and they must seek less burdensome alternatives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: How so?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> &#8220;It comes into play when the impact of a regulation is likely to be &#8220;significant&#8221; and makes it difficult for a &#8220;substantial number&#8221; of small entities to comply. In a litigious and environmentally conscious state such as California, we have to bend over backwards to use the safest, most environmentally friendly chemicals we can. That is until one of the legislators has a rat problem at home. Then they want the strongest stuff we&#8217;ve got! [laughing]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: What was it like working for a high profile figure such as Gov. Schwarzenneger, aka The Governator?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> He has a strong, hands-on personality, just like his onscreen persona. He was a tremendous influence on my own leadership style. He\u2019s a great listener. He empowers people to make decisions, and he gives them the freedom to create without fear of retribution if things don\u2019t work out exactly as you planned. He is a great recruiter of talent. He taught me that you have to choose the right people for your team and then let them go. Don\u2019t micromanage them. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, &#8220;All men make mistakes, but <a title=\"Psychology Today looks at Wisdom\" href=\"http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/basics\/wisdom\">wise<\/a> men learn from their mistakes.&#8221; In other words, the more mistakes you make, the more you learn and the more you grow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: What did he teach you about motivating staff and volunteers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Whether it\u2019s a staff person or a volunteer, the key is to find out what people are really interested in and put them in the right place to be happiest and most productive. Match their interests to their role. I like what [AHA\u2019s Stephanie Drake] said in your newsletter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/index.php\/corner-office-stephanie-drake-aha-ashhra\/\">last month<\/a>, &#8220;Manage the talent, not the job description.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: How about fostering innovation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> You have to think in terms of long-term development and vision five to 15 years out. You constantly have to refresh your vision. Keep looking at your business the way a competitor would. Where are your weaknesses? Is the website up to date and doing all the marketing it needs to do for you? Are your member benefits offering real tangible value?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: How does that translate into the member value proposition?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> My emphasis at PCOC has not necessarily been on growing membership, but growing value for the members we have. One of our biggest benefits is insurance for our members. Twenty years ago, at the height of the liability crisis in California (everyone was suing each other), it was very hard for our small business members to get insurance. So we created our own (&#8220;captive&#8221;) insurance program for members.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: Do you have any specific initiatives for the next generation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Industry up-and-comers are very important to us. That\u2019s the future leadership. A lot of young people are not joiners. They don\u2019t like meetings or face-to-face networking. Our members are very mobile, especially the younger ones, so we\u2019re putting more and more of our resources and compliance guides on the iPad. We\u2019ll be introducing video soon when our new website comes out. And we\u2019re slowly building out our social media channels\u2014it\u2019s just very time intensive, and there are a lot of regulatory concerns in our type of industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: Social media would probably help your lobbying and advocacy efforts, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Actually, no. We&#8217;ve found that elected official like faxes the most. So that\u2019s how we\u2019ll continue to get our message through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AA: Membership is growing and you seem to be winning consistently at the State Capitol. What\u2019s weighing on you late at night?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MH:<\/strong> Are we doing enough to educate our members and the public? Suppose a homeowner has an infestation and doesn&#8217;t want to pay for a professional to get rid of it. They go to Home Depot and use 4 ounces of pesticide when the dosage calls for only 2 ounces. The consumer\u2019s thinking if they use double the amount, then they\u2019ll get double the effect. Well, what happens when things go badly for the &#8220;do-it-yourselfer&#8221; and all kinds of chemicals are running off into the water supply. Guess who\u2019s on the hook for not educating the public about pesticides? We are. Pretty ironic. We were started 75 years ago by upstanding pest-control professionals to protect consumers from the unscrupulous ones\u2014now we\u2019re protecting consumers from themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Corner Office spotlight shines on Martyn Hopper, executive vice president and CEO of the 1,600-member Pest Control Operators of California (PCOC), one of the nation\u2019s largest regional pest control associations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":2467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[356,121,337,357,358,359,23],"class_list":["post-2466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leaders-table","tag-arnold-schwarzenegger","tag-leadership-2","tag-management","tag-network","tag-pcoc","tag-pest-control-operators-of-california","tag-social-media"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What I Learned About Leadership from Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This Corner Office spotlight shines on Martyn Hopper, executive vice president and CEO of the 1,600-member Pest Control Operators of California (PCOC).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What I Learned About Leadership from Arnold Schwarzenegger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This Corner Office spotlight shines on Martyn Hopper, executive vice president and CEO of the 1,600-member Pest Control Operators of California (PCOC).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Association Adviser\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-18T17:18:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/02\/Martyn-Hopper-thumbnail.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"83\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"116\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Association Adviser staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Association Adviser staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger\/\",\"name\":\"What I Learned About Leadership from Arnold Schwarzenegger\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-18T17:18:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-02-18T17:18:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/#\/schema\/person\/3295b0ebb50ab785127c67672b4314ed\"},\"description\":\"This Corner Office spotlight shines on Martyn Hopper, executive vice president and CEO of the 1,600-member Pest Control Operators of California (PCOC).\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/corner-office-learned-leadership-arnold-schwarzenegger\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/\",\"name\":\"Association Adviser\",\"description\":\"Leadership Strategies &amp; 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