Leon De Bruyn
We made some changes in our organization to replace people that lacked people skills by people that had great people skills. If we put people first, we want to make sure that their supervisor, their managers have that mindset too. So it doesn't just come from the CEO of the company, it comes from every layer.

Jeff Ma
Hello and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma, and as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories from real people about real business and real life. My guest today is Leon De Bruyn, and Leon leads Lummus Technology as president and CEO, and is also a board member for Chevron Lummus Global, a joint venture between Chevron and Lummus. Since joining Lummus in 1993, Leon has been a driving force, notably leading the transition from a subsidiary to an independent company. And his impressive career spans eight different countries, providing him a wealth of experience and a unique global perspective. In 2021, his outstanding leadership was recognized when Hydrocarbon Processing named him Executive of the Year, and he's here with me today to share a little bit of that story, a little bit more about how culture has worked with him and Lummus Technology over time. So, Leon, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you?

Leon De Bruyn
Jeff, thank thank you for having me here. I'm I'm very good today. Today is a good day. Uh and you know, the introduction, I think is more generous than I deserve. So, thanks for speaking so nicely about me.

Jeff Ma
Oh, I I already cut out all of your uh academic achievements and so many other things. I was trying to, I was trying to humble you, but you have a lot to be proud about. Um, thank you so much for joining and I want to start with a question. What is your passion, Leon, and how did you find it?

Leon De Bruyn
So, I, so one of the things that drives me, Jeff, whether it's professional or personal is, anytime I go somewhere, I want it to make it a better place than it was before I got there. So I want to leave a place in a better state than it was as I started it. And this this applies professionally and personally. I want to make a positive impact. Uh and you know, I I know you talked about in the introduction, you're talking about humanity in business. Uh I I cannot imagine how you make a positive impact in business if you don't excite people, if you don't bring people along with your ideas such that they they can be a driver and you can only do this if you touch them the right way, you know, with motivation or things if you make them feel that they contribute to something better.

Jeff Ma
I love that. And I think that's relevant to the story I I really would like for you to kind of share with us today, but if we could start, you've been at Lummus for over 32 years, I believe. I'm doing rough math. Uh, but 32 years a career. Can you talk a little bit about, um, Lummus high level before you jump into the impact over the last years, like what, start us off here.

Leon De Bruyn
Of course. So, so I, I started my career at Lummus. And, um, I plan to finish my career at Lummus. Hopefully that's not too soon. But I truly love the business. I truly love the company that we've created, the people that I work with. I learn a lot every day, uh, still today. Uh, and yeah, so if you are at your best and if you get challenged every day to become better, why would you go somewhere else? So, I could also say nobody else wants me, but you know, I I'll take the positive answer.

Jeff Ma
That can't be true. What, what high level is Lummus Technology? What, what is the business?

Leon De Bruyn
So, so we develop technology. So everything we do has to do with intellectual property that translates into technology that we provide to our customers so that they can make products that makes model life possible. Almost 50% of all man-made products uses our technology one way or another.

Jeff Ma
Wow. Incredible. So, obviously we're here on Love as a Business Strategy. We're talking about love and we're talking about business. Uh, bring us into this, into this topic a little bit as it pertains to Lummus, like what, I know you became independent in 2020 and that kind of, I think, I'm assuming it came with some challenges but also maybe some reset around culture. Can you paint that picture for us?

Leon De Bruyn
Sure. Yeah. So, five years ago, we became an independent company. Before that, we were owned by companies that had no idea how to understand or manage our business. We were kind of like a hidden gem, that's how I would describe it. And five years ago, we got the opportunity uh to recreate Lummus as an independent technology focused company. And that allowed us to develop a new strategy, the forward strategy for Lummus, but also to really think about who are we? What, what do we do? What, what is our cultural value set? What do we want others to see in us? Uh and very quickly, passion was one of the big themes, excellence in what we do, innovation, coming up with new ideas uh in line with my mantra of leaving a place in a better state than it was when I got there. Uh and so, um, everything of that is centered around the people that run the business. And you know, we are a small company. maybe our financials suggest otherwise, but we're we're a company of about a thousand people globally in in 20 locations. So, we're a small company. And if you run your company in a way that you understand what drives people, what motivates people, they can surprise you in an exceptional way and they they will come up with new ideas or they work with customers uh to embrace our technologies in a in a grandiose way and and and that's exactly what we've seen. So, in the last five years, Jeff, um, if you would interview anyone in Lummus, I think they will say it's a day and night difference between where we are now and when we started. Uh, focus on making sure that everybody gets a chance to share their ideas and and innovation is of course celebrated, even if sometimes our ideas are leading to failure, people are encouraged to speak up, share their ideas and don't feel the fear of, you know, being ridiculed or penalized for coming up with something that is not working in the end of the day. And so, that absence of fear means that we get so many new ideas and with the passion, there's there's so much that we pursue and and that leads to a lot of growth.

Jeff Ma
Amazing. And I I I'm just curious. I know that it became an independent company, but in terms of the cultural change, what initiated that? What made you or others around you, like, initiate a, I'm assuming a very, uh, intentional change in culture.

Leon De Bruyn
Yeah, it was intentional but it it was also intuitive. Um, when we were, when we became an independent company five years ago, Jeff, um, I think we leveraged a lot on the desire by many of, I mean, we have very smart people and they were kind of boxed in until then. And they had this desire to prove themselves that we can do so much more if we, if they only let us. And the day disappeared. So now it was under our own control. And this was the opportunity to shine and demonstrate what we're made of. I think there was a hunger, hunger among the people to to really embrace this future and and attack it in a positive way. So we leveraged on that. And we broke down a lot of barriers that were in the company, a lot of silos that many companies that I've seen have because that the collaboration uh led to a lot of new opportunities and and people recognized that. So people wanted to collaborate more. So we we've done away with a lot of the structural inhibitions uh that slow down innovation or even even prevent innovation. Uh we we done away with a lot of the administration. I'm, I hate administration. I hope I can say this. Uh and so we we eliminated all the red tape we could. I think after one year, we had four policies in the company. Uh and we were in a company before that had like 10,000 policies. So it just shows we we intuitively developed our path forward. I hope that makes sense, Jeff, what I'm saying.

Jeff Ma
It makes perfect sense, but I guess I'm, I'm just, I'm having trouble picturing it. Uh, how does that, how did that play out? How did it look, I guess? I think you've said a lot of like, we did away with this and we did this and we did that. Who's, who's the we? Because like you still have, you know, a thousand people in this company. Yeah. who are used to working one way and there's a lot of systems in place and and just because you go, you know, independent doesn't mean that just disappears overnight. So, who's the we making this change and how did, what did that look like?

Leon De Bruyn
Yeah, so, the we, hmm. I can only say how we go about things. Uh you you make your own conclusion. I, I made it a habit to reach out to anyone in the company and to make sure they are comfortable reaching out directly to me, setting an example, lead by example. Uh, I openly said anyone who has an idea or a question or a suggestion or disagrees, call on me, send me an email, send me a text, whatever. And people started doing that and I I made it a habit to respond almost instantly. Uh, and that led to people realizing that, you know, we're a very flat organization and that allowed me to drive change. So, when, when people see that they can approach me immediately and I'm and that approachable, they tend to accept that some ideas are open for discussion, but once it, once the idea is implemented, they follow it. So for example, uh, I wanted to move the company from a technology licensing mindset where we license the technology and we wish the customer good luck to a never leave the customer. That's a tagline that that I stole from another company's executive because I felt that it's so applicable to Lummus. So I started to communicate every opportunity, never leave the customer. And then I started to communicate what does it mean? Well, it means that after you've sold your license, you you keep calling on them, you keep visiting them and ask them how else can we help? You co-locate your company next to your customers. So we actually opened offices close to our customers, created hubs to service uh Middle East or other regions in the world that historically we only serviced out of the US. Uh, it also means that you hire people that are culturally fitting with the customers because they speak the same language, they understand the the way of thinking, which is important if you want to never leave the customer. Uh, we developed offerings, services, products that we historically wouldn't provide to our customers, that our customers would want from us and that kind of kept the relationship alive and active many years after uh we licensed. And and now we see customers that we licensed to several years ago, they start coming to us because they want this too. They also want to stay engaged with Lummus because of the technology we can provide and the enhanced profitability or the the, you know, better operations or some changes, whatever we can help them with. So, this, this never leave the customer really was a big start of a cultural change, Jeff. Uh we we got out of our ivory tower and we we went to our customers, we stayed with our customers.

Jeff Ma
Amazing. So, Leon, tell me a little bit. I I I'm having a better picture now of how operations changed, how relationship with customers changed, and also just the general, this general result of people willing to come forward with ideas. Can you talk a little bit about, I guess what some would generalize as culture, but what I'll say is, I'll call it behaviors. Yeah. Can you, can you paint the picture of that change? You said night and day, right? From before and after. What are some of the behaviors that really changed that really kind of when you think of your internal culture, just how people treat each other and how people are showing up? What, what, what changed there and how did that happen?

Leon De Bruyn
Yeah, one big change, Jeff, is where I, I drove any people's managers, so whether it's a manager, director, executive, at any level, can only operate if the person has people skills. And we made some changes in our organization to replace people that lacked people skills by people that had great people skills. Uh, as a, as a clear sign that we want, if we put people first, we want to make sure that the supervisors, their managers have the same mindset. And this is probably the biggest risk or where it can break down. Um, but by holding the leadership team and the next level of managers accountable for putting people first helps. Um, and also not tolerating where people go against those principles, right? In a, in a encouraging way first, but if it doesn't work, then in a less encouraging way. You you have to be brutally determined to make this change wholeheartedly. Wow. Uh and so it's not just only positive. There there's, there's some parts where, Jeff, where this did break down and we took action. Um, and you know, you also want to do something that on a very individualized skill works. For example, there was one colleague whose mother passed away uh and was heavily impacted. We donated vacation time. We collectively donated, take your time off. Um, you know, not, not something that we had to do or anyone had to do, but we volunteered this so that we saw our colleague uh to, you know, passing through these times that that were very hard. Um, and on a larger scale, uh we had to manage return to office expectations with the a newly acquired appreciation for the flexibility of working from home. Uh and so counter to our history, we did not have a corporate dictate how we should behave or what the expectations were working from home and working in the office. We made sure that teams would make their own decisions. So, at the tiniest scale and the largest scale, we, I think did a lot of things right. I'm sure we made some mistakes, but people centrically, we did a lot of things right.

Jeff Ma
Wow. Well, it sounds incredibly disruptive and amazing to have the courage to kind of change things at such a drastic scale. Can I, I'm stuck on the part where I really, really, really am inspired by the piece of actually going through the steps of replacing people managers, people in, in leadership roles have to have people skills. How disruptive was that? Like, I'm assuming it was an org structure change essentially. Yeah. How, how big are we, are we talking about huge shifts and big roles, like people up high in the org are moved in that way? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Leon De Bruyn
Yeah, certainly to VP level. Yes, Jeff. So, very disruptive if you also consider that our industry is knowledge based and people in the higher positions typically have accumulated much more knowledge than others. Uh and I think our company had become, so it was a meritocracy but more on uh intellectual property than people skills and and there has to be the right balance. So we have to be fantastic in our technology, but we also have to be fantastic in how we work with our people and and get the best out of them. And so we, we had VPs that um, you know, in a managed way stepped away from their positions and were replaced by typically more dynamic, often younger uh people that had shown and demonstrated their people skills. Uh it was always done in a respectful way, Jeff, because you have to do it both ways, right? You have to be humane for, for all sides. Uh and so we saw some retirements, we saw some um, you know, people stepping into a role where they didn't have to manage people. Uh and and some some harder departures.

Jeff Ma
Wow, wow.

Leon De Bruyn
But I can say is, if you look at our metrics, um, we doubled our revenues in four years and we only added 25% of staff. So you can do the math what that means for productivity.

Jeff Ma
Love it. And and I'm, I'm just, I'm just mesmerized by it because it it does mirror, although on a smaller scale, what our business, my business went through as well in terms of a uh, and I just hadn't, I hadn't seen it done at that scale and I I always wondered what it would be like and you're showing us that yeah, like this is, like this human approach can work at at scale.

Leon De Bruyn
I, so I'm not sure if there's a limit. I I can say at a thousand people, we've shown it works. I don't know whether it works at 10,000 or 100,000 people. I don't know. Uh but it at the end of the day it boils down to uh the tone at the top, but also the demonstration beyond that tone, the the actual actions. Um, it's, it it also means you make time for people. You schedule time for people, which means you you schedule no time in your calendar so that you have time to interact with in an unscheduled way with people. Uh that in in turn, so for me, it helped me to delegate more because now I had to make time for that. And so, guess what? My leadership team is happier and they had to delegate more, so their reports are happier. So everybody actually benefits once you're sincere, once you roll this out.

Jeff Ma
I love it. And you know, the time has passed quickly and you shared a really awesome story. I have so many more questions, but I think what you've shown today and I think is very valuable for the listener is is this idea that that change is possible. I think one of the struggles we have is that when you're in a an environment or you think that things only work one way, we get stuck and and just hearing how this turnaround is is possible. It's such a fast turnaround really in the scheme, large scheme of things. Um, even for and for a very old company in a sense, like a company that done things one way for a very long time, showing that it's possible, I think is really important for people to understand that it really is um a human thing. It doesn't have to be a huge overhaul or revolution, but it's possible for us to make these types of changes if we if we care enough and try.

Leon De Bruyn
I agree, Jeff. So, so like, like you wrote in your book, um, if if you want to achieve change, you have to make sure that the the people responsible for driving or accepting the change are are generally on board. Not everybody will be there, Jeff, especially if you talk about a thousand people, not everybody will be there. But if you get enough people, they will then change the hearts of other people and the minds of other people. Uh, what I think helped in our case and maybe that there could be some research on that is we had this call to action as we became an independent company in the middle of COVID with our backs against the wall, no money in the bank. So that created this collective awareness, we we got to do something. And maybe we, we had the benefit of that difficult start and and that certainly helped change the culture much faster than maybe other situations can achieve.

Jeff Ma
Yeah. I believe so and I and I'm glad that it worked out that way for you all and I'm congratulations on your success so far and I hope you kind of continue that story. I'd love to hear how it checks out another five years down the line and see how all the results because um, you're living out, you're living out everything we we believe in and and practice ourselves. So kudos to you and and the team at Lummus.

Leon De Bruyn
Thank you, Jeff. You you would be proud of us five years from now. I can promise that.

Jeff Ma
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Leon, and thank you so much for sharing that story. Um, also thank you to the listeners, of course. I hope you enjoyed this episode, this story. We have more to bring all throughout the year. So stay tuned. If you haven't already checked out Love as a Business Strategy, the book, uh, please leave a review on Amazon or anywhere you find it, but also leave a review for this podcast. We could use some more of those as well. So, with that, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Leon, one last time for being here and we'll see everybody in two weeks. Have a good one.

Leon De Bruyn
A true pleasure.