That's really interesting because I've heard a few people jokingly say JCI stands for "just change it" because the strategy has been changed so often. At least from their experience, it felt like the management culture is a lot?

Yes, that's very true. And it's still true, which is interesting. It's not just the market strategy, but also about who sits where and what your title is. They tend to shake things up, which creates a bit of fear. There's a culture of uncertainty, like, "Who knows? They're going to reorganize again in six months. If you don't like it, just wait." It was a strength in the early 2000s to be nimble, and they were much more agile than you'd expect for a large company. But at some point, being nimble turned into being frenetic.

Moving to the product growth teams, I've read some statements about it, and it makes sense, but maybe you can help me understand better. How would you describe a product growth team at Trane, and how does it work, what does it look like?

It came as a result of work done by Paul Camuti, who is now the Chief Strategy Officer. He came when we were part of Ingersoll Rand, and Mike Lamach was the big driver of innovation and change within Trane. Paul brought the thought process that you need people from the field, sales, marketing, factory, and support teams for any particular idea. The PGT went through lean process gates for product development. For example, in gate one, it was all very prescriptive, and you had a management team for whatever the focus was, like a market or energy. The process was rigorous, and the thought was that saying no or stopping was okay. It was a huge culture change because there was a lot of pride and ego in ideas. Sometimes, you needed someone to tell you that your idea wasn't viable. You had to get to gate two to get investment.

You mentioned Paul and Mike Lamach have been pushing that topic. Is that part of a lean concept, those product growth teams?

Yes, Mike had a philosophy that lean is more about lean thinking than applying tools to every situation. He infused a culture of lean thinking in management and office settings. When I ran the business in mid-America, we used tools like an X matrix and nine-step problem solving. We applied these to customer satisfaction or issues. He was good at promoting a few tools and a general way of thinking.