Cover of RATCHET-UP with Allan Breidenbach

RATCHET-UP with Allan Breidenbach

RATCHET-UP with Allan Breidenbach

By: Allan Breidenbach
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RATCHET-UP with Allan Breidenbach is a leadership podcast for executives, managers, and business owners who need to drive change without losing their people.

Most companies focus on process, and that’s where things break.

In this show, Allan Breidenbach, president and general manager of Wick Buildings and creator of the RATCHET-UP system, shares a practical, people-first approach to change management. Through conversations with leaders and executives across industries, each episode breaks down real-world leadership challenges and shows how to build readiness, create alignment, earn trust, communicate with clarity, and keep teams engaged through change.

You will learn how to lead organizational change with less resistance, strengthen team alignment, improve productivity and operational efficiency, avoid common leadership mistakes that slow progress, and turn change into measurable profit and performance.

If you lead a team, run a business, or manage operations, this podcast shows you how to stop forcing change and start leading it in a way people will follow.











Forbes Books Economics
Episodes
  • Peter Holt (CEO, QC Kinetix) on Trust, Culture & Leading People

    Peter Holt (CEO, QC Kinetix) on Trust, Culture & Leading People
    27 Oct 2026
    Peter Holt has spent 40 years building and running franchise systems — from The Joint Chiropractic to his current role as CEO of QC Kinetix, a regenerative medicine franchise with about 100 units across the U.S.

    In this episode of Ratchet Up, host Allan Breidenbach sits down with Peter to unpack what makes managing franchisees fundamentally different from managing employees, why franchising is really "the business of selling mistakes," and how a devastating trust breakdown with a master franchisee in Sweden shaped his entire leadership philosophy.

    Peter shares the mission-vision-values framework he uses to build culture, the "sink the boat" rule he learned from mentor Jim Amos for empowering teams without losing control, and why listening — not authority — is the most powerful tool for managing up to a board. The conversation closes with a rapid-fire lightning round covering his best and worst advice ever received, his go-to book recommendations, and the one habit he refuses to give up.

    Connect with Peter Holt: 📧 peter.holt@qckinetics.com

    About Ratchet Up: Ratchet Up explores the human side of business performance — leadership, culture, trust, and the decisions that shape organizations — one conversation at a time.

    What You'll Learn
    • Why franchising is one of the most unique relationships in business — and how it differs from managing employees
    • The mission-vision-values framework for building a strong organizational culture
    • Why Peter Holt calls franchising "the business of selling mistakes"
    • How to empower your team using the "sink the boat" decision-making rule
    • Why trust — not authority — is what makes people listen to a leader, including a board
    • How to foster healthy conflict instead of watered-down consensus
    • What traits Peter looks for when investing in young leaders (hint: common sense and curiosity)
    • How a brutal international trust breakdown became one of his most formative leadership lessons
    • Peter's personal habits for staying resilient: exercise, reading, and calibrated balance
    Timestamps00:00 – Intro & what QC Kinetix does
    01:00 – Peter's 40-year background in franchising
    02:00 – Managing employees vs. managing franchisees
    03:00 – Vested interest and the 80% disengagement statistic
    05:00 – Peter's first job: a paper route in Idaho Falls
    06:00 – Lessons in perseverance and immediate feedback loops
    08:00 – Why culture is the core of organizational success
    09:00 – Mission, vision, and values as the foundation of culture
    11:00 – Key mentors: a high school teacher and Jim Amos
    14:00 – What Peter looks for in developing young leaders
    17:00 – The power of reading and lifelong curiosity
    18:00 – "Franchising is the business of selling mistakes"
    21:00 – Setting the stage: a trust breakdown in Sweden
    24:00 – The brutal phone call and calling his father for advice
    27:00 – Recovering from mistakes and empowering your team
    30:00 – The "sink the boat" rule for decision-making authority
    32:00 – Fostering healthy conflict through listening and respect
    36:00 – Managing up: earning trust with a board of directors
    41:00 – Praying for guidance, not outcome
    42:00 – Emotional resilience: exercise, running, and balance
    44:00 – Franchisee relationships and the limits of franchising
    46:00 – Leadership through people, not job titles
    48:00 – Lightning round: best and worst advice received
    49:00 – Book recommendations and a habit he won't give up
    51:00 – Coffee, calendars, and 35 years of paper planners
    52:00 – A lesson learned the hard way
    54:00 – One word for the future & how to reach Peter
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    54 min
  • Matt Cranney on Leadership: Passion Doesn't Come First. Effort Does.

    Matt Cranney on Leadership: Passion Doesn't Come First. Effort Does.
    13 Oct 2026
    Matt Cranney has spent 22 years at M3 Insurance — a private, independent agency with 68 shareholders and no majority owner — and he's now Executive Vice President helping lead its strategy, small-business division, and HR consulting arm.

    In this conversation with host Allan Breidenbach, Matt breaks down how M3 built a culture that refuses to rank customers above employees (or vice versa), why the agency deliberately talks about "effectiveness" instead of "efficiency," and how they're rolling out AI as something "redemptive, not replacing." Along the way: lessons on radical candor, leading through uncertainty, why passion follows effort instead of the other way around, and his picks for the best (and worst) leadership advice he's ever gotten.

    What You'll Learn:
    - Why M3 Insurance has 68 shareholders and no majority owner — and what "shareholder" means to them versus "owner"
    - How to align growth strategy with company identity instead of copying someone else's playbook
    - Why M3 refuses to choose between prioritizing customers or employees
    - The real difference between "efficiency" and "effectiveness" — and why word choice matters to culture
    - How M3 is using AI to remove repetitive work without replacing people
    - Why "certainty" is a currency leaders have to spend carefully
    - The 90/10 rule for hard conversations: most of the value is in the part leaders are tempted to soften
    - Why "clear is kind" beats both toxic positivity and brutal honesty
    - Why passion is usually a result of effort, not a prerequisite for it
    - What to do when someone isn't thriving in your culture (the "soil" metaphor)
    - Matt's book recommendations for leaders at every career stage


    Timestamps
    00:00 Intro & welcome
    00:01 Matt's first job: youth sports coach in the UK
    00:02 Matt's role at M3 — Elevate division, strategy, The Employer Group
    00:03 M3's growth: ~550 employees, founded 1968
    00:04 "One client, one new employee" growth philosophy
    00:05 Ownership structure: private, independent, 68 shareholders
    00:07 Why "shareholder" beats "owner" — playing a long, temporary role
    00:08 "Multiple paths up the mountain" — aligning strategy with identity
    00:09 Beyond the "worst day": insurance as a growth partner, not just a claims process
    00:14 Clients vs. employees — M3's "Yes, and" philosophy
    00:16 Alignment over price: finding the right-fit clients
    00:19 AI & change management: "redemptive, not replacing"
    00:22 Freeing people from data entry for higher-value client relationships
    00:24 Pushback on AI-driven headcount reduction; enterprise vs. desktop AI
    00:26 Redeployment and skill development in an AI-shifting workforce
    00:27 Why M3 says "effectiveness," not "efficiency"
    00:31 Leading through uncertainty — Brené Brown, vulnerability as strength
    00:33 Radical transparency: sharing performance, good years and bad
    00:34 Certainty as "a currency you have to handle carefully"
    00:36 Planning in fast-moving times: 3-year cycles + quarterly business plans
    00:39 "Date the outcome, marry the purpose"
    00:40 "Save the last 10%" — the real message in hard conversations
    00:44 "Clear is kind" — Radical Candor, high love + high challenge
    00:47 Youth-coaching lesson: passion is a consequence of effort, not the cause
    00:52 The soil/flower metaphor — fit, culture, and knowing when to move on
    00:55 Lightning round begins
    00:55 Best advice ever received: "You're never done growing"
    00:58 Worst advice ever received: "Great leaders put themselves last"
    00:59 The leadership "tank" metaphor — pour out, but refill
    01:01 Book recommendations (Andy Stanley, Arthur Brooks, Brené Brown, Bob Goff)
    01:04 Habit he won't give up: asking for advice, not feedback
    01:06 Productivity: to-do lists, sticky notes, the Remarkable tablet
    01:07 Hardest lesson: unbridled enthusiasm can read as toxic positivity
    01:12 One word for the future: Optimistic
    01:14 How to reach Matt / M3, closing thanks

    📘 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
    Ratchet Up by Allan Breidenbach

    🎙️ ABOUT RATCHET UP
    Ratchet Up is a podcast about solving human problems to drive business performance, hosted by Allan Breidenbach. New episodes feature leaders across industries talking candidly about trust, engagement, and what actually moves a team forward.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 16 min
  • Jerad Hutchens on Building Summit Contracting: Culture Is How You Feel on Sunday Night

    Jerad Hutchens on Building Summit Contracting: Culture Is How You Feel on Sunday Night
    29 Sep 2026
    Jerad Hutchens is President of Summit Contracting, an agriculture-focused post-frame and grain systems contractor based in Platte, South Dakota, with locations across South Dakota, Nebraska, and beyond. Since joining as a partner in 2014 — when the company had about a dozen employees — Jerad has helped grow Summit to nearly 200 employees, growing 20–30% year over year. In this conversation with host Allan Breidenbach, Jerad shares how Summit self-performs almost every phase of a build to control quality and margins, why he had to learn to stop making every decision himself, and how a serious injury early in his life taught him to think before he acts. They also dig into profit sharing, competitive culture, resilience, and what "decency" looks like as a guiding business principle.

    What You'll Learn:
    - How Summit Contracting scaled from 12 to ~200 employees by self-performing nearly every phase of a project (concrete, electrical, excavation, etc.)
    - Why communication — not materials or equipment — is what customers actually remember
    - Jerad's definition of culture: "how an employee feels in their gut on Sunday night about coming to work on Monday morning"
    - Why core values and fundamentals have to outweigh performance, not compete with it
    - How Summit's profit-sharing model works (and why sales was carved out of it)
    - Why "leave your ego at the door" and being okay with criticism are core leadership fundamentals
    - How Jerad learned to stop making every day-to-day decision and push authority to the lowest level possible
    - The "stool" and "orchestra" metaphors for cross-functional alignment (sales, ops, finance, HR)
    - A painful personal lesson on acting before thinking — and why it still shapes his decisions today
    - His morning routine for protecting mental, spiritual, and physical health

    Connect with Jerad Hutchens / Summit Contracting: 🌐 www.buildsummit.com 📧 jared@buildsummit.com

    Timestamps
    00:00 Intro & welcome
    00:00 What Summit Contracting does — post-frame buildings, grain systems, ag infrastructure
    00:01 Nearly 200 employees across 5 locations
    00:01 Why Summit self-performs almost everything (concrete, electrical, excavation) — "one-stop shop"
    00:02 The Q × A = E formula: quality times acceptance equals effectiveness (it's a multiplier, not addition)
    00:03 Communication as the #1 factor customers remember
    00:04 Jerad's first job: mowing lawns, and the referral lesson that stuck
    00:07 What he no longer believes: from people-pleaser to "best for the most, not convenient for the few"
    00:09 His true north: leaving communities, employees, and customers better off
    00:11 Summit's growth story: founded 2009, ~12 employees in 2014, ~200 now, 20–30% annual growth
    00:12 The two sides of growth — excitement vs. difficulty of funding it
    00:13 Hiring and screening for culture fit at scale
    00:14 Jerad's definition of culture: "how you feel in your gut on Sunday night"
    00:16 Employee engagement and the bottom line — the 20%-engagement statistic
    00:17 A career setback (a company that didn't survive an economic downturn) that led him to Summit
    00:19 Resiliency, ego, and being okay with criticism
    00:22 Competitiveness and healthy internal competition
    00:23 Athletes vs. entrepreneurs — does a competitive background predict business success?
    00:25 The "orchestra" analogy — every role matters, nobody wins by drowning out the others
    00:27 The "stool" analogy — sales, ops, finance, HR: without one leg, the others fail
    00:29 How Summit's profit-sharing model works (and why sales was moved to commission)
    00:31 Letting go: from people-pleasing founder-successor to a leader who doesn't make daily decisions
    00:35 Pushing decisions to the lowest possible level
    00:37 Learning to trust a leadership team and let things be done differently, not "wrong"
    00:38 How Tyler (Summit's founder) transitioned leadership to Jerad
    00:42 Lightning round begins
    00:42 Best advice ever received: "Don't give up. Rub some dirt on it and keep going."
    00:43 Worst advice/experience: yelling and losing your temper when correcting people
    00:44 Book recommendation: Extreme Ownership
    00:45 Morning routine: the first hour for mental, spiritual, and physical health ("mental healthness")
    00:33 Biggest challenge: distractions, and why mornings matter
    00:42 Habit he won't give up: getting up early and protecting that first hour
    00:46 Calendar vs. to-do list — which runs his day
    00:46 Hardest lesson learned: the Hawaii cliff-jumping accident and "think before you act"
    00:48 One word for the future: Optimistic
    00:49 Allan's closing take: "decency" as Jerad's defining leadership trait
    00:50 How to reach Jerad / Summit, closing thanks
    Show more Show less
    51 min
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