Why Great Employees Struggle When They Become Leaders

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A lot of organizations I've worked in, the majority of the leaders are pretty average.

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There's a leadership philosophy that really, really bothers me out there.

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And it sounds like this.

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If people are smart, they'll figure it out.

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If we promote people who are technically great at the job, we know they can manage the work.

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And the leadership part, you know, that'll eventually click.

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Here's my problem with that philosophy.

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It's usually not correct.

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I wanted to put that idea in front of somebody who's currently building a talent strategy inside of a growing company.

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And so today I'm talking with Josh White.

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Josh is the vice president of talent management at Group 1001, and they are experiencing some phenomenal growth right now.

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We are on a rocket ship that is scaling really, really quickly.

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We've had incredible results and we are kind of building it as we're flying it because the company is moving so fast.

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In this episode, we get into what actually drives performance inside of a company.

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And honestly, it's probably not what you think.

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We also talk about the difference between being a great company and being a great company to work for.

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Organizationally, it was probably one of the best companies that I've ever worked at.

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On the culture side, it was a culture of fear.

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It was really one of those cultures where if something went wrong, it wasn't what happened.

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It was who did it.

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He also shares his brilliant 10% rule that helps gain executive buy-in on the people side of the business.

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90 to 95% of their focus is the goals they're responsible for, the things that they're accountable for.

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That 10% window that we have, we better fill it up with something that really matters.

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So if you're leading through growth right now and it mostly feels like chaos, this is the episode for you.

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So, Josh, with your leadership experience, especially working at a growing company, I'm curious to know what you think about this leadership philosophy because I've heard it a couple of different places.

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And when it comes to leadership, there are people who believe that if people are smart and we put them in these leadership positions, that eventually they'll figure it out.

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We hire smart people.

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They're really technically good at the job.

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We promote them into leadership and eventually they'll figure it out.

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What are your thoughts on that philosophy?

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Yeah, I mean, we see it all the time, right, where somebody is really thriving in the role they're in.

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They're very smart.

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They're very technically capable.

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They get promoted, and then they don't have those leadership skills or experience to lead a team or lead it at an elevated level.

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And so, you know, interesting.

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You know, there was a study done back in 2008 by Google called Project Oxygen.

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And so what they looked at, their people analytics team came together and they looked at performance performance.

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performance reviews, they looked at exit interviews, they looked at employee engagement surveys.

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And really what they were trying to find is what's driving performance in Google.

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You know, is it technical capability?

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You know, obviously Google has an incredible amount of talent, some of the best engineers in the world.

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And they were really trying to determine what is it leadership?

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Is that the most important aspect or is it really technical capability that's driving performance in Google?

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And what they found through that study was it was really the teams that were being led at a higher level were the ones that were performing at a higher level.

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So those leaders that were coaching more often that were really, you know, had clarity about the direction that they really wanted the team to go in.

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They showed care and empathy.

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And what was really interesting about the study is one of the least factors was technical capability.

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Yeah.

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And so when I think about technical capability, I really think about those are table stakes, right?

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Like you need to be able to bring technical capability to the role to be able to really drive the discipline that you're in.

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Of course, work ethic is super critical, but at the end of the day, it really boils down to that foundational skill.

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you know, leadership capabilities and really where are you taking the team?

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You know, I think oftentimes leaders really focus more on managing because they're really trying to drive the output and they forget about the other side, which is really leading people in a certain way.

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So they're bought in and they're giving that discretionary effort and everybody's rowing in the same direction.

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That's a really good point.

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I think that distinction between managing and leading and focusing on output versus focusing on the people that produce the output.

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I think that's where companies get caught, because if I am focused on the output, I'm focused on the production, and I have some over here that's a really good producer.

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If that's my lens, it makes sense to promote them into a leadership role and say they'll figure it out because they already figured out how to be technically good at the job.

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But but you're right.

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It takes more than that.

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And we need to support those leaders in different ways to make sure that they can do the leadership side and not just manage the work.

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Yeah, no, I completely agree.

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And you've been in leadership development for a long time, too.

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It's interesting when you look at leadership principles on the surface, they seem fairly basic, right?

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It seems logical.

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But the difficult thing is mastering them, right?

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I mean, leaders are putting out fires.

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They're managing, you know, competing priorities.

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You're dealing with multiple personalities.

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There's a lot of politics in organizations.

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And it's really difficult to be able to be a really strong leader.

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I think a lot of organizations I've worked in, the majority of the leaders are pretty average.

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You know, and a lot of them are very technically smart.

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They work really, really hard.

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They have really good intentions.

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I think most leaders have really good intentions.

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They want to be good leaders, but they haven't developed those habits that it takes to be a really good leader, right?

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Because it's easy to be a leader when everything's going great and everybody's humming and things are really firing on those cylinders.

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But when things start falling apart or the fire is burning hot, that's where leadership really has to rise.

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And that's where oftentimes leaders kind of fall short.

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Yeah, it's the execution side of it.

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Like, how do we execute?

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Yes, the ideas are simple.

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The principles are simple.

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But how do we get people to execute?

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There's a word that you brought up a couple of months ago.

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We were together on a project.

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And...

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The word was intention, like just being intentional about those things.

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Like, yes, you know how to do those things, but you have to be intentional about those things.

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Can you talk to me about your approach?

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Because I know that you're a very intentional leader.

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What are some things that you do to make sure that you're being intentional about the things that you know to do to ensure that you execute?

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Yeah, it's a great question.

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I think it starts with clarity.

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You know, I think clarity, you know, so I understand exactly what the strategy is, the business, what role our team plays in that strategy and making sure that our team has clarity about how we engage.

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You know, what are the outputs?

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What is the why behind our team and what we're doing?

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What is the true purpose of what we're really trying to deliver?

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And I think it starts with that clarity.

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I think outside of that clarity is making sure people are put in a position to be successful.

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You know, do they have the tools that they need?

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Do we have processes in place that really drive and optimize?

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And then at the end of the day, it's showing that I care.

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You know, I think a lot of times leaders are always focused on the output and the result, kind of what we were just talking about.

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But I think at the end of the day, you've got to show your team that, hey, I'm here to serve you.

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I'm here to make, we're in it to win it together.

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I'm arm and arm with you as we go through this.

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I think that goes a long way, right?

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Because leadership is hard and I'm not perfect.

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You're not perfect.

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Like leading is really, really challenging.

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But I think if people know that you care, they'll give you more grace, right?

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They'll lean in even that much more.

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You know, oftentimes I see leaders, you know, or people that are working with leaders and they say, well, I have to work for them, but I really don't want to work for them.

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And the best leaders are people that say, hey, part of the reason I'm here is because I want to work for this this leader.

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And if that leader goes someplace else, I want to follow them where they're going.

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That's when you know you're starting to get it right as a leader, I think.

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That's really good.

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I've definitely had those leaders where they go work somewhere else and I'm like, I want to go work with them again.

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If I get the opportunity, that's one of the first people that I call because that leadership does have a really big impact.

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I want to ask you this from a from a technical L&D perspective.

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One of my gripes with L&D, even though I'm an L&D guy myself, one of my gripes is that a lot of times we create tools that are very academic, but they're not very operational.

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They work really well for ATD certification or SHRM certification.

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When we think about making them operational inside of an organization, sometimes they lose their value.

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A competency model is one of those things that I know if implemented the right way, it can bring a lot of value and a lot of clarity to an organization.

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I'm curious to just know your thoughts on the value of, you know, what a competency model is and the value that it can bring to an organization.

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Yeah, you know, I think you articulate it perfectly.

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I think competency models create clarity.

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It creates clarity about what does good look like?

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What is the standard?

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What is the expectation?

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And all of a sudden, when an organization really wraps their arms around a competency model around leadership or competencies that really touch every individual in the company, I think it really starts creating that standard of this is what we're looking for when we're attracting talent.

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This is what we're developing towards when it comes to talent.

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Yeah.

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If I'm sitting here and I'm working here and I'm like, wow, I really want to get to the next level.

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Well, if I know what these competencies are and this is what's important to the organization, I know I need to do these things really, really well.

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And so I've seen competency models done a lot of different ways in different organizations.

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I remember one time I went to a Fortune – I was working for a company.

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We were acquired by a Fortune 50 company, and we went in and really –

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large L&D team.

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And so we were talking about their competency model.

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And I said, well, tell me about your competency model.

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And so they're like, well, we have 66 competencies.

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And I'm like, wow, 66 competencies.

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I'm like, that's quite a bit, you know, of course, I'm a new guy.

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So I'm like thinking, you know, I got to handle this conversation pretty delicately.

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And I said, so let me ask you a question.

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If I walked out of here and I asked the employees throughout the organization about these competencies, would they know what they are?

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And they just kind of looked at me and they shook their head and they said, well, probably not.

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And I said, OK, well, tell me about the purpose of the competency models.

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Is it mostly just for the L&D team and the HR team just to be able to create some, you know, some framing and some intentionality?

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Or do you really want people to understand what good looks like here?

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And they're like, well, we'd prefer people to know what good looks like, but also use them from an HR standpoint really to be able to drive our programs in an intentional way.

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And so, as you can imagine, months after that, we really started peeling back the layers and started thinking about the competencies very much differently in that company to kind of position them in a way where they were more impactful organizationally.

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Yeah, I think that clarity is invaluable, but it's also overlooked a lot.

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That made me think of a leader that I coached last year.

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She'd been in a leadership position for four years, technically really good at the job, thrown into a leadership position, wasn't ready for it.

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No one had prepared her.

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And as we're going through our coaching sessions, I am excited.

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noticing that her gripes are just like, they're not bugs of leadership, they're features of leadership.

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She's like griping that she's being judged based on the performance of her team.

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I'm like, yeah, that's how leadership works, right?

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That's the scoreboard of the game of leadership.

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But as we start talking through it,

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It took her that four-year leadership journey to realize like, oh, if this is what leadership is about, now that I'm clear on what I need to do, she actually actually decided that she didn't want to do it anymore.

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She actually was like, if that's what leadership is, I don't want to do it.

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But it made me think like, man, if someone at the company...

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would have had a five-minute conversation with her from the beginning with clarity to say, here are the behaviors, which I look at behaviors or skills, or sorry, the competencies, which I look at behaviors plus skills.

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Here are the things that we need you to do to be successful and

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And here's what success looks like in this business.

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And also, this is how we're going to grade your success as a business.

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She probably would have said in that moment, like, oh, no, I don't want to do that.

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And they would have saved everybody a lot of time and a lot of heartache and a lot of resources and sleepless nights.

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But sometimes we miss that step because, again, to your point, we're thinking operationally.

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We think and manage.

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We're thinking output.

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And we're moving really, really fast.

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And so.

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we miss those things.

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So I love that your mindset around that is just like, we need that clarity.

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We need people to know what success looks like really from day one, right?

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Before they even come into the organization.

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So that's really, really good.

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Yeah, I think it's definitely the thread that connects all of talent management, right?

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If you know kind of the competencies that you're really trying to recruit towards, right?

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And then when you bring people in going, okay, we're gonna assess them on these competencies through talent assessment, through performance management,

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all of our development programs are framed around these competencies, all of a sudden it starts to create this culture and this clarity from the organization.

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And it starts to create a vernacular about how people are talking about talent.

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And so when you're having those calibration sessions in a talent assessment meeting, you're starting to see people use those that that language and refer to those competencies.

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And all of a sudden it droid becomes the foundation when, when people think about talent in an organization and that's when, you know, you're moving towards best in class.

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Yeah, that's really good.

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I got to call something out here.

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I know for me personally, I can have blinders on sometimes.

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You've ever heard the saying, you know, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

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I've gotten in that mindset before where it's like everything is, you know, about leadership and competencies and clarity and all those things.

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And if I take it a step too far, I'll convince myself that if a company wants to be successful,

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then they have to do those things.

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And if they don't do those things, they won't be successful.

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But every now and then, I'll go fly somewhere to a company or I'll go visit somewhere.

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And I see that they're having tremendous success from the outside.

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So I just assume that they have the culture straight and everything is, you know, just roses and sunshine.

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And then I get inside and I'm like, whoa, whoa.

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There's a lot going on here.

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I'm curious, just in your experience, you've experienced so much.

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Have you ever seen a company that was thriving, but maybe didn't have all the things in place that we're talking about from a leadership or a culture standpoint?

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Yeah, I mean, there's an example that comes to mind.

208
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There was a company I worked for several years ago, number one in their industry, the gold star from a revenue standpoint, both within the United States and internationally.

209
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And so going into that company, to your point, when I got hired to come in there and really can help build out the talent strategy, I thought, wow, these guys probably already have it all figured out, right?

210
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They're just thriving as an organization.

211
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S&P 100 company, so wildly respected.

212
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And so when I walked in and really kind of started seeking to understand and meeting with people and getting a sense of the culture, what I had found is the culture really wasn't that great.

213
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Organizationally, it was probably one of the best companies that I've ever worked at from an operations standpoint.

214
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I mean, it was a very wired, tight company that really was humming on all cylinders.

215
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But on the culture side, it was a culture of fear.

216
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It was a very difficult place to work.

217
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Um, it was a high sense of accountability, which I think drove performance.

218
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Um, but it was really one of those cultures where if something went wrong, it wasn't what happened.

219
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It was who did it.

220
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Um, and so there was a lot of, you know, cover your, you know, CYA and, um,

221
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You know, so it really, from an L&D perspective coming in, you know, I was always kind of, you know, thinking culture drives performance, right?

222
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A great culture really just, you know, constitutes, you know, high performance, you know, kind of old Drucker's, you know, whatever culture eats strategy for breakfast, right?

223
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And so I was really confused.

224
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The dichotomy of going, this is an amazing company operationally, probably the best place I've ever worked on how they operate, but the culture is not great.

225
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Right.

226
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You know, I always kind of described it years later as great company, but maybe not a great company to work at just from the lens that I kind of looked at when I first walked in.

227
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And so what I had found is, you know, it was an organization that would thrive on the sense of accountability, the sense of execution.

228
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It overshadowed the culture because it was very clear on the expectations.

229
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It was very clear on the standard that they set and how they were going to operate.

230
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And people were held to that standard.

231
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And so when I take a step back and look at it, you know, years later, I think, you know, the real utopia for an amazing company is a company that can balance both.

232
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If you can really have a culture of high performance balanced with the culture of high care, then at that point, I think you're a world-class organization that people want to work at because they, you know, everybody wants to work for a successful company.

233
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But if you can work for a successful company that also is a culture of care and people, you know, your well-being is important, then at that point, I think you're really hitting the mark.

234
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But I think what really astonished me was performance and high accountability and high execution can overshadow a not a great culture.

235
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Wow.

236
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And yeah, and I think, you know, because if you think about it, if you have a really great culture.

237
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but no accountability and high standards, then at that point it's a really great place to work, but probably a company that isn't really gonna thrive or reach a really high level.

238
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But if you have a company that has high expectation, high accountability and a culture, it can overshadow that culture that maybe isn't so great.

239
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And I think that's what they were kind of, that's really what they thrived on.

240
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They looked at it and said, wow, we're wildly successful.

241
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Why would we do anything different?

242
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Why are these things even important?

243
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And it took years to shift that mindset.

244
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And a lot of times it was giving employees voice to be able to say, no, these things do matter to us.

245
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We do love working here.

246
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We are proud to work at this company because it's a really successful company, but we want these things.

247
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It is important.

248
00:17:35.698 --> 00:17:39.739
And in companies like that, a lot of times they'll just overpay to keep people, right?

249
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Because they're like, hey, we need you.

250
00:17:42.499 --> 00:17:44.359
You're really important to the company and the output.

251
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So we'll just keep giving you more money to make it difficult for you to leave.

252
00:17:48.127 --> 00:17:50.348
Yeah, the golden handcuffs, as they say.

253
00:17:50.708 --> 00:17:51.908
Yeah, yeah, totally.

254
00:17:52.328 --> 00:17:52.548
Yeah.

255
00:17:53.069 --> 00:17:54.289
I want to talk about that shift.

256
00:17:54.369 --> 00:17:59.351
So in consulting, I just choose who I want to work with.

257
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Right.

258
00:17:59.651 --> 00:18:06.513
So if I run into a situation where someone doesn't see the value in investing in people, I just I would just move on to the next company.

259
00:18:06.953 --> 00:18:12.215
But I'm thinking back to my sales days, taking it all the way back to when I was a sales manager.

260
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The hardest person for me to coach was the person who did everything wrong and still somehow got the sale.

261
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And so I'm thinking about, you know, talking to that executive leader who's at a company where they are clearly winning.

262
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They're clearly thriving, but the people are suffering.

263
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How do you navigate that shift?

264
00:18:31.799 --> 00:18:42.302
What are some things that, of course, over time, over years, you put into place where they can see the value of both the performance side of things, but also the people side of things?

265
00:18:43.583 --> 00:18:44.684
Yeah, it's a really good question.

266
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You know, I've had the fortunate opportunity to come into several different industries and Fortune 500 companies and help build out talent strategies.

267
00:18:53.713 --> 00:19:00.220
And it really comes down to tying it to the strategy that they're trying to be able to push forward.

268
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And, you know, you have to speak their language at the end of the day.

269
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You know, they have a vision.

270
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They're looking through a certain lens.

271
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They're driving to higher revenue, more market share, whatever that might be.

272
00:19:12.549 --> 00:19:23.798
And from a talent perspective, it's coming in and speaking that language and tying the talent strategy to that, you know, to that overall strategy for the company and speaking their language and showing how it works.

273
00:19:23.958 --> 00:19:32.246
these talent processes and programs and ecosystem will enable that strategy at a much higher level of where you're going and what you're trying to accomplish.

274
00:19:33.827 --> 00:19:38.091
I think where a lot of times HR practitioners miss it is they come in with HR speak.

275
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They lead with that.

276
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They lead with the academic and they're trying to show all the things they know.

277
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And at the end of the day,

278
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You know, executives don't want to hear that.

279
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They really don't.

280
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They really want to talk about what's important to them.

281
00:19:50.201 --> 00:19:52.343
It's kind of a sales job, really, to your point.

282
00:19:52.423 --> 00:19:55.765
It's coming in and selling it, but selling it to what matters to them.

283
00:19:56.606 --> 00:20:00.529
And that's where I've really seen leaders perk up and listen to be able to go, oh, right.

284
00:20:00.589 --> 00:20:10.692
Okay, so what you're telling me is this is going to make us get there faster and we're going to be able to hit our marks, you know, more consistently by having the right people in the right seats with the right skills.

285
00:20:11.332 --> 00:20:11.832
Tell me more.

286
00:20:12.332 --> 00:20:15.893
And so and then at that point, you're just chipping away and you're proving it as you go.

287
00:20:16.293 --> 00:20:18.114
And the more you prove it, the more they want to listen.

288
00:20:18.134 --> 00:20:19.774
And the more they listen, the more they want.

289
00:20:20.354 --> 00:20:22.375
And, you know, a perfect example.

290
00:20:23.761 --> 00:20:27.902
thinking about the company that I was just mentioning about that it really wasn't built into their culture.

291
00:20:28.582 --> 00:20:33.583
And we were putting in leadership development programs, talking about, you know, building that leadership pipeline for the future.

292
00:20:33.623 --> 00:20:35.884
And it was an aging workforce was kind of what I tied it to.

293
00:20:36.604 --> 00:20:40.965
And so the very first year we rolled these programs out, it was an executive program.

294
00:20:41.145 --> 00:20:45.086
And one of the executives called me and said, how long are they going to be out of, out of office?

295
00:20:45.426 --> 00:20:46.926
And what exactly are they going to be doing?

296
00:20:47.046 --> 00:20:48.347
And if I need them, I'm going to need them.

297
00:20:48.367 --> 00:20:49.787
So they're not going to be able to go to the programs.

298
00:20:49.807 --> 00:20:50.367
And I'm like, well,

299
00:20:50.387 --> 00:20:51.847
Wow, this is an interesting place to start.

300
00:20:51.887 --> 00:20:52.868
But OK, here we go.

301
00:20:52.908 --> 00:20:53.128
Right.

302
00:20:53.648 --> 00:20:56.368
I had another leader call me and goes, what are they going to be doing climbing in trees?

303
00:20:56.949 --> 00:20:59.169
And I'm like, well, that's like one aspect of it.

304
00:20:59.189 --> 00:21:01.270
We're doing some high ropes, low ropes.

305
00:21:01.290 --> 00:21:02.890
But I like that's just one aspect of it.

306
00:21:03.390 --> 00:21:04.270
That was year one.

307
00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:10.672
The very next year I was getting calls and that was from the same same leaders going, why can't you add more people into the programs?

308
00:21:11.727 --> 00:21:24.493
And so it went from a, we're not sure, we're pretty skeptical to hearing about it from leaders that were going through it saying, we value this, this has been a great experience to them saying, well, you have 14, can't you go up to 16?

309
00:21:24.513 --> 00:21:26.614
Can't you just add my two people into the program?

310
00:21:27.074 --> 00:21:28.675
And that's when we started seeing the shift.

311
00:21:30.455 --> 00:21:36.038
Yeah, you gotta love moments like that where people, you're able to see it through to success and people get it.

312
00:21:36.158 --> 00:21:40.120
I think that mindset shift for a lot of practitioners

313
00:21:41.055 --> 00:21:48.025
I like to think of myself as a business person who works on people problems, not a people person who just happens to work at a business.

314
00:21:48.506 --> 00:21:56.217
And so I think that shift is kind of what you just explained of I understand that they have a goal, a business objective.

315
00:21:56.257 --> 00:21:57.179
And if I attach myself.

316
00:21:57.619 --> 00:22:14.704
what I'm trying to do to that as a means to get that done, that becomes inherently more valuable to an executive leader as opposed to let's just stick this here because this is where training belongs or this is where leadership belongs or we have to do these things because we're a company and companies should do these things.

317
00:22:15.124 --> 00:22:19.605
So I love that your, uh, your mindset about that is, um,

318
00:22:20.465 --> 00:22:28.852
kind of fixed on selling the ideas of it and not just expecting a seat at the table because there's supposed to be seats at the table.

319
00:22:29.272 --> 00:22:35.037
You know, sometimes you get that language from HR practitioners where they're just like, I need to have a seat at the table.

320
00:22:35.758 --> 00:22:39.481
And, you know, and you ask them why they're like, well, because HR belongs at the table.

321
00:22:40.061 --> 00:22:44.342
It's like, well, that's not necessarily a good reason to have a seat at the table.

322
00:22:44.422 --> 00:22:48.443
And also, it kind of implies that seats at the table are not earned.

323
00:22:48.483 --> 00:22:49.363
They're just given out.

324
00:22:49.643 --> 00:22:51.204
But they really do have to be earned.

325
00:22:51.244 --> 00:22:58.646
Well, you build that buy-in, you build programs, you build results, you have people the following year coming to you saying, hey, I want to be a part of that.

326
00:22:59.326 --> 00:23:02.627
That makes an executive say, I wonder what Josh thinks about this.

327
00:23:02.667 --> 00:23:03.427
Let's get Josh in there.

328
00:23:03.447 --> 00:23:05.347
I love to get his take on that.

329
00:23:05.407 --> 00:23:06.988
So, yeah, thanks for sharing that.

330
00:23:07.008 --> 00:23:07.868
That was a really good story.

331
00:23:08.870 --> 00:23:12.498
Yeah, the one thing I talk a lot about with my team is this 10% rule.

332
00:23:12.678 --> 00:23:18.250
You know, when we think about working with finance leaders or IT leaders or different leaders in the organization –

333
00:23:18.757 --> 00:23:25.359
90 to 95% of their focus is the goals they're responsible for, the things that they're accountable for.

334
00:23:25.579 --> 00:23:31.640
And so I always talk with my team about that 10% window that we have, we better fill it up with something that really matters.

335
00:23:32.260 --> 00:23:39.062
We better give them something that is easy to understand, easy to wrap their arms around, and something that's going to move the needle for them.

336
00:23:39.622 --> 00:23:43.324
And if we can't check those three boxes, then we probably shouldn't put it in that 10 percent.

337
00:23:43.444 --> 00:23:48.927
Because if you and I think the other side of that is if you put too much in, then it's a law of diminishing returns.

338
00:23:48.967 --> 00:23:49.167
Right.

339
00:23:49.187 --> 00:23:50.248
Because it becomes noise.

340
00:23:50.308 --> 00:23:51.068
It's just H.R.

341
00:23:51.129 --> 00:23:51.489
noise.

342
00:23:52.009 --> 00:23:52.809
And so, right.

343
00:23:53.170 --> 00:23:59.853
Yeah, it's super important, I think, to pick the right things that you want to engage with that matters to those leaders and fill up that 10 percent.

344
00:23:59.913 --> 00:24:02.475
That's something that really is going to drive what they're looking to drive.

345
00:24:03.635 --> 00:24:09.759
Yeah, that reminds me of a Tony Robbins quote that's one of my favorites, which is complexity is the enemy of execution.

346
00:24:10.219 --> 00:24:13.001
I always think, like, how can I simplify this to make people execute?

347
00:24:13.061 --> 00:24:16.663
Like, the goal is to go do something different or to go take action.

348
00:24:16.964 --> 00:24:22.307
How do I simplify this to its basic form so that we can get something in there to start making progress?

349
00:24:22.567 --> 00:24:25.569
Maybe it's not the whole kit and caboodle how I had it planned.

350
00:24:25.889 --> 00:24:28.091
But, like, what does version 1.0 look like?

351
00:24:28.391 --> 00:24:36.374
Like let's get a win with version 1.0 and then we'll come back with, you know, 1.5 and 2.0 and we'll build on it, but we got to get a win in there somehow.

352
00:24:36.394 --> 00:24:43.256
And a lot of times it's taking something and simplifying it down to get to a point where we can execute and have some, some early success.

353
00:24:43.516 --> 00:24:45.297
So yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with that.

354
00:24:46.497 --> 00:24:52.119
There is a, um, a thought process when you are scaling, um,

355
00:24:53.283 --> 00:24:55.885
You have to kind of figure out what you're going to ignore.

356
00:24:55.905 --> 00:24:57.506
That maybe is a weird way to say it.

357
00:24:57.886 --> 00:25:02.270
I was talking to a founder the other day and he's like, you know, people say we're building the plane as we fly it.

358
00:25:02.350 --> 00:25:04.491
And I'm like, yeah, it's like, that's not what I'm doing.

359
00:25:04.612 --> 00:25:09.876
I'm on a rocket ship and I'm just trying to keep it together so that it doesn't all fall apart.

360
00:25:10.636 --> 00:25:19.623
I'm wondering when you think about a company scaling, what are some things that you are looking at to make sure this doesn't fall apart from a leadership perspective, from a culture perspective?

361
00:25:19.643 --> 00:25:19.743
Yeah.

362
00:25:20.616 --> 00:25:20.956
Yeah.

363
00:25:20.976 --> 00:25:23.898
You know, the company I work at currently is Group 1001.

364
00:25:24.518 --> 00:25:28.920
A lot of people know us from one of our subsidiary companies, GameBridge.

365
00:25:29.020 --> 00:25:34.163
It's an insurance annuities company is the focus of really our organization.

366
00:25:34.303 --> 00:25:36.044
And we're on that rocket ship.

367
00:25:36.204 --> 00:25:38.806
It's funny you use that term because I think it's a perfect term.

368
00:25:38.866 --> 00:25:41.648
We're on a rocket ship that is scaling really, really quickly.

369
00:25:41.668 --> 00:25:50.213
We've had incredible results and we are kind of building it as we're flying it because the company is moving so fast and having so much success.

370
00:25:50.333 --> 00:25:52.975
And so the infrastructure is trying to build and keep up with it.

371
00:25:53.515 --> 00:26:00.717
And so one of the things that we talk a lot about Group 1001 and we're really moving towards is making sure we're creating that clarity for the organization.

372
00:26:01.117 --> 00:26:07.358
We're making our communication really, really tight about where we're going, what we're trying to accomplish, the mission that we're on.

373
00:26:23.582 --> 00:26:32.248
And so it's fun seeing a company kind of maturing that way to be able to go, we are on this path and we have something really, really special here.

374
00:26:33.309 --> 00:26:39.332
But we know people is their number one asset and we've got to make sure that we're equipping them and putting them in position to be successful.

375
00:26:40.213 --> 00:26:44.856
But also creating that clarity within the organization to your point of what should we be doing?

376
00:26:44.996 --> 00:26:46.117
What shouldn't we be doing?

377
00:26:46.537 --> 00:26:49.339
Because there's a lot of things that you can fix when you're scaling.

378
00:26:50.219 --> 00:26:52.701
But it's having that clarity and those priorities that we're doing.

379
00:26:52.982 --> 00:26:56.299
And having that alignment across the organization that's super important.

380
00:26:57.638 --> 00:26:57.898
Yeah.

381
00:26:58.178 --> 00:26:59.478
Clarity and priority management.

382
00:26:59.658 --> 00:27:04.379
When I work with growing companies, I realized really quickly, there's no such thing as like a bad idea.

383
00:27:04.399 --> 00:27:06.220
And it's hard to pass up a really good idea.

384
00:27:06.300 --> 00:27:07.240
People hear a good idea.

385
00:27:07.260 --> 00:27:09.860
They're like, Oh, we got to do that.

386
00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:17.041
And so you kind of get this, you know, you can have this operational ADD, so to speak, where everybody's like running in different direction.

387
00:27:17.081 --> 00:27:24.983
It's like, okay, we have to focus this and prioritize on what's going to be most important, which means sometimes you got to say no to things that you really, really want to do.

388
00:27:26.203 --> 00:27:29.528
But it creates this environment sometimes that looks a lot like chaos.

389
00:27:29.908 --> 00:27:34.914
A friend of mine, she works at a grown company and her, you know, CEO is on the rocket ship.

390
00:27:35.275 --> 00:27:38.339
And she's like, Tony, how do I get the founder off the rocket ship?

391
00:27:38.499 --> 00:27:40.902
And I'm like, oh, you don't like that rocket ship.

392
00:27:41.162 --> 00:27:43.644
That rocket is going to go into orbit like it's going.

393
00:27:43.964 --> 00:27:49.328
We have to find rocket tape and fix rivets and do whatever we can do to like kind of keep this thing together.

394
00:27:49.348 --> 00:27:51.689
But it is going to go where it's going.

395
00:27:52.590 --> 00:27:57.353
And so she's trying to figure out, like, how do I survive the chaos of this, which is a really good question.

396
00:27:57.713 --> 00:28:06.319
I'm curious to you because I've had the opportunity to observe you in a couple of different scenarios where you are doing the thing in the rocket ship.

397
00:28:06.880 --> 00:28:09.481
And I noticed that your level of calm.

398
00:28:09.501 --> 00:28:09.602
Yeah.

399
00:28:10.521 --> 00:28:13.965
pretty much stays the same throughout no matter what comes up, right?

400
00:28:13.985 --> 00:28:20.713
Like if I were to just look at your face or hear you talk to someone, I would never know that anything is going on behind the scenes.

401
00:28:21.113 --> 00:28:23.536
I'm wondering like where you develop that.

402
00:28:23.556 --> 00:28:28.061
Is that something that's always been a part of you or is that something that you gained over time?

403
00:28:29.382 --> 00:28:30.644
Yeah, it's a great question.

404
00:28:30.664 --> 00:28:31.225
I think it's,

405
00:28:32.816 --> 00:28:33.957
I think it's somewhat learned.

406
00:28:34.077 --> 00:28:54.008
You know, I think I've seen a lot of really great leaders and had the fortunate opportunity to learn from, you know, executive level leaders that have demonstrated similar behaviors where, you know, when I feel like when I was younger in my career and I felt like my hair was on fire, you know, and I was running 100 miles an hour and running hot and looking at them and going, wow, they're so calm.

407
00:28:54.028 --> 00:28:54.508
Yeah.

408
00:28:54.628 --> 00:28:55.628
And it's making me calm.

409
00:28:55.828 --> 00:28:59.209
And I feel much better about the situation because they seem okay with the situation.

410
00:28:59.729 --> 00:29:10.653
And so, you know, just keeping it real, there are times where I feel like, man, I still have my hair on fire and I'm a duck underwater where I'm like I'm just paddling a thousand miles an hour.

411
00:29:11.113 --> 00:29:15.234
I do, but I try to be really cognizant of like how I'm showing up for my team.

412
00:29:15.714 --> 00:29:21.516
You know, when they're feeling the pressure or they're feeling that heat, knowing that I've got to be able to bring the temperature down.

413
00:29:22.296 --> 00:29:33.839
It's part of my job as a leader to be able to make sure that I'm showing them that things are fine and we are OK. And it doesn't mean that behind the scenes that I'm thinking, holy cow, like the house is on fire.

414
00:29:34.179 --> 00:29:39.260
You know, I might still feel that because I'm human, but I try to be really self-aware to be able to go.

415
00:29:39.441 --> 00:29:44.782
I need to show up the right way for them because we all win, you know, when we bring that temperature down a little bit.

416
00:29:46.192 --> 00:29:46.492
Yeah.

417
00:29:47.333 --> 00:29:54.880
I wonder what leaders have been influential in your career and in your life, because there's one of my favorite leadership sayings is more is caught than taught in leadership.

418
00:29:55.561 --> 00:30:01.526
A lot of times you can learn things just from observing other people or observing the way that you've been led.

419
00:30:01.967 --> 00:30:06.011
Are there any moments in your career where you feel like, man, that was a really good lesson for me to learn?

420
00:30:06.031 --> 00:30:07.012
I'm going to take that with me.

421
00:30:07.592 --> 00:30:18.517
And it kind of shapes how you lead your team because you do a really, really great job from what I've seen with just having that calm, steady hand with your team and making sure that you are being a great example for them.

422
00:30:19.698 --> 00:30:27.542
Yeah, I think back to and it's funny, you think back to your career, all the lessons you've learned, like those conversations that you've had with certain leaders and those aha moments.

423
00:30:28.042 --> 00:30:32.184
And I remember, you know, back when I worked for a company called Brightpoint, our head of HR, Wayne Pack.

424
00:30:32.665 --> 00:30:35.346
And Wayne was one of those he was probably the most coolest person.

425
00:30:35.986 --> 00:30:39.988
leader I've ever worked with from a standpoint of like, he never got real high.

426
00:30:40.028 --> 00:30:41.169
He never got real low.

427
00:30:41.309 --> 00:30:42.590
Wayne was always in the pocket.

428
00:30:42.930 --> 00:30:44.471
And I always appreciated that about Wayne.

429
00:30:44.551 --> 00:30:49.253
And I remember I was fairly, you know, kind of newer in my career from a leadership perspective.

430
00:30:49.293 --> 00:30:54.316
And I remember we were going to roll out this new program and I had it all mapped out exactly how I thought it should go.

431
00:30:54.977 --> 00:30:57.218
And the business had a different idea of how they wanted to do it.

432
00:30:57.897 --> 00:30:59.758
And I thought, well, that's not the right way.

433
00:30:59.798 --> 00:31:01.179
And it should be done this way.

434
00:31:01.199 --> 00:31:02.360
And they're not thinking about it right.

435
00:31:02.380 --> 00:31:03.981
And I'm having that conversation with Wayne.

436
00:31:04.021 --> 00:31:07.863
And he said, Josh, at the end of the day, are we still going to get the outcome that we're looking for?

437
00:31:09.604 --> 00:31:12.826
I kind of leaned back and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think so.

438
00:31:12.906 --> 00:31:16.909
And he's like, and it doesn't have to be exactly the way that you think it should go.

439
00:31:17.209 --> 00:31:19.230
You've got to meet the business where the business is.

440
00:31:19.430 --> 00:31:21.912
And you've got to be able to have that flexibility and agility.

441
00:31:22.292 --> 00:31:24.133
And at the end of the day, it's all about the outcome.

442
00:31:24.293 --> 00:31:26.315
And there's always different paths you can take to get there.

443
00:31:26.335 --> 00:31:26.855
Yeah.

444
00:31:27.015 --> 00:31:34.016
And at that point, it was a lesson learned for me to be able to go, it's not always going to be exactly the way you want it as a practitioner.

445
00:31:34.537 --> 00:31:41.458
But the best practitioners are the ones that have that level of agility to be able to dodge and weave and be flexible and still land it at the end of the day.

446
00:31:41.758 --> 00:31:45.519
And so I learned a lot kind of in that conversation, but also part of that calmness.

447
00:31:45.919 --> 00:31:52.060
Wayne Pack was one of those guys where I would come in with my hair on fire being a young leader and Wayne was bringing the temperature down.

448
00:31:53.409 --> 00:31:53.749
Yeah.

449
00:31:54.330 --> 00:31:54.910
Wow, that's good.

450
00:31:55.010 --> 00:31:57.312
I love that saying, meet the business where the business is.

451
00:31:57.332 --> 00:32:01.616
That's a lesson that I had to learn, especially when I first got into consulting.

452
00:32:01.696 --> 00:32:05.879
I wanted to take, you know, a business that was on level one to level 10 immediately.

453
00:32:05.919 --> 00:32:09.762
And they're like, we don't, we can't even imagine a world where that would be possible.

454
00:32:09.782 --> 00:32:11.304
And I'm like, no, I've seen it before, guys.

455
00:32:11.324 --> 00:32:15.807
It was almost like I was trying to explain a destination that no one has ever seen but me before.

456
00:32:16.188 --> 00:32:17.028
So it was really hard.

457
00:32:17.068 --> 00:32:22.693
It's like, you know what, if I give them, if I take them from level one to level one and a half or two, they'd be really happy about that.

458
00:32:23.113 --> 00:32:24.154
And be really excited.

459
00:32:24.354 --> 00:32:25.474
And like, that's okay, too.

460
00:32:25.534 --> 00:32:30.937
So it's different than what I thought it would be, but still a lot better and fruitful for the business.

461
00:32:31.457 --> 00:32:33.718
I'm thinking about that interaction, right?

462
00:32:33.758 --> 00:32:38.740
You are, you know, head down, trying to make an impact and kind of made a misstep.

463
00:32:39.140 --> 00:32:40.381
And he kind of redirects you.

464
00:32:41.121 --> 00:32:44.303
How do you handle mistakes at a growing company?

465
00:32:44.323 --> 00:32:45.784
Somebody's going to make mistakes, right?

466
00:32:46.125 --> 00:32:48.947
You go fast, you're going to get a speeding ticket sooner or later.

467
00:32:49.607 --> 00:32:54.631
What's your philosophy on just handling mistakes as people grow and mature in their careers?

468
00:32:56.792 --> 00:33:01.153
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, really good leaders or professionals want to be perfect.

469
00:33:01.494 --> 00:33:04.455
You know, I think that I think we're all striving for perfection.

470
00:33:04.495 --> 00:33:05.915
We always want to get it right.

471
00:33:06.035 --> 00:33:08.856
We hate when we miss.

472
00:33:09.476 --> 00:33:14.298
It's challenging, you know, because you always feel like you're going to lose credibility if you don't hit the mark.

473
00:33:14.898 --> 00:33:18.841
Um, but we're all human and we're not going to be perfect and things are going to be messy at times.

474
00:33:19.281 --> 00:33:32.890
And I think what I try to, you know, instill in my team is it's just about working really, really hard, you know, trying to set a high standard, trying to push towards that standard, but knowing we're not ever going to be perfect, but we've got to continue to sharpen the saw.

475
00:33:33.070 --> 00:33:35.452
What are we learning all the time from how we're working?

476
00:33:35.812 --> 00:33:39.615
What mistakes happen and knowing that we, how do we avoid those mistakes going forward?

477
00:33:44.298 --> 00:33:45.058
Why didn't it go right?

478
00:33:45.518 --> 00:33:48.200
And what are we going to do going forward to make sure it doesn't happen again?

479
00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:52.201
Or, you know, sharpen the saw a little bit so we can be that much better next time.

480
00:33:52.521 --> 00:34:01.244
But I think it's being intentional about talking about it, having those conversations, reflecting, debriefing and going, hey, this didn't go exactly the way we expected it to go.

481
00:34:01.465 --> 00:34:02.105
That's OK.

482
00:34:02.725 --> 00:34:04.005
But let's don't make it a trend.

483
00:34:04.466 --> 00:34:06.546
Let's figure out how we can make it better going forward.

484
00:34:06.646 --> 00:34:08.167
And I think that's just being realistic.

485
00:34:08.207 --> 00:34:19.390
But I think a lot of times where people miss it or leaders miss it is the debrief, the reflection, and then putting something in place to try to avoid it next time going forward, either with someone on your team and you're coaching them around it.

486
00:34:19.730 --> 00:34:23.231
Or maybe it's within the whole group and there was a process that was broken that needs to be fixed.

487
00:34:24.525 --> 00:34:24.826
Yeah.

488
00:34:25.527 --> 00:34:25.988
Well said.

489
00:34:26.048 --> 00:34:28.313
That debrief part is really, really critical.

490
00:34:28.333 --> 00:34:34.165
It's the feedback loop to make sure that we are learning from these lessons and not just sweeping them under the rug.

491
00:34:34.826 --> 00:34:34.947
Yeah.

492
00:34:34.967 --> 00:34:35.408
It's really good.

493
00:34:36.843 --> 00:34:38.384
Man, this is a great conversation, Josh.

494
00:34:38.424 --> 00:34:41.286
I appreciate you taking the time to do this.

495
00:34:41.406 --> 00:34:44.287
I think that this will be helpful for a lot of people.

496
00:34:44.307 --> 00:34:45.228
It's definitely helpful for me.

497
00:34:45.248 --> 00:34:46.849
I got notes written in front of me.

498
00:34:47.069 --> 00:34:56.995
There's stuff I'm going to go research after this because you brought up so many great points about just navigating the chaos that is a growing company and being able to lead and build culture well there.

499
00:34:57.015 --> 00:34:57.955
So thank you for sharing.

500
00:34:58.075 --> 00:34:58.896
I really appreciate it.

501
00:34:59.436 --> 00:35:00.297
Yeah, my pleasure, Tony.

502
00:35:00.317 --> 00:35:00.697
It's been fun.