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Speaker 1:
This is Unleashing Leadership, and I'm yours, travis Moss, with our season five co-host, dave Nurchi, and this podcast is all about our takeaways from different books this book happens to be the Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and our observations and experiences regarding those takeaways and really what we are really passionate about, which is our day jobs at Seed Planning Group Myself I'm the CEO, dave's the chief operating officer. So these are real life experiences. We try to look at these books and say, hey, that's an interesting thing, we haven't tried that before. Or hey, we've tried that and this is the experience that we've had with that. So we try to give you a lot of do as I do, not the whole do as I do, as I say, not as I do. So real life experiences for people to learn from. And, as always, do us a favor, like and subscribe to us wherever you are watching and listening. So today's big takeaway we're going to continue on what defines a leader.
Speaker 1:
Our last episode we talked a little bit about articulating a vision, so today is an expansion on that idea. Can a leader do this when all things are just falling apart around them, and will the leader be able to get people to stay when that starts to happen, because for most leaders it's going to happen at some point. Things don't go right and there's a malfunction and people start jumping ship on you because they're afraid of their futures. So we're going to dive into that, but first we are going to get to our sponsor, which is Cutthroat College Planning. I've been leaving out the planning part. I've been told by the Cutthroat College people.
Speaker 1:
So it's Cutthroat College Planning with Hector Lopez and Kayla Record. They help people avoid going broke because of the cost of college. Check them out. You can get to them on NQRmediacom or you can also find them wherever podcasts are found. And if you check them out and you like them, don't forget to like them and subscribe to them so that other people can find them. All right, dave. So we've got this continuation on the discussion of articulative vision. Can a leader do this when things are falling apart? So we talked about, you know, articulating in general. Right, like not being so smart that you can't actually explain what you're doing to the normal person, not throwing up on them, but also not being essentially so unprepared that you can't really give any of the whys and stuff behind it or the hows. So there's a sweet spot right.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. But you're rolling along, you're articulating your vision, everything seems to be fine, and then you get a shit storm. You just get one of them, whatever it is, something happens and it just hits you right, smack in the face and everything's going wrong. It could be regulators, it could be product issues. Let's pretend you're doing a product and there's a recall, right, an investor pulls out, a key employee leaves, a key project fails. You know, something happens. Let's start with kind of that conundrum.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, let's use one of our, one of our own examples, right? One of our divisions programs wasn't operating the way we intended, I think right, and kind of started a little shit storm, and I think the people that were shit storm.
Speaker 1:
Is the the phrase of the day? I like that, um I think it's a good it's a good explanation of what it feels like when you're just getting hit in the face by somebody, like a monkey throwing turds at you. It's that's kind of what it is. So okay, you can't avoid it all right, sorry I just wanted to. I just wanted to say that I really like the fact that we're going down this path today I like this. I used it chuck, thanks for noticing.
Speaker 2:
And you know what happened there, right, we'll kind of fast forward to, I think, what we're talking about here. And, as things are kind of maybe falling apart, the people who have been bought in and inspired about what SEED is doing right and the purpose and what we're going for. In, and inspired about what seed is doing right and and the purpose and what we're going for, they're the ones who come out knowing, hey, I, I believe in what we're doing and we're going to get through this here. How can I help? Right, how can I get this back on track? Um, and the and the ones who aren't at that level or inspired to that level, right, are the ones that are kind of like man, this is falling apart, I'm out, or how do I get out of this, and I think that's you know, when we're talking about a leader and articulating that vision, you could see a difference there, right, when something like that happens, you can kind of see where the chips fall in and who's bought in and who's going to help you get out of it.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so I think you're talking secret code, because I think you're trying not to throw anybody under the bus, and so you're talking about a particular division that we had that has just been through a lot of turmoil.
Speaker 1:
We made, I think, some bad decisions with leadership in those divisions, so that, first and foremost, we talk about accountability. Who's the most accountable persons? You know, it raises to you and then it raises to me, right, so it's, and we're at, we're two of the three that are at the top. So you know, and, and ultimately I'm over you. So this is my problem I made two bad decisions, or or allowed two bad decisions to be made, or allow too bad decisions to be made, and the decision was really in the I mean the division itself, the concept, the structure, everything I think was there, but the development part was missing. You know, we neither developed the leader from a standpoint of sometimes you get the wrong people on the bus, and it took us too long to figure that out but because we had the wrong leader, none of the program, the sub programs and none of the talent that we had got developed right and so, and the other thing that happens when you have bad leadership, and that's why I flip out on the fucking silos. So much bad leadership will create silos, and the job of the top leader is to blow that shit up right to be the shit storm. If you're going to come in my organization and create a silo, it is my responsibility to be the volcano that buries you right, to not allow you to create these fractures within the organization, because that's ultimately what happened. We had these massive fractures because we ended up with a silo where people weren't developing but they also weren't getting the real kind of experience that the vast majority of our employees are getting at seat Right. And so when that kind of eruption happens, when that explosion happens, it's really hard for leadership to go in and say, hey, you should stay here because we see that there's a problem there and we're fixing it Right. And so the question there is is, like you know, back to the whole, can a leader do this when things are falling apart? How do you resell that vision and how? How do you articulate? This is what happened and this is how we're proving.
Speaker 1:
I think a lot of it starts with accountability, and people like to blame things and say it's situation and it's not my fault or anything and you know you it, we were able to, I think, salvage a really good final solution. I actually like where we ended up overall, but we were forced to do that from, let's say, earlier inaction or earlier obliviousness to what was going on and based on the fact that you know everything's moving fast and you're going fast and it's like, okay, there's a bunch of little warning signs, but it's not big, so you don't kind of jump in and then all of a sudden it explodes. So now we're stuck with this situation. We ended up with some really good pieces. We've got some really good talent that stayed, but it took the mission and the vision and that broader experience. The talent that stayed was more integrated into everything else that was going on in the business and not caught in that silo, and because of that we were able to keep that part.
Speaker 1:
So I think that if the leader's jumping in when things are blowing up and the sub leader let's say the leader that was leading the team has already corrupted the whole thing, it's very, very hard for the team to then trust any other leadership because they've been so isolated. So the best thing for a leader is, you know, throughout an organization is make sure that your voice matters, but it's not undermining other leaders, but make sure that it matters so that when something does go wrong, you can come in and they there there, there's trust in it. If nobody's ever experienced me and how I work, the only thing that they have to go by is what somebody else told them. And if somebody else is in a silo trash talking stuff, then that person is not going to be able to believe in me. When I show up Yep and leaders do this a lot of times they're absent, they're missing, and you got to show up and not just be there, but you got to be the example.
Speaker 1:
You got to show them what working a full day means. If you have employees that work eight hours, you better be working 10. If you have employees that work 10, they better see you online. When they're online on the weekends or in the mornings or at night, they have to see the example of who you are and what you do and what you're about, so that when you do need to articulate, let's say, a pivot cause, that's what happens. Everything goes wrong. Now you've got to pivot. Yep, there's some trust there, the trust bank is full and boom, we can. You know, we can keep people on board.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and that the other word that comes to mind is the transparency, right, and that's, you know, being present, like you said, and then being transparent about, hey, we're owning this right, the accountability factor, and we know this happened, here's how we're fixing it and again, that's reinforcing that. But it's being there, it's being present, it's not, and and the you know, back to the title of the book, the hard thing about hard things, right, that's hard. It's hard to say, yeah, we, we messed that up. Now, how do we fix it? And how do we? How do we keep the trust right? How do we recognize that faster next time? Kind of like a lessons learned type of thing. So there's a lot there to keep the trust and then keep the vision where you thought it was that whole time right, but something was missing there.
Speaker 1:
Now doing it another way. A better way would have been making sure there was no silos, so that there was great transparency and great experience and great development all along the way. Yep, then if something breaks, something goes wrong, a group of people leave for whatever reason. Whatever happens, the rest of the team aren't thinking I need to run away too, I need to hide. You know what I mean as a leader, everything that happens in your organization is your personal brand, right? If the organization is corrupt, you're corrupt. If the organization you know has has, uh, people issues, you have people issues. Yep.
Speaker 1:
So instead of relying on and saying well, you know, each one of my managers or leaders knows what to do. Make sure they know what to do. Make sure they don't create those silos. As soon as they create the silos, blow them up. You want people to know that when you see that silo, you will blow it up because that's strategic deterrence. They're going. Okay, I'm not going there because he's going to come in and blow. I've seen him do it, right. Right, because there are tendencies they're all natural tendencies to get a little bit greedy on things and stuff like that. You really have to force that out of your culture, and you'll see people kind of painting on the edges sometimes and it's your job to kind of pull them in. So I think it can be done. I just think it has to be being a good leader, and getting this right means you can't be taking a lot of days off on it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you need, you need to be there, you need to be aware right, it's the awareness to stop something in its tracks. And when you, when you are that example, other leaders and managers in the company will feel empowerment to do the same right and bring it to you and not try to hide something.
