Month: January 2021

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Podcasts

Episode 116: The 12 Quarter Forecast with Mike Goldman

Mike Goldman 12 Quarter Breakthrough Leadership
Mike Goldman - The 12 Quarter Forecast
Mike Goldman 12 Quarter Breakthrough Leadership


Prospects falling through the cracks? 
Losing fantastic employees and talent? 
You need to expand your leadership team. But how? 

This is Mike Goldman’s specialty – expanding and developing your leadership team so that your organization can grow and scale to the next level.

Mike Goldman has been a leadership team coach and consultant for over 30 years. He’s helped dozens of businesses of all sizes scale by developing their leadership teams. Mike has recently published his second book, titled Breakthrough Leadership Team: Strengthening the Heart and Soul of Your Company- and it’s all about investing in the development of your most important people, your leadership team.

Learn when the right time to expand your leadership team is, what personality tests should be used for, and the keys to a great virtual culture.

Visit Mike Goldman at https://www.mike-goldman.com/ and check out his blog here.

Get his book Breakthrough Leadership Team here

Learn more about his course, Breakthrough Growth here. 

Check out this episode!

Mike Goldman (00:00):

How do we create a great leadership team so that great leadership team could create a company where people love to work and they learn and grow, and you have a great impact on society.

Intro (00:13):

Welcome to Learning Life, where top experts share their business knowledge and personal journeys each week. “And the thing that I realized from the CEO to the NFL football player, to the janitor – we’re our toughest critics, and we’re hardest on ourselves.” – James Lawrence And wanted to bring education to the market. I wake up in the morning and I am constantly learning.” “The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story” – Cal Fussman. Happy learning! And now your host, Jon Tota,

Jon Tota (00:41):

Welcome back to Learning Life with Jon Tota. My guest today is Mike Goldman. Mike is an old friend and colleague of mine from my EO days as learning chair in New York City. Mike has been a leadership team coach and consultant for over 30 years. He’s helped dozens of businesses of all sizes scale by developing their leadership teams. Mike has recently published his second book, titled Breakthrough Leadership Team: Strengthening the Heart and Soul of Your Company- and it’s all about investing in the development of your most important people, your leadership team. So let’s get into it. Mike Goldman, welcome to Learning Life.

Mike Goldman (01:12):

Jon, thanks for having me.

New Speaker (01:14):

So now you and I spent some time together at EO. You actually, for all our listeners, you sponsored my learning program for one year while I was at EO New York. So thank you for that.

Mike Goldman (01:26):

Yeah, you’re welcome.

Jon Tota (01:27):

And it was a great opportunity for me to get, to hear you speak a little bit and work with some of the members in the chapter. I was always fascinated by your perspective of helping companies scale through that leadership team and, my background had been in, you know, I did strategic coach, and that was very much about that. So I was always attracted to it. Love to have you on the show right now to talk a little bit about it. But for our audience, can you go back a little bit and kind of start with your journey? How did, how did you get the training and the expertise and, and just the understanding that the leadership team really was the path to helping all these businesses get to the next level.

Mike Goldman (02:04):

Yeah. I’ve been doing this a long, long time. The first half of my career right out of undergrad was working with a company that’s now called Accenture, but back when I was there, it was part of Arthur Anderson, and also a company called Deloitte. But the first, you know, 14, 15 years of my career was doing traditional management consulting work for Fortune 500 companies. From there I decided the travel was a nightmare and, uh, stocked some money away and said, let me start my own business. And I actually started a, uh, I opened up a franchise of a, of a staffing and recruiting firm- that was kind of a great way to, to lose a lot of money and get my MBA in running a small business. So it was a very, it was a, a great learning opportunity, albeit an expensive one. And, uh, after that, got back to my consulting roots, um, but more, more as a coach working with small and mid market companies. And the more I worked with them to help them grow, which was really my goal was to help companies grow and scale, is I realized that for these companies, if they wanted to create a sustainably great business with top and bottom line growth, really that had to start and end with creating a great leadership team if they had a great idea, but the CEO wasn’t a quality CEO or the CEO had not surrounded himself or herself with the right people, it didn’t matter that they had a great strategy. They weren’t going anywhere until we improve the leadership team. So that really became what I was all about is certainly helping company groups, companies grow, but doing that with a foundation of saying, how do we create a great leadership team so that great leadership team could create a company where people love to work and they learn and grow, and you have a great impact on society.

Jon Tota (04:02):

How often is it that you don’t find the right people and you do really need to do that work of developing the team? Is that more common in the companies you’re working with?

Mike Goldman (04:11):

Yeah, I would say almost always because, I mean, even if, even if when you are, let’s say you’re a $3 million company and you have the right team, maybe you were, uh. And it’s probably not luck, it’s probably skill that you surrounded yourself with the right people. Let’s face it. You, you might have to make some hard decisions when you hit 10 or 12 million, if you’re growing, because those people that help you get to 3 million may or may not be the right people to scale you from 10 million to 20 million or 30 million. So there’s always some level of scaling the team and upgrading the team and figuring out how to best structure the team. Uh, you know, most, most are not as fortunate as you were to start out that way. When I start working with companies very often, you might call it a leadership team, but there’s really no semblance of team. It’s a bunch of smart people that work for the CEO and they’re running around and getting stuff done. And the first thing we’ve got to do is, is really get them working as a team. Not only make sure you’ve got the right people and right structure, but work on that culture to make sure they truly are a team versus just a bunch of smart people.

Jon Tota (05:25):

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Jon Tota (06:15):

How often is it that you don’t have the right team? You know, like you always hear this say you might’ve been the person who founded a company and you’re a great entrepreneur for the startup phase, but as the company scales, you’re probably not likely the same or the right CEO to get to the next level as it gets bigger. Do you see that same dynamic? Is that very often the case with leadership teams? That you almost outgrow the responsibilities of the company and the scale kind of outgrow what that leadership team can do, and you almost have to either develop them in a different way or replace them?

Mike Goldman (06:48):

Well, part of what I do is when I work with a leader and I work exclusively with leadership teams, I always coach the CEO one-on-one in addition to working with the leadership team as a group. So I know, I know Jon, what you had said does happen a lot, but I’ll be honest- it doesn’t happen with a lot of my clients because I know, and I make sure my CEOs know that they’re the lid on the growth of the company. John Maxwell called it, the law of the lid many years ago. The lid on the company is you’re not going to scale any faster than the leader scales. So I always make sure I’m doing heavy, heavy coaching with my CEO to make sure that they are scaling as fast or, or, or hopefully faster than the team is. So I know that happens a lot, but with my clients, frankly, I make sure that doesn’t happen.

Jon Tota (07:40):

When you’re helping teams develop, and, or actually even earlier, if you’re working with someone and their just trying to structure that leadership team. And if we’ve got some listeners, and obviously we have a lot of entrepreneurs in our audience and they might be a smaller business. I know you normally are working with companies that are doing, you know, 10 million or above, but you’ve probably worked with a lot of the smaller businesses out there too. What if it’s someone who’s kind of just through sheer willpower has gotten their business to a million dollars in revenue or $2 million in revenue. And they haven’t really built that high performing leadership team. What do you say? What are kind of the first steps, the things that you tell your, you would tell a client to do so that they can get on that right path and how would you help someone in those cases?

Mike Goldman (08:27):

It’s a great question, and I would say it’s got to start with self-leadership. So very often when you are a, an entrepreneur and you’ve kind of white knuckled this thing to get it up to a million or $2 million, and you’re kind of, you know, the CEO with a whole bunch of helpers versus having a leadership team- man, you’re going to burn out pretty quickly if you continue to try to scale, if you don’t have that team. So number one, you need really master self-leadership because if you are not managing your own emotions, if you’re, if you don’t have the right focus, if you don’t know what your strengths are as a leader, it’s going to be really hard for you to build the right team around you. And if you do, when you don’t have the right focus, all you’re going to do is blame them for all the problems versus really using them as a team.

Mike Goldman (09:17):

So I think number one, it starts with self-leadership. And then the second thing I’d say, which really I have very rarely seen companies do or at least do well- is you have to proactively structure the leadership team. And what I mean by that is for most companies, the way you know you need a head of sales and as founder and entrepreneur, you could no longer head up sales yourself is when prospects are falling through the cracks, because you’re not able to handle it all. The way, you know, when you’re at $25 million and you realize you need a head of HR because you have lost some great, some great people because your culture is a nightmare and you’re not developing your talent. You typically know you need someone when there’s an emergency. And what I suggest for those entrepreneurs listening, or frankly, even the, if anybody’s listening, that’s got a hundred, $150 million company, you have to project out your business.

Mike Goldman (10:21):

I teach my clients and I talk about my book, actually doing a 12 quarter forecast for your business. Financials, like obviously top and bottom line, but also non financials, like quarter over quarter how many clients will we have at that point? How many products will we have? How many units will we be shipping? How many projects will we be doing? Project out those non financials and look at how your leadership team needs to scale. At what point do you need to split sales and marketing into two different people? At what point might you need a head of service? At what point does your controller need to turn into a more strategic CFO? That ought to be based on some numbers you’re projecting. So proactively structure that leadership team. And I suggest that you forecast that, you plan that out over 12 quarters and you actually start drawing out quarter over quarter: What does your leadership team need to look like at each quarter? So instead of waiting until there’s a problem, you can say, Hey, I know three quarters from now, I’m going to need a head of sales. I need to start looking for that person now or grooming that person internally now. And that whole idea of being proactive and planning it out, I very, very rarely see, let alone with new entrepreneurs. I worked with fortune five hundreds for many years- I don’t see them doing it either.

Jon Tota (11:47):

Yeah. That’s an interesting point because I think that as an entrepreneur, it’s so hard to think that far in advance and you think, Oh, we’ll deal with it when we get there. And there’s so many things in your head where you’re saying, Oh, but then I have this pitfall or this obstacle and then things will go bad. So it’s interesting. You got to really force yourself to be proactive. And now that everything has gone so much more remote, what are some of the struggles and some of the things that you’re seeing with your clients as they’re developing leadership teams, but now they’ve been thrust into this remote leadership model. What are some of the things and some of the tips you could share with our audience as far as building this breakthrough leadership team, but now having to do it in a remote virtual fashion?

Mike Goldman (12:31):

Yeah. And, and again, I’m going to start with self-leadership because one of the things I’ve seen from CEOs, as well as the individuals on the leadership team is, you know, when COVID first hit, it was, you know, every day seemed like a year went by. There was that much changing every single day. And then we hit this, this kind of point where things aren’t changing so fast, we know what’s going on. And all of a sudden people said, you know what? We could be way more productive than we ever thought remotely. These Zoom meetings aren’t so bad; I’m getting used to it. Twitter says no one needs to come back to work again, and everybody starts to think this is great. We could be just as productive or even more productive remotely. And I’ve seen a, kind of a boomerang effect. I have seen leaders and leadership teams, very overwhelmed and stressed and starting to get burned out right now, partially because they’re not, they don’t have that energy of the people around them.

Mike Goldman (13:28):

And, and I think we can’t underestimate how important, or I should say we’ve got to realize how important that is, to have that energy of the people around you, but also because companies are, you know, one of two things. They’re either struggling to survive right now, which is certainly stressful and overwhelming, or for those that are doing really well. It’s overwhelming because a lot of them, and I’ve done this with my business is pivoting to say, how do I take advantage of what’s going on? You know, I heard a great quote, never let a good crisis go to waste. So a lot of great companies are pivoting and doing some different things and that’s stressful and overwhelming. So, number one, I’d say that self-leadership becomes even more important. I heard a great interview with the Dalai Lama many years ago, where someone asked the Dalai Lama how many minutes a day he meditates.

Mike Goldman (14:29):

And he said, he meditated for one hour a day. And then they said, okay, but when you’re really busy and you just wrote a book and you’re on the speaking circuit, incredibly busy, how many hours a day do you meditate then? And he said, Oh, that’s a great question. On my really busy days, I meditate two hours a day. So it becomes even more important these days to take care of yourself, whether it’s, you know, exercise or or yoga or meditation or prayer or gratefulness, or taking a long walk. So it starts there. And the other thing I I’d say is culture has become way more important. I’ve found that the companies that, that my clients, who I’ve worked with that had really, really powerful cultures- when COVID struck, it allowed them to become even more of who they really were. And they’ve actually gotten more engagement, more loyalty, more passion from their employees and therefore their clients as well.

Mike Goldman (15:31):

Those companies that really were struggling with their culture before they may have had a set of core values, but it wasn’t much more than a plaque on the wall kind of thing. Those are the companies who also became more of who they are when COVID struck, but that wasn’t pretty and it’s really hurt them. So I think it’s really important these days, uh, to, to make sure your culture, your core values, your purpose, that, that there are way more than just plaques on the wall, that you’re showing who you really are. You’re showing that you care. You’re coaching your people; you’re mentoring your people. You are doubling or tripling your frequency of communication with your employees and your clients. And that doesn’t mean doubling or tripling the number of minutes. If you were in 20 hours of meetings before all this, I’m not saying, I’m not saying now you should be in 60 hours of meetings, but it may mean if you were doing one-on-ones with your staff for an hour, once a month, you may want to do it once a week for 20 minutes now. You really have to increase that frequency.

Jon Tota (16:36):

Yeah. And I think I’ve felt like a lot of people that you get a little bit of that Zoom fatigue, because you have so many meetings done by Zoom or Microsoft teams or whatever it might be. But you do almost have to force yourself to communicate at that level, to do those meetings, because if your team’s going to continue to develop and you want the culture to continue, this is just the way you have to do it. And yeah. So I think it’s great advice. So I have to ask you, I, I did strategic coaches as you know, and they were really big on the Colby test- personality tests, which I, I did. And I had my whole leadership team do it to see how we fit together. And I know other people do StrengthsFinders and different ones like that. How do you feel about that in, in your professional opinion? Do you think there’s some value in using some standardized tests like that to understand the personality mix with your leadership team and how they fit together?

Mike Goldman (17:33):

I, I do. I absolutely do, but you’ve gotta be careful, you know. And I’ve used a whole bunch of different tools and I know of Colby and I’m a certified DISC guy. There are people that use DISC for hiring, and that’s just wrong. You know, I want a leader, so I better find a high D; or I want someone in customer service so they should be an S on the DISC scale. You know, I think you could be a leader or be anywhere on the Colby scale or the DISC scale. I think it’s an important way whether it’s Colby or DISC or any of the others, it’s just one of many great ways to get to know people at a different level to get to understand yourself a little bit more to say, Oh, he’s not a jerk. He’s just a, he, you know, he’s just a high D and he wants to make decisions quickly.

Mike Goldman (18:22):

They’re great tools to get to know each other better, but you’ve got to use them for that. Use them to help you better communicate. Don’t use them for hiring. You know, I love, you mentioned StrengthsFinder. I love StrengthsFinder, the StrengthtsFinder 2.0, not only to help you leverage your strengths, but what I’ve started doing with my teams is actually have, as a leadership team, have them share their strengths with each other. And I have them answer some questions. I have a template they fill out, which are some questions around how they plan to best leverage those strengths and how they plan to give that gift of that strength to the world. I have them write it down. I have them share it with each other, and then I have them pair up and actually coach each other and brainstorm with each other on how they can better leverage that strength at home and at work. And I find getting the team to help coach each other, uh, not only gives people great ideas, but it’s just one more way to create much more solid relationships on your team.

Jon Tota (19:25):

I love that. I think that’s an awesome idea. It’s the right way to frame- these tools are the starting point to have the right conversation to get at, you know, for people to understand each other. At one point, you know, I even thought about it – hiring to a Colby score, which is the wrong method, as you alluded to before. But I’ll tell you my head of product development. Every time I’d come to him with what I thought was an amazing new feature idea. I’d hover over his desk, right over his shoulder. And then he would look to punch holes in that as quickly as possible to get rid of me. And I remember talking to the Colby expert at Strategic Coach, and she had said, yeah, it’s just, if you look at his score, you’re the exact opposite of him, he needs time.

Jon Tota (20:13):

He needs a scheduled appointment. You don’t want to catch them off guard, or he’s, he’s going to poke holes in it. And we started doing all the things the right way and using it really to understand better about myself, how I behave in those situations, as well as how he would react. And it was eye opening. I think it’s a great tip. And I love your idea of kind of using the StrengthsFinder as a way to have the team coach each other and work around that just for them to understand each other better.

Mike Goldman (20:41):

Yeah. And I had a client actually, who I did a big DISC session with and they all took their DISC profiles, put them up either on their cube or on their office door. And the key thing that, you know, on there, I have them answer questions like, you know, if you need to convince me of something, here’s the way I’d like you to do it. You know, here’s what motivates me. Here’s what makes me angry. And not that if you’re this Colby score, you need to turn into someone else. Or if you’re a high D on the DISC score, you need to turn into an S but you need to know where you need to flex your behavior so that you can communicate with people and influence them whether they’re their team members or whether they’re their vendors or clients.

Jon Tota (21:25):

Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s such an important distinction. So I love all of it. So tell us about the book. I know you, you published it and I think released it right in the middle of all the COVID craziness. How has this gone? How’s it been received by everyone?

Mike Goldman (21:39):

Yeah, it’s gone great. And as you said, it was a real struggle that we launched at the end of April. So I had to make the final decision and kind of early March as to whether I was going to launch it late April. And that was right when COVID hit big time. And I thought, my God, this is, this could be the worst time possible to be communicating anything that might seem self-serving. But, but what ultimately made the decision for me is – the book is called Breakthrough Leadership Team. It’s all about how to create great leadership teams that create great companies. And I said, you know what? In these times, the bottom line is people need this message; companies and leaders need this message more than ever. And that’s what drove me to launch it regardless of how COVID might impact any of my marketing efforts.

Mike Goldman (22:28):

And thank God it’s gone really, really well. I’ve gotten really great reviews. I’ve got amazing feedback or people who, you know, what’s really changed how they’re thinking about their companies and their leadership teams. One of my pivots in this environment with everybody doing more online is I’m taking the ideas from the book- and Jon, we were talking about this earlier- I’m taking the ideas from the book and creating an online course that will be out, you know, maybe by the time this is out there for everybody. It’s going to be out somewhere early fourth quarter of this year. So the book has gone great. And the content has really, really impacted people in a positive way. So I, I couldn’t be happier about it.

Jon Tota (23:11):

Oh, that’s awesome. Congratulations! And I love to hear that you built the companion course. Obviously we, you know, I think even more than ever people need that because they can’t get everybody into a room together. They can’t have you do that workshop in person. So tell us a little bit about how people can find out about the book, the course that you’ve got- is your website the best method for everyone to reach you?

Mike Goldman (23:37):

Well, number one, if you want to buy the book it’s called Breakthrough Leadership Team. Best way to do that is out on Amazon. It’s in all forms. If you love my Bronx / New Jersey accent, it’s out there on Audible if you want to listen to me for about seven hours. So Amazon for the book and, uh, for everything else, uh, the website is mike-goldman.com. There’s some great videos on there and my breakthrough ideas blog. And if you’re listening to this and the courses already out there, will be a link to the course on there as well. And the course is called Breakthrough Growth.

Jon Tota (24:14):

That’s excellent. So Breakthrough Leadership Team, everybody check out the book, check it out in Audible. I like listening to your voice. I’ve listened to it a lot over the years. So I think I might do the audible version. Definitely check out mike-goldman.com. We’ll put that link in our show notes as well. Check out what Mike’s up to. He’s really one of the best minds in the business on developing your leadership team and making these breakthroughs in your business. So check out the website, Mike dash goldman.com and the book Breakthrough Leadership Team. And Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us.

Mike Goldman (24:48):

Jon, thanks so much. It was great catching up with you again.

Jon Tota (24:51):

And to all of our listeners. Thank you for being here each week. As you know, we have a new episode coming out every Tuesday, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, rate and leave us comments. We’d love to hear from you guys. Until our next episode, happy learning!

 

Categories
Podcasts

Episode 115 The 5% Methodology with Ebony Smith

Ebony Smith 5% Methodology
Ebony Smith 5% Methodology


We are living in a time of extreme disruption, there’s no denying it.  In this episode, we hear from a woman who has centered her life around extremes: Ebony Smith.  She specializes in training and coaching in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (V.U.C.A.) work environments. Previously, Smith achieved a Masters in operational safety, worked for BP and Sunoco, before pivoting her career to leadership.

Ebony Smith talks with Jon Tota about the importance of creating a coaching culture, how VUCA translates to traditional businesses and the significance of tree bathing and self-care.

Interested in Ebony’s company? Learn more about Ebenum Equation

Follow Ebony on LinkedIn for more insights.

Check out this episode!

Jon Tota (00:00):

Hey everyone, Jon Tota here. I want to thank you for tuning into the show each week. We love our Learning Life community and are so grateful for your support. We’d appreciate it. If you would take a minute to rate us and write a review for Learning Life, wherever you’re listening right now. Your ratings and comments help new people find the show so we can keep growing our community and bringing great interviews on the topics you care most about. Thanks for being here. Now on to the show.

Ebony Smith (00:24):

So just these kinds of little things that we can build in, help us build a better life for ourselves. And in the end, that’s how we want to show up- is to live life a little bit better each day. We’re all not competing against each other. We’re competing against ourselves from yesterday.

Intro (00:39):

Welcome to Learning Life, where top experts share their business knowledge and personal journeys each week. “And The thing that I realized from the CEO to the NFL football player, to the janitor – we’re our toughest critics, and we’re hardest on ourselves.” – James Lawrence And wanted to bring education to the market. I wake up in the morning and I am constantly learning.” “The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story” – Cal Fussman. Happy learning. And now your host, Jon Tota,

Jon Tota (01:08):

Welcome back to Learning Life with Jon Tota. My guest today is Ebony Smith. Ebony is a facilitator coach and speaker training leaders to manage volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous work environments, otherwise known as VUCA. Ebony is also the founder of the Ebenum Leadership Academy, where she’s developing certified coaches for large organizations. After spending 20 years in the oil and gas industry, seven years in the field, and 13 years trading oil derivatives, Ebony knows a lot about dealing with unpredictable situations in the workplace, and she’s now developing leaders to operate effectively in all unstable situations. So Ebony Smith, welcome to Learning Life.

Ebony Smith (01:43):

Hi Jon, thank you for having me.

Jon Tota (01:45):

This is really fun to have you here. Obviously we’re dealing with lots of unpredictable unstable situations in the world right now, and all of us are always looking for solutions on how we can deal with that more effectively. Obviously you’re an expert in this area. For all of our listeners just right out of the gate, VUCA is kind of a new term that I think a lot of people don’t know. I just recently learned about it. And it’s speaking specifically about volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous work environments. Can you tell us a little bit about the background of that term and how you became an expert in that area?

Ebony Smith (02:18):

Sure. The background of the term is that it joined the modern day lexicon right after 9/11. It’s a military term in actuality that after 9/11, it kind of joined organizational lexicon. It’s a term that really explains how they’re training leaders inside the military to react in ways that really works for the environment in which they need to lead. And so as it joined and, you know, we, there’s a lot of uncertainty that kind of developed after 9/11, we entered a new era of how organizations were going to operate. People began to expect the unexpected and it needed a term that was already out there that could be applied to, you know, our normal kind of non-government life and so that’s where it gained its popularity. I would tell you that before the label was present for me, it was really something that I studied in my master’s degree program, which is in operational safety. But I went to school with a lot of first responders, almost everybody in my class when I was in graduate school was either a police captain or a fire captain in my graduate school program at St. Joe’s. And it was really about how do you operate in a way that you keep people safe while also looking to complete the job at hand? And so that’s where I really became familiar with the concepts. We spent a lot of time studying the first World Trade Center bombing when I was in graduate school.

Jon Tota (03:37):

Now tell us a little bit – it’s so interesting to me because I look at it and I think, wow, that’s something that you wouldn’t have even thought of going into that field. And before September 11th, before this was branded as kind of a, a philosophy or a way of dealing with situations, what was it called when you studied this? Would, would it would have been situational awareness or what was it called previously?

Ebony Smith (04:00):

Crisis Management.

Jon Tota (04:01):

Crisis Management.

Ebony Smith (04:02):

Yeah. Cause this was really, it was for first responders. And so the entire program was around crisis management and employee health and safety and occupational health and safety. So how to, for the firemen in my program, how do they protect their firemen? How do you protect your police officers? And for me, it, eventually that skillset turned into how do I protect my construction workers in an oil construction environment. And that’s how I applied it right out of graduate school for the beginning of my career.

Jon Tota (04:27):

Right, right. I know you spent two decades in this space, in the oil and gas industry, a large portion of that was for BP. Tell us a little bit about the field work you were doing, because I think that’s so much the basis of what your expertise is built on- some of the safety situations and and dealing with the uncertainty out in the field is an oil and gas industry.

Ebony Smith (04:49):

It really was about education, so everything comes back to learning, and then also about auditing and then preparing for the unknown unknowns. And so a big part of the things that we were going to do were one, around prepping and getting a cohesive team together so that we can function really well under stress. And then the other part was ensuring that everybody had a game plan; we called them tabletop drills. And we did a lot of scenario planning and a lot of active drills as a part of their training. And just ensuring that we had the shorthand that it takes in order to do dynamic leadership in a crisis environment. So I remember my very first oil spill. It was somebody- a construction company, had hit our pipeline as they were building a large box store; and I’d been with the company maybe a month and a half.

Ebony Smith (05:36):

I’d done safety for another organization, but not in a hazardous chemical environment. And I remember my very first one. I’m with the team. I knew all the books stuff; I’d done a lot of tabletop drills. And I had a really amazing crew. All of them had been working longer than I’d been alive. Cause I was kind of, you know, fresh out of graduate school. And I knew a lot of the technical and theory it, but to see the practical application in a dynamic workforce environment is really what got me hooked. It’s one of those things that you realize you’re as good as the people that are standing next to you and their worth is then validated by how much education and training that they have. And that’s how I knew it was important part of how companies operate and then also how they thrive.

Jon Tota (06:19):

Transitioning this to the corporate space. Is this now -obviously oil and gas is like probably top of the charts in the safety and just, I guess, present danger at all times. Are you dealing in all industries or is it just specific verticals that you’re really working on?

Ebony Smith (06:36):

You know it’s interesting as I started my company who became a client. SoI have an interesting number of healthcare workers and clients. So whether it be pharma to actual clinicians who are working in the infectious disease space. So that’s been quite active considering where we are right now in our history in America. Working with those teams on how they’re showing up and how they’re taking care of themselves and working a little bit, some things around palliative care, but also having conversations about what’s the safety plan here? How are you addressing that? How are we taking care of our clinicians that are actually providing services? So, or it’s even dealing with you know, companies that are tech firms looking at how their business continuity plans were not designed to be used for six months.

Jon Tota (07:20):

Oh, interesting.

New Speaker (07:20):

And so they’re, they’re seeing the fraying at the edges for their leaders and now they need to put some stop gaps in place. You know, I live in Florida. So a lot of the business continuity plans for my local customers are really around hurricane prep, right? What’s the hurricane evacuation look like? Where’s our offsite location? We can operate there for two or three months, but for many of them, they hadn’t done any scenario planning around an extended quarantine at home and taking their businesses a hundred percent virtual in a week.

Jon Tota (07:51):

Yeah. And that must be really kind of fascinating to you right now because you you’re in the business. Like you said earlier, it’s all about preparation. Preparing for the unexpected, knowing that you’ve got option, you know, plan A, plan B; probably 10 different plans. But then we’re dealing with the situation now with COVID and the aftermath of it, where we all thought it might’ve been three months and even planning for a remote team and remote operations for three months was a big deal. Now it could go on for another six months or a year. How are you seeing people deal with that? What are some of the biggest problems that you’re helping companies and leaders with right now as there they’re dealing with that uncertainty?

Ebony Smith (08:30):

I think it’s finding harmony between work and life. For a lot of the people and especially for some of the groups that I’ve spoken to, you know, people started off doing lunch and learns in April. They kind of froze everything in March/ sometime around the end of April, they’re like, all right, our people need help. They don’t know how to find balance. And I was like, you need to stop seeking balance and start seeking harmony. Understanding that you may have to tell your boss at your six year old is not doing so well in her distance learning program and you’re going to have to hop off the call. Or, you know, for other leaders understanding that they, their teams may not be synchronous all the time. So you may have had a typical workday between, you know, seven and six. Most people had some core hours during that timeframe, but when they also have to manage family life, along with it, people may become much more asynchronous. I had a client very early on in my career where their entire team globally was asynchronous. So it was an understood practice. And it was a tech company. They had about 700 employees that were global with a lot of them being nomadic because they were programmers and designers. And so their company culture was built for that. I would say for most mainstream Fortune 500 companies, they had never considered the fact that they would need to have an asynchronous workforce and what core hours would look like for global teams.

Jon Tota (09:46):

So with all of the people that you’re working with now, and you looking at this and being an expert in this space, what do you see the a year from now, 18 months from now? How do you see companies existing beyond this period of time? Do they go back to the way they were? Or is this kind of an evolution of the way that we’re all gonna operate going forward now?

Ebony Smith (10:08):

So it’s interesting you say that. Another part of my work that I do along with helping people figure out the leadership skills that they need in a VUCA environment is to do something called foresight strategy. And foresight strategy really is about acknowledging that anything can be different in the future, and how do we begin to scenario plan those futures whether it be a negative future or a positive future set for the direction of where the company would like to go in three to five years? I would say for a lot of my clients, I’ve been asking them to collect the signals. Since day one of quarantine, I would say organizational life inside of companies have given them signals every day. The thing about a signal is you have to know what to do with it. It’s that story that you read in the newspaper and you go, huh, that’s interesting, but you don’t know what to do with it.

Ebony Smith (10:57):

Or maybe your company doesn’t have a mechanism to collect those signals. So that collectively as a leadership team, you can begin to review them. So you can create policy around future trends that may come up from the signals that you saw very early on. For a lot of my clients, when we went into quarantine season, I said, you need to collect the signals. This needs to become something that you’re discussing every week, so that you can begin to make dynamic shifts in your organization that will meet the needs of the organization. Getting back to your longer-term question. I think we go into an endemic response. This becomes something that we live with. And so some companies have already faced that because they’ve said like, Oh, we’re going to, everybody’s gonna work at home until July 2021. I think others will need to get out of that crisis survival response and say, our recovery response will look like an endemic response and this is now permanently shifted how we operate as an organization.

Jon Tota (11:49):

Hey, listeners, Jon Tota here. As businesses everywhere are struggling with the new normal of hiring and training new employees virtually, do you know if your company’s on-boarding program is setting up your employees for success? It’s more important than ever right now when new people are joining your company and learning your culture while operating almost entirely from remote locations. Elearning Brothers has the answer for you in their brand new virtual onboarding handbook. Download a checklist to see how well your onboarding program stacks up. Then read the free handbook that covers the four pillars of on-boarding and includes a sample template for a fully virtual on-boarding program. Visit learninglifeshow.com/ELB to download your free checklist and handbook today. Provided by eLearning Brothers – the industry leading provider of eLearning solutions. Elearning Brothers has everything you need to launch your own virtual on-boarding program to keep your business scaling and culture growing during these challenging times. Get your free handbook today at learninglifeshow.com/ELB. Now back to our show.

Jon Tota (12:50):

I think the role of leaders has evolved so much. And I know one of the things that you’re really passionate about is particularly in these VUCA situations, really helping companies or organizations develop leaders to be more like coaches. So tell us a little bit about that and is that one of your solutions for how you can operate or make this transition as a leader, running a remote team that you may not see in the office, you know, more than a couple of times a year and potentially going forward now?

Ebony Smith (13:24):

Yeah, definitely. So I would say one of the things I noticed after I became a coach and working with people is that I realized in order for companies really to change, you can hire lots of coaches, but you really need to institute a coaching culture. And so that’s why I developed my coaching school, the Ebenum Leadership Academy, which is created around using coaching skills to create better leaders inside of organizations, using design thinking and UX methodology. I really believe that learning gets better with iteration. And so for leaders they’ll need to shift how they build better relationships with the people who matter most. So whether it’s with your employees, your clients, your peers, this will really become a relationship building game. And if you have relied on, as a leader, the ability to walk past somebody’s desk or to be at a conference with them in order to get the relationship going, this is where the nuance of having the exact skills you need in order to thrive really comes into play. For introverts, they’re great at, you know, building one-on-one relationships remotely. For extroverts, I think for them, it’s going to be a little bit harder of a lesson because they actually get their energy from being around people. And so for a lot of my clients who prefer extroversion, they really are . Are having an adjustment. Introverts are living their best lives and extroverts are figuring out how do I get the same impact that I’ve always had without actually being in the room? And this is where training comes into play.

Jon Tota (14:51):

Yeah, that’s so interesting. I hadn’t actually even thought about it from that perspective as introverts and extroverts because you’re right, like this virtual format becomes predominantly one-on-one in, because you’re not forced to do things in large group situations as much. So introverted leaders are really made for this time and this format that, that we’re, that we’re operating in. What are some of the things? When you’re dealing with someone who is extroverted, who kind of leads in that way, where they thrive on the community and the kind of that tribe mentality that they can develop inside of their physical location, how do you help them deal with this new reality that we’re living with and working with?

Ebony Smith (15:35):

I think that they actually have to be a lot more intentional than they would have been. And so where the desk time dropped by just as impossible, they’re going to need to schedule out the meetings, the activities, the engagements that they have with their teams. Typically they’ve hired a team of extroverts like themselves. And so to keep that team motivated and going, and they’re also going to have to figure out what other skills that they can use to bring some of their other qualities that may not be as dominant in their leadership style to the forefront so they can develop those and still continues to thrive.

Jon Tota (16:08):

It’s interesting. And for just to cover both sides of the equation for the introverted leaders, what would you say for them? What would be some best practices or things that they could develop and thrive on in this new world?

Ebony Smith (16:23):

It’s the exact same thing. Introverts thrive on being with themselves. So they also have to make a concentrated effort to reach out and join groups and forums and company happy hours and start social media campaigns on their internal yammers. All of those things are about what builds connectivity. There’s basically four things you need, you need frequency, duration, intensity, and proximity. All of those things can artificially be created in order to build a great relationship, whether you’re trying to find a spouse or you’re trying to build a team. So if you put some equal effort into those four categories, you’re going to get better results.

Jon Tota (17:01):

Right. Right. And I know too, because I get a little bit of the zoom fatigue after days of video calls that I used to probably would just bump into people in the hallway and have this conversations and now you have to schedule them. But now, so the other side of the coin, this extended life of balancing your family life, homeschooling slash remote learning and your work in this format, that’s about as uncertain and potentially volatile as a situation can geet, other than the oil and gas industry, right? But what are you, how are you helping people with the personal side of this, how they deal with this at home and even the uncertainty of schooling?

Ebony Smith (17:44):

I would say that, you know, one in order to pour into somebody else, including your family members and your co-workers and team members, you first have to pour into yourself. So I first with every client, we always start off with how you’re taking care of yourself? Like, what is your self-care resilience practice look like? And resilience and self-care is like hygiene. The shower you took yesterday does not work for you today. So telling me that you run twice a week to get out, and that helps your mindset does not work. Even in a normalized situation. It is one of those things. And I, I tell my clients, I’m like, look, when we first start off, I have a 5% methodology. You have to invest 5% of your day in yourself in order for you to be able to show up for the people you care about and to get the goals and tasks that you’re looking for done.

Ebony Smith (18:27):

So there are 1,440 minutes in a day that looks like 72 minutes, and this is irrespective of nutrition or hygiene. You need to figure out how you can give yourself a 5% investment in your own personal care and resilience. So it can be things like taking a walk, doing a mindfulness walk when you take your dog out, picking a color before you walk out the door and just looking for that color; not listening to a podcast, not talking to a friend, not being on a zoom audio call, just really focusing in on I’m going to be present in this moment. It could also be something a little bit more complex, like meditating, or doing mindful cooking or deciding you’re going to deep dive into some learning that you really love, but it’s not core to your job or how your family chooses to show up. But you’re going to put about a half an hour into that. It can show up in a bunch of different ways, but it should be something that’s done daily. And 5% is the starting point.

Jon Tota (19:17):

Got it. Got it. I think that’s great. And 5% of your waking time or of 24 hours.

Ebony Smith (19:24):

24 hours.

Jon Tota (19:25):

Okay. All right. That should be achievable. Shouldn’t be too hard. But totally present. Meditation’s okay, exercise, but not listening to audio books, podcasts?

Ebony Smith (19:37):

No, it totally. That could, if that’s a way that somebody wants to relax and I listened to podcasts on my morning walk.

Jon Tota (19:42):

Right.

Ebony Smith (19:43):

But I’m present in that walk and I’m present on a podcast and I’m not trying to do, you know, 50 11 different things while I’m in the process of doing some deep learning and getting a bit of exercise in. And so it’s really about saying, Hey, I’m going to go out. This is my time. Mine is a 6:30 AM walk. I go out for it; I walk for about three and a half miles, and then I’m back home in about an hour. And it’s a great way for me to kind of one get some some exercise. Two, there is the Japanese practice of tree bathing. So I’m walking under enough trees to hit the research number that it has an impact on your day. So just these kind of little things that we can build in, help us build a better life for ourselves. And in the end, that’s how we want to show up is to live life a little bit better each day. We’re all not competing against each other. We’re competing against ourselves from yesterday.

Jon Tota (20:31):

5% should be on, you know, for yourself. Are you recommending to people that you’re working with to try and create some stable routine in your life to help have something that you can kind of adhere to in these types of times?

Ebony Smith (20:45):

Yes. I mean the whole reason when you’re tabletop drilling for a crisis situation is that you want to establish a routine. A lot of times, I, this is the analogy I use. I always know I’m going to bake a cake. I just don’t know what kind of cake I’m going to bake that day. So it could be a cheesecake, could be a chocolate chip cake, could be all butter pound cake. If you know, with the routine that you set your day up with that you’re going to get up and you’re going to make something and you have the same wake up time. And you have, you know, these kind of markers that pass your day, that you know, that things are going well. That level of routine with some buffer blocks inside for the unexpected to happen will begin to set you up for success.

Jon Tota (21:22):

That’s great. Such good advice. I love everything you’re talking about, particularly with what we’re all going through now. Tell me a little bit for our audience who wants to know more about you and where they can kind of learn and develop their own skill sets in these areas. I know you have a bunch of online resources, what’s the best place for people to go and what should they be

Ebony Smith (21:42):

You’re looking for? So I would go to my website, it’s EbenumEquation.com Ebenum just, if you’re wondering where the name came from, I needed a clean trademark- it’s Ebony in Latin. And I was able to get that with using ebenum. And if you go to leadership solutions under that tab, there’s a lot of different learning opportunities and then also a list of services that we provide. It’s been a great experience really to help do strategic thought partnership with people that are, you know, changing the world.

Jon Tota (22:13):

Awesome. That’s awesome. And you have an online academy, correct? Or, or is it remote? How’s it, how’s it delivered?

Ebony Smith (22:18):

It’s a virtual leadership coach training program. And sowe were in person for, I would say, 30% of it. And now we will be for this next cohort, a hundred percent virtual. And so that is the Ebenum Leadership Academy. It’s ebenumleadership.com, if anybody is interested in getting more information. And it’s a 77 hour ICF approved coach training program; it was designed for leaders in organizations to bring that coaching skill and methodology throughout their management style.

Jon Tota (22:49):

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Ebenumleadership.Com, right?

Ebony Smith (22:53):

Ebenum leadership.com. Yeah.

New Speaker (22:55):

Just Ebenum Leadership.com. And we’ll put, we’ll put that in the show notes for all of our listeners, so you can check it out. Ebony, thank you so much for taking the time. I know that you’re very busy right now because everybody is probably really trying to figure out how to deal with what’s going on and you’re probably in great demand. So thank you for making the time to be here with us.

Ebony Smith (23:15):

Thank you so much. I have appreciated the time with your audience

Jon Tota (23:18):

And for all our listeners. Thank you for being here. As you know, we have a new episode that comes out every week, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, leave us comments. We’d love to hear from you. And until our next episode, Happy learning!

 

Categories
Podcasts

Episode 114: Vulnerable Leadership with Scott Miller

Scott Miller Learning Life Podcast
Scott Miller on Learning Life with Jon Tota - Vulnerable Leadership
Scott Miller Learning Life Podcast


Scott Miller is Franklin Covey’s executive vice president of thought leadership and the best-selling author of “Management Mess to Leadership Success,” which is the first book in the multi-volume series of the Mess to Success series. He’s also the co-author of another recent bestseller: Everyone Deserves a Great Manager. Scott is the host of the highest subscribed-to weekly leadership podcast show on the air right now, Franklin Covey On Leadership with Scott Miller podcast show. In this episode Scott talks with Jon about vulnerable leadership, finding your smallest viable market, and his drive to be a thought leader.

Listen to Scott’s podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/franklincovey-on-leadership-with-scott-miller/id1391164389

Read Scott’s books:
https://managementmess.com/
https://everyonedeservesagreatmanager.com/

Check out this episode!

Jon Tota (00:00):

Hey, listeners, Jon Tota here. As businesses everywhere are struggling with the new normal of hiring and training new employees virtually, do you know if your company’s on-boarding program is setting up your employees for success? It’s more important than ever right now when new people are joining your company and learning your culture while operating almost entirely from remote locations. eLearning Brothers has the answer for you in their brand new virtual onboarding handbook. Download a checklist to see how well your onboarding program stacks up. Then read the free handbook that covers the four pillars of on-boarding and includes a sample template for a fully virtual on-boarding program. Visit learninglifeshow.com/ELB to download your free checklist and handbook today. Provided by eLearning Brothers – the industry leading provider of eLearning solutions. eLearning Brothers has everything you need to launch your own virtual on-boarding program to keep your business scaling and culture growing during these challenging times. Get your free handbook today at learninglifeshow.com/ELB. Now back to our show.

Scott Miller (01:01):

As the leader, be the light, be the model. Don’t be the judge. Don’t be the critic. Set the example that you learn more from your messes than your successes, and use them as teaching points.

Intro (01:14):

Welcome to Learning Life, where top experts share their business knowledge and personal journeys each week. “And the thing that I realized from the CEO to the NFL football player, to the janitor – we’re our toughest critics, and we’re hardest on ourselves.” – James Lawrence And wanted to bring education to the market. I wake up in the morning and I am constantly learning.” “The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story” – Cal Fussman. Happy learning. And now your host, Jon Tota.

Jon Tota (01:42):

Welcome to another episode of Learning Life with Jon Tota. My guest today is Scott Miller. Scott is Franklin Covey’s executive vice president of thought leadership; the best-selling author of “Management Mess to Leadership Success,” which is the first book in the multi-volume series of the Mess to Success series. He’s also the coauthor of another recent bestseller: Everyone Deserves a Great Manager. Scott is the host of the hugely popular Franklin Covey On Leadership with Scott Miller podcast show, which is the highest subscribed-to weekly leadership podcast show on the air right now. I recently got connected with Scott and have become a huge fan of his work, both in the writing and on the podcast show on the show. He’s got a lineup of some of the biggest names in leadership today. Scott’s learning each week from icons in the industry like Jack Canfield and John Maxwell. So there’s just a ton we can learn from him. Let’s get into it. Scott Miller, welcome to Learning Life.

Scott Miller (02:30):

Jon, thank you for the invitation and the platform. Looking forward to it.

Jon Tota (02:34):

Like I said, in the intro, I love your show. I’ve been listening to it, you know, in preparation, I got turned on to it. You sent me your book and I’ve been looking at your writing and I love it. Tell us a little bit about your journey obviously to this role of the executive VP of thought leadership at Franklin Covey. I think that that term thought leader and thought leadership gets thrown out there a lot. What does it mean? And what does it mean to you and how did you get into that type of a career role?

Scott Miller (03:03):

So, Jon, I’ve been privileged to be an associate of the Franklin Covey company for 25 years. Started back in 1996, here in Utah, I’m originally from Florida. I worked for the Disney company in Orlando. They invited me to leave. There is a whole story there. You know, where does a 26 year old Catholic boy move to? Of course, Provo, Utah, where the priest and I were the only Catholics in the entire entire state. So I started with Franklin Covey 25 years ago, worked my way up in the organization from a frontline sales person- you know, carrying a quota every day, to becoming a sales leader, moved to London. I came back as the Chicago general manager, spent the first decade in sales; spent the last seven years as the company’s chief marketing officer and the executive vice president of business development. Then two years ago, I transitioned out of the CMO role and became the EVP of thought leadership as a named executive officer in the firm.

Scott Miller (03:56):

And I’ll tell you, I get that question a lot. This idea of thought leadership, it’s kind of overused. But let me tell you, I think, Jon, thought leadership is the new public relations. Gone are the days where big companies have PR staffs and they, you know, try to hunt down journalists or newsroom for press. There aren’t any newsrooms anymore to speak of. There aren’t any journalists; they’re all freelance now and they’re very specific on stories. So this idea of trying to get people to cover you is really kind of an uphill battle. So I think organizations like ours have taken a different approach. We’ve decided to become a little more expert on our own thought leadership, which is a nice way of saying, what is our expertise? What is our particular point of view on a topic and who should care about that?

Scott Miller (04:44):

So we very deliberately make sure that our expertise is in front of all of those people who should care about it. Chief learning officers, executive vice-presidents of human resources, chief human resource officers, business unit leaders that are responsible for the professional development and growth of their people. And so for us thought leadership covers columns and magazines, books, audios- We sold, you know, close to 50 million books over the course of our 25 titles- our podcast, our interviews, our webinars, all of that really creates the sound of our thought leadership. And so I lead that team for the company and I am according to some, one of those thought leaders, you kind of can’t call yourself a thought leader because then you’re not right. But if somebody else calls you a thought leader, then you’re okay. So I moved kind of from being the producer/ director behind the scenes the first 23 years of my career now to kind of moving from producer to actor, kind of more out front in terms of authoring, writing and speaking, and I’ve been hosting podcasts like you.

Jon Tota (05:47):

That’s so interesting because you know, I work with professional speakers all the time. And one of the things we’re always trying to work with them on is this topic of saying, okay, take yourself out of the starring role and try and be behind the scenes and produce the thought leadership without being the face of it. And you kind of did the opposite where you were the chief marketing officer, you were creating all the campaigns and the thought leadership strategies, and then kind of made this other move into kind of pivoting into the front role. How has that transition been? Has that been awkward for you? Has it been something that was totally natural? Like you’ve been wanting to be kind of the face of the thought leadership to some extent, or has that been something that’s been a challenge?

Scott Miller (06:29):

Jon, it’s a very insightful question because you can imagine the politics inside of any organization will be, you know, thick, right. So I had spent 23 years, like you just said, as the chief marketing officer building the brand and building the brands of a lot of people in our organization. You’d recognize an odd lot of these names. They become, you know, big influential consultants and bestselling authors. You know, I think there was a group of people in the company that was probably suspect of my motives. And I think there was a whole other group of champions, including the chief executive officer, the CEO and, and, and, um, chairman that saw my talent. You know, I, as the chief marketing officer, I had always been out speaking and giving keynotes, but not really as the face of the company. So I think there were a lot of naysayers, you know, I’ve got a group of people that are my detractors. I’m self-aware and I don’t try to manage them or win them over.

Scott Miller (07:21):

I focus more on the people, quite frankly, who matter to me- the board of directors, the executive team, the CEO, our investors, our clients, and so I kind of go where the love is. As anybody builds their brand, you’re going to have a lot of people that are jealous of you and that are intimidated by you. So I don’t spend a lot of my time playing to my detractors. I tend to play much more to my supporters, but I also have a group of confidants that can speak to me brutally about, you know, my speaking, my writing, my interviewing skills, how to approve him. So haters gonna hate. And so there are still people in the company that, you know, think I’m self-serving and you know what? I’m not going to convince them otherwise. So like I said, several times, I am confident in my skills. I’m not embarrassed for my hard earned talents. And as long as my mindset is about building value for others, giving back to others and adding value, I feel, I feel my conscious is clean and I sleep well at night.

Jon Tota (08:18):

It makes me think of, I was just listening to your show. And John Maxwell had in a recent episode- I think it was like last week’s episode- had a comment that what should matter the most is the people who are closest to you, that they love you and respect you and all the rest is not important.

Scott Miller (08:35):

That’s kind of, you know, it’s kind of genius. There’s a fine line between being cavalier and being a sycophant. But if you had to ask me at Franklin Covey, whose opinion I care most about, it’s the CEO. I mean, he and I are good friends, you know, kind of father-son. I clearly report to him. I serve at his pleasure, but he and the board are my chief constituency. And then second is the executive team- my group of peers. And so as long as I’m keeping them happy because they have the broadest view of the company strategy globally, I have to let go of those others that might be more suspect of my motive or talents.

Jon Tota (09:13):

Let’s talk about the book. I love the title “Management Mess to Leadership Success.” I think it’s just a cool concept and what you were sharing with me before we got on the air here is that now you’ve got a whole series of Mess to Success books coming. This is the first in that line. Tell us a little bit about the genesis of the Management Mess brand, essentially, now that you’re building. Where are you going with it and why are you so excited about it?

Scott Miller (09:39):

Yeah, thanks. This is the first book I published with Mango Publishing. It’s the fastest growing independent publisher in the nation out of Coral Gables, Florida. It became a number one Amazon bestseller for six solid weeks. I’ve gone on to sell 30,000+ copies in the first year. By some degree, you know, it isn’t large, but you know, a successful book for a publisher sells 5,000 books the first year. So I was quite pleased with the progress. I think the reason it did well, Jon is because it is different than a lot of leadership books. A lot of them are either too academic written by professors who in many cases may or may not have ever actually, you know, managed a PNL or met a payroll, not all of them, but some of them. And a lot of them are from the C-suite and a fortune 50. Bob Uyghurs book, it’s a masterful book, you know, I’m not going to be the CEO of Disney, even though I’m in the “C-suite” at this company. I wanted to write a different kind of leadership book.

Scott Miller (10:32):

One that was raw, real relatable. One that made it safe to talk about the underbelly of leadership. Cause you know, leadership is tough. It’s unrelenting. It can be unrewarding. I’ve heard some companies call it babysitting. Leadership is not for everyone. Not everyone should be a leader of people. And too often organizations promote the top individual producer. They become the leader and they, like me, flame out or they worse have a reign of terror. So I wanted to write a book that empirically said from Franklin Covey’s 40 years in business, here are 30 challenges that every leader is going to face. The book is called “Management Mess to Leadership Success: 30 Challenges to Become the Leader You Would Follow.” So I organize these 30 challenges across 30 days. I share this leadership principle. And then in most cases I share a fairly horrifying blush worthy example of how I failed at it.

Scott Miller (11:28):

What was my mess? And I share some learnings on how to avoid that. Don’t say this, say that. Don’t think this way, perhaps think that way. I mean, again, I’m an officer in the world’s most reputable leadership development company. That doesn’t mean I say everything right, clearly, or do everything right. Leadership is a journey. So the book did well, I think because it was relatable and it wasn’t all cleaned up and sterile. In fact to your question, it did so well the publisher signed me to a multi-volume series, you know, kind of like Chicken Soup for the Soul… Although not really because those books have sold 500 billion copies. I know that because I interviewed Jack Canfield, one of the coauthors. The next book is coming out in May of 2021, it’s called Marketing Mess to Brand Success: 30 Challenges to Build Your Organization’s and Your Own Brand.

Scott Miller (12:21):

And those 30 lessons are from my seven years as the chief marketing officer at Franklin Covey. The next book following that is Job Mess to Career Success. After 33 years and having nine different careers at Franklin Covey and two at the Disney company, I write about 30 insights on how to build your great career. Following Job Mess to Career Success will be Sales Mess, Communication Mess, Parenting Mess. There’ll be a whole series that comes out in the next seven years. I’m excited about it and I’m hoping it builds a brand, um, that adds value to a whole generation of people in their careers. And I’ve got other books in the pipeline. I’m writing a book for Harper Collins called Master Mentors. This is where I collected 40 of the most transformational insights from the first year of the podcast; that comes out next September.

Scott Miller (13:12):

That’ll be a volume every year. And Jon, you didn’t ask, but I just signed a deal with a publisher to write 85 books on different careers. So I’m actually partnering with 85 different authors on the most progressive in-demand careers- software developers, physician’s assistants, physicians, engineers, gamers, social media managers. Every book will be coauthored with an expert in that field. And I’m creating this massive volume of career books in the hopes to help people that are early on in their career between the ages of 20 and 35 that can really understand what is it like to have a job in this career? And is that the right job for me so that I don’t get into law school for a year and a half and then decide, I don’t want to be a lawyer. So long answer, but I’m very excited about the book pipeline coming out.

Jon Tota (14:02):

I love it. You’ve got so many great arms to the brand that you’re building. And one of the questions I have for you, one, you’ve got so much writing in the pipeline. Did you always see yourself as a writer or because this was your first book, is this new for you or have you been writing all along and just kind of getting ready for the release?

Scott Miller (14:25):

Not at all. So as the chief marketing officer, you can imagine I was responsible for a lot of writing; write press releases, web copy, brochure copy, ad copy, corporate brochure copy. But I was more of a corporate writer and more of an editor. Then about three years ago, our director of social media came to me and said, ‘Scott, Franklin Covey under your stewardship is really under leveraging social media.’ He reported to me. And he asked me if I would start writing a weekly blog on LinkedIn. So I did that when I wrote my first probably 50 blogs. And then through some inspiration from one of the podcast interviews, one of the interviewees said, you know, I didn’t write a book earlier because I had nothing to say. That was actually Stephen. M.R. Covey, Dr. Covey’s son. Stephen M.R. Covey wrote the highly influential book called The Speed of Trust.

Scott Miller (15:17):

It’s sold 2 million copies and I asked him, your dad was Stephen Covey, right? The author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the book sold 40 million copies. You share his name. Did you ever feel the need to write a book? And Stephen M.R. Covey said no, because I had nothing to say until I did. And then when I did, he, he said, I wrote The Speed of Trust. So I was sitting here in the studio and I thought, you know what? That makes so much sense. I’ve not had anything to say. And about three or four months passed. And I said, you know what, though? I do have something to say, I’ve had this amazing career journey, two steps forward, three steps back, total mess in most cases. But I want to share that because I really genuinely believe Jon, that vulnerability, vulnerability is a leadership competency.

Scott Miller (16:00):

People are done with these arrogant leaders, that lack humility, people are done with leaders. They can’t relate to, people want to be able to relate to their leader. So that was the inspiration for me to write this first book and share all my messes. And then a lot of people can’t believe that I shared this. I’m like, you know what? Everybody’s got a mess. By the way, everybody knows what your mess is. Whether you’re the CEO of a fortune 5,000 or you’re the CEO or president of a young upstart, everybody knows your mess. Come on, they’re talking about it. The receptionists, your funders, your fundraisers, the clients, people who work for you. They know you’re a mess. Just own it. Because as a leader, Jon, when you own your mess, you make it safe for others to own theirs. As the leader, be the light, be the model.

Scott Miller (16:55):

Don’t be the judge. Don’t be the critic. Set the example that you learn more from your messes than your successes and use them as teaching points. We have so many great stories of how our CEO, Bob Whitman, you know, fabulously, wealthy and successful, a Harvard MBA and climbed the Matterhorn, and you know, Kona’s iron man, more money than you could ever spend. The greatest lessons are not from those; it’s when he closes the door and says to me, Scott, let me tell you about this doozy. And so I hope that was a gift to the readers to say as a leader, embrace your messes and use them as teaching points. I think my leader, my writing styles improving, I don’t know that I was, you know, I don’t know that I was a Pulitzer worthy author or ever will be, but the book did win Book Pals Outstanding Work for Leadership award. In the leadership category, it beat out five great titles, including, General Mattis, you know, secretary of defense last year. So I think it’s a hit in certain segments. Not for everybody. It’s not War and Peace. It’s not Good to Great. It is what it is.

Jon Tota (17:54):

I just think your commitment to vulnerability and just that theme across everything you do. And it’s obvious in your writing. I think it’s awesome. And also, you know, I was just watching or reading an article, I think it’s Jeffrey Katzenberg with the Quibi failure. And they said we just needed to own it. And they gave him so much leadership respect for that, that they just owned it. They didn’t push it off on COVID or anything else that within six months they shut it down because you know, it’s just, it was a mobile play and no one’s mobile right now. And, and they owned it. I think the vulnerability aspect and the whole mess owning your mess and the way you’ve positioned is excellent. Tell me, because you’re a branding guy, a marketing guy at heart, and you’ve done a phenomenal job building this brand almost cause I was listening to the Jack Canfield interview, Chicken Soup for the Soul. And you kind of created your own brand in a way with the Mess to Success. Did you know that from the beginning? Was that something that just kind of evolved while you were writing? Or did you have that in your mind that you could extend this to all these different areas if it worked?

Scott Miller (18:57):

It was very deliberate. Can I take four minutes and share the story?

Jon Tota (19:01):

Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Miller (19:02):

So there’s a book called “How Will You Measure Your Life?” And it’s written by two friends of mine, actually three people, but Karen Dillon, who’s the former editor of the Harvard Business Review and her colleague Clayton Christiansen. Everyone knows Clayton Christianson, right? He passed about a year ago after a long illness. You know, one of the greatest innovation minds of our time, Harvard business professor. He wrote a book called “How Will You Measure Your Life?” And in this book, which I highly recommend to your listening audience, they take proven business principles and apply them to your personal life. The book again is called, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” One are the profound insights they share in this book, a third party research study, is that there was a longitudinal study that analyzed that 93% of all successful organizations that ultimately achieved “financial success”-

Scott Miller (19:52):

And I put financial success in air quotes- 93% of organizations that achieved financial success did so with an emergent strategy, not a deliberate strategy, meaning that the leaders achieved success with a different idea, not the original idea they set out with; that they exercise the humility and the confidence to listen to other people. It might’ve been, you know, the CEO whose idea did not work, but she was humble enough to listen to perhaps less educated, perhaps more junior, perhaps younger people than her. And they pivot it. Instead of the deliberate strategy, they pivoted and achieved success with an emergent strategy 93% of the time. So I took that to heart. And after I wrote “Management Mess to Leadership Success,” I thought it would be just a one book. It did well. I was pleased, ride that wave and I would write books.

Scott Miller (20:47):

But it actually was a very junior associate, a 23 year old college intern – His name is Drew Young and he looked at me one day and said, you know what? You ought to write a whole series. And he’d throw out like eight or 10 titles in this Mess to Success series written up. The publisher never thought of it. I never thought of it. It was a 23 year old budding genius named Drew Young, who stuck with me and will continue to build my brand and business for decades to come, I hope. He himself now is Amazon bestselling author. He wrote a, uh, a book that just came out around his own faith journey. Long story short, hopefully I exercise the humility to listen to this, you know, 23 year old MacGyver. Let me combine that with a different story. A year ago, there’s a woman named Rachel Hollis. You know who she is, Jon?

Jon Tota (21:39):

Sure. Yeah.

Scott Miller (21:40):

So she’s not known by many in the business world. Rachel Hollis is a phenom. To your listeners who don’t know who she is: listen carefully. There is a nugget here. Rachel Hollis wrote two books a year ago. One called Girl, Wash Your Face and another called Girl, Stop Apologizing. These books sold more books than anybody else in America last year. Second, only to Michelle Obama. Collectively close to 10 million copies. Insane! Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing. She has one of the largest podcasts in the nation. She runs $150,000 for a speech. I mean, her brand exploded overnight, but actually it didn’t because for 15 years, Rachel started as a small caterer event planner in California; she became a fairly booked caterer. She then started a blog; blogged on kind of mother issues, house issues, cooking issues, issues that resonated with women and built this massive social following because her first six books did not sell.

Scott Miller (22:48):

It was their seventh and eight books that hit. So people might think that Rachel Hollis was, was a, you know, kind of a one hit wonder last year. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Rachel toiled for 15 years building her brand that very few people publicly knew. And now she’s the biggest name in book publishing. And has these events where 7,000 people pay $600 to come to you. I know because I was invited last year at one of her Rise events. Everybody- go Google, Rachel Hollis. There is no brand built in my opinion, in the last 50 years like this woman has built. A) because she built it over time and no one saw her. And secondly, she’s insanely focused on what Seth Goden, who also was a good friend of mine and endorsed my book, calls your smallest viable market, your smallest viable market.

Scott Miller (23:42):

Not what is the largest market? What is the smallest market of people that need to know who you are and buy your books, buy your services, subscribe to your podcast. And Rachel does it better than anybody I’ve ever met in my life. She calls her constituency her, h.e.r. She’ll say I’m in conversation with HER. I’m in business with HER. She knows that, Jon, you and I are not her market. And she is fiercely focused on understanding the joys, the fears, the passions, the struggles that her market is in and she’s tapped into it like no one I’ve seen. So let me, let me just wrap that up to say for all of your listeners, if you want to build a brand that is incomparable, you have to build it over time, but you will become obsessed with your smallest viable market. Seth Godin’s last book is called. This is marketing. It is a masterpiece and you have to read the chapter on smallest viable market because it’s counterintuitive. It’s frustrating and it’s limiting, but it’s genius. And Rachel really inspired me to get really clear, and I’m still working on it, on who is my market because it’s not the world. That’s a, cop-out, that’s lazy. It takes enormous discipline focus to say no everybody else and get insanely disciplined on your smallest viable market.

Jon Tota (25:05):

That probably the best advice that you could share with our audience, because I know it too, is that as you’re growing your own audience, whether it’s a podcast show, a YouTube channel, you’re writing- you can’t please everyone. I listened to that Rachel Hollis interview that you had on your show and it did, it opened my eyes to it. It was because my wife’s a follower of hers. She’s in that cohort that really follows everything she does; and Gretchen Rubin, she does a similar thing. But I hadn’t known, I was kind of thinking she was an overnight hit like that. But then in your interview with her, I was like, Oh, she’s been a writer all along. She’s been cultivating this tribe of hers that will follow her and listen to, or read whatever she puts out there. And I think it’s great advice because it’s easy to get discouraged for people who think their audience isn’t growing fast enough or their brand isn’t getting big enough or reaching enough people. But what’s your advice? You interview a ton of people that have done this well. Any other advice or lessons that you’ve learned along the way for people who are trying to just stay inspired, stay focused when their tribe may only be 50 followers or a hundred followers, and they’re still at the early stage of it.

Scott Miller (26:18):

I would. Wet me repeat. I have been privileged to become a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. I’ve hosted a radio program on iHeart radio. I now am privileged to host the world’s largest leadership podcast. It’s insane, but I’ve learned so much from Rachel Hollis. Study her journey. Let me tell ya. I’ve learned just as much from Seth Godin. Seth Godin, for 11 years, has written a daily blog. If you’re not subscribing to Seth Godin’s daily blog, it comes out on the RSS feed and it comes out in a text, it comes out in an email. You can consume it however you want to. 11 years without missing a day. Let me repeat that. Seth Godin, arguably, one of the biggest names in marketing, leadership, and business, right? He’s an iconoclast 11 years, every day, hasn’t missed a beat on a piercingly insightful blog.

Scott Miller (27:15):

So do yourself a favor and subscribe to his blog, but take lessons from these people that now are earning $150,000 for a speech. They sell a million books the first month. They’ve earned that the old fashioned way, right? They’ve not bought fake Instagram followers. They’re not subscribed to boosts for their LinkedIn. You’re not whoring yourself out. No offense intended. They’re extremely deliberate with their band brand. They recognize that iconic brands take time and deliberation. They make themselves extraordinarily accessible. I’ll email Seth Godin and have an email back from him in 10 minutes. Who am I? Some guy in Salt Lake City. Rachel Hollis will email you back in an hour because they know who brought them to the dance, right. They know where their bread is buttered, so to speak. So take your advice, take your lead from Seth Godin. Took him, you know what, 20 years. Seth Godin started to quote him as some kind of geeky Jewish boy from New York City writing a gaming magazine, like, you know, for gamers.

Scott Miller (28:23):

And then he went to Stanford and then he worked for, I think Yahoo. He kind of invented email marketing. And now the guy is untouchable in terms of his stature, right? But yet he still takes my phone calls and emails because he’s so abundant, so generous, but he’s deliberate. He says no to 95% of the things I pitched to him. He has no problem saying no to me because he’s fiercely deliberate on what his priorities are, where he’s adding value, where his tribe is. And after 11 years, he’s still writing the daily blog. There’s a lot to learn from him, right? It’s going to take you time. There’s a ton of competition, but you’ll find your niche. You won’t find it if you try to be all things to all people. But you will find it if your niche is upstart entrepreneurs under the age of 30 right or Latino women who are looking to build, you know, catering businesses. I mean, whatever it is, right? The brand and the market is only going to explode. Take the discipline, really passionately decide what is your smallest viable market and add value every day, every week, every month, every year, and you are destined to hit success.

Jon Tota (29:37):

It’s excellent advice. And I will note that you noted just in succession here, three of your challenges. I think the first three: demonstrate humility, think abundantly, and listen first in this interview. So for everyone, if you haven’t gotten the book already “Management Mess to Leadership Success.” Obviously just in this interview alone, you’ve referenced the first three challenges and, and ways to overcome them. And even the ways you’ve implemented them like listening to Drew. Awesome advice across the board. We could talk probably for hours about all of your experience. So we’ll, we’ll definitely have to have you back on when the next one of your books comes out. When is the next Mess to Success book scheduled to release?

Scott Miller (30:21):

Thanks for asking. So I think it’s May 11th, 2021. The book is available now for pre-order on amazon.com. It’s called “Marketing Mess to Brand Success: 30 Challenges to Build Your Organizations and Your Own Brand.” Uh, I think it’s my best book yet. The reviewers that have read it already have said it’s my best book. It shares 30 challenges from my own marketing experience. Most people think it’s a leadership book. It’s really a marketing book. But if you’re in sales or sales leadership, or you have marketing responsibility, or you have people who work for you, it really talks about how marketing and sales need to work together. And a lot of lessons some successes, but a lot of messes as well. I’m proud of the book and it’s on Amazon now for pre-order comes out May 11th.

Jon Tota (31:05):

Awesome. I’m excited to read it. And, and for everybody who’s listening, you can check out, uh, I think it’s managementmess.com, right? Is that the URL where they can find out about the book and learn more about you?

Scott Miller (31:17):

True. Or they also can go to Scott Jeffrey Miller dot com. That’s my website site, ScottJeffreyMiller.com.

Jon Tota (31:25):

Very cool. And also I think on LinkedIn, cause you seem to be putting a lot of content out in a lot of places. Is LinkedIn a good place for people to follow you?

Scott Miller (31:33):

You can follow me on any platform, but LinkedIn is probably my main platform. I’d be honored if you wanted to connect to me or perhaps even follow me on LinkedIn.

Jon Tota (31:41):

Very cool. I cannot recommend your podcast show enough – On Leadership with Scott Miller, subscribe to it wherever you’re listening right now, check it out. If you like this show, you will like Scott show even more. I’ve listened to four or five episodes just in the last week or so, and I loved everyone. So great work with that too. I think it’s a super show.

Scott Miller (32:03):

Jon, thank you for your abundance. Thank you for giving me the platform to share some of my initiatives. If I can help you out at all, please reach out to me. You’re a class act.

Jon Tota (32:10):

Awesome. Well, thank you Scott, for being here with us today, it’s been a joy having you.

Scott Miller (32:15):

Stay safe.

Jon Tota (32:16):

And to all of our listeners- Thank you for being here every week. As you know, we have a new episode that comes out every Tuesday, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, leave us comments. We’d love to hear from all of you and until our next episode, Happy Learning!