Ep 162 - "Trump, DOGE & Hitler"

0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Amigo, how are you doing? How's it going? So this is an interesting episode, right? Because it's snow day here in Oregon. Literally, I've got a bit of a ice hill that it would require chains probably just to even get down the hill right now, which is kind of funny.

0:42 And I'm recording this from the island in my kitchen in Corvallis, Oregon. Yeah, yeah, funny. It's the mountain ground. Yeah. So anyways, we don't normally record this way, but hopefully it's 90% there. For those of you who are brand new, we have a lot of new listeners that have been coming to the podcast. I just actually got a message the other day from somebody who said, Hey, I shared one of your podcasts with our CEO. I was like, which one? What did you feel like they needed to hear? They came back and it was something about accountability. So I'm not sure what message they were trying to send to their CEO. But if you're that CEO, yeah, what is this all about? Who are we? For the uninitiated, this is the Founders Podcast, Head, Heart & Boots, for Floodlight Consulting Group.

1:23 We are a full-service consulting company. We partner with restorers that want to grow and scale their companies and create a ton of enterprise value along the way. That's what we do. And we work with restorers from zero to... Right now, I think our biggest client is on track to probably do $60 million this year. Folks that are venture-backed, CEO with PE money, doing roll-ups to the mom and pop family-based company that's been working in the family for 10 years. So we kind of cover the gamut. But we're a strategic partner that's tailored consult. that helps people get to where they're trying to get with their business. If you want more information on that, you just go to floodlightgrp.com and we got all kinds of intel there, including some customer testimonials and whatnot.

2:06 Oh, I know, man. Where do we want to go, bro? I've got something in my head and you know how we do it. Like, it feels like we start wrestling with stuff. It's been kind of the MO, right? That it eventually makes its way to the show in some shape or form. And... I've got some emotional, physical responses to some of the things happening around me. And inevitably, when that happens, I begin to kind of go through this thought process. You know, you and I both do this. This is where a lot of our conversations come from. What is true about this in my world? Where do we see this showing up in our business? Where do we see this showing up in our client's business?

2:47 Like what's the application? I'm having to think that I'm experiencing. And then... Are we talking about Doge and Hitler and USAID? Is this where we're headed, bro? Is this a little bit of what's instigating this? That's what's fueling, right? I think anybody that's got a social media platform of any kind that they participate in, I think for years, right? But it's just become so explosive. We have all these things pouring in. And at first, my initial response to that is I pick my side. I have my perspective. I have the things that I latch on to. But underneath all of that, there is a part of me that recognizes some root experiences, perspectives, or maybe fuelers that are present right now in our political environment that are very similar to what happens inside our organizations today.

3:43 When we determine that change is necessary, of course, what do we do? Our firm, we're a consulting firm. And so we inevitably have all these kinds of relationships that we're surrounded by, where as a consulting partner, our consultants are walking side by side with business leaders and their teams through, in most cases, very substantial change. It's been hard for me to act as if that's completely different than ultimately some of these things that we're seeing in the political environment around us right now. I think to your point, and I think the underlying thing that all of us are seeing that's kind of provoked this conversation is, I think like you and I, we're both feeling the same way.

4:27 I've been stalked by the level of emotion and drama that's been ensuing within our political system and showing up in the socials. Like for me, I'm primarily a Facebook and LinkedIn guy and occasionally Instagram. It's less so with LinkedIn for obvious reasons, but Facebook and Instagram, it's just unbelievable to me how visceral of a reaction. And I think right now it is. It seems to be kind of drawn across party lines, like the way people are talking about it publicly, like the conservatives are, Yeah, Musk. Yeah, Trump. You know, break up the establishment and this corruption and da-da-da-da-da.

5:11 And then on the far left, it's like fear, anxiety, concern, vitriol. There's like the Hitler association with Musk. And also fear and concern about the complete removal of social safety nets and all these things that they view as having a really important place in kind of our society and the way our quality of life in the United States and taking care of the least of these and all of that kind of stuff. And it's just this incredible. incredibly polarized conversation that's happening. And I think the other thing that's been a little bit of anxiety producing for me, and there's part of me that wants to comment when I see these things show up in my feed.

5:52 And what's kept me from saying anything about it is that it feels like there's a lot of this labeling That's just continuing to happen in our culture. And it was all through COVID. There's this instinct on both sides to label the other as fundamentally this. If you say this or you believe this, it also means this, this, this, this, this, this, about you. And the same for the other side. I actually am, I think most of my friends, and including you, it acknowledges too, like I have some things that I believe and think that others would think is very conservative. And then I have other things that I think and believe and are part of my life that people be like, what a liberal.

6:36 And it's like, I think actually more and more, most people are that way. It's like, well, tell me the topic and I'll tell you if I'm conservative or liberal. And yet in the socials and what people say out loud, it's like incredibly emotional and polarizing. Because I think there's nothing rational about this. It's like people have this emotional thing that's stirring them up. And I don't know, man, it's very anxiety producing. It's so much so that... while I'm still looking at social media, I can actually feel myself getting either angry or anxious every time I scroll through my feed right now. Yeah, and it's true.

7:16 And I think I have a fairly conservative background. I'm ex-military. I certainly have experiences and things that drive my opinions and those things that I feel strongly about. But what I've tried to do right now, and I think that this is kind of where my mind started to spin up a little bit about a potential show, was regardless of where you are in the process, regardless of the side of the table, the side of the aisle, however you want to say it, there's these things that happen under change.

8:00 are great and really lend themselves to supporting positive action, positive mindset changes, all the things. But then there's these really raw emotions that also rear their head at these times where it's fear, it's hunkering down, it creates defensiveness, it creates this closing off and And I think it was that those truths, right, again, right, wrong or indifferent, this is not a political conversation, but it's just when you watch those things happen live and you experience your own reaction to them, I think it's feasible for us to look at that and say, again, right, wrong or indifferent.

8:40 These are crews that happen under the pressure of big change. Inevitably, these things are going to happen. And again, some of it's fear. Some of it is excitement. Some of it is immediate alignment. Some of it is immediate defensiveness and closing off. And I think as I continue to process through some of our client relationships, some of the clients that have made just these unbelievably profound movements in their business, there's been a theme that there has always been some friction around. And that is the emotional, mental responses of all the people in the organization to that change that's coming.

9:22 And again, you got it. People that immediately lock and load and get into alignment with the change based on their perspectives, right, and place in the business. And then you have others that it scares them and that that fear begins to drive certain behaviors. And so I had three questions come to mind as I was chewing on this. And I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for us to kind of dig in to this as part of this show. And maybe I could quote this or not quote this, but table this with the intent that when we ask these questions and think about this in our own organization, the ultimate outcome that we're looking for is positive movement and change in the organization.

10:06 I want us to come to some definition or agreement on the definition of the outcome that I would be looking for. And my personal perspective is asking myself, asking teams these questions with the intent that we can create alignment, that we can create positive forward motion and movement for the company and all those participating in the mission in front of us. And the first one is how do we tear down old ways of thinking? How do we tear that down again, though, in light of or with the ultimate outcome that is part of that tearing down process? We end up in a place where there's this positive change, positive movement, positive opportunity for us as individuals.

10:49 Right. But how do we think about how we tear down old ways of thinking so that we are open to and capable of hearing the change, hearing the motivation behind the change and contributing in a meaningful way? How do we learn that in the face of change, is there a way for us to more consistently create an environment, influence our environment that we can set aside fear in the face of the change? And then my third one is, and maybe this is kind of the how almost to a certain extent, but how do we create trust within the team during these big changes?

11:30 And again, I think it's very easy for us to think about parallels with what's happening politically right now, where people are saying there is transparency, people saying there's not enough transparency. Well, either way, you know what that tells me? transparency is one of the things that we require in order for us to make some of these shifts, right? Big shifts in an organization and not be stuck in old ways of thinking, not be afraid and defensed up because of fears. That's where my head has been going with this kind of parallel, right? To the political environment that is absolutely present in everybody's socials. How do we think about this in our own company? Because we've gone through it, right, Chris?

12:12 Yeah. Even the iterations in our business were in context. They were big enough based on the size and number of people and age of relationships inside our company. that they created these things in our team too. We had moments of fear. We had moments of just not being able to get past our old way of thinking, and it created friction and dysfunction. And I think we were asking ourselves the question over the last 18 months, as we make these big sweeping changes, how can we continue to earn trust and get the team to go with us as we make these changes that are better for the team? Yeah, it reminds me of so many past experiences of change that you and I have participated in together and or led.

12:56 Going back to kind of our original analogy, this whole political thing that's happening and the new administration and all this kind of stuff. The one thing I would say that I don't think is partisan at all, really, is just as a leader, looking at other leaders, I think one of the key flaws of this administration thus far in how they've been going about the change management is that I think you could make a very easy case in saying there could have been a more constructive way of leading the parties involved into this change initiative now. with more of an effort to gain buy-in around the why and the what, to where you could have addressed some of the fear, anxiety, and concern on the front end by simply engaging more in gaining buy-in before the initiative.

13:51 And we've seen this so many times in companies, so many leaders, and I've been guilty of this many times, where it's like you see this critically important change that needs to be made. There's no bones about it. This change has to happen. And I have just arbitrarily ushered the change in, in one fell swoop. I did this in my state farm agency. I could give a couple examples with my small team of five, six employees, where it was really poorly executed and poorly received because I had no buy-in. The others weren't part of the decision. They weren't convicted about the need for the change the way I was because I didn't give any time, effort, or energy to consider how is this going to land with my people?

14:35 Do they agree with me on the necessity for change? Are there aspects of the change that I don't even understand that my team may be able to help illuminate for me? Are there consequences to us making this change that I may not even be aware of that are mostly going to fall on my team as opposed to me? It's like there's all these things that, in hindsight, I look back over my career when I've screwed this up. And it's been more than what I can count on my hands. When I think about it, those were the things that I failed to really give consideration and planning to is, okay, what do I not know about this problem? And then what do I not completely understand or have I not accounted for when it comes to the impact this change is going to have on my team, both short-term and long-term?

15:23 What is the perceived impact to them personally, maybe in terms of workload, maybe in terms of their own income or their own job security, perceived or otherwise? Even though I may have no intention in making this change of eliminating roles on my team, as an example, I'm not. Is it possible that other people, it's going to strike fear in them that their job is on the line? That I even bother to really think through the unintended consequences of this change that I see as so mission critical. And maybe it is. But it's like if looking back on those moments, how much different would the outcome have been if I had met with my team, say one-on-one, and told them what I was thinking and communicated and ask them, do you agree?

16:11 From my perspective, it seems like if we don't make this change, it's going to have a really severe detrimental effect on us in this period of time or in this way. What do you make of that? What's your perception of that problem in our business? Do you agree that's a big deal? Or do you think potentially I'm blowing this out of proportion and why? If I had laid that groundwork... Stances are very good unless I'm a total dumb-dumb. And I have been that at a couple intervals. I was focused on the wrong thing or I was making a bigger deal out of something. But it's like most of the time, I think most leaders are pretty intuitive about what's going on in their business.

16:52 But I think if I had taken that path, I think most of the time my team would have been like, hell yeah, we got to do something about that. And they probably would have had some insight for me of things, hey, but what about this? Does that mean we're not going to get bonuses anymore? Is our salaries going to get reduced? Does this mean that you're going to fire so-and-so? Like all of that stuff could have been teased out before the decision and everything was rolled out to avoid probably 90% of the drama. I think just this kind of parallel where you're going with that is, And almost a disclaimer of, we're not saying that when someone or part of the process or the system is bad, like it doesn't fit, it doesn't align with the bigger mission.

17:35 It's not an appropriate fit inside your organization that those aren't truths that you need to deal with. Let's just set those aside for the sake of clarity. Like we have system misfits in our companies. And at the end of the day, there's just employees, let's say team members that they don't align with kind of the fundamental things that drive the organization. And that's not good or bad. It just is. And it means that they're not an appropriate fit for our particular team. Let's just set that group aside, though, because that's not who we're talking about. I think this element of we have these chemical responses that at many times we aren't very conscientious of, conscious of, they're just driving our behavior.

18:17 Like I've seen so many times changes in businesses where my employees or my team members, employees that we're working with, the fear that they have about the change is absolutely unwarranted. Like there's no real data or facts that support their fear. And it could be true that behind the scenes, that all the strategic planning and conversations you've had with your coach, your leadership team, your consultant, that it's really clear you're a stand-up man or woman. And all of these changes are actually to the benefit of your employee base. And as true as all those things are, it still does not remove the fact that our people will have a moment of fear.

19:02 in response to inevitable change. And I think that what you're highlighting is, is that it's so important or we have the opportunity, probably more so than we remember or proactively engage in. We do have plenty of opportunity to identify that elephant in the room for that individual and help them more responsibly, maybe think through that fear, unpack it a little bit with them. But I think unless we ask, we don't even really know what it is about the fear, about the unknown for them that's creating the anxiety, creating the friction, the stress, the lack of their ability to get into alignment and be in a positive response to what we're trying to accomplish.

19:48 And it's like, to some extent, it's not their fault. We just as adults think about in our own worlds, the things that create fear for us. Like my fear is not fear of the dark. It's not weapons. But I have fears. Let's just be raw. Like I have fears around not being respected, about not being understood correctly. Being misunderstood. Yeah. I hate that. principally it is a real driver for me creates anxiety in me. If I think that an audience or a person or someone is misunderstanding where I'm coming from. Right. You think the wrong thing about you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Same labels and do all the things that they're going to do.

20:28 Right. I can have unrealistic moments of fear. There's no data that supports it. There's no facts that support it. But I can be in exchange or experience something that puts me on my heels because this fear thing chips in. And I think that's what we're talking about. Again, this is not a left side, right side conversation. It's our people are going to be faced with fear when we change our organization. And that fear can often create an unrealistic response, an out of context response, even when what we are proposing or saying or showing from the front of the room, none of that should be creating fear.

21:12 But that fear exists in place of it anyways. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, you and I, we gave a keynote two years ago at the Collected by Core. And this was actually, it's funny, the intersection here, because I think it's really applicable, right? We were talking about What's-His-Faces illustration at the Global Leadership Summit, Bill Hybels. I was just talking about this dynamic inside all of us where our present-day behaviors, so we really are unconscious behaviors and reactions to, to present day stuff is inextricably tied to these things way down deep from prior past experiences, being misunderstood, being humiliated, having key failures or traumas or wounding in our past, whether it be our family culture or other negative professional experiences.

22:05 And it's just like us in the present day moment, pulling that file folder When we hear a key word, right, a key word references that old file. And it's like, oh, I know what's going on here. That's exactly what I think. I mean, not only does it happen with us as leaders when we're rolling out change, maybe this is what it is too. Part of it where leaders go wrong is in even assessing problems and identifying, oh, this is a huge deal that sometimes that response of this has to change, this is bad, this is also coming from that file folder that we're unconsciously pulling. We encounter a situation in the business or make an observation, and it reminds us of something else that we screwed up or did or was done to us, and the alarm bells go off, And without even really processing the current situation further, we're like, this has to change.

22:59 And we just go into action mode. We tell the team what's going to happen. And then, of course, the team has their own response. I remember my last boss, they did this and it meant this for me. And then they start reacting out of that. And then all of a sudden, it's just chaos. which is kind of what we're experiencing in the whole political scheme. But man, you and I felt this. I certainly felt this. It just reminds me of one quick story. When I was a State Farm agent, I read a book. It was by Dan Pink. And I can't remember which one of his it was. But it basically talked about the downsides of commission-based sales, like this misalignment in terms of the service level to the customer.

23:41 And so it just presented this concept of, hey, you're not getting any better performance. side of your people with incentive-based pay, that if people had a salary and were properly paid on the salary side and given proper vision and mission and values and culture and so forth, it's actually better overall. I'm totally oversimplifying and it sounds dumb the way I'm saying it, but I was motivated and I'm like, oh, I'm going to take my people all off commission. We're going to be 100% oriented around what the customer needs and incentivize that. And I completely revamped my comp system for my whole team of six employees. I was super convicted by it. And I rolled it all out to the team.

24:22 And no surprise... it really knocked my team off of balance. It completely sent us off kilter. Well, it ultimately salvaged it, but it threw us into a tailspin here because I had some employees that were like, oh my gosh, because I was raising their salary base too. I thought I had thought all the way through it. But inevitably, some of my team was up in arms. Well, what do you mean? That means I won't be able to. And they were worried about now they can't make as much. And why would you do this? And some assumptions were made about me and why I was doing this and more in it for me somehow and all this stuff. And it was like I was the bad guy. And I think that happens all the time. I think it's a great example because it was clear what you heard in that messaging, that training, that book was, this is better for your people.

25:09 And it's better for everybody. And you're like, okay, it's better for my people. And it's a reasonable request. It doesn't compromise the organization or the institution from your perspective. All very positive reasons for you to begin implementing this change. And then we do it, the methodology in which we do it, and it creates this outcome that we're shocked, disappointed, or completely derailed from. I think that's a great example, actually, Chris. So a couple of things. Hang with me here. Counseling. I don't know how many people listening to our show have ever been to a counselor. I actually haven't personally been to one. I probably should, but I haven't. Or not. All a matter of perspective. I've got very dear close family members that have leveraged counseling to a great degree.

25:55 And it's been something super positive, right? Here are some of the things that I loosely understand about counseling. Well, first, and it's like going back to these questions. unraveling old mindsets, breaking down old mindsets, fear and anxiety, prepping the soil for change, if you will, creating trust, right? And I'm thinking, okay, counseling 101. Counselor's role is to get someone to get potentially on the other side of what trauma or something has created in terms of fear, mindset, these deeply embedded behaviors that And there's this dance that happens between the counselor and their client where they're building rapport.

26:40 They're asking lots of questions. They're drawing out in their person these deeper thought processes. They're making the fear become more conscious-based. And so they can address real elements of it as part of this walk or as part of partnering with their client. I don't know. Again, I've never been in, but this is my impression of what's happening in a counseling engagement. And I'm thinking to myself, is there a way for us to mimic some of that with our teams in preparation for inevitable change in the business so that we can do that? We can reduce fear prior to and or we can help them kind of think through and label the fear.

27:23 So that we can actually talk at or around that thing. Like, oh, that makes sense. I can understand why you're fearful of that. Okay, well, let's talk about what's really going to happen, right? Here are a couple things that came to mind. Like one, are we taking enough time to ask questions? One of the things that we've learned in the consulting role is it's less about what we say, and it's a lot more about the questions we're asking. To initiate a different way to think about something, to initiate or help someone begin to kind of take this thing apart and understand. think about it differently, put some labels and some definitions on it so that it's more concrete, we can work with it, right?

28:04 So I was just thinking about, I think one of the opportunities we have before acting or implementing big change in our organization is just meeting with our people and spending more time asking questions and helping them bring to the surface the things that we've got a track record of experience that tells us. These are things that often come up and create this friction point when I'm trying to change a team's behavior or get better alignment behind a new strategy or initiative. Liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You've heard Brandon and I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe you even heard our episode with Zach Garrett, the CEO and founder.

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29:27 Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us? Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like AnswerForce.com is we can systemize that. We can make it more consistent. We can also have backup for when our teams need that help, right? Somebody goes on vacation. Somebody's out sick. Yeah. We get a storm surge. We get cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team. And so AnswerForce.com can support you, be a bolt-on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So AnswerForce.com forward slash answerforce.

30:09 blood light. That's great. CNR Magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry, right? You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully, right? She's got that great articles about all the four quadrants of our business, right? CNR is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry. Right? It is the water cooler of our industry. So if you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine.com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us. If you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine.com.

30:54 You guys, many of you have already heard about actionable insights and the training and the technical expertise that they bring to the industry. But how many of you are already leveraging the actionable insights profile for Xactimate? That's the game changer. It's essentially an AI tool that's walking alongside of you as you write your estimate, bringing things to your attention that should be added, that could be considered. All of them items that increase our profitability, increase the effectiveness and the consistency of that scope. And it can do anything from helping a new team member assimilate some estimating best practices. And it also helps the grizzled bets add back that few percent that we've just forgot over time.

31:37 So actionable insights, get insights.org forward slash floodlight and take a look at what the actionable insights exactimate profile could be doing for you and your team. I think another thing is spending more time unpacking the reasons or motivation behind the change. Right. And I think this is kind of what you alluded to with your example is, had you sat down with your people and talked through where your head is, the thought that you're processing, the why behind the initiative, how you see it being relevant to the organization. And for some reason, I know myself, I've done this and I know that I've seen a lot of other leaders.

32:21 They are hesitant to. to talk with their people about the why behind these changes that are coming. And we're quick to say everybody buys into the whole cultural buzzword of why. Why? It's all about telling the why. And we like the concept. But most of us have a pretty damn hard time prioritizing talking through the why and or trusting in ourselves enough and trusting our people enough to actually talk about the why. Yeah. So just spend more time unpacking the reason or the motivation behind plans. I got caught flat-footed in our own company recently. I didn't do that well enough to some of the individuals on our team.

33:05 And I fueled what was probably unnecessary friction in the business. We were able to get on the other side of it. But I think my lack of taking the time and slowing down and making sure that they understood why and where we're going, it hindered us, right? And then... I think this other thing is like in regard to fear or the fear to the upcoming change or the inevitable change in the organization again is I think the better job I've done where I've tried to help identify the elephant in the room, like I'm helping them apply definitions, like just on a surface level, when we present this idea, what would make you fearful of that change from your world perspective inside our organization? Yeah.

33:45 What are the things that start coming to mind that would create friction for you or pause or a lack of excitement to get behind this movement and actually listening to what they have to say? Because I think what that then empowers us to be able to do as a leader, one, is to really understand why there's friction in the change process. But before that, fundamentally, it gives us the ability to coach our employee or our team member through this thinking process of why are they fearful? Because often they don't even know. They can't even fully put into words unless you take this time to draw it out of them.

34:26 Give them the platform. Give them the time and the space to think through it and do it from the perspective of this is for them. It's not just to get the job done. We don't... take this time to get them to agree with us, but that we actually do it so that when we engineer the change in the business, we've helped them think through it in a productive way prior to. Yeah, you know, I think some of the great leaders I've observed and experienced, like one of the things I've noticed about how they go about it, and the best are like noticeably more tuned into this, is they bring an idea for change with a complete open mind.

35:06 You cannot, in a business with 50 or 100 or 200 people, have a one-on-one meeting with every single person about what they think about this potential change you're going to make. It's just unrealistic. Now, in a small team of five, you actually could. But as we get bigger, it makes it difficult. And so what I'm talking about is engaging our key leaders. most often as owners, right? But the ones I've seen do this, both up close and then in podcasts and heard how people talk about and frame this is, they're really good at, before they commit fully to the change that they think needs to happen, They engage the people, the peers, and their downline immediate leaders in the question.

35:51 Before they fully committed to this must happen, they show up to that initial interaction with a completely open mind. This might be the wrong timing. This may be the wrong target. And there may be things I'm not thinking of yet that are going to play heavily into whether or not this works or creates the intended outcome that I want. I'm also recognizing in my own personal and professional growth, that requires a lot of discipline to slow down and remind myself that I almost certainly don't have all the information and perspective on this. And to go in genuinely curious, because I do this and I see our leaders that we're engaged with do this, where they may even go and have a one on one with their operations manager, their GM, their department has their leadership team prior to rolling out a thing.

36:44 But really, in their minds, they've already made the decision. And just some of the best leaders I've seen and read about and admire, they genuinely come to that first conversation not committed either way. They have a vision for what maybe needs to happen, but they come in completely with an open mind, ready to hear something that might change their decision. That's something I want to grow in because I can really plant my feet quickly sometimes thinking I know exactly, I allow myself to be totally convinced convicted before I've solicited that input and perspective. And I think it sends me off in the wrong direction sometimes, or it creates more drama when I do roll out that thing, even if I was right.

37:30 I almost feel like to a certain extent, you're pointing towards kind of the whole premise behind the buy-in equation. For those of you listening that maybe haven't been exposed to that concept before, certainly not ours, but it's this idea, right? The equation. It's quality of idea times buy-in equals execution. It's your whole A times B equals C kind of scenario, right? Basically... My understanding, our understanding of the buy-in equation is that we often as leaders get really connected to the quality of the idea, the value of the idea. And so we make that idea ours and we lose sight of that second part of the equation, which is buy-in, and that these two things multiplied together actually creates for us what level of execution our team is going to provide and engage in.

38:26 And the way that I've been exposed to this buy-in equation concept is that if we can hold on to the how with looser hands and allow our downline personnel, whether that be downline leaders, whether that be downline influencers in the organization to help contribute to the how, the in quotes, the idea, then their buy-in is exponentially higher, which in turn creates a way higher percent of execution or value on execution. So example, my idea, 10. Buy-in is low because it was my idea. It's a three. My ultimate execution is 30.

39:08 But what if my idea is not the idea? I let the team have the idea. From my perspective, it's a seven, but their buy-in is a freaking 10 because it was their idea. Well, then our execution is a 70. It's 2x what we thought we would get or hoped for because we generated the idea. And I think that's kind of part of what you're alluding to is that If we come in open-minded enough, we may get feedback or input from our leaders, from our downline team members that actually shapes the concept better. And obviously, the buy-in is so much higher that the engagement, the commitment, and the execution then, which is the real fruit we're aiming for, is substantially higher.

39:56 And I think that's ultimately what happens a lot of times. when we're creating change in our organization is that smart people have done their due diligence and come up with some really good ideas. The idea is a 10, but the way that we deliver and the lack of way that we engage our people to help create that idea, the buy-in is so low that it just cannonballs the entire adoption and execution. And I think that's ultimately what we see. This is classic Patrick Lencioni, The Table Group. This is, I think, one of my favorite books of his. I think it was called The Advantage. But it's all about this. And you and I, we've learned to do this.

40:37 In fact, this goes all the way back to our early days of working together of, it's not very sexy. Somebody else says it better, I'm sure. But I thought of it as preceding meetings. By ahead of time, meeting with the individual stakeholders. And it's almost like... You're getting agreement before you ever open the conversation that, yeah, this is important and, yeah, this should change. And then when you get together, then it is mostly about how do we do this? And then as a leader, once everybody's convicted that this thing needs to happen or this outcome needs to be produced, then you can just kind of like hand it all off like Jeff Bezos. Bezos is famous for this. Like he's talked about this a lot where he tries to be the absolute last person to talk in the room.

41:20 And normally he's just closing the meeting because the decision's already been made by the group, which means they own it. They're convicted about it because they came up with the how. I don't know. I just find for me, it's such a disciplined thing for owners. For me, it's an ego thing. I get fascinated by my own ideas. I naturally think they're the best and most interesting in the world. Isn't this kind of something that's inside all of us? Those of us that are inclined to have our own companies, I think is part of what drives us to get to where we are. And then you realize it's like that yin and yang thing. It's like, yeah, okay, it was really good. Like my instinct to come up with a great idea and act on it and go for it.

42:00 It's the thing that gets you to a point where you have a team. And then it's the very thing that keeps you from building an empire because all the good ideas have to come from you. And no surprise, it pisses people off. It makes them anxious and fearful and it makes them feel insecure because you're always the smartest person in the room and they never know what's going to happen. It's one of those things to where maybe just kind of start moving this towards a close. I think where my head goes, just kind of based on our conversation and obviously what's led up to even talking about this in the first place is we really have a stewarding responsibility. Yeah. I think that at times we get so swept up in owner leader titles, you forget kind of the spirit of.

42:45 So working example here a little bit. I think we've all seen scenarios where we've had a team member that checks the box. Like if you say, hey, here's the five things you do when we receive a first call and onboard a client. You could see two people. One person understands the boxes that have to be checked. And one person understands the boxes, but understands the spirit behind why we're checking those boxes. And if you look at their performance, you would see two very different things. You'd have a team member that makes you frustrated because even though they've checked the boxes, you know they're not giving the level of commitment that you want and they're not producing the fruit you want or need because they don't understand or buy into the spirit of the boxes that they're checking.

43:34 And then we have that person that gets it. When they check those boxes, clients feel welcomed, heard, proactively engaged, well-managed, right? Like two very different outcomes. And I think as leaders, we can slip into this space where we've bought into some basic leadership requirements or leadership boxes that we're checking and, But we are maybe off track and or have gotten too disconnected from the spirit behind it. When I think about leading our organizations through change, whether you're the owner, entrepreneur, whether you're a key leader or influencer in the org chart, we understand box-wise what we're trying to do.

44:20 This is good for the business. We need to get alignment. We need to move our team into alignment with this because it's good for the business. That's the box being checked. But I think we can lose sight of the spirit behind it. And the spirit behind it is you're the leaders. You're the one with access to the most information. You are the one that already by title, a lot of trust and fear equally is placed in your hands. And we have the opportunity to remember the spirit behind leadership is stewardship. And what are we doing to affect stewardship when we're changing the organization and Versus just merely checking the leadership boxes that we've all bought in need to get checked as part of that.

45:01 And I think that in that gap somewhere, and it's going to look slightly different for each leader, each person based on their natural wiring and kind of experience. And I think it's going to look slightly different based on the genetics of the organization, the type of personnel, the type of business, the type of businesses you serve, clients you serve. But I think the reminder for all of us, guys, is that, look, change is scary. And when people have unspoken fear, it creates actions and behaviors that often can become unreasonable and disconnected from fact and truth. But it doesn't make it any less scary for them. It doesn't make it any less a real friction point or thing that we need to overcome as leaders.

45:45 So if we can dig into that fear a little bit, if we can steward our people through that process and engage them in such a way that they're heard, that we can help them unpack and think maybe more literally and maybe more concretely through what's driving some of that fear, i.e. get them engaged in the how, it's just a fundamentally different experience on the other side once we move that company through that change. this is a reminder to me, like just for the sake of clarity, anybody that listens to our show, I know at times I can talk at, but please don't get it twisted. When I get real preachy, there's about a 99.8% chance that the majority of those thoughts are directed back at something that I either have recently failed to do, or I've disappointed myself in because I catch myself failing to be the best version of what I could be.

46:38 And so This is not an example to point fingers at anybody or say left or right. It's just a matter of, man, we have a big responsibility when we shift our organizations and change is scary as shit for our people. And we could do it differently. And I think at times we could create an outcome that even surprises us on its level of adoption and execution. Well, and the only thing that I would add to or counterpoint to what you just summarized is that I think as owners, sometimes we actually get caught up in the idea that we have more information than anybody else just because of our role. I mean, like financially and otherwise. And I think too, part of the wisdom is in us recognizing that.

47:20 That while we have a lot of fundamental information about the business, what the business needs and all this stuff, is that there are elements of the business that we probably don't have as much information on as our downline people do with the interactions they're having with customers, what they're seeing in the field, the observations they're making. of other employees and behaviors and process, what works, what doesn't work actually in the field. We've ran into this multiple times, but I still remember as we were coming up in the industry and building teams, we started surveying our employees. That was one of the things that came out was there was a sense... by the people down on the front lines, the leadership didn't really know what was going on.

48:01 In the end, we determined that there was truth to it. There was elements where we'd grown to such an extent to where we weren't on every job site anymore. We weren't actually seeing how some of these processes played out in real time. And so I just think it's like that both ends, right? It's like bringing people in on what we see and what we know. And then also soliciting back from them. What else? What are we not thinking about? And what are we not seeing? So anyway, dude, well, this is good, man. So we started at Trump and Doge and Hitler and USAID and social media. And I think we actually landed the plane, bro. I think we actually landed on something of, I think, mutually high value.

48:42 Oh, man. Guys, hang in the pocket on this stuff a bit, because I know that most of the people that listen to our show, if they're not changing the organization, they're in the midst of changing themselves in some material way professionally, maybe even personally. And I think that to some extent, this applies to all of us, whether it be on an individual basis or in our organizations or in our teams, depending on where you are. the food chain. I think these are universal spaces for us to consider and take inventory of and just see if there's a way to do it better next time. That's probably what it boils down to. Okay. We're hanging out everybody. We'll see you on the next one. So next time.

49:24 All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.