Building And Managing Your Team And Your Company’s Culture

Intro (00:09):
Welcome to innovations and breakthroughs with your host Rich Goldstein, talking about the evolutionary, the revolutionary, the inspiration and the perspiration and those aha moments that change everything. And now here’s your host, Rich Goldstein,

Rich (00:33):
Richard Goldstein here, host of the innovations and breakthroughs podcast, where I featured top leaders in the path they took to create change past guests include Joe Polish, Roland Frasier, and Joe DeSena. This episode is brought to you by my company, Goldstein patent law, but we help you to protect your ideas and products we’ve advised and obtain patents for thousands of companies over the past 27 years. So if you’re a company that has software or product or designing one protected, go to Goldstein patent law.com, where there are amazing free resources for learning about the patent process. And you can email my team@welcomeatgoldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. You can also check out the book I wrote for the American bar association that explains in plain English, how patents work it’s called the ABA consumer guide to obtaining a patent I have with me here today, Howard shore.

Rich (01:22):
But how does the author of the recent wall street journal bestselling book, the lead of launch pad five steps to fuel your business and lift your profits. It’s also a bestseller on USA today, as well as multiple categories on Amazon. Uh, how does work as an executive at fortune 500 companies such as rider, uh, AutoNation and KPMG, uh, in addition to being a bestselling author, how does an active group founder speaker and bestselling author? I think I said that’s Weiss, but he, yes, he’s definitely a bestselling author, how it has worked with hundreds of executives and teams to help accelerate their growth and scale the organization. I’m very pleased to welcome here today, Howard shore. Welcome Howard.

Howard (02:03):
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Rich (02:06):
Absolutely. My pleasure. So, um, so you cut your teeth in some pretty big organizations and, um, and then you, you took that, um, um, you took that knowledge, you took that experience and you saw it to help other businesses. So, I mean, what, uh, what was some of the biggest lessons that you learned? Um, kind of playing in the big arena with, uh, with huge companies like that?

Howard (02:29):
Well, let’s go back in time because before I did that, I owned my first business. When I was 18, I bought a business, I grew it and I sold it when I was 21, knowing what I know now and going through the journey of the bigger companies I really want to do over, you know, I did well. If I knew what I knew today, I definitely would have had a much bigger exit. It would have been a much easier journey and there was just so much I was, you know, didn’t know, I didn’t know. So as I, as I went through there, there were a few things that I learned that led to my writing the book. And I think was crucial for us as owners. So many of us start a business or, you know, my first business, I just grew up in that industry.

Howard (03:08):
So I was going to do something in that industry. It wasn’t because, you know, I knew something special about what was going on in the industry that needed to be solved. I just knew I can grow a business in that industry. And in hindsight, I realized that there was a lot more than I needed to know. And there was a lot more to working on a business rather than working in it. And there really are different things that we need to think about as owners that honestly, I didn’t think about it. I’m like, I just need to get customers. I need to serve customers and make sure I make money when I’m doing it. You know, that’s the basic thing, but it didn’t realize is first of all, if you really want to build a company of size and I got to see this and in the Goliath companies is it’s very different when there’s just a few of you, maybe 10 or 20 employees and are got 45,000 or more employees, you start realizing, listen, we have to get really, really good at culture.

Howard (04:01):
And I didn’t think about culture, honestly, in my first business. And now I start there with any business I’m involved with. And the second thing I didn’t realize was that some of the biggest things I was going to decide where in the human capital management area, so many companies get held back. And I know I was held back because I didn’t have the right structure and I didn’t have the right people in that structure. And because of that, uh, I wish they would have told me in business school that if the number one decision you’re going to probably make in your businesses, who you name as managers, uh, and I would go back and definitely rethink some of those decisions I’ve had over time. Now that I realize how crucial that is. And then the other part of it, I didn’t realize was, uh, how important to many times we’re successful ourselves as entrepreneurs because we’re great doers and you can’t stop us and we’ll work out a thousand hours a week if that’s what it takes to win. But at the end of the day, that’s not really leading a business. And so learning particularly entrepreneurs, we don’t always work great in teams. And so learning how to work in a team, know how to work in, you know, build teams and then have a lots and lots of teams in your company was something I wish I knew before.

Rich (05:16):
Yeah. I think that one is critical. Um, I, and I find that myself that it’s just like, um, finding a way to, um, you know, initially delegate, right? I mean, I think one of the first things in team building is you have to learn how to delegate. Like just to even get from being a one person operation to two, you have to learn how to take some of the things that you do and, and give it to someone else to do and to, and all of the communication that needs to take place in terms of, of giving that task over. Um, and then, um, in, in managing the completion of the task that you’re now not keeping in your head now, it’s something that, that is, um, is out in someone else’s space is someone else is going to be fulfilling on. Um, and that’s just the beginning, right? That’s just the beginning of what it takes to build a team is just, is taking something from I’m going to do it myself too. Like now I’ll have someone else do it too. How do I find a group of people that can help, um, to magnify my results by, by tackling those tasks?

Howard (06:22):
You said you hit a pet peeve of mine. So pat Lynch, Yoni wrote a book called the ideal team player. And he talked about the three characteristics of being one of those teams, those ideal team players. And ironically, the number one reason people don’t delegate well is the first element of that, which is humility. Uh, the three are humble, hungry, smart, but the number one problem I see with people that have trouble delegating and growing companies is their ego. And so, you know that you’ll commonly hear no one can do it as better as me, uh, better than I can, or as good as I can. No one can do it as fast as I can. And, uh, and then part of it is I have a CEO right now, our discussion last week was like, listen, you got stuck at 15 million. And it’s all because of you, you, you jump in and it’s actually hurts your pride.

Howard (07:17):
If somebody else in your company actually did something better than you could, you know, he’s an engineer by design. And so I can’t tell you how many millions of times I’ve heard. There’s not an engineer in my company. It’s a pretty large company in terms of number employees for most businesses. I don’t have an engineer that can engineer something the way or as fast as I could, or as good as I couldn’t honestly, it’s BS, but his ego won’t get out of his own way. So that, that you Millie I think is the biggest thing. I think people need to check, you know, at the door. And the other thing is it was ego that got us to start businesses, right. It was ego that, that gave us the brass, you know, what’s to, to move forward, but it’s that same ego that’s going to hold you back as you try to cross.

Rich (08:01):
Yeah, no, that’s so interesting. Um, and, and, and I, I think that that has gotta be the number one reason. I mean, for me, it’s, it’s a little different for me. It’s a matter of, I don’t, I don’t know how to communicate like the task. I don’t know how to, how to communicate the things that I know. So, okay. There’s some ego in that. Right. But communicate with things I know about how the tasks needs to be completed so that someone else can do it. That’s usually where I get stuck.

Howard (08:28):
Yeah. And I think, and I don’t know you well enough to know whether it’s his issue, but, but what happens is we’re so busy telling people how to do what we want them to do. And really what we should be thinking about is what outcomes do we, we need them to, to cause what’s the product, what is it they need to do and be clear on. So when we’re at the end and we win making sure that people know what that is, and then answering questions, if they have any, um, any lack of clarity from getting from point a to point B. And then the other place that we have to know is what are the guide rails? So, you know, if you’re, you’re outside of these rails and we need to talk, so let me just share with you that the rails I want you to worry about.

Howard (09:13):
And if we just get good at that, um, they’re going to usually ask all the questions you need, but usually as leaders. And I’ll just, I know I’m guilty as charged. I am a hard driver, anybody who knows behavioral styles, I am as bigger drivers. You can, that can be intimidating for an employee. And where we get in, we fly in, I want you to do X, Y, and Z. We fly out where really we need to be flying in and say, you know, I want to accomplish X, you know, I need your help. And what do you need from me? So did you can do that and then shut up and just listen and then answer questions. And then just getting people to say stuff back to us. We usually don’t do that extra step. And I’ve had coaches help me over my life. I think I’ve hired nine different coaches. And those were some of the things they worked on me because a lot of times it’s just not awareness. We, uh, we see the world from our vantage point, not from the other person’s vantage point. And you can know their vantage point, unless you ask them, what do you, when you look at this, what do you see when you hear this problem? What do you hear? Because if we start from where we are versus where they are usually that’s where delegation falls down,

Rich (10:22):
Right? Yeah, no, absolutely. That makes sense. And, um, and yeah, I made that, uh, and I, I like one of the first things you said there about focusing on the outcomes, as opposed to how, and I think that’s where the ego comes in. It’s like, I think I know the way that this needs to be done, but I think that’s where I’m kind of trusting that other people and their creativity can solve the problem perhaps better than I can. Um, and then it’s just a matter of communicating the objectives of what we’re trying to achieve.

Howard (10:57):
And, and now you asked me earlier, what is one of the things that, uh, I spend a lot more time on that I definitely didn’t do in the early days is just having, you know, clear vision, clear priorities and making sure that we’re all on the same page with that. And then just drilling that over and over and over again, and making sure that I am not saying one thing today and then tomorrow saying another thing. And if we just do a really good job of having everybody see where we’re headed and the key drivers to getting there and having a consistent message I think is, is, is very important.

Rich (11:32):
Yeah. So it sounds like consistency and vision, right? Having a vision so that everyone knows where you’re headed and then being consistent with the messaging around the vision, kind of similar to when you have a brand, right. Is like being consistent with the brand message. And sometimes you’re on brand, sometimes you’re off-brand, but like with your business, having that type of consistency,

Howard (11:57):
There, there, there’s another thing I think that plays into all of this. That honestly, it’s hard for us. So if you really followed somebody around in a day in and day out basis, if they had like a 50%, you know, uh, batting average out of a hundred, that would be pretty awesome. Right. Um, they have this delusion that they’re not there. They’re like right. 90% of the time. And so what happens is then when they’re dealing with subordinates, any mistake, those people make, you know, oh, are you going to upset our customers? And, oh, you did this and their mistakes. They don’t get the same leeway we give ourselves. And so for awhile there, I didn’t realize that. And actually now I’ve realized it out of my whole life. I’ve made way more mistakes than I want to admit to this audience. Some of them very costly, but those were my best lessons.

Howard (12:47):
And so now we’re on the other side, we don’t want anybody to make any mistakes and then they’re not going to learn anything. And we can’t Excel as an organization if, if they can’t so getting comfortable with mistakes and how we respond to them is crucial in, in our ability to move forward. And also when we’re looking at the situation, you know, it’s kind of like that Monday morning quarterback, it’s really easy to see, well, I wouldn’t have run those plays over the weekend or, or what were you thinking? And, uh, but at the end of the day, uh, they were, they were in the midst of it. They were on the field and they had to act and respond in a certain way. And they didn’t get to sit on the sidelines and watch it from the stance. So you’ve gotta be able to give people that, that leeway. Yeah.

Rich (13:32):
And, you know, I think it’s interesting. I mean, this, this might seem like a stretch to some, but I would dare to say that what’s required is to get comfortable with our own mistakes, because I’m a big believer that whatever bothers us about other people is really what bothers us about ourselves. That then gets triggered. Right. And I’m a big believer in that notion. And so it’s like, I’m thinking if we’re giving people more, if we’re giving ourselves more leeway than we give other people, it’s probably because when they make a mistake, it actually triggers something in us that we really hate about like, ah, like I didn’t tell them what I needed to tell them, or maybe I picked the wrong person and like we’re off at ourselves and this may be a little hard to deal with. And so we get mad at them. So if we got better with our own mistakes, if we gave ourselves a bit more of a break, we probably can give all the people.

Howard (14:25):
So, so I’ll tell you a funny story that, um, Hey, cause I never want anybody to go back I’ll I’ll um, I’ll be careful here in how I tell the story, but there’s a CEO that I know. And, and right now they’re they’re companies between 10 and 15 million. It really should be $150 million company. And, uh, that person, uh, does a bunch of different mistakes in terms of how it runs the organization because of his past experience. And I think this is important for all of us to realize how much we make decisions today and how we act towards others. And all of that is really an accumulation of our baggage. And so this guy I’m thinking of right now, he’s consistently kept the wrong people around him, on his team for a long period of time. And he’s always trying to find the best in that he likes to be optimistic.

Howard (15:16):
Uh, perspective is really important to him and how people look at problems, but he historically hasn’t fired people the way he should. He just knew they weren’t going to perform, but he gave him too much leeway. And going back to how your mind works. Finally, I sat down with him. I’m like, why are you not firing these people that we ought to be firing? And he says, let me think about that for a while. So we talk about it, we talk about it. And what we found out was is every job he ever held before he started his company, he got fired from, and he says, Howard, you know, my biggest problem is, is I’m always worried. I’m going to fire the next me. I said, so wait a minute. Didn’t you dirt deserve. Tincher earn getting fired in those other jobs. He says, yeah, I didn’t follow any rules.

Howard (16:02):
I didn’t do what they wanted. I always did everything the way I wanted to do it. And I was, I was the impossible employer employee. I said, so they did you a favor, you, an entrepreneur should have been running your own business and you deserve to get fired. These other people that you’re not firing, you know, you’re not firing them because they’re bad people. You’re, you’re getting rid of them because they’re the wrong person for that seat in your company. And it doesn’t mean you’re holding them back or you’re letting anything wrong go. But because of his past experiences, he was having trouble seeing through that lens. Thank God to this day. We we’ve kind of mostly overcome that.

Rich (16:41):
No, that’s great. And, and yeah, and I guess it’s going on with what you’re saying is like, it’s even not just that, that, um, they were the wrong person for the company that they should be fired, but also that you’re the wrong company for them, you know? And so they should be set free to do something that is really a match for what, for where they can shine or a place where they can, um, they can, um, they can shine. So, yeah, I think that’s very interesting. Um, now, um, you know, let’s talk about, um, so I mean, you, you’ve been consulting with businesses for, for many years now, uh, and helping businesses to grow. And so you put together this book, the, the lead of launch pad, uh, and, uh, so, so just tell me a bit about that. I mean, first, tell me a little bit about the process of getting that together.

Howard (17:31):
Well, so it was accumulation of time. So first I wrote my book. Your business is a leaky bucket. The reason that business that book got written is most of what we needed to worry about are not in our financial statements, financial statements don’t capture bad leadership decisions. They don’t capture, not hiring the right people, hiring people fast enough. And the dollar amounts related to all of that is much bigger many times than are in your financial statements. So for example, I, you know, I’ve got a company right now and they probably did about a million and a half dollars of profit last year. And we just figured out because of leadership mistakes, not because of people mistakes on the front lines. Uh we’re, we’re probably going to be able to get that to a $6 million company within 12 months in terms of profits. Um, so that’s a huge difference and we can tie it all back to people.

Howard (18:20):
So what I realized after the first book, I hopefully put a fire underneath everybody’s butts that, you know, you, no matter how big you are, no matter how fast you’re growing, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. And if you looked at those 15 things, every business has a, at least 60% of them are problem at any given point of time. The next book is, well, what the hell do you do about it? Right. So, um, so there’s a crossing the chasm. What would get you to, we’ll say about $5 million in revenue will not get you to 10 to 25, to 50, to a hundred million. It’s a whole different business as you got there. And so what I wanted to do is, um, I don’t know about you. Uh, I read a lot and there were about 50 different books I had to read that were had important components.

Howard (19:08):
So I’ve founded and owned a and B been invested in, in nine different companies, right? And so I looked through all of those and I started looking through all this, and I’m like, what’s, what’s missing here in the, running the business with a working on the business. And so as we’re crossing the chasm, we’ve really got to get much better at that. I realized that there were key systems that we had to master and they all played with each other. So most of us talk about culture, but don’t really know how to grow and manage it, but it’s the foundation for everything. Well, if your culture is not good, then when you’re trying to recruit, then you’re not going to get the best people. And if you do those people are going to leave because it’s not the right culture for them. They want to be surrounded by other like-minded people in a culture.

Howard (19:51):
And then, so if I don’t have the right culture and I don’t have the right who’s, you can have a great strategy. It’s never going to get executed and, and you’ll never get to where you want to. So I realized, you know, we had, we had, we had, uh, basically what I call stewardship, which is having cohesive leadership teams and culture. And then I realized you needed, you needed a strategy. Uh, you, you needed a good accountability system. You needed a good people system. And so what I did was I kind of wrote the book. I said, listen, no one really wants to read 50 books. So this book combined 50 or more of the best books, I ever read it into a way that you can read, just read the book in one chapter and say, listen, my biggest problem right now, it’s the people area. It’s this one people area, you open up the book, you read that chapter and in it, it tells you what to do. And I really wanted that one place to go for a business owner that would help them tie together all the systems.

Rich (20:48):
Got it. Okay, great. So basically what you’ve done is you’ve taken the 50 best, um, business books that you’ve read and you’ve put all the best info in place all without plagiarism. Yes. It’s all documented, just, um, learning and, um, and basically your, like your, like what your value add your interpretation of what makes it all work. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I actually have a copy right here. I mean, some people are listening, some people watch it in video form and it’s autographed from you as well, which I appreciate.

Howard (21:22):
That’s awesome. And, um, and the whole idea was, is how do you make all of that stuff practical and easy enough so that it’s not too overwhelming for an older and, um, there’s stories in there and all kinds of stuff. So people can just start running and that would allow me to hit a lot more people.

Rich (21:41):
Got it. And, um, uh, you know, the, and the subtitle for the book, the five steps to fuel your business and lift your profits. So, um, I guess that that’s, that’s a real intriguing, um, you know, um, sub subtitle or sub headline, but basically, yeah, so, so I’m sure everyone’s curious about what the five steps are. Could you, can you just hit on, um, um, hit on the, um, the, the high points, the teaser of it? So, so the teaser of this

Howard (22:11):
Is they’re not really steps, everything’s iterative, and they all play off of each other, like I said, but what I did was is I, I chose those five components. You know, the, the, the strategy, the human capital management system, the stewardship, these five basically systems you have to master. And if you’re weak in any one of them, or you haven’t reached true mastery in any one of them, I’m going to tell you, you as a business owner, leaving significant money on the table. And so what you’re going to find is there’s a lot of constraints, right? So, you know, we’ve had businesses where, you know, first we can’t grow and we’re getting the right people in the seats. And then all of a sudden we get the right strategy, the right business model, it takes off, and now I’ve got cultural problems. So now I’ve got a ratchet back to the stewardship part, or I’ve got really, really good, talented people. They’re really smart, but they’re great eyes. And man, I got to go back to stewardship, how do I get the eyes to become weeds? And so it’s constantly taking you through those dry iterations and showing you, but, but really they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re the really the five components of highly, highly successful companies. And the great part is you’re not going to find great companies that are not trying to master and are working towards mastery on those five steps.

Rich (23:28):
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that’s great. I think it’s a great framework and, and, and it, and it’s great to see that it’s not about, um, steps in order. It’s about places that you go to, that you iterate with, that you work on one, you might be working on another, and then you circle back to the first one as necessary. So it’s a, and I guess that’s what business is, is it’s a big iterative process where you’re never done. You’re never done building your business. You just continue to work on

Howard (24:00):
It’s evolution. And then if I think about your business as an ecosystem, right? And so the better that ecosystem works, the more every single person on the team could thrive. And the clearer everybody is on, you know, where you’re headed, that kind of stuff, the more they can contribute, the better you get as leaders you can actually get. And to me, the secret in that book was, was really about how do you unlock the untapped potential of all of your employees? And if you look at most businesses, there’s an 80 20 rule. So 20% of the people on many times, it’s just the leadership is carrying 80% of the weight. And I realized if you can get the ecosystem, right, we can unlock all the hundred percent of employees. And when you do, that’s when you go like this and, and that’s what that book was all about. Okay,

Rich (24:47):
Awesome. Well, and one final topic, uh, is, um, uh, w which is close to the, um, the subject matter of this podcast in terms of, uh, innovating ideas and taking new ideas and bringing them out into the world. Uh, I mean, you and I had talked a bit about validating ideas, uh, and about like, you know, a lot of times when you have an idea, um, it’s not the idea that makes the most difference. It’s about how you implement it. Um, perhaps what business model you choose to pursue it. So tell me a little bit about some of your thoughts on that.

Howard (25:26):
So whenever I see a business that’s having trouble growing and, and they, they, they have, they’re they’re of a decent size, but they’re not moving. I usually know that we’ve got a strategy or business model problem. And so most times you’re going to go to an owner and, you know, why are you in business? They’re like, I want to make money. And, and then, all right, so what are you doing? And most times we’re caught up in our product and service, and we’re not, we’re inward facing rather than outward facing. We’re not looking at the market and seeing where we fit in terms of all the other alternatives that our potential buyer is going to have when they come to us. And they’re going to have these choices. So most leaders are not spending enough time seeing where they fit. So great business models, not only think about, uh, what we’re are going to do, but also what you’re not going to do that everybody else is doing.

Howard (26:16):
And you really will not explode as a company unless you’re doing something different and adding value in a different way to that core customer that you’re trying to acquire. And too often, people that are making decisions in a room, the leaders are like, I know my industry, this is what we want to do. This is what a great product or great services looks like. And then they build it. No one comes and it’s because they didn’t go on the market and validate that, you know, there was already a hundred companies doing that. You just had a myth one, but you didn’t go out and do the homework and find out that this is already out there. And so most of the work we need to do when we’re working on the business is outward facing. It’s talking to potential. Customers is shopping our competitors. If you look at Sam Walton, what he did four out of five days a week, and his billion dollar company was actually shop his competitors and walk his stores and talk to his employees and talk to his customers.

Howard (27:15):
He brought all that back in, and then the one day a week, he worked with his leadership team to go over what he learned so they can carve out their own special space in the market. And for me, that’s my challenge to everybody here. What percentage of your time is outward facing? And not just don’t confuse with a customer calls you where the problems. So now you’re getting feedback now that’s problem solving and still working within your, your, your box going out of the box and really shopping to see what’s out there talking to people to see what’s missing, and then building what’s missing and not being a me too.

Rich (27:51):
Okay. Got it. I think that’s fantastic advice. Um, and, uh, uh, if people want to learn more about you and get in contact with you, how they go about doing so. So I’m going

Howard (28:00):
To give you two ways. The traditional thing is, is we tell everybody to go to activate group Inc com. And quite honestly, if you fill out a form there, you’re going to get, uh, you’re, you’re, you’re going to wind up coming back to me first, or you can call me, I’ll even give out my cell phone number, because I just love helping entrepreneurs. It’s 3 0 5 4 0 1 5 6 4 7. Uh, and, and, you know, I’d love to help business owners, uh, as much as I can.

Rich (28:26):
And it’s activate group.com activate group Inc com activate group Inc com. Perfect. Great, well, Howard, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this show, to share all of your, um, your wisdom, um, about, uh, you know, about growing businesses about going into businesses the smart way, uh, and just appreciate all the time that you took yet today. So thanks so much. Hey, thank you for having me.

Outro (28:58):
Thanks for listening to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, rich Goldstein. Be sure to click, subscribe, check us out on the web at innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.