Transcript
Speaker: Hello, welcome to Scale Up Confessions, the show where we talk about what it really takes to lead and manage a growing organization. I'm Rob Lyddiard, I'm a licensed EOS coach and an interim transformation director.
Speaker: That means I help small businesses, growing businesses get what they want, either by coaching leadership teams to do the hard right things themselves, or sometimes parachuting into those businesses for a period of time to help them make the moves that they need to do to unlock the potential of their organization.
Speaker: I love the business of business. I love meeting the people that are doing interesting things and doing the hard walk, walking the hard yards of creating value in the small business economy.
Speaker: Today I'm talking to Zach Glazer, who's a good friend of mine. um He's also a coach, but he comes at it from a cognitive but behavioral therapy perspective. He's an ex-combat medic. um He works with individual leaders, whether they're CEOs or members of the executive teams that are are struggling. um Perhaps they're struggling to to meet the expectations of the organization to deliver their commitments.
Speaker: I obviously see that in my coaching capacity where people are falling short. Sometimes it's the highest level leader in an organization that has successfully built a team. The business is doing really well. And they're struggling to um to find purpose in in a new role or struggling to get their greasy fingers off the steering wheel so that they can let somebody else run their business and, you know, go and live on the beach as they've professed to want to do for all of their career.
Speaker: And then when that moment comes, it turns out the beach isn't as interesting as they thought it was going to be. Zach and I work together really often um in that capacity. Zach also sometimes sends teams back to me where he's helped a leader work through their kind of inner fears and thoughts. And it turns out there are some actual rational concerns in their business that that need to be addressed with with structured coaching or or direct tough love interventions.
Speaker: So I hope you enjoy the conversation. Zach's details will be in the show notes. um I do recommend that you reach out to him, whether it's to work through some things yourself or maybe to refer a friend that you think could could could really get from the benefit from a conversation with someone like Zach.
Speaker: So without further ado, my conversation with Zach Glazer.
Speaker: Zach, brother, good to see you. What's up, Rob? How's it going? Yeah, really good, man. I'm pumped for this conversation. ah you too. So look, i've already done I've already done an intro for our listeners that that I send um team members to you when the EOS process reveals or hints that there's an underlying issue in the individual, that we just don't have the space in the session room to to to to to get out on the table and figure out how to solve. And in many cases, we actually don't have the skills. Certainly the leadership don't have the skills. And I'm self-aware enough to know that if there's a better person I can send them to for for some individual help, then I'm going to do that. And you, of course, are
Speaker: Oh, my man. um So, Zach, before we start unpacking the EOS process and and and how it overlays with the work that you do and the sorts of things, sort of interventions you you you um you put in place to to help leaders, you just want to give like a kind of 60 seconds on on how you got to where you are and doing and what you're doing? Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: 60 seconds. Wow. So essentially, I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist and cognitive behavioral executive coach. And essentially how I've gotten to do what I'm doing now is after many years of working in the NHS, I did a specialization, particularly working with C-suite executives and their mental health and helping them overcome some of the obstacles that might get in the way of not just their performance at work, but in their their lives in general.
Speaker: um I find that the two overlap quite, quite drastically. um It's hard not to take stuff, you know, from home life into work and not, it's very hard to take work stuff into home life, you know?
Speaker: So the two, the two have very much an overlap. And so with that, I've just gotten to the point in my life where I really liked that niche of, um of therapy, of coaching.
Speaker: um And so i've I've kind of launched in my own practice and I found it, I've, I found it very fulfilling and I still find it very fulfilling and kind of the the right timing for me right now.
Speaker: Yeah, and it always makes me laugh when you um reference the NHS work because it's so important, but most of the people that I send to you are much more interested in the combat medic background. Do you want to give people like it just just a bit of a hint as to some of the gnarly stuff you've seen?
Speaker: Yeah, so I guess my journey into working with mental health um started because I served eight years in the United States Navy alongside the United States Marine Corps. That's what they call ah a fleet Marine Corpsman. I was a combat medic from 2003 to 2011 and served tours in Afghanistan. I served in the tsunami relief in Indonesia, did humanitarian stuff for Hurricane Katrina when the big hurricane hit New Orleans. um So yeah, I've been there. I've done that. And that impacted on my mental health. And I got the help that I needed eventually. And that's why I started out doing what I'm doing. But...
Speaker: I find, I guess, nowadays, ah I like working with high impact, high level, high stress type people. And I think that's what I find working with executives are are people that are very similar to the way that I think, the way that I've been trained to think. And so i guess that's why I find it so fulfilling.
Speaker: Yeah, it's amazing. and that i usually tell people that when I'm sending them to you, I'm like, listen, I know in the UK people think that going and talk to someone is some sort of sign of weakness um and being able to explain to them there are literally like people coming out the military that value this stuff is, ah I find, really gets people in the right headspace to, um not not that we should have to soften them up and get them in the right headspace. There's clearly all sorts of head trash that people bring into these types of conversations but the fact that you've got that background makes it much easier i think for these kind of hard charging executives to to open up and talk to someone so listen with that let's talk let's talk eos and like how our worlds actually overlap so listeners to this podcast will be broadly familiar with eos they know that we've got the eos proven process where typically someone like me
Speaker: We'll meet with leadership teams ah more frequently in the first kind of 60 days, but then at least once a quarter thereafter, we're in a session room with the highest level executives in a team around the top dog, the person that we call the integrator might be a CEO or a COO in job title terms.
Speaker: And we're committing to the overarching vision for the business. We're then recommitting to or committing to if it's an annual, one year plan. and figuring out what are going to be the sacred commitments that each member of the leadership team makes for the coming 90 or so days. We call those rocks.
Speaker: And we also articulate, well, what are the issues, what are the challenges facing the organization that we're either going to take down right now or we're just going to let go? We're going to acknowledge that those issues exist, but we're not going to work on them now.
Speaker: So that's that's my world. The six components that I ask the leadership teams to draw on in order to make that process work. A vision, clear, common understanding of where we're going and how we're going to get there.
Speaker: People, this concept of having the right people on the bus, right people in the right seats. Data, making fact-based decisions rather than relying on ego and feelings. Issues, creating a culture and a process of ah identifying, calling out issues when we see them and collectively solving them at the route to make them go away for good, process, common understanding of the right and best way to do everything that needs to happen in the business to meet our expectations. And then finally, traction, the operating rhythm, the weekly rituals, the quarterly and annual rituals that we commit to, to keep the trains on the track, making sure that everyone knows where they need to be and when and what they need to be working on at the relevant time horizons. Right, so that's pretty much all that I do.
Speaker: Where should we jump off? Is it worth jumping off like with with vision where um that might be the issue do you wanna give like a kind of broad run through the model so that people can get their sea legs and then we'll deep dive into individual components?
Speaker: I'm happy wherever you wanna start. and I just think, For me, and in the model that I work off of, um specifically with cognitive behavioral executive coaching, you know we we help leaders to develop an internal operating system. Whereas, I guess what you guys do really is help the business develop you know an operating system that's good for the business. I look at internal operating systems of the of the people that are actually running those systems or implementing those systems. And so that's what I do.
Speaker: um And so I guess if you were to bring in the the cognitive behavioral aspect of that, we look at the link between the way you think, the way you behave and the way you feel. All right. but All three are actually interlinked.
Speaker: and They all have consequences. And so if your thinking is off, it's going to affect how you behave. It's going to affect the way you feel. If you are behaving or if you're thinking in ah in in a certain way, it's naturally going to to ah have a knock on effect on the rest. And it's it's true in business as well.
Speaker: Things can be very business oriented. Well, can I, in that case then, why don't we start with like the things that I see that most commonly cause me to refer people to you. um So what typically happens in the set, in in in ah we took in EOS, we talk about vision, traction, healthy. So vision, common understanding of where we're going, traction, like doing the right things to make the vision real, healthy, creating a culture of openness and and honesty um to allow a team to perform and and and do the hard right things.
Speaker: Initially, everyone feels like cool, like, okay, we've clarified the vision, it's up on the whiteboard. Hopefully everyone like violently agrees. And if they don't agree, they sort of disagree and commit. um It's typically a quarter or two after where we get into the expression of the vision through traction, i.e. committing to their rocks, that we start to see people falling short.
Speaker: And in the first quarter, generally even the fiercest leaders will be like, this EOS process is new, maybe I wasn't clear, kind of can understand why Sam or whoever didn't meet their rocks directly or through their team.
Speaker: But the next quarter where Sam falls spectacularly short, despite the fact that we spent so much of the prior session working out why they fell short last time and trying to make sure that the Rocks were idiot-proof, now puts us in a weird place because...
Speaker: It isn't clear that the answer's in the room as to why Sam can't can't do it. Yeah. um And then EOS will ask the leader of that team to say, do we think Sam gets once and has the capacity to do this job? Does that trigger anything for you, Zach? Because that's quite common, isn't it? Where I suggest to someone, hey, you might want to talk to Zach as to Like what's going on with this person that's causing you to, or with yourself, that's causing you to ask yourself the GWC question?
Speaker: Yeah, that GWC question is actually quite a fundamental question. And it's something that it's gotten me thinking even, you know, in in all my practices, not just with working with clients that that have been referred ah by EOS.
Speaker: um And I guess there's a lot of ah lot of varying things that get can get in the way um of actually making those decisions that that that need to be made. I mean, do we have a perfectionist, you know somebody who's taking their perfectionistic tendencies and and not just having them for themselves, but you know expecting their team to align with their perfectionistic thinking?
Speaker: perfectionist perfectistic thinking is generally defined by and unrelenting and inflexible standards and rules. um So are they being inflexible? Are they having rules and goals that too high and beyond you know the the reach of not just them, but their team?
Speaker: um And if so, why is that? why are they Why are they having this? Oftentimes we find with people that struggle with perfectionism is it started off from a good place. You know, I want the best marks. I want the highest paid salary. I want, you know, really, really nice goals.
Speaker: ah And as they ah ah ah attain those goals, what tends to happen is they you know the goals are then raised the bar is raised you read it it's not enough so the bar is raised again and you get to a point to where the standards those rules um for living that the the the goals that we have become so unattainable because it's never good enough and then you kind of have another side of perfectionism which call the anxious avoidant um side of perfectionism which is where you know the goals and the standards are so high
Speaker: that ah they're they're too anxious about never reaching them. So they just avoid it in general. They avoid trying to to meet the goals. They avoid doing what's necessary to actually help the team reach those goals, but also help themselves reach the goal.
Speaker: And so that's just that's just one aspect of it. Can i ask you, Zach, so how does that play out in, I mean, I know, cause you've talked to about this before, but like for the, for those, for the uninitiated, How would we recognize this in a session room when we work on our quarterly cadence, right? Because like, can you just, can you talk listeners through what happens when let's say ah an avoidant perfectionist CEO, an integrator, they're like all in on the rocks and then maybe they've got some avoidant perfectionists in their team as well, God forbid. And they're all in as well. Why is it that they're so sure
Speaker: that they've released themselves from this demon in the room, us having called it out a quarter or two before. And then the same failure transpires afterwards. like Like, what is that mechanism by which they seem unable to to be realistic when they're setting the goal?
Speaker: Well, again, I think i think it goes back to um it goes back to a goal that was initially set or a standard that they set for themselves initially. um And for whatever reason, that goal became no longer good enough whenever they reached it ah That could be some self-esteem issues. It could be a fear of public opinion, a fear of what other people might be thinking of them. Generally, we find a lot of social aspect behind that as well. But it could also be simple as you know growing up.
Speaker: you know um nothing was ever good enough for somebody, whether it be a parent, a teacher, a university professor. And so they learned that even though they meet their goals, it's still not necessarily good enough. So what they've learned to do is always raise the bar. and Can i ask you question, Zach? So dig in. like Why is it sometimes that we lower the bar? We lower the bar two or three quarters in a row and the person...
Speaker: They just, their performance seems to be get get worse and worse, no matter how low we set the bar. Like, is that still avoiding perfectionism? Can it be? Because it it doesn't feel like perfectionism when someone's failing worse and worse and worse, the kinder we try and be as leaders.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that that we often find is that perfectionists operate at a high tempo for a long period of time until they hit a certain breaking point.
Speaker: okay They hit that breaking point, which it could be that they don't have capacity. It could be that they don't want necessarily the position that they're in. It could that they have no understanding of what they're supposed to be doing, but yet they're trying to set a bar, you know, a goal or a bar so high, a standard so high for something they're not even fully aware of what it is.
Speaker: um And so they hit this point of, oh crap, I'm never goingnna i'm never goingnna never going to hit this. And so they just do everything they can to avoid the actual consequence because what that consequence does is then confirming them what they always need to be true.
Speaker: Far out. So basically they've, i don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it almost like they've given up on that? So what what does it, I mean, other than sending them to you what does a leader do in that situation where they've got in this like horrible downward spiral where like there is no There is no new base that we can reset expectations to without crippling the rest of the organization because this person is paralyzed, frozen, and just not able to perform anymore in the environment that they're in. Yeah. Well, I think I would be encouraging, and this is what I do and whenever I have a client, but I guess implementers, what you can do is you can ask them basic questions around the GWC model.
Speaker: Okay. ah For instance, and you know when it comes to gets it, okay do they get it? Do they want it? Do they have capacity for it? I think it's ah you can ask a little bit.
Speaker: deeper questions around that. And what I mean by that, forget it, is because does the leader actually genuinely understand what the role now requires? okay Because as we know, companies grow sometimes, ah companies morph, companies are always evolving, always changing. And so the leader needs to be able to adapt to that change.
Speaker: So they need to ask themselves, do I actually understand what the role requires now in the present? Not what it required a year ago, not what the business required maybe 20 years ago when you first set it up. That's an important question.
Speaker: and And it's important because organizations grow. The skills required to create a one million pound company a year um are not necessarily the same skills required to keep and to lead 10 million pound organization going.
Speaker: You know, so do you actually understand what's actually going on with the business right now? do you understand what's going on with yourself right now? Can I ask you a quick question before you jump in Zach? Like when you ask people those questions, whether I ask them or whether I watch a CEO trying to have an open and honest conversation, the the typical response is, of course I get it.
Speaker: The, because like, like business, business infotainment has been so pervasive for the last 25 years. I think people most mostly understand, intellectually at least, or they think they do, that organizations grow and requirements of roles change. And anyone that's risen to that level will have heard that in some form before.
Speaker: How long does it typically take you privately, intensely, to get someone to like finally acknowledge that they don't really get it Yeah, well, I think that's a person by person basis. Like, honestly, I mean, you have some people that after, you know, a few sessions of probing, they're like, oh, okay, maybe I understand that I don't fully get it now.
Speaker: ah Or it could take a quarter, you know, it just depends on the like of level of ego involved, the level of how much... you know, the way they believe is ingrained about who they are, how they operate, who the company is, how it operates.
Speaker: um i mean, we can easily so morph into a talk on values and and purpose right now. We should we we should do that, and actually. And so let me just bookend that for the the listeners that perhaps are CEOs or or indeed implementers, actually. um You guys, the reason that I love sending people to Zach is I sometimes find like there is an element of coaching in my role, right? We talk about teacher, facilitator, coach. Coach is the most important and the most fun, but there isn't always enough time to go as deep as you need to, particularly with individuals.
Speaker: And sometimes as a leader, You can, you can forget that you're their boss and drift into becoming their amateur therapist. And your job is to serve the greater good of the organization, which is why if you can have a conversation with someone that unlocks something for them about what it means to get it, obviously that feels great and it's great for both.
Speaker: Sometimes you just need to tell them that you think they don't get it. And of course it's their prerogative to disagree with you, but in this circumstance, you're the boss and you get to decide. And if you've tried to coach them up, your next job is to potentially coach them out.
Speaker: And I like sending them to Zach during that quarter window where maybe they're on a pip and I'm pretty sure they're going to leave my team because even if they can get it, I can't take the risk that they won't get it quick enough for me to honor my own commitments to the organization.
Speaker: Right. so i think as you've listened to this, like these are really complex topics and they can take a long time for people to work through. And sometimes as a leader, the unfortunate truth is you don't have enough time to be that person's therapist, you know, in in indefinitely.
Speaker: um And so it's okay to make the call. I don't think you get it. I'm going to find, I'm going to put someone else in this seat, but hey, we've got a package. I've got a friend. There's someone I think you can speak to that, you know, if they're the right value fit, then maybe they stay in your organization. Maybe they go on and do something else.
Speaker: I have sent people to Zach and seen them light up and find happiness in their current organization or in another organization. Like it's not mutually exclusive with you doing the hard right thing as a leader.
Speaker: um Any closing thoughts on that, Zach, before we move on talk about values alignment and purpose? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's important to note that the person might have the capability to do it, but it hasn't been unlocked yet.
Speaker: yeah and they They might get it, but they might not have the capability at this point in time. And just because now is not the right time doesn't mean in the future it won't be. And they need to understand that that's okay.
Speaker: yes And that's part of what I do is I help them to understand it's like you you have you have the potential for this, but maybe now is not the right time. And actually, it's going to be healthier for you to maybe take a step out of this seat for during this period of time until you get to that point in your life where now is the right time. because otherwise you're going stressed.
Speaker: The organization is going to be stressed. Your health is going to go down. The health of the organization is going to go down and nobody wins from that. Absolutely. Nobody wins for that. And so sometimes it is, you know, a good thing to take a step back and be like, you know what?
Speaker: Yeah, I do want this, but now it's not the right time. Totally. And I think also when you're leaving a business, that's a profitable business, a profitable, small business, like it, You're not in combat. It's not the same as your background, Zach, right? And so in a way, it makes it harder for the leader because it makes them feel like a sociopath um moving someone out of the organization because it's not the type right time when lives are not depending on the decision, right? it's just shareholder value creation.
Speaker: You know, in many cases, I mean, it's different if we're trying to, you know, if we're talking about airplane safety or something. But generally speaking, in the small business world, it makes it hard. Most leaders of small businesses are good people, nice people. They want to do the right thing for everyone, and they just feel they're caught between a rock and a hard place. like Did you find that actually in a military in a way it was easier to do the hard right things because people die otherwise?
Speaker: Absolutely. Absolutely. and And even sometimes when it we know it's a hard right thing to do, you're still morally compromised because we have our own moral compass. We have our own sense of what's right and what's wrong. And just because a piece of paper says that this is okay, doesn't mean it's actually okay.
Speaker: So you have to work through that. But the good thing about the military is we have the structure provided ah there for us to help us make those decisions. And if we weren't comfortable making that decision in that point in time, we needed it we needed to check ourselves and because if we didn't, we would be checked by our higher ups.
Speaker: There we go. Back to leadership. All right. Let's talk about... personal values alignment um and an organizational vision of values and and and and purpose. um Can you just, ah can you unpack that a little bit for us? i mean, I know I've certainly sent folks to you again before where I'm trying to ask, trying to understand like, why is it that they, and don't seem to be enjoying the ride or don't seem to be getting what they want from, from the business ah at this chapter. and And, and a few times they've come back to me and said, oh I've been really thinking about my own purpose in my conversations with, with Zach.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. so like many executives, they actually spend considerable amount of time thinking about their organization's purpose, the organization's vision and values,
Speaker: But they don't spend that much time actually consciously defining their own. um They can often articulate the company values immediately. If you were to ask, this happens time in time out. So what are your values? Time in time out, they're regurgitating the company's vision, the company's values, the company's purpose.
Speaker: But you ask them to actually identify their own personal values and how those values influence the way that they lead. And that actually, that answer can be a lot less clear. And the reason this matters so much is because our personal values actually influence how we as leaders make decisions, how we handle conflicts, how we define success, how we respond to pressure, and how we determine what we are prepared or not prepared to sacrifice in the pursuit of goals, not just organizational goals, but our own goals.
Speaker: So when a personal ah when a person with their own personal values and organizational values are broadly aligned, leaders are often able to actually make decisions with greater clarity, with greater consistency.
Speaker: um And when they become significantly misaligned, something very different can actually happen. A leader may continue achieving while increasingly experiencing frustration, burnout, disengagement, exhaustion, resentment.
Speaker: You know, from the outside, actually nothing appears to be very wrong. You know, revenue may be growing, the business may be hitting all of its rocks, the scorecard may look healthy, yet internally the leader may increasingly be asking, why am I doing this? actually a very important question to to consider and it's actually a really good conversation to have ah because it allows us to explore not simply what the organization is trying to achieve,
Speaker: but actually whether the leader's behavior, priorities, and definition of success remain consistent with what they actually value. a clear organization and a clear organizational value and vision is powerful.
Speaker: A leader who actually understands their own purpose is better positioned to actually sustain that. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I've found in that context is I'm thinking about, um,
Speaker: I would say about half the time, I'll suggest someone's talked to you because we're seeing execution problems and we're not we're not achieving our our forecasts, basically operational or financial forecasts. The other half time is totally different. The business is flying.
Speaker: And the founder has told me since the very beginning that they want to delegate and elevate, baby. They want to get out the weeds. They want to go live on the beach. And then that moment comes and and we, with leadership teams cooking, you know, or maybe even even they're not, but they're they're doing fine. Like they're meeting the the declared expectations of the owner.
Speaker: um We've got a new emergent integrator that's now running the business day to day. totally respects the authority of the owner, but doesn't need them like grabbing the steering wheel every 10 seconds.
Speaker: And, and I find myself talking to, um, these owners, founders that feel like you can tell they feel redundant. Right. And like, there's that almost like a sense of, sense of loss.
Speaker: And, uh, I, I, in many cases, as you well know, recommend they come, come talk to you because, um, you get a sense that they're mourning something and therefore they project back onto the team and to the leader in a way that doesn't feel fair on that team.
Speaker: You know, they get even if they're going to be a chair and like be on the board, They need to come and be healthy and constructive rather than unhealthy and destructive in that new seat. And it's amazing the number of owners that find it hard to fly at that new higher altitude where the business quote needs them less.
Speaker: Can you just talk a little bit about that Because I'm sure there'll be people that are listening that are not in the struggle business wise, but maybe have a bit of inner struggle coming from their own success. Right. Yeah, i can't I can't tell you how many times I've heard this actually play out in in a coaching session.
Speaker: And i mean, and rightly so, you you think about it, you have somebody who spent 20, 30 years of their life building a business, building a very successful business and it's continuing to grow, but maybe it's, maybe it's outgrown their ability to actually fully manage everything is hands-on and they need to have somebody help them.
Speaker: Somebody maybe that has, you know, if they have a 10,000 foot view, maybe that has a 20 or 30,000 foot view, somebody that can, that ah they can actually move things in a different way. Right. And think what we see is when that occurs, the owners sometimes find it a bit troublesome because somebody comes in and does things that different way.
Speaker: And doing things differently is not ah is not an issue. It's really not a problem. It actually can be for the benefit of the entire organization, especially if you want to take it from a 1 million pound a year company to a 10 million pound a year company.
Speaker: you know It requires a different level of ah thinking. you know An entrepreneur who's sort of that one million pound company may be good at generating ideas, developing relationships, creating opportunities, solving immediate problems and inspiring others. I mean, just to name a few.
Speaker: But the CEO that's needed for a 10 million pound a year company you know needs to be developing other leaders, needs to have strategic prioritization, needs to have the accountability ladder you know within their organization. They need to have these difficult conversations.
Speaker: They need to be letting go of operational involvement to a very finite position and actually be able to make decisions through others. And if they are not able to trust those around them with making those decisions, they need really be asking themselves, why?
Speaker: Why am i not allowing the team that I hired, the person I'm paying 200,000 pounds a year as CEO to be making these decisions, if I'm still having to come in and make these decisions for them?
Speaker: I would be asking them, well, why is that? Why do you feel the need to have to control? Why can't you let go? but what What are some examples? I mean, obviously we keep everything anonymous, but like what are some classic examples as to, or if not examples, then any like happy, happy endings as to, you know, these these new chair men or women, the new purpose that they found that's divorced from, you know, the the business that they spent the last 20 years building. yeah Yeah. I find one of the one of the main reasons ah that that you see somebody that's not able to relinquish the control to these amazing men and women that that have been hired to to, you know, to come in and help and to maybe give you a bit more free time on the back end is fear.
Speaker: is fear You know, fear of the business falling apart, fear of being forgotten, fear of, you know, it being all about this new CEO and not about them. And you have to ask yourself, why is that so important that I be remembered? Why is that so um important that that my name is is the one? I mean, especially if if your name is...
Speaker: you know, the name of the company, you know, we see this time and time again, um fear is is ah is a strong motivator to to not relinquish control. And it could be fear from a good place, you know, fear of what will happen if they drop the ball and the company folds?
Speaker: You know, you can ask yourself all these what if questions till cows come home and be left with absolutely no answers. and and And in fact, that can actually really hinder your company from growing because you're not empowering people.
Speaker: ah It'd be funny. It's so funny how often I hear the visions and values of a company. One of the values that that is in most companies is empowerment and how often those companies are not very empowering at all. You know, it's funny, actually, it's nice because this is where sometimes it's can be like tennis.
Speaker: I'll, I'll suggest someone talks to you to like, just do some inner exploration. um you're going have that conversation around empowerment, which completely makes sense. And then they'll come back to me and I'll be like, brother, sister, like people fuck things up all the time. Like I'm, I'm talking about delegating, not abdicating, right? Like, If you've talked to Zach and you still feel fearful, then we've probably got the wrong team, right? And let's figure that out, right? Like maybe maybe we do have the wrong team and your 200,000 pounds a year CEO is a glorified administrator and we need to get a better person in that seat.
Speaker: But it's very difficult for us to even identify that if they can't get the founder owner's fingers off the steering wheel to begin with. And so it's why I i think sometimes think people that might think it's weird that i work with you, for example, in that they might think that both of us could do the other job. But I feel like um it's helpful for owners sometimes where they have almost like good cop, bad cop. And our listeners decide which of us is which.
Speaker: um bigcu I would say 50% of the time they go on that voyage of inner discovery and then realize that their their lack of trust is valid. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and also, what what culture do they create you know with within their leadership team? you know If they're constantly coming in, of constantly rescuing the team from making mistakes, constantly micromanaging the leaders that they put in place, ah did they create a culture where that empowerment and ah accountability and openness is not really there? And actually, their CEOs or leaders are really fearful of saying, hey, look, you you told me to do this.
Speaker: back off, let me do my job. And that actually happens more often than you think. and i meant yeah it you know Just going back to the whole GWC topic, you know it's different It may be in a lot of ways considerably easier to ask the question, does my sales director GWC this role than it is to be able to ask, which is quite hard sometimes, do I generally GWC being CEO?
Speaker: Or does my owner actually, is he GWC-ing this, you know, his role at this point? Yeah. It's very, very difficult to ask those questions when the person that's higher up is maybe not fully relinquishing the control. And, you know, it takes some exploration it takes teamwork. You know, you have your part that you do and have my part that I do. But I think together we're able to actually help those owners and leaders overcome those obstacles. Yeah, and then to make this actionable for listeners as well, the other key leg in the stool here is whoever's leading your finance function. Because as an owner, if we're going to give a leadership team a quarter or two space to find their sea legs, to allow the owner to delegate and elevate, we need to do a forensic analysis of like, what's the worst thing that can happen, right? Like, I mean, if it's actually going bankrupt your company,
Speaker: to take your fingers off the steering wheel, we shouldn't do that. think um But if if if if we're fairly confident that we can let the business go to some extent for a period to see how a leadership team respond as an owner elevates and explores their own purpose for the next chapter in life, then I'm able to say, look, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? Go spend some time thinking with Zach. Let me work with the team and let's try and get them to meet your reasonable expectations.
Speaker: And if they don't, then we'll be back into the next quarterly and we'll we'll make our moves accordingly. So I think if you're listening to this and you're thinking, i know I need to let go, but I can't because I don't trust the team and we're in a financially precarious position, then yeah, don't don't don't take the wrong thing from this conversation and just let go of the wheel and crash your most valuable asset. Like that is not what Zach and I are saying.
Speaker: um Zach, let's talk like let's talk data and like evidence. um Well, oh yeah I was actually just going to make a comment on what you said. like What we do ah and in my sessions is boo a lot of times we end end up spending time gathering evidence for the way we think. ah talk Yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker: Yeah. So like, you know, something's getting in the way of, of you relinquishing control. So let's say you have an unhelpful thought, uh, this, that is getting in the way of you making a decision or you over controlling a scenario. And so, well, if I let them X, Y, Z, uh, then x y Z will happen. So if I, if I actually let them,
Speaker: ah make mistakes, then my company is going to fail. Okay, well, what evidence do you actually have that supports that statement, that thought that makes it actually realistic?
Speaker: Is there any evidence that you have? And oftentimes they'll come up with maybe one or two pieces of evidence. But then what we do is we weigh that against evidence that actually maybe makes that that statement, that thought unrealistic.
Speaker: And oftentimes we look at, okay, when you were in their position, did you ever make mistakes? You know, did you ever mess up? Okay, and where did that get you? Oftentimes they find that failure has been their biggest teacher.
Speaker: You know, failure, I think, is is is looked at in such a negative way a lot of times. And it can be if you're allowed to sit sustain that failure and and stay in that the negative thinking or the wrong thinking that caused you to fail in the first place. But if you fail and you learn from it, you actually become a stronger person.
Speaker: You become a stronger business leader. You become a stronger manager. You become a stronger CEO, business owner, because you learn how not to do something. Okay. And if you can actually grasp hold of that and realize that your team is actually going to be a bit stronger, if you don't come in and rescue them every single time that you allow them to make mistakes, you hold them accountable for them by all means, hold them accountable because they need to, they need to make sure that that learning is consolidated from that failure, from that mistake, but then put a plan together. So it doesn't happen again.
Speaker: dan do you find that when people talk to you about this, like it sounds so obvious, and yet they've never done these mental exercises until they sit with you. 100%. And the thing is, is before before i learned before I even learned how to do this, I found myself thinking that way. And to be quite honest, I still fall into that trap.
Speaker: you know I've learned to be reflective. I've learned to reflect, oh crap, I made a mistake. I need to go and reflect on this. It's a helpful practice. But yes, sometimes the most simplest things in life are are the things we don't see.
Speaker: Yeah, totally. Well, look, let's, we won't go into every component because I think it's been super helpful. I'm going to put your email and your, your LinkedIn blog that goes through all of this in detail in the show notes as well. So I know you're happy for people to, to reach out to you to always, but let's put it together with the kind of the parallel to traction.
Speaker: um What are kind of some of the loops that you help people put in place or that you recommend people explore, even if they don't want a kind of a coached journey to actually do more in a work and be healthier as an individual so that they can meet their business you know and life aspirations. thats sort That traction element from your world.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I guess traction for me is where vision actually becomes execution. It's the the discipline of consistently doing what the organization has actually agreed matters most.
Speaker: Okay. What we do in my coaching session is we approach traction through a complimentary psychological lens. Uh, because sustainable behavior rarely comes from willpower alone.
Speaker: Okay. Our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviors, they continuously influence one another and that can either create a vicious cycle or a virtuous cycle, a vicious cycle of thinking, feeling, behaving, stressed, uh, controlling, uh, whatever negative connotation you want to put to that. That's what we mean by a vicious cycle.
Speaker: However, a virtuous cycle is a healthy way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Consider an executive, for instance, facing an important but uncomfortable decision. all right If they have a vicious cycle, their thinking will be, if I get this wrong, the consequence win the consequences could be disastrous.
Speaker: They're feeling anxious. They have a lot of self-doubt. So behaviorally, they overthink. They avoid making decisions. They seek excessive reassurance or postponing decisions.
Speaker: ah The outcome then becomes the problem becomes more difficult. So actually what they've been doing has not been making their life easier. So what they need to develop is a new way of thinking.
Speaker: See, I can't handle these situations. So what they've done is they've thought, if I get this wrong, the consequences could be disastrous. That makes them feel like crap, makes them feel anxious, makes them doubt themselves.
Speaker: They continue to overthink. They continue to avoid things. They continue to seek excessive reassurance for postponing those important decisions. and Therefore, the problem becomes more difficult, and that only reinforces a new way of thinking, which is, see, I can't handle these situations.
Speaker: But see, that same mechanism that was a ah vicious cycle can actually become a virtuous cycle. That virtuous cycle is by develop you develop that through healthier thinking.
Speaker: Okay. Reframing that thought. We've weighed the evidence that supports this thought, makes it realistic, makes it you know true versus, okay, well, maybe is there more evidence that that makes this thought maybe not so true, not so realistic.
Speaker: And what we do is we often find that there's evidence, more evidence that that actually goes against the thought that makes it not so realistic, not so true. And so what we do is we find ways to develop an alternative way of thinking.
Speaker: Okay. So that that that first initial way of thinking was, if I get this wrong, the consequences could be disastrous. What we then do is, through that process that i was talking about, weighing the evidence for and against, we develop ah an alternative way of thinking that's more realistic, more helpful. So that thought could be, this is difficult, but I don't need certainty.
Speaker: I need enough evidence that may to make the best decision available to me. All right. And internally, what that actually does is it helps their behavior.
Speaker: All right. Because they're gathering the appropriate information. They're consulting the right people. And therefore, they're actually able to make the decision in the long run. And what that does is that actually causes a better emotional outcome.
Speaker: Their anxiety is reduced. They have increased confidence. The experience and that the leader has discovers that the uncertainty can be actually tolerated and difficult decisions can be made in the face of uncertainty.
Speaker: Okay. And, For future thinking, what they've then learned is I can actually handle difficult decisions without meeting absolute certainty. All right. Because we as humans, we try to to make our decisions based on concrete evidence, right, as much as possible.
Speaker: However, there's going to be times we don't have the concrete. We have the very abstract and we need to be OK with making a decision. And that that can be intolerable for some people. Yeah. I mean, it's it's so it's such a silly example. And I hope it i hope people don't listen to think I'm trivializing this because this is actually very real to me because I've done some of this work as well, Zach, as you know.
Speaker: So I'm in Florida at the moment with my in-laws. We've got an eight month old baby and my in-laws are looking after the baby and my four year old while me and my wife go to a Marriott at the TPC Sawgrass. Right. So it's like it's a it's a it's the host venue of like a major international golf tournament every year. So a really famous location, beautiful hotel.
Speaker: and um And we've booked a round of golf. And now I'm a. I'm a bit of a people pleaser. I like to be quote good enough. I've always been, um, been like that my whole life. You've talked about some of these things through the, through the pod.
Speaker: And one of the places where anxiety shows up for me is on a golf course. So ridiculous, right? Like I care very deeply about looking like a fool on a golf course.
Speaker: Like I generally only play at like really low scale golf courses in my hometown with the guys I grew up with. which is funny because like I feel more nervous playing golf than I do pitching for millions of pounds of investment.
Speaker: Because when I'm pitching for millions of pounds of investment, my inner anxiety, my heart might be racing, but it doesn't actually impair my performance to the point where I've learned like destructive loops.
Speaker: Whereas in golf, if my heart's racing and my hands are shaking, like, I've been playing for 20 years, I quite often have hit the ball into the hedge, nearly killed someone with my terrible tee shot, right? And so I've got all these memories of like these bad outcomes.
Speaker: And um when I started exploring purpose and things, i it was a real unlock for me realizing that my purpose is about playing at the boundaries of kind of human potential, including my own.
Speaker: It's not to win at all costs, yeah? it's It's just to just explore being in new situations and and and thriving and or sometimes not thriving but reaching that boundary of potential right so that's the first thing so when I go to the golf course I have to actually stop and remind myself I'm not here to win I'm here to have a good time and even if I am here to win if I play as well as I can and that isn't good enough to win or I just don't have the stuff today It doesn't like violate who I am as a human being.
Speaker: But unless I stop to actually think about that, like my brain raises the stakes to a profoundly unhelpful place. And like, I have some trepidation about playing this really fancy golf course next week, right? As I'm talking to you about it, I'm picturing standing on the first tee with the posh starter saying, Mr. Lydia, Mrs. Olea, like, you know, like come to the tee over this like, you know, beautiful veranda with all these rich people drinking their cocktails, waiting for me to hit my shot.
Speaker: And um I know I'm going to go through an exercise to try and implement the virtuous loop that we've talked about. Right? Like when I get up onto the tee, if my heart's racing, I need to be able to label it and be like, well, bro, like you really care about this. This is funny. Like, like why do you care about this so much? Okay, now need to gather the evidence.
Speaker: Like, do the people on the terrace really care about my shot? No. And even if they did really care about my shot, Why do I care so much about what like how they feel about me?
Speaker: Do I really care about that? Is that why I'm here? Is that my purpose to impress these people up on the veranda? It's not, is it? My purpose is to play at the boundaries of my potential. That's why I've booked this fancy course and I'm going to go and enjoy it no matter how it how how it goes.
Speaker: And then actually, i don't always hit terrible shots. I mean, I sometimes do, but not always. So again, the evidence isn't that I'm definitely going to hit a crap shot when I stand on the tee. And I'm probably going to take a club that I find easiest to hit anyway, again, to weigh the evidence in my favor.
Speaker: I'm going to take a few deep breaths to try and physiologically reset myself. And then I just need the last thought that needs to go through my head is you chose to be here. You know why you're doing this. And actually, even if it goes badly, it's consistent with your purpose because you're here hitting the shot, making yourself be present in this moment and not not anchored in the past of all the bad shots you've hit in the past.
Speaker: And also not anchored in the future of wondering about where this ball that you can't control after the point of impact is going to go anyway. And so it's funny, like, I don't know if listeners are gonna be able to relate to that at all. And like, it may have sounded like gibberish, but i could see you nodding.
Speaker: um That is very deep for me. That's very real to me. And there's huge applications in business. It's just funny that in business, I don't get triggered as often on a fancy golf course. Yeah, no, absolutely. And actually what you're what you're talking about, we call psychological traction, okay? Healthy thinking supports intentional behavior. Intentional behavior creates new evidence.
Speaker: that increased confidence or the new evidence develops confidence and self-efficacy. And that increased confidence then supports healthier thinking the next time you're actually confronted with difficulty. So that is what psychological traction is, which actually lines up with traction.
Speaker: yeah that's And it's so it's so interesting that people think, well, that that's my personal stuff. It doesn't affect my business or it doesn't affect what I'm doing. Absolutely, it does.
Speaker: The way you think, directly affects your performance. Yeah. Amen. I mean, like a good example is when someone has to go into like giving someone really difficult feedback, you're a manager or a leader, someone that you love is not meeting your expectations and you need to like get yourself together and then go and have that conversation in a, in a calm, impactful way.
Speaker: thank you For many people that's hugely triggering and it it is the, you know, it it drives a physiological response that they then stammer and pad and say all the wrong things and then and then the performance conversation doesn't go the way they want it to go and then they're even more fearful the next time they need to make such an intervention, right? You must see that all the time.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think when it comes to, ah you know, talking to other people about their performance, especially if you're trying to correct some unhealthy behaviors or unhealthy thinking within, you know, within that that talk on performance, it is quite anxiety provoking because nobody wants to go. i mean, we're not psychopaths. Nobody wants to go and just put somebody down. Right. Right.
Speaker: ah We're not sociopaths. We don't get our jollies off of of of having to correct somebody. But at the same time, we have a job to do. And in order for us to do that job, we have to be willing to have some of these hard conversations.
Speaker: And that can actually be quite, we we call it like psychological distortions, cognitive distortions. We where we we have this almost this pain that we can feel physiologically from having to do something that maybe goes against the way we think or what we even want to do. ah And so how do we learn to overcome that? How do we learn to tolerate that distress in those moments? And it could be, actually, we grow as a person because life is not always going to be, you know, fluffy. It's always not going to be positive. There's going to be some negatives and we're going to have to make corrections. But in the long run, that correction is going to help us to align, not just with the vision and values of the company, but our own personal vision and values. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, man. To me, it's the secret to a happy life in many things. Listen, Zach, thanks for being so generous your time and your insights. This been great. I'm sure people will um connect with you through your various mediums. So we'll have email and LinkedIn in the show notes. Any preference on how people reach out?
Speaker: ah However, LinkedIn, they can send me an email. They can give phone call. I'm happy. Fab. Thanks, mate. See you again. okay
