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Turning Shared Strengths into Growth with Kate Halfwassen
5 Plays3 days ago
Kate Halfwassen spent years leading organizations through transformation before teaming up with her husband to co-found their boutique consultancy. Together, they help businesses sharpen their focus, align their teams, and pursue ambitious growth goals. Kate joins Curtis to discuss what it’s really like to mix marriage and entrepreneurship, how family values shape their client work, and why leading with clarity and empathy makes all the difference.
About Kate:
Kate Halfwassen is a proven thought partner, having held key operations and finance roles throughout her career. Her C-Suite experience provides her with a deep understanding of business from the inside. She is known for championing empowerment and guiding teams toward achieving their growth goals. Kate excels at navigating the challenges of overwhelm by offering clear, actionable insights that align strategic vision with action steps across all levels of the organization.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Welcome
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to today's Fireside Chat, Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Here I sit down with people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes, and I'm thrilled to be speaking with today's guest, Kate Halfwassen.
00:00:23
Speaker
Kate is a proven thought leader um and thought partner, having held key operations and finance roles throughout her career. Her C-suite experience provides her with a deep understanding of business from the inside.
00:00:37
Speaker
She's known for championing empowerment and guiding teams towards achieving their growth goals.
Summarizing a Career: Challenges and Journeys
00:00:43
Speaker
Kate excels at navigating the challenges of overwhelm by offering clear, actionable insights that align strategic vision with action steps across all levels of the organization.
00:00:55
Speaker
Welcome to Behind the Build, Kate. Thanks for joining me. Thanks, Curtis. I love that. That was a mouthful, but it was, but a great bio. it's i you know It's funny. There are pieces of it where I'm like, wow, is that, is that you know you always hear these things and you wonder, did i did i did I write too much? You know, did I blow it up too much? But it's hard to kind of put twenty 22, 23 year career into a paragraph, you know?
00:01:20
Speaker
it It's impossible to do that. I know. i know what you mean. Well, you know, let's dive in. I've
Career Path: From Tax Attorney to GE Medical
00:01:27
Speaker
been really looking forward to this chat. You you started out in finance yeah and, you know, what is the path that got you to where you are today? I mean, before going full-time with your consultancy, you were the CFO of the Milwaukee Zoological Society. So I'd love to hear about that journey.
00:01:46
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Well, thank you. I started out of college. I was hired out of college to work for GE Medical, which is now GE Healthcare here in Wisconsin. I had interned for GE...
00:01:59
Speaker
before I graduated. um And actually, i it was it wasn't really my plan. It wasn't my plan at all. i had um i I firmly believe it was God's plan. I had expected to be an international tax attorney.
00:02:11
Speaker
I was going to be working, I thought, for Arthur Anderson. um i wanted to work in their Johannesburg office. And the summer that I was supposed to be moving to New York to intern in their tax office, the whole Enron thing blew up. So thus ended That part of it.
00:02:30
Speaker
And so um thankfully, GE hired me for that summer. And I really loved the work that I was doing. I loved the people that I was working with was where I met my fiance at the time, my boyfriend and then fiance and then was offered a job. So moved to Wisconsin, having never lived here before.
00:02:49
Speaker
um And I love it. And so I worked for GE for a couple of years. um And then we took a year off trying to figure out this was way back in the early 2000s when you could do things like take a year off. And, you know, it's some really big companies would actually offer support throughout that. So GE was one of those.
00:03:08
Speaker
So leave of absence. And we were looking around. What are we going to do with our time? Honestly, I wasn't sure. i wasn't sure corporate finance was what I wanted to do. was working a ton of hours at GE e and I just was like, what else is out there?
00:03:23
Speaker
So I spent half my time doing some soul searching and trying to figure out, okay, what is what is God's plan for
Role Reflections: Brookdale, Discovery World, Zoological Society
00:03:29
Speaker
me? And the other half of my time, we both spent helping to launch a ah church plant in downtown Milwaukee.
00:03:35
Speaker
And when the year was up, I said, well, I think it's still corporate finance. I think I just want to work for a smaller company. um Didn't know, but decided to. And so I worked for a company called Brookdale Senior Living. They had just come out of bankruptcy, um had been, they were just relisted a year or two before I joined with them and was there for almost 10 years. um And then ended up leaving Brookdale to work for Discovery World, which is our ah local science museum as their CFO.
00:04:05
Speaker
And that was really fun. um And what I learned there coming from a midsize for-profit company to a pretty small nonprofit in comparison is not so much that the operations and finance are all that different. It's just that when you have a smaller group of people, the personalities are much more magnified. You know, if there's only three people on the team versus 30, someone's having a bad day, everybody knows about it.
00:04:28
Speaker
Right. so they're plus And then everybody's having a bad day by extension. Yeah. It can be. It can be. So that was a that was a learning curve for me, having never worked for an organization or a company that small. Was able to do some really, really fun things, though, in that role. And being a $9 million dollars nonprofit, we everybody had to wear multiple hats, which was something I also had to learn, you know, coming out of couple of couple you know, billion dollar, uh, big for, or I guess relatively big for profit company. I didn't have a team of people supporting me. I didn't have a whole accounting team, finance team, you know, we didn't have a separate treasury department. It was kind all me, you know, and my couple of people. So, um, and I think what that really solidified for me was for me to,
00:05:15
Speaker
get the results that I want. I have to make sure that everyone is on the train. I can't just say, hey, the train is leaving the station. i hope you're on it, you know, because I didn't have, I didn't have a fleet of people to fall back on. So that was a big slice of humble pie is how I describe a lot of what I learned in that role.
00:05:33
Speaker
And then from there, went to the Zoological Society, where it was my last W-2 role as their CFO and was able to bring a lot of the learnings that I had um gained at Discovery World.
00:05:46
Speaker
We did a lot of really nerdy finance things like changing fiscal years and rolling out new charts of accounts and But we also did some pretty cool things on the HR side and also on the IT side.
00:05:58
Speaker
um when we When I started at the society, we did not have a dedicated HR person. There weren't ah HR systems in place. And some of my marching orders were to you know kind of fix fix this, like make it make it better.
00:06:10
Speaker
i think one of the wisest decisions I made was ah HR should not report
Family Consultancy: Origins and Dynamics
00:06:14
Speaker
to the CFO. They should report to the CEO. So I was really delighted that um my CEO ended up supporting that.
00:06:22
Speaker
um And then rolled out incident response plans on the IT side. And with just with a ton of support, the types of things that we did would not have been possible for a single person. um It had the significant support of my team, of my CEO, of our board.
00:06:39
Speaker
um And so we did a ton of work there. And then over this entire season, this you know, for 15, goodness, now it's probably 17 years. My husband and I had been talking about what would it be like to work together? and I think I mentioned we met way back at GE and it never felt like it was the right time.
00:06:58
Speaker
You know, we have a lot of overlap in our skill sets and it just never felt like it was right, but wouldn't it be cool? You know, wouldn't it be neat if we could work together? Would would we kill each other? Right. Would we be able to make it work?
00:07:09
Speaker
Um, And when COVID hit, my kids were four and six. And it was around that time as I was transitioning from one CFO job to another. And it where we live, the kids were being virtual schooled. My four-year-old was not loving being on a Chromebook. And it was one of the most stressful times of my life.
00:07:30
Speaker
And it wasn't the right time for us to look at it. So that was also around the time that I took the job at the society and was able to bring a lot of value there. And kind of 2023, we had closed and completed a lot of the projects that I had been benighted to take on when I joined as CFO at the society.
00:07:48
Speaker
And we looked at each other and we just sort of said, hey, like maybe now's the time, what do you think? And we both for the first time said yeah, I think this might be the time. um And so the society is an organization that our family cares about very deeply. We've supported them financially for years.
00:08:07
Speaker
And I was delighted to have been tapped to have the opportunity to take on that role. um I felt like I stood on the ear on the shoulders of, you know, 100 years of CFOs before me. So that was pretty cool.
00:08:19
Speaker
But I also felt like I had done a lot of, I brought a lot of value to get that organization to where it needed to be to approach the next 100 years. So it felt like, yes, we're at a point where we could consider this. So ended up giving my notice the beginning of the fourth quarter and um had a pretty long off-ramp,
00:08:36
Speaker
into 2024 and finally went part-time in December of 23 through mid January of 24. Um, and then went full-time with our consultancy in mid January of last year. So, uh,
00:08:51
Speaker
that's, that's amazing. That's really cool. Um, and now I get, you know, half was an associate's. I know who your associate is. Um, that's right. Yep.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yep. So you're now you know co-owner, chief get it done officer, one of my favorite one of my favorite titles. before Before I talk about what you do there and and who you work with, I love that this is a family business.
00:09:18
Speaker
Um, I have to know what it's like working together. My parents worked together. oh really? They seemed to do it extraordinarily well. Uh, but I've also heard some horror stories. So, um, I'd love to learn just a little bit about what it's like working together. um it's nice that you were both on the same page and wanting to go in that direction.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was interesting. and ah And on that point, when we were having that conversation, I remember, um, checking it out with some friends of mine, people that I really trust to say, hey, like, does this is what are the watch outs here? Like, and and they to a person, they all said, wait a minute, you've been asking back and forth between the two of you for 15 years.
00:10:00
Speaker
um And you finally both said yes, like, isn't that the sign you're looking for? Like, you got a different answer, right? So um Working together. So we've been married. It'll be 22 years in November. So we've been through, you know, pretty good amount of stuff together.
00:10:16
Speaker
And I think
Consultancy Services and Client Engagement
00:10:19
Speaker
it's funny. We don't actually see each other that much. You know, like we we're both as a small boutique consultancy. We're both out and about um quite a bit.
00:10:27
Speaker
And. So it's not like we're stepping on each other's toes all the time. I think we're both pretty respectful. We have access to each other's calendars, of course, and um have pretty good structure with what we do.
00:10:39
Speaker
So it's been it's been good. i know there was some concern that mostly other people had, like, how is it going to go for you guys? And I... I don't know how it's going to go, but I probably see my husband about as much now as I did when I was working outside the home.
00:10:54
Speaker
So, um and, you know, probably COVID was a good transition for us, honestly, because we were doing so much remote work at that time. We had to figure out what it is to divvy up the spaces and, um you know.
00:11:07
Speaker
figure out what our alternate office locations and stuff. So, um, no, it's been, it's been really good. And one of the things I really appreciate about, about working with Brent is, and I just went into this the other day, while we have a lot of overlap in our skill sets, Brent has, while I was working in, um, for profits and nonprofits, uh, for 21 years, he was, had moved out of the for-profit space after GE and And ended up working in a nonprofit for a few years, but then became self-employed after that.
00:11:38
Speaker
ah MKE Business Coach or Hefwassen Associates, our DBA MKE Business Coach. he started that in 2017. So there was a significant chunk of time where he was solely managing our family's other businesses. So in addition to our consultancy, we own...
00:11:55
Speaker
several hundred acres of industrial land in Indiana. That's, you know, as any development project is could be 30 years in the making 50 years, even in developing, we also own a but a portfolio of triple nets around the country. So um he was managing those for the family.
00:12:11
Speaker
And when there's a big deal going down, it's very crazy. And when it's when there's nothing going on, there's really nothing going on. And you're looking around for things to do. And He ended up starting the consultancy in 2017 when he concluded a TIF deal, a tax incremental financing deal at the end of 2016. So it was kind of looking around like, what am I doing with my time?
00:12:31
Speaker
um And so so his skill set, one of the things I really appreciate is when I have a specific question with regards to, the way...
00:12:44
Speaker
the way financing might work for an appraisal on a commercial property, for example. You know, as someone, I know it somewhat, but I haven't dealt with it as much as he has. So I can just say, hey, what are your thoughts on this? What are the watch outs?
00:12:59
Speaker
I just did this the other day for a client of ours. And um he said, well, here's, you know, you need to know this, this and this. Now you have what you need. go forth and and meet with your clients and whatever. So having him as a resource has been great.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then for my part, I'm strong on the process side, having had to implement lots of processes throughout my career so far. And so when he will have a question for one of his clients about, you know, what's the way to approach this? How do we get through this this obstacle?
00:13:27
Speaker
um That's a place where I can bring him some of my experience to be able to support him in that way. I love that. That's a great but that's a great balance. um So tell let's tell me more about the business. What kind of services do you offer and provide?
00:13:42
Speaker
Sure. So we like to talk about ourselves. I mean, I got to pick my own title, so it's one of the fun things about being self-employed. So Chief Get Things Done Officer, which is, you know interestingly, throughout my entire career, you know you have these annual reviews or semi-annual reviews and The thing that has always come up in my, in my reviews as my strength and my weakness is that I get stuff done.
00:14:04
Speaker
Right. And so where of course that's been a weakness is sometimes like I was sharing before, when I was mentioning the humble pie, um, in my CFO role at our science museum, um,
00:14:16
Speaker
I have to be very careful to read the room and recognize when people aren't on board with with what I want. And it can be hard for me. My personality is I'll have blinders on. I just see this is where we got to go and we got to get there.
00:14:28
Speaker
And that's also one of my strengths, right? So if I can do that well and listen to folks and gather the feedback, you know, be patient. the outcome is going to be better than if I just plowed forward. So I liked that title for better or for worse, but we're also growth consultants.
00:14:43
Speaker
So that's sort of my subtitle on my on my business tag. And what we mean by growth consultants is we want to work with businesses that have growth goals. So where you know some folks might say, oh, well, doesn't every business want to grow? And I'd say, no, not every business does want to grow.
00:14:59
Speaker
We specifically target businesses between a million and 50 million in annual revenue. We are industry agnostic. We like to work directly with the business owner. And if a business is happy where they're at, which some businesses that where the owner is ready to retire and they just want to kind of move on out are happy where they're at.
00:15:18
Speaker
Those are not a good fit for us. But when there's a business that says, hey, I want to get from 2 million to 10 million. um or I'm struggling because I just can't figure out how to increase my profit margin.
00:15:29
Speaker
ah Industry standard is, you know, 12% and I can't seem to get beyond seven. You know, that is a place where we love to roll up our sleeves and come alongside. For people with a corporate background, the term fractional can mean something, you know, where I say we become a fractional part of a team. But for folks who don't have that corporate background, crown I just describe it as, hey, we roll up our sleeves,
00:15:51
Speaker
We can give you as much or as little support as you want. And for us, we're structured restructured as a package. So there's not a, you know, get charged more. We'll let you know if we think you're taking up too much time. But we do what it takes to get the work done.
00:16:05
Speaker
i have a client who was, um the business is determined by utilization rate, essentially billable time. um And there was an industry standard of a particular amount.
00:16:16
Speaker
And they weren't hitting it And in part, they weren't hitting it when we looked into it simply because the team wasn't aware of what their billable hours were and in the for the prior week or any period of time. So no problem. Give me access. And I got on the phone with the vendor and it took a couple of months, but we got the access and we got the visibility that the team needed So that that foundational level, they could see where they were at.
00:16:40
Speaker
um And that's a good example, I think, of how we roll up our sleeves. We don't we don't love just, hey, here's your homework assignment, go forth and get it done. We've been in way too many situations where that's you know consultants get that bad rap for putting together a really nice PowerPoint presentation and then it gets put on the shelf um or in ah you know the circular file even worse.
00:17:00
Speaker
And nobody does anything with it. And in our case, we want to give that and then we also want to help people get there. Which, you know, for me is ah is a big difference. You know, I think of consultants and I think of what you just described. You know, they brought the PowerPoint, they tell you what you should be doing, and then they leave you to either accept or not accept those changes and do them yourself. You actually get in there and do it with them.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, to the extent that they want it, right?
Client Misconceptions and Solutions
00:17:25
Speaker
So you know in some cases, we're welcome to, yes, please go go in, talk to my vendors, you know help me out with this. And in other cases, of course, we're we are not ah skilled in some areas. you know One of my clients had, frankly, a branding issue, a messaging issue.
00:17:41
Speaker
I knew enough to say, you know, you're pitching yourself as a white glove service, but the language you're using is much more, you know, in Melina Palmer's words, it's much more value sort of focused.
00:17:53
Speaker
um We need to fix this. I can give you some high level suggestions, but it would be much better if I introduced you to somebody who does this, you know, 24 seven. And we did, we sat down together and she was able to get some counsel from some branding folks that I know um in order to fix some of the language there and get it more aligned with what she actually does.
00:18:12
Speaker
Um, you know, that there's an example of where we don't necessarily, we aren't, we aren't, we don't know all things. Don't nobody would ever ask me to go recruit people for them. I would decline completely. Like you don't want me recruiting for you, but I can get you in touch with some talented people who can, can help you out with that. That's awesome. So who, who do you work with? I want to know about some of your clients. You don't have to give me names, but, um, you know, what kinds of problems, challenges, and goals bring them together.
00:18:38
Speaker
to you uh, and then what, what do you do for them? Sure. Yeah. Well, let's see. So what I, and it's a good question, Curtis, because sometimes I wish I knew the answer more clearly so that I would make, you know, would make my life easier and in targeting folks.
00:19:00
Speaker
I ended up telling a lot of stories about things that I've done and sometimes things resonate with our clients. So I would say in Kate's words, what I would say, well, you didn't ask about Kate's words. Let me tell you what my clients wanted.
00:19:16
Speaker
So yeah. All right. So the clients, what the clients, and and that's probably the right way to look at it is what do the clients actually want? The, my first ever client, um I think what she really wanted from what I could deliver was I understood where she wanted to go.
00:19:34
Speaker
And I had some thoughts around how to get her there. um And I also had the background in finance and operations that she did not and could really put, you know, the meat behind what I was saying. And she was one of the first ones that came when I just was fresh in the consultancy.
00:19:50
Speaker
um like could growth Like a growth challenge or did was she looking to start a business? was She had been in business for about 15 years, wanted to grow. The industry itself was in a sort of a low point.
00:20:04
Speaker
um And so some of our work was recognizing that the industry was cyclical. And so let's take this time when there's less activity to shore up some of the language, shore up um some of the structure.
00:20:17
Speaker
And one of the things we like to say that we do at MK Business Coach is we take the universe of all the things that business owners are worried about and we narrow it down to one or two things.
00:20:31
Speaker
no more than three. In my experience, it's no more than two, but we'll give people no more than three things that they really need to be focusing on. Some people like to call those KPIs. Some people like to call them goals. um For this first client that I'm mentioning, their one thing they needed to be focused on was recruiting.
00:20:46
Speaker
That was the one thing. Like if you focus on nothing else, recruiting. The rest of it will take care of itself, you know, and You've got me here to help make sure that it does. Right. So you just go out and spend as much time as you can recruiting.
00:20:57
Speaker
And she's seeing the impact of that now. She's been a client now for over a year and is really, really it's wonderful. It's so gratifying to see the growth happening. amazing Amazing.
00:21:13
Speaker
that i can spend money on things and you know which is funny because one of the things i i like to say is i love teaching people how what they do every day impacts the bottom line so that they know okay if i go buy this thing or i attend this conference or i hire this person that's where that's going to impact my expenses.
00:21:33
Speaker
Let's look at pricing. and you know does it Are you priced where you need to be? I love telling people, even in my nonprofit career, i got accused of having a cold heart, but I just said, hey, you know we still got to get to zero as nonprofits, just like for-profits do.
00:21:46
Speaker
You price to the point of pain. you know Price until it's painful. And if it's too painful, then you've gone too high. But if it's not painful enough, then you have and you have not captured all of the the ability you have to raise your prices. So um we looked at pricing, we looked at, um you know, making sure that she understood how what she does every day impacts the bottom line. And from my experience, that type of work means, hey, let's talk through what your business actually is. Let's put projections together.
00:22:15
Speaker
Let's make sure that you understand where those are coming from. And then let's look at them on a regular basis. It's really a education um that can take some time just kind of swimming in the pool in order to get acclimated.
00:22:26
Speaker
um Another client is on probably my fastest growing client is on like a hockey stick growth ah trajectory and really needed to understand of the opportunities that were presented to her to do her business, which ones both gave her joy and produced the most profit for the business.
00:22:48
Speaker
And so um I actually wrote an article fairly recently on this topic and posted it on our website. And this is not a unique idea that I had, but put to get putting together a matrix of, okay, joy's on the Y axis and profit's on the X axis. I don't care what axis you put them on.
00:23:02
Speaker
But when you evaluate the various opportunities that you have, and it could be people, it could be you know, clients, it could be, you know, it could be your employees, it could be opportunities, rank those.
00:23:13
Speaker
And you want to aim for that upper right, wherever you put your profit and your joy, you want to aim for the upper right. um And so getting her to a place where she, you know, when we initially started talking about that, she said, I don't i don't know, I don't know how to rank these things. And I said, Okay, well well, we'll get there, but start thinking about this. And the team has been talking about it and figuring that out. And ultimately for them, where they will get to, um, will be that they will then be able to determine very accurately the profit part of it. You know, they'll know, you know, okay, well this one, we thought it was making this amount.
00:23:47
Speaker
It's really not that profitable. Yeah. Hmm. So I would suspect that not all of your clients even have insight into and clarity, even what their problems and challenges that they face really are. i mean, do you ever have somebody that comes to you to fix one thing, but the reality is the problem something like completely different, for example, like all the time. how but do you Yeah. So she opens your door thinking they have a problem with finding the right talent, but the issue is actually poor process, leadership, operations, whatever.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, you nailed it. ah Yeah, exactly. You basically just described your business. You just did. you Good job. Yep, well done. No, it's true. what We like to say that, you know, you go to the doctor with a presenting problem, right?
00:24:25
Speaker
um And it turns out that the issue is actually something else. None of us like to hear that, but we have to earn the right as consultants, as trusted advisors, um to speak into areas that maybe the business owner didn't think was actually the issue.
Organizational Alignment Strategies
00:24:42
Speaker
Sometimes we, sometimes we do a good job. Sometimes we don't.
00:24:45
Speaker
um But you're absolutely right. a lot of times as consultants, we come into it and we think, okay, this obviously is a problem. I could, we can be done and done, you know, with the entire engagement tomorrow, I'll put a little paragraph together and off you go. Right.
00:24:58
Speaker
um But that takes time and it takes time to, um to win people over and, and humility, right. I'm not always right. I think I know, but I need to be ready to recognize I might not be correct on this one.
00:25:09
Speaker
So, yeah. it's It's really important, obviously, for organizations to be aligned. And it sounds like a lot of what your firm does is really help remedy misalignment. You know, where do you start to do that? I mean, does it begin by reminding people, you know, reminding folks that the people aren't mind readers?
00:25:30
Speaker
Talking about employees in particular? Yeah. Or and leadership, you know, to make sure that they're always, you know, driving in the same direction. Right. Yeah. Well, that's an interesting question. I'm working with one of my clients now. It's a partnership.
00:25:45
Speaker
um And the two of them have had some really good success. It's a growth company. All of our clients are growth companies. and um But they're recognizing that they they don't really know.
00:26:01
Speaker
There are some things that are irritating them, but they don't really know what where they're headed together. um And so I was brought on, we were brought on to help them get to a place where they can better understand where they want to go together.
00:26:16
Speaker
ah Their relationship is really good, but they wanted to have better clarity into that. So we love a structure that I was became familiar with in my career, vision goals, objective strategies, and tactics model.
00:26:30
Speaker
I wasn't sure who to give credit to for this model. it turns out it's the military. So I guess I've already paid for it through my taxes. Right. But like the vision, goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.
00:26:41
Speaker
um I love that because we like to say when we're when we're teaching on this. that folks fall into one of three groups. You have sort of dreamers and visionaries who can see a really big picture and they you know they they want they can see where they want to be in the next 10, 25 years, whatever.
00:26:59
Speaker
But they really struggle to figure out how the heck are they going to get there? What's the step one, two, and three? And then you have folks that are more task oriented where they kind of keep their head down all the time and they just keep churning and churning and they do the thing over and over again, but they never lift their their heads up to see why am I doing this and where am I headed?
00:27:17
Speaker
And then there are people in the middle that are more like me, where that I call that group small minded people, ah where we can see a little bit of vision, we definitely can do the tasks, but we need someone to kick us in the pants and get us to think bigger and challenge us to take more risk.
00:27:31
Speaker
um And that's certainly the group I follow. And none of these are complimentary, by the way. um And so the framework, vision, goals, of objective studies, and tactics, which apparently our military came up with, um is really helpful to capture people at all different levels there. And so with this particular client, um we've been starting off with sort of what is your philosophy with the business? They are they are of the opinion, they're more about the kind of lifestyle they don't want to lead.
00:28:00
Speaker
um And they're kind of learning to embrace a lifestyle that they do want to lead. And on the face of it it, it doesn't seem like a very directly related to the business kind of a statement, but it's very much related to the vision, the why for their business, what their why is.
00:28:16
Speaker
And I'm not a big, you know, smarter people than I have written great books about why, but I do think it's an important topic to chat about. And then the next thing we start talking about is what where do you want to be? Where do you want to be in 12 months?
00:28:28
Speaker
um And that has been a really interesting conversation for them. Because with these folks, um some of the frustration they've had is some of the clients that they're getting are on that joy versus profit matrix. Some of them are high joy, real low profit.
00:28:43
Speaker
you know And some of them are... low joy and low profit. Right. And, and, you know, those are easy. Like, let's just get rid of those. Like you don't want anybody in the lower left. Like we're going to get rid of all those lower left clients right now.
00:28:54
Speaker
um No reason to keep those, but um starting to think through for the two of them to think through, okay, which are of all their clients, um, I had them each rank it separately. Which ones do you like?
00:29:07
Speaker
And then when we think about where you want to be, probably you want more that are at least in that high joy. You may choose to take some that are low profit, but we need to pay the bills, right? So there's going to be more in that high joy, high profit. That's where we want to be. And how many of those do we want to get?
00:29:21
Speaker
And who's going to do it? And when is it going to get done by? And the beauty of that structure is you start to fill in all of those pieces. And when you have um staff, right, if you know which which this company does have staff, now you can start to assign those to people.
00:29:36
Speaker
And you can start to say, okay, Jane Doe is responsible for such and such. It's going to be done by the end of the fourth quarter. um And we're going to check in with her on a weekly basis see such and such. um but it's dynamic.
00:29:47
Speaker
So when opportunities arise, things change, you you're flexible. When we, when we train on this, we say it's, it's not like your grandma's peanut brittle. It's more like, you know, hubba, bubba, chewing gum, where it's really flexible. You know, you can make it really, really flexible um because especially with small businesses, sometimes you get great opportunities or doors close and you have to, you have to shift. So, hu so yeah.
00:30:09
Speaker
Is that your question? Yeah, no, definite definitely. And, and, I like that you talked about the why, because I actually want to address this in just a little bit. But before that, I know that employees and leaders, they they need clear expectations.
00:30:24
Speaker
And, you know, talked a little bit sort of ah ah around this before, but, you know, those need to be continuously reinforced, right? So, what does an organization do to begin to turn this around if it's actually not really part of their culture? Like I'm assuming the change begins with leadership, but how do you steer them into this culture of communication, clarity, transparency,
Democratic Strategic Planning at the Zoological Society
00:30:47
Speaker
right? You talked about those, those three types, right? And there's a tap that just never lifts their head, right? Off the table to know why they're doing things, right? So maybe their expectation is just that things have to get done.
00:31:01
Speaker
Right. How, how to where does Where does the change happen? How do you steer them towards this this culture, um you know, of of transparency and transparency, clarity, you know, so that everybody has those clear expectations?
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah. um I think it depends on where the leadership is. You know, i love starting with the vision goals, objective strategies, tactics framework, but sometimes that's not the right, you know, sometimes that's too too philosophical a place to start and there's more of a presenting issue.
00:31:34
Speaker
um If there's an actual current issue or, you know, one of the triggers that we say is a place where we like to step in, not because we're great with recruiting, but because it's indicative of other problems, a trigger is, you know, oh my goodness, I just lost another employee, right?
00:31:48
Speaker
We're not HR people, but typically if they've lost an employee, it's impacting their bottom line and there's something going on with their processes. So it's not about, I just didn't get the right person in there. Typically it's about something much deeper, which I think you're alluding to.
00:32:02
Speaker
yeah um And when we see that typically what's going on is, as you said, there weren't clear expectations upfront with the employees. um They didn't,
00:32:13
Speaker
It's possible that they continue to hire the wrong person, but it's also entirely possible that they hire somebody. They're on sort of that honeymoon for a couple of weeks and then they realize that they're not doing the work. So um I would say, as you mentioned, it does definitely start with the leader. They have to be humble enough to recognize that there's a problem.
00:32:33
Speaker
you know I'm losing people, even if they don't know why. and they have to be recognize be willing to recognize that maybe, just maybe, there may be an issue with how they're being how they're being trained and then how they're being coached, essentially, how they are internally. right I am a huge fan of weekly one-on-ones. Make sure you have a sphere of control that's correctly sized, but then meet with your team once a week. you know That way, if you miss a week, you're at least meeting a couple times a month.
00:33:04
Speaker
um And in those meetings, review those expectations that were set up front. um And i i' um I love as detailed a job description as there can be. i recognize there's other duties as assigned. And in some cases, you know, especially with higher level roles, you're not going to put everything down on a job description. But there has to be that communication of what are we doing? Why are we doing it? And the reason I love doing that in the context of that vision, goals, objective strategies, and tactics model is those, whether they're objective strategies or tactics, those are ultimately, they can be assigned out to team members and they can see how it impacts the overall achieving of the goals for the company.
00:33:45
Speaker
um But you're absolutely right that that communication must happen. And there needs to be not just, Hey, here's your standard operating procedure, or here's a video that you can watch, you know, hope you get it right.
00:33:56
Speaker
You need to be touching base with them yeah and making sure it's clear. I like what you just said about not just what we're doing, but why everybody's doing what they're doing. Going back to that why you talked about you know getting everybody aligned on the why.
00:34:12
Speaker
of he Obviously, you don't just mean the company's mission there, but like you said, why everyone is doing what they're doing. right You shared a ah blog post with me, I think, that talks about how vital it is that that people know how their efforts contribute to the bigger picture in it. right You talk about motivation, productivity, improving when people actually understand what success looks like, um how this lets everyone sort of move in that one direction. Does this kind of sound like what you're sort of talking about? I feel like everybody on the same page is so important for organizations to be truly successful or at least to maximize their success. that sound about right?
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a story I can tell you is um when I was at the society, the Zoological Society, I was asked to essentially run a strategic, internal strategic planning process. And to be clear, we at the same time or about a year later, we're also going through ah a significant external strategic planning process, which I did not lead. We had outside consultants doing that. But for our internal planning purposes,
00:35:09
Speaker
Um, i was the process we led, which was one that I had learned through my career uh, we were, we were, we had changed the fiscal year. So we were a calendar year fiscal at this point, which meant that ultimately we were but going to be budgeting in sort of, um, September, October time period with a goal of being done by Thanksgiving.
00:35:30
Speaker
Um, and so starting in April, we got the senior leadership together and we talked about, Hey, like what, what's important to us as an organization, as a nonprofit, we had, of course, our mission statement, which is not something we're going to be changing. And businesses also have that. They also have a, what, why they do what they do.
00:35:50
Speaker
um And we talked about what we liked about it, what we didn't, and then kind of what what was going well and what what was our dream? What were our dreams for the for the coming year? And it was the whole senior leadership team. So sort of by extension, we had the entirety of the organization represented there. but We then sent everybody off to go meet with their teams and said, okay, our next session is going to be in June.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I want you to come back with, ah you know, blue sky, all the ideas. doesn't have to be big. It could be small. Any idea that your teams have. um And we got back together and and none of this was fancy, Curtis. We just stuck some big sheets of paper up on the wall in the conference room and we wrote down all the ideas.
00:36:31
Speaker
And what was interesting was, Obviously some of them were good and some of them were terrible, but the ones that we ended up keeping, and most of them were interesting, started to follow along some themes. um And we were able to grab some really, really cool ideas from that. And we just said, yes, this is a really good idea. We should roll this out for next year.
00:36:50
Speaker
um This is a good idea, but it's not going to work for next year. And we literally, with like colored Sharpies, we're circling in you know various greens and and reds and whatever. Like this is going to fall under this particular um pillar that we want to head towards for next year.
00:37:04
Speaker
So that was the senior leadership team. And then the next step was, okay, senior leaders, take the winning ideas that we came up with together that you that you brought to us from your teams and go back to your teams with the good news or bad news or whatever it is and say, this is where we're heading toward.
00:37:19
Speaker
Now your hard work is start thinking through what is this going to mean? How many people do you need? do you need to bring in an outside service? you need to buy some equipment? Whatever. and we're going to get back together in August.
00:37:32
Speaker
And when we got back together in August, that was the kickoff for our budgeting process. So by that point, everybody had had however many months it is from April to August to think through where they wanted to be. People's brains were in that space.
00:37:45
Speaker
planning process up and down the org chart from the lowest level on the org chart to the highest level. And so when we kicked off sort of our budget process, it was kind of old hat by that point. People were already thinking, um, and we had a really good, you know, template, so to speak. But as I've said to people, you cannot have the finances drive the operational plan. It has to be the other way around. The operations have to drive the finances. And so, uh, when we kicked off that process, the, the, basically the marching orders were, Hey, everybody, you know, here's your budgeting template.
00:38:15
Speaker
You know, our team and and finance will be sitting down with you to walk you through the mechanics and But now that you've done all this good thinking, we're basically just doing math on the thinking that you've already done. You know, you want to roll this out. you need to hire somebody. You need to hire them by March.
00:38:28
Speaker
You're going to pay them this amount of money. that's it that it up and And to me, that is the best way to start to take what everybody wants to do and put it into numbers.
00:38:39
Speaker
So then when we would do look at our being a budget season, we were looking at we were meeting more frequently. So we met again in September and then October, um looking at multiple different versions of the budget. um Had to skinny some things up, had to be a little bit more aggressive on some other fronts.
00:38:52
Speaker
But by the time we were done, the forecast or the budget that we had for the coming year was reflective of every single person's thoughts throughout the organization. Everybody had been involved in the process.
00:39:05
Speaker
um of building that out. And we use the vision goals, objective strategies, tactics framework in order to get there. So those folks then who had um tactics directly related to the achievement of these goals,
00:39:20
Speaker
that went on to their annual review plan. We we were using in our HRS system, those goals went into what they were going to be measured
Employee Involvement in Strategic Planning
00:39:28
Speaker
against. Now, everybody, not everything everybody does every day is going to be related to that high level goal for the for the company.
00:39:35
Speaker
um But a couple of them likely will be. And so by putting it into then there um their goals and what they were going to be achieving from sort of that personnel side, ah we had we had it locked in that they were then going to be you know, measured to that throughout the year. So we went right from the budget setting process directly into goal setting, individual goal setting for our employees.
00:39:57
Speaker
And then we're able to start the next year um in January and hit the ground running where everybody knew exactly what they needed to do and how that would impact the bottom line. it is In this particular story, what's really interesting is that process was so democratic where it's not even getting everybody involved on the same page with Claire Expectations, but allowing them to be part of that process and into creating what those expectations are, um which can be really, ah I'm imagining, pretty powerful for that organization, right? Everybody has sort of a you know contribution, right? Everybody was part of that that or had a contribution to make in in defining what those expectations look like.
00:40:40
Speaker
So it did sounds it sounds that way. It is. and And not every company is going to want to budget that way or plan that way or um put two goals together that way.
00:40:56
Speaker
I, my personal feeling is that companies are missing out when they don't seek that kind of input from across the organization. um i think a story on that would be in my other CFO role at our science center.
00:41:11
Speaker
um Some of the best ideas come from the least likely places. Um, when I started at the science, uh, science museum, we still owned a recreation tall ship.
00:41:22
Speaker
It's called the Dennis Sullivan. It was a recreation of a late 1800s schooner on the Great Lakes. It was kind of like the semi trucks of the Great Lakes. Um, and when I started, it was losing six figures a year.
00:41:33
Speaker
And as a nonprofit, you know, our job is just to get to zero. Right. So, um, One of the things where you wouldn't typically think a CFO would be doing this kind of work, but in a small company or small organization, everybody wears lots of hats. So I pulled together a group of people.
00:41:48
Speaker
um We had people from our sales team. We people from, of course, from the from the crew of the ship, ops, of course, my finance team. And was just a brainstorming session. What can we do to to work this out? Obviously, there's some math.
00:42:01
Speaker
you know we can We can look at pricing and whatnot. And we did do that. But coming out of that session, somebody had the idea... Hey, Milwaukee, we're known for our great beer. we should serve beer on the boat, right? We would we would call it the boat. like We prefer to be called the ship, but we would call it the boat internally.
00:42:18
Speaker
We should serve beer on the boat. And we were like, huh, I wonder what's involved with that. Obviously, we could charge more if we could serve alcohol on the ship, but I have no idea what is involved in that. um And so we ran with it. And i will tell you, Curtis, I lost so many brain cells trying to navigate the liquor laws in the state of Wisconsin. It was really something, but we did it.
00:42:39
Speaker
um And between that. Probably a few for being on the boat and having a few of those beers too. Oh, did you go? but no I'm just saying that that would probably contribute to some of the brain cell laws, but you know. no actually it's funny. I get really motion sick. So I'm doing all this work and I like, I didn't even go on the ship ever until it was, it was months.
00:42:58
Speaker
They finally, i kept, the captain kept giving me a hard time about it. And I just, I told her, I was like, I can't, I can't do it. I will not make it. sell Beer and Dramamine. That dramamine doesn't work. i it had There was a prescription that I ended up getting that worked. I finally was able to take one. But what ended up happening with that was both through thinking creatively about how we could use that. We looked at partnerships as a group. We looked at you know what what costs can we cut, if any. We we you know looked at our insurance coverage and whatnot. We had earthquake insurance on the ship, which we don't get earthquakes here. So you know one of those things we kind of took a look at.
00:43:33
Speaker
Um, we were charging the same amount for a Tuesday afternoon sale as a Friday night sunset sale. And we're like, no, no, no. Like date night sales should be more.
00:43:44
Speaker
Um, and between all of that effort together as a group, we went from losing six figures to actually making, you know, 10 or $20,000 on the ship. So, As a nonprofit, we were like, great, you know, thumbs up. We we did it, um you know, and that's that was a big achievement. So I tell that story as an example, because that serving beer on the boat, right, that idea wasn't my idea. It came from someone in our sales team who just happened to be thinking blue sky and came up with this idea. and it turned out to be a great one.
00:44:15
Speaker
And when business owners, CEOs, whatever, when they don't reach out to their teams, if they don't reach out at all levels and create a culture where people can and are proactively asked what they think about such and such, or do they have any ideas, they miss out on all those really great ideas that are out there.
Tech Platforms for Business Communication
00:44:37
Speaker
um And I think they they they can potentially hamstring the growth of their business.
00:44:42
Speaker
So um on this topic, ah you know, since we're a tech company, I want i want to do a little bit of of, you know, talk tech quickly. lot of platforms, Mustard Dub included, help to build alignment, open up communications, you know, reinforce values, help teams get on the same page.
00:45:00
Speaker
How are you seeing organizations use tools, you know, and platforms? Are they are they doing it right? What could they do better? Yeah. um I would say...
00:45:12
Speaker
The ones that use it well have implemented it well. So, so many organizations, um not just with ah HR and goal setting and alignment systems, but with, you know, project management and whatnot, um you know, get really frustrated because they don't understand the implementation um or they kind of abandon their CRM or, you um That's a great example. i you know We rolled out a new CRM, but nobody uses it. And our salespeople are back to using Post-it notes and spreadsheets.
00:45:41
Speaker
and And the reason why is because they don't understand it. you know they haven't They haven't taken the time um to really dig into it and understand it. So to me, that's the key is it you know with a tool like what you have,
00:45:54
Speaker
making sure that everyone understands how it how it works, just like anything else, like we've been talking about, setting that expectation. in In this case, I would say implementing it, making sure that people understand it, and then having regular check-ins um that demonstrate the strength of that tool um and making sure that the utilization is there will make it more successful. And that's the case for for any tech that that folks roll out. Yeah, that's ah a stated pretty well. I mean, there's there's going to be low adoption, inconsistent adoption sometimes. So getting everybody on the same page with how to best use it, I think, is kind of critical from the beginning.
00:46:36
Speaker
I know that technology is going to keep evolving, becoming increasingly vital to to how orgs stay competitive. And
AI in Consulting: Current State and Applications
00:46:44
Speaker
AI is Definitely going to be changing a big part of this. Have you been tapping into this in your consultancy? How are you guys using it?
00:46:52
Speaker
AI in particular? Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
so Yeah, no, it's a good question. I think um AI is not where I want AI to be, right? So in my opinion, I sigh, I guess, in part because everybody's all excited about AI, but I feel like it has, I'm i'm the only one I know who thinks AI has so far to go.
00:47:13
Speaker
I want AI to, I want to be able to pick up my iPhone and say, okay, um
00:47:20
Speaker
tell me who I'm meeting with today, when the last time was that I met with them, what you think I should be bringing up or not forgetting, um
00:47:30
Speaker
And oh, by the way, please make sure that you've added milk to my grocery list and pick up my dry cleaning. Remind me to call my son's teacher to ask about such and such. Right. Like I it basically I wanted to function like a really great executive admin. And there's we're so far from that.
00:47:45
Speaker
and Why are we so far from that? I don't know. I feel like all my apps are on my phones. Like something should be able to see all of that or like in a corporate setting. um You know, there are so many subsystems, even in, you know, even with Microsoft's co-pilot. Honestly, I'm just not that impressed with it. I would, and I, sorry, Microsoft, but I want to be able to, as a, you know, in my finance roles, want to be able to say, okay, co-pilot.
00:48:08
Speaker
um Go pull a financial analysis together for me that takes a look at the profit margins for this business unit versus that one, what the growth has been over the last 12 months, and then put together a growth projection for me for the next 12 months um and have it in a nice – you can leave it a spreadsheet. It's fine. But you know that's what I'm looking for.
00:48:30
Speaker
Um, and the systems just aren't, they aren't there. Um, so what do we use AI for? um we use AI mostly to, um, honestly, as a sort of an editor of our, some of our text.
00:48:43
Speaker
Um, I don't use it for cold calling. I don't use it for, um, You know, I don't really use image generation or anything. I know those tools are out there, but um I will use it as some ah ah something that I can bounce ideas off of if I'm trying to figure out um another way to approach a particular problem or...
00:49:04
Speaker
um the other day I was asking it for sort of an obscure answer to a tax question, which then of course I went to go double check and make sure it was the correct answer. But, um, you know, I use it as a sort of a, a reference and I typically use chat GPT, um, in our, in our consultancy.
Advice for Future Leaders
00:49:22
Speaker
Yeah. I, you know, as we sort of wrap up here, I have kind of a big question in a few parts, I guess, you know, kind of keeping an eye on what's next. I'm curious your thoughts on maybe what,
00:49:36
Speaker
tomorrow's leaders need to understand about people and culture that that maybe many of today's leaders might be missing? you know do you think there's misconceptions that exist amongst business leaders when it comes to people dynamics you know and and and so forth? And I guess last, if a leader came to you on advice on how to truly kind of get it right from the beginning with these folks, you're on you're on an elevator almost at the top floor, what do you tell them right before you right before you you hit the top and they walk out the door?
00:50:11
Speaker
say put yourself in the employee's shoes, your staff's shoes. If that's all I had, if the door was opening, that's what I would say, right? put yourself and Put yourself in your staff's shoes. um And I think that can encompass the expectations and training aspect we were talking about at the top.
00:50:29
Speaker
I think that can encompass how you approach someone. If you've really put yourself in someone's shoes and they're having a bad day, Let's find out what's going on. And is there anything we can do to you know be empathetic with it? And
00:50:45
Speaker
it doesn't mean that you're a carpet that people wipe their feet on. But it does mean that you are um you're approaching it. You're trying to walk in their shoes and understand where they're coming from.
00:50:57
Speaker
So I think one of the challenges and something I i coach every now and then, and we in our consultancy is a little bit interesting because we, i believe we bring our whole selves to our businesses. Mm-hmm.
00:51:09
Speaker
This is true in gigantic for-profits. It's true in small nonprofits and anything in between. um We bring our whole selves two to work.
00:51:20
Speaker
um And so sometimes my coaching takes on sort of an executive, you know, an executive coaching, like kind of a model where it's not therapy, but it is, we do bring our bring ourselves into it.
00:51:31
Speaker
um And your team doesn't have to like you. You don't have to go out for margaritas, right? It's cool if you do, but they don't have to, but they do have to respect you and they have to do what you're going to tell them to do ultimately. Right. I mean, do it with all the empathy that you can, but, and there's lots of ways of doing that.
00:51:50
Speaker
So where sometimes some business owners I think can fall a little bit is they want their, they want their teams to be their best friends, you know, especially if they've been promoted into a role, Um, and, and that's hard and that's really where, uh, coaching and consulting can really help to backstop people to say, no, you're not crazy.
00:52:09
Speaker
This person is supposed to do that. Let's come up with some strategies where, you know, you can empathetically, but firmly, you know, achieve this goal that you're looking for. So, um, yeah, walk in someone else's shoes.
00:52:22
Speaker
I love that. and Leading with empathy, curiosity. um Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Kate. And I appreciate you taking all the time. This was fun. My pleasure. Thank you, Curtis. It was really nice to meet you.
00:52:36
Speaker
Well, for all of you who are watching or listening to this episode, thank you all for tuning in to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Subscribe, like, share, comment.
00:52:47
Speaker
Be sure to check us out at mustardhub.com to see how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge and get started with Mustard Hub for free. Until next time, we'll see you soon. Thank you.