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Hosts Spencer Horn and Christian Napier discuss a better way to build and strengthen teams in any organization.
Christian Napier
00:12 - 00:30
Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Teamwork, A Better Way. I'm Christian Napier, joined as always by my co-host, who is amazing world traveling and so much traveling that I haven't even seen you for like a month and a half, Spencer. But Spencer Horn, thank you for making the time, super excited to catch up.
Spencer Horn
00:31 - 00:46
I know we have some things to talk about. I just got back from Bali and Singapore, headed back out here shortly to a few other places around the world. I'm excited. Jana and I are going to Poland and then I'll be in Doha.
Spencer Horn
00:46 - 00:51
So yes, the travels continue. But you, you've been busy yourself.
Christian Napier
00:53 - 01:07
Oh, yeah, a little bit of change of scenery here. I mean, the backdrop here is the same because I'm here in my home office. But I did move from one job to another. So I left the state of Utah as the AI director of the state of Utah.
Christian Napier
01:07 - 01:14
Now I'm filling a similar but expanded role with the Utah 2034 Olympics. So I'm super excited to get going on that journey.
Spencer Horn
01:15 - 01:19
Very, very excited. And speaking of excited, I'm excited for our guest today.
Christian Napier
01:19 - 01:26
Oh, I'm super excited. You sent through the information. I'm like, yes, we need to talk to her. So Spencer, why don't you go ahead and introduce her?
Spencer Horn
01:26 - 01:42
Yeah, here we're talking about her like she's not even here. But here she is with us, Liz Landry. Welcome to our show. She is the author of her forthcoming book, From Operator to Owner, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Running a Business That Doesn't Run You.
Spencer Horn
01:42 - 02:23
as well as a business strategist, keynote speaker, and a practical leadership expert with over 16 years of experience empowering entrepreneurs to build self-sustaining companies. She has personally coached thousands of business owners, guiding leaders from solo ventures to scalable, sellable organizations, many of which have achieved significant profitability and successful exits. Liz is renowned for her practical, tactical approach equipping entrepreneurs with real-world tools and actionable frameworks that move beyond theory into implementation, which is so important. Got to get stuff done.
Spencer Horn
02:24 - 02:59
Her work enables leaders to shift from overwhelm and dependency to freedom and sustainable growth by building organizations that no longer rely solely on their involvement and challenging conventional wisdom is what Liz loves to do. And sometimes, you know, this idea that growth alone magnifies underlying problems unless the right structures and systems are in place. That's what she's helping them figure out. And as an in-demand speaker, she has inspired audiences from executive boardrooms to arenas over 10,000 attendees.
Spencer Horn
02:59 - 03:04
That is exciting. Man, you get them all clapping and screaming your name.
Christian Napier
03:05 - 03:10
Well, you only see the first few rows, so it's, yeah.
Liz Landry
03:10 - 03:12
Things like that. You only see rows like one through five.
Spencer Horn
03:13 - 03:22
Well, it's a great feeling to be able to have people listening because of the value that you bring. Thank you so much, Liz, for joining us today.
Liz Landry
03:22 - 03:24
Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Spencer Horn
03:24 - 03:35
You know, most founders start a business for this freedom that they think they're going to get, right? So when do you usually see that turn into the opposite?
Liz Landry
03:37 - 03:50
You know, it's interesting when we look at, like, what makes an entrepreneur, right? Like, and why they choose it. You know, there's people who start their own business who definitely shouldn't, who had no idea what they were getting into, right? And they're just not cut out for it.
Liz Landry
03:50 - 03:57
And they don't usually make it past the first four to five months. Like, they just don't make it, right? They don't have the discipline to do the work. They don't have the knowledge of how to do this.
Liz Landry
03:58 - 04:07
But then there's the rest of them. And there's the folks that come in and they're like, I'm going to do this. And I have a dream. and I want out of somebody else's world and I want to create my own.
Liz Landry
04:07 - 04:38
And nobody starts that and says, like, I can't wait to work 90 hours a week and, you know, have constantly answering my phone and responding to Slack messages and getting pinged here, here, here, here and here. Like, we kind of look at that and we're like, well, that's the necessary evil to get to the good part. But we see so many entrepreneurs that are 3, 5, 10, 15 years, 20 years into it, that they're still living that. And they're like, no, no, no, I'll get there.
Liz Landry
04:38 - 04:53
I'm going to get to the freedom. And they become so busy chasing the idea of freedom that they forget there's actually a way to have it. And they kind of get trapped in their business. It's so easy to stay in that because we knew it was necessary to start, right?
Liz Landry
04:53 - 05:01
Like we knew those things were going to happen when we started. We understood that from day one. We're like, I know it's going to be hard. I know it's going to take long hours.
Liz Landry
05:01 - 05:14
I know it's going to take intent, focus. and I know I'm going to need to answer a lot of questions, but then they just stay. And what I've found over the years is they don't stay because they want to, right? Like that's not actually why they're there.
Liz Landry
05:15 - 05:34
They stay because they don't actually know how to cross that bridge to go from what they started as to not being the center of dependency of the business. That was a skill set most people weren't taught. That model wasn't taught. What it actually looks like to install the things that get you there.
Liz Landry
05:35 - 05:42
Because it's not revenue that gets you to the freedom. It's actually the way that our people function inside of a business and the way the business is set up.
Spencer Horn
05:43 - 06:08
I love that setup and I'm just wondering, Liz, is there also a dynamic that you see in your work where, so they've created this environment and now they've also created dependence of people that count on them and so there's this sense of, now I can't let them down so I have to keep this pressure up because of all these people. So it's not just, not that I want to, but now I feel like there's no alternative.
Liz Landry
06:09 - 06:30
Well, I think when we look at it, it's the, yes, now I'm responsible for these people and their livelihoods and their families and all of that. But I don't think that's necessarily the connection on why we allow the dependency to stay. Think of a person like an operating system, like a phone. Did you have a BlackBerry Palm Trio back in 2010, anybody?
Spencer Horn
06:32 - 06:33
Sure did, yeah.
Liz Landry
06:34 - 06:51
Yeah, we all did. And at the time, that was cutting edge, right? You could actually type things on a keyboard in and it could access a very archaic version of a web page. It took an hour to load, but you could do it, right, in a bind.
Liz Landry
06:52 - 07:12
And so we had some of these extra tools, like you could get real baseline emails and occasionally a text message, right? But it was cutting edge at the time. We loved those phones. But imagine if you took your 2010 BlackBerry and you tried to have it do things today that we do on phones.
Liz Landry
07:13 - 07:27
We run entire businesses on phones these days, right? We're sending text messages out at the same time Slack messages are running. We've got health data trackers that are constantly monitoring us behind the scenes. We're getting email push notifications.
Liz Landry
07:28 - 07:49
We've got YouTube videos processing in the background and things uploading, right? If we tried to do what we demand of a cell phone today on our old BlackBerry or Palm Trio, it would probably burst into flames. The operating system isn't built for the way it needs to function today. The challenges, people, are the same way.
Liz Landry
07:49 - 08:05
When we start our business, we actually start with a certain operating system. That operating system is certain knowledge, certain habits, certain skills. Things that make a launch entrepreneur really good are the tenacity, right? It is the grit.
Liz Landry
08:05 - 08:18
It is the sheer will to go and do, right? Like to be the one that does. And you can do it and you know all the things because you're launching the thing that you're passionate about. So you're already incredibly versed in it, right?
Liz Landry
08:18 - 08:38
You've got the knowledge, you've got the skills, so you're doing it. The challenge is that as we begin to hire people and our business grows, The business is constantly asking us for an upgrade on our operating system. but it doesn't send us a notification, right? Like the day you hire somebody, your entire business has now changed.
Liz Landry
08:38 - 08:48
You're now a leader. You're charged with teaching them how to think. You've got to convey all the context of the business to them. And then that gets larger and larger every time you hire somebody.
Liz Landry
08:49 - 09:11
And if we keep operating with the same operating system that we started the business with, which was that grit and tenacity and hustle, But now we're applying that when we've got multiple team members, it just doesn't connect, right? Like those two pieces don't work together. We've got to upgrade our operating system. The challenge is AT&T tells us when to upgrade our operating system.
Liz Landry
09:12 - 09:35
Every two years, your contract's renewing, you could get a new phone for free. You look at all the fancy new features, just click this button and it'll be there in two days and it'll do all these new things for you. There's no button to click to upgrade our operating system to now understand leadership and delegation and how to identify the way that talent speaks, right? That doesn't happen.
Liz Landry
09:36 - 09:58
So we have to constantly be aware of doing it. The challenge is, you're so busy doing, you don't necessarily have the time to slow down and say, something here's not working and I don't know why. And because it's our business, sometimes we're even scared to admit it, to say, I don't know why it's not working, but I know something's not working, right? That's embarrassing to admit.
Liz Landry
09:58 - 10:10
I started and I launched this thing and it's successful and it's making money, but it's a hot mess behind the scenes and I don't know why. And I don't know how to fix it. Of course we should know how to fix it, it's ours, right? But that's just the way that it happens.
Liz Landry
10:10 - 10:20
This is that notification, right? Obviously the book launched this week, so I've been on the road a lot. And as soon as I'm done with you guys, I'm getting on a plane to Phoenix, Arizona.
Spencer Horn
10:20 - 10:21
Yeah.
Liz Landry
10:21 - 10:29
And that's what I'm telling everybody. I'm like, this is your notification. Like, this is AT&T telling you something's got to upgrade. Otherwise, it's not going to work.
Spencer Horn
10:30 - 10:32
Speaking your language about upgrades, Christian.
Christian Napier
10:32 - 10:58
Yeah, actually, I think this is a really, really interesting metaphor, analogy, Liz. This is my world, right? And technology migration is hard. It doesn't matter if you're migrating from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace, or if you're migrating from Windows to Linux, or you're migrating from some legacy bespoke application to a new application.
Christian Napier
10:59 - 11:19
This migration is hard, and I think sometimes people might have a sense that I can just flick this switch and we'll be running the new thing. Like you say, oh I can just, I can go to AT&T and I can get a new phone. This is not easy. I'm talking on the technology side of things.
Christian Napier
11:19 - 11:59
It requires depending on the size of your enterprise, it can require years of planning and it can be fraught with all kinds of risks. And so I'm wondering from your perspective, if entrepreneurs, or let me say even more broadly, like business leaders, because I think a lot of the lessons apply, not just to entrepreneurs and founders, Do they accurately estimate the level of effort that it's required to implement a new operating system? Because my sense is they probably don't.
Christian Napier
11:59 - 12:05
They don't really understand what goes into actually changing the OS in your business.
Liz Landry
12:06 - 12:29
No, I would say 98% don't, right? Because they're relying on the things that always worked for them. Because truthfully, think about it, from your technology side, if it's not broke, why would we fix it? Well, we fix it because we're looking on the horizon and we know in three years, we're going to be doubling in size of customers and revenue.
Liz Landry
12:29 - 12:56
We know that we're going to be dealing with new technologies. We know things are going to change. Also, we need to start planning to your point today and updating it. The challenge is when you're an entrepreneur in particular or a growing leader is you don't necessarily always have the freedom of excessive space, budget, time to look at that and say, well I know exactly where we're going to be in three years and I've dedicated this four hours
Liz Landry
12:56 - 13:26
a week over here to focus on it because I've watched others that have done this before me and I know the path exactly of how this looks. Like they tend to just assume that it will show up naturally by doing the thing. And because the business and entrepreneurs in particular, right, the business relies in those early years of the entrepreneur driving the revenue so hard that they don't want to take their eye off that ball. to look at the one over here, right?
Liz Landry
13:27 - 13:46
Because now as soon as you start growing, you're in a juggle. You have to learn how to juggle those two things of planning and pacing for the future, who we need to become, the operating system of the business and ourselves, and driving the revenue, right? People always kind of refer to it as you're fixing the airplane, you're building the airplane while you're flying it. We hear that one a lot.
Liz Landry
13:47 - 13:57
And it's like, yeah, you are in those days. But the technology is a really easy way to look at it. It's like, you know, in three years, think of the way technology is going to change. We know we need a buffer for systems.
Liz Landry
13:57 - 14:14
We know we need to do that. People tend to just assume it will come naturally with the growth in their businesses. Like, I'm here, I will ambiently just magically become this thing because the business will require it of me. But that's not the way that it works.
Liz Landry
14:15 - 14:26
The business does require it of us. But if we're not there to meet the business when it needs it, we start getting those friction points here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, right?
Christian Napier
14:27 - 15:21
If you are working 90 hours a week or 100 hours a week on business as usual, you don't have any bandwidth, right, for making a change in your operating system. And so that really begs the question, How, Liz, do you help people to free up the time so that business as usual still has to happen because it's going to fund this migration? If I just stop everything, then we don't have any revenue coming in, then the thing's going to fail, right? So how do you help leaders say, you know what, business as usual has to go on, but for us to achieve our potential and achieve our future, we've got to carve out some time from your day leader so that you can implement this new operating system.
Christian Napier
15:21 - 15:34
So how do you get them to stop spending 90 hours a week on business as usual so they have some time to actually focus on this migration to their new business operating system?
Spencer Horn
15:34 - 15:35
Is it the leverage ladder?
Liz Landry
15:37 - 15:56
That leverage ladder will be very helpful in that, but I think the first step actually starts totally as a solo, right? Like it totally just starts with us of understanding we have two roles, right? We own the business and we are the owner or the manager, the leader, right? Whatever, so if it's in a corporate entity, and we are the person doing the job that is our job too.
Liz Landry
15:57 - 16:12
So if we look at the entrepreneur, they own the business from day one, even when they're by themselves. Just because they're by themselves doesn't mean it's not a business. But they are also the primary driver of the result. And the challenge is we always tend to take on more, which is why they're working 90 hours a week, Christian.
Liz Landry
16:13 - 16:23
They're like, well, I can just take on more. I just take on more. I take on more. Which, yes, as the business grows, we have to take on new and more things, like understanding how to lead and do those things.
Liz Landry
16:24 - 16:46
Here's where the challenge comes in. you have to let go of things, too. And that's what we're really bad about. It's the sending away the things we're not supposed to do, because to your point, Spencer, when we look at the leverage ladder, which is actually the model that the book from operator to owner is backed by, and it's the way that we begin to release those things, there's
Liz Landry
16:46 - 17:15
some certain points where we tend to get stuck, because it requires us, people who are used to running at 100 miles an hour, to slow down. and to practice a skill that generally was not one we had, and that's called restraint, right? We have to actually slow down and restrain ourselves from doing the thing that we've always done, because the reality is it should no longer be ours to do, because we can't take on more until we release things to create a space.
Spencer Horn
17:27 - 17:50
You take one action and it affects something somewhere else. I think John Cotter in his book Leading Change, which is an incredible book, and Christian to your point, he says you need to expect it's going to take about a hundred times more communication times. than you think to be able to get people to change. But he describes a room, just imagine a living room with tables and chairs all tied together with a rope.
Spencer Horn
17:50 - 18:04
If you move one piece of furniture, something else moves somewhere else. And so the key is maybe Maybe we stop moving something. I don't know. You're talking about letting go.
Spencer Horn
18:04 - 18:48
But the entrepreneur, to Christian's point, is, well, if I let go, do I have enough space between letting go and somebody picking up the mantra? You talk about this leverage ladder, but what I want to know is how do you get How do you get, you know, you've hired people now, you've brought them on, you're giving them the vision and the mission and you're hustling, you're doing more. Now all of a sudden, I need them to have that ownership and not just have an employee mindset. How do you get them to start picking up that ball and start taking the, as you start pulling back the ownership, if you will?
Spencer Horn
18:48 - 18:49
How do you transition to that?
Liz Landry
18:50 - 19:06
You know, most people are going to come into our world, and they're going to start at a certain level. And it's the second level of the leverage ladder. I call it task leverage. And this one's really easy for people to understand, especially if they've ever hired, because it's the way that everybody enters our world is at task leverage.
Liz Landry
19:06 - 19:30
Task leverage is the execution of the task being done. So Spencer, let's say I needed some envelopes, flyers, stuff folded, gone into envelopes, and then mailed out, right? I would go to you, and I would say, It's just your second day on the job, right? You don't know anything about my business yet or me or our goals or what a successful outcome looks like or why we probably even need those flyers folded and put in the envelopes.
Liz Landry
19:30 - 19:42
But I need the flyers folded and put in the envelopes because I'm running 100 miles an hour and I got a lot on my plate and I hired you to do these things, right? So I look at it and I'm like, Spencer, I need you to fold the flyers. Here's how we fold them. It's a triple fold.
Liz Landry
19:42 - 19:51
Then they go in the envelope. We make sure the envelope is addressed in this type of a format. We put our return address sticker on the back. The stamps are located right here in this drawer.
Liz Landry
19:52 - 20:07
They're heavy flyers, and each one's going to need two stamps to make sure it goes in the mail correctly. The mailbox is going to be on the first floor. Once you get those done, they need to be dropped in the mail by 5 p.m. today, because at 5.30, the mail truck comes.
Liz Landry
20:09 - 20:19
I am explicitly telling you how to get the job done, right? I need to do that because you don't understand the context yet. It's your second day. I have to tell you.
Liz Landry
20:19 - 20:31
I have to give you all the context. I have to tell you where these things are. Because if I just came to you on your second day and I said, Spencer, design the flyers, stuff the envelopes, and make sure they get, you know. off to the recipients.
Liz Landry
20:31 - 20:43
You're going to be like, okay, flyers for what? Where are the supplies? Well, what program do we use for designing? Is there a database in particular, like of people you want me to send this to?
Liz Landry
20:43 - 20:53
Well, how do we do postage here? Well, where's the mailbox, right? You're going to have a billion questions for me. So I need to tell you explicitly what I need.
Liz Landry
20:53 - 21:10
The challenge is everyone comes into our world at this level, even really talented, capable people who have done the job before because they don't understand the context of our business and our role in particular, right? And we have to convey that context. Everyone starts there. But that's where we're managing people.
Liz Landry
21:10 - 21:22
That's not leading people. Because what I did is I handed off the execution, the physical hands of doing it. But you notice how I still owned the path of how it was going to get done, the thought process. And guess what I'm going to do at 530?
Liz Landry
21:23 - 21:32
Spencer, did those get taken care of? Are they in the mail? Great. And I'm going to come back and I'm going to inspect what I expect to make sure it happened correctly.
Liz Landry
21:32 - 21:48
I'm still owning the outcome, the result. But you did the execution. So what happens is when we have a 40 hour a week employee doing this, we're still spending about 10 to 15 hours a week managing everything they're doing. That's why when we have one employee, yes, we get time back.
Liz Landry
21:48 - 21:59
We increase more revenue and we're like, oh, well, this worked. So I'll hire another person because now I've reached my next natural ceiling of achievement. I've done all I can do with the time I had. Revenue increased.
Liz Landry
21:59 - 22:04
I hired Spencer. So things were going great. I need to hire somebody else. So I go and I hire Christian.
Liz Landry
22:05 - 22:17
Right. So now I have 240 hour a week employees. I'm spending 10 to 15 hours a week each managing you. So 20 to 30 hours a week total, not leaving a whole lot of time left for my actual job, right?
Liz Landry
22:17 - 22:24
And so again, I'm getting more done. There's more hands doing execution. So we're able to bring in more business. The business grows.
Liz Landry
22:25 - 22:35
But again, we reach a point where we do all we can do with the time we had. And so I do what I do and I go, oh, well, I hired those two. I was able to increase business. Now I'm going to do a third person.
Liz Landry
22:35 - 22:56
And this is why we see so many small businesses just absolutely flatline at their third employee and feel like they're miserable in a prison, working the 90 hours a week to get it done, because they're like, well, if I don't work those extra 40 to 50 hours a week, I can't get anything done because I'm spending 40 hours a week managing these people.
Spencer Horn
22:56 - 22:59
But you're managing low-level tasks, which really isn't leveraging the business.
Liz Landry
23:00 - 23:20
Exactly. Because we don't know how to develop from, I tell you what to do, to give you the context. Because it really does take time to develop that process. But while we're developing that process in somebody else and telling them how to do it, we're building the habit in ourselves that this is how we lead them, right?
Liz Landry
23:21 - 23:27
That's the catch 22 of it all is. We're building a really bad habit in us when we're actually doing what we have to do.
Spencer Horn
23:27 - 23:28
I love that.
Liz Landry
23:28 - 23:36
And if we don't change the operating system to say, you know what? Spencer's been doing this for like 100 days now. He understands the business. He knows the outcomes.
Liz Landry
23:37 - 24:00
i need to change the way i'm talking to spencer and i need to go to spencer and say spencer you know how you've been doing the flyers for the last 90 days on this can we have a conversation about your understanding about the goals why we do this what it looks like when we do it verify your understanding We have this conversation, everything goes great. And I say, great, Spencer, this is yours to own now. So now my conversation looks different.
Liz Landry
24:01 - 24:19
And I say, Spencer, we need to pull that lead generation lever. It looks like our leads from our mailers has actually gone down recently. I need us to be getting a 2% conversion rate to bring in this amount of revenue to the business every month. Can you make the necessary adjustments and execute, please?
Liz Landry
24:20 - 24:31
That's different. That's when we have ownership, right? That's talent leverage, which is the third level on the leverage ladder. That doesn't take me a long time to manage, but I have to make that transition.
Liz Landry
24:31 - 24:49
And you don't leap it, you build it. But all the meanwhile, while we're building it, we're also building the bad habit that wants to keep us at explicitly detailing what to do. And if we're not aware that that's what's happening, which is how most people get stuck, we end up just building the walls around ourselves.
Christian Napier
25:03 - 25:43
I love this evolution. How do you get people to the point where they hire folks for their expertise because those people know more than you? So in the scenario that you've described, where I would like to be eventually, is I'm hoping that you are the expert in this kind of stuff. And you can tell me, here's some things that I would recommend that we can do.
Christian Napier
25:44 - 26:13
to get to our objective, or even help me formulate the objective so that I don't have to do all the deep thinking for everybody. And I'm also humble enough to know that I cannot be the expert of everything. So I can be the expert of some things, but I can't be the expert of everything. I can't be the expert of business strategy and also the expert of accounts receivable.
Christian Napier
26:14 - 26:30
And I can't be the HR expert, and so on and so forth. So I got to bring people in that know more than I do about certain things. And then I got to be able to trust them. Are you seeing people do this?
Christian Napier
26:31 - 26:52
I'm just wondering, in the work that you're doing with all of your clients, especially those who are having a hard time of letting go, Are they willing to bring in people that know more than they do and trust them to do things and recommend things that may be outside of my core competency as a leader?
Liz Landry
26:52 - 27:09
So I call that person autonomous talent, right? The one that's already done the job, proven they can do it well, and is coming into our world. The challenge still remains, though, that they don't understand the context of our business, right? So we still have to tell them the context of, well, these are our goals.
Liz Landry
27:10 - 27:23
Because even in the same industry in a different business, the goals internally are different. The culture is different. The way we designed our ecosystem is different. And so they still need to gain all that context.
Liz Landry
27:24 - 27:53
And so when we give that context, autonomous talent, the people who have earned the right, will get there much quicker to totally owning the outcomes. Autonomous talent challenges us in different ways though, especially if we don't create an infrastructure for that communication flow, like you're saying. You're sitting there and you're saying, I want them to come to me and give me this recommendation. Well, autonomous talent wants to either give you the recommendation or they just wanna do it and tell you about it afterwards, right?
Liz Landry
27:54 - 28:23
But until that trust is there and you verify and you know, this person understands the context, they understand the goals of our business and I can trust them to do it, That's very challenging because we don't know yet that they actually know it. We don't know that they know the context yet in the very beginning. And so if they want to run in the very beginning, we will often pull them back and say, whoa, what are you doing? It's your second day.
Liz Landry
28:24 - 28:49
Like Spencer, you don't have the autonomy yet to decide that we're gonna start a new marketing campaign and spend that money and go after this new thing. Like, whoa, what? Why are you doing that? Right, because we have this this early balance, and it really does happen in those first 90 days to six months, we make or break the relationship by that, because it has to be a cognitive awareness of where that person is when we hire them.
Liz Landry
28:49 - 29:06
Are they aspiring talent, meaning they've kind of done the job before this one, and they were good at that, but they don't really have experience in this. That's going to be cheaper to hire, right? And there's more of that out there. But they'll require more of us from a training perspective and leadership, right?
Liz Landry
29:06 - 29:33
Is it accelerating talent, where they've kind of had their feet wet in this job, and they've got a little bit of experience, but they've not necessarily proven themselves in it? Or is it autonomous talent, meaning they've totally proved themselves in the role somewhere else before and we're bringing them in? That person's going to be more expensive, and we have to be acutely aware of how to lead these people. Because all three types of that talent are led differently and require something different from us.
Liz Landry
29:33 - 30:02
But to the point on the autonomous talent, the proven one that we want to come in and do those things, We can often leave the reins on them and hold them back longer than we should because we've not actually set up the communication and the conversations and the checkpoints to say, this is yours to own now. And here's where I'm empowering you to operate in this. You can't do it without telling me yet, but I want you to come to me and I want to consult you on it.
Liz Landry
30:02 - 30:15
And I want you to give me your recommendations, right? And once that happens multiple times and I'm like, man, Christian's got this, like he knows. He makes the smart decisions. That's when we hand over the reins and we say, Christian, you got this.
Liz Landry
30:16 - 30:25
This is yours to own now. You don't need to come to me anymore. Just update me when it's done, right? And then they run in that lane because we hire them for that reason.
Liz Landry
30:25 - 30:35
But there's still a growing into period where we build that trust. I've hired really great people. I still don't trust them on day one. Right?
Liz Landry
30:35 - 30:56
Like on day one, it's like, yeah, I like everything we got to this point, but we've not built those blocks of trust yet. I've not seen the evidence in my business that you understand it enough of the goals that we're both running in the same direction. That is built and it can be built quickly or it can take a really long time depending on how we handle the situation.
Spencer Horn
31:05 - 31:28
Well, for me, I mean, I'm sitting here listening because you've kind of come to this point a couple of times now as we've gotten to that third rung. And so how does that, what is your process for building that trust, that next step that you've got to build and create? Is that where you want to go, or is there something else that we need to cover? Because for me, I'm like, OK, tell me how to do it.
Spencer Horn
31:30 - 31:32
I'm hooked. OK, you got me. What do I do?
Liz Landry
31:36 - 31:47
Most people don't want to suck at their job, point blank. Most people don't show up to work and be like, man, I can't wait to disappoint Liz today. I can't wait to produce completely average or mediocre or subpar work.
Spencer Horn
31:47 - 31:51
I say the same things when I'm talking. We don't hire people. I love that.
Liz Landry
31:52 - 31:56
Yeah, I mean that's that most people aren't that way.
Spencer Horn
31:56 - 32:03
No, they want it. They want to succeed. They want to have Different than the last job. This is gonna be my chance and I'm gonna I'm gonna own it
Liz Landry
32:04 - 32:16
Yeah, they want to be fulfilled in the work they do, even if it's cleaning trash cans, right? In a simple baseline job, they want to be fulfilled in the thing they're doing, and they want to do a good job.
Spencer Horn
32:16 - 32:23
You're in Key Largo. Where are you? Key Largo. So Jimmy Buffett, this is my job to be cleaning up this mess, right?
Spencer Horn
32:23 - 32:24
Yeah. I'm going to be the best at it.
Liz Landry
32:24 - 32:32
Yeah. You know, when we look at that, they want to do a good job. They want to perform well. They want to be fulfilled in the work.
Liz Landry
32:33 - 32:51
And talented people want to have autonomy to do that. Nobody likes to be micromanaged. And when they become micromanaged, resentment begins to show up, right? And the way I talked to you about the flyers in the very beginning, that's micromanaging, right?
Liz Landry
32:51 - 32:55
Like that's what that actually is. And I get it on your second day, you need that.
Spencer Horn
32:55 - 32:56
No, there's a transition though.
Liz Landry
32:57 - 33:16
Yeah, and that's the thing is if it doesn't change, that's why people are like, well, they just micromanaged me for years and I didn't have an autonomy to do anything. They want autonomy to operate in their jobs. So how do we actually instill that? We have to be careful that we're not just giving instructions of execution on what to do.
Liz Landry
33:16 - 33:31
Why does it matter? So we'll use the example of the flyer, Spencer. Even on your second day, I can tell you exactly how to do the flyers and I need to do that because it's your second day, you just don't know yet. But then I also carry it and say, and here's why this matters to the business.
Liz Landry
33:32 - 33:50
Because when we get these flyers out, it takes approximately two days for mail delivery to happen. That's why we send them on Mondays. That means that they're landing in mailboxes by Wednesday. Assuming people either open their mail the day they get home, that day when they get home from work, or the next day, we get the weekend rush.
Liz Landry
33:50 - 34:08
And people are looking to buy our product over the weekend, right? They're sitting down over the weekend and they've got our product in front of them. and it will push them either to our event, our open house, to our sale we're having on this product because it's gonna be top of mind then. This is our number one way that we drive revenue is through these flyers.
Liz Landry
34:09 - 34:25
That's why it's so important to the business. And what it looks like when we win is that approximately 2% of the flyers that we send out convert into business being done. I'm conveying a few things there. Why it's important to the business.
Liz Landry
34:26 - 34:40
what it looks like when we win. And the last one is what done well looks like. Because Spencer, if you crumple the flyer up into a ball and stuff it into the envelope and send it out, is that done well? Absolutely not.
Liz Landry
34:40 - 34:44
Throw it at the mailbox. The way I want it done.
Christian Napier
34:56 - 35:27
We talk about systems, like the operating system of the business, and it sounds like it's its thing, which it is. But ultimately, it sounds to me that the success or the failure of this thing really depends on the people, right? And from a technology implementation perspective, I can tell you that's the case. I used to do system implementations in power sports dealerships way back in the 1990s.
Christian Napier
35:29 - 35:44
And I would see some businesses take off, and they did a phenomenal job. They implemented these systems, and they were wildly successful. And I saw others. who really struggled.
Christian Napier
35:46 - 36:00
And unfortunately, some of them failed. They didn't get it. And I was thinking to myself, what's the variable here? Because the technology is the technology, and we are the people implementing these technologies.
Christian Napier
36:00 - 36:14
And so the variable is the business itself. Some were able to take that bull by the horns and run with it. And they were able to do amazing things. And others really, really struggled.
Christian Napier
36:16 - 36:34
So with that lens, I'm really curious to hear from you if that applies with the work that you're doing. Because I'm guessing that there are businesses that you have helped, and they've been wildly successful. And there are others. through no fault of your own, who have just really struggled.
Christian Napier
36:34 - 36:36
Man, it's been really difficult to implement this thing.
Liz Landry
36:38 - 36:53
What are you seeing as the differentiator? Systems make a business consistent, right? They create a predictable, reliable way that something is executed. But we can't forget who executes the systems.
Liz Landry
36:54 - 37:12
It's people, right? Systems are simply the process that follows to make something a predictable pattern in the business. So that if Spencer comes to my business and then you come to the business the next day, Christian, you guys experience the same thing. But make no mistake, a person is executing the system.
Liz Landry
37:13 - 37:41
So if you come into my business today, Spencer, and you say you want to buy a new car, I want you to have just as good of an experience as Christian does the next day. But I might be on staff the day you come in, Spencer, and Bob might be on staff the day that Christian comes in, right? And sure, there's a checklist to make sure things get done, but it's kind of the difference between a Hampton Inn and the Ritz-Carlton. I'm checking into a hotel at either one.
Liz Landry
37:42 - 38:03
I'm getting in an elevator to go to my room. I'm putting my luggage down in the room. Each one of them has a bathroom and a shower and a bed and linens. The actual process is the same, but the execution by the people backing the process is wildly different, right?
Liz Landry
38:03 - 38:28
We can't forget that it's people that execute systems. And so, yes, a system exists to perform consistency, reliability, and streamline things. But the people execute the systems. And if people don't know why the system's in place, what the system is supposed to fulfill, and what it looks like when the system is working well, they can't actually deliver the desired result on that.
Liz Landry
38:29 - 38:44
And so that's where it becomes challenging. And we have to get people to deliver the desired result of the execution of a system. The system's just a predictable pattern in the way that it happens. And I think that's one of the things we forget, because people love talking about operations.
Liz Landry
38:44 - 38:54
They're like, well, I'm going to have a well-oiled operations machine. I've got checklist after checklist after checklist after checklist. And I'm like, uh-huh. Are your people using the system?
Spencer Horn
38:55 - 39:05
Sometimes they think just because they created the checklist that that's job done. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are not using it. It's as if it doesn't even exist.
Liz Landry
39:07 - 39:09
Yep, or they deliver it inadequately.
Christian Napier
39:09 - 39:28
And then what happens is when it fails, people turn around and blame the system, right? Like, oh, well, this thing was a piece of garbage. And I'm talking about technology, but talk about systems more broadly, right? They'll say, well, the system failed because the system was bad.
Christian Napier
39:29 - 39:52
How do you get through to leaders so that they don't keep blaming failed systems, but they actually turn around and say, hey, I need to look at myself, and I need to look at our team and figure out what we're doing, because we tried this, and we tried that, and it flopped. Is it because those things were bad, or was it something else?
Spencer Horn
39:52 - 39:55
I mean, how do we get from operator to owner, I guess, is really what we're asking.
Liz Landry
39:57 - 40:12
Well, it is, it's developing the people, right? And you can have the best systems in the world, right? Like the best technical systems, the best checklists, the best technology. But unless we can actually lead the people that are executing the systems, it's all still gonna come back to us.
Liz Landry
40:12 - 40:27
And it comes back to us when we create those dependencies because we only convey the task. And we convey the task because when they start, they don't know how to do it. And so we have to. It's a lot like teaching someone to drive.
Liz Landry
40:27 - 40:29
Have either of you ever taught somebody how to drive?
Spencer Horn
40:29 - 40:33
Multiple. Permitted driver? I have five kids, Liz. Yeah, so you get it, right?
Liz Landry
40:34 - 40:46
I taught my stepdaughter how to drive, and let me tell you some of the scariest moments of my life. But think of the progress of teaching somebody how to drive. You know when the traffic is heaviest. You know when to let off the gas pedal.
Liz Landry
40:46 - 41:07
You know when to start hitting the brakes. You know where people, there's a blind turn, blind corner, and someone's going to jet out from behind it from this road. You know where the road has potholes in it, because you've driven it 1,000 times. And if you tell them all of that, You're conveying the information.
Liz Landry
41:08 - 41:20
But guess whose hands are still on the gas pedal and on the wheel when they're driving? You're in the passenger seat. You can't take control for them. Because if the day they get the permit, you say, great, now get back in the passenger seat.
Liz Landry
41:20 - 41:27
You're never driving again. They're never going to get used to it. Are they going to slam on the brakes a little bit? Yeah.
Liz Landry
41:27 - 41:33
Are they going to stop a little bit quicker, a little bit shorter than you might have? Uh-huh. Are they going to go too fast or too slow? Absolutely.
Liz Landry
41:33 - 41:41
Are they going to miss turns? Yeah. Are they going to take a street that you wouldn't have taken because you know the school lets out and there's going to be cars lined up for miles? Absolutely.
Liz Landry
41:42 - 42:02
they're going to learn all those things on their own, right? And you're going to convey the context, but you have to let them put their hands on the wheel and do it as well. And then you have to let them make some of the mistakes. Close enough that you can stop anything that would be catastrophic, but far enough that you let them learn through doing as well.
Liz Landry
42:03 - 42:31
Developing our people is no different because sooner or later you have to let them go on their own. But we have to make that transition of slowly letting out the responsibility because that's the dependency is what keeps us stuck as the operator. And when we have the dependency and we're constantly doing those things, we don't have the time to focus on the quieter work or the job that actually builds the business. Things like the strategic thinking.
Liz Landry
42:32 - 43:01
Things like the future forecasting of what could be around those corners in three years. Things like recruiting, interviewing, hiring, coaching our key leaders. Those are slower, quieter things in the business. And if we're so busy doing the things to keep the business afloat and dictating exactly how those things happen to somebody, because that's what we've always done, and answering all the questions, because we never taught them how to think about it, Well, then we're always the one doing
Liz Landry
43:01 - 43:01
it.
Spencer Horn
43:02 - 43:15
Yeah, I call that the degrees of freedom, Liz. I mean, you go from micromanagement to a little less micromanagement to weekly reporting to keep me informed. But it takes a while to get there. We've almost been talking an hour, Christian.
Spencer Horn
43:15 - 43:40
And this has been a great discussion. Yeah, I know you've got other places to go and planes to catch, but we'd love to just start wrapping this up if it's OK. Unless there's something, we want you to share with our listeners how to get a hold of your book. But before I do that, we have a lightning round of questions where you just give super short answers, either one word or one sentence, OK?
Spencer Horn
43:41 - 43:43
You ready? Yeah. Let's do it. OK.
Spencer Horn
43:45 - 43:57
Delegate or eliminate? I need context on the question. Just choose. I mean, you make it up.
Liz Landry
43:57 - 44:02
The first time I look at something, I always look at if it's actually still valid that we even need it. So I'm going to say eliminate.
Spencer Horn
44:02 - 44:07
Love that, that's it. Whatever comes to your mind.
Liz Landry
44:07 - 44:15
It needs to pass its validity test before I'm going to delegate it, right? There you go, exactly. We don't tend to hang on to things long after we should have gotten rid of them, that they're no longer valid.
Spencer Horn
44:15 - 44:17
One word for the operator mindset.
Liz Landry
44:18 - 44:19
Hustle.
Spencer Horn
44:20 - 44:22
Systems or people first?
Liz Landry
44:23 - 44:23
People.
Spencer Horn
44:24 - 44:27
The best question to ask a new hire in week one?
Liz Landry
44:29 - 44:39
If I dropped you off in Salt Lake City, Utah today and told you you had 48 hours to get to Miami and I took away your phone, your wallet, and your ID, how would you get there?
Spencer Horn
44:41 - 44:50
Control or clarity? Clarity, all day. The task founders hold on to the longest is?
Liz Landry
44:55 - 44:55
Typically sales.
Spencer Horn
44:57 - 44:59
Higher for skill or for judgment?
Liz Landry
45:01 - 45:01
Judgment.
Spencer Horn
45:03 - 45:05
One habit that frees up a leader's calendar.
Liz Landry
45:09 - 45:15
Ruthlessly eliminating things off of your plate that shouldn't be there anymore, that are below your pay grade.
Spencer Horn
45:16 - 45:23
Yeah. I mean, when you were describing the 30 hours managing those two people, I was going into heart palpitations because that's $10 an hour work. Yeah.
Liz Landry
45:27 - 45:35
And we're happy because we're not doing it anymore. The actual execution of it, but you're still owning it and managing all of it. And that's why you run out of time by your third hire.
Spencer Horn
45:36 - 45:40
That's right. The surest sign a team doesn't need you is?
Liz Landry
45:43 - 45:45
They kick you out of the room or the project.
Spencer Horn
45:46 - 45:47
and go away, we got this.
Liz Landry
45:48 - 45:51
Yeah, yeah, they're like, you're just causing problems, go away. Exactly.
Spencer Horn
45:52 - 45:58
Because the founder is always- Christian, you're hindering the work of the business you started, get the heck out of here.
Liz Landry
45:58 - 46:00
Yep, yep.
Spencer Horn
46:00 - 46:03
Finish this sentence, great teamwork happens when?
Liz Landry
46:04 - 46:05
Everybody is in alignment.
Spencer Horn
46:07 - 46:09
Christian, do you have any last questions?
Christian Napier
46:10 - 46:27
Oh, this has been a fascinating conversation. My last question is your book just came out this week. Tell people how they can find it and tell them how you would like them to contact you if they've got questions or want to learn more about how you could help them go from an operator to an owner mindset.
Liz Landry
46:28 - 46:42
Yeah, I'm super easy to find. My name is Liz Landry, so you can find me on any of the socials that way or go straight to lizlandry.com, fill out a contact form. I'm super, super easy to find, like my Instagram's thelizlandry. It's not hard.
Liz Landry
46:42 - 46:59
I'm going to come right up holding a picture of the book, so you'll see me. You'll notice it. To find the book, it's available at any major online retailer, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Target, Walmart, wherever your preferred delivery method is. It is now officially out there in hands and available.
Christian Napier
47:00 - 47:12
So the moral is, Liz Landry is everywhere, so it won't be hard to find her. So go find Liz Landry. Thank you, Liz, for the time today. We really appreciate it.
Christian Napier
47:12 - 47:22
Spencer, you've been helping build teams for decades, high-performing teams in all kinds of organizations. What's the best way for people to contact you?
Spencer Horn
47:22 - 47:31
I love when they reach out on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is, message me there. My favorite. I'm not as hip, you know, the hipsters are on Instagram.
Spencer Horn
47:32 - 47:37
I'm there, but... It's a different world there. I'm the only one.
Christian Napier
47:37 - 47:40
Yeah, I'm not hip either. LinkedIn for me as well.
Spencer Horn
47:40 - 47:43
So how do people find you, Christian?
Christian Napier
47:43 - 47:53
Yeah, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is good. Happy to have people reach out and connect with me there. So this has been a fascinating hour.
Christian Napier
47:53 - 47:58
Absolutely just flew by, Liz. Enjoy your travels. Travel safely. You too, Spencer.
Christian Napier
47:59 - 48:03
And listeners of yours, we're grateful for you. So please like and subscribe to our podcast. We'll catch you again soon.