The Twenty One Clear Podcast | Four Stages of Leadership

In this first of two parts, Adam Hatcher sits down with Norm Smallwood, co-founder of RBL Group and a longtime collaborator in Adam's own family business journey, to unpack the four stages of leadership.

The framework, rooted in decades of research on how professionals contribute over time, gives family business leaders a practical language for two of the most common fears they may face: Am I actually seen as a strong performer? And are the family members I'm responsible for performing at the level this company needs?

Episode Links

Bumper Music: "Still Hot" by Nic D, Connor Price © Lossless, 2023

Episode Produced By: https://snapmarket.co

Chapters
[00:00:05] Introduction
[00:04:26] Background
[00:05:36] The Two Fears
[00:07:04] The Origin
[00:11:15] Stage 1: Dependent Contributor
[00:13:54] The Prosecutor Story
[00:14:56] Stage 2: Independent Contributor
[00:18:03] Stage 3: Contributing Through Others
[00:21:01] The External Benchmark
[00:23:05] Super Expert vs. Integrator
[00:26:33] Does Stage 3 Require a Team?
[00:29:42] From Me to Us
[00:33:19] Reinvention and Novation
[00:36:35] "Am I As Good As My Title?"
[00:38:56] Availability vs. Qualification
[00:41:00] Close and Preview

Creators and Guests

Host

Adam Hatcher

Family Business Consultant

What is The Twenty One Clear Podcast?

The benefits of working with family include mutual trust, a shared long-term outlook, and quick decision making. However, your inner family business relationships can also cause chaos for the company and family.

What can you do?

Join us as we explore chaos proofing your family business so you can build a great company with a strong family around it.

21clear.com

Adam Hatcher: Hey there.

Welcome to the 21 Clear Podcast.

I'm your host, Adam Hatcher, the founder
of 21 Clear, a family business consulting

firm, and in this podcast and all of them,
we wanna give you time to think about your

inner family business, the unique way your
family works in and owns the company that

you all have together, and help you take
one more step on your chaos-proof journey.

Today, I am excited to share the
first of two parts of what was

an incredibly fun and insightful
conversation with Norm Smallwood.

Norm is the co-founder of RBL,
Results Based Leadership Group.

RBL is a thought leader and a consulting
firm specializing in strategic and

human resources consulting, helping
you understand your talent and

company strategy so that you can
get the most from both, have a great

career, and build a great company.

I know Norm because RBL was referred
to me by a large privately held

Georgia-based family company when
I was looking to restructure our

business to take it to the next level.

Norm has been an instrumental part
of my career, of our family company's

journey, and has worked with family
companies that are privately and

public- privately and publicly held, and
those public ones are still controlled

by families, but publicly owned.

So he has spanned from mid-size
to large to publicly owned

family or family-based companies.

But he's also worked with publicly
and privately held companies

that weren't family controlled.

So what I enjoy in this interview is
Norm's experience both understands the

unique dynamics of a family company, but
can see it in that broader conditional

business world that we know doesn't
care if you're family owned or not.

It's just what can you do in the
marketplace for your customers.

In this episode, Norm shares something
I wish I had either known on day

one of my career in the family
company or the first day I became the

vice president of human resources.

It's the four stages of leadership.

If you have ever had that concern
Am I seen as a high performer?

Can I be seen as a high performer?

Or the family members that
I'm responsible for leading or

supervising, are they high performers?

Or is this organization I have with people
that I've known for a long time that

care about me and my family, are they
up for what is next for this company?

That's a concern all of us
carry, and it's a critical part.

Understanding that is a critical
part of building a great company

while you keep your family together.

Norm has a simple but deep way of thinking
about it that I found helpful, and many

other family companies have as well.

It's the four stages of leadership.

This was a long conversation
between the two of us.

So this is part one.

Norm and I in this, he's gonna introduce
the four stages of leadership and

then spend time on the first three.

That's episode one, and
we will take a break.

Then in episode two, we will pick up
with the fourth stage of leadership and

then take some time and talk about the
consequences of understanding and applying

th- this idea, these four stages, the
consequences for you personally and for

your organization, both its health, job
satisfaction for your employees, and

ultimately the value of the business.

So stage one, two, and three are in
the first episode, stage four and

some time thinking about application
inside your business in episode two.

Enjoy this first part.

I have really both enjoyed
the conversation and listening

back to it with Norm.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

And with that, here's Norm Smallwood.

Well, Norm Smallwood, welcome
to the 21 Clear podcast.

What a privilege.

Norm Smallwood: Great to be here, Adam.

Looking forward to the conversation

Adam Hatcher: Norm, when I introed
this episode, I told people

you and I have a tr- history.

Uh, I, you and I got introduced by a
large Georgia, privately held Georgia

family company when I got to the point
in scaling our family's business that

we'd done a few acquisitions, and it just
felt too hard to run, and it felt like we

needed a new understanding of leadership,
and that's how we got introduced.

So as we're going through this, I want
the listeners to know it's not just

that I've read your books and looked
at the material you've produced.

You and I have actually worked together,
and I have seen your ability to look

into an organization and its leadership.

Uh, so thank you for that, and
again, excited to be here today.

Norm Smallwood: Yeah, me too.

And you've got a gift for doing
the, the same thing that you just

credited me for, so it's, it's
fun to be here and talk about it

Adam Hatcher: Well, I hope everybody
enjoys this mutual admiration society.

Norm Smallwood: Yeah.

And

you're, and you're younger,
handsomer, and thinner than me too

Adam Hatcher: That'sâ¦

Thankfully, no one can see that, I
guess unless you're watching on YouTube.

Norm Smallwood: Okay.

Yeah, well, I'll just tell them it's true

Adam Hatcher: Norm, there is a concept
when we were working together you

introduced me and our company to, and
it's something that you've written about

and studied I think every family leader,
or even if you've just started in your

family company, you should understand.

You have this framework of four stages
of leadership, but if people think

this is just an intellectual exercise,
I actually, having lived the family

business, believe four stages that you
explain that we're gonna talk through

answers two fundamental fears that every
family leader has to face at some point.

The first fear is, what do I actually
need to do to be seen by non-family

members as a strong performer?

Or maybe even, was I
ever a strong performer?

Am I one?

Um, that's a fear we have that
I think your four stages gives

a practical framework for.

But then also, a lot of times families
go decades a good way to assess family

members, and it ends up costing the
business, and they can't see it till

later, and I think your stages actually
help people see it before it happens.

with that, the four stages of
leadership, so this is something

you've written and you've talked
about, the question that I've seen you

frame it with is, what do I need to
do to be seen as a strong performer?

So can you talk about how the four
stages, then we'll go through each

one, but just in general, like
how does it touch that question?

Norm Smallwood: Yeah Well, the, my
first, uh, partners, uh, were in a

consulting firm I had before, uh, we
started the RBL Group called, named,

uh, Gene Dalton and Paul Thompson.

And Gene and Paul were professors at the
Harvard Business School, and they were

looking at engineering obsolescence.

And the idea of engineering obsolescence
was that, um, if you hired an engineer,

a few years later, you wouldâ¦

The question was, should you fire
that engineer and hire a new one

because the skills that, that that
engineer brought with him or her had

now become obsolete, and you needed
somebody with, uh, more recent skills.

And so when, when they looked at
that, uh, originally at RCA was the

original company that, that, that, uh,
they studied, they found that there

were-- that, that if you looked at the
subject through the lens of age, that

at about age thirty-nine, on aggregate,
engineering performance declined.

But that if you looked at it at an
individual base, like if you were

to do a scatter plot of engineers,
you would find that some engineers

became more highly valued over
time as they got older than others.

So their question became: What
differentiates the high performers, those

who become more highly valued as they
get older, than the aggregate who became

less valued as they, as their performance
was seen to objectively decline?

And so, um, with that question, they,
they looked at a number of variables.

They looked at the number of hours worked.

And actually, there is a slight
correlation, but not much, right?

It's not really a
statistically valid comparison.

It looked at, it looked at
l-level of education, bachelor's

degree, master's degree, PhD.

No, no correlation to performance.

Number of patents, no
correlation to performance.

So what did become clear is that
expectations change, and that so

the longer you've been in your job,
there are-- like if you're doing

the same work at age thirty-five
that you did at age twenty-five,

people begin to ask, "What's wrong?"

So what became clear to them is that
there were what they called stages of

performance, and that some peoples,
um, were, were able to change the

nature of their contribution and
stop doing what made them successful,

uh, at one stage and begin to take
on a new set of knowledge, skills,

expectations or perspectives that met
the demands of, of expectation over time.

That-- And that's what became known as
the, as the four stages of performance

Adam Hatcher: So it's the people who
began to perform different functions

as time went on versus doing theâ¦

I've heard the phrase used in non-family
and family companies, "She did the same.

She didn't work here for 30
years, she said, did the same one

Norm Smallwood: Exactly.

Adam Hatcher: This is people who
did different, different things.

So then what is, what stageâ¦

Let's walk through them.

What

Norm Smallwood: Sure

Adam Hatcher: A- and I think
it's fascinating as we go through

this, you can't necessarily
just work really hard and move

Norm Smallwood: Right

Adam Hatcher: you could work really
hard and do year one 30 times.

Norm Smallwood: Yes.

No, that's exactly, yeah,
that's exactly the, the dilemma.

So what happens, you enter the workforce,
let's say in your early twenties.

You've got a degree, a, an undergraduate
or a graduate degree of some, some kind.

This, this I said it started with
engineers, but it's been over time it's

been expanded to every type of knowledge
worker in, in virtually every industry.

But so when you, when you enter
the, the workforce, you tend to be

psychologically dependent on others.

You need direction.

You need to learn how things work around
here, the culture of the organization,

and you need to pay attention to details.

And, uh, if you can do that,
people think you're a, a, a high

performer with plenty of potential.

The problem is that over a couple of
years, uh, for most jobs, uh, even the

most technical jobs, you have to move from
that dependent contributor where you're

reliant on others for direction to become
an expert or an individual contributor.

And so what made you successful
in this first stage as a dependent

contributor was that you were looking
for others to tell you what to do.

You were looking for assurance that you
were on the right track, um, and so on.

Now I'll-- let me throw out a, a piece of
information that became really interesting

is that the average age in, in like a
Fortune 1000 company for somebody doing

that kind of work is thirty-eight.

So it's not-- The expectation would
be that would be a good performer

at twenty-two, but when people are
describing you that way at thirty-five

or forty, that's not good anymore, right?

Because you, you haven't made the
shift from dependence to independence.

So that's the first one, right?

From one to two.

Go, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Adam Hatcher: and, uh, if I've seen
you use the word, uh, stage one is like

apprenticeship, and it reminds me it
doesn't have to be a privately held,

publicly held, family held company.

I remember I went to law school and then
was a, a prosecutor, assistant district

attorney, and I re- I didn't have these
words back then, but I remember the

DA saying to me, he said, "Year one,
you're gonna mess up every single day.

I-- That's why you have a team lead.

will make a mistake every single
day, and it's going to take you

three years to actually begin to
contribute back independently to this.

For your first two years, my expectation
is you are learning the ropes, you are

building trust, you're gonna be closely
supervised, it really is not gonna beâ¦"

So I guess he was saying you are
stage one, and then I think where

you were going as stage two was when
he told me, "The next step is me

beginning to trust you independently in

Norm Smallwood: Right

Adam Hatcher: of a prosecutor."

So is that stage two is beginning
to contribute independently?

Norm Smallwood: Yeah, absolutely.

So the shift psychologically is from
being dependent on the team leader, uh,

DA to I'm an individual contributor.

I'm a lawyer who knows how
things work around here.

I'm considered an expert.

Um, you can rely on me to,
uh, to, to do the job right.

One of the characteristics of
individual contributors is that

competence becomes their way of
comparing themselves with other people.

So they're always, you know,
"How do I compare to you?"

I mean, what-- When we're-- If we're both
prosecutors, uh, I start to spend a lot

of my time comparing my successes to your
successes or my, uh, school that I went

to, to the school that you went to, right?

So it's very competitive, uh,
as an individual contributor.

And so, so let me make the,
the, the beginning of the shift.

You can stay as an individual contributor
for your entire career and be considered,

uh, a valuable resource to the, uh,
to the business, the organization.

But, um, it's harder to stay there because
Your technical discipline usually, like

that was the engineering obsolescence
question that wasn't quite right, but

because-- b-but, but your, your discipline
changes, so your success is dependent

on your ability to keep up with the
changes in your area as a lawyer, as

a banker, as a human resources person.

Whatever your technical discipline is,
you've gotta keep up with, with that.

The average age, I, I did the average
age in the, in the dependent contributor.

As an independent contributor, the
average age is exactly the same.

It's about thirty-eight.

So there's-- So what we're gonna find
here as we go through these, this

isn't an age-related thing, right?

So, uh, which is really funny because a
lot of organizations have, uh, time and

seniority systems set up for compensation,
so they're not contribution models.

They tend to be time and position.

Like, we want somebody who's been
here for ten years or fifteen

years or whatever, and it turns out
that that's not a good basis toâ¦

Time and job is not a good basis because
as you started out with, I could be

doing the same job over and over again
and not really learning and changing.

So the next shift is from independence.

You don't have to make this shift,
but some people do, is the shift

to stage three from stage two,
from independence to influence.

Adam Hatcher: influence.

Norm Smallwood: the--

Adam Hatcher: we make

Norm Smallwood: Yeah.

Yep

Adam Hatcher: so in stage two,
contributing independently, and I

think when you start in your family
company, sometimes you're just

thrown, thrown, thrown to the wolves.

But many times someone's
given a mentor, a supervisor.

It might be a relative or not,
and there is this, particularly

if you're the younger generation,
there tends to be this desire of I

want to be trusted independently.

And that'sâ¦

But that stage two, I've seen you
write that there are four requirements,

just to highlight them for people.

So you do have a technical expertise.

This isn't chief waiting for
mom to retire officer or vice

president of lots of opinions.

There's a specific thing.

It's being an engineer.

It's being a sales professional.

It's being a project manager.

There's the ability to
operate autonomously.

I mean, it doesn't mean you don't
have a boss, but it's like back when

I was a prosecutor, I went to court
and nobody was over my shoulder.

That's what you wanted.

You demonstrate initiative.

You don't just wait to be told, which
in family companies can be hard.

Your family system can teach you
growing up, will always tell me

when to take the trash out, but now
that I work with Mom, wait for that.

Like, I need to show initiative.

But then the last one, you have
the requirement when you're

there in stage two, a willingness
to accept accountability.

And I find it, like, if you're
managing family employees, I guess,

Norm, maybe the reason that the age,
the average age is the same, forâ¦

If you are managing a, a stage two,
so someone with technical expertise,

who's autonomous, who demonstrates
initiative, but as their manager,

you're their leader, you never shift
the accountability up for them.

You never change what's expected of them.

That could be one way they
end up just staying in stage

two for a really long time

Norm Smallwood: Yeah, no,
I, I think you've nailed it.

It's the, umâ¦

And I, I think some people enjoy that,
uh, it- it's kind of a stage at which

you can be kind of a know-it-all in
your area of, of expertise, right?

Nobody knows more than me
about engineering, about

sales, about, uh, whatever.

And so again, um, you know, your
accountability in stage two, you

define your accountability as being
accountable for being the best expert

in, in this narrow area, uh, that,
uh, that, that there could be, so.

Um, and what we'll see is
issues like accountability

and initiative change, right?

'Cause you could be doing the same
job, but depending on what stage

you're in, you would be doing those
different assignments differently

Adam Hatcher: Well, and this is
gonna come back in stage three,

but I'll just a pin in it here.

Norm Smallwood: Yeah

Adam Hatcher: uh, a- and it's, can
be, any of us can be successful

in a family company in stage two.

The challenge I heard you give was
have to be an expert in something,

and it's not an expert relative
to your other family members.

It's not an expertise relative to
the other people in your business.

It's actually an expertise against
your peers outside the business.

A, if when I was the general counsel of
the company, or, uh, let's say the head of

corporate strategy, it wasn't was it I had
the best strategic planner in our company.

Compare me against our competitors.

Norm Smallwood: Right

Adam Hatcher: did I hold up to them or
even to some of the thought leaders in

Norm Smallwood: Yeah.

Adam Hatcher: planning?

Norm Smallwood: No, that's right.

And if you think about professional
associations, like, um, I, I remember

years ago when, when, uh, Gene Dalton
and Paul Thompson were together

at Novations, we did a project
with the IEEE, and the IEEE is an

association of electrical engineers.

And we looked at their career model, and
their career model was, you know, they

had stage one right, which was, um, you
know, to be learning, be an apprentice.

And then stage two was, you
know, to become an expert in

engi- in electrical engineering.

And then stageâ¦

Now, they didn't really call it stage.

Then they said the next career level was
to be an even bigger expert so that you

were kind of a super expert, and then
you could become an even super super,

like a world-renowned super expert.

And, and they just kind of missed the
logic of, you know, that in, if you

looked at it through the stages lens,
it's really about contribution, uh,

to the business and to the, maybe to
the field, which isn't to be better

and better in a, in a very narrow area

Adam Hatcher: Mm.

So let's take that and move to st-
c- 'cause you called it super expert.

But stage three, I've heard you say you go
from, you know, stage one, apprenticeship,

stage two, contributing independently,
stage three, contributing through others.

Norm Smallwood: others.

Yeah.

Adam Hatcher: ex-

Norm Smallwood: So con- so contri-
so you're an expert, you're, you're a

super expert, doesn't matter, right?

Uh, but, but then you begin to
broaden out and to look across

technical areas becauseâ¦

So let's say I'm in sales, I need
to begin to think about, well, what

about, uh, what about manufacturing?

What about our strategy?

What about the, the
engagement of the people?

Are we-- But we begin to take a broader
perspective in stage three that, that

al- that allows me to consider not
myself, just myself and to optimize me.

It's really how do I optimize
the team or the function or

the area that I'm a part of?

And I can only do that by
looking across, not just within

my own technical expertise.

So stage three people turn out
to be really, really important.

Even we're gonna go to stage four, which
is, you know, uh, seems like it's the

more, even more senior, but stage three
people are where everything happens.

You know, you think about a
family business or virtually any

business, it's that influencer, the
person who can make things happen.

It's the person who knows how the
company works, has the right network

and can, you know, in hockey metaphor,
can stick handle through the bureaucracy

and sort of land things, whether it's a
project, a new project, new product, um,

it, it becomes, uh, the critical role.

And you don't-- The funny thing
about being in these stages is to

move from stage two to stage three,
somebody doesn't need to promote you.

You can just start based on
your understanding of how

things work in your company.

You can sort of self-promote, right?

You can start doing things differently.

Uh, and you don't, you
don't need a, a promotion.

You should get, uh, compensation and so
on that, that is commensurate with the

contribution, but you might not, right?

And, uh, certainly not in the traditional
way of, of, uh, time and grade

Adam Hatcher: I, I'm guessing people
hearing you talk about stage three

are thinking this, the key sign,
the key indicator of moving to that

stage and contributing through others
is that now you're leading a team.

And when we hear stage three,
depending on the size of our company,

we think it's a team of three or a
team of 15 or a team of 50 or 100.

Uh, for the introverts listening
to this, Norm, do you have â¦ I,

I think you just answered this,
but I wanna call it out explicitly.

Do you have to, to contribute through
others, do you have to also lead a team?

Norm Smallwood: No.

No.

As, as a matter of fact, that's why
I said, uh, to lead a team formally,

somebody needs to promote you and, and
assign you a, a role to be the, to be the

leader of the team, like I'm a manager.

But you could also be a coach, a mentor,
an idea leader, which are sort of more

on the technical side, not a people
leader, but your, your influence is,

is felt not necessarily in an assignâ¦

It could be.

You could be a coach or a manager, butâ¦

Or not a coach.

You could be a, a manager, a team
leader in an assigned way, but it, it,

uh, it doesn't have to work that way.

And one of the things that you hear
in, in the shift from individual

contributor too to, uh, idea leader,
mentor, coach, is that sometimes people

will promote the best Uh, expert to
become the formal leader of the team.

And when that, when that happens, the
person who isn't really in stage three

gets the role, the formal role, it's easy
to say, you know, we lost a good engineer

and got a crappy supervisor because
remember we said that the nature of people

in stage two is to be very competitive,

micromanager.

So, um, in every way imaginable,
if you're not in stage three, if

you're not like this broad technical
perspective, you know, care about

others, you know, a developer, an
integrator, a synthesizer, an influencer,

um, if you're not that, then it's
really hard to scale the company.

So if you were talking about family
business, one of the biggest problems

is if you have a family member who's
a, is a, is a stage two expert, they're

put in a, the head of something,
whether the whole business or a team

or a function, and then they're really
competitive and micromanaging, you

can't grow the business because that
person cares about the, the, whatever

their area is, the financial side, the
too much about the product side, only

about the-- it's not an integrated view.

Then very quickly employees
don't feel valued or developed.

Um, the customer experience, you know,
you have to have a stage three person

to get the customer experience because
those are the people that care about

making sure that the employee and the
customer have the right experience.

Everything happens at, you know,
for your business, it's critical to

g- to be in that stage three role.

And the challenge is some people
just don't like doing that.

They want to be experts.

Adam Hatcher: a big shift hearing you talk
about it, mentally or professionally or

maybe even from a humility perspective.

In stage two, working with a family
recently, and we were exploring this

concept of being for each other.

I'm gonna build trust with you by
showing you I am for you and for your

good and for this company's good,
not just out for my own interests.

But in stage two, competitive part,
there's a little bit where you've been

given guide rails, and you can kinda
be f- like you're f- you're probably

in an area you like, and you get
good at it, and you wanna beat other

people and be competitive, and that's
that conditional nature of business.

You've got, you've got to be
good and be getting better.

Stage three, it feels like you actually
are starting to leave that, and you

have to prove to people, "I'm not just
for me and being good at what I do.

I'm for you.

I'm managing this project 'cause
I want you and the customers

to be successful, not me.

I'm mentoring you not 'cause I
wanna be seen as a great mentor,

because I want you to develop.

I'm not an idea leader like a chief,
chief complaining officer that

you're not doing a good enough job.

trying to help create organizational
ideas or structures for the business

and for you to be successful.

actually, s- you stage twos are gonna get
more of the credit 'cause you're gonna

be doing the work and contributing."

It, it feels like a really big and
maybe even difficult shift from the

comfort of, "I proved I'm good,"
to, "Now I have to make others

good," clients, company, employees.

Norm Smallwood: It's not about me
anymore, it's about the success of us.

So yeah, so the, the sh- so let's
go through the shifts again.

The shift from in, it, the, what you
have to be great at in one is dependence.

You have to be willing to rely
on others to show you the ropes,

and you have to listen and learn.

That's-- Then you have to stop doing that.

You have to stop doing that, then you
become this independent contributor.

You have to be somebody who's
got, who's an expert, who's

self-reliant, who's competitive.

Then you have to stop doing that to
get to three, and you have to s-sort

of shift from, it's about really
increasing my expertise in this narrower

area to caring about the integration.

So from, from individual expertise to
integration, to synthesis, to influence,

to, you know, to coaching, to developing.

It's, it's again, it's, it's about from,
from me in one and two to us in three.

So it's, uh, they, they, they're
huge psychological shifts.

That's why they're hard, right?

And the term novation, because you're
a lawyer, I will say this, is, is,

is actually a legal term, and the
term means a renegotiation of an

expectation with concerned parties.

So every time you make a, a career shift,
you have to renegotiate your role in the

organization because the expectations,
not that you have, but that others have

of you are what you've been doing, right?

So everybody expects you to
be an expert, and now you're

interested in the broader issues

Adam Hatcher: One of the hardest things
in a family company is where you this

sense that you drift between roles, and
you could actually be drifting from one

to two to three as far as expectations
without ever this moment of reinvention.

I hadn't thought about
that till you said it.

The import- uh, the importance
of declaring a reinvention when

you're working with your family
is it lets you reset expectations.

Iâ¦

Last week, friend of mine was promoted
from lieutenant colonel to colonel,

and I went to the ceremony, and I
watched one of his sons read the

orders, and the other son took his
pin and replaced it with a colonel

pin, and it was a distinct reinvention

Norm Smallwood: a symbolic, uhâ¦

Yeah, it's very symbolic, right?

And I, I love the idea of the symbolism
of saying, "I've changed ranks and

the, and there's an expectation
that I can't do things exactly the

same way that I did them before.

I have to do things differently," right?

I, I'm, I'm expected to do differently.

The problem is when people are expected
to do differently, but then they really

are unable to do it because that's
not really what their predisposition

is, and then there's that gap, right?

Adam Hatcher: well, and my guess
is to that, in your, the first two

stages, the average age was 38 or 39.

I'm guessing the average age of
stage three is also 38 or 39?

And-

Norm Smallwood: there's, there's,
there's-- it is not age-related.

It is-- The other-- There's two things
that people think these s-stages

are related to because it's, it's
standard practice to think that it's

either age, older people have, um,
you know, the, an ex- a different

set of perspectives or it's position.

So, um, you know, it's, it's, uhâ¦

I remember the first time we were, we--
early on, we started with Gene and Paul,

we would do these, um, you know, look at
expectation in senior leadership groups.

And I remember the first time a
CEO said, "Gee, I'm in stage two."

And the senior leadership team
around him was saying, "We know."

Right?

He was a finance guy, and everything that
they did had to go through all of these

hurdles that, you know, were self-imposed.

And, um, and he was-- uh, this, this
company, I won't say the name of it,

but this company has continued to
grow partially because he took himself

out of the CEO role and, and hired
somebody to do that role that really

was able to do it better than he was.

It just was-- it didn't match
his interests or perspectives.

But he'd grown a, you know,
billion-dollar company as a stage two guy.

So, but it didn't make it easy

Adam Hatcher: And that is, I
remember w- I, I was actually

playing golf at a event, and I wasâ¦

And we were walking the round, and so
it gives you a lot of time to talk.

And I was walking with a guy that
was late in his career, CEO of a

family company, had successfully
onboarded generation three.

And he had that moment, Norm, that I
have heard so many times, but this was

the first time I heard someone say it.

He said, "You know, Adam, I
kinda always wondered if I'm

as good as my title and if I

Norm Smallwood: Yeah

Adam Hatcher: this responsibility
outside of my family company."

And underneathâ¦

I didn't have those words back then,
underneath it, what he was saying

was, have the title commensurate with
a stage four, but, uh, but am I a

stage two reality, and could I have
gotten to this title somewhere else?"

And what you've just touched on,
I think it's this fear that itâ¦

For ev- every family leader I've ever
met, we all wonder the same thing, if

you haven't worked outside the company
or worked outside the company much.

Could I have done this else?

So then stage fourâ¦

Norm Smallwood: the way, by the way,
the comment for me on that one would

be it's very easy in a-- Like, in a
family company, it happens because

you've got the right last name.

In a, in a growth company, it
happens because you're available.

So it can happenâ¦

You don't have to be in a family company
to find yourself in a role which doesn't

match where the, where the incumbent
in the role doesn't have the expected

knowledge, skills, and perspectives.

That happens all the time.

We see that, uhâ¦

So it's-- I understand why it
would be a concern because maybe

it was, you know, the, the gift of,
of family that, that I got here.

But, uh, it is-- I mean, every time we
do these, uh, we, we do these, what we

call them, is pipeline audits, we see the
same thing going on because somebody's

available when the company's growing, so
they get put in that, uh, in that role,

and it creates all kinds of problems

Adam Hatcher: from a negative family
business perspective, it can happen

because of nepotism, but the same thing
can happen in non-family companies.

Availability is what you've seen.

I think from a positive family business
perspective with negative consequences,

sometimes it happens 'cause you've
got someone who can buy the company.

Norm Smallwood: Yeah.

Adam Hatcher: to

Norm Smallwood: Yeah

Adam Hatcher: 'cause you can finance
the company, just because you have a

certain degree, just 'cause you work
a certain amount of hours or are a

certain age, doesn't necessarily mean
you're stage two, three, four, just

like being available doesn't mean it.

Uh, so what isâ¦

So that is stages one, two, and
three from our conversation.

In the next episode, we're gonna
pick up stage four and then apply

it or talk about some practical
applications for you personally, for

your family, and for your organization.

I hope that you've got some ideas running
through your head after this episode.

Every episode we record, our goal is
to give you things that will let you

sit and think about your inner family
business, that unique way you work in and

own your company together, and take some
of these concepts and apply them to it.

A couple things in the show
notes I wanna share with you.

There's a link to RBL's website
where you can get in touch with

Norm, and you can also, uh, get in
touch with other members of his team.

Second, weâ¦

There are a couple of books that
Norm has done that I really like, and

I've linked to one of them called The
Leadership Code in the show notes.

There's even an assessment in it that when
I took it, made me ask some pretty tough

questions about myself and my stages,
but it ultimately helped me in my career.

So those two things are in the
show notes, and I hope those

resources are helpful to you.

Look for the next episode where we finish
the conversation with Norm Smallwood.

My best to you and your inner family
business and its health and journey, and

as my grandfather would have said, thank
you so very, very much for listening.