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Rethink Culture is the podcast that shines the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture. Virtually all of the business leaders who make headlines today do so because of their company performance. Yet, the people and the culture of a company is at least as important as its performance. It's time that we shine the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture and are putting people and culture at the forefront.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:36:20
Andreas
Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to another episode of Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines a spotlight on business leaders who are creating intentional cultures, who see their employees not as resources to be managed and directed, but as people that need to be led and inspired. My name is Andreas Konstantinou, and I'm your host, and I see myself as an accidental micromanager who turned servant leader and over the years developed a personal passion for culture.
00:00:36:22 - 00:01:06:06
Andreas
And I'm also the founder of Rethink Culture, which is a company that aims to help create 1 million healthier, more fulfilling work cultures. Today, I have the rare pleasure of welcoming Brian Brault. Brian is founder of Legacy of Significance, and he just sold his business Pure Wellness Rooms. Previously, he led Advanced Facility Services, which was named one of the best places to work for in western New York.
00:01:06:07 - 00:01:27:17
Andreas
And he also recently served as chairman of the Global Board in the Entrepreneurs' Organization that I'm also a member of. And he also leads leads the Entrepreneurial Masters Program, which is where I met him. And what I love about Brian is that he always looks for the good in people and recognizes the humanity in people.
00:01:27:17 - 00:01:34:15
Andreas
And I'm sure you have lots more to talk to us about that. Welcome to the Rethink Culture podcast, Brian.
00:01:34:15 - 00:01:51:11
Brian
Andreas, I'm really excited to be here. I think you and I both approach life and approach leadership and and leading organizations the same way. And so I'm really excited just to kind of share stories and go on this journey with you. So thanks for having me.
00:01:51:11 - 00:02:02:02
Andreas
Let's do that. So let's let's first hear about the Legacy of Significance, which is your your passion and your current business as I understand it.
00:02:02:02 - 00:02:38:18
Brian
Yeah. So, gosh, probably five, maybe maybe almost six years ago, I started. I was at a point in my life where I had stepped away from day to day leadership of the companies that I had. And and I wanted to put my efforts towards really more of a purpose driven project. And as I look at my journey through my professional career and life, I was at a point where I wanted to focus on helping to lead people on a journey of self-discovery.
00:02:38:20 - 00:03:03:14
Brian
I am a forum trainer in the entrepreneurial world, which is a those are peer to peer networking, small groups that we go on a journey together and help navigate our lives and get clarity around our next steps, whether it's professionally and family or personal journeys. And so I train people on that. But I'm also I'm very involved in leadership development.
00:03:03:14 - 00:03:40:16
Brian
I'm one of the Formators of the Leadership Academy program in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization as well. And I love that part of my life. And so I thought if I could spend the remaining years of my professional life helping people to live their best life, inspire happiness through things like leadership, development, retreats, whether it's couples retreats or corporate retreats or forum retreats or executive education, or helping to develop new or mid-level managers and companies to be really effective in their role, that that's just what I love.
00:03:40:16 - 00:04:10:20
Brian
That's what gives me energy. And so if I could spend the rest of my professional life doing those kinds of things, that would be great. And so that's that's really what inspired Legacy of Significance is is really the ability to live our best life. And so it's what's really interesting is I didn't really want to create a whole new company that required employees and a team and, and, and really me to be a CEO of anything, I just wanted to be able to show up and have a positive impact in the lives of others.
00:04:10:22 - 00:04:21:23
Brian
And yet, inevitably, I think as we entrepreneurs do, it is really start to develop into quite an organization. So it's that's kind of where I'm at today.
00:04:21:23 - 00:04:36:20
Andreas
So in your journey, Brian, was there an inflection point or a point where you becoming, where you became more conscious as a leader conscious about how you led your team and conscious about the culture you built?
00:04:36:20 - 00:04:59:05
Brian
Yes, there were there were two points, I think one was a difficult position for me. I had built the first company I had Advanced Facility Services was, I would guess it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 employees.
00:04:59:07 - 00:05:20:23
Brian
And I had gotten to I walked into work one day and I it had grown into a decent sized company, but I walked into work one day and I looked at everything that was on my calendar for the day. And I didn't want to do any of it. It was important meetings. It wasn't that they weren't important things, but it was, you know, sitting with our head of HR
00:05:20:23 - 00:05:42:18
Brian
and approving a new compensation structure. It was meeting with our controller and our chief operating officer about budgets. And I was meeting with one of our operations managers who was struggling with one of his people. And I just looked at it and I thought, you know what? What have I built and why? Why is this requiring all the things of me that I don't enjoy as much?
00:05:42:20 - 00:06:12:03
Brian
And I started to think, well, maybe, maybe I've built this company, I can sell it now. But I loved what I loved building the business. And so what I, what I did, Andreas, is I realized that I have this belief, and that is I think everyone has at least a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit in them. And yet most people either don't have the courage or they don't have the nurturing environment to give them the ability to step out.
00:06:12:03 - 00:06:39:08
Brian
Or they've gotten themselves in a life situation where it's difficult to take on that risk of actually starting their own entrepreneurial venture. And so what what we did is we took this company that we had built and that was about 100 people. And we looked at it and said, let's take the six areas of our business and divide them into kind of like their own individual businesses.
00:06:39:10 - 00:07:05:14
Brian
And so we took there was there was really five lines of business, but then we also had a division geographically that was 1600 miles away. And so what we ended up doing is we created that as a separate region and we treated it as one entity and then the other five types of services that we provided, we broke them up and we had general managers of each of those areas of responsibility.
00:07:05:16 - 00:07:33:19
Brian
And we we structured them. So we used the great game of business by sharing our numbers and allowing them to see and control the numbers that they had influence over. We also we so we set them up. They were responsible for their financial performance, their their sales and marketing. We gave them support overall company support in the areas of human resources, accounting, administrative support.
00:07:33:23 - 00:08:06:03
Brian
And then there was an overarching leadership team that oversaw the entire organization. But below that, each each general manager was able to run that business and make decisions within our core values that gave them autonomy. And so what happened is we went from about 100 employees to 300 employees in about three years. And and really what my role then became was working shoulder to shoulder with these general managers as partners in building businesses.
00:08:06:08 - 00:08:29:15
Brian
And it really allowed me to it allowed me to start to love what I was doing again and really help build an exciting organization. And it was in that time frame that we became one of the best companies to work for in our our area of New York. And it was it was an exciting time because what we did is we led with collaboration.
00:08:29:15 - 00:08:56:20
Brian
So rather than me as a leader having positional authority, which when you own a company, you have positional authority. Now, when you exercise positional authority, I think you actually start to lose credibility because positional authority is you as the leader, you as the owner, you have the authority. And so you typically when you're when you're exercising your positional authority, you lead with directives.
00:08:56:20 - 00:09:30:15
Brian
You tell people what to do. When you can shift to relational authority, you start to lead with influence and you start to lead with collaboration. And it changes the culture of an organization. I think any organization has a bottleneck, whether it's your business or a non for profit or something, some religious organization, whatever it is, any, any organization has a bottleneck and the width of that bottleneck is usually determined by the number of people in that organization who can make decisions of substance.
00:09:30:17 - 00:09:57:05
Brian
So when you're when you lead with positional authority and directives, that bottleneck is usually quite narrow. When you can start to shift to leading with relational authority and lead with influence and collaboration, and you can see leadership abilities in others and start to nurture and mentor them and empower them to start making decisions and feel comfortable and confident in doing so,
00:09:57:07 - 00:10:17:02
Brian
you start to create more leaders in your organization, and when you create more leaders, that bottleneck widens, and that's how an organization can scale. And so that's kind of what happened in that time frame for us is we started to develop and nurture leaders over each of those areas and then encourage them to do the same in their areas of responsibility.
00:10:17:02 - 00:10:39:02
Brian
Their many companies, so to speak. And what happened is we just started to scale as a company and it was really an exciting time because we created this culture of collaboration. I believe there's three things any leader needs to make sure the people they're leading can answer. That is, Where are we going? What do we need to do to get there?
00:10:39:02 - 00:10:59:12
Brian
And what is my role? Where are we going? Is that clearly articulated vision? I mean, very, very clearly, almost like a picture. You can see 3 to 5 years from now where we're going to be. That is a leadership decision, that is a leadership vision. And then from there, what do we need to do to get there? That's the strategic plan.
00:10:59:14 - 00:11:32:08
Brian
And my own approach is I think you need to bring in a much broader audience, the people who are actually going to roll up their sleeves and get that work done, bring them into the discussion about developing the strategy to achieve that vision. And then from there is what is my role? And that is everyone from the CEO of the company to the frontline person who is just hired yesterday understands each and every day what their role is in executing on that strategy to reach that vision.
00:11:32:10 - 00:11:56:11
Brian
And once you've got that, then I believe the leader of the organization needs to circle to the bottom and serve. What I mean by serving is that you provide the resources needed for them to be successful. Sometimes that's finances or budget, sometimes that's clarity, clarity of vision, sometimes that's a culture of, it's always a culture of accountability.
00:11:56:13 - 00:12:16:14
Brian
But and within that culture of accountability, sometimes it's a pat on the back or a high five or recognition and appreciation. Sometimes it's it's that proverbial kick in the pants, not literally, but it's just holding them accountable and holding a mirror up to them and saying, Hey, you said you were going to do this and you didn't. What?
00:12:16:17 - 00:12:36:13
Brian
What's going on? We just need to have a conversation about this. Sometimes. Andreas, it's hey, listen, if if someone has an errand that needs to be run or you need to go pick up lunch for people so that they can meet a deadline because they're their back’s up against the wall, as the leader, yeah, you get in your car and you go grab lunch for them, or you go pick up their dry cleaning.
00:12:36:13 - 00:13:00:15
Brian
What you do is you, you make their life easier so that they can achieve success in their role. And when they achieve a success in their role, the company is more likely to achieve success. So that's really what I mean by serving is is just being a resource that helps them be successful. And that's kind of that's kind of my belief.
00:13:00:15 - 00:13:16:15
Brian
And in that point in our business, I don't know that it was a conscious effort, Andreas, but what it was is more my natural style of leadership, allowing that to come together and just build really high performing teams.
00:13:16:21 - 00:13:33:03
Andreas
Was there something you learned in your path of leadership in EO? I mean, you went all the way up to Global Chair. Was there something you learned in that journey which changed the way you led your company?
00:13:33:03 - 00:13:48:09
Brian
I would say in my path of leadership in EO is where I really learned how to lead leaders and kind of going back to the bottleneck in the company.
00:13:48:11 - 00:14:19:22
Brian
When you have positional authority in your company, you can always lead that way if you choose to. When you are leading other strong leaders in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, you're leading other people who have successful businesses. They're strong leaders in their own right, and we're all volunteering in those roles. And so you you won't be successful sustainably in EO if you are leading with positional authority because quite frankly, a title in EO is just that.
00:14:19:22 - 00:14:59:02
Brian
It's a title. You don't have positional authority in EO, you need to be successful sustainably. You need to shift into leading with relational authority and leading with influence and leading with collaboration. And it needs to be genuine collaboration. And that is recognizing that the wisdom is in the room. You have incredible experience you're surrounded with and, and learning how to to pull people's perspective and input into how to be successful as as an entity within the Entrepreneurs’ Organization is is essential.
00:14:59:08 - 00:15:19:03
Brian
And if you can learn how to shift to relational authority, that that can transfer back to your company. So how you lead your company may not transfer well into EO, but if you can be successful in leading in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, leading other strong leaders, you can bring that back and start to nurture and develop and mentor leaders in your own organization.
00:15:19:05 - 00:15:52:20
Brian
That's to me, how you scale an organization. But to be honest, Andreas, I never really... my style of leadership was always just to be very authentic, and I never had the confidence in myself as a leader. I was asked to play a number of leadership roles on my path of leadership in EO over a period of ten years, and I never really understood why I kept getting asked to be a leader to step up and a higher level of leadership.
00:15:52:21 - 00:16:14:10
Brian
And there's two things I think that happened. One is, and I say this today when people ask me, Hey, how do I evolve in leadership in EO, my my answer is always the same and it would be the same in a business. And that is just be 100% focused on being the best you can in the role you're in right now.
00:16:14:12 - 00:16:39:13
Brian
Just, you know, just assume you're this, after this role, you're done and so be the best you can be. And in EO for certain, when you're in leadership in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, you're taking time away from your business, away from your family, your own personal life to invest in leading, volunteering, to lead in a role. Well, your family, your business, and you deserve for you to be the best you can in that role.
00:16:39:13 - 00:16:57:02
Brian
But the people you're serving, the members of your chapter or your region or the global organization deserve you to be the best in that role as you can be. And so just focus on being in that role. If you're thinking about what do I need to do to get to these positions up here, you're focusing on the future.
00:16:57:02 - 00:17:17:10
Brian
You're not focusing on being the best you can be in that role right now, and everyone deserves you to be the best you can. And if all you're focused on is being the best in that role this year, right now, what inevitably happens, Andreas, is someone's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, you've done a great job in that role.
00:17:17:10 - 00:17:41:17
Brian
Would you consider leading here? And and if your interest is just genuinely in serving and and helping advance the organization, you're probably going to get asked to step up into leadership whether you want to or not. Most of the time that I was asked to take on new roles in leadership, my initial reaction was, No, I'm done.
00:17:41:17 - 00:18:01:00
Brian
I just want to go back to being a member and running my business and being being a father and a grandfather. And so I generally would say no most of the time that I was asked and would need to be talked into it. But part of that was this. I just never thought I was a very good leader.
00:18:01:02 - 00:18:29:10
Brian
I just I didn't. And and all of a sudden I found myself in a point where I was going to be the the chair of the global board of directors of EO. And and so I asked I asked two people to mentor me. One was a guy named Jeff Hoffman, one of the founders of Priceline.com. And I wanted Jeff to mentor me because I wanted he and I were very aligned on the value of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in making an impact in the world.
00:18:29:10 - 00:18:48:09
Brian
So I wanted to partner with him, which eventually evolved into the relationship we created with the United Nations, and in bringing entrepreneurs from around the world to kind of take our unique way of of of being tenacious and not taking no for an answer and being innovative and creative and taking our hearts and applying it to the way the world solves problems.
00:18:48:11 - 00:19:07:14
Brian
In addition, I asked Warren Rustand to mentor me. I knew that being in this role of of of chair of the board would have an impact on me, and I wanted to make sure that was a positive impact. And so I wanted to make sure that I had balance in my life and that the priorities in my life were intact.
00:19:07:14 - 00:19:34:01
Brian
And so I asked Warren to to mentor me. And and one of the first in the very first meeting, I said to him, Warren, I'm I'm really nervous because I just don't think I'm a very good leader and I don't understand how I've gotten to where I'm at. And he said, Brian, he said, read a book called Discover Your True North by a former CEO of a company called Medtronic by the name of Bill George.
00:19:34:03 - 00:20:02:21
Brian
And he said, Just read that. Read that book and then let's talk. So I read it. And in the very first chapter, in essence, what it says is the era of Jack Welch, where the smartest person in the room evolves into leadership has gone. What's what's taking its place is those with higher emotional intelligence, those who genuinely care about the people they're leading and those who are good at building teams,
00:20:03:03 - 00:20:26:15
Brian
those are the people today that are evolving into leadership. Andreas, I was 52 years old when I read that book and it was the first time in my life where I thought, Wow, okay, if, if this is what people see in me, this feels more like me because I do I do feel like I have more emotional intelligence than intelligence quotient.
00:20:26:21 - 00:20:51:08
Brian
I've never been the smartest person in the room, even when I'm alone. But I do genuinely care about people. I do look for the good in people and good in situations. And I do love building teams and I do feel like that's something that I am good at is is really building teams because as you and I both know, the essential part of building teams is to establish trust.
00:20:51:09 - 00:21:12:01
Brian
And that's not trust that you can leave some money on your desk one day and it'll be there the next day. That's kind of table stakes. What I mean is that people feel like we are all aligned and our intentions are to do good in the world and good as an organization. We are aligned together on where we're going and what we need to do to get there and what our roles are.
00:21:12:04 - 00:21:33:12
Brian
And we trust that we are all trying to help each other towards that end goal and that we care about each other. And that is very natural to me. So yeah, at 52 years old was the first time I thought, well, gosh, if this is what people see in me, maybe, maybe I'm a better leader than I thought.
00:21:33:14 - 00:21:36:05
Brian
And that's kind of what's brought me to where I am today.
00:21:36:05 - 00:21:47:02
Andreas
Earlier before we started recording, we talked about accountability and vulnerability as key components of
00:21:47:02 - 00:21:51:11
Andreas
of leading teams. How, what do they mean to you?
00:21:51:11 - 00:22:23:10
Brian
Great question. I think there's two parts for me, vulnerability as a leader. I mean, there's a number of ways we can look at vulnerability, but to me, primarily the vulnerability as a leader comes down to recognizing we don't we don't all we don't have to have the answers as the leader so often as the leader of an organization, whether that's a team or a company or a EO chapter, we feel like, hey, as the leader, I'm supposed to have all the answers.
00:22:23:12 - 00:22:51:14
Brian
And, you know, it's interesting. My my company, Pure Wellness Rooms in 2010 was identified by Hyatt Hotels as a brand standard in in the Americas. So Canada, the US, Latin America, Caribbean every Hyatt hotel had our program. It was required to have our program. Well, in 2013 there was a change in the highest level leadership in in Hyatt and there was a shift.
00:22:51:14 - 00:23:13:22
Brian
They basically took our program and and rather than being a brand standard, which means it's a requirement, it became a brand recommendation, which means we love your program, but it's no longer required. And so hotels could discontinue it if they wanted to. And we knew that we probably were going to lose about 30% of of that business. And we were we were nervous.
00:23:13:22 - 00:23:39:11
Brian
We were kind of scared. And so when that came out, we called a companywide meeting. So people were flying in from around the country and we had a meeting and I remember praying for the right words to say. And it came the time of the meeting and we're all sitting in, in my office and I was looking down, still not feeling like I had the words to say.
00:23:39:13 - 00:24:04:17
Brian
And I was looking down. Everyone was sitting there and it felt like 10 minutes, probably 5 seconds. But I looked up and I looked at everyone and I said, Hey, we all know why we're here and we've got a difficult journey in front of us. And I wish I had the answers, but I don't. I look around and everyone's eyes got really big and I said, But what I do know
00:24:04:17 - 00:24:06:08
Brian
is the answers are in this room.
00:24:06:08 - 00:24:27:06
Brian
It's in all of us. We just need to have the conversation. And their eyes got really big. And then about 10 seconds later someone said, Well, what if we did this? And so that was the beginning of a two hour meeting, and at the end of 2 hours, we had a plan. It wasn't a perfect plan, but we had a plan.
00:24:27:08 - 00:24:38:17
Brian
And I still remember feeling inadequate as a leader and everyone got up to leave and this one woman from Houston hung back and she came up to me and said,
00:24:38:17 - 00:24:47:03
Brian
Thank you. And I said, For what? She said, I've never seen you be as strong of a leader as you were today. And I'm getting emotional even thinking about it.
00:24:47:05 - 00:25:05:00
Brian
And I said, Really? Why is that? Because I didn't feel it. She said, Because you allowed us to step up and be a part of the solution. And I feel like I've got I feel like I've got commitment to this path forward. And it's because you allowed us to be a part of it. And that was really it.
00:25:05:05 - 00:25:09:09
Brian
It was an opportunity for me to step back and say
00:25:09:09 - 00:25:25:06
Brian
it was okay to not have the answers because I would have come up with a plan, but it wouldn't have been as good as what we came up with. I'm sure of that. And then they would have just been doing what my idea was, and if it didn't work, they could point back to me.
00:25:25:06 - 00:25:53:17
Brian
But it's less about that. It's more about by being vulnerable and saying, I don't have the answers. It really allowed us to to, to, to bond as a team. And we became really strong and really tight. And we were a pretty decent team before that because the the the when when the brand standard came about in 2010, what we were asked to do by Hyatt was a Herculean effort.
00:25:53:17 - 00:26:18:02
Brian
I mean, we had to basically take what we had done to that point and almost by a factor of ten, implement a really impactful program. You know, we had to launch what we did in 130 hotels over a six month period. And you know, that that almost doubled the size of our company. And we had six months to implement it.
00:26:18:02 - 00:26:38:10
Brian
And it wasn't just a matter of installing our rooms in these hotels. It was training, it was corporate training, it was training, it was marketing, it was going on press tours. It was just it was a whole just we came together and gelled as a team because we did it. We planned it as a team and it was really, really powerful.
00:26:38:12 - 00:26:46:02
Brian
Anyway. So that was that was a real learning moment for me as vulnerability in terms of accountability. Go ahead. Sorry.
00:26:46:02 - 00:26:46:07
Andreas
yeah,
00:26:46:07 - 00:26:48:14
Andreas
yeah. I was going to ask about accountability.
00:26:48:14 - 00:27:10:21
Brian
Yeah. So accountability, there’s, again. So recognizing the shift from position of authority where you tell people what to do to relational authority, where you have influence and and collaboration, part of influence and collaboration is creating agreements. And there's a difference between leading by agreements and leading by dictating.
00:27:10:23 - 00:27:36:16
Brian
When you create agreements, it's you and I, Andreas you and I have an agreement. We have a conversation, we have a vision of where we're supposed to go. And we have an agreement between the two of us of what it's going to take to get there. And you play part of that. I play part of that. And so you as an individual are going to put more pressure on yourself to live up to an agreement than to meet an expectation I’ve placed on you.
00:27:36:18 - 00:27:58:05
Brian
And so it's so it's different. So when going back to the where are we going, what do we need to do to get there and what's my role, in any strategic planning session that I'm ever involved in, once we understand where we're going, then we start to break down and say, okay, if that's where we're going to be in 3 to 5 years, what do we need to do in the next year,
00:27:58:05 - 00:28:01:22
Brian
12 months from now to be on track to achieve that vision?
00:28:02:00 - 00:28:29:15
Brian
And what is it going to take to do that? And then we look at all the different components of where we need to be and what it's going to take, and we assign accountability to it so the people in the room will raise their hand and we assign one person accountable to execute on carrying that forward. Then we say, okay, great, if that's where we're going to be in a year, where do we need to be in the next 90 days to be on track to achieve that yearly target?
00:28:29:17 - 00:28:53:05
Brian
Once we do that, we then break that down further and assign accountabilities to that. But then what I do is I ask each person who's accountable. I say, let's take a week or two and come back as a leadership team and say, okay, if I'm going to be here in 90 days, here's the incremental steps between today and 90 days that I need to execute on.
00:28:53:05 - 00:29:18:14
Brian
So go back to your team and create create those mini steps. So weekly commitments that you're as a team going to need to execute on. It's kind of like your playbook to achieve that 90 day target. And then what we do is we build that into a system and the individual that's accountable says, Here's what I'm going to do in each of these incremental steps.
00:29:18:16 - 00:29:43:03
Brian
I'm committing to do these things by these days. It's the person accountable is committing to get those things done. So every week we come into our accountability meetings and there's someone who is managing that process. And I strongly suggest it's not that visionary entrepreneur because we just we we lead differently. And this is a this is a culture of accountability.
00:29:43:09 - 00:30:06:10
Brian
So I usually select someone who's really just good at managing projects. And what they do is they manage the process of holding accountable each week, which is simply this. Andreas, you said you would have this done by today. Did you get that done? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, I might ask, is there anything that you think we as a team need to know if the answer’s, and typically people don't have that,
00:30:06:10 - 00:30:36:08
Brian
but if the answer is no, there's there's four questions we ask. So is it done, yes or no? And if the answer is no, what happened? Why? Why didn't it get done? Just so that we as a team are all involved in that. And also there's a level of accountability with that. And then after that is, When, what is a date you can recommit to make sure that gets done? And then, Is there any collateral damage?
00:30:36:10 - 00:31:02:03
Brian
So I guess there's five things once you get by the initial question, if that's one of them, is there any is there any collateral damage or other impact that you not achieving that or accomplishing that has? In other words, are there things that you've committed to that are going to have to be delayed or are there things that other people have committed to that they're counting on you to do what you say that is going to be impacted?
00:31:02:03 - 00:31:23:03
Brian
So just that we're looking at all of it. And then the last question is, what is what can we as a leadership team do to help you be successful in this? You're owning it. You're explaining why it didn't get done. You're recommitting to a new date. You're talking about the the collateral impact of of not having that done what it may have, just so we’re aware of it.
00:31:23:05 - 00:31:48:06
Brian
And then we're also saying is, hey, this is your accountability, but we succeed together as a team and we fail together as a team. And so what can we do to help you be successful in this? And it works. And here's the other thing, Andreas, is that when you are part of that team, you don't feel like you're being judged because you're the one who said, I will do this by this time.
00:31:48:08 - 00:31:57:02
Brian
You're the one who's coming to the meeting and saying, I didn't do it, but you know what the questions are going to be because they're the same for everyone every single time.
00:31:57:02 - 00:32:03:21
Brian
What happened? When can you re-commit? What is the collateral damage and what can we do to help you be successful? It's the same every time.
00:32:03:21 - 00:32:06:04
Andreas
It's a brilliant recipe.
00:32:06:04 - 00:32:07:14
Brian
Yeah, it works.
00:32:07:14 - 00:32:21:06
Andreas
I really understood that the power of accountability through EO, through leading committees in EO, I really hadn't had any exposure to that principle.
00:32:21:07 - 00:32:56:12
Andreas
And I if I look back at my career, I was 100% in what you call positional leadership. So when I was teaching entrepreneurship, I don't know when, 15 years ago I thought that the lecturer, which I were then, I was then, had to know the answers. So I insisted that, you know, that there was a question by the class, you know, what is the biggest assets asset size of a private equity firm or VC or something?
00:32:56:12 - 00:33:22:13
Andreas
And I said the number like 3 billion of course was wrong. There were much bigger ones and people googled it during the class and proved me wrong. But I still I felt I had to like know everything which was so wrong now. And I understand that. And then through EO, I learned that there's so much more power if we hold the team accountable.
00:33:22:15 - 00:33:53:09
Andreas
And here is the detail not to the chair, not to the the committee leader, but to each other. And what I found when I was leading as president was the strength of the commitment and the accountability to the peers is much stronger than the commitment to the leader, because on top of that commitment to a single person, you have multiple people and then you're worried about losing face.
00:33:53:09 - 00:34:15:01
Andreas
If you're not delivering because everyone else is and you know you want to be showing up as being there and doing what you promised for for everyone else. So this creates this invisible peer pressure that ends up delivering results without or with very little work from the leader. So it's really a power to accountability in my mind.
00:34:15:01 - 00:34:43:01
Brian
I agree. And and it's I love to hear you talk about that. There's so much wisdom in what you're saying. I think, yeah, we are more accountable. We feel more pressure to be accountable to our peers necessarily than a leader. And that's really what building great teams is about, establishing that trust that, hey, listen, we're all in this together and we're all trying to do well.
00:34:43:05 - 00:35:06:04
Brian
I don't think anyone wakes up thinking, you know, I want I want to fail or I want to let people down. I think life happens sometimes and as a result, you know, it's it's you know, it's about leading with compassion and recognizing the humanity and in the people that we lead that no one is trying to fail, but sometimes life gets in the way.
00:35:06:04 - 00:35:39:03
Brian
There's family situations. There's you know, I have a shirt that on the front it says, be kind. And on the back it says, Everyone you meet is fighting some battle that you know nothing about. And I find that time and time again, most of the time, people are fighting something that they're just dealing with below the surface. They're dealing with it in their personal life or their family life, or there's some struggle that they're going through that is keeping them from showing up the best version of themselves.
00:35:39:03 - 00:35:53:23
Brian
And and so when when you sit down and have a conversation with someone, you know, as as leaders of any team, that team has a purpose and it has commitments to achieve certain things. And
00:35:53:23 - 00:36:23:20
Brian
leading with compassion doesn't mean we don't meet our goals. In fact, leading with compassion probably makes it so you're more likely to achieve your goals because what you just described about being having that commitment to your peers is when you are part of a team and you view that this is the team's commitment and not an individual's commitment, but the team's commitment, you're more likely to be, you know, feel that internal pressure to say, Hey, listen, I need to I need
00:36:23:20 - 00:36:47:22
Brian
to step up and rise to the occasion and deliver even when it's tough. But as the leader to sit down and say, Hey, Andreas, I need to talk to you about this particular issue, because, you know, you've made a commitment and it looks like we're behind and we need to make sure that we achieve success here. But before we get into that at all, are you okay?
00:36:47:22 - 00:37:08:05
Brian
Is there anything going on in your life that you know and share with me to the degree that you're comfortable sharing? But, you know, I know this isn't like you to not be achieving this. And so I'm assuming something's going on and I want you to know I care about you and I whatever I can do to help you, I want to do that.
00:37:08:05 - 00:37:33:20
Brian
So let's start with that. And then once we're through that, let's talk about what we need to do over here to make sure that we're delivering on this. And and if you need someone to step in on your behalf and take the lead on this because of something you're dealing with, well, we'll figure that out. But it's interesting because leading with compassion actually requires you to hold people accountable.
00:37:33:22 - 00:38:05:00
Brian
And again, it's holding them accountable to what they've agreed to or committed to. But it's also having those difficult conversations. Let's face it, sometimes they're uncomfortable, but we need to have the courage to actually show kindness, show love. And it's because think about it yourself. If you were not performing and you were potentially letting people down, you would you would want someone to step in and say, Hey, Andreas, what, what, what can I do to help you?
00:38:05:04 - 00:38:28:10
Brian
What's going on? You would you would want someone to be direct and honest with you. And yet so often people confuse leading with compassion and having that servant leader mindset to not having the difficult conversations. And that's exactly the opposite. Having those difficult conversations is an act of love and an act of kindness.
00:38:28:10 - 00:38:44:08
Andreas
You cannot connect with your team, with your individuals in your team, without being vulnerable about each other's situation, at least you know the stuff you can share, you feel comfortable sharing.
00:38:44:08 - 00:38:48:05
Brian
If you would allow me for a second, I'd love to just kind of turn the tables.
00:38:48:05 - 00:39:19:16
Brian
You're asking me, and I know this is your podcast, but you have such an incredible way that you approach humanity, teams, people, culture, you know. What is it? What is it for you that really kind of triggered that? What was the catalyst in your life that brought you to, really, because it's who you are. It's not, I don't think it's something that you sit and you're calculated about, I think it's just, you know, it's who you are has come out and really turned into this incredible leader.
00:39:19:16 - 00:39:22:03
Brian
What what was the catalyst for you, do you think?
00:39:22:03 - 00:39:43:21
Andreas
Thank you for asking. So there's two sides to me when it comes to culture. one side that I’ve had since very young, which is the side of an engineer breaking things down, analyzing what does culture mean, what does healthy conflict mean, what does, emotional security or psychological safety mean?
00:39:43:22 - 00:40:07:11
Andreas
And how do we turn this into something we can measure? This is like the engineering side of me in my current business. Then there is the emotional intelligence or the empathy side of me, and that really developed only after right after my divorce and before my divorce, I was not in touch with my own feelings. I was not in touch with my spouse's feelings.
00:40:07:11 - 00:40:29:01
Andreas
I was not in touch with the feelings of the people in my team. I was very superficial. And then I took I went to a psychologist, a Gestalt psychologist, and, you know, he helped me get more in touch with my feelings. And through that, you know, this whole world opened up, and I saw that I can communicate and be vulnerable.
00:40:29:01 - 00:40:57:16
Andreas
And I started reading about Brené Brown, which has an amazing recorded talk on Audible, three hour talk on her power vulnerability, which touched me and I think explains brilliantly why vulnerability is power. And then through you, I learned, you know, through our 5% updates, I learned that it's okay to be vulnerable. And I was fine being transparent, but not connecting with my emotions.
00:40:57:16 - 00:41:33:15
Andreas
So once I put that together, then, you know, I came to where I am now, which is approaching culture and teams and people through two sides. One is the engineering side, you know, the commitment, the analysis, the the, the, the breakdowns, the structure and so on. And the other is the kindness and the the love for the human condition, as Warren calls it, and Warren Rustand calls it the human condition, which is the messiness, if you like, that we people exhibit, we are perfect in our imperfections.
00:41:33:15 - 00:42:12:09
Andreas
We have, you know, 180 cognitive biases. And we're not supposed to work, but we do work because that's how we've evolved. And this messiness is what makes us special. Like one of the projects I want to kickstart at some point is I'm I'm gathering all sorts of untranslatable words, like there's a Brazilian word in that there's something like cafuné, which means to slide your finger through someone's hair as a sign of caress, you know, to your spouse, let's say, and that is so touching.
00:42:12:09 - 00:42:47:18
Andreas
That is a brilliant word that describes a human condition. Or there is the kintsugi, I think, which is in Japanese to to lace a broken ceramic with gold and make it even perfect, more perfect. And all these words, you know, are signs of the the little things that make us imperfect but perfectly human, if you like, encapsulate this messiness and the wonderful nature that that we are. So long answer to a short question,
00:42:47:18 - 00:43:11:01
Brian
Yeah, but it's beautiful. When I was in high school, a friend of mine's father committed suicide, and I went to the funeral, and it was one of my best friend's father was the pastor of the church. And I remember thinking that
00:43:11:03 - 00:43:37:10
Brian
how do you navigate, how do you give a sermon on that? And it was what he talked about. And it just it brought you brought me back to that when you talked about the Japanese art of using gold to repair ceramics and it becomes even more beautiful. And he talked about he talked about the story of master weavers in making Oriental carpets or Asian carpets.
00:43:37:12 - 00:44:03:20
Brian
And he said they start out with a plan and there's a design. And it is the that that vision of the design is given to the weavers and they start weaving and inevitably someone's going to make a mistake and they're going to put in the wrong thread at the wrong place or whatever it is. And what they don't do is they don't pull that out.
00:44:03:22 - 00:44:32:14
Brian
What they do is the master weaver comes over and he looks at the mistake and redesigns the carpet based on that mistake. And so it's never what you start out believing it's going to be. It never turns out that way because mistakes happen. And he said what happens is the carpet inevitably ends up even more beautiful than it was originally intended because they take the mistakes that are made and just redesign life going forward.
00:44:32:16 - 00:44:57:01
Brian
And so often we feel like the mistakes we made you can't reverse from. But to your point about taking the gold and putting the ceramic piece back together and having it be even more beautiful, it's the same. You know, there's there's things that I've had gone through in my life, am going through in my life that are just really, really challenging.
00:44:57:03 - 00:45:27:09
Brian
But it's helped me grow as an individual. I've become less judgmental. I've I've really recognized that that whole concept of everyone you meet is, is fighting some battle you have no idea about. And and yet it's I believe it's what helped me be a more compassionate person and and really recognize that every human being is is doing the best they can given the circumstances they're in and finding the good in people is really powerful.
00:45:27:14 - 00:45:56:15
Brian
You were present in a class that I talked about this notion of red shoe moments and there is a CEO of a of a large IT company and his name is Lonnie Mayne. And when Lonnie was young, his dad was was a professional wrestler in in the wrestling world that kind of like Monday Night Raw type things and his name was Moondog Mayne.
00:45:56:17 - 00:46:22:22
Brian
And when Lonnie was eight nine years old, he would very often travel with his dad, and his dad was often the main event of the of the night in the arena. And he would be with his dad in he would be with his dad in the locker room and his dad would just he was the center of his dad's universe, even though his dad was about to go on stage and his dad kind of looked like Santa Claus a little bit.
00:46:23:02 - 00:46:40:02
Brian
You know, white hair, white beard, big guy. And he wore red and white as his outfits. And he had red wrestling shoes he would wear. And he said, you know, the whole world knew my dad, this guy that would get in the wrestling ring and throwing people around, throwing chairs throughout the arena as this big, burly guy, he said.
00:46:40:02 - 00:47:01:12
Brian
But I knew him as this gentle, kind person. And he said, inevitably there would be a knock on the door. And they would say, Mr. Mayne, they're ready for you. And he would hold my hand. We'd walk down the aisle, we'd get to another door, and they would knock on the door, would let the guard on the other side know we're ready and the doors would open, the crowd would go wild and he would step forward and he would hold me back.
00:47:01:13 - 00:47:21:15
Brian
And so I would stay in, wait in the locker room for him. And inevitably he would allow older people and really young kids to come back to the locker room after the match. And he said I would watch him and whenever he was talking with someone they were the center of his world. He made them feel like they were the most important person in their life for that moment in time.
00:47:21:17 - 00:47:46:00
Brian
And he said, I just that's who I knew my dad was. And he would always look for the good in people and look for opportunities to do good for other people. He said then not too long after that, my dad died, he said. So I grew up with this image of this man in red shoes, just making other people feel good about themselves and seeing the good in others and opportunities to do good, he said.
00:47:46:00 - 00:48:06:00
Brian
So as we built our company, you know, we created these things called Red Shoe stories or Red shoe moments, opportunities where we looked to have a positive impact in the lives of others and look for the good in people and situations. And so that's their culture, is these red shoe moments. And, you know, he gave this talk that I that I saw.
00:48:06:01 - 00:48:30:04
Brian
And, you know, my wife and I immediately went out and ordered red shoes. Red sneakers. And I wear them often because it gives me the opportunity to share that story. But it also reminds me when I put them on is, hey, look for the good in other people because it's there. You know, Abraham Lincoln had a quote that said, if you look for if you look for the good in others, you will find it.
00:48:30:06 - 00:48:38:07
Brian
But if you look for the bad in others in situations, you'll surely find it because they're both there. Depends on what you look for. So.
00:48:38:07 - 00:48:43:23
Andreas
Brian, there's so much to talk to talk about and there's there's so little time.
00:48:44:01 - 00:49:01:12
Andreas
So we probably have to do another podcast in the future. But as we wrap on this this episode, what do you think the leaders that are listening to this podcast should be rethinking about?
00:49:01:12 - 00:49:06:07
Brian
Gosh. You know, I think that
00:49:06:07 - 00:49:19:05
Brian
you lead you lead human beings and human beings have lives and sometimes those lives are going really well and other times are dealing with challenges. Recognize the humanity in the people that you lead.
00:49:19:07 - 00:49:40:20
Brian
There are times when we have to we have to make moves with people. If we've gone through the process of working with them and developing them and and and counseling them and coaching them, and they're just not right for the position sometimes we need to free them to go join our competition. And that's just part of part of leading organizations.
00:49:40:22 - 00:50:05:22
Brian
But if we lean in with curiosity and lean in with compassion first and we make people feel like they are genuinely cared about and valued as part of our team, you will see people accomplish things that you just wouldn't imagine. Creating culture starts from genuinely caring about the people that are on your team and that needs to be genuine.
00:50:05:22 - 00:50:19:20
Andreas
I love that quote so, so condensed and so impactful. Brian, thank you for sharing your your wisdom and your stories and very few of your stories.
00:50:19:20 - 00:50:53:19
Andreas
And again, I hope we can get to more of them in the future, and inspiring us with your humble and servant leadership. And for everyone else listening, thank you for staying until the end. Do hit the subscribe button so you don't miss the next few episodes. And if you have thoughts, a guest you want to propose or anything else, let me know by emailing rethink@rethinkculture.co, and as I like to say, keep leading.