Episode 478 – Unstoppable Leadership: Building Teams That Trust and Deliver with Will Watrous

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_00] What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead and connect with others.

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_00] Each week I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00] Well, greetings everyone, wherever you may be today. I am your host, Michael Hingson, and you are listening and or watching Unstoppable Mindset. Our guest today is Will Watrous, and Will has a, I think, a lot of interesting things to talk with us about regarding organizations, team building, teamwork and other such things. And I'm not going to give it away because it's his job to really talk about that, which is a lot more fun.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_00] Although I will say that he and I share a like of a particular book on teamwork, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, as we go forward. But anyway, Will, I want to welcome you to Unstoppable Mindset. We're really glad you're here.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you, Mike. What a pleasure to be on your podcast today.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00] Well, well, I've been looking forward to it for a while, so we're glad we're doing it. And we'll, we'll take about an hour and then you can go off to dinner unless you've already had dinner.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_01] Sounds like a plan.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, Will is in Oklahoma. So, I think he's having warmer temperatures today than we are. Sure. Anyway, so let's, let's go ahead and move forward. Why don't you tell us kind of maybe a little bit about the early Will growing up and all that?

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_01] Sure. So I grew up in a little coastal town, Mystic, Connecticut, which is on the shore, northeastern Connecticut.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00] Did you ever have pizza there? I had to ask.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_01] I did. I did have Mystic Pizza before it was made famous by Julia Roberts.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_02] Right.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_01] Movie. And that was, that was my hometown. Yeah. So the Mystic Drawbridge there and old Mystic Village or the Mystic Seaport. It's a very touristy, but also a great place to grow up on the water. And yeah, the youngest of six kids, five boys, one girl, but don't feel sorry for her because she is probably could still beat me up.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01] She's a strong, strong woman. And yes, pretty, pretty average in many ways, childhood. Graduated from high school and went off to college here in Oklahoma. Spent about six years out here going to school and then went back to the East Coast, this time to Washington, D.C. area.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_01] I was working in a large nonprofit organization just outside the Beltway and then wound up going to Boston, taught at a school in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. And then my wife decided she wanted to go to college out here in Oklahoma. So we moved back out here in around, around 2010.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01] And I started a business and that started my entrepreneurial journey, which was very intensive, let's say. Learned a lot, a lot of it the hard way and really developed an affinity, appreciation for business, for entrepreneurship, for ultimately serving people, which is what most businesses should be designed to do.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_01] And through all of that took some really powerful principles, insights, truths away, and now have the privilege of helping a lot of other business leadership teams run stronger, better, healthier companies.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00] What got you to go to college in Oklahoma coming from Mystic?

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01] Well, being the youngest of six, two of my brothers had come to school out here. And so I was following in their footsteps.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00] Where did you go to school?

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_01] So I went to Oral Roberts University. And I went to a college called Ramo Bible Training College, which is a Christian, two-year Christian school out here.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00] And eventually you came back. And why did your wife want to come back and go to college in Oklahoma? Kind of same concepts?

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, she wanted just—so she wanted to go to the Ramo Bible Training College to get a foundation in her faith. And just, you know, early on in life, wanted to lay that framework, that groundwork, so that she felt for the rest of her life. And she had met a lot of other graduates from that particular school, which is an amazing school. And they had all just shared how influential, how impactful the school was for them.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_01] And mind you, it's not just about head knowledge, you know, not just information. It's about ultimately knowing God better, which tends to serve you well in every area of life. So she was hungry for that. So we decided to move out here. And the nature of my work at the time was such that I could work remotely. And so we moved here, and she went to school, graduated, and we stayed and raised a family.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00] So what kind of business did you start when you started your business? You said in 2010?

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, in 2010. And so I had been serving in a marketing capacity, doing marketing management for the organization in the D.C. area. And learned a lot simply by doing. My college education, my degree is in music performance, actually. So it didn't serve me very well as far as marketing is concerned. So I learned a lot by doing.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01] And when I moved out here, I knew someone who had an auto repair shop. And he, through a series of events, had to rebrand his shop completely. I went to his website, I think, one day, and it said, under construction. And I thought, that's weird. I know he's been in business. He has a website.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01] So I sent him an email, and he emailed me back and said, just inquiring, is everything going all right? He replied and said, I need help right now because we're in the situation where I need to redo everything. So I, at the time, was not a technician when it came to marketing. I was more of just a manager, strategist type. So for whatever reason, I decided that I could build him a website. I just wanted to help. So I didn't charge him anything.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01] And literally went online. And this is many, many years ago before there was all of the resources available to us now. And I Googled, how do you build a website? And I prayed. And I just went through this very excruciating process of coding and understanding how it all worked. Wound up building him a website. Learned a lot along the way about search engine optimization, about digital advertising, and then other forms of online advertising.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_01] And he's a great businessman. He does good work. And he has a good reputation. He knows lots of people. His business grew to the degree that he would have some other business owners come to him and say, man, what are you doing? Because you guys are just crushing it. And he's a really gracious guy. He would tell these other business owners, well, I have this guy named Will. And sometimes I have to call Will and tell him to tone it down a little bit because I'm too busy.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01] Well, these other business owners demanded my phone number from him because they wanted to grow their businesses. So I started getting phone calls from other business owners asking if I would do for them what I was doing for this man. And that started. So I never really woke up one day saying I'd love to start a marketing agency. I just was trying to help someone who needed it. And it wound up turning into a business.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01] So then I hired someone and they started helping me and then hired some more and grew it and grew it. Until about four years ago, I stepped away. And there's more to that story as well as to how I was able to step away. I still own that company passively now. It's a great multimillion dollar, very profitable, growing company, very healthy company.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01] But now my passion and focus is helping entrepreneurs create businesses that give them what they want from their business, that are more aligned, more healthy and stronger, not just for the business owner and the entrepreneur, but for the whole company, for everyone involved in that organization.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_00] So are you more involved now in helping people start businesses or are you still dealing with businesses that exist and you're helping to kind of improve them?

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01] Businesses that are already existing. So typically the clients that I work with now are 2 to 50 million in annual revenue, 10 to 250 employees. They're growth oriented. They're willing to be open and honest with one another and with themselves. And they're more afraid of the status quo than they are of change.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01] They really are trying to get somewhere, but feel stuck, feel frustrated, feel like the things that they've been trying to do to make the business better just aren't gaining traction like they need.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_00] Well, how does that differ from what you were doing before?

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01] Ah, well, so before the marketing agency was really focused on lead generation, increasing their revenue, their sales. Now what I do is work with leadership teams. I use the EOS model, which is the entrepreneurial operating system, which is a very specific process and set of tools that I teach the leadership team of the organization. So typically that's the three to seven people at the top of the company making the important decisions.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01] And I help them do three things. I call them vision, traction, and healthy. So vision means first getting the leaders 100% on the same page with where is this company going and how do we plan to get there? Traction from the standpoint of helping your leaders to become much more disciplined and accountable and executing really well to achieve every part of your vision.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01] And then healthy meaning helping the leaders to become a more healthy, functional, cohesive leadership team. Because the truth is that most leaders don't function well as a team. And what I found is as goes the leaders, so go the rest of the organization. So what we do is we get to the point where everyone in the company is all crystal clear, fully aligned with the vision and plan. They're gaining consistent traction.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_01] Wherever you look in the company, people are executing on that vision together. And they're doing it as a group of people who enjoy the work that they do and enjoy the people that they're around.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. What do you think is the problem that leaders and companies most often misdiagnose in their organizations that create the problems that you have to come in and deal with?

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_01] I would say one of the most common is accountability. It's a common hot button frustration of many business leaders. And the misdiagnosis, as you said, is that accountability is actually a byproduct. It's a formula, actually. The formula is this.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_01] L plus M equals A. So the L stands for leadership plus M stands for management equals A stands for accountability. So accountability is the output. And so rather than trying to make your people be accountable, which you can't really do, what you can do is be a great leader and be a great manager.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01] And the result will be you'll create an environment where accountable people thrive. And so within EOS, we teach five leadership abilities and five management abilities. They're not really ability. They're more like practices, leadership practices and management practices. You just do those things well. And the accountability that you so desire will show up in the organization.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I think a lot of people don't really understand what accountability is. And that doesn't help the process. And yeah, you know exactly what I mean. And that tends to really make a lot of challenges for people because they resent rather than recognizing that people who truly understand accountability are trying to do something to help build the team, help the team work well.

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_00] And are looking out for the whole company. But just so many people don't understand that, do they?

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_01] No, and part of the reason, it's interesting, all these EOS tools work together. But another tool that we use a lot is something we call the accountability chart. The accountability chart is a visual illustration of the structure of the organization. Meaning who is responsible for what. So we've got the leadership team.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01] But then every single person in the organization should have a box, a seat on the bus. And within that box or in that seat, there's five major roles that they really need to own. I like to say it this way. If the company could speak, why would it say this function exists? Why is this seat in the organization?

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01] And many companies have not clearly defined what success looks like for an employee. What are their five major accountabilities or roles within the organization? And so how can you hold someone accountable to something that's not been clearly communicated from the get-go? If they don't really understand what success looks like and what we need them to be doing and focusing and being great at, then it's really hard to hold them accountable.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And they just miss it. Well, going back to something I mentioned at the beginning, you and I are both great fans of the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Which function or dysfunction do you, and I can imagine what this might be, but which dysfunction do you most often encounter and do we find most often with companies and people?

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I'll have to start at the bottom of the pyramid because it's linear in a way in that one builds upon the other. So the bottom tier of the pyramid is vulnerability-based trust. So trust. And that, as Patrick describes it, is being completely open and honest with one another.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_01] If you sit down and have a conversation with a peer, you know that they're going to be completely frank. They'll tell you the truth and the whole truth. And not only that, you can trust them to have the right motives, the right purpose behind things. It's not political. They're not, you know, kind of positioning themselves and working the politics and dynamics of the organization.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01] They're really trying to do what's right for everybody involved. So vulnerability-based trust is the first one, and that takes time. That's, Patrick defines that as different from the kind of trust that is based on just knowing people in the sense that you know what to expect out of them.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01] If you're familiar with them, you work with them a lot, so you kind of, you can trust that they're going to act a certain way. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about this true, open, and honest approach, being candid with one another. And that comes through some specific exercises. Ultimately, times, the more you know about people, about their personal lives, and the more time you spend with them is what ultimately builds trust.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, and it's all about building a trusting relationship that allows for that level of honesty, because when you truly have it, then you're dealing with an environment where when someone says something to you, you know they're not trying to be political, you know they're not trying to undermine you, but they're trying to give you information.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_00] And it gets back to accountability and holding maybe you accountable for the things that you said that you were going to do. But it's also about holding the whole company accountable by feeding back to and working with people to get jobs accomplished.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, absolutely. That's right. And for that to happen, everyone has to be on the same page. We all must be looking at the same picture of where we're planning to go and agreeing on how we plan to get there.

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And in a sense, even though accountability is at the bottom of the pyramid, it starts hopefully at the top with senior management that sets the tone and starts to create the environment where everyone can learn to trust and work together in a much more positive way.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_01] That's right. When I work with leadership teams, I half-jokingly tell them in our early sessions that they should look around at the company and admire the wonderful things that are happening, the clients and customers that are being served, the employees that are getting their job done. All of those things are wonderful, and you helped create that. Wonderful.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01] On the flip side, all of the frustrations, the pain, the things that are broken and not working, you created that too. So you have to take responsibility for all of it, the good and the bad. And so the leadership really does have to take responsibility for everything.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_00] Why is it that trust is so hard and trusting relationships are so hard to build, even when people probably have really wonderful intentions and want to do it? But why is it so hard?

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_01] Ooh, that's a great question.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_00] And I'll tell you one of the reasons I ask, being a little prejudiced, working with guide dogs, I work with dogs, and I have learned over the years that while dogs may love unconditionally, they don't trust unconditionally. But dogs are more open to trust. And if you really work at building a trusting relationship with a dog, you set the rules, you set which is what they want, you set the ground rules, you set the tone. And if you do it, the relationship that develops is incredible.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00] But that just seems to be something that's really hard for humans to do internally or between human and human.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_01] You know, I think the answer is in something that you just said, and the word is intentional, intentionality. I think that most people show up to work focusing on the work, focusing on doing things faster and more efficiently and the how and the strategy, but they don't focus very much on the health of the team. And Pat Lencioni talks about that as well,

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01] how that most organizations are focused on getting smarter, but not on getting healthier. And he argues that the healthier team will outperform the smarter team every single time.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_00] Mm-hmm. The other part about it is the whole concept of just being open to trust. We, in our human world, just see so many examples of why not to trust. And I think too many people have just learned, well, we can't trust. We don't dare take the chance. We can't because everybody has their own agendas. And so how can we trust them? Because they're looking out for them. They're not looking out for me. And we teach children this. We teach each other this.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_00] And that's so unfortunate because it doesn't need to be that way.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. What are they? The wise is serpents, gentle is doves, is the saying. I'm not. You're right. There's a lot of people out there, unfortunately, that have ruined it. Let's say the few have ruined it for the many, I think. And the reality is that today you have to be, and now with AI, we don't need to go there.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_01] But with AI, you really have to know what's going on because what seems real isn't.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Do you think that will improve over time?

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_01] What's that?

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00] That AI will get better over time and a lot of things that aren't real today will become more real just because the whole process will improve?

[00:23:01] Yeah.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_01] Will AI improve? Yes, absolutely. Will its results and its helpfulness improve? Absolutely. Will people continue to use that for their own good, you know, for their own devices at the expense of other people? Yes, unfortunately. So where does that leave us? I think we have to be all the more wiser to it. You can't stay ignorant and think that everything's going to be okay. Okay.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00] Where do you think AI fits in corporations mostly? Or should fit?

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_01] Well, it's an incredible tool. It is an incredible tool. And I think it's like money. What do you do with it? It's simply a tool. What are you going to do with it? Where does it fit? It depends on what kind of business model, but I see it impacting every business to some degree. We utilize it heavily.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_01] And I think when I work with leadership teams, I do a lot of facilitation. So we'll sit around this table here. I'm in my session room here. And we have lengthy, deep, meaningful, impactful discussions with one another. And sometimes I even encourage them to use AI to refine an idea or to collaborate over an idea.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_01] But I warn my teams that AI has no soul. And what I mean by that is it's information. It's data and information. But the human being, there's more to us than just information. It's like the data, the information part of us is like the tip of the iceberg, but there's a whole mass below the waterline. I believe you have a soul and a spirit.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_01] And so the danger I warn teams of is making strategic decisions based on information that comes from AI without really discussing and using their soul.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_01] Sometimes ideas can resonate with a person on a different level that AI and just information can't go there. It's not able to go there. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I just warn them, AI has no soul. You need to pay attention to what's going on inside of you as you're discussing ideas and weigh that into the decision.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_00] And I still go back to we're the ones that are and should be the creators. And so it's great to use AI to help a process, but we still need to be the ones to do the real work.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_01] Yes.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_00] And I think too many times I hear about it with schools and so on. Oh, students are just writing their papers using AI. Well, we need to work on encouraging that not to be the case. The AI can help provide information, as you pointed out, but that's what it is. It's an information source. And it's only one information source. And anyone who is truly looking for information knows full well you don't just rely on one source.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01] Right.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_00] Even if it's a human, you don't rely on one source.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_01] That's right. That's right.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_00] But it is pretty crucial to work through that. Well, Patrick Lencioni talks a lot about conflict and he talks about teams that have healthy conflict. And then there are those who quietly just kind of avoid it. What distinguishes or how do you deal with the two different kinds of teams? Because I know Patrick talks about the fact that conflict is a very useful thing and needs to be respected as part of the process.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01] Right. Right. So the second layer of the pyramid that he illustrates is healthy conflict or productive conflict, which can only happen if there is a foundation of trust. Because without trust, people tend to hold their cards close to the vest. They're not willing to go out on a limb and say something that might be taken the wrong way. Because for fear of retribution or that it could be used against them or what have you.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01] And so conflict is may the best idea win. I have wonderful teams. They're healthy teams. They'll fight like cats and dogs over an idea, not over. It's not personal. They're simply fighting for the best idea to win. And so they'll go at it. Heated conversations because they have strong opinions. At the end of the day, though, what really matters is that everyone has been heard.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_01] The point of conflict is to get the options out on the table to see what's possible, to see what's available. And then from those options, pick the best. So what healthy conflict does is it opens it up for people to share, be willing to get out there, share their opinion, go back and forth. And as I said, everyone gets heard. That's such a critical piece of a healthy team is that you're hearing from everyone on the team. They're having that opportunity to share their perspective.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01] And then when all is said and done, we call this person the integrator. This is the person who leads the leadership team. They have a decision to make. It's not a democracy. They have heard all of the opinions. And then they say, well, this is what we're going to do.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_01] And 99% of the time, reasonable people, even if they disagree with a decision, if they have been heard and know that their opinion is valued, they are willing to commit to a decision that's against what they believe should have happened.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00] Well, so take that to the next level. Let's say that the decision is made and in a month, it turns out it really wasn't the right decision. Then what?

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Healthy teams can pivot and they don't. Excuse me. There's no paralysis by analysis. They're able to be flexible and make a quick decision without regrets and move on. You know, in business, most of the decisions that we make are reversible. It's not like we're a brain surgeon and someone's on the operating table and one slip means drastic results.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01] Or it's not a court case and the judge, once they slam the hammer, nothing changes. That's the verdict. In business, most decisions are reversible. Sometimes I see teams or leaders who are hesitant to make a decision. And I encourage them, make a decision, commit and start taking steps. We can always iterate. We can make adjustments along the way.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_01] But if you don't act, if you don't take one step forward, then you can't steer a parked car, as they say. So when your question was a month later, it was a wrong decision. We agree as a team to pivot and move on. And a great, healthy team, you know, they'll probably give one another a hard time and laugh about it and poke a bit. But keep moving toward the goal.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_00] But it's all in fun and it's not intended in any way to be personal.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01] Right.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_00] Which is really the key. None of this has to be personal. We're not doing it to one up anyone. And the good teams truly understand that.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_01] That's right.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_00] Do you ever find environments where leaders unintentionally do things where accountability breaks down?

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. One thing that happens specifically with visionary or leaders or founders is something I called end run, which is when they don't follow chain of command. Basically, because of their position in the company, they feel freedom to go to anyone in the company and either make a decision or give them a directive.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01] And the person that they're giving their directive to feels obligated to follow that because it's a senior leader.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_01] And so that really damages, you know, it's chain of command ultimately, but it damages the relationship, damages the health of the team. And the hard thing about it is that visionary leaders and founders are idea people. They are the creators. They're brilliant at coming up with seeing opportunities and coming up with ideas to solve problems and add value.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01] So they have this natural bent to research. They're curious. They'll want to talk to people, employees in the organization. And that's all good, but they do need a healthy boundary and to understand who they should talk to about decisions or influencing employees in the organization.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I'm curious about something. How do the operations within a business differ from, say, what goes on in the military where there's an absolute chain of command and someone along the line can issue an order to someone and it's supposed to be obeyed and so on. But how does military operations differ or do they from business or should they from business?

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, that's a great. I think there's some strong similarities and some significant differences. And oddly enough, this is a military leader. I forgot who it was, but it was a general. He said something he asks his subordinates on a regular basis is, tell me something you know I don't want to hear. Tell me something you know I don't want to hear.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01] And his goal there was to truly, to create a relationship with his subordinates where they feel comfortable raising their hand, saying, we've got an issue. Here's a problem. And I think that traditionally in the military that would be resisted. I think the, or my perception anyway, is that subordinates would rarely want to say something's wrong. Everything's always okay.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_01] You know, following orders, everything's good. But I respect that general's practice of telling his subordinates that. And I recommend my leaders do it as well because they need to know what's going on really. There's this, I think, a natural desire to impress or to make it look like I'm doing a good job and our department is okay so they don't bring up real issues.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_01] So, it kind of might go against your question, but the common thread there is a willingness to talk about real issues, real problems, to bring them up, solve them together as a team. But first, be willing to identify. And oddly enough, it goes back to the trust piece, to being open and honest. You have to be willing to just call something out. The elephant in the room, several people know that there's something going on. Nobody wants to say it. Just say it.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01] So, that's maybe one similarity.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I know that in reality, in the military, at least I've heard this from my military friends, they do emphasize teamwork and teaming and so on. But at the same time, they have this reputation where there's an order and you just obey the order because that's what the general or what someone above you says. And it seems like there's a paradox there somewhere.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I think in business, what my observation has been that people do need to know the why. I think in the military, that's not required. And maybe the same in parenting. Sometimes you're on a need-to-know basis and you just need to follow the order.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01] Whereas in business, I think it's much more common practice for good leaders to give the context of why this directive matters so that the people can connect the dots and have a clearer picture of the overall success of the mission, as it were. The goal of the organization, they can see how what they're doing is contributing to that overall goal.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:22] Yeah.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_00] Well, in the military, maybe the privates don't necessarily get to know the why. Right. But the hope is that there are enough people above them who are involved in a process, that there is enough of an understanding that enough people know the why that the process works. And I guess that's a – I've not ever been in the military and I'm certainly not going to criticize.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_00] But it just seems to me that the more people can communicate and interact with each other, the stronger the team will be no matter whether it's business or military.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I would hope.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_00] So, you know, but – so EOS generally talks about clarity and execution. Where do leaders typically in organizations lose traction after they set a clear vision? Where do things break down?

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_01] You know, I think one of the most powerful ideas within EOS is the weekly meeting. So there is something we call the level 10 meeting. And the name level 10 comes from when we started working with companies and thousands and thousands of companies. One of the questions we would – one of our first questions in meeting them would be rate the quality of your meetings on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_01] How effective are your internal team meetings? And on average, they were about a 4. And so over time, we developed the level 10 meeting agenda, which is a very specific agenda for leadership teams on a weekly basis to conduct that covers – makes those meetings so effective and efficient. And we keep talking about Patrick Lencioni. He wrote another book called Death by Meetings, which is a great book as well.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_01] But so within EOS, the level 10 meeting is a very clear agenda. It gets everyone on the same page. Data passes quickly and smoothly across the right channels to the right people. We solve problems together. And it's just a wonderful, wonderful way to keep the business moving forward. So your question was what happens after they set a clear vision? Well, very often they lose traction because they're not on a weekly basis.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_01] It's measuring their progress toward that goal and vision and solving problems on a weekly basis that show up, that get in the way. Because there will always be things that prevent us, that resist us from our goals. So are we methodically – and this is a discipline. This is – it's not glamorous. It doesn't always feel good.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_01] But if you can stick with that weekly cadence, then every single week you're measuring what matters, the KPIs. It's a score – you know, one of the items on the agenda is the weekly scorecard, 5 to 15 numbers. Give us an instant pulse on the business. Reviewing the data, solving problems, and marching forward. So that's where it gets lost.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_01] Because also in that meeting, everyone is staying on the same page. And there's that accountability. You're looking across the table, say, asking about this initiative or this project. Is it on track? Yes or no? Are we confident we're going to get it completed on time? Do you need any help? Every single week, the leaders are showing up to that meeting and asking those questions of one another. And they know, hey, on Tuesday at 2 o'clock, I'm going to have to answer this question.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_01] Is this goal on track for the quarter? And so that introduces this accountability within the team where the peer – it's peer-to-peer accountability. They're holding one another accountable for the goals of the organization. Yeah.

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_00] I talked with a person recently on one of our podcast episodes. She runs a boutique PR organization. And it has been growing, but she's not letting it grow too fast. But it has continued to grow. And I've asked her – and I asked her, how long do you expect or how much do you want the company to grow? And can it grow too large where it becomes unmanageable?

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_00] And she acknowledged that that kind of thing can happen. And it kind of is an interesting concept because most entrepreneurs want their companies to be successful and grow. But when you get multimillion-dollar or larger companies and you're hiring 50, 100, 200, 500 employees, that kind of raises a lot of different complications. And it gets really overly complex.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_00] At what point does all the complexity really become too dangerous to deal with?

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01] So the complexity model is where you can calculate how complex business gets by every person you add to the organization. My point is complexity is real. And as a leadership team or as a leader, you have to constantly fight the onslaught of complexity. You have to fight for keep it simple, less is more. Keep it simple, less is more.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01] So if you had two people in an organization, you've got two lines of communication, one going from one to the other and back. If you add a third person, so you increase the number of people by 50%, now there are six lines of communication. So 200% increase in complexity.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_01] And that's just communication, not talking about systems, processes, culture, all of that other stuff. You add a fourth person, so you increase the number of people by 100% from the two. Now you have a 500% increase, 12 lines of communication.

[00:42:45] Yeah.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_01] So you have to, as a leader, fight against complexity. And the way that you do that is by less is more, keep it simple. Within EOS, we set three to seven rocks, we call them every quarter. Those are just business priorities. Not 27, three to seven, because if everything is important, nothing is important. So you're always asking yourself as a leader, what's the simplest way to say this? Communicate this.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01] What's the simplest way to do this? Do we have the simplest possible structure for the organization? Occam's razor says that the simplest solution is invariably the best solution, or the best solution is invariably the simplest solution. So the complexity thing is real. You have to stay aware of it and fight against it by keeping things simple as you go.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And the reality is, it goes back to what you were talking about. Certainly the weekly meetings and other methods that you use to make sure that everyone not only is encouraged to communicate, but they do communicate. And again, it all gets back to that bottom level of the pyramid, which is accountability. And as long as everyone understands and feels the concept of accountability and that we're all working toward the same thing,

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_00] you have a much better shot at making it successful and making it work.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_01] Right. That's right. Within EOS, we have a two-page strategic plan, not 50 pages. It's not this giant document. It's two pages that allow everyone within the organization to see who we are, where we're going, how we plan to get there. It's simple. Yeah.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00] So for a while, you didn't own your own business and then you now own your own business. How is becoming your own entrepreneur and your own business owner boss or whatever you want to call it, how has that changed kind of the advice you give to other people? And what do you think about being a business owner as opposed to working within another organization?

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_01] You know, I think I'm spoiled. No, I don't think I could ever be a good employee again. I just have a deep appreciation for visionaries, for people who see what's possible and then rally a team around them to help make it become a reality. That's a special quality and the world needs lots of that quality. So I have gained just a greater appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_01] And I think that it's not for everybody and that's okay. But I just can connect now more deeply than I ever could with people who are taking that step of faith, being courageous, doing something that's risky and uncomfortable, and just figuring it out as they go. I think that's, for me particularly, that resonates. I can't now, and I get it.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_01] I understand there's the majority of people are comfortable with a salary, a steady amount of income and the safety that that brings. But I just, it doesn't compute for me. I can't do it. It's just not for me what life is about.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:46:27] Yeah.

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_00] I know, especially since 2008, I've not only owned my own company, but it's been mainly me and dealing with lining up speaking engagements and so on. And especially since we moved down here in 2014, I'm very used to being my own individual. And I hear exactly what you're saying.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_00] I can work in an environment where there are other people. And there's times that that's a good thing. But I know that, especially during COVID, people complained a lot about being locked down and they really missed being with other people. And I always had a little bit of a problem with that because I don't look at other people. So that's one thing.

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_00] But I learned that I could still communicate with people. And so I didn't fall into some of those traps. I just do find it interesting. But I understand what you're saying. You're used to being the person not only in charge, but you're interested in setting the vision. And there's a lot of merit to that.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. And it takes all of us. Yeah. If you had all visionaries and no doers, no executors, then we'd be in a mess. Yes. I'm terribly sorry. It's later here in the evening and the cleaners are at the door. Let me just tell them to wait. Give me 10 minutes on the office here. I'll be back in just a moment. Okay. I apologize. I'll be right back.

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_00] So, yeah, I appreciate the position. And I can live with it as well. And I can cope. I could work either way. But I do like kind of really being the person in charge of me. I think it probably works better.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. That's okay. Yep. We're all wired differently.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, we are. So, in making decisions, data is a very important thing. And it's certainly something that we need to keep around. Why do so many people resist and business leaders resist using data in kind of an honest way? What are they afraid of?

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I think that data can make things black and white. I think that data can be very telling because we can share opinions and feelings and ideas, but you can't. The numbers are the numbers. They are what they are, which is why we use this weekly scorecard in that Level 10 meeting I was talking about.

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_01] But Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify. So, the idea here is that people don't respect what you expect. They respect what you inspect. And the data is an inspection of what actually happened, what's real, what's going on on the ground. And that's uncomfortable. Yeah. The numbers don't lie most of the time.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_01] Now, they can be manipulated and people can tell stories. But if you set up in the scorecard the right way with the right measuring the right things, it gives you a good idea of what's really going on. So, I think it's just a natural resistance of fear of falling short, a fear of punishment ultimately, you know, in some form or fashion. Hardship, difficulty, uncomfortability, things like that.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_00] But I think the other issue about data, though, is it is kind of hard, factual information, as you say. But it doesn't necessarily always bring the human element into things that maybe ought to be considered as well. So, the data should only be part of the final decision-making process.

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_01] It's very true. Very true. If you're looking at the numbers, there's always a story behind the numbers. What's the story behind the numbers? And that has to be part of the equation.

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_00] As a speaker, I get a lot of people who say, well, we'll consider you, fill out this form, and we'll evaluate you along with everyone else. And the problem is I've realized that a lot of these forms, you fill them out and you get a bunch of words on a screen. But it doesn't really tell the whole story. And that's unfortunate because I think that too many evaluators are missing out on really understanding speakers when that happens.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I believe that's true. Yes, absolutely. Hearing someone in person can't compare to just words on a page.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_00] Well, so, yeah, it's just one of those things that one has to deal with. When a team experiences a setback, what is it that causes some people to recover quickly while others don't necessarily recover quickly?

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_01] Why don't some people recover more quickly?

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_00] Or teams, yeah.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01] Or teams. I think, I don't know that I can separate teams from people. Yeah. Okay. You know, and I say that because it has to do with self-awareness. It has to do with personal development. I think many of these qualities are inseparable from the performance of the team. Because a team is ultimately a group of individuals.

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_01] And so, in that way, you've got the team dynamic, but you're also going to rely heavily on the character and the qualities of the individuals on the team. And if some people just can't let go, if they can't just raise their eyes or turn their gaze from the past and look forward, then they're going to struggle. Now, there are tools. Who is it? An autopsy without blame, he called it. And good to great. And good to great.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_01] He said, this is where, what was his name now? Jim. I forget his name who wrote good to great. Jim Collins. He said, he called it an autopsy without blame, which is a team or person's ability to look back at the past and just understand, okay, what happened? This isn't, this isn't to point fingers. We just need to know what actually went down so that we can learn from it. Because I tell teams this all the time.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_01] The past is only good for one thing, learning from it. And once you learn from it, you got to let go and move on. So, and it's funny, I say this again, every meeting that I have with him, actually, we review our data and we look back, we understand. And then I said, at the end of that review, I say, okay, that's the past. Nothing else we can do about it. But anything else need to be said before we leave it completely in the past and move forward? Yeah.

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_01] And I give them that opportunity to process and to, you know, make observations, insights, confessions. But after that moment, we got to let it go. And I think that a team has to be committed to be willing to do that for them to be able to move forward. Yeah.

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_00] Well, a lot of what you do is, I suspect, helping leaders especially shift their mindset in some way. What mindset shift really helps leaders move from reacting to problems to leading intentionally and developing the kinds of operations that we're talking about here as being successful?

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_01] I think, you know, you said mindset shift, but this is what I would call a mindset best practice. It's something I call a clarity break. A clarity break is a time scheduled on your calendar. So, this is hard landscape. This is an appointment you make with yourself that you keep. And in a clarity break, you get away from all the noise. You turn all the notifications off. You're on do not disturb mode.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_01] And you get a legal pad and a pen. And you simply think. You think about the business. You think about the business. Think about the biggest challenge you're facing. And you just start writing. And it's amazing what kind of solutions, ideas, next actions come to us when we have that clarity of mind. When we have time to gain perspective. To take a step out of the fray. All of the noise. And just simply think.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_01] There's fewer things more valuable than high quality, pure thought. Just simple thinking time. So, that is a mindset best practice, I would say. And I encourage leaders to do it at a minimum of once a week. 30, 60, 90 minutes. Get a legal pad. Now, there's another book out there called The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham. That's lessons from the chairman of the board.

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_01] And that book is a book full of questions that leaders should be asking themselves about the business. You could use those as prompts. Or just, again, get quiet and think about the business right now. And I promise you, you'll start writing and the thoughts will just flow. And you'll write the whole time and come up with such clarity and such perspective that allows you to re-engage, re-enter the business with confidence as to what needs to happen.

[00:56:28] [SPEAKER_01] What are our next steps? And that's so important because that confidence is a precious commodity for leaders. You have to protect your confidence. And the confidence comes from clarity. And the clarity comes from taking time away from the business to simply sit and think.

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_00] One of the things that I think all too often we individually and collectively don't do is to just stop and think about life. Think about things. Do more internal introspection. And that's kind of what you're talking about. And the reality is if we would do more of that and if we would listen to our own mind, we would discover so many things that would help us along the way.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_00] My favorite example is Trivial Pursuit where I ask people regularly when you're playing Trivial Pursuit and somebody reads a question from a card, immediately you think of an answer, but you went, oh, that came too quickly. That can't be it. And so you think again and come up with another answer. But that first answer invariably was the right answer. But that's not what we listen to.

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_00] We're teaching ourselves not to be so introspective and to sit back or to sit down and think about whatever it is that we need to think about. And as you point out, writing things down.

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. So valuable and hard to do, frankly, in our age of distraction. Our phone is so distracting. And so many other options, so many other things that hit the dopamine, get the dopamine flowing that challenge our ability to, or are sitting down and making time to do simple thinking time.

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Well, if a leadership team today wanted to have one practical step about how they would work together this quarter, what would you advise? How would you advise them to start? In addition to reaching out to you. Oh, yeah. Which I'm all in favor of, but that's another story.

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_01] You know, there is a tool out there that I would point them to. It's called the Organizational Checkup. It's free. It's online. It's put out by EOS. There's no obligation, no strings attached or anything like that. But I think that tool, it's a set of 20 questions and you rate each question on a scale of one to five, five being best. And that tool would really shine the light on where the most pain is being felt across the organization.

[00:59:04] [SPEAKER_01] When the leaders, first of all, just give an honest assessment of those 20 questions, they'll be able to put their finger right on the priority of what they should fix first. And I think that would, just that exercise alone would get them all on the same page of what problem to tackle first. And I think that would be very valuable for them.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_00] And what is that called again?

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_01] It's called the Organizational Checkup. If you were to Google EOS Organizational Checkup, there'll be a link there. And it's just 20 questions.

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_00] Great. Well, if people want to reach out to you and learn from you or interact with you and maybe use your services and so on, how best can they do that?

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Connect with me on LinkedIn is great. Also, if you just did a search for EOS Will Watrous, my name, it'll come up. I've got lots of content out there. The EOS website has my listing and contact information on there as well.

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_00] And what's your LinkedIn name or handle? Will Watrous. Yep. W-I-L-L.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_01] W-A-T-R-O-U-S.

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. Well, I hope people will reach out. This clearly has been instructive in so many ways and lots of great ideas. I want to thank you for being here and being a part of this. And I want to thank all of you who are paying attention to us today. Wherever you're listening and or watching, if you'd like to reach out to me and I'd love to hear what you think, please email me at speaker at michaelhingson.com. That's speaker at M-I-C-H-A-E-L-H-I-N-G-S-O-N.com.

[01:00:46] [SPEAKER_00] Wherever you are with us in the podcast, please give us a five-star rating. But more important, give us a review. We love reviews. And people who are interested in looking at podcasts love to see the reviews that others have thought about podcasts. And so hopefully you'll say nice things about us. But either way, please give us a review. If you know someone who ought to be a guest on our podcast, Will, including you, please introduce us. We're always looking for people to come and tell their stories.

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_00] And with that, again, I want to thank you for being here. Will, this has been absolutely fun. It's been hours gone by without any time seeing like it passed. So thank you very much for being here.

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you, Mike. What a pleasure to speak with you. And I'm looking forward to your podcast success.

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you for being here with me on Unstoppable Mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about. If you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others, I have a free gift for you. Head over to michaelhinkson.com and download my free ebook, Blinded by Fear.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_00] It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning.

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_00] Keep questioning. And keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset.

[01:02:38] Thank you.