The Courageous Vision: Transform Any Organization to Higher Levels of Profit and Sustainability | Will Busch III

Why is having a clear and compelling vision so important? How can a vision drive real change? Will Busch III is my guest today and he answers these questions very clearly for us. Will has extensive transformation experience leading turnarounds, growth and M&A assignments. He tells us in this episode about what makes a compelling connecting vision that drives people towards intentional action. And he shares how you can create substantial and meaningful change on your team. I'm glad you're here to learn from well.

Welcome to The Courage of a Leader podcast. This is where you hear real life stories of top leaders achieving extraordinary results. And you'll get practical advice and techniques, you can immediately apply for your own success. This is where you will get inspired, and take bold, courageous action. I am so glad you can join us. I'm your host, Amy Riley. Now, are you ready to step into the full power of your leadership and achieve the results you care about most? Let's ignite the courage of a leader.

Will I'm so glad that you're with me today on the courage of a leader podcast. There are probably a number of things that we could have talked about today leadership related, I am super excited that we have decided to talk about the importance of a vision and how it can effectively drive a transformation. So first, will you tell us? How are you in the business of driving transformation?

Will Busch III: Thank you, Amy, I'm excited to have this conversation with you and appreciate you for thinking of me and this topic. So I currently lead transformation at Tilia Holdings, which is a private equity firm, based here in Chicago focused exclusively on the food industry. And so my role is, after we make an investment in a company, how do we take that company and build it into its potential for the five years that we get to be the stewards of that company? And so my job is to start with a vision, obviously, where are we going? What are we in business to get done? And then how do we communicate that to stakeholders? How do we execute that and put people in the right places and focus on the right things? And then ultimately, how do we achieve the results that get everybody excited about our ability to create impact in the food industry? So that's how I'm involved?

I love it. Tell us we'll before we get into, like how do we leverage that vision along the way? What makes a good vision that will inspire and drive change? What does a good vision look like?

Will Busch III: That's it? That's a big question. And I'll I'll give my opinion. And that's, that's certainly kind of you to ask that. I think a good vision is one that people can see themselves connected to. People can feel the emotional impact that that vision will deliver. And people can also see that the vision will live beyond them. So that it's it's really about a greater good, that we're marching toward. And so when I think back about some of the visions that, you know, are really compelling to me, looking at history, which is one of my favorite subjects. I think about you know, Harriet Tubman is a great visionary that I look up to just in her ability to see that, you know, we can take people literally from one place in the United States of America to another place that will deliver a lot more peace, prosperity, and hope for a group of people. And not only did she do that multiple times, she did that in the face of insurmountable odds. So when we think about courage, thinking about look, that is a dangerous proposition to be marching a group of people through the United States of America at that point in time, but her willingness to still lean into that and get people to follow her. Through that unknown was a compelling vision that I think she was able to deliver.

Absolutely. She had courage. She had commitment. Yeah. Mind had this vision that had the characteristics you were just talking about. Your soul can connect to it. There's an emotional impact. I'm hearing aspirational to a degree, right? The Vision lives beyond what I'm going to be able to touch and create myself. It's really a big picture purpose.

Will Busch III: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And so just to pull that back into the world that we play in with in private equity, all of our companies that we work with, start with a winning aspiration. And

the way that you call it that, we do call

Will Busch III: it that. And so we use Roger Martin's play to win Roger Martin, and he Lafley, they created a strategy framework called playing to win. Okay. And the emphasis on that is winning, not just playing to play or playing to participate. It is what can we do? That is delivering something that is not being delivered currently? And how will that differentiate us in the marketplace? And get everybody behind us excited about executing on that vision? Yeah. And so the first conversation we're having with our companies is, what are you seeking to become, and for who and by when. And that's the that's really the fun conversation, because everyone has different opinions about that. And so when you get one that gels together, and everybody gets excited about it, it's a really, really powerful experience.

Really powerful. Well, I can hear your passion around it as you talk, but let me repeat that for everybody. Yes. Are you seeking to become for whom? And by win?

Will Busch III: Yes,

we've got what we've gotten who we've got when? Yes. Okay. Well, I want to talk more about how we get there. But first, let me tell listeners a little bit more about you. Will Busch III is Managing Director and Head of Transformation for Tilia Holdings. He has nearly two decades of transformation experience leading turnarounds growth and M&A assignments for both public and privately held companies. Will has technical training and behavioral economics and strategy execution is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and a son of two elementary school principals. A proud husband to Elizabeth and father to William Alexander, and Reina. Will's life purpose is to bring peace and prosperity to underserved communities. Thank you for being here. Will,

Will Busch III: thank you for having me.

Yeah. So the first question is, what are you seeking to become for home buy? When I imagine this creates a mess at first, Will. You said people have differing opinions and different things to say. How do we find that common clear and compelling vision?

Will Busch III: It's a great question. And it does get messy. And my job is to get people comfortable with the mess, first and foremost, and just saying that this will feel unstructured and a bit messy. And that's okay. So that's step one. Step two is let's do a quick look back on what got us to this point in

time. Nice acknowledgement. Yeah.

Will Busch III: So what has worked for us as a team as an organization, to get us to this point in time and what made us special? And usually a lot of unnecessary focus on the themes. What are the things that come out, so you'll hear we've been flexible, you'll hear, we have been focused on the customer, you'll hear, we have a commitment to technology and innovation, you'll hear, we can service customers in ways that no one else can so the themes will start to come out very naturally. And that's the intent of the exercise is just to get those concepts cooking in one pot. Excellent. On the weekend, work on the word smithing and everything else.

Thank you for giving us some examples of some themes that helps to bring this to life for us, Okay, terrific. I've heard what you originally said and how you lead transformation for Tilia Holdings. I've heard that the vision is something that can be communicated helps with execute execution we can execute against that it's ultimately leading us to our results. Why is that so important? Why is it so important to have this view vision as a driving force for change or transformation?

Will Busch III: Sure, so the word change implies moving from something to something. Yeah. And there's an undercurrent of evolution, and there as well. And so when you think about from point A to point B, you have to have a point B in order to move. And that point B can either be intentional, or it can be random. When it's intentional, a lot of people have a lot of fun. And there's a lot of rewards that can be created and shared. And that experience, when the change is random, then a lot of the opposites happen. companies get behind, things don't go so well, a lot of families and individuals suffer. And so there's some responsibility from a leader to think about, where are we marching to?

I think that's really powerful. How you're wording that Will, it's an intentional point be? Yes. Right. And if and if it's an aspirational, if it's a big game that we're playing, right, then that gets us that gets us into action. I gotta imagine that gets us trying some new things that gets us going and thinking in ways we haven't before?

Will Busch III: Yes, yes, for sure. And that's the beauty. And two is even even though we're starting with an intention, being open to the goodness that you'll find along the journey. So there'll be some things that we'll plan, but there will be things that we didn't plan that we will discover along the way. And we just have to set the foundation that will incorporate those things and experiment, and put the things to the side that aren't relevant, and maybe build some of the things that we didn't expect into the journey. Nice,

right, but you're able to include that in the journey, because it's intentional point B, that you're driving towards. And if we're doing something we've never done before. We're gonna discover stuff. All right.

Will Busch III: And let me give you a tactical example of how that manifests in a business situation. So if a company has a winning aspiration to be on the forefront of taste, and they want to serve customers that play in the all organic space that have a natural national reach, what that aspiration does, is creative focus on who will you say yes to and who will you not say yes to, which is important for company, the nose become really important, as you think about scale. But it also gets into how you start to get clarity on who you reach out to? Who are the right type of customers that fit that aspiration? Who are the right type of suppliers, who can help us deliver on that customer province? Who the right type of employees that we need to actually mobilize the vision that we just came up with? What are the right type of management systems and operating practices that we need in order to deliver on that vision? So the vision sets the foundation for the people process structure and systems that execute the entire game plan? Yes.

So I'm hearing every time we make a decision about a supplier Yes, or what markets or customers we're going to try to serve here. We're looking at the vision, yes, in ourselves, which choice best enables us to know this vision? Yes. And you said, Okay, people process system, and structure and structure.

Will Busch III: So structure for us is really about the configuration of capabilities. Okay? So when you think about, you know, people talent, you can say that consider that as a capability, we have talent and understanding a specific segment in the market. We also may have a CRM system that can reach out to people very quickly, you know, and we can't we have a captive audience of people in that segment. Well, how do you structure the capabilities in an organization to execute on a value added activity? That gets us the outcome that we want faster and at scale?

Can you give us an example there, Will?

Will Busch III: So again, so for structure for us, we would say, we start first with what is the process? What are we seeking? What are the activities that we need to do in order to execute on that winning aspiration? Mm hmm. Can it work? We have an aspiration of being at the forefront of taste for companies that specialize in the organics, then the structure is really about, okay, well, whose job is it to go find the universe of customers that operate in all organics? Well, while we need a capability to go find that universe, we also need a step of contacting that universe to test our value proposition and see if they are interested in what our aspiration is delivering? Well, that usually is a salesperson, or some type of business development capability, reaching out to that universe of customers, and creating that market conversation,

great activities to execute. And then breaking that down into each step or phase, we got to find we got to contract out, we got to work with them. Now we got a partner. And I'm assuming if we don't have the capability, we get knowledge, we do research or we hire in talent,

Will Busch III: right? We can buy it or build it. And capabilities, again, can be delivered through a human. Or they can be delivered through a system, in most cases, buy

or build, human or system. Yes,

Will Busch III: it's usually the configuration of those. Yeah, especially in the 21st century. It's how are humans and technology systems coming together to deliver an enhanced capability to the marketplace? And to the workplace? Quite frankly,

yeah. So I know, well, in your work, you are really transforming the capabilities and results of the companies that you invest in, in that five year window. Yes, you've set for yourselves. So we'll, I hear that we're looking at the vision when we're making certain decisions. I have also seen plenty of teams who do a great job putting together their charter and all their information at the beginning. Right. And then at some point, we in order some points, we lose touch with that harder and that North Star, especially in situations you're talking about, we've got different streams of work, we've got different teams and teams working in parallel. How do you make sure that vision is ever present over it? You know, with different teams, different folks? Over the years? Yes, you ensure it sustains as that driving force? It's a great,

Will Busch III: great, another great question. And this is why you are pro. So a couple of things, Amy, one is to make it visible. Right? So once a once the conversation about the vision has been memorialized in some document, we like to get it visible in as many places as we can. So people can have a visual reference to the north star that we're running toward.

Excellent. So that's first on the intranet it's on our Meet Zack does it's on the

Will Busch III: Agla. Exactly. It's not our it's on our documents, it's on our screensavers. It's on the walls, literally, it is a subconscious unconscious reminder of why we exist. Excellent. So that's first and foremost, the second piece of this is, we actually start to going back to the process piece, we start to assign roles and responsibilities and decision rights very clearly, once we get into the execution pieces of the work. So yes, this is the vision, but what's the work to execute on that vision? And then how do you connect people to the work? So Amy, and we'll know, Amy, you're accountable for this element of division? Will you're responsible for doing the work that will lead to the accountability of the outcome that Amy is driving? All of our teams are getting very clear on when am I accountable for the outcome? What am I responsible for the work? When am I just being consulted as an expert? When am I just being informed because I have visibility into all of the work processes. So we use that's a RACI method, which is one we use RACI quite a bit to make the less clear, more clear. And then we refer to it we lock them down in the sheet. And then we'll refer to them if we're talking about a specific project.

I love it very clear about Yeah. Who's playing what role are you doing? Are you consulting? Are you weighing in? Yeah. And I'm also hearing you that there is a line of sight to the Christian. Right accountable for some part of making this piece of the vision a reality. 100% I love it. Okay, so visible, assign roles and responsibility with that clear line of sight to the vision.

Will Busch III: There's one other element to that. Okay, is then we align performance management and incentives is a vision as well. So the performance management piece will actually actually add development to that as well. So development, performance management and incentives development is really about how can we elevate your ability to meet the demands of your job that aligned to your contribution to the vision? That's the development piece? Performance management is really about? Did you get done what we agreed to? with it? Again? That's your contribution to the vision? Did you get it done? Yes or no? In most cases, if you got it done, well, how can we attribute a certain amount of value to you for getting that that one, which is the incentive structure? So that reinforces the behavior that will drive us toward the vision? Because a lot of times, that's what's happening to is, you had behaviors that have been engineered in the organization that were assigned to a previous vision? Yes. And so and there shouldn't be wholesale changes on the vision, but visions of all back to the beginning of the compensation. And so as visions evolve, you have to evolve the behaviors, and evolve the structures and the systems. So all of those three levers that we talked about development, performance management incentives, that helps realign the behaviors to the current vision that we're operating on.

Yeah. What's that saying? We get what we measure? Yes. Now, and I mean, it's really easy in organizations, I talk about the courage to be bold and extraordinary and really go after the big rocks, because it's so easy to just respond and react to what's coming up in all of our inboxes. Yes, or what we've done in the past, right, and not really create those changes in behavior. So it's right there in their performance management. It's right there. And they're this is what you're going to be incented on.

Will Busch III: Correct, you just made a really good point, I wanted to just underline real quick. So the performance management piece is absolutely around expectations and visibility, there should be no guessing around if you are aligned to the vision or if your work is not.

This is all tied together. And when you are talking about development, will I was going back to what you said, You've defining the capabilities that you need for the activities you need to execute. Yes, I didn't, some of that is going to be developing the folks to be able to fulfill on those capabilities. That's

Will Busch III: right. That's right.

So we've been talking we'll at a company level, what advice would you give to a listener who is a mid manager or a team leader? You know, they've got a team of five to eight people, but they want to change something pretty significant about, I don't know, it could be how they serve their internal clients. Right? Or they want to be more strategic and less tactical. They want to make a foundational change in their team. What would you suggest on that scale?

Will Busch III: Same process, love it. Thanks exactly the same because the organization is just a collection of individuals that are rowing toward one outcome. And so if you want to do the same thing at the team level, or even the individual level it is first start with a winning aspiration. What are you running toward? And why? And for whom? By when? Yep. And once you can work through those points of clarification, you know, then it's about okay, well, what comes first? Because that creates the anchor for the choices that you make, or what organization do I need to play with? What function do I need to double down on? What skills do I need to build? What experiences do I need to go get? What mentors and advisers do I need to surround myself with? Mm hmm. That becomes a lot more clear when you contextualize it in the aspiration you have for yourself.

Yeah, so ask yourself that same question. What are you seeking to become? Yeah, and then you're choosing the chronology Do you have what you need to execute? Yes, I have some parallel paths. And I think what could be so exciting about a team of eight, a team of five, like, absolutely everyone can be 100% engaged in that conversation. Yes. And creating that vision?

Will Busch III: Well, and think about how powerful that is, if those type of conversations are being unlocked for people inside of an organization, so that change is really the purpose of the organization, the organization is yes there to create value for customers in the market. But it's also there to create value for the people who go to work for those customers, too. Mm hmm. What sort of organizations become places and hubs to develop people in ways that they're not getting development in other places, workplaces can, by definition, create a competitive advantage,

you can create a competitive advantage inside of your team, right, you can meet a team, where people want to want to transfer to and work, we have talked so much, and rightfully so many of us in the industry have been talking about it for decades, it's come to the forefront post pandemic, about Mortons of developing folks and creating that meaningful work. And if you've got an exciting, intentional point be that you're driving towards inside of your team worked. Yeah, work just became more exciting.

Will Busch III: Right, and we're hungry as individuals Change is inevitable. So we know that we've all heard it. So the question becomes, are we changing with the rate of change? Or are we not, you can find a way to and you feel it that even if there are not ways to measure it, for individuals, we actually do have ways to measure it inside of our portfolio companies. But you can feel if you're moving closer to your innate sense of vision and purpose, or if you're getting away from it. And some of the more that organizations can get clear about their value proposition which attracts people who have personal value propositions that align with the value proposition of the organization. And then create systems where people can grow and develop faster than they would otherwise on their own. That's when you get the compounding effect of value added abilities. And the organization that

That inspires me Will, because I think a lot of people can start to get bogged down by a multi year endeavor, the way that you are defining the activities to execution and giving that line of sight to the vision and breaking it down, like okay, we've taken that step that's going to we're one step closer to enabling this. We're wondering closer to enabling this piece of the vision. And that's measurable. And you also can feel it like we're moving that big bet big cog wheel, right. And we're getting closer.

Will Busch III: Right? And in the evolution, the organizational evolution is an outcome of the individual transformation and evolution. So as leaders, you we always have to evolve. There are always things happening around us. And what you see in organizations that quickly get behind in their competitive set. Usually, it's because you have a leader or leadership team that has not evolved their way of operating in a changing environment. And so that's why this whole you know, they say, constant curiosity, intellectual curiosity, wanting to grow and develop. That's an indicator on someone's willingness to stay current with the times when the Well, no, no, it's when we're in schoolwork. Yeah,

that's underscoring how important those individual development plans are. Yes. All right. Yeah. Every leader, every individual in the organization, you have given us so much great information today. Will I want to end with this question? Yes. I've heard your passion throughout. So this might this might be a tough one to answer. What inspires excites you the most personally about this work?

Will Busch III: Wow. That is a big question. It's the hard one. Yeah. Really the sense of responsibility that I have for the role that I play, and thinking about just the evolution of African Americans in this country. And how these two positions are not of those people were not afforded these positions to actually influence change, and influence value creation and create jobs, and move markets and ways of value. And so every day that I wake up, I think about, you know, standing on the shoulders of people who came before me. So I take this very seriously also have a lot of fun with it. Oh, good. Okay. And, and, and thinking about, you know, how this creates a bridge for the next generation that will build on everything that you and I are delivering in our lifetime that was on the shoulders of people who came from us before? So that's what inspires me on a on a personal level.

Yeah. I love that you see that as a responsibility and that you have fun with it. Right? That word responsibility. Oh, that's, that's heavy. And that's hard. But that gratitude. Yes, the people that came before you, particularly African Americans, and what your role modeling and creating for the future. And

Will Busch III: one other point on this, too, is with Tilia. In the role that we're doing here is so personal goal is peace and prosperity. The work that we're doing in the way that we're building companies is absolutely benefiting personal public and planetary health. And so when you think about people in underserved communities, not having access to good food, not having access to jobs, not having access to all the things that come with those two things, we can do our part with changing that dynamic. And then someone else will build on that. So that's also again, my personal passion aligns with our organizational passions. And so together, we get that compounded effect. Yeah,

yeah. This is super exciting your vision for the food supply chain, and what's possible there.

Will Busch III: That's right.

Will, thank you for sharing your passion and your process. With us today, really appreciate you being on the episode today.

Will Busch III: My pleasure. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Courage of a Leader podcast. If you'd like to further explore this episode's topic, please reach out to me through the courage of a leader website at www.courageofaleader.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please take the time to leave a review on iTunes. That helps us expand our reach and get more people fully stepping into their leadership potential. Until next time, be bold and be brave because you've got the Courage of a Leader.