Empowering CEOs to Win Our Mission, Vision, and Values

Hello everyone, I'm Bill Canady and I thought I would just walk us through today our mission, vision, and values at the 80/20 Institute, or ETI as we like to, to call it. We like keeping things simple and it seems to do that for us, right? So look, our mission is to work with CEOs, founders, owners of companies and help them earn the right to win. So what does that really mean? That means that you can have a great company and you could have gotten it exactly where you are today, but to go to the next step you're probably going to have to do something different. You're probably going to have to either look at processes, maybe it's your team, the market, your strategy, your prices, all these different things that you have to do. But it's not going to come easy. We're going to have to work together so that you can go out there and at the end of the day, put together a product, a service, a value that your customers can see that differentiates you from your competitors. And that's what we're experts at, right? We want to be the absolute best in the world at helping companies like you and your company, uh, go out and win and put a superior product and team out on the field for you there. And so we don't just teach strategy, we partner in execution. And we think that's a real differentiator there. There's a lot of companies that come in, spend time, and, and put together this beautiful strategic document for you, and it is magnificent. And at the end, you just take that and you set it right on the shelf, and you go back to doing what you were Doing the day before. Our belief is, is candidly, you can have an okay strategy, but if everyone coalesces around it, if everyone puts their body, mind, and soul in making sure that that happens for you and your company, it's going to work. So imagine if you take a great strategy, which is what we can help you with, and then have the execution side of it, which goes out and gets something done. You know, the number one skill out in the world is, can you get something done? Can you be flexible, agile enough that when you see something, come up with a plan and move forward with it? We're going to help you go through and do that. So we're all about doing the right thing. We're not saying it's the easiest. We don't believe it's going to be simple. We don't think it's going to be just, oh my goodness, look how easy it is. These are wonderful businesses that are where they are, and they've got to find that path forward, right? And that's what we're here for. We're helping to help you. We're here to help you identify the path that will work for you, whether it's easy or not. And generally, candidly, it's not that easy to go forward and do it, right? But the The plan is pretty straightforward on it. So, what's our vision statement? Right? I'll just read this. Our vision is to be the world's most trusted execution partner for CEOs and business leaders, transforming their companies, creating billions in shareholders' value, and developing leaders who deliver and drive lasting impact. That's exactly what we've done in the past. We've been doing this for well more than 30 years and delivered over $3 billion in value to equity holders. And you don't do that without clear plans, able to deal with changing markets, changing economies. You know, today, uh, uh, you know, things say that we, uh, you know, look at the geopolitical today, we can do this tomorrow, we can't. We still have to find that path forward. And partnering with us is exactly what we're going to help you do, is find the path so that you can, uh, you can win in all types of conditions. And Lord knows, if you don't like what's going on today, just wait a few minutes. Something else will come about, right? So our core values, very straightforward. Clarity, that's transparency, that's clarity. You absolutely know what's going on. There's no surprises with us. We'll be honest with you. You may not always like what we say, but we will be candid with you and your team and help you understand what's happening and what you can do about it, right? Clarity drives confidence, alignment, and action, both with you and your team. Trust is another thing that comes out of this. If you don't trust who you're working with, if you believe people say one thing and then go do another, well, that's going to kill trust, right? It takes a lifetime to build and just a couple of moments to destroy. Clarity will get us through that. Finally, results matter, or next, results matter, second. So, a lot of people will tell you, hey, I did the best I could. I gave it all I had. I just couldn't get it done. And you know, that's true and I believe it. But we're in a company here that results matter. We will never be a best efforts company. We have to win. We don't have to win them all, but But we sure have to win enough that we keep the doors open. People need salaries and raises and health insurance and all these other things. You only get that by putting points on the board. You're only getting that by, by achieving the results that you promised for yourself, your team, and your customers, right? Integrity. It's all about doing what you say you're going to do, right? You want to win, but you want to win the right way. You don't want to have to cheat to get there. If you do, absolutely, at some point it's going to come down crashing on you. You might get away with it a couple of times. But they will find out at some point, whether it's your team or your board or your vendors or whoever, uh, they figure out they can't trust you. It's game over. Abundance. This is really about a mindset. We want to help each other. We don't want to have to nickel and dime everything for everyone. We don't want to be nickel and dimed. We want to have a sense of, uh, we're here to help. And you see it when things, you see it going wrong. People say, well, that's not my job. This is not what I do. We want to be able to give back, go that extra mile for each other. We hope the people we work with have that same sense. It's just a much more pleasant place to be a part of. Discipline and pace. This is really, really cool. We always say about be on pace. If you're too fast, you're leaving everyone behind. You're out, you're out doing it by yourself and you're not creating followership. And what's going to happen is you're going to stumble and the team around you is going to say, see, I told you so, you shouldn't have done it. And if you're too slow, You're the bottleneck. You're holding everyone back. You need to be on the right pace. You need to make sure at the end of the day you're doing the right pace. That's the pace that is necessary to achieve the desired goal. Not too fast, not too slow. Generally speaking, as a group, I can see us move too slow. I see it happen all the time with companies, with ourselves. And when it's an individual, you can see them getting too fast. All right. So I make this Comment, this joke all the time. Would you rather guide a rocket or kick a rock? And typically speaking, you'd rather guide a rocket. They're hard to deal with. You know, you've got folks who run ahead of everyone, but they will drag the company with you. If you go too far, you get ahead of folks and you leave them behind and they become disengaged. If you go too slow, you hear people saying like, that guy just won't make a decision. You know, you'll hear a lot of times about the boss. You know, we're just waiting. And the boss is waiting for the company To say, we want to go do it. As the CEO, it's your job to get them on the pace, set clearly what the expectations are, and making sure it's happening. If the pace is broken, you got to look in the mirror for it, right? Ownership, you know, and all these things go hand in hand. Ownership is about, uh, you know, if it was your money, your, your, your business, what would you do? You want your employees feeling the exact same way. You want them acting what's in the best interest for the company. For you, for themselves. And if you've got clarity and you've done a good job, all of that is the same, right? So, you want your folks acting like owners. In order to do that, you've got to talk to them, have clarity, go back to things I said before, create ownership. And you should have some type of comp structure that when you're successful, they're successful, and vice versa. It's gotta, it's gotta go both ways, right? Putting clients first. This is exactly what we take a Very, very serious. You know, our clients aren't paying us for advice. They pay us for results, right? They're not coming here to get some fancy plan that doesn't work. They're coming here because you need help and we're here to give that help. And important, we, I think of it as the 3L, leverage, learn, or learn, leverage, and lead, right? So first let's get deeply, a deep understanding about what you've got going on in your business, what we're able to help with. Let's take our knowledge and what you've already done and leverage that up. And then as we've come together, we should be leading the path towards greatness, right? The 3 L's: learn, leverage, and lead. For us, that's all about putting clients first. It's not about what's best for us. It's about helping you and your team win. And if you're winning, we're going to be winning. And finally, let's have fun. Let's not take it all too serious. I like to make jokes and do everything else, and I'm a big believer that the atmosphere that you create will make people Comfortable putting themselves out there, feeling safe, and your business typically will benefit from that. If every little thing they do, they get punished for, and it just becomes a terrible place to work. So, we do serious work. We change lives. We change businesses. But there's nothing wrong with smiling every once in a while, have a little bit of fun. A little levity goes a long ways. People like working someplace that makes them feel better about it, right? So what's the ETI? Remember, that's the 80/20 Institute. We like to TLA or 3-letter acronym everything. I think a lot of companies do. We're no different. So our mission, why we exist, right? We're out there to help folks make it better, take these businesses and take them all the way to something else, uh, something beyond where they are today to be bigger and greater. It's going to help everyone. Our vision is to be the absolute best at what we do with this and our values. We just went through, right? It's have fun. Be on pace, results matter, be data-driven, all those types of things. That's what I want you to hear in there is that we take this seriously. We think it benefits you, it benefits us to have clear mission values. Anyway, we really are, one, first excited that you're here, and two, we look forward to working with you and creating something that goes beyond our wildest dreams for all of us. Thank you, have a great day. Let's go get something done now.