312: Becky Margiotta — Scaling Your Leadership Skills

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Oh, we're live. We're getting real. We're gonna talk about. What are we really talking about? We have a great guest. We're talking with Becky Margiotta. Did I say that right?

Yeah, Margiotta. Margiotta. It's all, it's all good.

Margiotta about her journey and experience, leadership. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. We should should be a good conversation about some really surprising work outside of some of our normal. Hi again, everyone. My name is Bill Gallagher. Oh, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast and we bring our episodes to you every week. There's hundreds and hundreds of these now. Wherever you get this episode or any of the others@scalingcoach.com, stitcher, Spotify, iTunes, etc, all that and more, you'll find them. So we're getting into a conversation today with Becky Margiotta, co founder and owner of Billions Institute. But she also directed the Hundred Thousand Homes campaign for Community solutions, working across 186 cities to permanently house more than 100,000 people. And that alone, like, is fascinating to me because at least where I live, in a lot of places, the homelessness has just gotten out of control and it's a deeply complex issue with substance abuse and mental health issues and housing costs and community impacts that are, wow, it's like, and it seems to be a very dangerous third rail kind of thing to mess with that. It just keeps growing. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. How you manage to, to do that kind of work and then what you pull into that. So author also of Impact with Integrity. Repairing the world without breaking yourself. Right. So how do you take on enormous problems and still take care of you and have the reserve to do that? I hear a lot of interesting things in all of this. Welcome to the show.

Becky.

Thank you, Bill. Glad to be here.

Tell us about your background. Like, how did you even get into any of that? I don't know. Kind of your background even before all of this.

Yeah. Weird story. So I'm the oldest of seven kids. My parents said, you have to go to college, but we're not going to pay for it, so good luck getting a scholarship. And I got into West Point, United States Military Academy, which is free in exchange for five years of active duty service. And my high school guidance counselor even kind of chuckled at the notion of me going to West Point. And I was like, I'll show you. And I went to West Point. I served nine years active duty as an army officer. And. And this was back in the year, like 1999, 2000. I didn't want to lie about being gay anymore, so I resigned my commission. And 1999, 2000, I resigned right before 9 11. About a year before 9 11, I got out and had had just a wonderful career in special mission units, Black Ops, Special Operations Command. Really did a lot of stuff where I was the first woman or the second woman to do something. And then I became a stockbroker. Of all things. I was a stockbroker. It was the 90s, you know, I mean, I think everyone. Everyone had it as a hobby that I knew. And I was like, this would be a fun hobby with.

I laugh a lot of things that. That just surprise me. Right. So here's this gay West Point grad, special operations now turned stockbroker. I love the surprises and things. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you.

Well, absolutely. And there was actually, there's much to appreciate about that. But mostly what I found was I was helping people toggle between their greed and their fear. And it was like being a therapist, because the things you need to do are not that complicated, you know, to kind of to set yourself up as best as you can given your circumstances. But I went through a difficult breakup and I had a puppy that died. And it was just this big control, alt delete moment in my life where I was. I think I was going through a depression. And I was like, the day after my dog died, I went to coffee at Misha's Coffee in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia and said, okay, for the rest of my life, I'm going to commit myself to something. I have zero ambivalence about where I can throw myself into it. I reached out to a couple people, including a professor of mine from West Point, and within a couple months, I met Roseanne haggerty. Who is MacArthur genius award winner, brilliant social entrepreneur. And she hired me to reduce street homelessness by two thirds in three years in Times Square. And I was like, this is my dream job. I have zero ambivalence about this. I'm going to move to New York City and put on my big girl pants and like, and, and what a wonderful. Roseanne and I worked together for 11 years. She was an amazing boss.

Okay, wait, Pause right there. Let's go back to that in one second. Go back again further.

Okay.

You're not a normal person. And thank God for that because, you know, just like a normal person isn't a good show. I mean that in the best way possible. Right. So what part of the country did you grow up in? A little bit more of this 7 kid. Like, there's things that made you this unusual, extraordinary person.

Yeah. My dad worked for IBM and was the first in the first generation in his family to go to college. Had a lot of poverty on his side of the family historically. And our family moved every three or four years. So I lived a little bit of everywhere.

Everywhere. Kind of like an army brat.

Totally like an army brat. It was very familiar to me. And we were in Kansas City, of all places, when I was a senior in high school. But I lived in Phoenix and Maryland and Tennessee. I got my accent in Tennessee. Tennessee. I in. I guess around 9 or 10 is when accents get shaped. And. Thank you. Franklin Tennessee Middle School.

Right. As we move into adolescence, that. That self identity starts to form and become really important to us. Sound the way we sound and walk and that.

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well. And I was raised Catholic as well. And there was that people would joke at West Point that, like, Catholic school was just getting you ready for the army because of the discipline and the strictness. And so it felt actually pretty normal for you.

Yeah. I served in the Air Force. I always wanted to be a pilot and an astronaut, but I found the whole thing, like, really not. Like I learned things, but, like, this is a weird place. This is not American. Like, there's no liberty. There's a hard class structure. Like you're. You're all crazy and you think you're defending the American way, but you not living it.

It's so true. It's so there. There's definitely some truth to that, you know, and. And it was all I knew in my 20s. It was all I knew. But I will tell you, I had. I look back on my experience with such appreciation and. And fondness because the people that I served with I just lucked out. I've met a lot of people who are like oh my God, that sucked. But I'm still friends with a lot of the people I serve with today.

And, and love that I served with, but not that many.

Yeah, yeah. Good people. Really good people. And, and, and you gotta respect. I mean for certainly it is an. As it is one of the few opportunities for socioeconomic ascendancy in the United States. Right. Where you can really start with maybe just a high school graduate degree or even a ged and then you can end up really doing like very solid middle class or up even upper middle class. And so that there's. You got, you gotta love 19 year olds to pull it off.

It's a fascinating thing. It's also interesting to watch a large environment like the military and, and vastly different kinds of cultures across the branches and also units within branches. Special ops are really different than the rank of file forces, so.

Yeah, well, the Air Force people that I knew got substandard living allowances when they had to stay on army bases.

Oh, that's funny. I spent a couple times on an army base and I was like shocked at like oh wow, this is not a good to live like. And very much tried to get myself posted off into a hotel or motel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in serving in the special operations unit they had just opened it up to women and I super lucked out and kind of got my way in there and I found it to be the most egalitarian, the most just standing on merit. Like if you can do your job, if you're competent, you're good. I, I experienced the least sexism. I experienced the least of any problems and, and the highest esprit de corps and morale and camaraderie in the special operations units.

Yeah, well, I've worked with some and coached some Navy sea at former seals and things like that. And they definitely had kind of a different mindset that was much more merit based than the other units that I encountered.

Yeah, they were like, hey, you can do it. That's cool. That's, that's good. I really appreciated that.

Let's go.

Yeah.

And, and also a deep regard for team less like infighting and nastiness.

None of that. I never saw any of that. None.

That's really interesting. So come back to that because I like, it's interesting to hear a little bit more about that, that personal thing. So that's an extraordinary mix. Right. And, and any, I mean the rigor of one of the academies is going to Give you a different experience and gonna shape you in, in some ways, give you some training that is, is useful later in life.

Absolutely. You know, it's, it's, it's funny. I have a podcast as well, and I decided in this last season to interview my, all my mentors that I've had to ask them about what's been hard for them. And five or six of them were military people who went on to become generals and full colonels and, but, but, and they don't know each other. I just met them at different points in my career, but all of them said the same thing. There's such an ethos. Every single one of them at some point in their podcast was like, well, you know, Becky, you know, you never, they eat first, you know, you always go last. And, and they also said, well, you, Becky, you know, you would never ask someone to do something you wouldn't do yourself. And, and, and to all of us, that is not up for debate. Right. And so, but I don't necessarily find that to be true in the civilian world in the same way. And so I just have tremendous respect for that shared ethos and the people that I looked my way into getting to serve with.

Well, I remember seeing some of those early leadership lessons as well, under different unit commanders who. And I remember one who went on to make general and he was a colonel at the time, but he had started enlisted, I forget in what conflict or something like that. And then really grew up and really like had heart and soul and a deep appreciation. And then I had one generational West Point grad who was such stick in the ass kind of a guy, like really a drag.

I know, I know exactly who you're talking about.

Did not advance. I know that hit a plateau and didn't go on well. I don't actually know where he fully ended up, but maybe he had some like moment of life where he took a look in the mirror.

I know at least 100 folks like that. I know at least 100 like that. The stereotype, the stereotype is, is unfortunately there are people who live into that and I gravitated towards the opposite of that.

Yes. And I remember the big rain and then it all sort of levels within. I remember those kinds of people who had some humility and some self awareness and then the people who, I don't know, unthinking, unconscious kinds of leaders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so back to the homeless thing. So you go to tackle homeless on a grand scale. Talk about that experience.

Yeah, it was 2003 and Roseanne just said, here's, here's the west midtown, New York City, from 23rd street to 59th Street, 6th Avenue west to the Hudson river, big, huge chunk. And she had been in, in England, where they had, as a nation, reduced what they call rough sleeping, what we would call street homelessness by 75% over four years. And she was like, let's do it here now. In England, it was from Parliament down, it was from Tony Blair down. So it was a very top down thing. But one of the reasons why Roseanne's such a brilliant social entrepreneur was she was like, let's try it bottom up. Let's see what we can do. And she had $75,000 from JP Morgan Chase as an initial investment in this idea. And she used that. She hired me. She had gone for a $400,000 government grant and didn't get it. And then she got 75,000 from JPMorgan Chase. And she handed me, here's what we tried to get the money for, but didn't get the money. But go do this. Basically do this the best you can. And kind of wound me up and set me loose. And I would have my one on one supervision meetings with her once a week. And she'd be like, how's it going? I'd be like, well, yeah, I'm learning so much. And I went at it with beginner's mind because I didn't have any training in social work. I didn't have. My only preconceived notion, which was pretty incorrect, was we should help these people get jobs. Right. That was just probably, I think a lot of people think that the jobs.

Would make the difference.

Yeah. And then I went out there and I met people and I spent really the first six months listening to what, you know, like, hey, my job is to get you the heck out of here. What do you need? And by just listening to people. Almost everybody we spoke to said, first, first of all, like you said, people have been on the streets a long time. Very high rates of substance abuse, mental illness, not, not for all homelessness. But certainly people been on the streets a long time. Not only that, but perhaps cognitive impairment and all kinds of other executive functioning. So the conversations were even difficult to really sometimes have a conversation. But almost everybody we talked to, to a person, what they said was they wanted, they wanted housing, they didn't want a program, they didn't want shelter. And, and this guy, Dr. Samson Barris, had had really developed something called Housing first, which was like, listen, if you want to End homelessness, get them in a house, get a roof over their head, and then we worry about the rest and the rest can take care of itself. And I was at a conference and I heard Sam speak and I was like, let's do that. That's what the people want. It's a thing. You know, it was in its early days and I went back to Roseanne and I was like, hey, why don't we just do what Sam says? And Roseanne was like, let's try it. Let's try it. So over. It took us four years and a lot of trial and error, but we were able to get street homelessness down by 87% in Times Square. This was around like 2007, 2008. It's very different now, unfortunately.

Well developed. I mean, I, I remember being and visiting Times square in the 80s and, and even earlier and then into the 90s and, and there was a dramatic transformation, but there was a whole cleanup of New York in general that happened where, you know, there was like drug dealers, prostitution, and everything was seedy about, in and around that area.

Yeah, this was, this was, this was during the Bloomberg administration. So it was post Giuliani. And I think there was a lot of like the squeegee people who'd come up to your car and some of that. And I think a lot of that, some of the, some of that had certainly transformed by 2003, but there was a lot of homelessness left and, and we had to do sort of lean startup, agile methods, trial and error to, to figure it out. And the key of what it was to get it down by 87% in one area was we would, it was a military tactic. It was the war with Iraq was happening. And I don't know if you remember, but they made a deck of cards of the bad guys. I put all this in air quotes because I don't know, you know, like, I think that. But I went to Rosanna, I was like, you know, what if we made a deck of cards of the good guys, of the people we really want to get into housing? Or like, what if we made a human intelligence. That's what I was trained in, in human intelligence. What if we made a specific by name listing of like this is who we're going to get into housing. Because there's just this constant, you know, churn of people who are just there for one night too. And we made a person specific list by going out every morning from 4 to 6am and that was the twist. You got to be out there early to see who's actually sleeping outside. You got to get their names, you've got to get their photographs. And then later we incorporated some state of the art research on what would put you at a high risk for dying as well. So there was. If you're homeless and you have these health conditions, you are in big trouble. We incorporated that into our standard operating procedures and the team was able to get homelessness down by 87%. And like there was literally one guy left sleeping outside. And the New York Times did a profile on him. His name was Heavy. And you know, we won't. Don't need to go into his story, but basically that the team was even able to help Heavy get into housing. And so I had the confidence after four years of doing that of there is nobody that cannot be helped in terms of getting into housing. I don't care how disabled your conditions are. I don't care what mental illness you would have. I don't care how many drugs you just did. We can help you get into housing. And then I can. I saw myself the, the human transformation because I saw them after they moved in too. And it was like the before and after contrast of just even people's physical appearance was dramatic within weeks of moving into housing.

So I'm really deeply uninformed, untrained in this area, but I'm seeing and reading much more about it lately in particular. But one of the things that I am curious about is what kind of housing works and doesn't work. Because I have heard lately that they put a bunch of people, they got them off the street, especially during COVID and that. But then that created huge problems and I wonder, are there kinds of housing that work and kinds that don't work? And I, I see a whole range of exper. Like they've turned motels here, they've built tiny home sheds, they've done a big range of things.

Yeah, you know, it's. I, I have not stayed up on state of the art on homelessness. My last official work was in 2014. I'm sure the sector has moved on and I don't want to be that person that's just windbagging about stuff that I don't know anymore. I will say at the time, the, the, the state of the art thinking was that it is the sort of the responsibility of the sector to figure out what supports are necessary to help someone maintain their housing and be a good neighbor. Right. And, and, and, and that that would vary. And, and there's, there was also a lot of Thinking going into population mix, like what is there some tipping point where that's just like one too many people with severe mental illness in a. In a small area of. Of without sufficient support for that. And so I have a lot of anecdotal evidence, but I suspect the field has moved on and is constantly trying to figure out what's the best blend of the housing plus the services. But for someone who's been on the streets a long time, it's very rarely would the housing alone be. It's necessary but insufficient. There is some need for some support, just like I mean I need support in my life. Right. And so, but. But unfortunately a lot of people who are on the street, they've either burned those bridges or people, you know, everybody that they had has died and you know, those types of things. And so we've got to kind of find a way to piece that together other. In other ways.

One of my coaches had me do an assignment recently. He said, let's get you out of your comfort zone, which I think is always great. And so I was coaching for a while with the hat as my coach for a while, this guy Tony. And Tony's like, so if. If the purpose of your life is making a difference and you're normally making a difference in your comfort zone around CEOs and C suite and growing companies, entrepreneurs, let's have you try something where you're not like a speaker or anything else. Let's just see what you could do in some of the realm. And I racked my brain for a long time with it and I kept going to places that I was comfort and I ended up taking an issue that is a concern to me but I don't know anything about and homelessness. And in my child I saw more of it going on and it was just to spend like a day doing this or a few hours and then reflect on, see what it was. So I came up with an. And I decided what I was going to do was just give people a hot meal. So I bought a large box full of burritos.

Right.

Right. I forget how many I bought, you know, a couple hundred burritos or something like that. Right. That I ordered up. And then I drove around trying to give them to people. And it took me a lot longer and I got a lot closer into homeless camps and homeless folks, street homeless, like the most visible, you know, not so much the car living and other places, but then I expected to and I was surprised by the big range of reaction and then how like comfortable or uncomfortable it was at different moments. You know, here's this guy driving around town in a Mercedes handing out burritos to people.

Totally. And I can picture it. I've been in Oakland. I can picture the encampments. Some of those are the. The impressive encampments. Let's just say that. And, and, but.

And I encountered some people who were really pretty high functioning, but also some other people who were like, wow, like there's something. There's like a weird juju happen in there. I don't know what's going on, but.

It'S heartbreaking too, right? Like, so. And that's. I mean, for many years, my, my. My job was to see what I could do to make a. To an authentic human connection with people who, you know, have maybe are lightly tethered to this reality.

And I just appreciate that humanity with each person, like to just to get them to like, see whatever I could see there. Not to judge it, but just to recognize their world, like, you know, get their vibe for a moment. And it was somewhere like, oh my God, thank you. God bless you. Like, God, I like, this is like a little miracle to get a hot meal right now. And other people are like, get the f away from me.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, I want your. I want your nasty food. Yeah. And I think the thing like over the nine. Was it 11 years that I worked on the homelessness that progressively my curiosity and thinking about it. Certainly there were many years in the early days where I was very curious about it on a personal and interpersonal level. Like, what's happening with that dude? You know, and what, what did happen and how can I connect with that person interpersonally in an authentic way? And then as I. I felt like I got some grasp of how to do that. But then my curiosity started going to the systems and structures of like, why do we even have homelessness? It's certainly like why do we have it in. In the. The. And not in like, certainly there's ideological levels, but systems and structure levels where it's almost like now I see it as like an unforced error on the part of our society. Like absolutely unnecessary. But there are systems and structures that are keeping that in place that certainly good people are working every day to try to make those changes.

It's fascinating. So you took that, learned from that, and then moved into. Created this next thing. Billions of possibilities. Talk to us about what that is and what you're doing and what does it mean to impact with integrity and you bet.

Yeah. Well, so how the billions Institute came about was once we succeeded in Times Square, other cities wanted to know how you do that. And so myself and my colleague Beth Sandor spent two years going from city to city helping them do kind of get jump started with our. Our procedures around getting to know everybody by name. And then we found out that other cities were moving people into housing faster than we were back in New York City. And we were like, well, this is interesting. In the scaling up journey, it was almost like we were extension agents as a tactic for spread and scale. We didn't really have that language then. And I got a call from Louis, Louisville, Kentucky. And they're like, will you come help us?

Louisville?

Louisville. Thank you, Louisville. And it was even a town outside of Louisville. And they were like, will you come help us do this thing? And I was like, how many homeless people do you have? And they were like, 32. And I was like, dude, just house them. Just like, don't bring me. Just house all 32, you know, and. And that was the turning moment where I was like, instead of being responsive. Sorry, what was that?

We have 32. We have 32 in one corner over there.

Oh, totally. I was like, you're lucky. Just house them. And that was a pivotal moment where I spoke with Roseanne and I was like, hey, instead of being responsive and reactive to whoever calls us, what if we did something proactive, like a large scale change campaign? What if we really tried to scale up and we went and met Don berwick and Joe McCannon who had run 100,000 Lives campaign in the health care sector. Apparently back when they started, if you go to the hospital for one thing, you die for another thing. Like it was one of the biggest causes of death and like it was dangerous to go to the hospital. And so they, yeah, they made a big dent in it.

And things happened.

Yeah, people don't know that. Right. And they made a really big dent in patient harm. In 18 months, they prevented a hundred thousand unnecessary deaths. So we went and learned from them how to set up a big, large scale change campaign. And Joe McCannon, he was at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, he became my buddy and taught me how to set up a large scale change campaign in homelessness. And Joe and I stayed friends from 2009 all the way through 2014 as the 100,000 Homes campaign ended, which he helped me design. And I ran. I found out I was a finalist for the TED Prize and I thought it was a prank, but I really was. I was like, I'm never going to get this. Apparently there were only 13. I really should have taken it more seriously. But I called, I called Joe and I was like, hey man. They like, you know, I got to make a wish for the world and if they like my wish, I get a million dollars. And he was like, you know they're going to want you to do homelessness. I was like, I know, but I want to move on. I want to help other sectors. I want to help in human trafficking and climate change, these education. And Joe was like, yeah, me too. And the next day I called him, I was like, joe, I don't, I don't want the TED Prize. I want to work with you. And the Billions Institute was formed that day. He was like, let's do it, let's do it. So we had, Joe and I co founded it together. We had both led campaigns that had 100,000 plus people impacted by it. And we were like, how can we take what we've learned from these two campaigns and help people in other sectors? So we started that together in 2014, and about three or four years later, I bought him out. Very amicable, very friendly. We're still like this today. And I've been the sole proprietor ever since. But we were like, let's help people do large scale change. Let's, as a matter of justice, how can we help people get solutions and things that work to everybody who can benefit as fast as possible? And that's what we've been up to.

So talk about, what does that really mean? Like, those are concepts, but what kind of work do you do with who?

Most of the people we work with are social entrepreneurs, social change leaders. They're senior level staff, if not C suite in either nonprofit organizations, sometimes in foundations where they're funding large scale change. Our biggest client though is the National Health Service in the uk, where there are bright spots and pockets of excellence that they need to get throughout their healthcare system and throughout a very large bureaucracy. So just an example, one of our earliest clients is in East Bay. It's a nonprofit called playworks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're based in Oakland. Yeah.

Oh, we know Play works.

Yeah. So, so Jill, Violet and Elizabeth Cushing, they were in a thousand schools at the time and we helped them design their strategy for getting to 7,000 schools over five years where students have safe and healthy play every day. So it's, it's, I mean, you're like a, you're like a scaling up geek, right? You love this stuff. Basically, I'll do the inside baseball. We help nonprofits do 5x to 10x orders of magnitude over like usually a 2 to 3 year period. And we help them revise their strategy so that they're able to get to that leverage.

You know, it's an interesting thing. We, I usually work with one or two social sector organizations in a year alongside our for profit. And then of course our for profit are doing good things as well. They're not just greedy takers. But I find sometimes the people are so committed to the purpose of the organization and though their impact in the work that they are unwilling to figure out what scales and willing to find the efficiency. And I remember one in particular that I was not that effective with with. And I'm like, okay, your, your solution isn't better. Like I could take your money and spend it a different way and do 10 times better. Like, so stop saying like force the change on the whole thing or abandon. And it was very upsetting for some of the senior staff. I was like stop tolerating this completely inefficient solution. Like it's not making a difference. I could just take the money and give it to people. They'd be better.

Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Oh, there's a big thing about that, about, you know, skip the middleman and get the money. Yeah.

In some cases. Right. Like if your thing's not working, are you willing to. Because like I going back to our military thing, right. Like what is super scaled but has no commitment to efficient, profitable operations. NASA and the military.

I'm just going.

To spend without any regard or almost no regard to the consequence to get something done with the minimum failure point. Right. There are certainly many of examples, but in general that's the mindset of DOD and NASA.

Right, right.

But SpaceX comes along and says, you know, we like none of this goes forward if we don't dramatically change things. So they bring innovation and efficiency to the whole thing. They create reusable rockets. Suddenly the calculation, the outlook is dramatic, dramatically different.

Absolutely disruptive innovation. Right. Clay Christensen would be proud. And, and yeah. So one of the things that we in our trainings is almost like we have to help them. This is A quote from Dr. Christine Ortiz Guzman, the founder of Equity Meets Design. But we've embraced very much her thinking in this of you can't fall in love with your solution, you've got to fall in love with your problem. Fall in love with the problem and then whatever it takes to solve that, to solve it. And that might mean completely letting go of what you think is the solution. And certainly that's how Roseanne Haggerty thought so. I kind of grew up that way in the sector. But you're 100% right. People fall in love with their solutions and they're just huge wastes of money. And it's just, I think that that gets to some of the ego stuff that I sort of trying to talk about my book.

Well, one of our friends and content partners has been Singularity University and Salima Smails, one of my friends. And, and they're a great one for that. Like, let's find huge problems on that. Less of, less like an infatuation with the mousetrap you invented and more about going and finding the, the rodent infestation. That's the problem.

I, I am all about that. I think that's, I think that's the right attitude is fall in love with the problem and, and then bring your humility, bring your curiosity, bring your determination, roll up your sleeves and get in there and, and then you'll discover stuff and then we can help you spread scale it. But we're not going to help spread scale something that doesn't actually solve the problem.

Interestingly enough. I mean, you probably had some impact. We've had Stanley McChrystal as a speaker.

Oh yeah.

And his approach to changing the whole mindset and the way that they would manage special ops and the use of the daily huddle and things like that. Like, really fascinating to watch. Like, stop being so rigid in your approach to things.

Well, so I kind of come from the Stanley McChrystal lineage in the military, and that perhaps explains some of my good experiences. And so the, the guy who was my guy who I worked for, I think for four or five years out of my nine that I served worked for Stamma Crystal on the Ranger Regiment. And, and it shaped, it shaped Howie Cohen and Howie Cohen shaped me. And there, there definitely are lineages in some ways. And so although I didn't work directly for Stammer Crystal, his, his thumbprints are all over what shaped my, my leadership philosophy.

So how do you work with the organizations? Talk to us about the leadership work that you do there and, and how, what does that look like? How do you get them to take this approach and think this way?

Yeah, so we, we just mostly we did consulting at the beginning and a lot of people wanted us to consult. But I guess the irony is that that doesn't scale. Right. And it's just so bespoke and you just kind of, I don't know.

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work. And I still have one or two like special friend consulting things just to keep it real. But it's, I, I let go of that part of the business. I wound that down when I bought Joe out. And I love training. When I was a little kid, I thought I'd be a teacher when I grew up. I love learning, I love provoking, I love challenging people, helping them think about things differently. So we've, we've had a school we've been running since 2015 that's a three or four day crash course in designing large scale change specifically for the social sector. And it's about 60% strategy and tactics and it's almost like a team retreat, a group team retreat. But about 40% of it is the inner work. Because my big hypothesis, my silver bullet is Neil Gordon, is we're not going to fix things out there until we do our inner work in here. Or I guess another way of saying it is the limiting factor of your ability to make change in the world is your own garbage that you got to work through. So my trainings combine the outer work and the inner work. And I mean, I joke about it, but there's something in there for everyone to be uncomfortable. It might be that the session we do on data malpractice, it might be the session we do on what, what are your, you know, your subconscious ways you're going to sabotage the effort. But this is a training, we've done it. We've trained thousands of people all over the world and training isn't good enough for long term behavior change. We have a community of practice as well where we provide ongoing coaching. But I have to tell you, I mean, thank God we survived the pandemic. I mean on In March 2020, 100% of my business's revenue was from in person live events. So we had to pivot really hard and you know, thank God for Eidl loans and things like that. We survived. But training and it's very interactive. I never talk for more than 12 minutes at a time and I just put people to work and it's fun. It's really fun actually. Yeah.

And so what are the kinds of things that you're training on? What's that work and the reflection because I'm a hundred percent behind this. It's a thing that we come back to again and again. We've got a, these tools and frameworks and stuff for strategy and execution. It's all great. And then there's you, the one in the mirror and the one who created this organization that is perfectly matched to your current level of leadership. And then you have all these, like, weird notions of, like, well, I'm afraid to lead because I can't work 10 times harder. And, like, we miss sometimes some of the greatest things. So tell us about your.

Yeah, yeah, same. I mean, everybody's got a framework. We call ours the model for unleashing. And the way we define success is unleashing, which is orchestrating the loss of control of thousands of people moving generally in the desired direction. And we think of it as sort of a little bit of a paradox of you're setting up the context within which you're going to lose control of people. And I know your listeners like stories. The best day of the 100,000 Homes Campaign. You know, I was the director. I had just conceived of it from scratch. I ran it every day. I literally have a tattoo. When the 10,000th person moved into housing, I got this tattoo on my arm with the last zero missing. I was very committed. I was like, I'll get the last zero when the hundred thousandth person moves in. And I woke up one day and I saw a news alert that Hilo, Hawaii had done was doing the 100,000 Homes Campaign. And I was like, I don't know anybody in Hilo, Hawaii. What the heck is that? And I was angry. I was irritated. Like, my little control freak went off, you know, of like, they're doing my thing. And, you know, and. And I spent two weeks calling the person who was in the paper and being like, hey, this is Becky Margiana. I'm the director of this thing you're doing. Give me a call. And she didn't care about me. And I finally got through to her, and I was like, hey, you're doing, like, my campaign in this really textbook way. How'd you even find out about it? And she was like, oh, I met Sophina at the Starbucks. She gave me the binder. And I was like, you know, like. Like, here's me thinking, it's gotta be me, and you have to do it my way, and you're doing my thing. And what started out as being very irritated, you know, my control freak being tweaked was actually the best day of the campaign, was when someone I've never met, I've never heard of, doesn't know me, doesn't even care about me, is doing my thing perfectly. So that's what. That's the conditions we try to create. And in the model for unleashing, it's got four parts, but it's basically dig really deep into your personal motivations and make sure your stuff is ready to go. You know, applying Everett Rogers diffusion theory, make sure your innovation, your solution, is equitable and ready for people to adopt it. And then we do dream big, which is just setting bold, quantifiable time bound aims. Most people have some super duper grandiose thing in like 2050 or they have some little bitty incremental 10% increase change and we're looking for something that's a 5x to 10x in three to five years and we help them get that for them. And then it's getting leverage. You got to build awareness, raise awareness, build will and transfer skills and which if you're just running a good program, you don't have to worry about any of that. So we kind of teach them these are new things you have to worry about. And we're going to give you the menu and help you make choices. And then the last part we call no Heroes, which is the inner work, which is getting really clear on. You're going to get criticized, you're going to get sabotaged, you're going to feel overwhelmed, you're going to have to make hard decisions, you're going to feel underappreciated, people are going to project their childhood wounds onto you. All that stuff is going to happen. If you stick your neck out, how are you going to be in those moments? And the last piece is how can you get really clear on what your genius is so that you can be contributing every day in a way that brings you life and happiness and let go of the stuff you're bad at and help everybody else do that too. So that's the full container for the unleashing. And like I said, it's got a little bit to make everybody uncomfortable. But if you put it all together and you attend to those things we've seen people have tremendous success in just about every sector when they start putting those things to work.

It's really interesting. Talk to us about, tell us the story of the CBS Evening News.

Oh my God. Okay, so it was early in the 100,000 Homes campaign. It was maybe six months, nine months into it. And we got a news hook that CBS Evening News will cover the campaign. And this is great. We're going to get on the evening news. This is going to raise awareness. This is an important part of going to scale. Wonderful, wonderful. CBS Evening News came out and filmed the city of Pasadena as they were doing the thing going out from 4 to 6 in the morning. Everything was good. And, and then they also, they were like, hey, can we also show somebody actually moving into housing? And we were like, oh, yeah, talk to our friends in Venice. They've got someone moving in this week. You know, and they went and they filmed a veteran moving into housing in Venice. And it was just beautiful. And, and so we just, it's about to show. We've got the popcorn, you know, there's little watch parties happening. We're going to be on the evening News. Well, I don't even know how many millions of people saw this thing. And midway through I was like, oh, no, this is going to be a problem. Because the way CBS Evening News told the story, it was as if Community Solutions and the Hundred Thousand Homes campaign. We're doing all of this versus. We were just helping the people in Pasadena do the registry week. And we were, you know, we were glad that the people in Venice were moving people in, but it wasn't our housing and we were moving people in. And so we completely, not of our own intention in any way got credit for the work that people who had joined our campaign in good faith were doing. And oh my God, they were furious. They were. They were really mad. They're really embarrassed. Their funders were saying, I told you, they just wanted credit for your work. I told you not to do that. And because people, there's this scarcity of credit for whatever reason, which is really sad, was not at all intentioned. But, you know, you've got to differentiate between intent and impact. And the impact was real. We, we got credit for their work. And it, and it. Because it was in Los Angeles, which is, I mean, ground zero for homelessness. And in the particular parts of homelessness, it was one of the county supervisors where like the most homelessness in LA is. Was like then actively campaigning for people to withdraw from this effort. And we were like, oh my God, this is horrible. This is like the something that should have been a great opportunity just completely backfired. And we were able to scramble and make it work, but we had to scramble really hard to make it work. And I don't even know if those relationships are really all the way okay to this day, you know, I mean, we're like friends, but it's not.

The relationships get damaged. How things can get and, and something like CBS Evening News is a mighty megaphone, like super powerful.

Yeah.

And amplifies something, but if it's a little off, it can have big consequences on relationships. And people who all had best intentions. Right.

Oh, it got us so bad. And the other thing that we truly weren't even thinking about that. But right around that time, Roseanne left Common Ground and then formed a new organization called Community Solutions. So we were in this organizational in between for about a year. But a couple months after that happened, the new board of the new organization was like, hey, listen, you got to get more press. You got to get out there. You know, get out there. You're doing some good stuff. Go get some press. And. And there was pressure from the board to do that. And we were like, oh, no, we don't want. And so they were like, go get press. And we were like, the best possible press we can get for this large scale change campaign is if we are a postscript. If like, hey, Venice did this amazing thing. P.S. by the way, they're participating in this nationwide effort. So that was our communications that became our playbook was we just want to be the postscript of and we are going to help you get really good news from now on. So it really. We got really serious about that. And by the time at the last year of the campaign, I was interviewed by Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes. And that was in partnership with Nashville. And that one, we did it just right. That one was all about Nashville. P.S. they're part of this national campaign. But it was a tremendous amount of consciousness and effort to make sure that credit was properly distributed.

It's interesting about how the contrast of that can go. I had an idea for something back in the 20089 crisis that would really make a difference for local businesses. And so I'm like, okay, this is going to be my focus this quarter. I'm going to get this thing done so that we all help each other and work together. And I had spent some time having like, good success, bad. But so anyway, so I realized there's a few key people that if I could influence them and I have this inspiration and then I thought a lot about what it meant for them. And then I had like one or two conversations with people and I got this thing started and then I just kind of pulled back. And I remember the like marquee event was like this thing where CEOs would come together and they'd help each other figure out how to navigate the crisis and what to do and what the best moves to both help them and their teams and like all that. And there's like 75 CEOs in the room. Big range of size Bay Area companies. And the principal leader of this thing is there and like, he's so proud of the whole thing. And, and he had completely forgotten that I suggested it to him and instigated the whole thing. And I'm like, like this is so awesome. I caused this whole effing thing. And, and all I had to do was like plant the right seed, the right motivation. A couple of conversations and this thing took off. And look at, look around this room and all these people and I thought about the thousands of jobs and, and people affected by it. I was like, that's just like, wow. Like I wish I could always have that kind of leverage with a few critical conversations.

Right, but you didn't need credit for it.

It. No, I was really proud of it. I, I know intrinsic and I don't like to say who it was or that kind of thing because then it would, it would start to create an argument of well, was that in fact or are you taking credit? There's a thing that happened. I'm pretty clear where it started. I just had to nudge it, plant the seed, align the people and step back and let it happen.

Yeah, there's that. And I just want to appreciate you for like you weren't like, P.S. this is my thing, you know, from the back of the room that you didn't need that. And I think getting to a point where that feels great for you is, is very much in a social change leader's best interest. You reminded me of like Kaiser Sosei from that, that movie. Like if you're just sort of this like you know, in the shadowy figure who's doing things, that's really kind of amazing.

It's really cool. When I realized what I had done there and where now I did always did a lot of different projects and one of the first one I did was I was challenged to take something that I enjoyed, a fun thing, and then make it something that was a give back or positive. So I am a pilot and I like to do completely just fun flying, acrobatic touring, unusual planes, things like that. And I don't fly enough these days, but I did a lot for a long time and I always felt like it's expensive, wasteful, time consuming thing away from being a dad and a CEO. And so the challenge was to turn it. So I, I, I didn't actually create a program. I created a new instance of a program that already existed. There's this program called Young Eagles that where pilots take kids flying and give them an experience. But I brought it to Oakland where it didn't exist at the time to take Oakland school kids and who lived in and around the airport.

Nice.

And experience of flying. So those aren't the great neighborhoods in and around the airport most of the time. And when I went later with a TV crew to shoot a story about the whole thing, you know, there we found hypodermic needles in the gutter at the bus stop. And you know, it was. Is gritty, right. But we took in the end getting others to go and that kind of thing. Over a thousand kids got to go flying.

Oh, wow.

I was on TV as somebody who had an insight and inspiration and that kind of thing. Hundreds of times talking about this program. We got all these kids to go out and. And then it, it had a halo effect for existing programs all over the Bay Area. Had a lift in not only the kids, but also the pilots who got to give rides. Because the thing that people don't like, you know, you have a hobby like that and then after a while it just becomes sort of normal in your world. But when you take a kid app for a flight, right. An eight year old goes and is like at the controls for the first time.

Oh gosh.

And then you're like, you shared that thing. You gave that kid a little bit of that little. That thing that you have. And who they saw themselves and what they saw possible in their life is altered forever.

Forever.

Forever.

Forever.

Like, oh, I can control an airplane. I know what's happening up there. It's not some remote foreign thing for superhumans who have different color skin and like all that kind of thing. It's something that you understand and you know what's going on up. And you're like, oh my God, like alters, right?

That is so cool. I got goosebumps while you're talking about that. I mean, that's really inspiring. And by the way, thousands talk about scale. Like that's way more than you can do by yourself with your airplane. Right, right.

And I mean, I took dozens of kids up, but. But then the copier guy comes into my office to service our copier and he looks over at me, he's like, hey, I just saw you on the news and that whole kind of thing. And then suddenly you're just not another money grubbing CEO. You're a guy who does something. And now your company and your team is someone special, generous, making a difference. And the whole way that people relate to you is altered.

Yeah, yeah.

And that then gives you latitude, room, power to do other things that are of interest to you. Right. That you didn't have before. That you were just another schlub trying to hustle a buck.

Yeah, there's. I think you're pointing at something that's a huge deep value for me, which is just generosity. Like truly building your business around generosity. And how can you do that?

Yeah, yeah, there's a ton of that. Like, yeah, it's a fundamental thing. We saw our business crater at the beginning of the recession and I just started coaching for free and I had my assistant just start booking and filling every hour of my day with people who are afraid of losing their companies. Right. And I just coach for free. And our revenues dropped very, very little. But I'm like, just like whatever if I'm going to be home and, and unfortunately I'm not desperate. And so I was able to do that. But then that led to, you know, a hugely expanded impact and more clients and huge payoff and that kind of thing. Like that notion of take what you love, give it away, see what happens.

I love that. I love that. Yeah. What do you have to lose? I mean, it's probably, we're like you said, in a position of tremendous privilege to be able to do that, but that it's also really smart business. Do what you can do to be of service. Right. I mean, it's interesting because I help social change people spread and scale, but I'm also a small business owner and could use my own coaching. So, you know, it's right. Of what's. How can my business be a vehicle for really right livelihood for people and meaning and impact and also making my community a better place?

Yeah, yeah. Well, if you think about that, like you take that moment. I, I used to do just general leadership, not just business scaling work. And, and I remember I had somebody who hit a bump in the road and suddenly this leader's like livelihood was at risk and, and was thinking about very survival. So now this side thing that was a whole community give back thing was at risk and now they were just like trying to hang on to, you know, like to their house. And I said, well, listen, why don't you come to our, come to our group and tell people what you're dealing with. Right. And, and share vulnerably about the struggle instead of hunkering down and focusing on whatever ever let the community surround you and support you. Right. And your business community, your impact. Like whatever communities we live in, many communities, right. We operate. And with reluctance and a lot of, I know, vulnerability, she stood up and told the others what she was dealing with.

How'd that go?

They took care of her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's so powerful.

One couple alone say, you know what? We're gonna make your mortgage or rent for a few months here. I'm.

Wow.

You just keep doing.

You wow. Wow.

And. And suddenly that, like, I have to hang on to survive was like, no, I just have to keep being a vehicle. Yeah. You know, for what I care most about to be expressed in the world.

You've witnessed that. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's profound. That. I mean, I got, you know, my. My aunt is a Catholic nun and she's basically their. Their structure is socialism. Nobody gets a salary. Everybody. Any. They. They have jobs and they make money, but the money all goes to the order, and then the order takes care of them.

Them.

And just several times I've been like, that's not so bad because you, you know, you just do what you love and then your basic needs are taken care of. And, and there's something about the collectivism about the. The community coming together that you had to hardwire that right then that. That the person you described, she had to make herself vulnerable enough to ask for that something.

Right. And. And ask. Ask for that and share a struggle. That. That's all hard to do for a lot of us. Like, we have to look strong and not show. And I mean, obviously you can see I've gotten comfortable at crying in any given moment.

I love that about you. I think it's awesome.

Like, you know, but that's not for everyone and you don't have to do that to have that power. And, but, but this is awesome. So we're. We've gone long here in the show and we're going to lose our folks. I want to tell people where more info about you and your work. You're going to find everything about becky@billions institute.com we'll put that on the crawl right here. Billions institute.com is the place to go get more information and if you want, if we can help you with something or connect you to Becky or to any of the past guests around any of this, you'll find us at scalingcoach.com info scalingcoach.com it's been great to have you on the show. I thank you so much for coming on, for joining us.

Pleasure.

Who joined us today. You'll find all that and more. Scalingcoach.com Big thanks to Wanda Mitchell producing our show in the background, getting things ready before and after to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework, for getting us and the folks at Potfly Productions who get our show ready. Our audio produced and out each week. Albert Burch, Anna Quadina, Tim McGowan, all of those folks. Thanks again everyone for listening for watching. We'll talk to you again next time. Keep scaling up. Bye bye now.

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