WHY NOT Wednesday! with Paul Menig

There's a certain kind of coach who believes what we believe.

Who leads people to greatness, who gets people unstuck, who unlocks all of your passion. A coach who helps people discover what drives them to tap into their superpowers.

Knowing your why is the first step to untapped potential.

To focus.

To breakthroughs.

A coach who's looking for a better way.

Are you that coach?

Hey, good afternoon, good morning, good evening, wherever you are in the world. We are live with Paul Meenig on why not Wednesday and man, are you guys in for a treat today. I've been looking at the work that Paul does and it's been so fun to see somebody who's so focused on helping their clients find the right people to work with. I posted today, I said, hey, you don't have to do it alone. And I'm sure you have to say that all the time, Paul. But let me tell you a little bit about our guest today. So Paul Meenig is a, is a business accelerant focused on accelerating your success. He puts together peer advisory councils for leaders of private manufacturing, technology and transportation companies. He spent over 30 to five years in the developing the business side of high tech components manufacturers, manufacturer for General Electric, Eaton Corporation, Daimler Truck. As an advisor, he's consulted with several hundred startups, family owned enterprises and small cap public companies in manufacturing technology and transportation for automotive, truck, aerospace, medical equipment, industrial automation and defense industries. Man, that is a mouthful. Paul, you specialize in guiding leaders to develop long term strategies to accelerate profitable growth, generate revenue for their companies and themselves, and then building systems and teams that improve efficiency so leaders can set a time aside, more time for their personal lives which we all want to be a part of. Welcome to the show, Paul.

Well, thank you very much, Dan. I gotta shorten that up a little bit and just say I'm in the business accelerant and then let somebody ask me why are you a business accelerant or what is a business accelerant?

Well, you know what, let's start with that. It's a great question. What is a business accelerant?

So most companies are always in some sort of a transition in the corporate world. I've seen you're either in cost reduction mode or you're in growth mode and then you go growth and then you're back into cost reduction mode. I lived through it multiple times at GE and Eaton and Daimler Truck. So one of the things you need to do as a business accelerant is first kind of consolidate and make sure You've got a solid base of profits that you can build on, then you can start investing those profits in growth and eventually you build up the value of your company and you get to choose what you do. Do you want to leave a legacy? Do you want to sell to your employees? Do you want to just sell and create a family office and do philanthropy work? You get to decide. But you got to go through those stages and it's as we'll talk later, you know, it's a pyramid, in a sense.

Yeah.

Start with that base of solid profits, then move to growth and then you move to figuring out what's the final transition of the company. So I accelerate the companies being able to do that through their leaders.

So is it, is it accelerating through the steps of that pyramid that we're going to cover?

So it's, it's the accelerating the steps, it's accelerating the profits, accelerating the growth. So, you know, a company that's growing at 1% annually right now is losing when inflation's at 6 and 7%. So that's not, you know, you need to get up to 10, 12, 15% growth to be accelerating compared to the economy.

That's a great, and I love it because it's a real simple example. So one of the first questions I like to ask Paul, we want to cover your yos, right? So your yos is find a better way, simplify and clarify. So if we're working with Paul, if you're going to be working with Paul, he's going to look for a better way to do things. How he's going to do that is by making things simple and understandable. And you saw a little example of that just now. And he's going to make things clear. He's going to communicate things in a clear and easy to understand manner. So let's talk about that real quick. Paul, how does your yos fit you? You how when we first met and you got to do that, how did it feel for you?

It was amazing because I've taken dozens of different personality tests and I'm aware of even more personality tests. I've taken DISC and Myers Briggs multiple times. It's only recently since I've gotten a bit older with the gray hair that there's been a subtle change in what I'm doing as the Myers Briggs or as a DISC profile. But the why was amazing to me to really put into better focus what I've always done through my career. I've trained as an engineer, I'm a businessman now, a consultant, and I'll give you a good example. If I'm watching my wife do something and she's having trouble doing it, I get so tense and she can feel the tension and she says, stop looking at me because I'm looking at it. And I see, I know there's a better way, but trying to. With. To hold back my better way because you have to deal with people differently. She is not better way. Trust me. She's contribute kind of person. And you know, so I have to back off. And I take that into the business world. We have lean manufacturing, which is all about how to do things better and faster and things like that. So that it's been amazing. Within the year since I joined, you know, I keep seeing more and more insights into how the better way idea has driven me through time. Simplify just means it's faster, cheaper, or something like that. And I've had a little trouble figuring out the clarify and sometimes explaining that in one place. I say it's I help people understand what their role is and they're able to do it. And sometimes it's just making things more easily understood. A better way for me of saying clarify. So there's a lot of ways you can take either better ways simplify or clarify and explain them a little bit in your words as well as in the yos words.

Right. And I wish Gary was here because Gary's yos is better way clarify, simplify. So I know you guys probably get along great. One of the things we know is when we talk to people who have the similar, similar top three as we do, those conversations are so easy. And as you've given the yos to people, I'm sure as you run into other better way people, you guys are probably like bosom buddies, right? Hey, let's find a better way. Let's work together to find a better way.

Oh, it's. That's why I've been involved in engineering and entrepreneurs and innovation. It is fun to have a brainstorming session and figure out how you can do something better and get rid of those people who are the people are going to be the naysayers and say, well, we can't do that. And you know, we're. Of course you can. We're a very positive kind of group of people.

Yeah. And I love, you know, you mentioned one of the things better way people love to do. Brainstorming is so fun. My how is challenge so challenge and better way tend to get along really well when it comes time to come up with ideas how to do Things differently. Difference is obviously you're, you're going to want to do it better. I want to do it different, just to be different.

You want to reduce risk, which is good.

Yeah.

You know, especially in the business world.

No, I love it. And so let me ask you this. You've got a book, Paul, Accelerating from Start to Finish. Tell us about your book, Aligning Seven Forces for Business Success. That's a great title. So tell them, tell us a little bit about your book. What's somebody, what's one thing they're going to get out of that book? What's probably the biggest thing you would want somebody to get out of?

That they will learn how to take the wisdom and discipline of a large corporate company and scale it down and apply it to a small private company that has a lot of enthusiasm and a can do attitude.

Love, love the hate. Again, not a lot of words from Paul. Right. But we got it there and I'm glad we're recording this. Jerry Fletcher, who introduced us to each other is on. He says, good to see you, Paul. Pardon my late arrival. Lynn Everard is saying hello all the way from Florida. And I know that, Danica, you know what, I forgot to say this. Paul, Happy New Year. Thank you for the reminder. Danica, Happy New Year to you. I hope you had a great holiday and thank you for being our first guest of the year.

I'm happy to do that. And by the way, my wife was raised Serbian Orthodox. So we get to celebrate Christmas again on Saturday, January 7, because some of the Orthodox Christians refused to change the calendar by 10 days.

That's right. That's right. My daughter, my 11 year old daughter knows all about that stuff and she talks about the years being just a little bit off and the days being a little off. So she would, she's going to listen to this and say, see, I told you, dad. So let's talk about this real quick. So you talked about your, your better way, why and how you, you see it and everything you do, how's it played out in your life and you know, when's the first time you remember saying there's got to be a better way to do that?

Well, I would say it was probably when I was delivering newspapers as a kid, really when I think about it, because people don't remember these kinds of things where you, you had this big bag that you put on your handlebars and if you were really good at doing newspaper deliveries, you had handlebars that had, you know, real high because then it could hold the bag. But how do you, how do you quickly fold all those papers? Here it is, 4:30 in the morning, you go to this crazy Podunk place. In order to pick up your papers, you got to get them out and you got to get them delivered by 6am throwing them. And then you get really good at throwing them. It's a little bit of practice. There's got to be a better way of throwing those papers to make sure they land on the step or the porch or the sidewalk. So that's probably the first time that I realized I was a better way kind of guy.

And did you do what every better way person does? Did you share it with your fellow newspaper delivery guys and say, hey guys, I figured out a better way?

Probably not at that point in time. Yeah, that was something I learned a little later to share and not be so competitive.

Right, right. Because, you know, one of the things we know about better way people is they figure out a better way and they share it. And you've done that. You published a book. Right. You found a better way to get the big company stuff to the little guys and how to do it better so they can conduct their business like those large companies do. Tell us about. You know, I posted about this today. I'm really excited to hear about this. How does a peer advisory council represent a better way for companies to simplify their business and clarify their expectations and outcomes?

Well, if we take what I said about the large company bringing it down. A large company has a board of directors who are there to help the CEO and the management team. And you probably have to pay them about $250,000 per person to be part of your board. It's required by the sec. If you're a public company that they have to be independent board members, then you get down into larger private companies and they can probably afford a board of advisors, maybe a smaller board than a public company, and they're probably going to be paying on the order of $50,000 for a board member, but they have fewer of them. A peer advisory council lets you get in for much less money and have 10 CEOs that sit around the table with you and provide advice on what you're asking about. You could have a challenge that you need some advice on. You could have a problem with an employee. You could have an idea that you have for a new product or a new way of selling, or you could have an opportunity to expand in a geography. And so if you've got 10 people around the table with you, take that geography. One I'll bet one of those 10 people has already had the opportunity to expand from one state to another state and deal with all of the legal and financial requirements associated with that or have expanded to Asia or to Europe or even Africa. And so they can help you with the problems you have with thinking that through and advance quickly how you're going to get there so you get a better way of doing it. And as a result, things get done more quickly.

So one of the things that I know our listeners are going to be tuned to is the fact that you can do it for a lot less money. So what's in it for. For. For. For. For them and versus what's in it for you? What. How do you. How do you compensate that board? And I'm sure that's part of what you optimize for them.

So as a moderator, I find the people. It's like building a board. You, you have to find the right people who can work together, who can deal with the issues. That's why I'm specializing in manufacturing, technology and transportation, because those are three things that are consistent throughout my career. And I can help figure out who are the right people and address what are the issues that are there and get that team to be helping each other. So the payment varies depending on the market you're in, the level, the size of the company that you're in. But you're talking anywhere from 500 to $1,000 per month for the services. Some companies I know are charging even more than that. And so there's an idea of the price level that you're talking. And so if you get 10 people, that's my business model. But their business model is they're only paying 12, at most $12,000 to have a board you instead of paying $40,000 per person or if they're public, even more.

Right. That makes a lot of sense, Paul. So tell me about this.

You're using the yos to create these boards. So, you know, maybe and you let me know when you want us to show your pyramid. But man, that, that sounds like an important part of how you make up the board. So tell me how you're using it at the beginning.

So there's. There's two things about the why one is yos for yourself so that you understand then there is a team yos and I would do it in terms of your own company, you know, in the leaders within your company. Just like some people take and they'll do disc with everybody in their leadership team so that they can understand better how they behave. But disk doesn't tell you why you behave that way as well as the YOS does to me. So I would use it for the individual and then I would use it for their team and I would use it for the peer advisory council itself to make sure that the people are together and they understand each other and can learn better how to work together. So let's take a look at that pyramid that we mentioned. I mentioned it in terms of the business, but I love the number seven. It's a very biblical number. And most people talk about everybody needs values and culture and they need a mission and a vision statement. And they usually show it as let's put the vision at the top or the mission at the top and then the strategies and then the goals. I found that it's better to think about building the pyramid with a good solid foundation and then building up from that. Until I knew the yos, I put culture and values as the base. Now I see how YOS is an even stronger portion of that base because what you value is going to depend on your why and how. You demonstrate that the values, the culture that you create is kind of going to be your how. And eventually you develop your culture, which is kind of your what. So I have this pyramid that builds from your value culture and your yos, then your outward looking mission, then your vision, then the strategies, goals, objectives and actions. And I've got on the left the seven questions we all learned when writing a story. Who, what, where, when, why and how. Answering those questions along the way. And on the right side, I have the amount of time, looking forward that you should be looking at your values culture in yos, it's eternal. Your mission should last for decades, but your actions probably 90 days. Now, another key, that base is so important. Can we show the inverted version?

Absolutely. Let's show that.

Imagine that values, culture and yoshi as at the bottom of this inverted pyramid. If you don't follow your why correctly, if you don't implement your while, if you're not consistent with yourself, you're like a teeter totter and your whole business is going to fall over that.

I love that visual. Right. So if you're, if it's not consistent, then you're going to teeter totter in that. That's holding everything up. Yeah, Very good, very good. So you know Paul, one of the things you, you're, you've been good at and I saw it on your LinkedIn profile, you, you talk about your yos in just even on your LinkedIn profile in your about section. How have you, what have you done to broadcast your why operating system to people?

I'm doing it on LinkedIn. I do it in my roughly once to twice a month newsletter that goes out to about 5,000 people. And know anybody can go to my website and, and sign up. You give me your email address and name and you know, I'll be happy to, to send that to you regularly.

Excellent.

It's on my website.

So.

So. And you publish your newsletter, it's on your website and you send it out.

Yeah.

Fantastic. Fantastic. So let me ask this question because this is the, you know, obviously the, the name of the show is why not Wednesday. So I always like to ask this question. Tell me about a time that you said why not? And I noticed, you know, in pre show we talked about what is your biggest why not moment. A time you said why not to something and it worked out for you and you're glad you said why not because, you know, I think I put this on the show description. You know, at the end of our life, we don't regret the things we did. We regret the things we didn't do. So we regret the times we didn't say why not. But tell us about your, some of your biggest why not moments.

I'll perhaps talk about two.

All right.

The first one would be we were living in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

And I had an opportunity to move out here to Portland to work for my largest customer. And my kids were. One was about to start junior high, the other was about to start high school. Wow. And we had, we were close enough to family.

That we could visit them regularly. Three of our parents had passed, one was still living.

Okay.

And I struggled with was it a good decision to come or not? You know, I prayed on it, I thought about it, my wife and I discussed it and finally it came. You know, I'm an engineer, so I have to look at things, you know, from every possible perspective. Perspective. And that no matter how I weighed it, I didn't know what to do. I just. So it came down to why not? Let's give it a shot and see what happens. And it has turned out to be, you know, a very good decision. The best decision we made made lots of new friends here on the west coast. I don't like the time it takes to travel to the east coast, but. Right. That's the way it goes.

Thus, let's see, the second one that I was going to just mention, like all people my age, it just kind of slipped.

That's okay.

Out of my way. It'll come back in a second.

Well, you were talking, you know, you, you were working with GE Aerospace, and just weeks after getting married.

Yeah, no, I, I thought I. This one wasn't in the, the pre. Stuff. Okay. I was thinking about it at 11 years ago when I became a consultant and left the corporate world.

Right.

It was another one of those why not moments. My, my corporation, Daimler Truck, had changed its medical benefits. That was extremely important to me. But I was five years younger than I expected to be. So again, I weighed through all the decisions. It was leaning a little bit more towards, okay, it makes sense to exit, but what do I exit to? I had planned to become a consultant, but I hadn't made the preparations yet. I was five years ahead of where I was going to be.

That was a big why not moment. And I freely tell people that if I had not gotten out when I did, I would not have made it to 45 years of marriage this last year because the pressure in that corporate world was so great. It was driving a wedge between my wife and I and being out on my own and being able to be here at home working most of the time is great. So there's another why not? That was life changing.

Life changing. You know, I wanted to, you know, Gary's on. He says, this is great, guys. Good to see you on Paul. But when we, when I asked the why not question, Scott Holderson said his why not moment was when someone asked him to take an assessment once. And what I love is his second coming. He said it changed everything. Understanding has a way of doing that. So I'm looking forward to talking to you soon. Scott Holderson. And you got a little love from Isabella Bella Sanchez. He said, Paul, loving this. So you've got a few fans out there listening, Paul. So first of all, thanks for sharing both of those stories because I think it's important to see. I think you said five years too soon. So you had an age at which you wanted to make your exit from Daimler. Yeah. But that, that decision was pushed forward by circumstances.

Yep.

And you're in the Northwest. And how long have you been in the northwest now?

28 years.

28 years. Probably don't even remember not being there.

I have, I have webbing here and the digits on my feet, too.

Right. Because that's what happens. Right?

Yeah. Moss growing all over my body.

Yeah. How.

How?

I mean, you came from the Midwest, Michigan, some, some really terrible winters there. And it's a little bit, A little bit different. Up in just constantly that constant moisture. Right.

Well, I'm going golfing tomorrow.

Yeah, you don't get to do that in Michigan. I guarantee nobody in Michigan is playing golf tomorrow.

It's going to rain, so I'll have rain gear on, but, you know, I'll be warm enough.

You know, you mentioned it earlier, your wife has a different y os in you and you, you. I really love that you shared this in the pre show. You've done this with your whole family. You did it for, for your whole family. And so that was your kind of your first team yos. What's your, what's your wife's yos?

Oh, I, well, the big thing is contribute and, and what she needs, I know, is a lot of positive affirmation from me, and that's tough for a guy that always sees a better way. So I'm, it's, I'm learning, I'm still learning to, to make sure and not just with her, with everybody that I deal with that I, I have to give more positive affirmation. And they've seen since I turned 60 that I've gotten a little better at it.

So you have to just tell me. So that's Susan, right? Is your wife.

That's correct, yes.

So she's contribute better way trust. I cheated for you. She's got that better way. So you guys connect her how is better way and her what is trust? So I can see that though you heard how meshes really well with you and, and Gary says, I feel that Paul.

It'S not easy. I, I, you know, I tell people. I, I thought, you know, that thing that you have some struggles at seven years that, you know, once you got past that, it was done. But I saw my parents who made it past 40 years, still arguing and going silent for a couple of days till the day they died. My brother is 81, his wife's 80. They've been married 60 years. They got married young, and they still have days where they are, you know, like cats and dogs with each other. So it's a challenge. We're all different. And it's really tough to take that into account and make sure that you're being sensitive to the other person's yos and not just your own yos.

So that's great. So, you know, you know that, that's really great that you brought that up because how has it impacted the, the way you deal. I see Kim is on here. So is that, is that your daughter?

Oh, could be. If she's got the last name Manig. Yeah.

Mastery, Clarify Better way. So you, you that you spread that better way out. Your, your daughter's got it, you've got it. Fantastic. How has it impacted those relation, those relationships you mentioned a little bit about, you know, you kind of have to look out for that. And I'm sure you use that with your advisory boards too, right?

Yeah. It's amazing. You change your. As you learn more and more about yourself and more about others. If you're going to influence people, you need to adapt to the way they are. Salespeople who are really good are outstanding at this. And over my career I've learned that's why they often become CEOs. They know how to influence other people because they know how to adapt to another person's approach to things and they know how to get into their heads and help convince them of what needs to be done. Now with children, it's a little bit different. I mean, parents grow up knowing that their kids are different.

Right.

Their kids learn. My grandchildren are five and a half and three. They already know the difference between moms and dads and grandma and grandpa and Bubba Papa as to how to approach them. They learn it innately as to what they're doing. And so you do the same thing in business.

If you've got a close associate with you. You know that you mentioned we were talking your challenge. So if you had a CEO and he surrounds himself with all Better Way people.

Right.

That ain't going to work.

Right.

You need the challenge, you need to contribute and you need the others because you can't all lead and you can't all just be having better ideas. You'll never get anything done. So the same thing with the Peer Advisory Council. If you're going to put CEOs together, you don't want them all to be the same type of CEO or they will not help each other.

I love that you mentioned that. By the way, I'm putting up Liz Wendling, who shares your why and your how of Better Way and Simplify. And I'm finding you guys are really, really successful. So I'm going to try to, I have to do my own independent study of Better Way Simplify. I see a lot of that and I was looking through my, my notes of people that have the why of Better Way and the how of Simplify. And there's something in common with you guys. So thank you for joining Liz. I know Liz was having trouble finding the link. I'm glad you found us and thank you for joining. Paul, what would you say to someone who, who's considering, you know, yours was a. I remember. So. By the way, thank you for giving kudos to sales people because as the chief growth officer, that's me. And I like it that you said they make great CEOs. I think contributors make great.

Oh, Gary's gonna be on me now.

I, I think, you know, that's. But, but let me, let me, let me say this. If you, if you were talking to someone and I asked you this question beforehand, if you're, if there's someone out there that, that's got an appointment with me, I think Scott and I are going to be talking soon. Scott Holderson and they're considering adding the YOs to what they do for their business. What would you say to them?

I would say that they absolutely need to consider it. Earlier on I mentioned doing disk. I'm authorized in disk. Some other people I work with are in predictive index and all of them have something interesting. But I find most of them are behavioral based and they don't get inside your soul, your heart and the core of who you are as well as YOS does in a very simple way.

Wow. You know what? We're going to finish on that note?

Simple. I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, well, listen, it's a better way. It's simple. I love that we're going to finish on that note. Paul, it's been a pleasure spending half an hour with you sharing about what you do. I think you're making a tremendous impact in the lives of others and those of you that are out there. You know, one of the things that I always like to tell people because my wife contributed, everybody wants to be contributed. Who doesn't want to contribute to the success of others? But I love that better way people do. Like yourself, you contribute to the success of others by finding better ways to do things simply and clearly and then sharing them with the world. And that's what you've done in this half hour. So thank you for being on. Paul, everyone. We'll see you next week on why not Wednesday. See you, Paul.

Bye.