The 9 Superpowers of Successful Business Leaders with Ron Szekely

What's holding your business back from reaching its full potential? Why is it that some businesses seem to run like a well-oiled machine while others feel like they're duct taping everything together just to survive? If you've ever looked at your team and thought, why does it feel like I'm herding cats with a feather duster instead of leading high-performing groups? Know that you're not alone. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And I am so thrilled to have the master of branding, business, and builder of high-performance teams, Ron Zichelli. And today, we're diving into how you can take control of your business Simplify operations and build a team that not only delivers results but thrives in the process. I do have one simple request though. If there's somebody in your circle who could benefit from the insights that we're sharing today, please do them a favor and pass along a link to this episode. Knowledge is power, but only if we share it. Okay, so you've built your business with passion and grit. But let's be honest. Does it ever feel like you're running on a treadmill, working harder and harder just to keep things afloat? Maybe you've got meetings that go nowhere, a team that's busy, not aligned, or you're drowning in complexity that seems to grow by the day. These issues don't just drain time and energy. They're costing your business some serious money. And that Which brings us to our Question of the Day. So, do you feel like your leadership team is driving growth with clarity and purpose? Or are you constantly firefighting, bogged down by inefficiencies, crisis, and missed opportunities? I'd love for you to drop your thoughts, questions, or any, oh my God, this is me moments in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead, share this episode on your favorite social media platform, hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership, and let us know your thoughts. That way, you're part of this conversation as well. As I mentioned, today's guest is someone who truly knows what it takes to build a business that doesn't just survive but thrives. Ron Zichelli is a certified business coach with over 25 years of experience driving growth, simplifying operations, and creating high-performing teams. He's worked with some of the world's most iconic brands Brands like L'Oréal, Keurig, and Sanofi, where he led teams to deliver double-digit growth year after year. What really sets him apart is his ability to take the complex challenges that every business faces and distill them into really simple actionable frameworks. Whether it's working with high-growth entrepreneur companies or sharing hard-earned lessons from his own startups, Ron brings a wealth of expertise. and an unmatched passion for helping leaders and their teams unlock their full potential. Ron, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you, Marc. It's great to be here. So happy to be with you today.

So, maybe we could start off a little bit about who are your customers and how do you serve them?

Great! Good question. So, let me back up a little bit just because I started most of my career working in businesses. So, working with the leadership teams, in the leadership teams of big multinational companies, smaller-sized companies as well. Since I've started coaching businesses, I primarily work with small to mid-sized companies and directly with the executive or leadership team, helping them with 3 things basically: strategy, execution, and culture in order to build a 100% strong business, growing, profitable, managing cash predictably, a 100% strong brand that's clear and relevant and meaningful and reinforced at every touchpoint, And a happy, high-performing team. Right people, right seats, having everything that they, that they need to do their job well. So, I work with a whole wealth of different industries and different companies, but probably between, let's say, $3 million to about $100 million in revenue would be the sweet spot for what we do.

Okay. 50,000-foot view. What are the biggest challenges you think leaders face in creating the profitable business, meaningful brands, and high-performing teams?

Number one thing is probably around the execution side. So, how do they get their team to be accountable to do what they're going to say, to simplify things so that, you know, when people get together, they make a decision and they move and they act forward on that with a sort of simple set of processes, accountability structure that everybody understands and makes sense. And a, let's say, an understanding of their business flywheel, what makes their business keep on going and staying focused on those key things that allow it to grow day after day, year after year, and not get kind of bogged down in new ideas, new opportunities, new problems, new challenges, but have a kind of broader view of where we're going, how are we going to get there, and how How does everybody in the organization play a role on getting that done? So, it's primarily around executing on the vision that they have is the number one thing.

And so, is it fair to say then that they're so bogged down with kind of the shiny object syndrome that they're pulling different things in, trying to compete within their marketplace, and that complexity kind of creeps in and then they can't find a way out?

Yeah, oftentimes it's that. So, if we start with the vision, most of the time there is a vision that exists. It's not always the same between, you know, let's say there's 6 or 7 people on the leadership team. They're probably pretty close to being clear of where they're going and how they're going to get there. But when you really push them to kind of make some decisions about, you know, choose A or choose B and don't try to keep both routes open too long, we're able to sharpen that vision a little bit. And we're able to make sure that everybody's 100% aligned on where they're going 10 years, 3 years, 1 year out. But then we bring it down to like this very next quarter. What do we have to do to get closer to that goal and make sure that that's boiled down into a few priorities that everybody can stay focused on? And something that they can kind of write down, but then also stay on top of week after week after week to be sure that they're moving forward to that long-term vision, but on a week-by-week basis. So it's sort of boiling that vision down to an executable week-by-week plan that everybody shares.

It's interesting because as you were saying that, I was reflecting back on some business operators and entrepreneurs and people who are— they haven't had the benefit of having like a corporate background where they understand kind of departmentalizing different functions within their organization. And so, we have people who are constantly like fighting a battle without— they have— they know what they want to accomplish, but it just seems like everything they do is either so focused on the day-to-day minutia that they lose focus of what they're doing that quarter, what they're trying to do that year, and so on, that they're just really leading in crisis the whole time.

And so that's so true. And so I work with different size companies and different size companies have different needs in terms of how structured and the decision-making and everything that needs to be built. But I would say the beauty of small companies is they're usually able to be quite nimble.

Right.

And a lot of decisions are made quite quick. They run into challenges as they start to scale, as they start to become bigger. The approach that they use that was successful at the onset kind of no longer works once they have a bigger team underneath them and they have to kind of step away from doing some of the day-to-day, but making sure that everybody's aligned so that as everybody's executing on the day-to-day, it adds up to something that's cohesive. And so early in my days, I was working with bigger companies and they can notoriously be very slow and overburdened with processes and standard operating procedures. And that's where they're at a disadvantage, quite frankly, to some of the smaller companies that can move quicker. But it's as they grow, making sure that they kind of adapt so that nimbleness remains, that entrepreneurial spirit remains, but it's Equipping them with a way to keep that spirit and speed, but in a bigger, more complex organization. That's probably the biggest challenge that they face is how do they keep that momentum as they grow in terms of numbers of people, communication lines, decision-making, and all of that, all of those elements.

There's an awful lot of mindset I think that's encouraged as well, right? When you're an entrepreneur or a business owner, even a manager within departments, I find that there's, in my experience, go into an operation and you see a lot of scarcity thinking. You see a lot of things that, you know, people are maybe trying to save money on the wrong things while they're pumping, you know, new money into other things. How do you overcome this idea that the scarcity thinking mindset, which limits people's ability to move forward in such a structured way?

Yeah, well, I mean, one of the, the best parts about smaller companies is that scarcity mindset where they're not Not wanting to waste money. So they want to make sure that they're sort of tight with their budgets and there's control and they're thinking about every dollar that they spend. But at some point they need to loosen up a little bit and not be afraid to invest in order to see what does it give back? What kind of growth can we get out of it? I think Jim Collins is the one who coined the phrase bullets before cannonballs. And that idea is, you know, try things but at a smaller scale. And when things work, then you can invest and go heavy and double down on those specific things. So the idea is in battle you start shooting bullets and then when You hit the enemy's ship, then you know that they're there, and now you can shoot a cannonball because it's going to work. And so not blowing the whole budget, but once you know that something's going to work, don't be afraid to double down on that. Make the investment, measure it. If it works, keep doing it, maybe do even more of it, but not to try too many things at once. Give everything its fair shot where you can measure it, be sure that it's working, and then move on. And probably one of the mistakes people make is they've got something that's working, they see their competitor doing something else, so they start trying that as well, and they try a million different things in their marketing mix. And they don't really become great at any of them. They don't know how to measure any of them. They're just kind of busy copying each other instead of figuring out their secret sauce, their recipe for success, and staying stuck. If you stick to it, business can be relatively easy. When you try to do a million things, it's— it gets very, very complicated.

And it's distracting. Lots of distractions as well. As you were kind of talking about this aspect of it, I realized that, you know, so many people just before we got— we just before we got on, We were talking about this idea that there are a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners who are heads down. They're working in their business. They're not working on their business. And the whole frame of reference on what the reality of the world is, is really limited to their perception of their business. And so, you get people coming going, oh no, it's the industry. We don't have control over this. There's nothing we can do about it. I've been doing this for 5 years now and the demographics aren't here. We don't have enough customers.

Right?

And there's all sorts of blaming. How do we overcome some of that mindset limitations?

Well, you said it right at the beginning, the idea of in the business versus on the business. And so, one of the things that we insist on, so when I work with a team, we take them offsite for the full day. So, we do a full day at a time deliberately getting them out of their day-to-day so that they can kind of change their perspective. And we're really clear today, we're working. And if it's the leadership team, Everybody around the table is equal and they're not here representing their departments. They're here almost like an advisory board working on the business. So they have to put their day-to-day aside and they have to kind of— and we sort of slowly get them into a new mindset where they're thinking about the business from a much higher level. They're not thinking about their day-to-day problems and their day-to-day role, but really, let's look at this at a broader perspective. Luckily, as a coach, I have the ability to be able to bring perspectives from different industries and different companies so I can challenge their points of view a little bit and I can push them a little bit out of their comfort zone. Sometimes there's just one person in the group that's really stuck in their ways. And so, to have somebody facilitating from the outside, sometimes you can bring the discussion to places that the whole leadership team is happy that it got to because the conversations end up repetitive after a while. People start to know we're never going to win that battle, so I won't say anything. But when the external coach comes in, I'm able to say whatever I want. So, I just go where the danger is.

What are they going to do, fire you?

Exactly. And if they do, that's fine. But they bring me in for a reason. So, I usually go where the danger is and really address those conversations to make sure that we're not getting into this kind of doom loop or repetitive loop where we predict what each other is going to say and we predict what the outcome is gonna be. But it can allow them to kind of look at it with a fresh perspective and bring perspective from outside of their industry. Luckily, I've worked with lots of different companies, different sizes, different industries.

Yeah.

Some things are unique, but most things in business, it's the same, same patterns that recur.

Yeah.

So helping them see where do they, you know, what truly is unique for them and what is maybe a false perception of what they think is unique about their industry.

I love that. And so when we come back, I'd like to explore some key solutions to shake people out of their complacency and their status quo thinking. And we'll get to that right after this. Be the star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget.

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Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back! I am here with Ron Zichelli. And we're talking about this idea of business operational excellence as an overall strategy. A lot of what we talk about on this show really boils down to leaders having the humility to understand that they don't have all the answers. And that a lot of the angst that we feel is based on the leaders themselves. And it really looks like that when you see a well-run organization. Like when we look at our competitors who seem to be doing really well, the leaders seem maybe that they have a tool belt of superpowers. What are these superpowers? that they have that makes them successful? And how can leaders learn to adopt them for themselves?

The superpowers of leaders, I would say there's— I think there's 9 superpowers, in my opinion, and they fall into 3 buckets. I think there's 3 superpowers that fall under the notion of vision. There's 3 that fall under the notion of kind of execution or momentum. And then, there's 3 around creating a healthy team. So, the 3 that I would say are super important for being a visionary leader is number one, The ability to predict. And so, being able to predict means pattern recognition, but also getting used to actually making a prediction of the future so that you can be relied on to imagine what does the short-term, near-term, long-term hold, and then share that with the team. So, getting good at predicting. Second thing is about decision-making. So, these are, let's say, the 3 that fall under the idea of momentum. So, number one, predict. Number 2, being willing to make a decision. So, not trying to keep too many options up in the air, but actually committing to one. So those would probably be the 2 most important under momentum. Under vision, there's 3 as well. And so predict, decide, and inspire. So the 3rd piece of vision is making sure that you're creating an inspiring vision of what the future is so that not only do you have a vision, but you get everybody on board because they're excited to join you on that. The 3 superpowers of world-class leaders that would fall under momentum would be simplify, systemize, and structure. So simplify, meaning recognizing that as you grow, things are going to become increasingly complex in terms of decision-making and communication and all of that. So, just being constantly on the lookout and challenging yourself to say, can we make this simpler? The second thing after simplify would be systemize. Most of what you're going to do on a day-to-day basis, you're not doing for the first time. And so, document, you know, like a one-pager, what is the right way to do this thing so that you can count on everybody in the organization doing it the best way every time. There's no guesswork. You don't have to reinvent it. When you say you're going to do X, you know what X means. There's a sort of playbook for that. And so, recognizing that most of what you do, you're going to do over and over. So, like, let's make sure we're all aligned on the best way and stick to that. And then structuring is more about the accountability chart. So, do you have the right people doing the right things? Is this the most optimal way for us to work? And then I think the most interesting one when we talk about superpowers is the 3 that would fall under this notion of healthier culture. So how do you create an environment where everybody is kind of happy, high-performing, becoming the best versions of themselves? And it starts with number one, being open, open to share, open to receive. So you don't come into meetings kind of closed-minded. You come willing to listen and to learn, but even more importantly, willing to share, willing to be human. Let people know that like you're a real human being that has real thoughts. And so kind of like get your guard down a little bit and create real bond of trust with that leadership team. So number one, being open. Number 2 is challenging. So yes, you're open, but you're also willing to speak the truth in the sense of if you don't agree with something, you have to say it. And when we have sort of blind compliance, that's where you run into problems where there's kind of a lack of accountability afterwards because they've never truly bought in. But if you have your opportunity to challenge things, then you know that you're on side, you know that you're on board with the decision. And so you have to be able to challenge. That's number 2. And then the third thing to create a healthy environment, a healthy culture for the leadership team, which then transcribes throughout the whole organization, is about celebrating. Celebrating what you want to see, celebrating successes, celebrating all that's good so that you can shine a spotlight on the things that you want to repeat in terms of results or in terms of behaviors. Instead of having to spend so much time pointing out the problems, just keep reminding them that we're pretty good and we do things well. Let's do more of that because then when you You remind them of what that looks like, it's easier to replicate and you get much more benefit than constantly talking about the bad, which creates a mode of defensiveness, et cetera. So, you can bring optimism by shining on not forgetting to take for granted or not taking for granted what they do well because that becomes the blueprint of what they should do again next time. And so, those would be the 9.

It really is. The last one especially is this idea that everybody's focused about where we're going and how to get there. And when we have hiccups, and obstacles, people start harping on that. But I think it's also really important that we look back to where we were and see how far we've come and celebrate that.

Absolutely.

Because all too often, all too often, it's this drive forward, drive forward, drive forward. And it's like, oh, you know, this quarter we didn't make our quota. But you know what? We had a quota was 30% increase. But we had 22% increase. It's like, can't we celebrate that?

And celebrating the results, but also celebrating what we do to get those results. And celebrating what's really important is celebrating core values and behaviors that you want to see more of, right? So, calling out people that are actually living up to the core values that you as a company or leadership team have come up with. Instead of those being things that just sit on a website or in a document somewhere, you bring them to the table all the time, pointing out Little things that people are doing so those values become concrete. People get excited about being surrounded by this kind of behavior and they know what to copy. They know what to emulate. And so, celebrating behaviors, outcomes, even the way they work. Yep.

Well, you know, people on this podcast have heard me say this before. What gets recognized and rewarded gets repeated. It is the best way of being able to keep getting the behavior you want rather than the behavior you don't want.

Yeah, that's so true. Exactly right.

So, you mentioned earlier on about this idea of having vision and being able to define a vision. Can you explain the process you use to help clarify a company's vision to help make it actionable for not only the leaders but for the entire organization?

Right.

Well, there are 2 main components. So, we try to boil the vision down onto a 2-page plan. So, we don't want anything longer because we know nobody will refer to it. Nobody will remember it. But 2 pages is all we need to get it all down. And we actually spend a full day together to kind of articulate that vision. So page 1, we call the 5 W's. And so it's your why, your what, your where, your who. So starting with the why, we just help articulate what is their core purpose, why do they exist, and why should anybody care. So we get really at the root of why they're doing what they do so that they're all on the same page with that, boiled down to one short little sentence. And that shouldn't change too often. That should stay true for a very long time. We go into the what. So the what being, what is their core competence? What do they want to be the best in the world at? So when you put a few things together, what makes them unique enough in their space that they can truly say they're the best at that? And they would recommend their own product because for the right consumer, they are the best option. The who is getting clear about who their ideal customer is. So not all of their customers, but really like help our, you know, we identify one or two, like if you had nothing but these people, who would they be? And so we, kind of understand who they are and that everything they do has to be focused on designing their offering for that person. And then all of their marketing efforts, of course, have to go after them. But at the onset, it has to be, is your product perfectly designed for that specific purpose? The where is just agreeing on where are we playing? Is it Canada, the US? Is it online? Is it not? And then we get into the way. So their very specific flywheel, their unique way of running their business that allows them to kind of stay in business in perpetuity because as they do business, it either generates cash or that they can use for advertising or it generates referrals or it generates a portfolio, but recognizing when they do their business, what's coming out of that flywheel that allows them to go get more business. And so we really break their business down into like 5 or 6 self-fulfilling loop of steps.

Mm-hmm.

And then we zero in on those afterwards. So we get those 5 W's down on one page. The second page is even simpler. It's just 10, 3, 1, Q. So we say 10 years from now, What's the big hairy audacious goal? Give me a sentence, 70% achievable of where do you want to be? And then when that's there, we say, okay, now 3 years, that's not too far away. 10 years is far, but 3 years, it's not too far from now. Let's paint a clear picture of that quantitatively, revenue, number of employees, et cetera, but also some qualitative things like, are we still going to be in the same office? Describe it. So really painting a picture of the 3 years. 1 year, very concrete, KPIs, measurables, but also 5 or 6 key goals for the year. And then the Q is for the quarter. So then based on that 1-year objective, what are the things we have to get done this quarter to be closer to that? So it's a 2-page plan that we pull out of the team. Number 1 is your 5W vision. Page 2 is your 10-3-1-Q, sort of more time-bound. And once they're aligned on that, it's everything else sort of becomes easier because at least they now have exactly the same picture of where we're going, How are we going to get there? So then afterwards, when we, you know, every quarter we do new priorities, it's always anchored back into this vision of where we're trying to go together. And then important that they memorize it and they share it and they refer to it at least once a quarter so that they don't get too far off track. And it's really done as a collective process together with the team.

To me, that's the magic key right there. It's not— this is not a top-down process. This is everybody at the table with their own Biases, their own perceptions, their own expectations all come to the table to share so that you get more well-rounded kind of buy-in, especially from everybody involved.

And it happens so often. We'll have, let's say, the president will be, you know, we're saying, how big will you be 3 years from now or 10 years from now? And the number that they have in their head is actually smaller than most of the people around the table. They're all ready to grow much faster and to dig in. And the president or the leader is always like, really? You guys think we can do that? Just, it's like, hey, we've got a new target. And, you know, it's such a dramatic difference. If you say you're going to grow 10% a year versus 20%, it's a whole different game plan.

Sure.

So just articulating that growth rate and profitability, how much profit do you want? And, you know, putting that in first, then the whole team's energy and, you know, creativity is aligned around something like as simple as like, how fast do you want to grow? How much money do you want to make? A few key decisions that sometimes we think are are made already, but they're, they're not in everybody's heads.

Yeah, it was interesting. I had a meeting with an entrepreneur once, and he was running a business, and he had a challenge scaling. And I said, you know, you are a real anchor to this business. And he puffed up his chest, and he said, oh, well, thank you. And I said, no, no, you don't get it. You're the one holding the business back. You got all these people just biting at the bit to go and to help you move forward, and you're holding them back because of fear, because of You know, changing circumstances or perceptual distortions or whatever. Right. And so it, it, it is really powerful getting people all around the table from every aspect of the operation.

Yeah. And it doesn't mean you stick with that vision forever. You revisit it, but at least you've, you're all aligned at the same time. And if you change it, you all change it together. And there's a sort of team camaraderie that happens after that because it's like they're all going the same place together.

Because it's co-created, co-authored, right? People have buy-in because it's part of my vision. Yeah. This has been fabulous. Ron, how can people get in contact with you if this is resonating?

Yeah, absolutely. So I work with a— I created a system called Boss 360 together with another colleague. So B-O-S 360. So boss360.ca, there's a website there. You can also find it on LinkedIn or you can just reach out to me personally. So Ron Szekely, as you, as you see on the screen, if you're listening, it's R-O-N S-Z-E-K-E-L-Y. You can connect with me on LinkedIn if you like. So, the way that we coach is I have a team of other coaches that work with the same system. So, if anybody's interested, speak to me and I'll connect you to either myself. We'll keep talking or somebody in your area or somebody else in the team. But you can find me on LinkedIn or on the website.

Lovely. Let's talk about meetings. I can't tell you how many times I've gone into organizations and they have to have, you know, we're going to meet once a week. And they get together and it just seems to be a colossal waste of time. It's usually centered around the boss or the manager dictating, carrot and sticking people. How can we better execute meetings? Because it just seems to get ridiculous.

Yeah. And it's always the case. So, every time we meet with a potential new client, one of the questions that we ask them is to rate. And this is a meeting with the full leadership. team to rate their current meetings on a scale of 1 to 10, and it's always a 2 or 3 without exception. Nobody's like, oh, we've got great meetings. They all lower it.

We love it.

And so then, you know, so when we say, okay, so rate it on, on if you had to give it a number of stars on 5, how many would you give it? And again, it's like 1 or 2. And so then the question is like, if you were trying to get a, rent an Airbnb or an Uber, would you ever choose one that had a 1 or 2 star? Like, absolutely not. And so we introduced to them a concept we call the 5-star meeting. And the idea is unless you give the meeting a 5-star rating at the end of the meeting, then you're doing things wrong. And so, at the end of every meeting, we take 2 minutes to just put your hand up and say, how many stars do we give it today? And if it's less than perfect, you have to talk about it. Like, what didn't go right? You didn't stick to the agenda. Somebody didn't show up on time. Somebody was on their phone, whatever happened. So, that's an important part. But the 5-star meeting itself is structured in a way— this is a weekly meeting— that is the most efficient way They have a very productive meeting where the bulk of the time is spent tackling the most important issues and getting to the root cause of the issue and making it go away forever. So, it's a very specific methodology that actually spells out the word STAR. And when you follow that, people seem to land on what are the key issues that we need to talk about. Then they talk about the key issues and they make them go away forever. There's always action items that are recapped at the end. And then the very next meeting, one week later, You relook at those, that everybody do exactly what they said they were going to do. So, you start to get into this routine of trusting each other, getting things done, focusing on the most important issues, and very effectively. So, it's usually a 90-minute meeting, 60 minutes of which is spent tackling key issues together and with a good way of getting it done together. And so, at the beginning, their meetings, even though they say they may be a 1 or 2 star, within about 3 months' time, all of their meetings are consistently 5-star meetings. They're just loving their meetings and they look forward to them, which seems impossible, but we're happy to say that it takes a few weeks or even a few months, but eventually, they learn to love their weekly meetings together by following this kind of methodology that we've introduced them to.

Really, what you've done is you've just put together a definition of behavior, of expectations, right? And I see this. I worked for a municipality and I couldn't— I can't tell you that not one meeting ever started on time. Ever. And you know, you had the people who were committed to being there on time, but then after a while it's like, you know what, it's a 3 o'clock meeting, it never starts until 3:15 because the CAO doesn't come down and he always comes down late. And so then everybody's showing up late, right? And it was— and so we need this roadmap. Is there a resource online? Do you have this published anywhere that people could refer to? If they needed help?

You know what? I'm going to publish it. It's something that we teach. But I'm going to— we've got a document I can— I'll put it up on the website right away so that people will be able to access it. Okay.

If you wanted to give me the link to it, I'll put it in the show notes to people because everybody needs that help. And you know what's interesting? And what's interesting about this idea of, you know, it's something that you coach and you teach when you do your organizations. But what ultimately happens is sometimes there's not enough humility. There's not enough self-awareness in leadership teams that they must bring somebody like you Into the boardroom to help them figure this out.

Yeah.

So, as much as we have, you know, DIY all over the place for everything, really, you bring somebody in who can help you shave off the months and months and months of development because he has the expertise. Well, I thoroughly encourage you to call Ron and to help you if you see that you have this challenge because it's something that it pollutes the work environment. Everybody starts, you know, getting frustrated by these 1-star or 0 stars or half-star meetings. And I know it could be a game changer if we can do it really well. You turn meetings from being kind of this poison into kind of the shared experience where people share openly and honestly. A lot of what we're talking about really seems to focus on the culture around values, doesn't it?

Values is key. It's probably the simplest way to articulate what is the behavior of our best employees. So, everybody has in mind like Who are the best employees that work here? And then we put their names on paper and we say, what is it about them that makes you happy to work with them or happy that they're on the team and wish that we had more people like them? Come up with a few adjectives. And then those are the values that seem to be kind of common among the team of like, if everybody did this, we'd be very happy to be working with each other. And so, when you stay— when you keep those top of mind, it gives you an opportunity to call out behavior that is kind of off track without it feeling like it's coming from left field. It just centers it back to, these are the values we're looking for. And so, when you keep highlighting every time somebody's kind of working that way, it starts to become contagious. It starts to become the way that everybody just— they see each other behaving, and so they start to follow suit. But you need to kind of agree on that. That's an important part. And then the way the leadership team learns to work together, they then bring to the rest of the organization. So, the way they run meetings and the way they hold people accountable or the way they do performance reviews or all of these aspects, you know, it creates a sort of shared way of working as a team and they create the organization that they're happy to be part of in the end.

Yeah.

And again, it becomes the adage of if you model it, they will mirror it.

Exactly. Yep.

So, how do you create a culture where people not only perform at a high level, but they're also genuinely enjoying work? Because when you look at the polls, when you look at Gallup, I mean, it is It's poisonous that says that 51% of the working population right now are severely disengaged at work. And so, when you say, look at your top performers and then see what they're doing and what you'd like to model, part of the challenge is a lot of organizations aren't set up to support that high performer over a long period of time. And that high performer peters out after a while.

Yeah, it's true. And somehow, we've mistaken a happy place to work, thinking that it means that you have to give them a foosball table and, you know, work from home or have Fridays off. Like, people think that it's all about comforts. But what we see is people, when they feel like they're part of a high-performing team that they're contributing to, they're becoming the best version of themselves. They see how they fit into the vision. They're given feedback. They're given like slight stretch assignments. They're not taken for granted. The basics around creating like a high-performing mindset where it's growth-oriented, You're helping each other, you're happy to help, and you're happy to be helped. That creates engagement and satisfaction, and people learn to love their jobs through that much more than when we spend all of our efforts trying to, let's say, shelter them or protect them or worry about giving them more and more money. It's really not that. Of course, you have to pay them fairly, but they want to be part of something that they're becoming the best version of themselves in. They're part of something collective. You know, the work that we do on vision, understanding your core purpose, why do you exist and why should anybody care? Even your core competence, what are you the best in the world at? When you're working for an organization that's truly the best at what they do, that they're super proud of, they're proud that like every one of their consumers, they know that they're delivering value to them and they keep that consumer top of mind. So like every day they come to work, they remember that they're working for that person and they're doing a really great job. They're creating great things, great services, great products that wouldn't exist without them. And if that's connected to a core purpose, a why that's even at a higher level, that's all of the fuel that they need to kind of have the engagement. And then you just reinforce that and you create like a place that it's fun to, fun to be part of a challenging environment versus like a sheltered, protect me, inward looking kind of, you can't handle more kind of mindset where everybody kind of eventually leaves for whatever reason. Whether it's their boss, whether it's the money, they find some other reason because they've stopped thinking about why am I doing this. And it comes down to core purpose and doing something of value for the end consumer.

And it can't just be lip service, right? It can't be the managers just turning around and saying, okay, this is the way we're going to behave now. So, it has to be something really sincere, something that's worked towards, something that's done with intentionality. When we come back, I'd like to talk about some cautionaries and pitfalls Because I do know that there's people out there who might consume this information and say, okay, yeah, we're gonna do this. But then without having all the tools, sometimes we fall into the pit or we run into bigger obstacles than we created and we create this toxic workplace. We'll get to this right after this.

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I don't know about you, but I'm having a great conversation. And I hope you're getting a lot from this. As you can tell from our discussion today, you can tell that Ron and I are deeply dedicated to supporting business leaders just like you. So, if you're in the midst of planning a leadership retreat, an industry conference, or you're looking for some amazing content, or maybe you just need some expert guidance, we're just a message away. Feel free to reach out for a conversation about your unique challenges or to discuss how we can collaborate to help you achieve your goals. Our contact information is in the show notes. So, reach out. That's what good leaders do. They recognize and they reach out for help. So, Ron, what advice would you give business owners avoid pitfalls? All too often, things become band-aids. People go to a conference and they come back and they go, oh, I just learned something. We're going to make it happen. How can we stir the pot and make sure that people aren't falling back into bad behaviors?

Yeah, I think it comes down to making sure that all of the fundamentals are in place first and then building off of that. And so, what, you know, you just talked about somebody comes from a conference or they read a book and they immediately try to change the way they're working to integrate that latest thinking. And that can be destabilizing, confusing. It might not hold together. So, what we do, we have a very specific methodology to make sure that all of the fundamentals are in place so that everybody sees the sort of business operating system from the same light, and we kind of build off of that. And so, I guess the main message would be make sure that, number one, your vision is clear. So, a 2-page plan that everybody has exactly the same vision. You've aligned on your kind of meeting process and your accountability charts and the basics around execution. You have some fundamentals in place in terms of culture, and then you build off of that, but you don't keep changing directions, adding in new flavors of the month because that's totally destabilizing. It doesn't need to be complicated. Stick with a kind of simple system and then build slowly, slowly off of that, making sure that everything always holds together. And it's the analogy we use with metrics when we build them. It's if somebody is trying to do a— let's say they're trying to lose weight. So they have an exercise plan and they decide they're going to work out 3 times a week and they're going to limit their calorie intake to 2,500 calories a day. And so that's their plan. And so what ends up happening is they start the diet plan and they get on the scale after 1 day and they don't see that they're losing weight. And so they switch their diet up and all of a sudden they're doing keto or they're doing intermittent fasting or they're doing hot yoga. They keep changing their strategy. And the problem is never the strategy. Like if you have a diet plan and an exercise plan, like if you do it, it's going to work. And so it's more about how do you help each other execute on the strategy that you've defined rather than allowing the opportunity to keep changing strategies? Because 9 times out of 10, the strategy is fine. It's just you're not actually executing on that strategy long enough to make it work or long enough to know what part of the strategy to correct. And so you really have to be disciplined to align on a clear strategy, crystal clear, fight it out if you have to. But once it's clear, now help each other execute and do exactly what they said they were going to do. to move towards that strategy. And then maybe 3 months down the road, you look at it again and say, is everything working? Does it need some tweaks? But avoid like constantly stepping on the scale, not seeing results, and changing your diet plan. Instead, keep at it, help each other. And then if you need to make some tweaks, if you need to go to 2,400 calories a day, it's easier to decide that after a proper, you know, road runway versus constantly going back and forth. And everybody Number one, frustrated because it's like it keeps changing. Number two, no confidence. It's like, yeah, this is not going to stick. We're going to change again a month from now. And so, you don't have that engagement. You don't have the belief and nobody makes it work because everybody thinks it's just the flavor of the month. So, I guess the main message is strategy is important, but probably even more important is, are we executing? Are we doing what we said we're going to do to make sure that strategy has its chance to prove itself out?

What I get from that is mindset first, consistent action second.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Right?

We have to constantly fall back because I do see— I've worked with organizations where we've hopefully made lasting change, but then when crisis hits, they revert back to the behavior that they had before because that's what they know. And so, this idea of mindset first is understanding and making sure that we have a way to remind ourselves, why are we doing this in the first place? Right? Why are we limiting our calories? Why are we working out? And it goes back to your 5 W's, right? Right from the get-go.

Exactly. And ensuring that you're aligned and that you have real genuine buy-in and that people are not just saying, yeah, yeah, whatever. But if they disagree, that they have the opportunity and expectation to be able to voice their concerns. You know, like, I don't think I can eat 2,500 calories. Can we do 2,600? Like, but have that discussion. Otherwise, you're kind of blindly pretending that you're on board with a strategy that you're not.

Right.

And then you kind of have the internal ability to say, well, it didn't work, but I never, never thought it would kind of thing.

But then you have personalities who sabotage as well. It's like, it's not going to work. And then when it doesn't work, see, I knew it didn't work. Well, it didn't work because you weren't bought in.

Right. So, that part is key. You have to be aligned on that. And then once you are, then you have to have everybody's best effort to make it work and help each other execute on that strategy. So, if I need somebody to phone me and say, do your exercises, then that's going to help. But yeah, don't step on the scale if I haven't bothered doing the things that This has been a brilliant conversation.

As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Just, I think we have a shared passion for entrepreneurship, and I've seen equally great people running businesses. Some, it's a disaster. They hate it. Everybody hates it. The employees want to leave. Nobody wants to work there. They're not making money. Things are falling apart. Very bright people, but just get a few things in the right direction and suddenly Business can be a lot of fun, meaning people want to work there. They love going to work. They're making money, but most importantly, they're making products that their consumers are loving. And so I know firsthand that when entrepreneurs with all of their passion and courage and dedication get it right, not only do they have freedom and enjoy their best version of life, they're creating great things in the world that consumers learn to love. And so to the extent that you or I can help entrepreneurs figure things out, I know it's not easy to run businesses, but there's so successful businesses out there that you can learn from. But don't give up. Just make those tweaks, stick to it. And to all the entrepreneurs and businesses out there, my hat goes off. I love what you do in the world. You're making the better— making the world better through your courage and continued effort. So all the entrepreneurs, keep it up.

Well, great, great lasting words. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get ahold of you?

Sure. You can start by connecting with me on LinkedIn. It's probably be the first step. So, Ron Zekely, S-Z-E-K-E-L-Y. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can also look for bos360.ca. So, bos360.ca. There's a website there. There's a contact form. Either of those 2 ways and we'll connect and hopefully, we can help each other.

Love that. Ron, thank you so much. I really, really want to acknowledge you for bringing your passion and your expertise with us today. It's been brilliant.

It's been a lot of fun. Thanks, Marc. Thanks for what you do.

Thank you so much. Hey, why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you, your team, feel free to book time on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. And if anything of this resonated with you and you think that Ron could be of service to you, his contact information is in the show notes as well. Make sure you reach out. Good leaders know how to use their resources. So, reach out. It would be an honor for us to serve you to help make your business better. And while you're at it, why don't you leave a comment or review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value to you? And of course, if you haven't done so yet, what are you waiting for? Make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. That way, you'll get notifications when I bring you fresh new content each and every week with brilliant experts just like Ron. Thank you for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com for full direct Of available episodes, while you're at it, if you found today's content invaluable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Mark says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to. Be the exception.