0:00

Breaking down everyday workplace

0:00

issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness,

0:05

not just the obvious symptom.

0:05

Our hosts, James and Coby.

0:10

Did we lose a patient?

0:11

No, that's just my lunch.

0:14

Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm

0:14

Coby, he's James. And let's get started

0:23

with the question. What are common

0:23

stumbling blocks to business growth?

0:30

Yeah. There are five kind of truths that

0:30

we've identified in coined, that cause significant

0:38

damage to a client's ability to grow. We, often

0:38

use these terms with clients to help describe how

0:46

the situation that they're facing. it can be

0:46

identified, and if it can be identified, then

0:52

it can be resolved with targeted interventions.

0:52

Now, two of the things, two of these five ideas,

0:59

that we've coined, we've talked about in the past;

0:59

The Technical Founder Paradox and the Fragile Grip

1:05

Principle, both really important to understand how

1:05

they impact business growth. But there are three

1:11

others that I think are important to talk about,

1:11

to define and to address if we want our companies

1:19

to continue to grow sustainably. And so the three

1:19

that I want to focus our conversation around are

1:28

the Revenue Stabilizing Blindspot, the Business

1:28

Law of The Linchpin, and the Action is Reaction

1:37

Fallacy. And I think if we spend the majority of

1:37

our time, talking about those three ideas, then

1:45

we can really, dig into what are these stumbling

1:45

blocks and how do they impact business growth.

1:52

Yeah, we find, like, I guess these

1:52

are five things that we have. Just five trends

1:59

that we've seen in all the work we've done

1:59

with businesses over the years. We've kind

2:03

of identified, like, you know, these, these

2:03

common situations and these common problems

2:09

that it's. It's helpful to kind of, again,

2:09

put a bit of a label to, and a bit of a. Kind

2:15

of a bit of a visualization and awareness

2:15

around. Because then businesses know, okay,

2:21

this is something that's not a unique problem

2:21

to me. I haven't done anything wrong. This

2:25

is just kind of one of those things that kind of

2:25

happen. And, we kind of got here organically. But,

2:30

but more importantly, there's a way out of

2:30

this. These, you know, there are processes

2:35

and strategies that have worked in the

2:35

past that will hopefully work for me. So.

2:39

Well, one thing that you

2:39

said is really important to reiterate,

2:42

that it removes blame. Right. by identifying the

2:42

situations and identifying how they, impact a lot

2:51

of different businesses, it removes blame from

2:51

any one person, as it's not a mistake that we

2:56

need to correct you. It's a situation that we find

2:56

ourselves in that we can work through together.

3:02

Yeah, exactly. And so that's why, again,

3:02

like, you know, when we. We kind of identify,

3:07

we kind of. We had these things that we always

3:07

kind of saw, and we kind of had these kind of

3:11

casual names for, but they were like, well, let's

3:11

actually like, you know, put some, you know, let's

3:15

put a name and definition behind it, so it becomes

3:15

a bit of an awareness tool for the organization,

3:19

and then we can be more formalized and more

3:19

methodical and intentional in how we address

3:24

them. And so when we introduced a while back,

3:24

the Fragile Grip Principle, we talked about

3:30

it kind of, again, it's about how employees, or

3:30

how businesses kind of, handle having employees.

3:38

And when we talked about The Technical Founder

3:38

Paradox, like, you know, kind of at the end of,

3:43

the. In the last season, it was about kind of what

3:43

happens with leadership skills or the skills that

3:50

leaders or founders kind of have and in their

3:50

business. And so these became very topical in

3:55

some of the conversations that we were having at

3:55

those times, which is why they kind of bubbled at

3:59

the top. But now we're like, you know what? These

3:59

are things that we talk about with our partners

4:05

and our clients, and they really find them helpful

4:05

to go, okay, I can see. I can visualize that. Oh,

4:11

I see. That's a. The problem we're running

4:11

into. So we're just. By having these terms

4:15

and the definitions are kind of all in the show

4:15

notes, it really does make it easier for people to

4:21

really kind of identify, okay, this is a problem.

4:21

Now that we've seen it and now we've got a better

4:26

handle on it, we can actually start to resolve

4:26

it, which is really kind of the point of them.

4:29

Yeah, I think it's important, before

4:29

we jump into the three new ones, if we just

4:33

take a second and reiterate what is the Fragile

4:33

Grip Principle and what is The Technical Founder

4:41

Paradox, and we can get those done, and then

4:41

jump into the meat of what we want to discuss.

4:46

Sure. So let's start off, and I'll just

4:46

come to a quick summary of the definition and

4:52

of what The Technical Founder Paradox is, because

4:52

we did that one the most recently. So a Technical

4:56

Founder Paradox is when the skills, abilities,

4:56

and mindset of the founders of the company,

5:02

which were crucial to starting and growing the

5:02

business, are what stand in the way of that

5:08

business's sustainability and scalability.

5:08

So it really is about kind of, you know,

5:15

the founders got the business to a certain point,

5:15

but they hit a threshold where they can't seem

5:20

to break past the ceiling because the skills that

5:20

they need for this next chapter are not currently

5:27

what they have. So by default, it's their older

5:27

skills. It's kind of what's holding them back.

5:31

Yeah, we see this one frequently.

5:31

and when we say Technical Founder Paradox,

5:35

we're not just talking about a technical

5:35

position or technology. We're talking about

5:40

any skill set that is specifically like, the

5:40

technical understanding of what it takes to

5:45

do the job to start the business. it happens

5:45

pretty organically, because the reason why

5:53

we start businesses is because we have a

5:53

deep understanding of an industry or a,

6:01

niche within an industry, and we create a business

6:01

to fill that need. But working in the business and

6:07

getting a, product or service, launched and out

6:07

there is a different skill set than really working

6:14

on the business and being able to drive growth and

6:14

performance and productivity and managing people

6:21

and all of these other things. And we frequently

6:21

see this, leading to things like micromanagement,

6:28

where leaders just cannot get out of the weeds

6:28

and get out of their own way, quite honestly.

6:34

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, like you say, it's

6:34

not just about kind of like technology. So, like,

6:40

you know, if you're a excellent baker and you form

6:40

a bakery or a restaurant or whatever like that,

6:47

you know, and the skills that you have as an

6:47

excellent baker, you know, might not be the

6:51

skills you need to grow a successful business.

6:51

So then you eventually you hit that ceiling.

6:56

Right? So. So, yeah, so it is a really helpful

6:56

thing for people to realize. This is so common,

7:02

and it's something that if you understand, okay,

7:02

this is actually something I can put my, I can

7:07

grab ahold of then, okay. We can actually move

7:07

past it now that we kind of know what is causing

7:12

these problems, which is why we fought. We've

7:12

talked about this one a lot recently in our work

7:17

and our clients and our partners. It's a major

7:17

topic of conversation in a lot of the work we've

7:22

been doing lately. So it's a really good one for

7:22

people to realize, and it's a good self reflection

7:27

point for a lot of business owners and business

7:27

leaders to go, do I have the skills to grow,

7:32

to level up our business to the next stage? And

7:32

if not, what do I do about it? So we don't want to

7:37

go too much into this one, because, like I said,

7:37

we just did an episode last season. I'll put the

7:42

episode number and name in the show notes. So if

7:42

you. This is interesting for you. We're kind of,

7:47

we're going to move on past it. But if you

7:47

want to learn more about it after you finish

7:50

this episode. Go listen to that episode, because

7:50

I'll put the episode in the show notes. but why

7:55

don't we do the same thing with the Fragile Grip

7:55

Principle? So I'll just define that one really

7:59

quickly. So the Fragile Grip Principle was

7:59

something we talked about, I think, kind of,

8:03

in our first season around, I think we did an

8:03

episode on what's coming in 2023. we kind of

8:09

introduced this one there. But the Fragile Grip

8:09

Principle is defined as the acknowledgement of

8:14

how fragile the relationship between employees and

8:14

employers are, and that the way that relationship

8:20

is handled by employers greatly impacts the

8:20

future success of their business. And within the

8:27

Fragile Grip Principle, there are three grips. The

8:27

Harsh Grip, where you grip too tight and crush the

8:33

fragile bond like a raw egg in your hand. They try

8:33

and squeeze out every ounce of productivity, and

8:40

work they can out of employees. The Weak Grip is

8:40

when they grip too loose, neglecting the fragile

8:45

bond and dropping the egg on the floor. They can

8:45

see hard times coming and abandon people, or they

8:52

can just have to laissez-faire attitude when it

8:52

comes to people, management and productivity. and

8:59

the third one is The Stable Grip. And this is

8:59

where we can grip with balance. We can support

9:04

the fragile bond to maintain its integrity. This

9:04

provides the proper attention, care and long term

9:11

mutual benefit that the relationship between

9:11

an employee and employer was designed for.

9:16

What I like about the Fragile

9:16

Grip Principle is that there is a tenuous

9:22

relationship there. business needs are in

9:22

opposition in many respects to employee needs,

9:30

and we need to balance that in some

9:30

level of fairness. The harsh grip is

9:35

pretty easy to understand. it's a classical

9:35

authoritarian, leadership or, style, where

9:42

you're really just trying to milk every ounce

9:42

of productivity out of people and you squeeze,

9:47

essentially squeeze the life out of them. The

9:47

weak grip. And, is something that's interesting.

9:53

We've seen it actually, play out in a number of

9:53

different ways. And oftentimes what we see is

9:58

not only the idea of, you know, just letting

9:58

people go at a moment's notice or not like,

10:03

not caring about that relationship, but also

10:03

like a lack of structure, or policies or rules

10:11

that support performance. We sometimes see it as,

10:11

being conflict adverse, you know, not willing to,

10:19

hold people to account or someone who maybe they

10:19

come from that harsh grip. The authoritarian

10:25

environment is an over correction. And just this

10:25

casual, attitude, towards employee relationships

10:34

or trying to be everybody's friend, which is just

10:34

going to land you in more trouble down the road.

10:41

Right? Yeah. And then idea of The Stable

10:41

Grip is really about trying to find that balance

10:48

of how do you empower employees by giving

10:48

them what they need, but also. Bye. Having

10:55

high expectations of their work and supporting

10:55

them to deliver on that, treating them in a way

11:01

that will hold on to them for the long term.

11:01

So when we use the Fragile Grip Principle and

11:05

kind of the work that we do, it's really easy to

11:05

kind of to identify quite early on the harsh grip

11:12

and the weak grip, and try and help them move

11:12

towards a stable grip. But again, it is, again,

11:17

a bit of a classification piece, but it can be

11:17

a really helpful, kind of just lens to view the.

11:23

That relationship between employee and employers

11:23

through. Like, what's the fundamental principles

11:26

behind a lot of that? So, like I said, we had an

11:26

episode about that, that I'll put the show notes.

11:30

We also have an article about the Fragile Grip

11:30

Principle, on our knowledge suite. And there's

11:35

a link to our knowledge suite, in the show notes,

11:35

in every episode, but also The Technical Founder

11:40

Paradox and Friedrich principle. If you want more

11:40

about those episodes or listen to show notes,

11:44

there's also articles on knowledge suite about

11:44

both of them, actually. So, that being said,

11:49

if you're interested in those, that's where you

11:49

can find them. But let's move on and spend most of

11:53

the time talking about the three new ones that we

11:53

haven't really talked about in the podcast before,

11:57

because I think people are going to find

11:57

them as helpful and hopefully can be kind

12:02

of as enlightening for people to kind of say,

12:02

oh, that's kind of. That makes sense, what

12:06

that is. And maybe help them identify problematic

12:06

issues that might be threatening their business.

12:11

Yeah, and the one. So the one that

12:11

I want to talk about first is one that I'm

12:16

honestly most excited about. it's such a critical

12:16

piece in how we look at a number of different

12:26

aspects. So it's the Revenue Stabilizing

12:26

Blindspot. Ah, and really what we're talking

12:32

about is the effect that's caused by businesses

12:32

undervaluing positions that stabilize revenue,

12:38

instead only favoring positions that generate

12:38

revenue. What I really love about this is that,

12:46

we see this mentality frequently in terms

12:46

especially, in smaller business or at, ah, the

12:53

startup stage, where everything is focused on

12:53

external growth. everything is about, Well,

13:01

depending on might be billable hours, or it might

13:01

be sales, metrics, or everything is framed through

13:07

the lens of, every position needs to be generating

13:07

revenue for us. And not understanding the value,

13:16

the cost savings the tremendous support that

13:16

happens when you have these revenue stabilizing

13:23

positions that maybe they're not focused on

13:23

generating you new revenue, but they are what's

13:29

going to keep, the ship running smoothly,

13:29

properly, and headed in the right direction.

13:36

Yeah. So let's be a little bit clear

13:36

when we talk about the kind of the two. So I

13:39

think everyone's on the same page with what we

13:39

mean by revenue generating positions. These are

13:43

like sales positions, billable hours, kind of

13:43

the experts that, you know, that are out there,

13:48

that are holding client time, they're the ones

13:48

that cause money to come in. There's, you know,

13:53

whatever it is, whatever your revenue model

13:53

is, those are directly responsible for that

13:57

revenue coming in. Super valuable. No one's ever

13:57

argued against that. But what we're saying is that

14:03

sometimes those are the only positions

14:03

that businesses can justify, you know,

14:09

investing in. Because, you know, I invest in

14:09

one person, they make enough money for me to

14:13

have two people. That's how business works.

14:13

But the thing is, is that so many businesses,

14:19

especially, you're right, in the kind

14:19

of early phases, or they're small,

14:22

or at the beginning of a major growth stage,

14:22

overvalue what a revenue generating position

14:29

is. And they don't realize that you have a revenue

14:29

stabilizing position can be the key to actually

14:36

getting even more out of the revenue generating

14:36

ones. What we mean by revenue stabilizing, these

14:41

are the ones that are the, you know, less outward

14:41

facing. These are the inward facing positions that

14:48

might be support positions or admin positions,

14:48

or maintenance positions, kind of whatever it

14:53

is that's maximizing, and, the revenue generating

14:53

positions, but also it allowing for those people

15:03

to be sustained and have a long term impact, and

15:03

not just a bottle rocket high up and then burnout.

15:12

It's about being able to reach that high level

15:12

and maintain that high level. And that is just

15:17

as important as the money coming in, being able to

15:17

hold on to that amount of money for the long term.

15:22

And most critical to the work that we

15:22

do, and probably to the people who are listening,

15:29

is HR is a revenue stabilizing, position, no

15:29

question. And it is oftentimes we see the way

15:40

that businesses, view HR is very dependent on

15:40

whether or not they understand the difference

15:48

between revenue generating and revenue

15:48

stabilizing. And if they value revenue

15:52

stabilizing. We often hear the language of HR

15:52

is a cost center, which is a really poor way

16:01

of describing the value that HR brings.

16:01

But HR, as a revenue stabilizing center,

16:10

gets to a better, better, gets to the heart of

16:10

what strategic HR management does and how. If

16:17

we invest in not only ensuring that we are legally

16:17

compliant, but ensuring that we have progressive,

16:27

HR strategies, that we are focusing on retaining

16:27

our people that we have are building, you know,

16:34

that we're using our hierarchy, right. That

16:34

we're focusing on removing job dissatisfaction

16:40

and building psychological safety, inclusion,

16:40

engagement. These things will not only stabilize

16:49

your revenue, it will make it easier for your

16:49

revenue generating positions to perform better.

16:56

Yeah. And we talked about in, a

16:56

few previous episodes, our strength based,

17:03

team model. Our spectrum program, which

17:03

is about the idea of strength based teams,

17:08

are built on complementary skill sets. And the

17:08

key is that if you have a revenue generating team,

17:17

they should be supported by a revenue stabilizing

17:17

team to complement them. Because if you don't

17:22

want all that extra p, all those extra, like,

17:22

you know, administrative pieces or all the non

17:26

revenue generating activities to be taken up

17:26

by all that time and has them, you know, less,

17:33

doing less sales and doing more men work,

17:33

then you need the positions that will allow

17:38

them to kind of play their strengths and let

17:38

those that are generating revenue focused on

17:42

generating revenue by probably supporting them

17:42

and stabilizing that work and their work and

17:48

processes and systems to make sure that the stuff

17:48

is going to be not just short term beneficial,

17:54

but long term beneficial. And that's the thing

17:54

that we often see when businesses undervalue.

18:00

Again, revenue stabilized. Positions like HR have

18:00

a very short term view of business sustainability

18:07

and people sustainability. So they're not

18:07

seeing the whole picture. So if they want a

18:13

more long term view, then they need to get past

18:13

what we call the Revenue Stabilizing Blindspot.

18:19

Yeah, we saw this very clearly with

18:19

a, client we worked with in the past that when

18:26

we started the conversations with them, well,

18:26

first of all, their model was very, fillable,

18:33

hour based. All of their employees, had direct

18:33

client, facing responsibilities, and all of their

18:41

performance metrics were based on the number,

18:41

of billable hours that each employee was able to

18:47

bring in. What this led to was that nobody held

18:47

the responsibility for, performance management,

18:57

for attraction, and retention. Hr, in all of its

18:57

forms, was done off the side of the desk of one,

19:07

of the leadership, because everybody had to

19:07

be focused on generating revenue. And what

19:12

happened was we had all. There were all of these

19:12

structural pieces that were not in place properly.

19:20

And because nobody was dedicated to it, nobody

19:20

was really accountable for it. And it just. It

19:26

continued to snowball and create this, negative

19:26

effect of everybody feeling constantly pushed to

19:34

book more client time, but not being supported

19:34

to do all of the other aspects of their role

19:40

that they needed to do to be successful. And

19:40

so this idea of not like they, in my mind,

19:47

exemplified a business that, at the start,

19:47

really did not understand the importance of

19:55

the revenue stabilizing. They went so hard on

19:55

revenue generating that it became a detriment

20:04

or as kind of going back to our stumbling, our

20:04

question, a stumbling block to their growth.

20:10

Yeah. And the thing was, is that

20:10

without revenue stabilizing positions,

20:15

you water down the impact of the revenue

20:15

generating positions. Like these employees

20:20

at this business were only hitting like, you know,

20:20

40% in some of their abilities, 40% productivity,

20:28

or they're only hitting 40% of their sales goals

20:28

because the culture started to kind of fall apart

20:36

and communications started to fall apart because

20:36

everything that was stabilizing the business was

20:43

done up the size of the desks of the founders. So

20:43

it all started to crumble because they just could

20:49

not get past this blind spot they had about cost

20:49

centers, and they could not see that there was

20:56

a real value in stabilizing the revenue with

20:56

key positions that were not outward facing.

21:01

Yeah. And it put a tremendous

21:01

amount of stress on the leadership, team.

21:06

Oh, yeah. The anxiety

21:06

and the sleepless nights and the…

21:12

Well, and, I mean, when people

21:12

aren't playing to their strengths,

21:15

I mean, yeah, it causes a lot of

21:15

negative impacts. But anyways,

21:20

we've got two more to try, to

21:20

address in a short period of time.

21:25

Cool. So let's move on to the next one.

21:25

The next one is actually the one that I was the

21:29

most excited about. So this is the Business Law of

21:29

The Linchpin. So what this is, is the dependency

21:37

businesses create on a single person or a single

21:37

position for stability and growth that puts the

21:43

businesses long term sustainability at risk. Now,

21:43

what this whole thing is about is the idea of,

21:53

even when things are going great for a business,

21:53

sometimes we have these natural, kind of organic,

22:05

successes coming from a key person, or often as

22:05

a key person, where we locked in to the talent

22:16

and the versatility that this person has, that,

22:16

ah, we're hitting great success just because we

22:22

had this great person that kind of came fully

22:22

formed and being this great success. But we've

22:29

done nothing to protect or ensure or create

22:29

contingencies around making sure that they're

22:40

going to always be there. So it's the idea of

22:40

creating linchpins, key elements that if that

22:49

person or that position were to be gone, it would

22:49

create a domino effect that could potentially take

22:56

the business down. Or it's the idea of our

22:56

success is built on a house of cards. And if

23:01

that key card falls, then the business could fall

23:01

itself. And again, we see linchpins in often very

23:10

successful business where everything is going

23:10

great. We can identify a linchpin, but we also

23:14

see it a lot in. Because sometimes, sometimes

23:14

we get brought into businesses after a crisis,

23:19

and the crisis is usually because

23:19

something happened to the linchpin.

23:22

Yeah, I mean, there's a few examples

23:22

that pop into my head, immediately talking about

23:29

this one is with a client who, honestly, they

23:29

experienced phenomenal, growth in their sales,

23:39

over a pretty short period of time, almost

23:39

doubling their monthly sales revenue. And in large

23:47

part, the success was due to one person, one key

23:47

employee who was just carrying the weight of the

23:58

success of that company. Which is an amazing.

23:58

To have that type of asset in your business

24:07

is phenomenal. But one of the things that we

24:07

had to really talk about early is, how are you

24:15

protecting that person? What happens, God forbid,

24:15

if they get hit by a truck or they get offered a,

24:22

you know, they're incredibly successful. What if

24:22

they get offered a new position with, one of your

24:27

competitors? What are you doing to protect the

24:27

company, to protect that person in their role,

24:34

but also ensure that they, not only are they

24:34

support it, but that there's that institutional

24:42

knowledge and the processes and the support to

24:42

ensure that if that person is removed, or that we,

24:50

or even if you want to replicate that person and

24:50

grow even faster, how do we do that? How do we put

24:56

those supports and structures in place? it's not

24:56

what I, what I like about this one is that it's

25:03

not always crisis point. It's often a significant

25:03

risk factor. and unfortunately, as you said,

25:14

we sometimes get brought in after the fact because

25:14

you are more likely to address a problem once

25:21

it blows up in your face for some reason. but

25:21

what's interesting is kind of the other example

25:28

that I think is really interesting here is a

25:28

friend of mine who is a successful business owner.

25:37

he owns three, different, three businesses within

25:37

the related field. each one of them independently

25:45

is quite successful. they're, you know, everybody

25:45

has struggles with talent, attraction and

25:53

retention from time to time, but largely there's

25:53

pretty, low levels of job dissatisfaction,

25:58

pretty low levels of employee turnover. people

25:58

are pretty happy working there. Their, you know,

26:05

clients are well served. It's the, it's

26:05

honestly fairly well run. And this person,

26:13

although they have a, very technical understanding

26:13

and that's why they got into this, field, they,

26:20

from the beginning, identify that they wanted to

26:20

develop their own skills and so they didn't kind

26:25

of fall into that same Technical Founder Paradox

26:25

that we often see. But they are the linchpin,

26:34

that business owner. If anything were to happen,

26:34

if they get sick or if they get burnt out,

26:42

or if anything were to happen to that person,

26:42

the livelihoods of dozens of people is at

26:48

risk. The business that he is trying to build,

26:48

generational and pass on to, his kids is at risk.

26:58

If that person is not properly supported, he has

26:58

turned himself into the linchpin of the company.

27:04

Yeah, and that's something that,

27:04

you know, it's funny cause like, you know,

27:09

we worked with businesses and they're like,

27:09

well, you know, we, we don't necessarily need

27:14

any help because everything's going great. Like,

27:14

you know, we've got, you know, lots of, you know,

27:18

employees are happy, our numbers are good, our

27:18

profits are good. So, you know what? You know,

27:23

we're set. We don't need anyone's help. And we're

27:23

always happy to hear that, but we're always like,

27:28

you know, let's just, let's just do a quick

27:28

check just to make sure that there's no risks

27:33

and liabilities. And when we come across situation

27:33

where we have the law of the linchpin, we're like,

27:39

do you not realize you have this massive area of

27:39

risk that could take down the company quickly and

27:48

you could have, so many people could be

27:48

out of business and you could just wreck

27:51

everything because you didn't protect the asset,

27:51

you didn't create consistent or, redundancies or

27:58

contingencies or you didn't. Because like, one

27:58

of the things that's so almost like, ah, a big,

28:05

indicator of the Law of The Linchpin is the

28:05

success or the luck that you have by having

28:13

this person in this position that you, the

28:13

business didn't put that didn't make that

28:20

happen intentionally. They didn't have a good

28:20

hiring, process that upskilled and onboarded and

28:27

developed them and turned them into this

28:27

asset. They just lucked into this asset.

28:31

You found the unicorn.

28:32

Exactly. And when you do that, that's,

28:32

that can be a huge indicator of the Law of The

28:39

Linchpin, because if you can't replicate that,

28:39

you don't have the internal infrastructure,

28:43

contingencies, redundancies, whatever it is,

28:43

to make that standard operating procedure,

28:49

then you put yourself in the law of the

28:49

linchpin and it's going to hurt your,

28:55

sustainability if anything happens to

28:55

it. You're constantly at risk. So it's

29:00

one of those things where we just always caution

29:00

people that even when everything is going great,

29:06

it doesn't hurt just to give everything kind of a

29:06

thorough look at for risk mitigation because you

29:11

don't want, you know, everything you've built

29:11

to fall apart because you weren't prepared.

29:17

Essentially, it boils down to, is your

29:17

business dependent on a person? If you've created

29:24

that level of dependency, there's a very high

29:24

probability that you've created a linchpin.

29:29

And a linchpin, when removed, will collapse

29:29

the host of cards. The, you know, whatever

29:37

domino's analogy there, too. that I apparently

29:37

wasn't paying attention to what you were saying.

29:42

I said, the dominoes will fall.

29:43

Domino's will fall. Yeah.

29:46

But the other thing, too, is that, so this

29:46

is the, that's the big doom and gloom worst case

29:50

scenario with linchpin. But there's also kind

29:50

of some smaller linchpins that are more still

29:55

damaging, but not so much, not so catastrophic.

29:55

And we see this sometimes, and I'm sure, I'm sure

30:01

people listening can relate to this. Sometimes

30:01

we create a position where the it person in our

30:07

workplace, if you only have one, is a linchpin

30:07

where you know, where they are, you know, they

30:16

hold all of the information, the passwords, the,

30:16

you know, the only ones that can fix a problem,

30:23

and they go on vacation, and the servers go

30:23

down and they're not in their incommunicado,

30:30

then you have created this linchpin that's not

30:30

going to tank your business, but it's certainly

30:35

going to disrupt it significantly. So sometimes

30:35

linchpins are not as big and catastrophic,

30:41

but it is important to, again, look at these

30:41

areas of risk. And again, anyone that's familiar

30:48

with risk mitigation and risk management, this

30:48

is something that I'm sure is not a new thing

30:52

to them, but I do think it's something that, you

30:52

know, we need to look at this more, you know, more

30:58

intentionally in our business and let this kind

30:58

of be one of those, again, common stumbling blocks

31:02

that businesses overlook when they're trying to

31:02

build and grow is just, this idea of, you know,

31:08

of understanding and identifying linchpins so

31:08

you can just protect yourself against them.

31:12

Yeah, it's really kind of going

31:12

back to ensuring that we have policies,

31:17

processes, structures and supports in place so

31:21

that the success of our business

31:21

isn't dependent on any one person.

31:25

Right? Yeah, absolutely.

31:25

And just, you know, so, you know,

31:28

it's one of those things where, like, again,

31:28

having people that can come in and build and

31:32

build good processes and put you know, make

31:32

standard operating procedures. Honestly,

31:38

going in and what's funny is going in and

31:38

stabilizing your revenue by, by having people

31:44

that can make sure you are protected is, is, is a

31:44

vital way to protect yourself against linchpins.

31:49

Yeah, that's a good point.

31:52

Yeah. All right, so let's move on to the

31:52

last one. And this, and this one is interesting,

31:58

too. So this is called the Action is Reaction

31:58

Fallacy. And what this is, is the mistaken mindset

32:06

that the business can survive and grow by only

32:06

reacting, that success can come without acting

32:12

with strategic intent. And we, see this idea, we

32:12

see this happen a lot in workplaces that are like,

32:25

we go into more workplaces, do address culture

32:25

issues or HR issues, where the HR team is in every

32:33

day is reaction mode. Every day is firefighter

32:33

mode. It is just going from one crisis to another.

32:40

And that is a typical day. It sometimes is because

32:40

they can never get ahead. Because it's almost like

32:48

there's this fallacy of, well, isn't this what

32:48

business is supposed to be? Isn't this reaction?

32:54

Are we supposed to react to and resolve

32:54

problems as they arise? Well, yeah, it's important

33:01

to be able to react and resolve problems, but it's

33:01

also going to be, you're going to be much further

33:06

ahead if you can put strategies and strategic and

33:06

tent in place so that the problems are manageable,

33:15

from the beginning, rather than, you know,

33:15

said, as you said, putting out fires constantly.

33:21

Yeah, because a lot of, because again,

33:21

this is kind of when a lot of the leadership

33:24

team a lot or a lot of the, those kind of, a lot

33:24

of decision makers just kind of have this, again,

33:30

this fallacy that the actions that they're

33:30

supposed to take are inherently reactionary.

33:35

It's almost like that's just the, their basic

33:35

understanding is that by the things that they're

33:42

supposed to do, the actions are supposed to do

33:42

are really more about responding to things rather

33:47

than actually trying to get ahead of things.

33:47

It's almost like foresight is something that

33:53

they don't have time for or they don't carve out

33:53

the intentional investment in. It's always about

33:59

paying for things after, paying for things, you

33:59

know, when you needed it yesterday, or, you know,

34:06

this whole idea of just always being behind the

34:06

eight ball is just because, again, especially

34:11

small businesses are often very chaotic. So that,

34:11

so it's not surprising that there's still a lot of

34:15

reacting that happens. But the fallacy is, if

34:15

you think that's the way it's supposed to be,

34:21

that's the fallacy. The actions you're supposed to

34:21

take are all about reacting. That's a fallacy. If

34:26

you can't plan and you're not ever investing in

34:26

foresight or investing in getting ahead or have

34:32

any kind of intent or strategy behind what you

34:32

do, then you're likely falling into this fallacy.

34:38

Yeah. And I think the, the key is really

34:38

around intent. Right. Are, are you looking forward

34:46

or are you navel gazing? Right. If we are

34:46

constantly. It's. It's also a vicious cycle.

34:52

Once you get into this habit or this situation

34:52

where you are constantly reacting to situations

35:01

that come up, it's very hard to take a step back

35:01

and lift your head up and look around. Right. It's

35:09

very. Because we, all of your time is spent just

35:09

responding to issue or challenge or problem after

35:16

problems. but if it is critically important in

35:16

every aspect of the business, like, as you said,

35:23

we see this a lot in the way that people approach

35:23

HR. it's kind of an, if this is their approach to

35:32

HR, it's kind of indicative of how they approach

35:32

many other aspects of their business. But it's not

35:39

only, that case. It is so fundamental to be able

35:39

to look forward at not just addressing the problem

35:53

that's in front of us, but how do we resolve the

35:53

issue that causes that problem to keep coming up?

36:01

Because if you're just continuously slapping

36:01

a band aid on things, finding a workaround

36:08

that resolves the challenge, for now, then you're

36:08

never really getting at the heart of what caused

36:14

these problems and being able to put strategic

36:14

priorities around resolving those problems.

36:21

Yeah. So one of the things that pops

36:21

into my head when we think about this one is,

36:25

I remember we had a client as a nonprofit, a

36:25

few years ago, that they were a very progressive

36:32

nonprofit, but they were really about responding

36:32

to opportunities as they came. They didn't really

36:41

have a strategic plan, to my knowledge, or the way

36:41

that they talked about it. It was more like they

36:46

saw pots of funding, they chased a pot of funding.

36:46

If they got it, then they had to figure out what

36:50

they were going to do about it. It was always

36:50

this, like, you know, this constantly chasing

36:55

things and reacting to opportunities as they came,

36:55

whether or not they had the ability, the internal

37:01

talent, or the infrastructure just to actually

37:01

complete these things, these funding products

37:05

that they got, they were always in scramble mode.

37:05

And the thing was that we saw them, this was kind

37:11

of how they thought this was supposed to be.

37:11

You know, if there's funding, you chase it,

37:15

then you figure out what you're going to do about

37:15

it. That's the normal thing. And in a lot of

37:20

nonprofits, that's not an unrealistic expectation

37:20

for what you're supposed to do, but that's not

37:25

the way it's supposed to be. You're supposed to

37:25

have business plans, core operations. You could

37:29

have a position or a department that does that,

37:29

you know, that, seek does those opportunities..

37:35

That can be an aspect of your business?

37:36

Absolutely. But the whole business

37:36

shouldn't operate that way. And this was the

37:40

problem was they did, everything was scattered.

37:40

Everything was kind of all over the place,

37:44

and they burned through employees

37:44

like crazy because everything was

37:47

so chaotic all the time. And it's

37:47

a, it's a tough place because, like,

37:52

if everything is always after the fact and you're

37:52

kind, of always waiting till it's too late to do

37:57

something, it's really hard for people to feel

37:57

a sense of, you know, productivity or, you know,

38:03

or satisfaction in their job. It's almost like

38:03

they're just, you go in, you fight all the fires

38:08

you can that day, and that's a good day's

38:08

work. And that's how you measure success is,

38:12

by how busy you were, rather than how productive

38:12

and how effective and how meaningful the work was.

38:18

And it's something that, especially in today's

38:18

issues around employee retention and attraction,

38:23

the Action is Reaction Fallacy that governs a

38:23

lot of the mindset of a lot of business owners,

38:29

leaders, and stuff like that is a fundamental

38:29

piece that's going to make it really hard for you

38:33

to have a good talent acquisition strategy because

38:33

nobody wants to work in the kind of environment.

38:38

Yeah, I like your nonprofit example,

38:38

and I think, an interesting parallel in private

38:46

sector is, the flavor of the month mentality.

38:46

and honestly, I'm probably going to get hate mail

38:55

for it, but honestly, a lot of the AI garbage

38:55

that's out in the marketplace now is exactly

39:00

that. It's businesses that are chasing flavor

39:00

of the month and trying to figure out labeling

39:06

new things as AI or trying to chase this new

39:06

shiny object rather than creating a strategic,

39:13

intentional plan for product development and

39:13

for market penetration. It's, ooh, this is a

39:20

hot button topic. Let's relabel everything to

39:20

be related to AI or to be related to whatever

39:26

that flavor of the month ends up being. It,

39:26

it causes what? It's a chaos solution, right?

39:33

Yes, absolutely. No, you're right.

39:33

And that whole bandwagon jumping approach,

39:38

who that is a very, you're right, is a very

39:38

big, warning sign of the Action is Reaction

39:44

Fallacy. And it's something that again,

39:44

you know, we're because, like, especially

39:49

because we're trying to like, you know,

39:49

trying to grab attention on social media,

39:52

trying to stay relevant, trying to the shiny

39:52

to that. If you're just trying to get reactions

39:57

from people then you think that is what you're

39:57

supposed to be doing. That is the fallacy right

40:02

there. Right now. The big thing is for a lot of

40:02

these is that what do you do about it, right?

40:13

And we don't really have a

40:13

time to really get into the answers.

40:15

We're going to give you the problem and

40:15

then we're going to walk away. But no,

40:21

this is often a lot of the work that we do is

40:21

we try and help resolve a lot of these issues.

40:26

But if I give you kind of a high level where

40:26

the solutions come from, they really do kind

40:32

of come from good. Like, you know, again, a

40:32

good strategic approaches. Like, you know,

40:37

we, because again, we see these mostly through

40:37

the lens of the HR realm, people operations,

40:42

because that's just the realm we work in. But

40:42

like we work with other experts in like, you know,

40:46

operations or in, you know, customer experience or

40:46

whatever it is, these things are just as relevant

40:52

there as they are in the people operations realm

40:52

that we operate in. But a lot of these are about

40:58

creating strong standard operating procedures,

40:58

planning ahead, having good systems in place,

41:03

having good processes, bringing in the experts and

41:03

the talents you need to invest in your Long term,

41:09

Identifying risks.

41:10

Yes, because a lot of these are probably,

41:10

if we had to say what is the biggest common thread

41:17

through all these? A lot of them is short term

41:17

thinking. A lot of them is just thinking, well,

41:22

this is what I have to do to get through today

41:22

or this is what we need for right now. And not

41:26

taking a step back outside of the chaos of our

41:26

every day and going what is going to be best

41:32

for us in the medium and long term, what do we,

41:32

how do we invest in securing our sustainability

41:38

and our secure and our stability I guess is

41:38

really going to be about that. And you know,

41:45

understanding that, you know, we have to get

41:45

past some of these blind spots. We have to,

41:47

we have to be more intentional in mitigating our

41:47

risk. We have to be more, you know, strategic in

41:53

our intent. The work that we do, we have to treat

41:53

our, the relationship we have with people kind of

41:58

with more intention. And we need to able to look

41:58

at our own skills and abilities as owners and

42:02

founders to look at how do we make sure that we

42:02

can be successful in the long term and not just

42:07

try and make myself as comfortable in my comfort

42:07

zone as I can in the short term. So really,

42:13

I think it is about looking at having someone that

42:13

can come in with an objective view to kind of say,

42:19

here's the problem you're running into. It's

42:19

not your fault. It's not because you're a bad

42:23

business leader, or whatever like that, or your

42:23

company is doomed. It's, you made kind of a,

42:29

you know, common, you know, stumbling. You fell

42:29

over a common stumbling block. But there are

42:34

systems and processes that can improve it. You

42:34

just have to be willing to make them happen.

42:39

Yeah, I. One of the things, just to

42:39

reiterate, like being able to put a label on

42:46

things, to be able to makes it more tangible and

42:46

removes that accusatory piece. So if you are,

42:55

an HR professional or you're somebody who wants

42:55

to identify and resolve these issues within your

43:01

organization, maybe these labels, these frameworks

43:01

will help you to talk about it with, with some,

43:11

intent, since we're kind of on that theme. But

43:11

talk about it in a way that removes the idea that,

43:19

Johnny, this is your problem, because you didn't

43:19

do x, y, and z. Well, no, it's actually, here's a

43:27

common, issue that has a label that had, that

43:27

can be resolved, that we, for whatever reason,

43:35

find ourselves in. Let's identify it so that

43:35

we can address it and so that we can move on.

43:42

Yeah. So be really interesting for you

43:42

listening. There's a send us a message option

43:50

in the show notes. I would love. I'm asking you

43:50

right now, if you could m take a look at these

43:56

definitions and say, are any of these in your

43:56

workplace? You can just type it in and send it to

44:02

us as a message, because we see these in the work

44:02

that we do. But we would love to get an idea about

44:10

what are some, the more of the common ones that

44:10

are out there. And this is just a great way to

44:14

do that. And, you know, we would suggest you send

44:14

us, you can send us a text message. It'll come up,

44:19

as a text message on your phone. We can't respond

44:19

to it because of the system, the messaging system

44:23

that we have through the podcast. But I

44:23

would love to just have our inbox full of

44:27

just my workplace heads, The Technical Founder

44:27

Paradox. My m workplace has a law of linchpin.

44:32

Just to kind of get an idea about one. Are these

44:32

landing with you? But also, you know, what's,

44:39

what do you see most often? I mean, you might

44:39

see some. You might see numb. You can tell us

44:42

about a current job or your past job. But I would

44:42

love to just get a, the kind of response about,

44:48

are these something that you have seen? and

44:48

again, if you have any questions about it,

44:54

let us know. And we can't respond to it, but

44:54

we can talk about it in an upcoming episode.

44:57

If you give us your contact information,

44:57

then we'd be happy to respond to you.

45:00

Absolutely, yes. And while

45:00

you're in the show notes, check out,

45:05

our mailing list for our newsletter. because

45:05

we want to have a great engagement with people

45:11

and provide more content resources. Maybe

45:11

we'll build this, into an infographic and

45:17

make these available to people and send

45:17

them out through our next newsletter.

45:19

Yeah, that'd be

45:19

helpful, I think, if we can nail,

45:22

this down and give people something,

45:22

a cheat sheet to identify and resolve.

45:27

Yeah. So sign up for the newsletters

45:27

to get access to that infographic in that cheat

45:32

sheet so you can have these available to you

45:32

to kind of help you kind of maybe look at your

45:36

workplace with it with a different perspective.

45:36

And also, you know, again, maybe you've had more

45:39

intention in the way that you look at kind

45:39

of the long term viability of your workplace.

45:44

Cool.

45:45

So, yeah. So I think

45:45

I'll just do a quick summary.

45:47

Sure.

45:48

Anything else you want to add before I do?

45:50

No, I think I'm good.

45:50

let's, hit the highlights.

45:54

All right.So what are the common stumbling

45:54

blocks to business growth? Well, we've kind of

46:01

coined and developed these, these truths, that

46:01

we call the five threatening truths of business.

46:07

So the first one is The Technical Founder Paradox,

46:07

which is with the skills and abilities and mindset

46:12

of founders, which are crucial to starting

46:12

and growing a business, are what stand in

46:16

the way of the businesses sustainability and

46:16

scalability. Big area, but trying to improve

46:22

how the founders and leaders, skills that they

46:22

have to bring the business to the next level.

46:27

Next was the Fragile Grip Principle.

46:27

The acknowledgement of how the fragile

46:31

relationship is handled between employers and

46:31

employees and how it's handled by employers

46:36

greatly impacts the future success of their

46:36

business. Within that principle is The Harsh

46:41

Grip, where we grip too tight, The Weak Grip,

46:41

where we grip too loose, and The Stable Grip,

46:45

where we grip with balance. And the way that

46:45

we hold on to that fraudulent relationship can

46:50

really define how we, retain and attract,

46:50

employees, both now and in the future.

46:58

Next is a Revenue Stabilizing Blindspot. The

46:58

effect caused by businesses undervaluing positions

47:03

that stabilize revenue instead only favoring

47:03

positions that generate revenue. So this is

47:09

about understanding that roles like HR, admin and

47:09

support positions and maintenance positions add a

47:15

huge value to your business by stabilizing

47:15

your profit areas and your growth to make

47:22

sure that you're not just successful in the short

47:22

term, but you can be successful in the long term

47:27

and stabilize that success. Then there's the

47:27

Business Law of The Linchpin, the dependency

47:32

businesses create on a single person or position

47:32

for stability and growth that puts that business's

47:39

sustainability at risk. Making sure that you're

47:39

not over leveraging or over trusting key employees

47:46

to make to, you know, who are going to be, if

47:46

they go for whatever reason, can end up being

47:51

the the swift downfall of your organization.

47:51

Not building a business that's really just a

47:56

house of cards. But when you hit that, that key

47:56

card, the whole thing collapses. And last is the

48:02

Action is Reaction Fallacy, the mistaken mindset

48:02

that the business can survive and grow by only

48:09

reacting, that success can come without acting

48:09

with a strategic intent. We need to realize that

48:14

we can't always be after the fact when we make

48:14

our decisions, or, we can't wait till it's too

48:19

late before we do anything. We have to make sure

48:19

that we have foresight and distributive content,

48:25

that we're not just always fighting fires,

48:25

that we're actually building bridges. Okay,

48:31

so that about does it for us. For a full

48:31

archive of the podcast and access the video

48:36

version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit

48:36

www.roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.

48:42

For more information on topics

48:42

like these, don't forget to visit us at

48:46

www.roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may

48:46

include improved retention, high productivity,

48:53

increased market share, employees breaking

48:53

out in sponsorship, instantaneous dance

48:56

dry mouth, a version of the sound of James'

48:56

voice desire to find a better podcast..