May 19, 2025 • 27 mins
Is your team drifting or in reactionary mode? Do you wish you were scaling faster? In this episode Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill dives into the value of systems. He defines the importance of setting identity and vision first and then building out the systems that activate those things in order to drive growth.
• Systems transform dreams and intentions into tangible results
• Growth requires both leadership (vision) and management (systems)
• The four strategic focus areas need one-word descriptions for clarity
• Project Rock Climb represents our growth initiative with specific revenue targets
• Effective growth companies need to make their initiatives exciting and rallying
• Identity determines behavior in both individuals and organizations
• Personal systems examples include daily exercise, spiritual practices, and family activities
• Organizations drift when they lack either clear identity or supporting systems
• Management involves creating frameworks for execution
• Without systems, your strategic priorities remain just hopes and wishes
• Assess where you're drifting to determine if you need identity work or systems work
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The value of systems, growth and scale require you to
develop systems.
I know that word systems is sonot sexy, but otherwise you're
just reacting.
You're drifting systems versusdrifting in your organization,
on the team you lead, in yourpersonal life.
(00:20):
That's what we're digging intoin this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You cannot be serious .
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30
minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So why is this on my mind?
Well, I'm actually going to bepretty transparent with you and
take you inside some of ourinternal discussions, some of
the stuff that we are running upagainst as we scale our company
, and so we've got this grossgrowth initiative.
Right, the name of our companyis lone rock leadership, right,
so lone rock leadership.
(00:56):
So we have this initiative,this growth initiative called
project rock climb, get it, lonerock and project rock climb,
yeah.
So my kids were asking aboutthe other day because I came
away from one of our strategicoff-site meetings.
I was wearing our t-shirt thatwe handed out at the, at the uh,
at the at the off-site, whichhad this you know, this rock
(01:19):
climber scaling this rock.
I thought it was a really cooldesign and it said project rock
climb on the front and then lonerock leadership our company
logo on the back.
And my one of my kids was likewhat's rock climb?
And I was like lone rock, getit.
And he was like yeah, like notimpressed at all.
I'm like come on, now, that'screative.
But in this growth initiative,I'm going to share this
(01:40):
experience with you and thenwe'll dig into why.
I think this is super importantand, in the process of sharing
this with you and beingtransparent.
You're going to get ideas,you're going to think about how
you could implement this on yourteam and your organization,
wherever it might be.
So we've got these four keyareas of growth.
So Project Rock Climb has aspecific revenue target attached
to it, a specific time period,that that this initiative, this
(02:04):
project, is underway.
Right, you got to make thisstuff sexy and exciting, man.
Otherwise it's just theday-to-day grind in an
organization.
Part of your job is to motivate, inspire, rally the troops,
give them something to.
You've got that long-rangetarget.
That's the destination.
But, like we gotta have somefun at these different
checkpoints, you gotta rallypeople, rally people.
That's our job.
(02:25):
So Project Rock Climb is aspecific initiative and these
can't go on for too long.
So this is just through the endof the year for us and we're,
you know, a quarter and a halfthrough the year.
So this is designed to buildsome additional energy momentum.
We're on track, everything'sgoing great, but we want to just
(02:51):
know put some gasoline on thefire.
So there are four key areas ofstrategic focus for us and I'll
just give them to you.
For us, they're build, publish,pilot, certify.
This is on the training side ofour, of our company build,
publish, pilot, certify.
Those are the four strategicareas and if you haven't gotten
this from me yet, if you want tobe effective in communicating,
rallying the troops inside yourorganization as you're focusing
on specific initiatives orspecific projects or priorities,
(03:13):
you got to get to one wordbuild, publish, pilot, certify.
That sums up.
Everybody in our firm knows.
Okay, those are the four keyareas that we have to emphasize
on.
It's not four sentences long,it's not 20 slides, it's four
words and they're all verbs.
You get it.
(03:34):
We're going to build anorganization that talks about
content and curriculum and allof these additional resources
for the organizations that areclients of ours.
We're building things for themright Assets, that that that
they can use to develop leadersin their organization that
deliver results.
(03:55):
So we're building and there'speople obviously in our firm
that are tied to that andthey're the leaders on that, on
that strategic priority, othersare indirectly supporting it.
Got it Then publish.
Publish for us is everythingfrom the book.
Our next book, which is gettingclose to the finish line.
Publishes about webinars thatwe do.
(04:16):
Publishes about LinkedIn post.
Publishes about uh emailnewsletters.
Publishes about um executivesummits that we do, where we
invite small groups to it,publishes about lots of
different things.
So you get the idea.
Pilot is there's a whole partof that that I'm not going to
talk about here because itdoesn't really matter and
(04:36):
certifies about these internaltrainers, hr professionals, l&d
professionals insideorganizations.
They get certified in ourcontent and then they deliver it
and and see the impact and itjust feet, it just creates
tremendous momentum as they getcertified.
So you get.
I'm just giving you theoverview so you can kind of see
(04:56):
how this works.
Hopefully they give you someideas.
What's your strategic priority?
What's the focus of theorganization over the next six
months, over the next next nineor 12 months?
Do you have a name for it?
Do you have something thatyou're calling that?
Do you have strategicpriorities that are exciting and
have some energy around them?
We've got graphics tied to allof that and one of the things
(05:17):
that's not the point of thisepisode, by the way.
I'm going to get to the pointin just a second, in fact.
Let me just, uh, formallywelcome you and welcome into the
lead in 30 podcast, in lessthan 30 minutes, we'll give you
a framework of best practice, amodel, a story and experience to
help you improve strength andupgrade your ability to lead
others.
Lone rockio is where you canfind out more about our firm,
(05:39):
both on the executive consultingside and the leadership
training off the shelf solutionsexecutive consulting side and
the leadership training off theshelf solutions loanrockio.
Okay, so why am I?
Why am I bringing all that upto talk about um systems?
Well, the reason is, as mybusiness partners and I were
reviewing growth and we're wejust we're just addicted to
(05:59):
growth, like it's just likesolving a puzzle.
So the revenue is exciting, thetake home, you know, the
lifestyle, all that, yeah, surethat's fun.
Building something that's youknow got tremendous value and
it's it's got a high valuationis is fun impacting clients and
building relationships,improving the lives and
capabilities and helping, likethat's all rewarding and and and
(06:23):
so it's the solving of it,right?
Isn't that what you love aboutyour business, whatever it is,
whether it's nonprofit orfor-profit or a huge corporation
or a small startup or whateverit is, don't you love the puzzle
?
Like figuring it out?
It engages your brain.
You know you could be justwaving a flag out on a
(06:43):
construction site.
You know you could just be likedoing flag out on a
construction site.
You know you could just be likedoing something that doesn't
require your brain and you wouldbe dying mentally, emotionally,
right, ultimately, physically.
So we're engaging our brain.
There's nothing that's more fun, more, more engaging than
engaging your brain, so figuringit out.
So we're, as we're, kind oflooking at our growth strategy.
(07:05):
We're like man, wouldn't it befun to grow even 10 times this?
Like when, when you've tastedgrowth, you can't.
It's an appetite that nevergoes away.
You want more of it.
And, by the way, those of youthat are in organizations that
are barely growing or there isjust a tiny bit of scale
happening, maybe you've lost thehunger for this.
(07:26):
Maybe the organizations lostits fight, lost its ability to
innovate and to grow, and yougot to get that back inside.
Like it's fun to scale, it'sfun to to, to get things growing
in an aggressive way, try newthings, innovate, all that.
So, so we're addicted to thisgrowth.
So we're looking at this andwe're like, okay, what could we
(07:47):
do?
What could we do to even scalefaster or in a more meaningful
way?
And what we realized is, underthese four strategic focus areas
, priority areas of build,publish, pilot, certify for us.
In some of them we had systemscreated and we were experiencing
growth or we were experiencingprogress.
(08:09):
In those areas and others thesystems weren't as defined.
We were kind of making it up aswe go along, we were kind of
leaning on people to just dostuff, and and what that exposed
for me was how, when you don'thave the systems, you kind of
have just a dream.
You have kind of a wish, a hope.
(08:30):
Maybe you've got a strategicpriority, but you don't have the
implementation arm, the way toexecute on it.
So you keep talking about howwe want to grow in that area or
we want to whatever.
We want to scale, but what itrequires is not just the.
In fact, I'll put it a differentway.
(08:50):
I said to my colleagues, theother co-founders of our firm,
lone Rock Leadership.
I said we're really good atleading our organization, we're
not great at managing it, and alot of you are better at
managing than leading right.
So it's kind of interesting tothink about those two things and
those words are very useful.
For me.
Leading is you've got the vision.
(09:11):
You've got the vision you'resetting.
You're setting priorities.
You're you're motivating growth.
You're inspiring others.
You're you're leaning into thefuture.
You've you've got aggressivegrowth plans and desires and
you're like you.
We feel like you're out infront, you're leading us, you're
out there, and then those ofyou that are managing you're
(09:32):
more in the present day.
We've got, and in terms that I'musing in this podcast are we've
got the systems in place to beable to execute that vision.
Well, in our case, we got nolack of leadership of vision.
Where we struggle is in theexecution, in the day-to-day
(09:56):
systems of it and and so and itreally for us, comes down to
bandwidth.
And so you know you get thesepeople that you bring on board
and that you that join the teamand they need access to you, and
when they can't get access toyou because you got limited
bandwidth, it slows the wholemachine down, and so you need
(10:17):
these systems where people areempowered and they're empowered
and they're able to move, and sobuilding those.
You might look at that.
So a few things I've alreadyoutlined in this episode that I
have you think about.
What's the growth plan?
Is it their name for it?
Is there something around?
Is there a rally?
You don't have to have a namefor it, but that's kind of cool
(10:38):
and sexy and or at least theproject or initiative for right
now, and you don't want tooverdo that.
Some organizations some of youare part of organizations that
way overdo that and so you gotsensitivity to it.
I'm not talking to you, I'mtalking about the rest of us.
So there's some kind of growthshould have.
And then what?
What are the three, four?
You can't go more than that man.
It can't have, you can't have.
Seven strategic growth Like no,it's too much.
(10:58):
No one can remember it.
And our firm, everybody knowsbuild, publish, pilot, certify
Like that's it.
That's the growth plan.
You don't need to pull out thePowerPoint slide, you don't need
the brochure, you don't needthe deck, you don't need to
search for it.
It's just build, publish, pilot, certify.
Super easy, memorable, right.
Rpm for those of you that havebeen through lead in 30.
(11:19):
Rpm around the growth strategy,not just the TKRs or the team
key results.
If you have no idea whatlanguage I'm speaking, you
haven't been through the lead in30 course.
It's what we teach.
We're creating clarity.
That's what it looks like.
It's how you scale, that's howyou get people to, to, everybody
to, to, to focus on what's mostimportant.
So as we looked at it, werealized we have, we don't have
(11:41):
systems.
Now let me say a little bit moreabout systems.
What the cred do I mean when Italk about systems?
It's such a non-sexy, boringword.
Systems like?
Who wants to create systems?
I don't.
Some of your engine likeengineers, love to create
systems.
Those of you who are engineers,like you're.
(12:02):
Oh yeah, finally he's gettingto the good stuff.
But what I mean by?
Let me give you a few personalexamples of systems, and james
clear affected me quite a bit inthe area of systems.
James Clear you're wonderingwho's James Clear?
He's the author of AtomicHabits, the book that I've
mentioned periodically.
It's.
You know there's a list of mustread books.
(12:23):
That's definitely one of them.
And the books.
Because he's got a publisher.
He had to make it five timesthicker than it really needs to
be.
You read the first threechapters of that book, you're
done, you can toss it needs tobe.
You read the first threechapters of that book, you're
done, you can toss it.
Okay.
So he talks about identitysystems.
Right, those are the, the keythings.
So like, for instance, you can,identity applies personally and
(12:46):
to teams, collectively.
So for in and then so you, youset the identity and then you
build the systems.
And what j James Clear did kindof his contribution to the
marketplace was saying quitfocusing so much on goals like
your new year's resolutions andthese goals, well, those are
just like dreams.
They've got no systems backingit up and it's not tied to your
(13:07):
identity.
So if you identify as somebodywho's out of shape, you're not
going to go to the gym, likemaybe you will a few times, but
your identity is.
Or you identify as a smoker.
You think you're going to quitthe habit, kick the habit, not a
chance.
It's in your identity.
You can keep going.
Okay, I'm going to give up this, but I'm really a smoker.
(13:27):
You got to shift your identity.
So, for instance, in our firmthink about it in a collective
way we're a growth company thatis very disruptive in the space
of learning and development,because learning and development
typical HR functions focus ondeveloping managers, soft skills
, and they have 4,892competencies and 2000 courses
(13:51):
and a bunch of stuff that's outthere and nobody's really like.
It's cool stuff and there'svalue and I'm not demeaning
anybody at all, but it's notimpacting business results and
that's why executives go.
What's the ROI on this?
And in some of these largecompanies that some of you work
at.
We've got this whole team overthere and we've allocated a lot
of money and we cannot point toa measurable way that it's
(14:14):
affecting our business outcomes.
We're different.
So in our firm we've staked outa position that everything we
do, anytime we spend withmanagers, it has to impact
business outcomes whenImmediately Not six months, 12
months down the road it's got toimpact performance right away.
The metrics we use to measurethe success of our training
(14:37):
programs are the same metricsthe senior executives use to
evaluate a manager, director orVP.
What's the metric results?
There is no senior executive inany organization.
That goes well.
Our coaching competencies areincreasing.
Therefore, I think thisleadership development is
(14:58):
effective, not a chance.
They're looking at the monthlyincome, the monthly revenue, the
quarterly results.
What are they going to talkabout on the earnings call?
Got to try.
So that's our position right.
So we identify as a disruptor inthe leadership training space
and we identify as a growthcompany that is new and
(15:20):
different.
We're trying an approach.
We're built on an approachthat's all science back, that
shows how you retain informationand you rally people and you do
it at scale.
That's our identity.
So our systems have to backthat up.
Right, they have to back it up.
Now let's go to a personalexample.
So if I define myself as active, identify as an active person,
(15:42):
then I've got systems built thatreinforce that.
I'll give you.
I'll give you a couple of.
Let's go through like three orfour systems in my personal life
.
One is my wellness system andit's super simple.
I work out for one hour, aroundone hour.
It might be 45 minutes, itmight be an hour and a half
every day, six days a week.
Now there are weeks.
(16:03):
Obviously, most weeks I'mtraveling one day or I've got
something else or a family eventor whatever, and so it
typically.
If you were to look at the lastyear I, it would be at least
five days a week.
That would be my average, fivedays a week.
I'm totally happy with that.
So I aim for six and I'd sayhalf the month I get six and
half the month I get fives,maybe even four, but the six
(16:24):
makes up for it.
I get to five you with me.
So that is a wellness system.
What's my system?
Working out for one hour everyday?
It's a system.
I have a spiritual system.
So for me and my family it'severy evening.
We spend about five to 10minutes it's fast reading
(16:45):
scriptures.
We're religious, we'respiritual, and so we open up the
Bible, we open up the book ofMormon, we read a chapter, we
read 10 verses.
If our eyes are glazed over andthe kids are studying for
finals or we've got a lot ofstuff going on, it might be one
verse and 60 seconds, but thesystem is deployed and then we
(17:09):
kneel down and we say a familyprayer every night, every night.
So scripture study and familyprayer, that whole process takes
five to 10 minutes max and ithas served our family
exceptionally well.
We take turns Sunday nights, mynight to pray, and then Monday
nights, my wife's, and we goyounger, we go oldest to
youngest and, uh, we're justpraying for our family members,
(17:31):
we're praying for whatever, andso, and then Sundays, part of
our system is on.
So that's the daily routine andthat happens 90% of the time.
It's just part of our rhythmand our kids, just like they,
they're used to that, they know.
Okay, before everybody goes tobed, we do this, we just huddle
as a family and again, we'respiritual and so we in the day,
(17:53):
focused on that.
If you're not spiritual.
Don't take anything from thatother than it's just a.
You could.
You could call that ameaningless routine, but it's a
system for us.
And then part of that system,that spiritual system, is once a
week we go to church everySunday.
For me, sunday is a day of rest.
When I was a kid, growing up ina house that did this, I had
some some hesitation for it.
(18:14):
I wasn't sure it was for me.
Parts of it bothered me.
Church was a lot longer backthen, but and now I love it.
Now it's just critical.
Now I lean into it and it's aday of calibration.
For me it's a day of rest, it'sa day of reset.
So we've got things that wedon't.
I don't work very often onSunday.
I try to focus on the family.
(18:34):
I try to focus on the family.
I try to focus onself-improvement, reading a book
, spending time out on the backporch in the hammock or whatever
else with, with the kids, and,and and.
We have family over andwhatever else.
So that's a system, a spiritualfamily system, and, and and
strategic systems we have in ourorganization.
(18:56):
I'll take this a little bitless personal and make it uh,
make it more professional.
We have off sites in our companywith the folks that are leading
different initiatives or, uh,strategic areas for us.
Every six weeks Mostorganizations we work with I
talk about this frequently dothe off sites once a quarter.
That works fantastic for them.
(19:17):
We do it every six, sometimesseven, and we find that to be
super effective.
But we don't have a big officebuilding, we don't have a campus
right, everybody works fromhome and we've got a lot of
travel that's going onconstantly.
So we're all over the place andso we do our our offsites,
which are really our onsites, ifyou will, and we do them at
(19:39):
beautiful places and we makethem super effective.
I talked about that in the lastan episode or two ago, about
how to make those meetings supereffective, to where people are
engaged.
So that's a system for us.
I'll go back personal for just asecond.
Give you one more example, thenI'll talk about some takeaways.
So another family system for usto strengthen our family is you
(20:00):
can look at the system.
There are multiple aspects ofit.
Regular contact so we're allover the place now as a family,
with most of our kids gone, what?
Only one remaining at home.
And so regular contacts that'stexting, that's a family group
text.
That's phone calls to eachother and then every six to
eight weeks we see each other um, and so that might be us
(20:21):
traveling to our kids, themtraveling to us, and then we do
quarterly or almost quarterlyactivities.
That's our week at lake powell,that's a trip like we did to
hawaii recently.
That's these that we went to umuniversity.
We rallied around BYU, had anunbelievable basketball season
(20:42):
and we had an awesome footballand basketball season this year.
It was a really good year to bea fan of our school and one of
our good friends became the headcoach at BYU in the basketball
program a neighbor of ours whojust moved up to do that, and so
we went to.
That was a family event goingto this game as they were
(21:03):
getting ready to go on the NCAAtournament, make some noise and
ultimately went to the Sweet 16.
So that's, we have systemsbuilt around family unity.
Okay, so I'm getting youthinking about systems where you
don't have systems in place,you're drifting.
You have dreams, you have hopes, you have ambition, you have
(21:28):
intention, but you're not makingprogress.
It's not part of your identity,it's not really who you're
becoming as an individual, as ateam, as an organization.
So in this episode, the realtakeaway I want you to have is
(21:48):
to analyze or think about areaswhere you're realizing now that
we're so many months into theyear it's almost halfway through
the year and areas where you'renot moving forward as an
organization, a team, anindividual, as much as or as
fast as you want to.
My guess is you've got one ofthese two areas where you're
deficient in leadership, whichis means you're not visionary.
(22:12):
You haven't really looked outinto the future and staked a
position and defined whereyou're headed, and leadership is
tied to identity.
We haven't really identifiedwho we want to be.
Are we a growth company or arewe not a growth company?
Are we a disruptor or are wethe status quo?
Are we innovating?
What are we?
(22:33):
What are we as a team, as a uh,as an organization, as an
individual?
When there's a lack of identitythat's defined and shared and
alignment around that, thenyou're drifting, so you're
lacking the leadership on that.
Now, some of you, you, you, youdon't like the leadership.
You've defined all that You'vegot you, you, you know what the
(22:55):
identity of yourself is.
I'm going to be active and welland spiritual, whatever it is.
Or you've defined the identityof the team or the organization.
This is who we are, and Iwalked you through what that
sounded like for our firm togive you an idea.
I could go through that withwith clients of ours too, from
Chick-fil-A to you, um Insignato Lockheed Martin, to these
(23:17):
different you know, I thinkabout Mark, just lots of example
, marcos Pizza, I was going tosay different examples where the
, the you're focusing on theidentity.
You've got that nailed right oryou're fine tuning it.
So that's leadership in thisarea.
And then the management is thesystems, are the systems that
you have to deploy.
So if you've defined theidentity, yeah, we know who we
(23:39):
are Like, we know what we'retrying to be.
Yeah, we defined the long rangetarget.
We know what mountaintop we'retrying to scale, but we're just
not making progress toward it inthe way or at the degree that
we want to.
Well then it's a managementissue and it's a systems issue.
I promise you that's what it is.
If you're drifting, you eithergot to work on the identity and
(24:02):
that long range target definingthe destination, or you got to
work on systems and uh, and infact, we're retooling parts of
lead in 30.
That because, as we dug into ourbook and we've got this book
coming out, oh my gosh.
Because as we dug into our bookand we've got this book coming
out, oh my gosh.
I just love where we're landingon this book.
I reread the first couple ofchapter.
(24:22):
I almost did a podcast episodegiving you chapter one.
Now that no, no, no, no, no.
We're too far away from thelaunch.
I got to wait to do that, butI'm so sticking excited about it
.
We haven't.
We've written some good books.
We've haven't written anythingthis good this is.
This is amazing, and uh, and Igive a ton of credit to our
ghostwriter, who really took ourexperience, our ideas and and
(24:45):
just got it on paper in a waythat came to life.
This is a guy that writesscreenplays in Hollywood and
does a lot of different thingsand he's he's ghostwritten so
many, so many books and um and,and I just feel like we hit
paydirt with our ideas andexperience and then his
expertise and wisdom.
And so, anyway, in that book,as we talk about movement right,
(25:19):
clarity, alignment, movementwe're taking the course and
we're putting it into this bookthat you can give to a manager
or an executive that justencapsulates everything and goes
deep on it and in a way that a30 day course can.
Anyway, in the movement section,what we really uh, uh, have
shifted our focus to is and I'vetalked about this in some
podcast episodes If you go back10, 20 episodes ago, you'll see
when we were actually talking tothe ghostwriter about it,
because it was on my mind thiswhole idea of discipline, and so
that's another way of sayingthat we lack the systems.
(25:42):
We're drifting, we're reactingas an organization under publish
.
We've got hope, streams andintention under that strategic
priority of publish for us, butwe don't have enough systems.
We've got some.
We need 10 X.
So that's our focus is buildingout those systems.
And so movement, really, if youthink about clarity, alignment,
(26:02):
movement, movement isdiscipline around high leverage
activities, so we build systemsaround that, and there's a lot
more that could be said aroundthat.
But, um, I've given you a lot alot to think about.
So I want you to think about inyour personal life and in your
professional responsibilities,where you need some work on
(26:23):
identity and defining thedestination.
Who am I, who do we want to be?
And then, if we're drifting andreacting, then where do we need
systems and who is going toexecute on those?
What's it going to require tobuild those?
And because you don't you don'thave the bandwidth so many of
you to manage those.
You need people to execute onthose systems, and some people
(26:46):
you've got on the team are goingto be exceptional at it and
some aren't.
Don't hesitate to move, becausethat's the requirement for
scale systems.
Otherwise you're drifting.
That is what we wanted to talkabout.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode of the lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to thelead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
The value of systems, growth and scale require you to
develop systems.
I know that word systems is sonot sexy, but otherwise you're
just reacting.
You're drifting systems versusdrifting in your organization,
on the team you lead, in yourpersonal life.
(00:20):
That's what we're digging intoin this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
You cannot be serious .
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30
minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So why is this on my mind?
Well, I'm actually going to bepretty transparent with you and
take you inside some of ourinternal discussions, some of
the stuff that we are running upagainst as we scale our company
, and so we've got this grossgrowth initiative.
Right, the name of our companyis lone rock leadership, right,
so lone rock leadership.
(00:56):
So we have this initiative,this growth initiative called
project rock climb, get it, lonerock and project rock climb,
yeah.
So my kids were asking aboutthe other day because I came
away from one of our strategicoff-site meetings.
I was wearing our t-shirt thatwe handed out at the, at the uh,
at the at the off-site, whichhad this you know, this rock
(01:19):
climber scaling this rock.
I thought it was a really cooldesign and it said project rock
climb on the front and then lonerock leadership our company
logo on the back.
And my one of my kids was likewhat's rock climb?
And I was like lone rock, getit.
And he was like yeah, like notimpressed at all.
I'm like come on, now, that'screative.
But in this growth initiative,I'm going to share this
(01:40):
experience with you and thenwe'll dig into why.
I think this is super importantand, in the process of sharing
this with you and beingtransparent.
You're going to get ideas,you're going to think about how
you could implement this on yourteam and your organization,
wherever it might be.
So we've got these four keyareas of growth.
So Project Rock Climb has aspecific revenue target attached
to it, a specific time period,that that this initiative, this
(02:04):
project, is underway.
Right, you got to make thisstuff sexy and exciting, man.
Otherwise it's just theday-to-day grind in an
organization.
Part of your job is to motivate, inspire, rally the troops,
give them something to.
You've got that long-rangetarget.
That's the destination.
But, like we gotta have somefun at these different
checkpoints, you gotta rallypeople, rally people.
That's our job.
(02:25):
So Project Rock Climb is aspecific initiative and these
can't go on for too long.
So this is just through the endof the year for us and we're,
you know, a quarter and a halfthrough the year.
So this is designed to buildsome additional energy momentum.
We're on track, everything'sgoing great, but we want to just
(02:51):
know put some gasoline on thefire.
So there are four key areas ofstrategic focus for us and I'll
just give them to you.
For us, they're build, publish,pilot, certify.
This is on the training side ofour, of our company build,
publish, pilot, certify.
Those are the four strategicareas and if you haven't gotten
this from me yet, if you want tobe effective in communicating,
rallying the troops inside yourorganization as you're focusing
on specific initiatives orspecific projects or priorities,
(03:13):
you got to get to one wordbuild, publish, pilot, certify.
That sums up.
Everybody in our firm knows.
Okay, those are the four keyareas that we have to emphasize
on.
It's not four sentences long,it's not 20 slides, it's four
words and they're all verbs.
You get it.
(03:34):
We're going to build anorganization that talks about
content and curriculum and allof these additional resources
for the organizations that areclients of ours.
We're building things for themright Assets, that that that
they can use to develop leadersin their organization that
deliver results.
(03:55):
So we're building and there'speople obviously in our firm
that are tied to that andthey're the leaders on that, on
that strategic priority, othersare indirectly supporting it.
Got it Then publish.
Publish for us is everythingfrom the book.
Our next book, which is gettingclose to the finish line.
Publishes about webinars thatwe do.
(04:16):
Publishes about LinkedIn post.
Publishes about uh emailnewsletters.
Publishes about um executivesummits that we do, where we
invite small groups to it,publishes about lots of
different things.
So you get the idea.
Pilot is there's a whole partof that that I'm not going to
talk about here because itdoesn't really matter and
(04:36):
certifies about these internaltrainers, hr professionals, l&d
professionals insideorganizations.
They get certified in ourcontent and then they deliver it
and and see the impact and itjust feet, it just creates
tremendous momentum as they getcertified.
So you get.
I'm just giving you theoverview so you can kind of see
(04:56):
how this works.
Hopefully they give you someideas.
What's your strategic priority?
What's the focus of theorganization over the next six
months, over the next next nineor 12 months?
Do you have a name for it?
Do you have something thatyou're calling that?
Do you have strategicpriorities that are exciting and
have some energy around them?
We've got graphics tied to allof that and one of the things
(05:17):
that's not the point of thisepisode, by the way.
I'm going to get to the pointin just a second, in fact.
Let me just, uh, formallywelcome you and welcome into the
lead in 30 podcast, in lessthan 30 minutes, we'll give you
a framework of best practice, amodel, a story and experience to
help you improve strength andupgrade your ability to lead
others.
Lone rockio is where you canfind out more about our firm,
(05:39):
both on the executive consultingside and the leadership
training off the shelf solutionsexecutive consulting side and
the leadership training off theshelf solutions loanrockio.
Okay, so why am I?
Why am I bringing all that upto talk about um systems?
Well, the reason is, as mybusiness partners and I were
reviewing growth and we're wejust we're just addicted to
(05:59):
growth, like it's just likesolving a puzzle.
So the revenue is exciting, thetake home, you know, the
lifestyle, all that, yeah, surethat's fun.
Building something that's youknow got tremendous value and
it's it's got a high valuationis is fun impacting clients and
building relationships,improving the lives and
capabilities and helping, likethat's all rewarding and and and
(06:23):
so it's the solving of it,right?
Isn't that what you love aboutyour business, whatever it is,
whether it's nonprofit orfor-profit or a huge corporation
or a small startup or whateverit is, don't you love the puzzle
?
Like figuring it out?
It engages your brain.
You know you could be justwaving a flag out on a
(06:43):
construction site.
You know you could just be likedoing flag out on a
construction site.
You know you could just be likedoing something that doesn't
require your brain and you wouldbe dying mentally, emotionally,
right, ultimately, physically.
So we're engaging our brain.
There's nothing that's more fun, more, more engaging than
engaging your brain, so figuringit out.
So we're, as we're, kind oflooking at our growth strategy.
(07:05):
We're like man, wouldn't it befun to grow even 10 times this?
Like when, when you've tastedgrowth, you can't.
It's an appetite that nevergoes away.
You want more of it.
And, by the way, those of youthat are in organizations that
are barely growing or there isjust a tiny bit of scale
happening, maybe you've lost thehunger for this.
(07:26):
Maybe the organizations lostits fight, lost its ability to
innovate and to grow, and yougot to get that back inside.
Like it's fun to scale, it'sfun to to, to get things growing
in an aggressive way, try newthings, innovate, all that.
So, so we're addicted to thisgrowth.
So we're looking at this andwe're like, okay, what could we
(07:47):
do?
What could we do to even scalefaster or in a more meaningful
way?
And what we realized is, underthese four strategic focus areas
, priority areas of build,publish, pilot, certify for us.
In some of them we had systemscreated and we were experiencing
growth or we were experiencingprogress.
(08:09):
In those areas and others thesystems weren't as defined.
We were kind of making it up aswe go along, we were kind of
leaning on people to just dostuff, and and what that exposed
for me was how, when you don'thave the systems, you kind of
have just a dream.
You have kind of a wish, a hope.
(08:30):
Maybe you've got a strategicpriority, but you don't have the
implementation arm, the way toexecute on it.
So you keep talking about howwe want to grow in that area or
we want to whatever.
We want to scale, but what itrequires is not just the.
In fact, I'll put it a differentway.
(08:50):
I said to my colleagues, theother co-founders of our firm,
lone Rock Leadership.
I said we're really good atleading our organization, we're
not great at managing it, and alot of you are better at
managing than leading right.
So it's kind of interesting tothink about those two things and
those words are very useful.
For me.
Leading is you've got the vision.
(09:11):
You've got the vision you'resetting.
You're setting priorities.
You're you're motivating growth.
You're inspiring others.
You're you're leaning into thefuture.
You've you've got aggressivegrowth plans and desires and
you're like you.
We feel like you're out infront, you're leading us, you're
out there, and then those ofyou that are managing you're
(09:32):
more in the present day.
We've got, and in terms that I'musing in this podcast are we've
got the systems in place to beable to execute that vision.
Well, in our case, we got nolack of leadership of vision.
Where we struggle is in theexecution, in the day-to-day
(09:56):
systems of it and and so and itreally for us, comes down to
bandwidth.
And so you know you get thesepeople that you bring on board
and that you that join the teamand they need access to you, and
when they can't get access toyou because you got limited
bandwidth, it slows the wholemachine down, and so you need
(10:17):
these systems where people areempowered and they're empowered
and they're able to move, and sobuilding those.
You might look at that.
So a few things I've alreadyoutlined in this episode that I
have you think about.
What's the growth plan?
Is it their name for it?
Is there something around?
Is there a rally?
You don't have to have a namefor it, but that's kind of cool
(10:38):
and sexy and or at least theproject or initiative for right
now, and you don't want tooverdo that.
Some organizations some of youare part of organizations that
way overdo that and so you gotsensitivity to it.
I'm not talking to you, I'mtalking about the rest of us.
So there's some kind of growthshould have.
And then what?
What are the three, four?
You can't go more than that man.
It can't have, you can't have.
Seven strategic growth Like no,it's too much.
(10:58):
No one can remember it.
And our firm, everybody knowsbuild, publish, pilot, certify
Like that's it.
That's the growth plan.
You don't need to pull out thePowerPoint slide, you don't need
the brochure, you don't needthe deck, you don't need to
search for it.
It's just build, publish, pilot, certify.
Super easy, memorable, right.
Rpm for those of you that havebeen through lead in 30.
(11:19):
Rpm around the growth strategy,not just the TKRs or the team
key results.
If you have no idea whatlanguage I'm speaking, you
haven't been through the lead in30 course.
It's what we teach.
We're creating clarity.
That's what it looks like.
It's how you scale, that's howyou get people to, to, everybody
to, to, to focus on what's mostimportant.
So as we looked at it, werealized we have, we don't have
(11:41):
systems.
Now let me say a little bit moreabout systems.
What the cred do I mean when Italk about systems?
It's such a non-sexy, boringword.
Systems like?
Who wants to create systems?
I don't.
Some of your engine likeengineers, love to create
systems.
Those of you who are engineers,like you're.
(12:02):
Oh yeah, finally he's gettingto the good stuff.
But what I mean by?
Let me give you a few personalexamples of systems, and james
clear affected me quite a bit inthe area of systems.
James Clear you're wonderingwho's James Clear?
He's the author of AtomicHabits, the book that I've
mentioned periodically.
It's.
You know there's a list of mustread books.
(12:23):
That's definitely one of them.
And the books.
Because he's got a publisher.
He had to make it five timesthicker than it really needs to
be.
You read the first threechapters of that book, you're
done, you can toss it needs tobe.
You read the first threechapters of that book, you're
done, you can toss it.
Okay.
So he talks about identitysystems.
Right, those are the, the keythings.
So like, for instance, you can,identity applies personally and
(12:46):
to teams, collectively.
So for in and then so you, youset the identity and then you
build the systems.
And what j James Clear did kindof his contribution to the
marketplace was saying quitfocusing so much on goals like
your new year's resolutions andthese goals, well, those are
just like dreams.
They've got no systems backingit up and it's not tied to your
(13:07):
identity.
So if you identify as somebodywho's out of shape, you're not
going to go to the gym, likemaybe you will a few times, but
your identity is.
Or you identify as a smoker.
You think you're going to quitthe habit, kick the habit, not a
chance.
It's in your identity.
You can keep going.
Okay, I'm going to give up this, but I'm really a smoker.
(13:27):
You got to shift your identity.
So, for instance, in our firmthink about it in a collective
way we're a growth company thatis very disruptive in the space
of learning and development,because learning and development
typical HR functions focus ondeveloping managers, soft skills
, and they have 4,892competencies and 2000 courses
(13:51):
and a bunch of stuff that's outthere and nobody's really like.
It's cool stuff and there'svalue and I'm not demeaning
anybody at all, but it's notimpacting business results and
that's why executives go.
What's the ROI on this?
And in some of these largecompanies that some of you work
at.
We've got this whole team overthere and we've allocated a lot
of money and we cannot point toa measurable way that it's
(14:14):
affecting our business outcomes.
We're different.
So in our firm we've staked outa position that everything we
do, anytime we spend withmanagers, it has to impact
business outcomes whenImmediately Not six months, 12
months down the road it's got toimpact performance right away.
The metrics we use to measurethe success of our training
(14:37):
programs are the same metricsthe senior executives use to
evaluate a manager, director orVP.
What's the metric results?
There is no senior executive inany organization.
That goes well.
Our coaching competencies areincreasing.
Therefore, I think thisleadership development is
(14:58):
effective, not a chance.
They're looking at the monthlyincome, the monthly revenue, the
quarterly results.
What are they going to talkabout on the earnings call?
Got to try.
So that's our position right.
So we identify as a disruptor inthe leadership training space
and we identify as a growthcompany that is new and
(15:20):
different.
We're trying an approach.
We're built on an approachthat's all science back, that
shows how you retain informationand you rally people and you do
it at scale.
That's our identity.
So our systems have to backthat up.
Right, they have to back it up.
Now let's go to a personalexample.
So if I define myself as active, identify as an active person,
(15:42):
then I've got systems built thatreinforce that.
I'll give you.
I'll give you a couple of.
Let's go through like three orfour systems in my personal life
.
One is my wellness system andit's super simple.
I work out for one hour, aroundone hour.
It might be 45 minutes, itmight be an hour and a half
every day, six days a week.
Now there are weeks.
(16:03):
Obviously, most weeks I'mtraveling one day or I've got
something else or a family eventor whatever, and so it
typically.
If you were to look at the lastyear I, it would be at least
five days a week.
That would be my average, fivedays a week.
I'm totally happy with that.
So I aim for six and I'd sayhalf the month I get six and
half the month I get fives,maybe even four, but the six
(16:24):
makes up for it.
I get to five you with me.
So that is a wellness system.
What's my system?
Working out for one hour everyday?
It's a system.
I have a spiritual system.
So for me and my family it'severy evening.
We spend about five to 10minutes it's fast reading
(16:45):
scriptures.
We're religious, we'respiritual, and so we open up the
Bible, we open up the book ofMormon, we read a chapter, we
read 10 verses.
If our eyes are glazed over andthe kids are studying for
finals or we've got a lot ofstuff going on, it might be one
verse and 60 seconds, but thesystem is deployed and then we
(17:09):
kneel down and we say a familyprayer every night, every night.
So scripture study and familyprayer, that whole process takes
five to 10 minutes max and ithas served our family
exceptionally well.
We take turns Sunday nights, mynight to pray, and then Monday
nights, my wife's, and we goyounger, we go oldest to
youngest and, uh, we're justpraying for our family members,
(17:31):
we're praying for whatever, andso, and then Sundays, part of
our system is on.
So that's the daily routine andthat happens 90% of the time.
It's just part of our rhythmand our kids, just like they,
they're used to that, they know.
Okay, before everybody goes tobed, we do this, we just huddle
as a family and again, we'respiritual and so we in the day,
(17:53):
focused on that.
If you're not spiritual.
Don't take anything from thatother than it's just a.
You could.
You could call that ameaningless routine, but it's a
system for us.
And then part of that system,that spiritual system, is once a
week we go to church everySunday.
For me, sunday is a day of rest.
When I was a kid, growing up ina house that did this, I had
some some hesitation for it.
(18:14):
I wasn't sure it was for me.
Parts of it bothered me.
Church was a lot longer backthen, but and now I love it.
Now it's just critical.
Now I lean into it and it's aday of calibration.
For me it's a day of rest, it'sa day of reset.
So we've got things that wedon't.
I don't work very often onSunday.
I try to focus on the family.
(18:34):
I try to focus on the family.
I try to focus onself-improvement, reading a book
, spending time out on the backporch in the hammock or whatever
else with, with the kids, and,and and.
We have family over andwhatever else.
So that's a system, a spiritualfamily system, and, and and
strategic systems we have in ourorganization.
(18:56):
I'll take this a little bitless personal and make it uh,
make it more professional.
We have off sites in our companywith the folks that are leading
different initiatives or, uh,strategic areas for us.
Every six weeks Mostorganizations we work with I
talk about this frequently dothe off sites once a quarter.
That works fantastic for them.
(19:17):
We do it every six, sometimesseven, and we find that to be
super effective.
But we don't have a big officebuilding, we don't have a campus
right, everybody works fromhome and we've got a lot of
travel that's going onconstantly.
So we're all over the place andso we do our our offsites,
which are really our onsites, ifyou will, and we do them at
(19:39):
beautiful places and we makethem super effective.
I talked about that in the lastan episode or two ago, about
how to make those meetings supereffective, to where people are
engaged.
So that's a system for us.
I'll go back personal for just asecond.
Give you one more example, thenI'll talk about some takeaways.
So another family system for usto strengthen our family is you
(20:00):
can look at the system.
There are multiple aspects ofit.
Regular contact so we're allover the place now as a family,
with most of our kids gone, what?
Only one remaining at home.
And so regular contacts that'stexting, that's a family group
text.
That's phone calls to eachother and then every six to
eight weeks we see each other um, and so that might be us
(20:21):
traveling to our kids, themtraveling to us, and then we do
quarterly or almost quarterlyactivities.
That's our week at lake powell,that's a trip like we did to
hawaii recently.
That's these that we went to umuniversity.
We rallied around BYU, had anunbelievable basketball season
(20:42):
and we had an awesome footballand basketball season this year.
It was a really good year to bea fan of our school and one of
our good friends became the headcoach at BYU in the basketball
program a neighbor of ours whojust moved up to do that, and so
we went to.
That was a family event goingto this game as they were
(21:03):
getting ready to go on the NCAAtournament, make some noise and
ultimately went to the Sweet 16.
So that's, we have systemsbuilt around family unity.
Okay, so I'm getting youthinking about systems where you
don't have systems in place,you're drifting.
You have dreams, you have hopes, you have ambition, you have
(21:28):
intention, but you're not makingprogress.
It's not part of your identity,it's not really who you're
becoming as an individual, as ateam, as an organization.
So in this episode, the realtakeaway I want you to have is
(21:48):
to analyze or think about areaswhere you're realizing now that
we're so many months into theyear it's almost halfway through
the year and areas where you'renot moving forward as an
organization, a team, anindividual, as much as or as
fast as you want to.
My guess is you've got one ofthese two areas where you're
deficient in leadership, whichis means you're not visionary.
(22:12):
You haven't really looked outinto the future and staked a
position and defined whereyou're headed, and leadership is
tied to identity.
We haven't really identifiedwho we want to be.
Are we a growth company or arewe not a growth company?
Are we a disruptor or are wethe status quo?
Are we innovating?
What are we?
(22:33):
What are we as a team, as a uh,as an organization, as an
individual?
When there's a lack of identitythat's defined and shared and
alignment around that, thenyou're drifting, so you're
lacking the leadership on that.
Now, some of you, you, you, youdon't like the leadership.
You've defined all that You'vegot you, you, you know what the
(22:55):
identity of yourself is.
I'm going to be active and welland spiritual, whatever it is.
Or you've defined the identityof the team or the organization.
This is who we are, and Iwalked you through what that
sounded like for our firm togive you an idea.
I could go through that withwith clients of ours too, from
Chick-fil-A to you, um Insignato Lockheed Martin, to these
(23:17):
different you know, I thinkabout Mark, just lots of example
, marcos Pizza, I was going tosay different examples where the
, the you're focusing on theidentity.
You've got that nailed right oryou're fine tuning it.
So that's leadership in thisarea.
And then the management is thesystems, are the systems that
you have to deploy.
So if you've defined theidentity, yeah, we know who we
(23:39):
are Like, we know what we'retrying to be.
Yeah, we defined the long rangetarget.
We know what mountaintop we'retrying to scale, but we're just
not making progress toward it inthe way or at the degree that
we want to.
Well then it's a managementissue and it's a systems issue.
I promise you that's what it is.
If you're drifting, you eithergot to work on the identity and
(24:02):
that long range target definingthe destination, or you got to
work on systems and uh, and infact, we're retooling parts of
lead in 30.
That because, as we dug into ourbook and we've got this book
coming out, oh my gosh.
Because as we dug into our bookand we've got this book coming
out, oh my gosh.
I just love where we're landingon this book.
I reread the first couple ofchapter.
(24:22):
I almost did a podcast episodegiving you chapter one.
Now that no, no, no, no, no.
We're too far away from thelaunch.
I got to wait to do that, butI'm so sticking excited about it
.
We haven't.
We've written some good books.
We've haven't written anythingthis good this is.
This is amazing, and uh, and Igive a ton of credit to our
ghostwriter, who really took ourexperience, our ideas and and
(24:45):
just got it on paper in a waythat came to life.
This is a guy that writesscreenplays in Hollywood and
does a lot of different thingsand he's he's ghostwritten so
many, so many books and um and,and I just feel like we hit
paydirt with our ideas andexperience and then his
expertise and wisdom.
And so, anyway, in that book,as we talk about movement right,
(25:19):
clarity, alignment, movementwe're taking the course and
we're putting it into this bookthat you can give to a manager
or an executive that justencapsulates everything and goes
deep on it and in a way that a30 day course can.
Anyway, in the movement section,what we really uh, uh, have
shifted our focus to is and I'vetalked about this in some
podcast episodes If you go back10, 20 episodes ago, you'll see
when we were actually talking tothe ghostwriter about it,
because it was on my mind thiswhole idea of discipline, and so
that's another way of sayingthat we lack the systems.
(25:42):
We're drifting, we're reactingas an organization under publish
.
We've got hope, streams andintention under that strategic
priority of publish for us, butwe don't have enough systems.
We've got some.
We need 10 X.
So that's our focus is buildingout those systems.
And so movement, really, if youthink about clarity, alignment,
(26:02):
movement, movement isdiscipline around high leverage
activities, so we build systemsaround that, and there's a lot
more that could be said aroundthat.
But, um, I've given you a lot alot to think about.
So I want you to think about inyour personal life and in your
professional responsibilities,where you need some work on
(26:23):
identity and defining thedestination.
Who am I, who do we want to be?
And then, if we're drifting andreacting, then where do we need
systems and who is going toexecute on those?
What's it going to require tobuild those?
And because you don't you don'thave the bandwidth so many of
you to manage those.
You need people to execute onthose systems, and some people
(26:46):
you've got on the team are goingto be exceptional at it and
some aren't.
Don't hesitate to move, becausethat's the requirement for
scale systems.
Otherwise you're drifting.
That is what we wanted to talkabout.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode of the lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to thelead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
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