March 3, 2023 • 39 mins
Ben Sands, founder of Sands Leadership provides a unique type of executive coaching that focuses on building alignment across an organization, coaching business leaders together. His tools are essential for maintaining organizational efficiencies through change and growth. Ben shares his experience and perspective and offers some great insight to put to use in your business right away.
.
.
"I see this misalignment is the thing that we really as leaders need to be most aware of, and misalignment in these two specific categories: direction and strategy."
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to our YouTube page to be notified with new content. In the meantime, feel free to explore more accounting and business resources. If you think your entrepreneurial story is a perfect fit for an Accountfully Chat, reach out to the marketing team to talk more.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:09):
Welcome to the Accountfully chat, episode three
with Ben sands. How're you doingtoday, Ben?
Ben Sands (00:15):
I'm doing great, Brad. Thanks for having me.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:17):
Awesome. Ben Sands is the CEO and founder of
sands leadership sandsleadership is an executive
coaching and training company,located here in Charleston,
South Carolina. I've known Benfor a little bit, and he's a
colleague and a friend. And I'mreally excited to have him on
board for the Accountfully chatdiscussion today. Hi, Ben, give
(00:37):
us a little background on sansleadership and what you do and
who you serve, and how you canhelp companies and founders.
Ben Sands (00:45):
Thanks, Brad. Yes, I mean, super high level, we
provide executive coaching andtraining, we work with teams
with a goal just to help theteams work better together. So
we've got sort of a unique modelof executive coaching, we coach
all the executives at the sametime. And we believe really
strongly that this is a veryeffective and efficient way to
(01:07):
learn and grow together to buildalignment across all aspects of
the organization. And, you know,we're going to talk a lot about
alignment here in ourconversation today. But, but
yeah, it's it's been I've beendoing this now for about 12
years, I think you and I andMeredith met seven or eight
years ago. But it's, it's it'sjust important work. There's
(01:31):
there's a lot of men and womenstruggling to create and achieve
the best outcomes that they'recapable of creating and
achieving. And that's ultimatelywhat we're we're in business to
do is really to help these menand women perform at their
highest and best level so thatthe organization grows in a
(01:53):
healthy and consistent way.
Brad Ebenhoeh (01:56):
Yes, exactly.
Love it. And as we were chattingwhen we, as we as I said, Ben as
we've known him for a decade orwhatever, but he, him it is his
company sands leadership didpresent to Accountfully, a
handful years ago, and wethought it invaluable from from
the leadership and some of theconcepts you chatted on. So we
wanted to kind of touch base, inhave you on the Accountfully
(02:17):
chat here, which the audienceis, you know, business owners,
founders, entrepreneurs, anybodyin business, anybody that just
wants to learn and grow, right?
As I've been, you know, engagedwith various entrepreneurs
around the country, the lastseveral years on the sales side
of our clients in variousnetworking events, conversations
that I have, like one thing andas well as being a entrepreneur
(02:42):
myself with having Accountfullyfor over a decade here, is
literally–one thing from a smallbusiness mindset, or even a
middle sized businesses ischange, right? The one thing is
constant is changed, not evenjust on the business side, but
on the life side. And what as wewere talking about, about
identifying some, you know,solutions for change, and how to
(03:03):
mitigate risk, whencircumstances change that you
plan for, I thought it was greatto have you on. And we're
looking forward to chatting onthat and to step back a little
bit. If we just look at the lastseveral years. From a change
standpoint, how it has impactedbusiness, I've listed off a
handful, which is it's beencrazy the last several years.
Right. And one is, you know,COVID, lock downs, you know, the
(03:26):
impact on small businesses, PPPfunding, EIDL funding, right?
Well, that completelydramatically changed things.
Locking down supply chains forinventory based companies. Right
to the next aspect of changescompletely changed the
workforce, right? Work from homenow. Hybrid workforce now what
do we do? Are we having goingback to face to face work? And
are people going to employeesgonna say no, or employers can
(03:48):
say no. So, you know, that's anaspect of change from a
leadership perspective.
Additionally, then, you know,the employees similar to that
concept had a ton of leverage,as about a year after COVID hit
in terms of jumping jobs andmarket opportunities with their
own employment and transitioningbetween jobs because literally,
the supply of employees explodedto each business because
(04:10):
everybody was remote. So insteadof just looking locally, in your
company, you are everywhere,right? So people jumped in, and
it was easy for employees to geta new job. You know, and the
most recent form of change ofmind for small businesses
specifically is the economicclimate specifically related to
like interest rates, the creditmarkets have been tightened down
less access to capital to raiseyour money or to raise money for
(04:31):
your company to to grow yourcompany to scale your company to
the next level. So as we kind oflook back on this change of from
just a pure, geopolitical, youknow, overall, like lifestyle
change from COVID, to thenemployer, employee labor market,
changes to, you know, to creditmarket changes and all that
stuff. So, as you can see,there's some example of change
(04:52):
and variables that have happenedto small businesses. So as I've
engaged in my audience and toour clients, our prospective
clients or network, like,clearly everybody has responded
differently, reacted emotionallydifferently, you know, either
went out of business or maybeexcelled or maybe been in the
middle. So this is kind of theforefront of the topic that I
(05:12):
want to touch base on, as youknow, you know, handing this off
to you, Ben in terms ofidentifying, you know, ways for
leaders to become better leadersand to help serve their business
better through constant change,because we know something else
is gonna change in 12 monthsanyway. So let's just prepare
ourselves for it.
Ben Sands (05:30):
Yeah, I mean, constant changes, if it feels
more acute right now, it justfeels like every that feels like
the ground is just shiftingunder everyone's feet. But in
reality, Brad, you know, ourwork–work and world–is defined
by constant change. And one ofthe things that I always remind
my leaders is that it's not thechange or the disruption that
(05:53):
kills companies. It is theresulting misalignment caused by
that change or caused by thatdisruption that ultimately
kills. I mentioned that wordbefore. And I come back to this
all the time, right, thechallenge that we as leaders
face is to maintain alignment,you know, despite all of both
the changing environmentalfactors and headwinds that we're
(06:16):
that we're experiencing, and Itypically find, Brad that you
see misalignment in two generaldirections or two general areas.
Number one, is the direction,right is like, you know, our
understanding, like what doessuccess look like? And by when,
and this is an important like,is that by when is really,
(06:37):
really important, right? Sosuccess, what does it mean?
Like, specifically, what are wetrying to achieve? And then
what's the timeframe that wehave to achieve that outcome?
And very often, like, changeunfolds, change occurs. And you
know that that resilience, thattoughness that lives in each one
of us often says, well, bygolly, I don't care what we're
(07:00):
dealing with, we're still gonnaget to that goal that we set a
month ago, six months ago, ayear ago, you know, change be
danged, right? I mean, I don'tcare about the change. And in
reality, like you do need torecalibrate, oftentimes
regularly to ensure that ourdefinition of success still make
sense in the context of the newenvironment that we're operating
(07:24):
in. Right, so that the firstarea of misalignment is
direction, right, we got a clearon what success looks like, and
you know, how much time we haveto achieve it? And then second,
it's a strategy misalignment.
Right? Once we know, you know,we can know what success looks
like if you know what we'retrying to do. But we can all
agree a vast amount ofmisalignment on the strategy,
(07:48):
meaning specifically how we'regoing to get there. And again,
that is not that's not, youknow, specific to this
particular time in history. Itis a constant process of
clarifying and testing new ideasand then assessing, you know, is
this working or not, and then,you know, recalibrating. So I
see this misalignment is thething that we really as leaders
(08:11):
need to be most aware of, andmisalignment in these two
specific categories, directionand strategy.
Brad Ebenhoeh (08:21):
Gotcha. That's a good starting point, couple of
follow ups from my end numberone, misalignment. To be clear,
this can be amongst variousstakeholders, right? Partners in
a business, CEO versus investorsof their company, CEO versus the
Board of the company's CEOversus employees or C level
executives, managers, middlemanagers, and their, you know,
(08:43):
direct reports, right? Is thatthat kind of what you're saying
it can encompass every aspect ofof relationships?
Ben Sands (08:50):
Yeah, and let's throw in one more for good measure
internal misalignment, right?
We've all been there where,like, one part of us wants to do
x, and the other part says, "No,it's too soon", or "that's too
fast", or "that's too", youknow, whatever, right. So we get
even have internal misalignmentthat we need to address. So
yeah, like all of those variousstakeholders require, you know,
(09:12):
or as leader, right, it isessential that you create
alignment across all thosevarious stakeholders. Now, not
all stakeholders are equal,right? Not all stakeholders are
equal. One of your jobs asleader is to decide, you know,
whose opinion matters most. Andagain, I see leaders getting
torn up, you know, tied in knotsover really trying to be
(09:34):
everything to everyone and makeeverybody happy. And that's one
of the first things realizationwhen you live through change,
right is to recognize that atthe end of the day, right, I
have to do what is right rightin the context of the business.
And then as leader you have todefine in a way prioritize the
stakeholders that you arelooking and working to serve.
(09:58):
Some times leaders don't like tohear that, but but in reality,
you have to decide.
Brad Ebenhoeh (10:06):
And then before going to the next step, so then
would it be then safe to saythat because information is
traveling so fast these days,and then the processing of data
and everything, again, is solike infinitely expansive than
it used to be that because ofthat, like the misalignment can
is can be, I guess, what is itmuch faster these day? Or it
(10:29):
can happen very fast. And it wasto fall off, like within a day
versus maybe, you know, a decadeor three decades ago, maybe it
took a week or two to fall off.
Right? So yeah, like, Is thatsafe to say? Like, it's just
everything's faster these days.
So identifying it, and beingmore agile is very important on
identifying misalignment?
Ben Sands (10:45):
Yeah, you know, so interesting, we have a lot more
data available to us. And intheory, that's great, right, we
got data. And Mike describedthat as sort of an objective
version of the truth. But wehave so much data now that the
pendulum has almost shifted,where it's become very, very
(11:06):
hard to differentiate the signalfrom the noise. Yeah. And so all
having all this data in onehand, should help, right, create
more alignment, here's what'shappening, here's why it's
happening. And here's what we'regonna do about it. But for most
organizations, especially smallto medium sized businesses, you
know, we're still running thecompany, right, we're still
(11:27):
building the product, we'restill selling the product. And
so it can be hard to then also,at the same time, kind of
process the higher level data tosay, okay, yes, we are moving in
the right direction, or no, weneed to move in a different
direction, and ultimately buildconsensus among the various
stakeholders that you justidentified. So it's, it's
(11:50):
ironic, because despite havingall this data, we don't always
dig into the data, certainlynot, you know, in a bid or
something, it's hard to figureout exactly what the data is
telling us. And so it doesn'tnecessarily beget more
misalignment, right, becausesome folks just don't actually
care or look at what the data istelling. But the data is hugely
(12:15):
important to creating the longterm kind of alignment that
we're talking about theessential kind of alignment that
you need to survive in thesekinds of environments.
Brad Ebenhoeh (12:23):
Perfect. All right, let's move on to the next
aspect of this chat that woulddiscuss misalignment. So then
how can we mitigatemisalignment? How can we promote
alignment?
Ben Sands (12:37):
Well, you know, there's no silver bullet here,
right? But if you are a leader,and you're saying, "hey, what
can I do to set my company upfor long term lasting success?",
What I often describe as healthyhigh performance, I am going to
encourage you as leader not tofocus necessarily on like the
short term goals yet, right? Themost important area to invest,
(12:59):
as a leader of building abusiness that you want to grow
and scale over time, is toinvest in the operating system
of the business. Now, what isthe operating system, it's
really like this small set ofhabits and practices that allow
the business to determine whereit is, where it's going, and
what it has to do to get there.
And this operating system is soimportant. It's how the business
(13:22):
behaves, how decisions are made,how we do what we do. And you
know, every company has anoperating system, right? Every
company has an operating system.
Most companies are notintentionally building that
operating system to optimize forthe outcomes that they're after.
And so when thing all heckbreaks loose, the first place to
(13:44):
look is have we put in place aset of systems that will allow
us to continue to move forwarddespite the uncertainty despite
the ambiguity of the currentenvironment? And if the answer
is no, or I'm not sure, then youknow, that's the that's the
first place to start.
Brad Ebenhoeh (14:02):
Gotcha. And this system can be a set of
principles. It can be the systemthat you use, on the back end of
your business, it can be systemsyou use to get customers, it can
be like this can again encompassall different ins and outs and
information sharing and datapoints on the people management
sides on the client managementside. Is that correct?
Ben Sands (14:25):
Yes, it can. And it does include all that stuff. I
like to really simplify it,Brad, you know, into roughly
five steps, right? Number one isclarifying the company vision.
Now you're gonna hear this word,you say, Oh, I got a vision or I
know what the vision. I justwant to clarify what I mean by
vision. A vision is a three yeardescription of the impact and
(14:49):
outcomes that you're trying tocreate. Unlike many of the
visions that I see companieshaving right this is not like a
pie in the sky. rainbows andunicorns kind of vision it A
very detailed, best guess as towhere we want to be in three
years time, impact and outcomes.
That's the first and it's reallythe most important piece first
(15:10):
step in his operating system.
Because if you don't, where areyou going? How are you ever
going to get there? Right. Andthat's what that vision is just
to say, like, this is where weare going. And then all of the
decision making in theorganization can ultimately, you
know, come back and align tothat vision, the vision becomes
the the our way of kind ofpressure testing, is this next
(15:32):
decision that we're consideringthis investment, this employee,
this new product line, is it Dowe believe that this is likely
to get us to that vision morequickly than if we didn't do
that right, or if we didotherwise. So the vision is the
first thing from a three yearvision, then you start to set 90
Day goals, right. And these aregoing to us follow that kind of
(15:53):
smart model, right? But veryspecific, outcome focused goals,
I often like to use andencourage my clients to use a
simple framework from x to y byz, a good goal is often going to
be written in that very specificand simple framework, where x is
the starting line, y is thefinish line, and z is the
(16:14):
deadline. And typically, the zshould always align to the end
of the quarter, it's easier tokind of keep keep track of
things. And then you're going todrop in so we get you know,
that's the general sense ofhere's where we're going. And
then the operating system isreally how do we make progress
against those goals on aquarterly basis? And that comes
down to I spent a lot of timejust thinking about how well are
(16:34):
we managing our time? Andspecifically, you know, are we
you know, are we meeting well,right, many companies wasting an
absurd or obnoxious amount oftime in low value meetings,
right meetings should be themost important time spent in
your organization, you should besolving real problems, right?
(16:54):
doing real work in thosemeetings. That's part of the
operating system, how we meetwhen we meet what we talk about
when we meet? And thenultimately, how do we create an
ongoing cadence ofaccountability? Right? How do we
ensure that we are makingprogress every day, and every
week, right towards the goalsthat we set. And then the last
piece of an operating systemgood operating system is gonna
(17:16):
be some form of review. And Irecommend my client companies at
least once every 90 days, you'repulling up and simply asking
what went well? what didn't goso well? What did we learn? And
based on all that information,what are we going to do going
forward? So really just fiveelements, I mean, there's a
whole bunch of other stuff bakedin there, but five things you
(17:36):
got to get right? Setting avision, setting good goals,
creating a cadence of meetingand accountability, and
ultimately, embedding a reviewand learning process into the
way you operate. I
Brad Ebenhoeh (17:52):
love it. I always, I think Sprint's short
term reassessment is key, I seeit from our end, from an
accounting finance perspective,people putting five year models
in place that are just pie inthe sky, or if you watch Shark
Tank, here's my forecast. Andlike, this is the dumbest opera
like it's so like, what is it?
What does this give you like itclearly yes, this is great, but
(18:12):
there's zero chance you evergonna execute at that specific
level? So I think I love theshort term I love I love the the
reassessment, but also, like,what if your entire operating
system just isn't good? Or whatif like, this process in place
is like, Well, my vision isn'tright. My goals, my objectives
aren't right. Like, like, how doyou how does that work?
Ben Sands (18:36):
What if you got a crappy plan? Right? I'm one of
my favorite quotes. Mike Tyson.
Right, everyone had a plan tobeat me until I punched him in
the face. We get punched in theface, every single day as
leaders of businesses right backto
Brad Ebenhoeh (18:48):
the chain. Right?
That's
Ben Sands (18:50):
always bad. But Brad, you've seen this right?
Companies spending massiveamount of time and energy
creating what I described as theperfect plan, right, the off
site retreat, you know, holdthem hands, Kumbaya, we got
this, like beautiful thing,maybe we got to, you know,
images, it's like pictured onthe wall. And literally, within,
(19:10):
you know, 3060 90 days, thewhole thing is obsolete, because
something has changed in thatmarket. Like we can't go like we
have to expect or assume that athings are gonna change and be
that we probably didn't puttogether the perfect plan.
Right, but not having theperfect plan is not an excuse
not to take action. And that'sthe difference, right? These are
(19:30):
the teams that really surviveand thrive in these
environments. Brad, are justembrace that reality that hey,
we probably don't have thisexactly right. But that's okay.
Because we've got a system setup that will allow us to move
forward. And if in fact, we'renot on track, right, if in fact,
it's not the right direction,our system will catch the issue
(19:53):
right will ensure that we don'tget too far down a path such
that we're now feeling anenormous amount of regret and
Dealing with sort of sunk costfear. And you know, that kind of
what I call mind trash thattends to set in. So yeah, I
mean, five year plan here,someone's five year plan, I
always say like, Hey, I'm goingto save get two years on that
(20:14):
five year plan. How's thatsound? Right? And everybody
loves when I go talk to leadersabout this, everybody gets the
three year versus the five year,right, three years is long
enough to get just aboutanything accomplished. But it's
short enough that you've got toget started now, how often have
you seen, you know, companies,again, offset retreat,
(20:35):
consultants creating this fiveyear vision, and it's literally
like a year prep, to get startedexecuting against the vision.
And by the time you even start,that vision is obsolete. So I
really encourage a lessintensive form of, of defining
(20:56):
and shaping strategic direction.
And really, again, investingheavily in making sure that our
ability to execute is
Brad Ebenhoeh (21:02):
as good as it can be. Yeah, it's, uh, you know,
the, I think at Accountfully,what we've done here is very,
like we've moved fast enough,but organically enough to where
it's been kind of a minimalviable product aspect of what
you're talking about here. We'renot sitting here writing books
or Bibles or, you know, having1000 meetings and what does our
OS are our policies andconversation or documentation,
(21:27):
but we know what our vision is,we know what our objectives are.
And then we're meetingconsistently on this stuff. And
guess what, when we have tochange or like to your concept
of I think organizational debthere, like policy out the door,
we need to iterate and changebecause now employees want to
work from home. And employees,as long as you know, the there
are finite resources of our andif they're talented, and then
get the work done, does thatreally matter? Versus coming to
(21:49):
the office? You know, that'sjust an aspect of like, alright,
iterate, change, boom, implementnew policies. So I think I love
about this concept that we'rechatting anything else on
organizational debt before wemove on?
Ben Sands (22:00):
No, I just, I just wanted to just for the folks who
are listening, you just used theterm that might not be all that
well understood. But it's reallyan important idea. And that's
this idea of a minimum viableproduct. And this concept came
from a book called The LeanStartup. And it was this
exploration as to like, what doyou know, the most successful
startup companies do differentlythan everybody else? And in that
(22:22):
book, there's one wonderfulexample. And that's Zappos. Do
you remember the Zappos example?
Brad, I don't know if you. Butjust for the audience here, it's
such a great example, right?
This some crazy guy thought itwas a good idea to sell shoes on
the internet, and 99 out of 100,probably 100, out of 100, people
that he pitched this idea to,we're like, you're insane,
(22:44):
nobody's going to buy a pair ofshoes that they can't first try
on. And yet he felt that he'slike, I think this can work. So
he's going to the market,nobody's given them any money.
And so he comes up decides tocreate a minimum viable product.
So at that point, and this is, Idon't know, 15, 20 years ago,
it's a while back, right? So hegoes in, he builds a website,
(23:07):
then it goes downstairs, there'sa shoe company, shoe store, in
the building that he was workingin, goes in, starts taking
pictures of the shoes on theshelf, goes back, uploads these
pictures onto his website, itsays shoes for sale.com, right,
something like that. And, andputs it out there as a test to
see if anyone actually will buyshoes on the internet. And lo
(23:30):
and behold, the orders startedto come in. And at the time, I
just love it. Because he wouldliterally if an order came in,
he'd go downstairs to the shoestore, buy the shoes himself,
pack them in a box and send themout, you know, he lost money on
these initial transactions. Butwhat he gained was the
credibility and belief that thisidea could actually work. Fast
forward, you know, 10 years fromthat point. And Zappos is sold
(23:53):
to Amazon for a billion dollars.
That's what I it's a greatexample of a minimum viable
product, what's the minimumamount you can or need to do in
order to validate yourassumptions about what people
will or won't do? And Brad, Ijust see so many companies
agonizing over what's thespecific or perfect next step?
My encouragement is always hey,let's try it doesn't it doesn't
(24:17):
have to be perfect. Let's justget out there and try it. You
know, maybe prioritize, buythings that are lowest cost and
easiest to test. But get outthere and start testing these
ideas. Sadly, nobody's got acrystal ball. Nobody really
knows. And so again, if you havea system that allows you to test
new ideas, and quickly getfeedback and validate those
ideas is either something todouble down on and continue to
(24:40):
invest in or something to say,hey, we tried it, it didn't
work. That's again, that's wherethe system becomes so essential.
Brad Ebenhoeh (24:49):
yeah, I think there's a there's just an
overall block and some people ofjust execution people just don't
like to execute and try thingsand it's just like,
hypotheticals, conversations,meetings...and it's like, "no,
let's go" let's execute and seewhat happens. And if it sucks
throughout the door, let's moveon. If it's great, awesome, if
it's in the middle, iterate,move on adjust and go. But yes,
(25:13):
great, great, great concept. AndI do think it's about being
valued like our organization.
And as we move forward. So lastthing I want to kind of touch
on, so we talked aboutmisalignment, we talked about
organizational operating system.
And then what about just lookingat the individual, like, what
one of the things that theindividual can do from you know,
their habits, behaviors, etc. Tohelp facilitate I'll what we've
(25:36):
talked about?
Ben Sands (25:37):
Yeah. Oh, Brad, I'm so glad you asked about this.
This is we missed this. Becauseit's that again, it's not that
sexy. And you say, like nobodylikes to execute, I often say
like, nobody likes to do theboring stuff. But like, what
Elon Musk call his holdingcompany, the boring one of the
most dynamic companies in thehistory of the world, right?
(25:59):
Boring company. And I thinkKizzy gets it right. The the
boring stuff is what is whatmatters the most. And, you know,
I can I admit, I am guilty ofthis, as much as any CEO or
founder that I work with juststrategy and coming up with new
ideas is sexy, it's exciting.
It's fun, right? The execution,the blocking and tackling is the
(26:20):
kind of stuff I don't really runto. And yet, it's the it's that
boring stuff that makes all thedifference in terms of the
outcomes that you create overtime. And this is where, you
know, come back to the, youknow, the individual. And again,
I say it's overlooked. Brad,there's no a lot of companies
are talking about how do wecreate a winning culture? How do
we create like the best place towork, I love that. And I love
(26:42):
that, that instinct and thatinspiration all day, like,
please invest on building anamazing culture. There's that
old quote, culture beatsstrategy every day. And that is
absolutely true. But there's onething that you need to keep in
mind, as you spend timeconceiving of the perfect
workplace, identifying theperfect blend of benefits and
(27:04):
perks, you know, to attract andretain your team. Remember this,
that no 401k Matching Program,no free lunch or other company
perk can outweigh the negativecosts and consequences of a bad
personal operating system. Themost important drivers of the
(27:29):
performance of your team isoften the stuff that is
happening outside the four wallsof work, right. And I use this
as an example. Not literally,but you know, just as an
example, you can have theperfect company culture, the
perfect organization, right. Butwhen an employee leaves that,
you know, your, you know, theOffice for the day, if they go
(27:53):
home, and they party all night,don't sleep awake, right and
roll back into your organizationat eight o'clock the next day,
it doesn't matter what kind ofculture you have created or
conceived, that individual isnot going to perform at his or
her highest and best level,right? So we really have to meet
people where they are, we haveto meet our employees where they
(28:15):
are, and help them to understandthat just like great companies,
great personal performancedepends on your systems, right?
What you how you create this,you can series of habits and
practices that you personallylive by, or you know, and live
your life by. And so I just giveyou a couple of examples of
things that I see again, forfolks who are listening in here,
(28:35):
things to be looking for, in andamong your your employees. Brad,
let me start with a question foryou. Right, if you had to guess.
When most professionals right,in any given organization, when
they show up at work, and theysit down at their desk, what do
most professionals do? What'sthe first thing that most
(28:58):
professional men and women do tostart their day?
Brad Ebenhoeh (29:03):
When they sit at their desk already?
Ben Sands (29:05):
Yeah, when they sit down to start their day, they
probably
Brad Ebenhoeh (29:09):
look at their cell phone and check their
social media and their textmessages.
Ben Sands (29:13):
Oh, gosh, hopefully it's not social media. But
that's like the next level,right? What I find is that most
will say I opened my inbox rightand start reading in response to
seeing I want to see what's inmy inbox. Brad, you've heard it,
you know it, you know thisreality, right? Just across all
your client companies. You'veprobably seen a little bit of at
Accountfully as well. There's alot of men and women that are
(29:35):
feeling exhausted, overwhelmedand burned out right now. I like
to jokingly and lovingly tellthese men and women and I always
take a poll in my coachingprograms. I'm always getting
like a survey of like, how arepeople starting their day 85% Of
the men and women with whom Iwork before they go through my
coaching program, of course.
check their email within 15minutes of waking up, not just
(29:57):
getting to work, but of wakingup and another, you know,
there's some selection of thatpopulation that likes to joke,
they don't even get out of bed,right? They don't even get out
of bed before they're looking attheir email inbox. And, you
know, I like to again lovinglyand jokingly say, like, if you
want to, if you want toguarantee or accelerate the
speed at which you feelexhausted, overwhelmed and
(30:19):
burned out, check your emailfirst thing in the morning, your
email inbox, and Brad you knowthis to be your email inbox is
somebody else's to do list, youremail inbox is somebody else's
to do list, right? So that's howmost of us 85% of these, like
manager plus level leaders arewaking up and saying, "Hey, what
(30:40):
does everybody else in the worldwant me to do today?" Right? Is
it any surprise that most ofthese men and women are getting
to the end of the day saying,Oh, my gosh, I just worked my
tail off all day long. And Ididn't get any of my most
important stuff done. And that'swhere like, I like to say,
again, lovingly and jokingly,that's on you. Right? That's an
that's a personal operatingsystem flaw. Right? You are
(31:02):
trying to be responsive, you aretrying to care about others, and
serve others and support others.
And that is awesome. Except thatyou have made the number one
mistake of all mistakes is, youknow, the whole airline thing,
you didn't put your oxygen maskon first, you didn't get your
most important work done first.
Right? You can't give what youdon't have. And so, you know,
simply put, you know, goodpersonal operating system almost
(31:25):
inevitably starts with someamount of planning. And I
recommend five minutes, right? Igive people got little give
people a little planning sheet,right takes five minutes to fill
this thing out. Quick reflectionon how yesterday went? Well,
what were where did I winyesterday, which allows you to
build them a little momentumcoming into the day, you know,
(31:46):
ahead. And then a simpleidentification of the most
important things you need to getdone today. Right. And then of
course, when you get into thedetails, again, this is the
operating system. Once you havea plan, then you've got to go
start allocating time andenergy, right. So I'll, my
clients will take that plan, andthen immediately go into their
(32:07):
calendar and block the time theyneed to execute on those most
important priorities, that doestwo things, one massively
improves the chance that theirmost important stuff will get
done. But two, and this isreally important for
compassionate, caring leaders.
It allows people it gives theman opportunity to say no with
(32:30):
kindness, because a lot of theexecutives I work with, they
don't have their calendar, theydon't have a day planned out,
right. And as a result, whensomebody comes to them asking
for help, they feel compelled tosay yes to that request. And
it's all goes back to the factthat it's it's really hard to
say no to someone who's askingyou for help. Unless you're
(32:51):
intentionally saying yes tosomething else. Right? So if you
come to me and say, Hey, Ben,Can I Can you? Can I get five
minutes, 10 minutes, just take alook at something real quick. If
I don't have something else onmy calendar that I was already
going to do at the time, whenI'm asked for that help,
basically, in order to say no, Ihave to say, Well, I'm not going
to help you. Because while Idon't know exactly what is more
(33:14):
important than you at thismoment in time, I know that
something or someone is moreimportant than you at this
moment in time. So see youlater, right, get lost, it
doesn't work that way. So, theselittle elements of just two
little examples of what youknow, better operating system or
how the operating system theindividual operating system
(33:35):
plays such an important role inin not just individual
performance, but ultimately mapsback directly to the performance
of the team and ultimately theorganization.
Brad Ebenhoeh (33:47):
Love that goes back to back to the individual.
And I remember my cousin at onepoint told me that from an
individual, you know, aspect,you are the CEO of your own
life, you know what I'm saying?
So it's very applicable to thiswhere, hey, individually, you're
the CEO, you need to do the samethings interpersonally,
(34:07):
individually to then facilitateteam wide success and
organizational success and thewhole nine yards. So I feel like
you just give me a pep talk. I'mgonna go grab that helmet off
the back cabinet there and runthrough the tunnel.
Ben Sands (34:23):
Hey, can I just say one thing though? And speaking
to you and Meredith, right?
Obvouslt have this unique andamazing partnership. You've
grown this company together,right? You know, side by side?
Well, you know, you are CEO ofyour own life, but you are if
you are married, you're in along term committed
relationship. You are the Co-CEO of your family as well. And,
(34:44):
you know, again, just like youknow, partying all night does
not set you up for maximumperformance at work. You know,
if if you're if yourrelationship is is if you're
going through a difficult timein your relationship, right or
If you're children, right, ifyou have children or not, are
struggling, right, we bring thatstuff too into the organization,
(35:07):
whether we want to or not,right? It comes with us. And so
I am often quick to remind mythe leaders that with whom I
work, that so many of the thingsthat we sort of take for granted
and know to work in terms ofbringing a team together and
working better, better together,also work at home. So, you know,
case in point, my wife and Ihave a weekly team meeting,
(35:30):
where we just get aligned onwhat matters most and what
matters least, and do our bestto set expectations and better
understand the expectations ofour spouse. And again, it seems
sort of obvious and selfevident. But you know, most of
the leaders with whom I work,when I share that with them,
(35:50):
they're always like, oh, man,yeah, of course, we should do
that. And why don't we do that?
You know, typically, becausebecause it gets lost in the
shuffle. Of all the other stuffthat we've got competing for our
time and attention.
Brad Ebenhoeh (36:03):
Absolutely, it's a kind of everything you've
mentioned, here really is, isvery much common sense. It's
just so much, so much noise somuch, you know, just everything
else coming to life. And a lotof times people just don't want
to do it. But this was a greatchat, man, I really appreciate
it. So again, you know, for theaudience out there, we discussed
that, you know, change isconstant, right? And society
(36:25):
individually, within yourfamilies everywhere, right. And
the ways to kind of minimize ata high level a couple of points
is minimizing misalignment,having some sort of organization
or individual operating system.
And on top of that, having thatpersonal accountability, and
proper habits and behaviors tohelp support facilitate all
(36:46):
that. So then, before we leave,I'll give you a shout out for
your your program and everythingyou can you can tell but for the
listeners today, what is the onething just one thing for them to
do? You know, to execute onafter listening to on this chat?
Ben Sands (37:07):
Yeah, the number the highest level thing is simply be
intentional, right? Don't Don'tsleepwalk, right? Yeah, I know
you're a leader of the company.
It's not like you're eversleepwalking. But I want you to
take a moment right now, asyou're listening to this or
after you're listening to thisjust to pull up and say, what
are we really trying to buildhere? What are we really trying
to create what matters most? Andwhat matters least? And you as
(37:31):
leader? Once you can answer thatthose those essential questions,
then your job as leader is tospread that share that as
broadly and consistently as youpossibly can. Because the more
men and women that understandyour view of the world
understand what matters most andwhat matters least to you, the
more likely it is that you andthey will achieve the outcomes
(37:53):
that you're after.
Brad Ebenhoeh (37:55):
Love it be intentional. Perfect. So as we
begin to hear as much as give adamn perfectly exactly give a
damn, I love it. So as we as weleave here, where can the
audience members find you? Whatare you doing recently? Or
lately? Or where can they findsome motivation from Ben Sands?
Ben Sands (38:15):
Yeah, well, you know, I'm not a big motivational guy.
Again, it's all about execution,I can get you fired up in a
short, short amount of time. Butover the long term, it's all
about repetition and mastery,right? It's about doing the
basic boring things well, andconsistently over time, right?
It really is. Success inbusiness and life, you know,
comes down to the doing thebasic stuff, well, if they want
to, if you want to track medown, sandsleadership.com is my
(38:37):
website, you can email me atBen@sandsleadership.com, I get a
huge appetite for talkingthrough what's going on in
individual or given companies.
You know, you know, for thosewho want to work together, you
know, I've got a eight week,executive coaching bootcamp that
you go through with your team.
It's a really cool programallows you to create and sustain
(39:00):
alignment first and foremost,but then ultimately, to
implement some of these I theideas that I share, to upgrade
the operating system of yourcompany. And, of course, just as
important, upgrade your ownpersonal operating system. So we
can talk more and find moreabout all that at
sandsleadership.com.
Brad Ebenhoeh (39:22):
Love it. All right, Ben. Ben Sands, my friend
and colleague. Thanks for yourtime. Really appreciate it. Have
a good one.
Ben Sands (39:30):
My pleasure, Brad.
Thanks for having me.
Welcome to the Accountfully chat, episode three
with Ben sands. How're you doingtoday, Ben?
Ben Sands (00:15):
I'm doing great, Brad. Thanks for having me.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:17):
Awesome. Ben Sands is the CEO and founder of
sands leadership sandsleadership is an executive
coaching and training company,located here in Charleston,
South Carolina. I've known Benfor a little bit, and he's a
colleague and a friend. And I'mreally excited to have him on
board for the Accountfully chatdiscussion today. Hi, Ben, give
(00:37):
us a little background on sansleadership and what you do and
who you serve, and how you canhelp companies and founders.
Ben Sands (00:45):
Thanks, Brad. Yes, I mean, super high level, we
provide executive coaching andtraining, we work with teams
with a goal just to help theteams work better together. So
we've got sort of a unique modelof executive coaching, we coach
all the executives at the sametime. And we believe really
strongly that this is a veryeffective and efficient way to
(01:07):
learn and grow together to buildalignment across all aspects of
the organization. And, you know,we're going to talk a lot about
alignment here in ourconversation today. But, but
yeah, it's it's been I've beendoing this now for about 12
years, I think you and I andMeredith met seven or eight
years ago. But it's, it's it'sjust important work. There's
(01:31):
there's a lot of men and womenstruggling to create and achieve
the best outcomes that they'recapable of creating and
achieving. And that's ultimatelywhat we're we're in business to
do is really to help these menand women perform at their
highest and best level so thatthe organization grows in a
(01:53):
healthy and consistent way.
Brad Ebenhoeh (01:56):
Yes, exactly.
Love it. And as we were chattingwhen we, as we as I said, Ben as
we've known him for a decade orwhatever, but he, him it is his
company sands leadership didpresent to Accountfully, a
handful years ago, and wethought it invaluable from from
the leadership and some of theconcepts you chatted on. So we
wanted to kind of touch base, inhave you on the Accountfully
(02:17):
chat here, which the audienceis, you know, business owners,
founders, entrepreneurs, anybodyin business, anybody that just
wants to learn and grow, right?
As I've been, you know, engagedwith various entrepreneurs
around the country, the lastseveral years on the sales side
of our clients in variousnetworking events, conversations
that I have, like one thing andas well as being a entrepreneur
(02:42):
myself with having Accountfullyfor over a decade here, is
literally–one thing from a smallbusiness mindset, or even a
middle sized businesses ischange, right? The one thing is
constant is changed, not evenjust on the business side, but
on the life side. And what as wewere talking about, about
identifying some, you know,solutions for change, and how to
(03:03):
mitigate risk, whencircumstances change that you
plan for, I thought it was greatto have you on. And we're
looking forward to chatting onthat and to step back a little
bit. If we just look at the lastseveral years. From a change
standpoint, how it has impactedbusiness, I've listed off a
handful, which is it's beencrazy the last several years.
Right. And one is, you know,COVID, lock downs, you know, the
(03:26):
impact on small businesses, PPPfunding, EIDL funding, right?
Well, that completelydramatically changed things.
Locking down supply chains forinventory based companies. Right
to the next aspect of changescompletely changed the
workforce, right? Work from homenow. Hybrid workforce now what
do we do? Are we having goingback to face to face work? And
are people going to employeesgonna say no, or employers can
(03:48):
say no. So, you know, that's anaspect of change from a
leadership perspective.
Additionally, then, you know,the employees similar to that
concept had a ton of leverage,as about a year after COVID hit
in terms of jumping jobs andmarket opportunities with their
own employment and transitioningbetween jobs because literally,
the supply of employees explodedto each business because
(04:10):
everybody was remote. So insteadof just looking locally, in your
company, you are everywhere,right? So people jumped in, and
it was easy for employees to geta new job. You know, and the
most recent form of change ofmind for small businesses
specifically is the economicclimate specifically related to
like interest rates, the creditmarkets have been tightened down
less access to capital to raiseyour money or to raise money for
(04:31):
your company to to grow yourcompany to scale your company to
the next level. So as we kind oflook back on this change of from
just a pure, geopolitical, youknow, overall, like lifestyle
change from COVID, to thenemployer, employee labor market,
changes to, you know, to creditmarket changes and all that
stuff. So, as you can see,there's some example of change
(04:52):
and variables that have happenedto small businesses. So as I've
engaged in my audience and toour clients, our prospective
clients or network, like,clearly everybody has responded
differently, reacted emotionallydifferently, you know, either
went out of business or maybeexcelled or maybe been in the
middle. So this is kind of theforefront of the topic that I
(05:12):
want to touch base on, as youknow, you know, handing this off
to you, Ben in terms ofidentifying, you know, ways for
leaders to become better leadersand to help serve their business
better through constant change,because we know something else
is gonna change in 12 monthsanyway. So let's just prepare
ourselves for it.
Ben Sands (05:30):
Yeah, I mean, constant changes, if it feels
more acute right now, it justfeels like every that feels like
the ground is just shiftingunder everyone's feet. But in
reality, Brad, you know, ourwork–work and world–is defined
by constant change. And one ofthe things that I always remind
my leaders is that it's not thechange or the disruption that
(05:53):
kills companies. It is theresulting misalignment caused by
that change or caused by thatdisruption that ultimately
kills. I mentioned that wordbefore. And I come back to this
all the time, right, thechallenge that we as leaders
face is to maintain alignment,you know, despite all of both
the changing environmentalfactors and headwinds that we're
(06:16):
that we're experiencing, and Itypically find, Brad that you
see misalignment in two generaldirections or two general areas.
Number one, is the direction,right is like, you know, our
understanding, like what doessuccess look like? And by when,
and this is an important like,is that by when is really,
(06:37):
really important, right? Sosuccess, what does it mean?
Like, specifically, what are wetrying to achieve? And then
what's the timeframe that wehave to achieve that outcome?
And very often, like, changeunfolds, change occurs. And you
know that that resilience, thattoughness that lives in each one
of us often says, well, bygolly, I don't care what we're
(07:00):
dealing with, we're still gonnaget to that goal that we set a
month ago, six months ago, ayear ago, you know, change be
danged, right? I mean, I don'tcare about the change. And in
reality, like you do need torecalibrate, oftentimes
regularly to ensure that ourdefinition of success still make
sense in the context of the newenvironment that we're operating
(07:24):
in. Right, so that the firstarea of misalignment is
direction, right, we got a clearon what success looks like, and
you know, how much time we haveto achieve it? And then second,
it's a strategy misalignment.
Right? Once we know, you know,we can know what success looks
like if you know what we'retrying to do. But we can all
agree a vast amount ofmisalignment on the strategy,
(07:48):
meaning specifically how we'regoing to get there. And again,
that is not that's not, youknow, specific to this
particular time in history. Itis a constant process of
clarifying and testing new ideasand then assessing, you know, is
this working or not, and then,you know, recalibrating. So I
see this misalignment is thething that we really as leaders
(08:11):
need to be most aware of, andmisalignment in these two
specific categories, directionand strategy.
Brad Ebenhoeh (08:21):
Gotcha. That's a good starting point, couple of
follow ups from my end numberone, misalignment. To be clear,
this can be amongst variousstakeholders, right? Partners in
a business, CEO versus investorsof their company, CEO versus the
Board of the company's CEOversus employees or C level
executives, managers, middlemanagers, and their, you know,
(08:43):
direct reports, right? Is thatthat kind of what you're saying
it can encompass every aspect ofof relationships?
Ben Sands (08:50):
Yeah, and let's throw in one more for good measure
internal misalignment, right?
We've all been there where,like, one part of us wants to do
x, and the other part says, "No,it's too soon", or "that's too
fast", or "that's too", youknow, whatever, right. So we get
even have internal misalignmentthat we need to address. So
yeah, like all of those variousstakeholders require, you know,
(09:12):
or as leader, right, it isessential that you create
alignment across all thosevarious stakeholders. Now, not
all stakeholders are equal,right? Not all stakeholders are
equal. One of your jobs asleader is to decide, you know,
whose opinion matters most. Andagain, I see leaders getting
torn up, you know, tied in knotsover really trying to be
(09:34):
everything to everyone and makeeverybody happy. And that's one
of the first things realizationwhen you live through change,
right is to recognize that atthe end of the day, right, I
have to do what is right rightin the context of the business.
And then as leader you have todefine in a way prioritize the
stakeholders that you arelooking and working to serve.
(09:58):
Some times leaders don't like tohear that, but but in reality,
you have to decide.
Brad Ebenhoeh (10:06):
And then before going to the next step, so then
would it be then safe to saythat because information is
traveling so fast these days,and then the processing of data
and everything, again, is solike infinitely expansive than
it used to be that because ofthat, like the misalignment can
is can be, I guess, what is itmuch faster these day? Or it
(10:29):
can happen very fast. And it wasto fall off, like within a day
versus maybe, you know, a decadeor three decades ago, maybe it
took a week or two to fall off.
Right? So yeah, like, Is thatsafe to say? Like, it's just
everything's faster these days.
So identifying it, and beingmore agile is very important on
identifying misalignment?
Ben Sands (10:45):
Yeah, you know, so interesting, we have a lot more
data available to us. And intheory, that's great, right, we
got data. And Mike describedthat as sort of an objective
version of the truth. But wehave so much data now that the
pendulum has almost shifted,where it's become very, very
(11:06):
hard to differentiate the signalfrom the noise. Yeah. And so all
having all this data in onehand, should help, right, create
more alignment, here's what'shappening, here's why it's
happening. And here's what we'regonna do about it. But for most
organizations, especially smallto medium sized businesses, you
know, we're still running thecompany, right, we're still
(11:27):
building the product, we'restill selling the product. And
so it can be hard to then also,at the same time, kind of
process the higher level data tosay, okay, yes, we are moving in
the right direction, or no, weneed to move in a different
direction, and ultimately buildconsensus among the various
stakeholders that you justidentified. So it's, it's
(11:50):
ironic, because despite havingall this data, we don't always
dig into the data, certainlynot, you know, in a bid or
something, it's hard to figureout exactly what the data is
telling us. And so it doesn'tnecessarily beget more
misalignment, right, becausesome folks just don't actually
care or look at what the data istelling. But the data is hugely
(12:15):
important to creating the longterm kind of alignment that
we're talking about theessential kind of alignment that
you need to survive in thesekinds of environments.
Brad Ebenhoeh (12:23):
Perfect. All right, let's move on to the next
aspect of this chat that woulddiscuss misalignment. So then
how can we mitigatemisalignment? How can we promote
alignment?
Ben Sands (12:37):
Well, you know, there's no silver bullet here,
right? But if you are a leader,and you're saying, "hey, what
can I do to set my company upfor long term lasting success?",
What I often describe as healthyhigh performance, I am going to
encourage you as leader not tofocus necessarily on like the
short term goals yet, right? Themost important area to invest,
(12:59):
as a leader of building abusiness that you want to grow
and scale over time, is toinvest in the operating system
of the business. Now, what isthe operating system, it's
really like this small set ofhabits and practices that allow
the business to determine whereit is, where it's going, and
what it has to do to get there.
And this operating system is soimportant. It's how the business
(13:22):
behaves, how decisions are made,how we do what we do. And you
know, every company has anoperating system, right? Every
company has an operating system.
Most companies are notintentionally building that
operating system to optimize forthe outcomes that they're after.
And so when thing all heckbreaks loose, the first place to
(13:44):
look is have we put in place aset of systems that will allow
us to continue to move forwarddespite the uncertainty despite
the ambiguity of the currentenvironment? And if the answer
is no, or I'm not sure, then youknow, that's the that's the
first place to start.
Brad Ebenhoeh (14:02):
Gotcha. And this system can be a set of
principles. It can be the systemthat you use, on the back end of
your business, it can be systemsyou use to get customers, it can
be like this can again encompassall different ins and outs and
information sharing and datapoints on the people management
sides on the client managementside. Is that correct?
Ben Sands (14:25):
Yes, it can. And it does include all that stuff. I
like to really simplify it,Brad, you know, into roughly
five steps, right? Number one isclarifying the company vision.
Now you're gonna hear this word,you say, Oh, I got a vision or I
know what the vision. I justwant to clarify what I mean by
vision. A vision is a three yeardescription of the impact and
(14:49):
outcomes that you're trying tocreate. Unlike many of the
visions that I see companieshaving right this is not like a
pie in the sky. rainbows andunicorns kind of vision it A
very detailed, best guess as towhere we want to be in three
years time, impact and outcomes.
That's the first and it's reallythe most important piece first
(15:10):
step in his operating system.
Because if you don't, where areyou going? How are you ever
going to get there? Right. Andthat's what that vision is just
to say, like, this is where weare going. And then all of the
decision making in theorganization can ultimately, you
know, come back and align tothat vision, the vision becomes
the the our way of kind ofpressure testing, is this next
(15:32):
decision that we're consideringthis investment, this employee,
this new product line, is it Dowe believe that this is likely
to get us to that vision morequickly than if we didn't do
that right, or if we didotherwise. So the vision is the
first thing from a three yearvision, then you start to set 90
Day goals, right. And these aregoing to us follow that kind of
(15:53):
smart model, right? But veryspecific, outcome focused goals,
I often like to use andencourage my clients to use a
simple framework from x to y byz, a good goal is often going to
be written in that very specificand simple framework, where x is
the starting line, y is thefinish line, and z is the
(16:14):
deadline. And typically, the zshould always align to the end
of the quarter, it's easier tokind of keep keep track of
things. And then you're going todrop in so we get you know,
that's the general sense ofhere's where we're going. And
then the operating system isreally how do we make progress
against those goals on aquarterly basis? And that comes
down to I spent a lot of timejust thinking about how well are
(16:34):
we managing our time? Andspecifically, you know, are we
you know, are we meeting well,right, many companies wasting an
absurd or obnoxious amount oftime in low value meetings,
right meetings should be themost important time spent in
your organization, you should besolving real problems, right?
(16:54):
doing real work in thosemeetings. That's part of the
operating system, how we meetwhen we meet what we talk about
when we meet? And thenultimately, how do we create an
ongoing cadence ofaccountability? Right? How do we
ensure that we are makingprogress every day, and every
week, right towards the goalsthat we set. And then the last
piece of an operating systemgood operating system is gonna
(17:16):
be some form of review. And Irecommend my client companies at
least once every 90 days, you'repulling up and simply asking
what went well? what didn't goso well? What did we learn? And
based on all that information,what are we going to do going
forward? So really just fiveelements, I mean, there's a
whole bunch of other stuff bakedin there, but five things you
(17:36):
got to get right? Setting avision, setting good goals,
creating a cadence of meetingand accountability, and
ultimately, embedding a reviewand learning process into the
way you operate. I
Brad Ebenhoeh (17:52):
love it. I always, I think Sprint's short
term reassessment is key, I seeit from our end, from an
accounting finance perspective,people putting five year models
in place that are just pie inthe sky, or if you watch Shark
Tank, here's my forecast. Andlike, this is the dumbest opera
like it's so like, what is it?
What does this give you like itclearly yes, this is great, but
(18:12):
there's zero chance you evergonna execute at that specific
level? So I think I love theshort term I love I love the the
reassessment, but also, like,what if your entire operating
system just isn't good? Or whatif like, this process in place
is like, Well, my vision isn'tright. My goals, my objectives
aren't right. Like, like, how doyou how does that work?
Ben Sands (18:36):
What if you got a crappy plan? Right? I'm one of
my favorite quotes. Mike Tyson.
Right, everyone had a plan tobeat me until I punched him in
the face. We get punched in theface, every single day as
leaders of businesses right backto
Brad Ebenhoeh (18:48):
the chain. Right?
That's
Ben Sands (18:50):
always bad. But Brad, you've seen this right?
Companies spending massiveamount of time and energy
creating what I described as theperfect plan, right, the off
site retreat, you know, holdthem hands, Kumbaya, we got
this, like beautiful thing,maybe we got to, you know,
images, it's like pictured onthe wall. And literally, within,
(19:10):
you know, 3060 90 days, thewhole thing is obsolete, because
something has changed in thatmarket. Like we can't go like we
have to expect or assume that athings are gonna change and be
that we probably didn't puttogether the perfect plan.
Right, but not having theperfect plan is not an excuse
not to take action. And that'sthe difference, right? These are
(19:30):
the teams that really surviveand thrive in these
environments. Brad, are justembrace that reality that hey,
we probably don't have thisexactly right. But that's okay.
Because we've got a system setup that will allow us to move
forward. And if in fact, we'renot on track, right, if in fact,
it's not the right direction,our system will catch the issue
(19:53):
right will ensure that we don'tget too far down a path such
that we're now feeling anenormous amount of regret and
Dealing with sort of sunk costfear. And you know, that kind of
what I call mind trash thattends to set in. So yeah, I
mean, five year plan here,someone's five year plan, I
always say like, Hey, I'm goingto save get two years on that
(20:14):
five year plan. How's thatsound? Right? And everybody
loves when I go talk to leadersabout this, everybody gets the
three year versus the five year,right, three years is long
enough to get just aboutanything accomplished. But it's
short enough that you've got toget started now, how often have
you seen, you know, companies,again, offset retreat,
(20:35):
consultants creating this fiveyear vision, and it's literally
like a year prep, to get startedexecuting against the vision.
And by the time you even start,that vision is obsolete. So I
really encourage a lessintensive form of, of defining
(20:56):
and shaping strategic direction.
And really, again, investingheavily in making sure that our
ability to execute is
Brad Ebenhoeh (21:02):
as good as it can be. Yeah, it's, uh, you know,
the, I think at Accountfully,what we've done here is very,
like we've moved fast enough,but organically enough to where
it's been kind of a minimalviable product aspect of what
you're talking about here. We'renot sitting here writing books
or Bibles or, you know, having1000 meetings and what does our
OS are our policies andconversation or documentation,
(21:27):
but we know what our vision is,we know what our objectives are.
And then we're meetingconsistently on this stuff. And
guess what, when we have tochange or like to your concept
of I think organizational debthere, like policy out the door,
we need to iterate and changebecause now employees want to
work from home. And employees,as long as you know, the there
are finite resources of our andif they're talented, and then
get the work done, does thatreally matter? Versus coming to
(21:49):
the office? You know, that'sjust an aspect of like, alright,
iterate, change, boom, implementnew policies. So I think I love
about this concept that we'rechatting anything else on
organizational debt before wemove on?
Ben Sands (22:00):
No, I just, I just wanted to just for the folks who
are listening, you just used theterm that might not be all that
well understood. But it's reallyan important idea. And that's
this idea of a minimum viableproduct. And this concept came
from a book called The LeanStartup. And it was this
exploration as to like, what doyou know, the most successful
startup companies do differentlythan everybody else? And in that
(22:22):
book, there's one wonderfulexample. And that's Zappos. Do
you remember the Zappos example?
Brad, I don't know if you. Butjust for the audience here, it's
such a great example, right?
This some crazy guy thought itwas a good idea to sell shoes on
the internet, and 99 out of 100,probably 100, out of 100, people
that he pitched this idea to,we're like, you're insane,
(22:44):
nobody's going to buy a pair ofshoes that they can't first try
on. And yet he felt that he'slike, I think this can work. So
he's going to the market,nobody's given them any money.
And so he comes up decides tocreate a minimum viable product.
So at that point, and this is, Idon't know, 15, 20 years ago,
it's a while back, right? So hegoes in, he builds a website,
(23:07):
then it goes downstairs, there'sa shoe company, shoe store, in
the building that he was workingin, goes in, starts taking
pictures of the shoes on theshelf, goes back, uploads these
pictures onto his website, itsays shoes for sale.com, right,
something like that. And, andputs it out there as a test to
see if anyone actually will buyshoes on the internet. And lo
(23:30):
and behold, the orders startedto come in. And at the time, I
just love it. Because he wouldliterally if an order came in,
he'd go downstairs to the shoestore, buy the shoes himself,
pack them in a box and send themout, you know, he lost money on
these initial transactions. Butwhat he gained was the
credibility and belief that thisidea could actually work. Fast
forward, you know, 10 years fromthat point. And Zappos is sold
(23:53):
to Amazon for a billion dollars.
That's what I it's a greatexample of a minimum viable
product, what's the minimumamount you can or need to do in
order to validate yourassumptions about what people
will or won't do? And Brad, Ijust see so many companies
agonizing over what's thespecific or perfect next step?
My encouragement is always hey,let's try it doesn't it doesn't
(24:17):
have to be perfect. Let's justget out there and try it. You
know, maybe prioritize, buythings that are lowest cost and
easiest to test. But get outthere and start testing these
ideas. Sadly, nobody's got acrystal ball. Nobody really
knows. And so again, if you havea system that allows you to test
new ideas, and quickly getfeedback and validate those
ideas is either something todouble down on and continue to
(24:40):
invest in or something to say,hey, we tried it, it didn't
work. That's again, that's wherethe system becomes so essential.
Brad Ebenhoeh (24:49):
yeah, I think there's a there's just an
overall block and some people ofjust execution people just don't
like to execute and try thingsand it's just like,
hypotheticals, conversations,meetings...and it's like, "no,
let's go" let's execute and seewhat happens. And if it sucks
throughout the door, let's moveon. If it's great, awesome, if
it's in the middle, iterate,move on adjust and go. But yes,
(25:13):
great, great, great concept. AndI do think it's about being
valued like our organization.
And as we move forward. So lastthing I want to kind of touch
on, so we talked aboutmisalignment, we talked about
organizational operating system.
And then what about just lookingat the individual, like, what
one of the things that theindividual can do from you know,
their habits, behaviors, etc. Tohelp facilitate I'll what we've
(25:36):
talked about?
Ben Sands (25:37):
Yeah. Oh, Brad, I'm so glad you asked about this.
This is we missed this. Becauseit's that again, it's not that
sexy. And you say, like nobodylikes to execute, I often say
like, nobody likes to do theboring stuff. But like, what
Elon Musk call his holdingcompany, the boring one of the
most dynamic companies in thehistory of the world, right?
(25:59):
Boring company. And I thinkKizzy gets it right. The the
boring stuff is what is whatmatters the most. And, you know,
I can I admit, I am guilty ofthis, as much as any CEO or
founder that I work with juststrategy and coming up with new
ideas is sexy, it's exciting.
It's fun, right? The execution,the blocking and tackling is the
(26:20):
kind of stuff I don't really runto. And yet, it's the it's that
boring stuff that makes all thedifference in terms of the
outcomes that you create overtime. And this is where, you
know, come back to the, youknow, the individual. And again,
I say it's overlooked. Brad,there's no a lot of companies
are talking about how do wecreate a winning culture? How do
we create like the best place towork, I love that. And I love
(26:42):
that, that instinct and thatinspiration all day, like,
please invest on building anamazing culture. There's that
old quote, culture beatsstrategy every day. And that is
absolutely true. But there's onething that you need to keep in
mind, as you spend timeconceiving of the perfect
workplace, identifying theperfect blend of benefits and
(27:04):
perks, you know, to attract andretain your team. Remember this,
that no 401k Matching Program,no free lunch or other company
perk can outweigh the negativecosts and consequences of a bad
personal operating system. Themost important drivers of the
(27:29):
performance of your team isoften the stuff that is
happening outside the four wallsof work, right. And I use this
as an example. Not literally,but you know, just as an
example, you can have theperfect company culture, the
perfect organization, right. Butwhen an employee leaves that,
you know, your, you know, theOffice for the day, if they go
(27:53):
home, and they party all night,don't sleep awake, right and
roll back into your organizationat eight o'clock the next day,
it doesn't matter what kind ofculture you have created or
conceived, that individual isnot going to perform at his or
her highest and best level,right? So we really have to meet
people where they are, we haveto meet our employees where they
(28:15):
are, and help them to understandthat just like great companies,
great personal performancedepends on your systems, right?
What you how you create this,you can series of habits and
practices that you personallylive by, or you know, and live
your life by. And so I just giveyou a couple of examples of
things that I see again, forfolks who are listening in here,
(28:35):
things to be looking for, in andamong your your employees. Brad,
let me start with a question foryou. Right, if you had to guess.
When most professionals right,in any given organization, when
they show up at work, and theysit down at their desk, what do
most professionals do? What'sthe first thing that most
(28:58):
professional men and women do tostart their day?
Brad Ebenhoeh (29:03):
When they sit at their desk already?
Ben Sands (29:05):
Yeah, when they sit down to start their day, they
probably
Brad Ebenhoeh (29:09):
look at their cell phone and check their
social media and their textmessages.
Ben Sands (29:13):
Oh, gosh, hopefully it's not social media. But
that's like the next level,right? What I find is that most
will say I opened my inbox rightand start reading in response to
seeing I want to see what's inmy inbox. Brad, you've heard it,
you know it, you know thisreality, right? Just across all
your client companies. You'veprobably seen a little bit of at
Accountfully as well. There's alot of men and women that are
(29:35):
feeling exhausted, overwhelmedand burned out right now. I like
to jokingly and lovingly tellthese men and women and I always
take a poll in my coachingprograms. I'm always getting
like a survey of like, how arepeople starting their day 85% Of
the men and women with whom Iwork before they go through my
coaching program, of course.
check their email within 15minutes of waking up, not just
(29:57):
getting to work, but of wakingup and another, you know,
there's some selection of thatpopulation that likes to joke,
they don't even get out of bed,right? They don't even get out
of bed before they're looking attheir email inbox. And, you
know, I like to again lovinglyand jokingly say, like, if you
want to, if you want toguarantee or accelerate the
speed at which you feelexhausted, overwhelmed and
(30:19):
burned out, check your emailfirst thing in the morning, your
email inbox, and Brad you knowthis to be your email inbox is
somebody else's to do list, youremail inbox is somebody else's
to do list, right? So that's howmost of us 85% of these, like
manager plus level leaders arewaking up and saying, "Hey, what
(30:40):
does everybody else in the worldwant me to do today?" Right? Is
it any surprise that most ofthese men and women are getting
to the end of the day saying,Oh, my gosh, I just worked my
tail off all day long. And Ididn't get any of my most
important stuff done. And that'swhere like, I like to say,
again, lovingly and jokingly,that's on you. Right? That's an
that's a personal operatingsystem flaw. Right? You are
(31:02):
trying to be responsive, you aretrying to care about others, and
serve others and support others.
And that is awesome. Except thatyou have made the number one
mistake of all mistakes is, youknow, the whole airline thing,
you didn't put your oxygen maskon first, you didn't get your
most important work done first.
Right? You can't give what youdon't have. And so, you know,
simply put, you know, goodpersonal operating system almost
(31:25):
inevitably starts with someamount of planning. And I
recommend five minutes, right? Igive people got little give
people a little planning sheet,right takes five minutes to fill
this thing out. Quick reflectionon how yesterday went? Well,
what were where did I winyesterday, which allows you to
build them a little momentumcoming into the day, you know,
(31:46):
ahead. And then a simpleidentification of the most
important things you need to getdone today. Right. And then of
course, when you get into thedetails, again, this is the
operating system. Once you havea plan, then you've got to go
start allocating time andenergy, right. So I'll, my
clients will take that plan, andthen immediately go into their
(32:07):
calendar and block the time theyneed to execute on those most
important priorities, that doestwo things, one massively
improves the chance that theirmost important stuff will get
done. But two, and this isreally important for
compassionate, caring leaders.
It allows people it gives theman opportunity to say no with
(32:30):
kindness, because a lot of theexecutives I work with, they
don't have their calendar, theydon't have a day planned out,
right. And as a result, whensomebody comes to them asking
for help, they feel compelled tosay yes to that request. And
it's all goes back to the factthat it's it's really hard to
say no to someone who's askingyou for help. Unless you're
(32:51):
intentionally saying yes tosomething else. Right? So if you
come to me and say, Hey, Ben,Can I Can you? Can I get five
minutes, 10 minutes, just take alook at something real quick. If
I don't have something else onmy calendar that I was already
going to do at the time, whenI'm asked for that help,
basically, in order to say no, Ihave to say, Well, I'm not going
to help you. Because while Idon't know exactly what is more
(33:14):
important than you at thismoment in time, I know that
something or someone is moreimportant than you at this
moment in time. So see youlater, right, get lost, it
doesn't work that way. So, theselittle elements of just two
little examples of what youknow, better operating system or
how the operating system theindividual operating system
(33:35):
plays such an important role inin not just individual
performance, but ultimately mapsback directly to the performance
of the team and ultimately theorganization.
Brad Ebenhoeh (33:47):
Love that goes back to back to the individual.
And I remember my cousin at onepoint told me that from an
individual, you know, aspect,you are the CEO of your own
life, you know what I'm saying?
So it's very applicable to thiswhere, hey, individually, you're
the CEO, you need to do the samethings interpersonally,
(34:07):
individually to then facilitateteam wide success and
organizational success and thewhole nine yards. So I feel like
you just give me a pep talk. I'mgonna go grab that helmet off
the back cabinet there and runthrough the tunnel.
Ben Sands (34:23):
Hey, can I just say one thing though? And speaking
to you and Meredith, right?
Obvouslt have this unique andamazing partnership. You've
grown this company together,right? You know, side by side?
Well, you know, you are CEO ofyour own life, but you are if
you are married, you're in along term committed
relationship. You are the Co-CEO of your family as well. And,
(34:44):
you know, again, just like youknow, partying all night does
not set you up for maximumperformance at work. You know,
if if you're if yourrelationship is is if you're
going through a difficult timein your relationship, right or
If you're children, right, ifyou have children or not, are
struggling, right, we bring thatstuff too into the organization,
(35:07):
whether we want to or not,right? It comes with us. And so
I am often quick to remind mythe leaders that with whom I
work, that so many of the thingsthat we sort of take for granted
and know to work in terms ofbringing a team together and
working better, better together,also work at home. So, you know,
case in point, my wife and Ihave a weekly team meeting,
(35:30):
where we just get aligned onwhat matters most and what
matters least, and do our bestto set expectations and better
understand the expectations ofour spouse. And again, it seems
sort of obvious and selfevident. But you know, most of
the leaders with whom I work,when I share that with them,
(35:50):
they're always like, oh, man,yeah, of course, we should do
that. And why don't we do that?
You know, typically, becausebecause it gets lost in the
shuffle. Of all the other stuffthat we've got competing for our
time and attention.
Brad Ebenhoeh (36:03):
Absolutely, it's a kind of everything you've
mentioned, here really is, isvery much common sense. It's
just so much, so much noise somuch, you know, just everything
else coming to life. And a lotof times people just don't want
to do it. But this was a greatchat, man, I really appreciate
it. So again, you know, for theaudience out there, we discussed
that, you know, change isconstant, right? And society
(36:25):
individually, within yourfamilies everywhere, right. And
the ways to kind of minimize ata high level a couple of points
is minimizing misalignment,having some sort of organization
or individual operating system.
And on top of that, having thatpersonal accountability, and
proper habits and behaviors tohelp support facilitate all
(36:46):
that. So then, before we leave,I'll give you a shout out for
your your program and everythingyou can you can tell but for the
listeners today, what is the onething just one thing for them to
do? You know, to execute onafter listening to on this chat?
Ben Sands (37:07):
Yeah, the number the highest level thing is simply be
intentional, right? Don't Don'tsleepwalk, right? Yeah, I know
you're a leader of the company.
It's not like you're eversleepwalking. But I want you to
take a moment right now, asyou're listening to this or
after you're listening to thisjust to pull up and say, what
are we really trying to buildhere? What are we really trying
to create what matters most? Andwhat matters least? And you as
(37:31):
leader? Once you can answer thatthose those essential questions,
then your job as leader is tospread that share that as
broadly and consistently as youpossibly can. Because the more
men and women that understandyour view of the world
understand what matters most andwhat matters least to you, the
more likely it is that you andthey will achieve the outcomes
(37:53):
that you're after.
Brad Ebenhoeh (37:55):
Love it be intentional. Perfect. So as we
begin to hear as much as give adamn perfectly exactly give a
damn, I love it. So as we as weleave here, where can the
audience members find you? Whatare you doing recently? Or
lately? Or where can they findsome motivation from Ben Sands?
Ben Sands (38:15):
Yeah, well, you know, I'm not a big motivational guy.
Again, it's all about execution,I can get you fired up in a
short, short amount of time. Butover the long term, it's all
about repetition and mastery,right? It's about doing the
basic boring things well, andconsistently over time, right?
It really is. Success inbusiness and life, you know,
comes down to the doing thebasic stuff, well, if they want
to, if you want to track medown, sandsleadership.com is my
(38:37):
website, you can email me atBen@sandsleadership.com, I get a
huge appetite for talkingthrough what's going on in
individual or given companies.
You know, you know, for thosewho want to work together, you
know, I've got a eight week,executive coaching bootcamp that
you go through with your team.
It's a really cool programallows you to create and sustain
(39:00):
alignment first and foremost,but then ultimately, to
implement some of these I theideas that I share, to upgrade
the operating system of yourcompany. And, of course, just as
important, upgrade your ownpersonal operating system. So we
can talk more and find moreabout all that at
sandsleadership.com.
Brad Ebenhoeh (39:22):
Love it. All right, Ben. Ben Sands, my friend
and colleague. Thanks for yourtime. Really appreciate it. Have
a good one.
Ben Sands (39:30):
My pleasure, Brad.
Thanks for having me.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com