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November 12, 2024 50 mins

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In this episode of The Wayfinder Show, host Luis Hernandez interviews Nicholas Capman, CEO of the FDA Group and author of 'The Passionate Workforce.' They discuss the importance of setting realistic goals, employee engagement, and fostering a passionate workforce. Capman shares insights from his book, including 15 key pillars for employee engagement, the benefits of profit-sharing versus merit-based compensation, and the significance of habits in achieving long-term goals. 

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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
People want to be able to hittheir goals, but they also want

(00:03):
to be challenged, right?
So if my goal is too small and Iachieve it, do I feel a sense of
accomplishment?
No.
If my goal is too high and Ikeep missing it over and over
again, is that going to fosterpassion?
Absolutely not.
It's got to be something withinthe realm of realism.

(00:29):
Welcome to The Wayfinder Showwith Luis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
area of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.

(00:51):
Come join us and find the way toyour dream life.
Hey, everyone.
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(01:11):
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(02:18):
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Thank you.
And now back to our show.

(02:38):
Welcome back to the Wayfindershow.
I'm your host, Louis Hernandez.
And today I'm here with NicholasKappmann.
Nicholas has led the FDA groupsince December of 2006, building
an award winning firm that helpslife science organizations
access top tier consultants,contractors, and candidates
across all stages of the productlifecycle.

(03:01):
With a strong background inquality, compliance, regulatory
affairs, clinical research,validation, and enterprise wide
software, Nicholas is recognizedfor his expertise and successful
history in the FDA regulatedindustry.
Nicholas recently published ThePassionate Workforce.
How to create and maintainmaximum employee engagement.

(03:25):
The book focuses on creating andmaintaining employee engagement
and has received praise for itsinsightful strategies.
Nicholas, welcome to theWayfinder show.
Thank you very much, Louis.
I appreciate you having me on.
We're going to talk about whatyou actually provide as a
service.
We're just placing goodcandidates and how that has
probably made you develop a goodradar for leadership and such, I

(03:49):
would imagine.
I would also imagine that's whatled to your book, and I'm just
going to ask at a really highlevel.
Why is it important for aworkforce, and employees to be,
passionate about their work?
Well, the way I would answerthat is if we, We think of
ourselves individually.
we've all been in jobs wherewe've been passionate and we've

(04:12):
also had jobs where we've beenresentful.
And if you think about thosejobs that you've had, where you
were passionate, you can recallthe types of behaviors that you
engaged in, right?
you showed up early, you weremotivated and ambitious.
You were creative, innovative,willing to help do the extras.

(04:32):
spread, a positive atmospherewithin the environment.
then you can also remember thosejobs that you had where you were
resentful.
Same person, differentbehaviors, right?
You didn't show up on time.
You didn't care about thequality of your work.
Badmouthing the company or yourboss.
You weren't innovative andcreative.
You weren't helpful.

(04:53):
So, over time, what I came torealize is that we as leaders
and managers want the most outof our people.
And there's lots of differentways that we can maximize the
output from our workforce.
The angle that I wanted toattack that big question and

(05:17):
challenge from was gettingpeople into the right mindset,
whereby they can put themselvesin a position to provide a
maximum output for their team.
And so the way I look at it isif I can get my workforce into a

(05:37):
mindset where they absolutelylove their job.
And they feel passionate aboutit, then there's a better chance
than not that they're going tobe exerting those behaviors that
is commonplace with people thathave that type of mindset.
Yeah.
So, I mean, when I hear that,I'm thinking ultimately about

(06:02):
company culture, right?
One that just breeds passion andone that doesn't.
we see both, you know, I thinkright away a very passionate
culture might be, the oldSouthwest Airlines, right?
There was been tons of, HarvardBusiness Studies, cases of their
old culture and I did that in myMBA.
Yeah, same here.
it was one of my favorite casestudies actually and I became a

(06:24):
loyalist to Southwest and upuntil recently I mean I because
of that in raising my kids andeverything.
We just loved, you know We couldhave taken any airline, but we
loved them because they gavethem the little wings and they
sang happy birthday to them andyou know, all these different
things with kids.
They were just so great withcompany culture, right?
Costco is another good one,right?
This is very, low level work,but people go there and they're

(06:47):
there for many, many, manyyears.
And I remember that case studyas well.
all the MBA programs around thecountry all use the same
program.
Business studies, right?
We are okay.
We're all essentially studentsof Harvard Business School
because that's all the ones whowrite all the case studies at
the end of the day, We're justnot paying the HBS, tuition
there, I guess, but we'regetting the same network, I'm

(07:09):
curious, you know, in yourindustry, you come from the
pharmaceutical industry, uh,mostly, right, in, in, in food,
the food and drug industry,essentially, right?
Not to get semantics, but Iwould call it life sciences.
so what I would define it ispharmaceuticals, biologics and
medical devices.
So while FDA stands for the Foodand Drug Administration, we

(07:33):
don't actually do any consultingwithin the food realm.
Thank you for the correction.
why don't we just backtrackfirst?
So I have a really goodunderstanding.
So your company, tell us alittle bit more about what it is
and what you do there.
simply stated, we help.
Pharmaceutical biologic medicaldevice companies, with the FDA.

(07:54):
So just like you would hire anaccountant to help you with the
IRS, or you would hire a lawyerto help you with the DOJ.
they hire us to help them withthe FDA.
interesting.
so these companies, that developdrugs and biologics and medical
devices, just like everybodyhave projects that they need to
do.
sometimes when it comes to thoseprojects, They don't have a

(08:18):
specific skill set within aparticular area that they need
help with, right?
So good example is I've got abunch of scientists.
We're developing drugs We knowhow to manufacture them and at
the same time we have to complywith FDA regulations But I don't
have anybody that's an expertsubject matter expert on those
regulations So I need to contactthe FDA I'm working on a

(08:41):
project.
I don't Have enough staff to getme through the project that I'm
on in the timeline that I needto complete it by.
In that regard, they wouldcontact us and we would provide
them with those temporaryresources and then lastly, as
companies expand and they needto hire full time employees.
Sometimes they need help inrecruiting those employees.

(09:02):
And that also is a service thatwe 3 different engagement models
consulting.
and staff augmentation and fulltime employee recruitment.
Oh, got it.
Okay.
So, so with that in mind, whatled you to write a book of, you
know, about workforce engagementand would that apply to the

(09:23):
placement piece?
Well, I'll get into how it allcame about.
So I'm a member of Vistage,which is a CEO advisory group.
And, at some point, I startedgetting comments that I thought
differently and I would hearthis.
Over and over again, and whatthat told me was that I wasn't

(09:48):
just regurgitating things that Ilearned from my MBA and, Harvard
business school or, books that Iwas reading.
I was taking all of thisinformation that I had
accumulated, put it into acauldron and came out with my
own mixture.
And once I realized that myphilosophy.

(10:09):
was unique.
I said, well, that's a value.
That's a value add.
so at that point I just createda word document and I called it
book notes.
And one of the things that Ifound.
About myself is I would repeatmantras and stories over and
over again, or philosophies.

(10:30):
And so every time I caughtmyself saying something that I
thought was really core to mybelief system, I would write it
down in that book notesdocument.
And then I saw an advertisementfor Scribe Media on LinkedIn,
and I really liked theirmessaging and what they had to
say in terms of helping somebodylike me create and promote a

(10:56):
book.
And that was how I got started.
Tell us what is it about youthat is so different?
how do you, foster a passionateworkforce?
I have, 15 pillars, that I thinkare the most important.
In terms of creating apassionate workforce, and I

(11:18):
created an assessment tool sothat leaders and managers can
rate themselves and have theirteam rate them on how they are
doing with each of those 15pillars and my philosophy and
the rating structure, the way Ido it is very similar to NPS
scoring.

(11:39):
So if anybody's familiar withnet promoter score, I use the
same scale, and the samemeasurements.
The only thing that I do is Iuse that NPS, scoring system for
each of the 15 pillars.
if you can score a nine or abovein a particular area, I would
say.
you're a champion leader.
If you're between, seven andnine, you're a competent leader,

(12:04):
but there's room forimprovement.
And if you're below a seven, theterm I use is toxic leader.
And that's where you really needto focus on that particular
pillar and how you can get thescore up.
Wow.
That's great.
I mean, I can think of a bunchof places I've worked where I
would have loved for all of usto take that assessment.

(12:24):
You know, I would say that'sprobably the most common thing I
hear after I introduce what thebook is, is that comment right
there.
That's what I always hear.
So, let's go through thepillars.
Could we?
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
Or at least, I mean, it's 15.
Do you want me to kind of gothrough all 15?

(12:46):
Maybe I would love to hear thelist and maybe we could just
touch on, a few of them.
Yeah, absolutely.
but I'd love to hear what theyall are, and then we just dive
into a couple.
So it's, give clear direction,provide the necessary tools to
complete the job, empoweremployees to make decisions on
their own, operate with thegreater good in mind, respect

(13:08):
employees bandwidth, set clearexpectations, communicate
Respectfully and candidlydetermine an acceptable team
meeting cadence, conduct regularone on one meetings, offer
rewards and recognition, assessemployees job satisfaction,

(13:32):
cultivate strong, resilientrelationships, ensure employees
feel a sense of purpose,compensate your workforce
appropriately, and achieve agood work life blend.
Okay, so none of those soundedlike super.
Unusual to me, right?
I would imagine putting anemphasis on all of them would

(13:53):
separate a champion from acompetent and toxic leader.
Yeah, I think one of the thingsthat I like about the 15 Pillars
is I think it's thorough and itencapsulates everything.
I think sometimes as leaders andmanagers, we know we're doing
things, Correctly, we know someof the buzzwords offering

(14:15):
rewards and recognition, right?
But what I wanted to do is Ithink some people say, but am I
doing everything?
Is there anything I'm missing?
And so with the 15 pillars, Ithink that is a nice list where
you can say, okay, I'm notmissing anything.
This is it.
This is the list.
Okay.
So even if you knew I had tooffer rewards and recognition,

(14:40):
how do I know that I'm doing itcorrectly?
and what is the best way tooffer rewards and recognition?
So I know I'm supposed to do it.
But how am I supposed to do it?
what is the best method?
What's the best practice?
And then if I believe that I'velearned the best practice about
offering rewards andrecognition, how do I measure

(15:01):
that to make sure that Iactually am optimizing my
ability to deliver on thatpromise as a leader and manager.
So that is really one of thethings that I think is a benefit
of the book is you don't have toworry about, am I missing
anything?
you don't have to worry about.

(15:22):
am I doing things the correctway?
And it also encourages you tomeasure so that, you know, for
certain, if you're achieving,the results that you believe are
necessary.
So I'm curious when you takethis assessment, is this a self

(15:42):
assessment or is this somethingkind of like the 360 assessments
where you hand it off to yourworkforce and others as well as
your own?
I encourage people to do both.
because I want, The leader andmanager to see if their
perspective of themselvesmatches with what the team says.
so you as a leader and managerwould actually go and write

(16:03):
yourself one to 10 on all ofeach of these, understanding
that nine and above is achampion leader, seven to nine
is a competent leader andanything below that is a.
toxic leader.
then you send out an anonymoussurvey to the people that report

(16:23):
to you and you take the averageof all of their responses for
each of the pillars.
So if you have six peoplereporting to you, they will,
each of them will rank you on ascale of one to 10 for each of
those 15 pillars.
Where are you excelling andwhere are you not excelling?

(16:44):
So I do it annually.
I don't have a strong opinion onhow often people do this.
I think quarterly is probablytoo much.
I think anything more than ayear is not often enough.
so that's generally my guidance.
But, I went ahead and did thisand, you know, not to humbly,

(17:05):
you know, humble brag, but I wasable to achieve nine and above
on 14.
on one of them, I got an 8.
86, which was compensate yourworkforce appropriately.
So, Give him a raise, Nicholas.
So I knew that I was competentand I understood that that was

(17:26):
an area that I could improveupon.
So, how I recommend that peopledo it is their self assessment
and an anonymous survey forthose people that report to them
and then take those two numbers,the one you gave yourself and
the one that your team gave you,and that will tell you if you
got a good pulse.
On yourself and how you are as aleader and manager, because if

(17:48):
you have more than two standarddeviations, from what your team
is reporting, that's a wake upcall.
There's a disconnect, right?
And it could be either way,right?
I mean, I'm typically Thinkingthat we as leaders and managers
are going to rate ourselves as a10 and then find out we're a
six, but you're absolutelyright.
I might think I'm a six, butactually they tell me I'm a 10

(18:11):
and perspective, you know,perception is reality.
So, you know, at the end of theday, there's two ways you can
look at it.
if I rate myself as a six, butmy team rates me as a nine,
which one is true?
And I think both answers arevalid.
With that said, I believe thatthe 10 is the correct number

(18:32):
because that's the perception ofmy staff.
And I think that is moreimportant than what I think is
true.
you know, one of the analogies Ilike to use is if I have a
yellow pen and I ask 30 people,what color is this pen?
And 30 people say it's purple.
Is the pen.

(18:52):
Yellow, or is it purple?
I can understand both answers.
My opinion, if I'm going toanswer that, is it is purple,
because 30 people have agreedthat it's purple.
So, in my opinion, perception isreality.
Now, if we want to get intoscience and all that stuff, and,
well, I actually proved it, andeverybody's wrong, okay, you can

(19:13):
argue with me that way, but Ithink the general idea and
concept makes sense.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
I'm curious.
Actually, we'll save thisquestion for the end.
But let's go through some of thepillars.
If we can highlight, let's saythree that you think are most,
most important.
Like I hear those and I'mthinking compensation is kind of

(19:36):
where it starts, right?
We all kind of go for a jobbased on what it's going to pay.
I mean, not just that, but, youknow, it's got to have a floor,
right?
So, uh, I don't really want tofocus too much on that one.
You talked about purpose, havinga sense of purpose, I'm curious
what you think, how they weighcompared to some of the others.
Yeah.

(19:56):
I mean, I've had obviouslypeople read the book and I've
gotten some feedback, so I thinkI could probably touch on some
pillars because some of themhave a unique perspective
believe it or not, compensateyour workforce appropriately.
I have actually a uniqueperspective on.
But, you know, I would say, apillar two, which is provide the
necessary tools to do your job.

(20:19):
actually, I got to go back topillar two, because pillar 14,
which is compensate yourworkforce appropriately,
actually ties in with that.
So let me ask you to startthere.
one of the things that Ipromote, and I would say that
this is probably controversialis I'm not a fan of merit based
compensation.

(20:39):
right now that doesn't mean thatemployees don't have goals and
they're responsible to hit thosegoals.
I grew up in sales.
And so I've had lots ofdifferent commission and bonus
programs.
One of the things that I'vefound is the more you tweak And
add things to a compensationplan.

(21:02):
The more loopholes you havecreated for me to abuse that
program.
Okay.
And, and that's just the truthof the matter.
We as human beings respond toincentives and.
Disincentives, and if you'recreating a plan where it's not
simple and straightforward, andit's got a bunch of ifs, ands,

(21:24):
and buts, I am going to studythat, and I'm going to find a
way that I can maximize thatplan to my benefit, and here's
the unfortunate truth.
What that compensation plan hascreated is a pathway for me to
not do what is in the bestinterest of the company at a

(21:46):
hundred percent, I would argue.
Now that compensation programdoesn't mean all of a sudden now
I'm completely not doing my joband abusing it.
What it does mean is you're notgetting a hundred percent of
what I can offer.
You might be getting 80 percentor 90 percent or some other
percentage.
So what I believe in and whatI've implemented at my company

(22:08):
is profit sharing.
Everybody gets profit sharingand that does a number of
things.
the most important thing that itdoes is it makes sure that
everybody's rowing in the samedirection.
so let's use merit basedcompensation program.
And because I came from salesand that's what I'm familiar
with, that's the example I'mgoing to use.

(22:28):
Okay.
So let's say, my job as asalesperson is to, and we'll go
to my company because again, I'mfamiliar with my company.
I have to sell staff, I have toput people in positions so they
can work.
The more people I place, themore money the company makes,
and then I get my bonuses.
there might be a team that'sresponsible for helping me to
put that person.

(22:50):
in there, right?
We'll call them like arecruitment team and they have
to go and find the correctpeople.
Well, that recruitment teamprobably isn't just helping me.
They're probably helping a bunchof other salespeople.
Well, now I want to make surethey're spending the vast
majority of their time workingon mine and not somebody else's.

(23:13):
So now I begin politicking.
Because I am a self profitmaximizer and I want, to hit my
goals and make the most money Ican, politicking is not a good
thing, right?
Yeah.
And, the politicking I'm doingso that I can place my person
might not actually be in thebest interest of the company

(23:35):
because the other salesperson,their deal might be much bigger.
But because I'm really good atpoliticking, I've got that
recruiter working on mine andnot theirs.
So now you can see anopportunity where a merit based
compensation program is creatingsome sort of strife within the
operations of that company.

(23:57):
Now in a profit sharingperspective.
I look at my opportunity, I lookat the other person's
opportunity, we collectivelyagree that that other
opportunity is bigger and moreimportant and it will make the
company more money and it willmake all of us more money
because we all get to benefitfrom the profit of the

(24:18):
organization.
Here's another thing where Ithink, profit sharing comes into
play is if I am, again, a salesperson I want to maximize my
ability to sell.
I'm going to go to all theconferences that I can go to.
I'm going to wine and dine, asmuch as I can.
I'm going to approve all of theadvertisement dollars that I

(24:42):
can, because that doesn't affectme.
So I don't care how much moneythe company spends, and I don't
care what the return oninvestment is, because the more
money that can be pumped intomarketing, the more I know I'll
be able to sell.
Well, here's the truth of thematter, is that Some advertising
and conferences is going toproduce a good return on

(25:03):
investment and others aren't.
So as a member of a profitsharing program, I'm going to
actually be thinking twice aboutwhether or not that is going to
provide a return on aninvestment.
To the company and ultimatelyme.
Now let's actually jump frompillar 14 to pillar two, which

(25:24):
is provide the necessary toolsto do your job.
There's two ways to look at it.
Can I cut you off before we getinto that for a minute?
I think another, I love theprofit share model and one of
the, other arguments for it,I've always liked as well is
just that, if it works as ateam, as a company profiting,

(25:45):
then it also creates a checksand balances for having the
team, hold each other up.
Right.
Cause then if somebody isn'tholding their weight, then the
rest of the team will be like,Hey, you're affecting my bonus.
You're affecting my profit shareand they won't put up with it.
So I think it's, it's just abrilliant model, especially in
sales.
1 of the things that I like tosay is it's not next job to hold

(26:07):
everybody accountable.
It's everybody's job to holdeverybody accountable.
and that is 1 now.
Don't misunderstand.
I think one thing people mightmisunderstand right off the bat
is, oh, now you're going to geteverybody mad at each other.
No, you're going to see somebodythat's not producing and the
very first thing you want to dois help.
If you're a normal human being.

(26:29):
So that's what you're going todo.
if it's a people issue,eventually that's going to come
to light and it should come tolight.
And one of the words that wedon't have in our organization
is throwing somebody under thebus.
That does not exist here.
There is no such thing asthrowing somebody under the bus.
What it is, is I'm holdingsomebody accountable because
I've offered my help and theyhaven't been able to pick it up.

(26:51):
And, it's not fair to the restof the company because
everybody's being negativelyimpacted because this person
isn't the right person in theright seat.
Totally.
Mm hmm.
Good.
So let's go back to point numbertwo, pillar number two.
Yeah, actually, one other thingI wanted to do before we get to

(27:12):
number two is I get the samepushback on the profit sharing
program.
There's two things that I getpushed back on.
One is, well, People, peoplearen't going to like this.
Like all of a sudden you'retelling me now, you know, I'm
the top seller and I'm going tobe making as much money as the
bottom seller.
Here's the thing is that ifyou're going to adjust any sort

(27:36):
of compensation program, nomatter how big or small, you're
going to create strife.
Okay, so it doesn't matterwhether you take my advice or
you take your own program andyou decide to tweak it Okay,
you're gonna get some peoplethat are happy and you're gonna
get some people that are sadnow.
I implemented it from day one Sothat was just the way it was so

(27:57):
people coming in get the benefitof it And they're new and
they're green.
And so they get to benefit.
Now they've been here for fiveyears and somebody else new
comes in.
Well, they came in the same way.
And in fact, that new person,they're not upset that that
person's getting money right offthe day.
One they're excited because thatperson is going to help with

(28:20):
efficiencies.
It's going to help drive morebusiness or whatever the case
may be.
So that that's my first.
response to that commonobjection.
The second thing is how muchprofit sharing I have, I have a
couple of ways of looking atthat.
Number one is it can't be 1percent because you're not going

(28:42):
to get anybody on board and itcan't be 90 percent because now
you're not making any money TheCEO, the executive team, you've
got to determine what percentageof the company's profits should
be given back to the employees.
The CEO is, well, they should betreated with the same respect as
everybody else.
It's not going to have the samepercentage as somebody at a

(29:05):
different level.
So I would say you should give acertain percentage to C level
people, a certain percentage toV level people, D, M, and below.
So each of those groups willhave a percentage dedicated to
that group.
Now that also encourages peopleto engage in, exceptional work.

(29:30):
Because everybody wantspromotions, right?
So while I do want to getpromoted because now I can go to
that next tier, whichtheoretically is going to pay me
more, I'm also balancing thatdesire with the company's
profitability.
Because that at the end of theday is what we're all rowing
toward.

(29:51):
So I just wanted to comment onthose two points before I went
back to pillar two.
Thank you.
Okay.
Yeah.
So provide the necessary toolsto complete your job.
This actually I've found is oneof the ones that people comment
on a lot.
they are often upset that theirleadership and management team

(30:11):
aren't giving them the tools todo their job.
so you want me to complete thisproject how quickly and with
what level of accuracy?
And you're not going to give methe support that I told you that
I needed that becomes an issuethat's going to drive down
passion that's going to pushsomebody toward resentment.

(30:33):
You don't want that.
Now, the reason I wanted topause on this pillar before I
talked about the compensate yourwork force appropriately in a
profit sharing piece is becauseif I want a tool as a worker.
What type of return is thatgoing to give me?
Is that tool just something so Idon't have to work anymore?

(30:57):
Or is that tool something thatactually is going to create an
efficiency so that the companycan retain clients better, be
more profitable, whatever thecase may be.
So pillar two is actually tiedin to pillar 14.
Okay.
So, um, one of the other thingsI like to say is we don't
encourage people to speak up.

(31:18):
We require them to.
Okay.
Um, so early on in my career,one of the things that, one of
the experiences I had is I hadthis job and I remember there
were a bunch of brokenprocesses.
And one of the things that Ithought was, boy, these
executives are stupid.

(31:39):
Over time, I realized theyweren't stupid.
It's just nobody spoke up.
Now, maybe that was their faultfor not creating a safe
environment.
Maybe it wasn't, but at the endof the day, one of the things
that everybody in anorganization needs to know is
nobody in the company knowseverything.
And if you see something that isbroken or could be improved

(32:03):
upon, it is your responsibilityto speak up.
Don't assume that people knowthat it's that way.
Speak up, explain it, andexplain why you believe a change
in that particular area is goingto foster, something that is
beneficial to the organizationas a whole.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.

(32:24):
Yeah.
You know what occurred to meearlier when going back to you,
your point in the profit share,especially with sales forces,
I'm curious if you still set upcertain quotas for hitting
profit shares there.
We do, we do.
Now let's talk about thatbecause there is a perspective

(32:48):
that I have.
be it unique or not unique, butI think it's worth mentioning.
So here is my recommendation.
So let's, we bring in asalesperson.
Okay.
Uh, and, and I'm going to touch,kind of jump around a little bit
on the pillars.
One of the things that'simportant as I talk about this
topic is, creating a correctteam meeting cadence.

(33:11):
Okay.
So you should be having weeklymeetings and you should be
having quarterly meetings andannual meetings.
Weekly, quarterly, annual, okay,when a new person, new sales
person comes in, they'regenerally coming in the middle
of a quarter, what we're goingto do is we're not going to give
them any goal.
We're just going to track theirmetrics.

(33:31):
So every week we see the metricsthat we're tracking as a sales
team.
So every week as a newsalesperson, I'm putting my
numbers in.
Now I'm able to see whateverybody else is doing for
those metrics.
So we're able to see kind ofwhat is that bar?
What is reasonable right now,when the first quarterly meeting

(33:53):
comes and I've.
produced whatever I've produced,now it's time for me to set my
quarterly goals, okay?
It is important that theindividual that is responsible
for reporting those metricscreate their own goal.
Now before everybody freaks out,let me finish.

(34:15):
It's important because then theyown the goal.
If I say, Louis, you have tosell, a 500, 000 this quarter.
One of the things that you cansay, I'm not going to hit that.
Whatever boss, you said it, I'lldo it.
Where are we going?
We're not moving in a passionatedirection.

(34:37):
we're backsliding.
As if I create my own number, Isaid it.
I have to own it.
I believe it.
Well now here's the nextobjection, which is, well,
everybody's going to sandbag,right?
I'll just create a lower number.
So I keep hitting it.
Well, that's not going to workLouie because guess who else is
showing up on that scorecardevery week?
Everybody else.

(34:57):
Yeah.
Right.
So I can see what everybody elseis producing.
I don't want to hit that bar,but now here's another problem.
I'm a new salesperson, theycan't get those numbers, right?
That's okay.
That's okay.
You, you're not expected to hitthose numbers from day one or
quarter one.
We understand that.
Okay.
Well, still, Louie, you know, orNick, um, you know, what if

(35:20):
people are playing around withthese numbers?
You know?
Well, I never said that theleader and manager can't
question somebody's goal, right?
So you give me a goal and Ithink it's too low.
Let's have a conversation basedoff of historical evidence and
why at this point in time withthis current economic

(35:40):
environment, I think that is toolow and vice versa.
Maybe it's too high.
Because as much as I'm not a bigfan of everybody putting these
goals that nobody ever hitsbecause quarter after quarter
year after year, you missed it.
You missed it.
You missed it.
That's not fun.
people want to be able to hittheir goals.

(36:01):
But they also want to bechallenged, right?
So if my goal is too small and Iachieve it, do I feel a sense of
accomplishment?
No.
If my goal is too high and Ikeep missing it over and over
again, is that going to fosterpassion?
Absolutely not.
It's got to be something withinthe realm of, realism.
And so a perfect goal is kind of90 percent of what you think

(36:25):
you're going to hit.
Right.
Because you should hit that goalevery time.
That's the expectation.
It's not there for hopes andwishes.
It's there because you'reexpected to hit it.
So really, if we're thinkingabout, well, if I think I can
sell a million, should I put amillion?
Because what if I sell nine 50,I tell you what, let's make 900.

(36:47):
That's not far off.
It's still within the realm ofrealism.
And then I know that I'm able toexceed it.
Now, again, I didn't say 500,000 and then I double it.
Now, what are we even creatinggoals for anymore?
Right.
But I don't want to make it 1.
I think I can do a million.
Well, now I'm falling short.
And what is that doing into, youknow, my enthusiasm?

(37:10):
Yeah, you know, I think the selfselection of goals is super
important, right?
And having a good coach and yourmanager, to help guide you with
that is also really important.
And I don't know if you everheard of Takashi Harada, he's a
Japanese, thought leader on thiskind of stuff.
he, Teaches a lot of Japanesecompanies like Toyota and such
about this and how it's reallyimportant to do that And uh, i'm

(37:33):
currently did he do is he the uhperson that came out with lean?
No.
No He um, I don't think he's aswell known Just, uh, I, I came
across him because he coachedShihaya Tani when he was a
middle school, baseball player.
he just taught him how to visionand create, goals for yourself
and how to hit them and all thisstuff.
And then he's built a wholecorporate platform around this

(37:56):
for companies there.
And he talks about that like itreally if you don't have pick
your own goals Basically forwhatever it is, then you don't
have the same buy in you don'thave same sense of purpose And
you're just not as passionateand you won't chase it now I
want to touch on goals a littlebit because it's an interesting

(38:17):
paradox that I have because weneed goals Because without
measurement, there's no control.
Okay.
So we need to have goals.
The other thing is like, I kindof hate goals at the same time.
and the reason I hate goals isbecause I can't wish things into
existence.
oftentimes people say, well, ifyou don't set that bar high,

(38:39):
you're never going to reach it.
I have a little bit ofdisagreement with that.
are you familiar with atomichabits?
James Clear.
I very much subscribe to thatideology, which is if you're
creating the correct habits andyou're focusing on the habits
and not the goal, those habitsare actually the machine and the
mechanism that allows you to hitthat goal.

(39:02):
So stop, keep looking at thatbig number that's coming a year
down the road, and you can workback, you know, what do I, and
that's really essentially whatwe're doing.
So if my goal is a million.
Well, then I have to do 250 perquarter.
Well, if that's per quarter,what do I have to do per week?
Well, if I have to do that perweek, then what do I have to do

(39:23):
in order to hit that?
What is the amount of activity?
so now you're actually engagingin strategic planning and
creating the correct tactics andhabits so that you can hit those
goals.
So the emphasis really needs tobe on the habits.
That's right.
Yeah, I've always been a big fanof setting a big long term goal
and then working it backwardsall the way to the habit and

(39:46):
developing the habits in betweennow to get to that.
Because I, like you, I have alove hate relationship with
goals.
I mean, I like to think big andall that, but oftentimes it's so
big in the short That it'sunreachable, so it can be
demoralizing, right?
But if you set it for like fiveor ten years out, and you work
it back to where, you know, youhave to do a certain thing every

(40:07):
day now, and work on developingthat habit, then that goal
actually becomes realistic inyear, five or six or something.
Oftentimes you far exceed that,right?
So, I often talk about my, I runmarathons and my journey, that's
how I know Hopkinton.
But, you know, my journey to getthere was just like that.
You know, I set a big, like asix year goal to qualify for

(40:30):
Boston.
it seemed inconceivable.
I had to chop off almost twohours and, 60 pounds to get to
that goal.
developing the habits to getthere over time made it like now
I can do it.
I mean, it'd be a bad day for menot to qualify, right?
if I would have said that forone year from now, Hey, I'm
going to qualify or in this nextmatch, whatever, it's impossible

(40:50):
in demoralizing, right?
Yeah.
And it's celebrating the smallwins, you know, um, I forget who
said this.
It was some, Famous, uh, richperson.
I don't know if it wasRockefeller or Warren Buffett or
something.
Um, and I'm probably misquotingit, but you'll look at the
point, which is, you know, how,how much money do you need, to

(41:11):
be happy?
And the answer is more, right?
that kind of goes with habitsand goals, which is.
Once I'm able to achieve thatgoal that I've set for a day or
a week or whatever.
Okay.
Now I'm there.
Now I need to do more.
So what's next.
It's the power of one more.

(41:31):
Right.
And it's just about this.
Progress is really aboutachieving that metric and then
pushing yourself to the nextrealistic achievable metric and
building on that momentum.
That's right.
And that's a good one for calls.
I think the author in that bookuses it always, Hey, just, just

(41:52):
make one more call to whateveryou say you go for.
Well, actually just to thatpoint, my first sales job out of
college, I was selling phoneservice door to door to
businesses.
And, there were certain peoplethat did not want to comply with
the recommendations that theyhad been trained on, and then
there was really naive.

(42:12):
young, ambitious people like methat was, I'm going to do
exactly what everybody tells meto do.
Right.
And they had this one thing,they called it five after fives,
which is knock on five doorsafter five o'clock.
there was a portion of theoffice that did not want to do
those.
It's five o'clock.
I'm tired.

(42:32):
I want to get home.
But I knew that that's therecommendation and I'm going to
be successful.
And I believe in what I've beentrained on.
I need to follow that process.
That was the, that's whatseparated me.
And now I actually ended upgetting promoted and I ran that
whole, branch within 11 monthsof being hired.

(42:52):
And the reason I was able to,now I failed, cause I wasn't
built to be a leader or amanager, but I was a really good
salesperson because I drank theKool Aid and I followed the
process.
And that five after five is areally good example of, in this
case, it's not one more, it'sfive more, but, just to kind of
push you because it's thesuccesses in the margins.

(43:15):
You know, it's the person thatdid the extra 5 percent that's
going to separate themselves notonly are they going to, separate
themselves because they did 5percent more, but here's the
interesting thing is they're notgoing to do 5 percent better.
They're going to do 15, 25percent better.
That's right.
So it compounds on itself.

(43:38):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that.
You know, to this day, I still,I'm in real estate sales.
So to this day, I still enjoygoing out usually on Friday
afternoons and knocking on doorsand it's amazing to me how
effective that is.
a lot of my peers, spend so muchmoney on Facebook ads and all
kinds of stuff.
I'll spend a couple hours on aFriday afternoon when people

(44:01):
come home happy, ready for theweekend, and share with them
what's happening in the market.
it's incredible how many leadsthat comes from how many great
relationships I get and allowsme to, get some new sales.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Nicholas, I feel like, I justlooked at the clock and I can't
believe how much time hasalready passed by.
I feel like I could talk to youfor hours about this kind of

(44:23):
stuff.
I love it.
but unfortunately, I know weboth got to get back to work.
So we're going to switch over toour Wayfinder 4.
Okay.
All right.
So, Nick, give us a hack.
A hack.
now, as I mentioned, I saw thefour questions.
I decided not to come up with aprescripted answer because I

(44:45):
wanted it to be genuine.
so here, here's what just poppedinto my head.
Look into AI.
That's my hack.
Everything is, there's a bookcalled life 3.
I highly recommend it.
It is, I would call it the Bibleof AI.
It will tell you everything youneed to know.
everybody just thinks killerrobots and, chat GPT.

(45:08):
That is only the tip of theiceberg.
After you read that book, you'llbe able to see below the sea
level.
So in this day and timeimplement AI everywhere, you can
that's my hack.
Excellent.
how about a favorite Favoritesport is golf, love golf.
my favorite show is Outlander.

(45:31):
and their new season comes outin November.
So if anybody hasn't seenOutlander, I'd recommend that
you watch it.
I am amazed at how they exceededthe expectation in everything.
In acting, in script writing, inconnections with the characters,

(45:52):
in music, in scenery, incostumes.
Okay.
So, that's my favorite.
this woman travels back in time200 years and, there's a battle
between her wanting to return toher own life and accepting her
new life, which she's beentrapped there for a while.

(46:13):
So now it's actually her lifenow.
So I actually have developed twodifferent lives.
Which one do I go back to?
Interesting.
Okay.
I have to check it out.
So how about a piece of advicefor your younger self?
Yeah.
never stopped learning.
after I got my, bachelor's, Isaid, I'm done.

(46:33):
And I get it.
I think I probably needed abreak, you know, because that
was your whole life, right?
It was finally, I can be like mydad and I don't have to study
and do homework anymore.
I lost, five years.
of learning and improvingmyself.
so never stop learning.
I love that.
So what about last one you canchoose between a limiting belief

(46:58):
or a big opportunity, limitingbelief.
I'll go, you're going to failand you're going to feel big.
at certain times it's okay.
one of the things that, we couldall write a book, and I don't
mean like the passionateworkforce.
I mean, our lives, our liveshave been filled with melancholy

(47:19):
and nirvana.
that's what takes away the woeis me is, I'm not special and
I'm not unique.
And when I suffer and I fail,that is normal.
That is life.
That is an opportunity forgrowth.
when you're on a hill, enjoy itbecause you'll soon be in the
valley.

(47:40):
And when you're in a valley,you're in the valley.
Don't worry.
You'll be on the hill soonenough.
As much as you don't believe it,as much as you're, addicted to
drugs and alcohol, or you justlost your house or a family
member died, you will be back onthe hill, believe it or not.
And so at the end of the day, Iwould say the most important
thing to focus on is peace andlove, and the big paradox is

(48:05):
stop thinking about yourself.
focus on other people.
That's what actually bringshappiness.
The more you try to satisfyyourself, the more you don't,
the more you fall intotemptation and vice.
So if you actually focus not onyourself, but on other people,

(48:25):
the paradox is you get thatpeace and love and those
blessings.
Well, Nicholas, thank you againfor all of your wisdom.
I mean, it's been great so far.
If people want to know moreabout you and your book, tell us
where we can reach you and wherewe can get your book.
Yeah, so I have a pretty uniquename.
it's Nicholas Chapman.

(48:46):
not Chapman, so there's no H.
so you can find me on LinkedIn.
That's where I spend most of mytime.
I do have a Facebook, so you canreach out to me there as well.
in terms of the book, It is soldwherever you can buy books.
So it comes in hardcover,softcover, electronic and

(49:08):
audible.
Excellent.
Is the assessment, built intothe book or is it something like
a, strength finders where youjust get a code to an assessment
elsewhere No, I created my ownassessment.
Again, it follows the NPS, soit's very easy to implement.
It's not complicated.
So you don't need one book perassessment, do you?
No.
Oh, okay, good.
that's what I meant.
Thanks for being here, Nicholas,and thanks for, sharing, your

(49:30):
wisdom with us.
it's been really great.
I really enjoyed it.
I can't believe how fast timeflew by and, how much I learned,
so I'm sure our audience isgonna feel the same.
Thank you for that compliment.
Yeah, thank you.
And we might have to have youback on to talk about some more
of the Pillars.
Okay.
I'd be happy to do so.
Excellent.
Thank you, Nicholas.
Thank you.

(49:54):
We hope you've enjoyed TheWayfinder Show.
If you got value from thisepisode, please take a few
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