Weekly Impact by Lay of The Land

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (00:00.894)
Welcome everybody. This is weekly impact for the 4th of November, 2024. It has been a minute since we did this, Kris. It's been a whole month. It's annual season for those of us who coach leadership teams. So Kris, you and I have been busy, but I'll finish the intro. I'm Jim Havilland. I'm Kris Snyder. And here we are, Kris. We're in November and we had a good, a very interesting look at

Lay of the Land over the last month. We've done this in the past where I've had, kind of realized something about Jeffrey's modalities. And luckily that we ended one that he actually describes it this time. So shall we do a run through of all the episodes we missed? Jim, let's get after All right. So we love this one. Number 186, Andrew Rising, Encore Venture Labs. Big fans. Big fans. Obviously. we're...

Andrew and I have been talking, they are client of mine now. I'm excited about what they're up to. They're getting people excited about what they're up to. They closed their first, I think they did their first capital call. Yeah. Look, I'm a big fan of Andrew's. I think what they're doing is interesting. I'm not a Venture Studio fan in general. My issue with this, and Jim and you and I have talked about this, is that

founders have a level of drive, right? Yes. That's intrinsic in their nature, not extrinsic. So they don't, they don't wake up always thinking about the cap table and the millions that they'll create. They think about the purpose. They think about autonomy and they think about mastery. Yeah. Right. Those are the three things that have and create intrinsic drive. I like that. So my challenge with that then becomes in a venture studio moment, can you find the level of talent that will

do the things that are required to get through the survival stage, it's a sustainable and to scale. And that is it, again, it's a good testable theory, lots of people do it. I think there's been successes, can't cite any of it. And here's the thing I think is, I think it's a good step for Cleveland. And I like the concept because I think the thing I see in a macro sense is that more and more founders are...

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (02:20.216)
thinking about I'm going to do this for this period of time and I'm going to do another thing and I'm going do another thing. So being good at, I'm going to take something that's got a couple of pieces, parts. And I think, you know, we've got some other examples of this in the list today, but hey, I'm not, I wasn't born to go do this thing, but I'm going to go figure out this thing because that's going to give me the ability to do the next thing. And there is some, you know, as much as the drive of I'm

This is my dream. This is my vision. I'm trying to go get it, drive people forward. It can also help them make mistakes, create certain amount of blindness to the market condition. testable theory, we'll see how it goes. I love the fact that he's really, know, talent drives outcomes is his thing. Cause that's his expertise, his subject matter expertise from the Valley is about talent. And I love that he was, you know, as he said, he changed his mind. He's a...

a supporter of business operating systems as a methodology. Well, and you know, one of my favorite things that, you know, I started to share that if you don't have an intentional operating system, you are the operating system. And I think that's somewhat what Andrew was recognizing that without the intentionality, you are going to continue to have to command and control and get your way through it versus creating a system of accountability so people can be accountable.

Otherwise you have to hold them accountable as you're the operating system. Yeah. mean, distribute the ability to make good decisions is really, you know, I've, I've explained a couple, you know, recently had the opportunity to explain it that like, don't you want all your people to have everything they need to go make great decisions, even when you're not around and like, yeah. Right. But then we put it that way. makes sense. Right. So that's, but that's what accountability is. They're accountable to the outcome and they're going to make decisions. so that's one 86, great, great podcast there.

Then number 187 was a super fun one. Deliver that. Aaron Hoffman, John Zinno. I love these guys. Yeah, I'd have a beer. They're listening. Just let me know. Totally hanging out with you guys. know, and so things that took away Kris, you know, my forthcoming books, The Seven Deadly Sins of the Entrepreneur, one of them is The Golden Boy Principle, where people hire people and they're kind of outsourcing expertise, you know, like

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (04:38.48)
When they realized they had to be a company that makes technology, he went and learned how to code. Yeah, that's straight up the right way to go. Similar experience. Dotcom days, right? So 99 2000 was part of a consulting. We were creating a consulting company. All of sudden I was going to be leading, managing a bunch of folks coding. Yeah. And so this is obviously the point where you went out and I bought a book for like

HTML and Java and just decide I'd read. Right. Because I wanted to be, I wanted to know enough to be able to call it. Right. And I think that's what he was describing as like, have to know enough to know. So otherwise, otherwise you're out of position the entire time. I don't know if you know I've talked about this, but early on in my career when I wanted to be a musician, I actually wanted to be a composer. And they actually teach composers when you go to composer school to play all the instruments.

I mean, you don't have to be good at them all, but you have to be able to physically manipulate the instrument, because otherwise you can't write for it. Right. Which I think is a completely applicable principle to this. My only add to that, as I learned, that ask two more questions. If you don't like the first answer, you go two more deep, people can't fake it. Right. The run out, you can read the body language. Anyway, it's a different story, but I love the fact that he learned how to code.

I love the end of the code. He says that everything takes 10 years. Overnight success in 10 years. 10 years. That's the Jim Collins model for sure. And the TGI Friday moment, which sounds like an impact moment for us. Yeah, but their ability to recognize it is the best part, right? Like to sit here in the middle of the red ocean with competition all around you making your pitch. And then they go, no, no, I don't need you to do that. But what about this? What about catering? And then they go, yeah.

Let's try it. See if there's a there there. once again, it's that little bit of separation between, no, but I have to be the guy that does this thing. I can do this thing. That's the opportunity I can go after right now and give myself time and energy to go do other stuff. Perfect. And that's why if you go back to like stages of business building, right? One is survival, two is sustain, three is scale, four is succeed, five is stewardship.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (06:51.16)
Focus filters, and then we mean things like in EOS speak, your core values and core focus. Tenure Target, Jim Collins speak, yes, still core values, but now I'm going to go to things like your BHAG, and I'm going to bring in the Hedgehog and the Flywheel. These are all just focus filters. 100%. But you don't start with all of them in the first stage or two. No. Because you're not there yet. You don't know what your focus is exactly. So you start off with a more broad, know, purpose, cause, passion, just cause, Simon Sinek type of thing. And they're all in beta. Yeah.

Exactly. You describe them as more testable theories than like, is what I believe exactly. Yes. So I think that's where they were at. were, you know, they didn't have just the belief set that they had to just do one thing. They could see enough of that TGIF moment, right? To find, to keep going. Yeah. And find that other thing. And obviously it's worked out great and you know, great for them to realizing also that, that they, when they were tapped out as leaders, mean, that's, that takes a lot. It takes a lot. I mean, they were very casual about it, but that, that is a great capability to be able to say, you know what?

I knew it was time for me to step out. Yeah. there's a, there's a good amount going on. shared a quick YouTube about, Brian from Airbnb in the founder mode. There's some pushback on that right now saying that, you know, some founders tap out too early and, or not tapping out. I think these guys changed their roles and stayed involved, right? Right. Which I like that thought versus some who actually do that full kind of like, I'm going to pull it back and exit like.

the business, because you're so close to probably still need some of what's in you and the DNA side of the house, right? To get you where you need to go. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, think that just realizing that they don't have to be CEO, can be, there's another role you can play and you're still the owner. mean, I've got a lot of clients that there's an owner involved, but that isn't necessarily the right leader for the day to day stuff. Yeah. And in the product world, especially like a software type of play, I think that's, if it was me, that's where I would go spend

Like as the founder and having some vision and understanding, they're so close to the customer and their timeframe and they can still take time. And you see that in really good founders. They'll still go, if I own a grocery store, I'm still going to go walk the floors of the supermarket, right? To understand what the clients are doing. you know, back to the five stages too. I mean, there's at some point like a, you know, a success where maybe your passion was product and...

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (09:08.076)
They need a different leader at that you get to get to the stewardship level You need someone who's really more about the markets and more about about that comes up And if your passion is this thing, you know step back. I think it's number 188 Joe Pulizzi Talk about passion. man, that was great Great. It's awesome. Like it's like he didn't even know that he was part of the inspiration for for lay the land. Yeah, I love that. I love that good fun. Good fun. Well, it is his

his serial entrepreneurial isms, or however you're gonna say it, right? Like, is the point where even with his wife trying to beg him not to do the next thing, he's so compelled to go do the next thing. Right, right. And he's not you know, back to that. And what's your drive? What's in the intrinsic drive? Yeah, it's not about the money. It is it is about the purpose. It is about mastery. It is about autonomy, right? And and all those things coming through because he still believe there's, in my opinion, another level of master and he was he was in pursuit of it.

Yeah. And he was still a problem to go solve. mean, you know, he felt the problem and he had to go solve it. and he didn't, he didn't say it exactly the way we say it, but important things have names. He reiterated that again and again, finding the right name and then sticking to it. Yeah. You know, which we've, we've found lots of power in. You can watch it happen. As soon as you name something appropriately, the amount of kind of just momentum it picks up, right. And you can see people carry it.

Good or bad, manageability services. then tilt, I love that, the notion of publishing really changing and not really being about owning one of the big lists or selling through Amazon, but really owning your customers and making that part of your relationship with your customers. It's only getting easier with AI, but like every knucklehead I know, especially coaches like us, has a book. I think again, it's like, you got a book about Jim. God bless. I can't wait to read it.

Everyone has a book. Everyone has a book. Right. And I don't and I've taken me longer to write because I don't want it to be like the books that I don't like, which are the, you know, conjecture books, I have this little tiny experience, and I'm expanding it to mean more than it really does, as opposed to I'm pulling the stories together. And, and those are going to go in the book. And I think, you know, it'll come out when I think it's, I mean, it's a great title, you know, yeah, no, but I do think but it won't make it a book until it makes sense that yeah.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (11:32.076)
But until Joe shared it, I hadn't seen it that way. Because it's like, yeah, if you're going to write a book, I want it to be on the New York Times bestseller list or Amazon, blah, blah. That's not the point of the book. I mean, there is some to getting your word out there. But most folks are using it as a calling card. they want to have the ownership of the list of people that are engaging with the content. But you don't know if you put it out there on whatever distribution, you don't get the data back. You don't know. Yeah.

And that seems like a large portion of why you took the time. Like, how do I not know my audience and how do I not give them more or participate with them in whatever journey they're on? Yeah. mean, and it really, to me, it, bodes to this other, this next generation of media. You know, I, I came up in a media world where we're, it was all broadcast. It was literally broadcast. Right. So, and, and it was like a new thing to say, well, no, there's going to be a conversation. going to, but like, maybe that's the next level of conversations. Like I want to have a.

I want you to understand these things, know, kind of like our concepts, tools, disciplines. I want you to all these concepts before we have the next level of our conversation. And then is the book right way to do that? Or is it, you know, maybe a TikTok? Yeah, well, and I think that it's just kind of like, if you have a book, I can make it a bunch of different things, right? Right. I can slice it and dice it and distribute it and give feedback to it and engage with it. So I do think it's a jump off portion of the content.

That you create and that you engage with yeah, I mean it's but it's a center of a universe as opposed to just the book itself All right, then 189 Chas where there's what a great Story, I think that most Clevelanders don't know because this is really this is a long-term story about you know, brilliant company Founded out of we're sick of having jobs everybody else and But the story arc of getting very good when Cleveland people forget that Cleveland up until the

50s was really the highest density of global 500 companies in the world. As a home office, it's right here in Cleveland. Yeah. Jeffrey's touching on it multiple times. He contemplates our history into our future and sharing that, think that has a lot to do with it. Yeah. mean, everything was heavy and you moved in between New York and Chicago. So it made sense to have those here. And what a great opportunity for someone like Dixon Eaton. But what a great thing. Like 71 years.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (13:53.272)
He's only the third CEO, it's an ESOP. It's an employee-owned company. I love all that. They're an old-fashioned company, but ESOPs are a very newfangled way to think about ownership. Yeah, and there's so many good reasons to do an ESOP, including the tax advantages to the majority owner-sellers, probably founders of that business, and trying to figure that out. But even more so, if done well, done right, then it really gets into the motivation side, the extrinsic motivation of those that participate in...

and the production of whatever said thing is to actually experience and participate in some of those outcomes. Now, I've coached a couple of ESOPs in my journey and they struggle as much as any organization does. know, software companies, often like, you know, grant equity for time served, right? And hopefully some performance involved in that. And so often it's not appreciated because there's this barrier of what, how do I describe to you...

effectively what the future could be, the price point of that thing, right? Without compliance issues into it. Yep. So I need you as the individual holder of said units to actually be able to do math on your own. Cause I can't really do that projection for you. And that's what they run into in the ESOP side, right? They need them to see the future, not, you know, not 12 months out, but hopefully five, seven, 10 years out and what they're doing in an appreciation cycle. And that's hard, especially if you've got kind of stratum one employees out there.

Right. Who think in a 90 day world. Well, and it goes to what we will talk about with with Jeffery's marketing moves saying where this, you know, we don't have a culture locally of successful exits. And, you know, and it's not it's not we don't have the access. We don't have the culture of it. Right. But there's one less thing. I know you called it out when we were talking about before the fact that they as part of that journey.

Well, when they talk about trust a lot, love to talk about trust, trust being the most important thing. We're all aligned there. And I wasn't aware of this other trust measurement, so I'm going to look that one up. haven't had a chance to yet. Storytelling is a leadership ability. I know that was one thing that Mark Abbott, when we first started coming up with the nine abilities for the 90 operating system, he wanted to put storytelling on there. And I was like, really? But he's right. He's right more than he's wrong, for sure.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (16:12.536)
Because we talk about culture activation and being two things, rituals and artifacts. And the rituals are nothing without a good story. Rituals are meetings. it's how we make it resonate. It's how we make it stick. How do we share it to the point of recollection and understanding into context when I apply those lessons learned? Even your core value speech, and you've seen this a lot in work you've done,

until you give it a speech and you tie those things together, the five, hopefully not much more than five core values. This is more until it's not. Yeah. Working together. I coach that. It's like, should tell a story, a story about the things where this core value played out positive and negative, because that's what's going to really resonate. I said, you're not going to remember it. The last one is the fact that they had the exit with the intended return as a growth strategy. I love that one. and you can see it a lot in family-owned businesses that we've seen where

some of those, you know, what's called the parents of the further up generation, the grandparents, they see that there's value in having their children or the future generations leave and learn someplace else and then come back, right? And that was a beautiful part about Chaz's story of leaving with the support and blessing of the existing leadership and CEO. Yeah, and you'd be able to really listen to it and go, you know what, I like that opportunity for you. You should go do that. And, you know, I look forward to having you back when you're done. Yeah, we'll be better.

Perfect. You see that a little bit when people go, hey, go take your two years and get your MBA, right? And it's kind of the same thing in my mind. Say, hey, go get your two years and get a different three years or whatever and go get a different set of experiences and bring them back here. Because you need that. It's like, you know, travel. You need to have travel. You need to have other experiences. see, you know, to appreciate the culture you're in, you don't really understand it until you go somewhere else. And other things are important.

And, and then episode one 90, Jeffrey actually shares some of that. Yes. we should probably go there next. One 90. So marketing moves, our, our, our host, Jeffrey was as a, hope was not the host, but was the subject and a long ranging conversation with the folks from the great podcast marketing. Yeah.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (18:19.286)
I haven't been on there myself. They do a great job. Ashton is, she's a great host and it's a very professional setting. And what I do like, they're following a format of kind of getting the, know, specifically Jeffrey scenario of like, take me back to the beginning. Right. And not when you were born, but take me back to the beginning of the thing that you're, you're working on that you're doing. And I liked his, his entry point into, you know, the struggle of Vodum. I got here through venture of America.

And then Vodum doesn't work out, but it learns a lot, right? And then goes, now what do I do in a community I don't know? It takes an inquisitive approach to learning more. Yeah, which my favorite, my favorite part of his story is the fact that just, let's go talk to the market. Let's see what they need. And then a recognition to go, if these folks were in other markets, Austin, Boston, and the Valley, the media would locally be covering them.

Because most the time, I speak for myself, like when your head's down grinding it out, building your business, you're not looking around for the thing. Kris, I got to say, it makes me, mean, listening to these stories, this particular grouping of stories was really about that. was about, don't, why can't we celebrate these things in a more outward way? mean, is just because of our Midwestern roots? And we're like, gosh, shucks, no big deal. mean, but.

I wouldn't trade it for being on the coast and talking about myself bigger than I really am. But at the same time, the thing we need to like share, and this is the work that Jeffrey's doing that you and I both appreciate, is making sure that people know, listen, if you go start something, be bold, great forces will come to your aid. And these are the forces. And ask for support. And we've been able to do that with all of the folks that have been on the show, and some of them with great outcomes.

Yeah, think if you look at Andrew on 186 and then Aaron and John on 187, Joe on 188, Chaz on 189, three of those four are really at the end of their journey for the thing they were working on. Right. Right. Whereas Andrew is on the very beginning. And that's what you see in most of our podcast guests. I'm either on the beginning of my journey and willing to talk to you or I'm on the end. Few of the folks I've met in the middle and suggested they should be a guest was they can't be a guest yet because they don't know the end yet.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (20:42.07)
And I think that's a tragedy because some of the fun in all this sharing is that I'm in the middle of my thing. I don't know exactly how it's going to conclude. I've got thoughts and I can scenario with you, but this is what I'm building and working on. And that share I think is important as anyone that's say the thing, because it's not the sum up or the thing I'm hoping for. It's about, I'm in the struggle now. If you've got something you want to ask me about, if you've got an idea, bring it, baby.

I think that's right. We need to be, it's very real and we can support people in that journey. Because one of our best shows have been the one where people came back after they've done something. Andrew's been through stuff before. He's just coming back again. But we'd love to hear about more of these people that are in the journey, see how we can help them. Yeah, and I think my episode was episode 98, Jim. I don't remember exactly. I don't remember either.

One of my favorite moments there is when Jeffrey and I started talking about the way in which we measure success of a venture. that the majority of the time it is the dollars derived from that venture versus, and I think he asked me, or maybe he led the witness a bit, was like, how do I think about it? And specifically from a Vox mobile lens. And my comment was the thing I'm most proud of is not the venture returns. Like obviously it could have been better if it was canned, but it was the amount of leaders that we created in that span of time.

Yep. And if you go back and I'm super proud of so many folks, you know, one of my favorite stories is Dennis Lewis. And I don't know if Dennis will ever hear this, but he was selling me a used car. And today he's massively successful in the technology space. And those things have just been, they're just great to see that we were, we were finding people in the early stages of their career, advancing them, investing in them and what they've gone on to do. and we went through that thought process.

early on, I it was like, I remember like being 2013 maybe and having the conversation, you mean, G and talking about, Hey, we got people leaving because we don't have jobs for them. And like, you know, Hey, we have to celebrate, you know, their, their wins. have to be a platform for their success and that, and that itself should be our legacy. And cause it's going to help recruit other people. It's like, yeah, I can go there, do great things. And if there's no place for me to go, I can go somewhere else and they're not going to take all those patterns and they're going to go do the next thing. And there's even be more successful.

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (23:03.734)
Yeah. So, I do think to end that whole conversation, going back to how do, how will other people know the next thing that's happening you do if you don't go share? Yep. Cause most of what's happening is entrepreneurs in the network effect, introductions of value, high trust relationships being formed, and then we can go help each other. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know what you need if I don't know what you're working on. All right. So, and that's, which is by the way, right. favorite question in our party, what are you working on?

Yeah. Right. So, so we'll leave it with that, Kris. Anything else we need to cover today? No, I think I know what you're working on. It's a book. Seven Deadly Sins of the Entrepreneur. All right. Yep. I'm working on my book, but it won't come out until it's good. So that's all I'm saying. Cause I don't want, want you to like it, Kris. I look forward to it, All right. Thanks everybody. We'll see you next time. Thank you.