Weekly Impact by Lay of The Land

well, welcome to Weekly Impact, the Lay of the Land podcast.

And we are doing the Smart 50 2025 edition and talking to the honorees of the Smart 50, of
which you're one in capturing their stories.

So tell me a little bit about what got you to here.

So how do we get to this place right now?

A little bit, you know, just a moment or two on your career and what you've built.

my career started in, uh, in technology.

Um, I've worked in the nonprofit housing space for the last 15 years.

took my major steps in my career at an organization called Eden who provides, housing for
individuals coming from, chronic homeless situations and living with mental health

difficulties.

So, really focused on technology and data.

and along the way, I realized that there was tremendous opportunity.

uh in aligning the technology uh data and the business processes of the organization.

That was the biggest inflection point in the opportunity for the organization.

And so as we continue to streamline those within that organization, there was an
opportunity that came about with North Coast Community Homes, which is my current

organization.

I'm chief operating officer and in my time there,

we've really sort of taken the organization to the next level.

And that's a testament, not just to my efforts, but our entire team.

Our CEO, Chris West, is an absolute visionary who understands how to build a high
functioning team.

And our mission is to provide housing for individuals with developmental disabilities.

And so we're doing that very, very well.

You know, it's an incredible thing because I think it's one of my favorite pet peeves that
house construction, housing is the least developed part of the economy.

We're millions of homes behind schedule and, you know, we have all kinds of forces to
blame for that.

So I would imagine this would be a very specific part of that that is equally as
challenging.

I guess that's maybe that's why you're on the smart 50 list.

Tell me a little bit about what makes it different and leads to success.

Is it just the team or I mean, what are the kinds of things, problems that we've solved in
this?

Yeah, so as an organization that's focused on providing housing for individuals with
developmental disabilities, housing is a piece of a broader puzzle in supporting

individuals with disabilities.

So what you said about shortage in housing probably doubly applies.

ah when you have individuals with special needs.

And so from our perspective, we're trying to make our housing as safe and comfortable as
possible for our residents in a place where they can live forever and they can build a

community.

And so there's a lot there.

And if we're not doing the work that we can do in the most uh optimum and efficient way
possible, then we really don't have much of a hope of influencing the broader system,

which has its own share of opportunities as well.

And so the way that we do that is we focus on, we focus on two key things.

We're focused on the residents.

We're focused on our staff.

And so the way that that manifests in reality is we have about 200 properties that we can
make sure that we're providing services for in a very streamlined condition.

three years ago, we were running from emergency emergency to emergency and we never
stopped.

We to call that ad hocery.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And, but, although there was

strategy behind it, was there was never really time to get to the strategy.

And so by implementing uh EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system, credited from the
book Traction, we were really able to sift out the shiny stuff and focus on our core

mission and understand the steps that we needed to do to basically now we've seen a 49 %
reduction in high priority work orders as a result year over year.

That's brilliant.

And that's what we do.

We help implement operating systems.

And one of which is EOS.

Do you have an implementer that we can give credit to?

Well, actually, all the credit goes to my co-implementer, Erin Mogg, who's our director,
our director of finance.

OK.

So she and I work together to self-implement.

Oh, wow.

We had a we did do a one day workshop with a a facilitator who sort of gave us some.

Some pointers pointers.

Yeah, but but we took it from there and and I can't say enough about Erin um she is She is
the heart of our EOS.

um She keeps us on track and that's great always always make sure we're sticking with the
program That's that's brilliant.

Well, it would like to say that Until you have an intentional operating system.

You have an accidental operating system.

Yes Well, great.

So tell me Well, that sounds brilliant What what have you kind of picked up along the
line?

along the way for leadership tips.

mean, some of them are part of know, Gina Wickman's, Bailey Wick, but also there's
probably some other things you've come upon that really work for you.

for sure.

mean, you know, there's all the core pieces.

I mean, the data component, the process component, all that is very, very important.

But ultimately, and not to rank one above the other, but the people component is to me the
one that is that extends beyond because.

All my career, been a doer.

I've always wanted to, I've been very fortunate to work in the nonprofit space and always
be working in an area that does provide impact in the community.

But as I got older, I realized that I am only one person and my uh impact is limited by
the hours in the day.

So if I want to have a greater impact, really need to focus on building a team of people.

that are able to execute beyond what I'm able to do myself.

And so we've been able to do that at North Coast.

We have a fantastic team and it's very, very satisfying.

In your implementation, have you used the delegate and elevate tool?

yes.

very good.

Yeah, which is hard.

You know, that could be really hard for new managers, especially.

Yeah, absolutely.

We have some new team members who it's counterintuitive at first.

You have to delegate and elevate and um

And yeah, that's a core piece of our conversation.

You know, I think that's right.

mean, a lot of people that struggle with the notion of getting to an operating system are
pushing back on the idea that I, you know, because I feel like they're supposed to know

this stuff.

And what I tell them is that all of these leadership skills are cultivated.

There's no, we don't wake up every given day and know what to do and how to support people
in this way.

We have to be leaders, building leaders, building leaders.

That is a path for that, but it's not automatic.

and there's things to go learn and things you have to stop doing to do that well.

Well, that's great.

So tell me a bit about, I mean, along the way, are there mistakes that happened or things
that, know, hard times that who had carried certain weight of learning for you?

Like our good friend, Jeffrey Stern likes to call them earned wisdom.

Hot, every day.

Every day there's mistakes and I think

You know, that question sort of makes me think back to building a culture where, you know,
failing is sort of part of the process.

It's a step.

giving the confidence to our people to know that you don't have to know all the answers.

You won't know all the answers.

In fact, I say it all the time.

When we bring new people aboard, I say, you know, the second best answer is I know how to
do that.

The first best answer is I don't know, but I want to learn.

And that's really been a key piece of our success is bringing people aboard that want to
do One of the most powerful things in that realm that I came upon was my daughter went to

Laurel School and they have bumper stickers that say the word yet.

Because that's what they all respond to.

And when they say something like, don't know how to do that, everyone goes yet.

right.

Right.

That's opportunity.

That's the flow opportunity for us all.

Well, excellent.

tell me.

You've been doing this for a while.

Have you had you had mentors along the way that had an impact on on your thinking here?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The central point is that we we don't do it alone.

We can't do it alone.

And, uh you know, I have to acknowledge a couple of people.

One is Chris West, our current CEO of North Coast Community Homes, one of the most
compassionate and uh empathetic, mission driven and just

savvy with building a team, people that you'll ever meet.

I worked with him in a prior role and everybody I talked to says, you're so lucky that you
get to keep working with Chris and I completely agree with that.

Elaine Gimmel, who's the CEO for Eden.

A person who is so driven really epitomizes that

whatever it takes attitude and just really, really accomplished in her own right.

And then if I have time for one more, I'll say the original executive director of Eden,
Kathy Kaisel, um who built the organization in the eighties in collaboration with other

entities.

Somebody who, you know,

I'll just, Kathy's approach to her work epitomized the function over fashion, results over
everything.

And that was very inspirational to me.

Bernay Brown says about great leaders, they want to get it right versus to be right.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I like that quite a bit.

So I guess the one thing I'm worried about for you when I was preparing for today was the

There's a definitely kind of a sea change in how we think about funding the things you do.

I it's just it's not an open market market driven set of assets, but certainly it's an
important part of having a rich community.

How do you guys think about that?

Yeah, I mean, in a couple of ways.

You know, one is I think.

It's something that's a little bit outside of reach for most people, because it's just a
little bit intangible.

everyone, I believe everyone knows somebody that is either has a disability now or will
have a disability in the future.

so for me, what that means is by creating conversations, by breaking down walls and
challenging conventional wisdom, we can create a communication channel.

that actually helps everyone to realize that you have a home in your neighborhood where
there's three people with developmental disabilities that are living.

And you can look at that and say, oh my God, that's, I don't know what that is, that's
scary.

Or you can look at that and say, that's wonderful, I have some new neighbors.

that's a way to enrich our neighborhood, which is exactly how we.

how we view it.

Do you face some NIMBY pushback as you develop new properties?

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, you know, the original founders of North Coast fought this battle for
years, 40 years ago, and they spent a lot of time.

I said NIMBY, I didn't explain it so it was not in my backyard.

you're right.

And so, you know, they fought a lot of these fights 40, 30 years ago.

And unfortunately, I think for a confluence of

reasons we're seeing a bit of that today, um unfortunately more than a bit.

so a lot of my time recently is spent um taking those head on, which does distract us from
the core mission, but ultimately advocacy is part of our core mission.

Yeah, it seemed like there's a time of renewal to figure that stuff out.

The way I think about it, just the way my business clients, there's things that are going
to come up that you can predict.

And so you don't want those to be emergencies.

You don't want to have adhocary.

You want to have a plan for if this, then this.

And certainly people with disabilities isn't going away and it isn't rare.

It's just one of those things we should have a good answer for.

Yes, for sure.

I talking to someone earlier who is very proud to be able to have a third generation
business.

And now she has a leave for maternity leave.

you know, like real, you know, a real program for it.

She's she's in here with it with her one month old, but it's like, but still she had
options and that she said, I'm just glad I was able to do that because my grandmother who

started the business didn't have those options for fun of her.

That's great.

I mean, that to me, that's that's that's that's impact, you know, to be able to build to
be able to build something like that.

You know, I mentioned earlier, we have to we have two areas of focus, our residents and
our staff.

Right.

And to

What is the value in getting into a position of influence and leadership if you cannot
impact change for the positive?

And what you just said I appreciate that.

Well, it's been a consistent theme too amongst everyone I've talked to where it's the
most, the biggest thing is the soft skills that would have, I guess in your industry it

wouldn't necessarily be considered as an industry.

Unusual to have an appreciation for the people part, but it's the people part of the skip
both residents and also your humans that are that are working with your team members Have

you had any difficulty finding team members or you know?

You know working for a nonprofit organization There's a there's sort of a tacit
understanding that you're trading away 20 % of your income potential for the satisfaction

of doing something positive for the community in which you live

you know, playing with rough numbers.

Right.

That being said, you know, I think tapping into people's hunger to do something that
matters and to do something that allows them to go home at the end of the day and feel

like the work that they do matters is really, really important.

I always say like engagement, engagement with your work is the single biggest factor
because

having those sort of intrinsic motivations amongst both leadership and staff, it's gonna
go a lot further than extrinsic motivation.

In EOS language, having a strong core focus is the thing.

We kind of go beyond EOS and there's a uh Simon Sinek term called just cause.

Because for a just cause, you will make sacrifices.

Yes.

So we adopt that quite a bit where we ask the question, is this a just cause?

You know, I think it's certainly what you're doing sounds like a just cause to me.

Any lessons you would give to young Nick coming along five, 10 years ago?

Boy, good question.

Yes, for sure.

mean, the thing that comes immediately to mind is understanding, again, that you can't do
it all yourself.

have to.

I probably would have gotten to the point where I was building the people part quicker.

But I've been very fortunate in my career.

mean, to work with the people I've worked with and to work where I work and in the
industry with which I work, you know, it's sort of Bob Ross happy little accident type

situation.

They'll take it, right?

Hey, luck is a major factor.

Skill preparation and luck.

Jim Collins teaches a return on luck is the key.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because you're to have good luck, you're going to have bad luck, but what are you prepared
to do something about it one way or the other?

you know, having like, you know, having a strong culture, having made the decisions you've
made about having an operating system, you know, really makes it easier to take advantage

of all those opportunities for good luck.

and to buffer you against the bad luck.

You can't control when good luck or bad luck occurs.

All you can impact is if you're ready for it.

you're ready for it.

100 % right.

So you mentioned mentors.

Anything else we should have the community know about you?

there any way that people want to help out?

How they could help out?

Yeah, absolutely.

Go to nch.org.

There's a lot of information there.

There's volunteer opportunities.

There's

and all kinds of ways to get involved.

As I mentioned earlier, everyone knows somebody that is currently disabled or will be
disabled at some point in their life.

So it's not a situation where that's out of touch for people.

Although at times, I think in 2025, our lives are going so quickly in terms of our day
that it's easy to forget.

And so being able to

reflect upon that and get involved, think is really, really important.

You know, I often say to my clients, you can only choose amongst the choices you know you
have.

So I'm glad you're there and hopefully people will learn about you as a choice for how
they solve that problem in their world.

Yes.

Thank you so Thanks so much for your time today.

Thank you, Jeff.

Bye now.