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[Music]
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welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on our knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems i’m trace
blackmore
your host for scaling up h2o and folks
what a great night last night we had a
fantastic
hang with some of my favorite
water treatment people you might be
asking
what the hang is and i’m gonna ask you
what do you mean you don’t know what the
hang is
well it’s okay if you don’t know what it
is the hang is where we get together
we network with each other we have a
little bit of fun
we figure out who we don’t know within
the water treatment community and then
we get to know them and then they become
friends and then they become resources
and allies
and folks it just goes on from there so
we’re going to have another hang i’m
going to talk about that
in the near future but i just want to
thank all the people that continue to
join us
on the hang and i just have a tremendous
time with that i absolutely love meeting
people
in our industry you know everybody’s got
a story
and if you can just take a little bit of
time
to listen to what that story
is i guarantee you’re going to learn
something
you’re probably going to learn something
in a very fun way because there’s a
story behind it
but folks if you’re not going through
life trying to figure out
what you don’t know and what you need to
learn
folks you’re missing a golden
opportunity and a great way to do that
is
talk to the people that are in the same
industry that you are well speaking of
learning
here is another installment of james’s
[Music]
challenge
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow as an industrial
water treatment professional
drop by drop is
test free chlorine in a cooling tower
immediately and again an hour later from
the same
open sample does an open sample sitting
for an extended period of time
impact the free chlorine level you will
test you may be predicting yes
but how much will it impact it give it a
try and see
if you have time you might even try
testing it again after two hours or more
as well
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scaling up h2o
this is james mcdonald and i look
forward to seeing what you share
you know that’s a great challenge and it
reminds me
of when i was working for a customer and
by the way the customer
did not have money to upgrade their
equipment
but they did have money to hire a
consultant
to check out my work and
the consultant really had no idea
what they were doing so it that was a
lot of fun i
actually showed up to service at the
same time the consultant was there
and the customer said you show them
everything they need
to see with the equipment and it was
very apparent they had no idea what they
were looking at
anyway what reminded me of that from
james’s challenge
was that they took a sample
and he capped off the sample and he put
it in a fedex box
and he said he was going to mail it to
his lab i’m not going to tell you which
lab it was
but he said that they were going to test
all these parameters on there
and one of the parameters he showed me
was
free chlorine well folks i got to tell
you
when you do this james’s challenge
you’re going to find out how that is not
going to work and with that on their
report that they
sent back to me there was
an issue with there was no free chlorine
in the sample well there was plenty of
free chlorine in the sample it was
exactly where it was supposed to be
just it wasn’t there five days later
when they shipped it cross
country and it sat on their delivery
dock for another couple of days so
you’re going to have fun with this
challenge and you’re going to realize
how silly that was for that consultant
to ship
off their chlorine sample nation
i am shocked we are celebrating
200 episodes of scaling up
h2o i remember when i got my bluetooth
headset
out four years ago and started recording
my very first
episode i cannot believe that we’re
getting ready to celebrate
number 200 and here’s the thing we could
not have gotten there
without you the scaling up nation
and that’s why we want to celebrate the
scaling up nation
on episode 200. so here’s what i need
from you
if this show has done something for you
if you have a favorite show if there is
something that has
just meant something to you one of the
episodes
several the episodes let us know
record your voice by going to
scalinguph2o.com and we are going to
celebrate together
on episode 200. well nation three years
ago
i had my returning guest for today on
mark c winners the writer of
one of my favorite books one of the
books that has helped my company out
more than most it’s called rocket fuel
he was on episode 38 so if you have not
listened to episode
38 mark goes into an introduction who he
is
what he’s done all the things about what
eos the entrepreneurial operating system
is so if you
have not listened to that episode or if
you haven’t listened to it in a while
you probably want to go and freshen up
on episode 38
because we’re going to continue this
conversation
where we left off three years ago
folks i got to tell you you’re going to
love this interview and folks i was able
to take what we
are getting ready to talk about and
instantly
apply to our company folks
please help me welcome mark c winners
my lab partner today is returning guest
and
author of rocket fuel mark c winners how
are you doing mark
i’m doing fantastic trace how are you
i’m doing great
i had such a great time last time you
came on we were just talking that was
three years
ago wow time flies i i saw you on the
schedule
uh i was trying to get you on the
schedule for a while i know we had some
problems getting our schedule to meet up
but we finally did i’m
so excited for part two of this
interview
uh you know i looked back and episode 38
was when you were on so we were just
getting started back then
a lot has happened since then a lot has
happened i think that’s going to give us
a lot
of road to travel as we do this
interview
if somebody just listened uh may 11
2018 and they have not heard from you
since then what has mark been up to
well things have been moving uh moving
fast and furious obviously it’s
interesting times right
so uh you know we felt really blessed as
we went through the whole
pandemic phase that we had sort of
learned a lot
about working virtually and uh you know
via zoom and using cameras and and
things like that so
so that side of the business really uh
didn’t miss a beat and was able to
continue to grow and expand and then as
far as
you know my clients that i work with it
was really uh it was really interesting
to see
how how creative they were in being able
to really understand the situation that
they were facing
uh adapt uh in some very creative ways
either by offering
new things to the marketplace or you
know
taking some kind of a pivot where they
they changed a little bit about how they
did or a lot a bit about how they
they ran their business and and to
figure out a way to make it work so a
very
inspiring time uh to really watch the
entrepreneurial spirit at work and the
folks that i’ve been
interacting with well mark last time you
came on you gave us a little
introduction about eos but specifically
the visionary and integrator and i want
to
make sure that if people have not
listened to that episode to go back and
listen to episode 38 i don’t want to
repeat what we said on 38
but just to give people a little
sampling of what we’re talking about
today so they can all enjoy the
conversation
what would you say eos is and what is
your
specificity when it comes to eos yeah so
in its
uh simplest form you know eos is really
it’s an operating system
for an entrepreneurial company so so
think about a business that has
somewhere between 10 and 250 people
that’s kind of climbing that
that growth path uh you know where maybe
it’s not just the
entrepreneur that’s trying to do
everything by themselves or with a few
helpers
but they’re really actually starting to
bring in and form a a leadership team
to to help this thing grow and and be
all that they want it to become
so it’s an operating system to help that
team
and that company gets get crystal clear
on where it is they’re trying to go and
how they’re going to get there get
everybody in the organization
side to side top to bottom all 100 on
the same page about what that looks like
help them make progress along that path
and we talk about that as traction
uh you know so they feel like every day
when they wake up they’re getting a
little bit closer to this place that
they’re trying to go
which gives them more confidence which
gives them the energy that they need to
tackle the things along that path
and then finally make that team healthy
so that you know when they’re sitting
there and they’re looking at the other
folks on their team they feel like you
know what we really do have the right
folks here
to do the stuff that we need to get done
and there’s nothing we can’t talk about
it’s all just stuff we’re not afraid to
bring it up so we bring it up
we put on the table and we talk it
through and figure how to use that stuff
to get us closer to this place that
we’re all trying to go
so it’s a system it’s a set of tools and
processes that collectively
work together to help that that
entrepreneurial team
make that happen and we started eos i
want to say it was six or seven years
ago
and at the time my business coach
recommended the book traction to me
i read it and i thought gino wrote that
specifically for me it was like he was
looking right into our
business and saying this is what you
need we worked with an implementer
we got eos working here at our firm
and i just can’t tell you the number of
great things that have happened because
we all now
know how to row in the same direction we
have tools that allow us to do that
and i think the word that comes to mind
is efficiency we’re all working so much
more
efficiently yeah it’s really uh it’s
about
human energy harnessing and focusing all
the human energy that’s in your
organization just think of that
you know and it’s in its you know
pre-state a lot of times it’s scattered
and you know all that energy is sort of
pointed all over the place and so we’re
just bring that in
and get it laser focused on whatever it
is that you want to
point that company at and uh and yeah
it’s it can be
pretty powerful and i thought traction
was one of the
better books that i’ve ever read and
then i read this book called
rocket fuel and you had a little
something to do with that i think
and rocket fuel was again i mean if you
look at the visionary description
you’re describing trace blackmore and
it’s
in fact when my integrator read that he
wrote trace does this traces this trace
does this in the margin
but it really allowed us to understand
each other better and it gave
us a playbook to work with each other
better and i respect i always respected
him but
i’m able to appreciate how he thinks and
how he works in a way
that i never did before rocket fuel love
that yeah
so i i really love the the feeling that
it was written
specifically for you it was uh you know
we we absolutely had the
you know the visionary in mind you know
i’m i’m a i’m a visionary geno’s sort of
a rare bird and he’s a lot visionary but
he’s also a lot integrator
uh but you know we we realized that the
visionary
because of the typical attention span
that they have you know it had to
connect with them really quickly so that
first chapter it’s absolutely all about
you
and uh and then we you know we
introduced this other character the
integrator
uh which has some uh you know whole
different makeup you know
they’re just wired differently and then
you know what the combination can do and
how that all works i love love hearing
you say that
well let’s start there somebody’s tuning
in right now
they just learned what eos is now they
hear these terms
visionary and integrator what are they
so the visionary is sort of the classic
visionary entrepreneur typically the
founder of the firm you know they’re the
one that had the
the crazy idea they’re the one that took
the scary leap
and saw some opportunity out there and
jumped out there and started the
business
and you know they’re wired to really see
the future and you know where things are
headed and what kind of opportunities
lay between here and there
uh you know they’re great at generating
lots of new ideas for
maybe different ways to approach things
how to solve big interesting problems
great at big relationships usually
external relationships whether that’s
working with the folks in the industry
or the community or you know whatever it
might be big strategic customers
they’re great at all that stuff and they
love all that stuff and then the
integrator
is much more execution focused so
they’re
they’re really wired to pay attention to
the details and follow through
on things you know to really make sure
that they happen and happen in the way
that they should be
and we talk about as the integrator
because they’re really pulling all this
stuff together they’re working
you know harmoniously through in between
all these different functions
that exist in your business and you know
the leaders that are responsible for
them to bring this all together in
alignment with this vision that we’ve
set
and make it happen so you know simply
said the visionary sort of makes it up
the integrator makes it happen and in a
healthy healthy way so
that’s how those two cats work together
and
what we see is in an entrepreneurial
company you know
they don’t all have this but the
companies that do have this
they are able to achieve a much more
substantial level of success
than those that don’t and you know
that’s the name rocket fuel it’s just
that combination is super powerful for
propelling the the company to uh you
know to a higher level
and i have to say through personal
experience doing the things that i love
to do and that i’m
good at i enjoy my job i always
always enjoyed my job but i really love
coming to work
i didn’t like the details i didn’t like
the day to day and until
traction brought that up and then you
re-emphasized it in rocket fuel
i always thought there was something
wrong with me yeah you know dan sullivan
the founder of strategic coach he talks
about unique ability
and and it’s it’s essentially that but
it’s this area of unique giftedness that
that we all have
and being able to find out and
understand what that is for us
and then you know create a world create
a structure where
we can spend either if not all of our
time the vast majority of our time
doing that stuff that we’re super great
at and we absolutely love
love doing and then getting ourselves
surrounded with people
that are great at the other things you
know and then interesting to me
is it’s not obvious that this stuff that
i don’t like
that somebody else actually does like
but it’s true and
and so once you realize that and embrace
it you know it opens up lots of
possibilities
well i’m going to start off with
somebody’s already listened to our
previous episode
so i’m going to start with the question
we’re now
meeting visionary and integrator
we’re having that same page meeting and
you say we need to stick with
five rules what are those five rules
yeah so in the in the book we lay out
a structure we call the five rules and
the five tools and so the five rules
side of that i’ll go through these kind
of quickly but you know the first one is
simply that it’s just stay
stay on the same page we’ll talk more
about that so i’ll let us come back to
it
so stay on the same page as rule number
one rule number two is no end runs and
this is a situation where the visionary
is either going around the integrator
or or somebody in the organization is
going around the integrator
you know to interact with the visionary
in a way that sort of
shortcuts the the whole structure right
there they’re i call it tampering
you know when the visionary is doing it
they’re tampering in the organization
and when someone in the
organization is coming up they’re trying
to get decision or direction they’re
trying to just cut this integrator out
of the chain
and that’s uh that can be very
problematic for a lot of reasons at
least of which it causes
it makes it difficult for the integrator
to be effective
third rule is uh that the integrator is
the tiebreaker
so when a decision has to be made and
the
you know the parties in the room on the
leadership team
you know for whatever reason can’t reach
agreement uh somebody’s got to be the
decision maker so let’s say two of the
functional leaders
uh are one saying go this way the other
one’s saying go that way
they talk about it they just can’t hash
it out the integrator has the role
of hearing all of this hearing both
sides hearing you know all the different
arguments there may be for a certain
decision and then taking that into
consideration in the context of the
greater good
so again the vision and the plan that
we’ve agreed on and and making the call
and going all right here’s here’s what
we’re going to do because the worst
thing we could do is just sit there
stuck and not do anything right and so
in order for us to be decisive make
those calls and move forward if they
can’t make it themselves
the integrator is the tiebreaker and
they do that
with the understanding that they are on
the same page with the visionary
okay so the visionary a lot of times has
some discomfort with allowing the
integrator to play that tiebreaker role
but if they’ve done a good job of making
sure they’re aligned and on the same
page with the integrator the integrator
is actually in a better position
because they’re more in tune with the
details they’re more in tune with
the the impacts uh some of which may be
unintentional
that can happen based on this decision
versus that decision so we want to let
them do that and hold them accountable
for making
great decisions the fourth rule is
we call it the owner employee rules of
the game but it’s the idea that someone
who is actually an owner of the business
behaves as an employee when they’re
working in the business
and what that means is that there’s no
special privileges
there’s no uh you know pulling out the
owner card and going well i don’t have
to do that because i’m i’m
you know i’m better than everybody else
here right and so
uh conversely what we want them to do is
we want them to
to behave as the best example of any
employee that we would hire off the
street and bring in there you know we
want them to set the example for this is
exactly how we want somebody to operate
in terms of uh you know being held
accountable and staying focused and
giving great effort and all the stuff
that we’d want from
from any employee on the team and then
the fifth rule is
to maintain mutual respect and this is
the idea that the visionary and the
integrator
it’s not that one is greater than the
other we got to have
them you know eye level with each other
so that they can lean on each other
and find that point of balance where
they really can have
they can have conflict they can hash
things out they can have differences
but ultimately they can come into
alignment and and make the best
decisions
and and move the company forward in the
most effective manner so out of those
five rules
and the companies that you’ve coached is
there one rule that’s harder to get than
others
well so it’s that it’s that first one so
i’ll say that in in different companies
any company any visionary integrated duo
may have issues with
any of those but the one that tends to
pop
up more often than others is this this
concept of staying on the same page
and one of the reasons why is they they
sort of discount what that
means and they’ll say well i see
my counterpart every day we office right
next to each other our desks are right
next to each other you know i
i see them all the time and the
assumption is because of that you know
of course we’re aligned
and the reality is well not necessarily
right and
because you’re not necessarily talking
about the things that you need to be
talking about and so this is where the
structure the tool
that we we call the same page meeting
comes from
and so it’s a discipline for those two
to make
certain that they are actually talking
about the things that they need to talk
about spending the time on it and
ultimately
you know reaching that alignment that
they need to have yeah we joke that
meetings don’t take place through
osmosis here but we’re a bunch of
chemists and that’s funny and we’re
probably the only people that laughed at
that
so you mentioned the same page meeting
uh you also mentioned the five
tools what are they well so let’s let’s
dive into the same page meeting first
so same page meeting again it’s a
discipline where the vision and the
integrator
at least once a month block time to sit
down together
and work through anything and everything
that may cause them to be out of
alignment
and so the agenda is super super simple
and it starts with a
form of a check-in but i want you to
think about this check-in as a little
bit different than kind of the quick
good news that you might have in a level
10 meeting
you know this is more of a you know a
deep personal relationship kind of
check-in right so this is one of the
most
important relationships in your business
world so the the corollary in your
personal world is probably your spouse
so you know think about when you’re
trying to catch up on hey what’s really
going on with your spouse
how you might want to apply that level
of depth in your relationship with your
visionary or integrator counterpart
so you know what’s going on what’s
what’s what are you spending time on
you know what’s going great what’s
what’s not going great what are you
worried about
how’s your health uh you know how are
these other people in your family
you know all that kind of stuff you want
to really you know connect on a deep
human level okay second thing is the
issues list and the idea here is that
both parties
bring to this meeting whatever issues
they’ve identified that they think
could potentially either maybe already
have us out of alignment or could very
easily get us out of alignment so if
you’re feeling something like we’re not
on the same page
here boom you want to add that to this
issues list if there’s something new
coming up
that you’ve thought about and you just
want to give your your counterpart a
heads up
you want to make sure you talk it
through before it kind of gets out there
so you’re being proactive those things
should go on this list too
so you both have your lists and then
that’s just working through issues and
so whatever the format
you kind of want to start with the most
impactful things first but the idea is
in this same page meeting we want to get
through it all
so if there’s stuff here that there’s a
risk of us being on the same page on we
want to talk about that stuff
so sometimes you know you’ll just take
turns so i’ll do one we’ll throw it out
there we’ll talk that through that you
give me what the next one is on your
list and we just kind of
you know go back and forth like that
until we work it through
and again it’s it’s understanding it and
it’s flushing it all out so that we make
sure
that we are 100 on the same page we’re
100
aligned with whatever this issue is that
we’re talking about
and really you know that’s it so so we
we leave that
meeting with an understanding that we
are
aligned we’re on the same page and then
we present this united front
to the rest of the world you know the
organization so we don’t want to have
conflict out there in the organization
where you know they look at us and we’re
kind of going at each other like we’re
coming at it from different places so
that’s what the same page meeting is all
about
so i learned something with that we
we’ve done same page meetings for years
now but we always
vote on our issues just like a level 10.
and it doesn’t sound like we should be
doing that so the visionary the
integrator vote
yeah we’ll say what’s the most important
things we think we should talk about
okay yeah so if it’s just you’re voting
to decide on what the thing is you want
to talk about next
that’s okay to have a little bit of
discussion so i don’t want to get too
hung up in
a process a specific okay
it’s just you know whatever is natural
so so there should be
if there’s uh disagreement so if i’ve
got something that’s really hot on my
list and you’ve got something that’s
really hot on your list
we’re gonna get to all of it so let’s
take turns maybe doing one of mine and
doing one of yours
then sometimes you get down to the
things on the list where they’re all
just kind of the same level of
sensitivity and and so then it matters
less but the idea should be we want to
have the time dedicated to make sure
that we get through all of it
another thing here trace is don’t think
that this just has to be like a meeting
that we have in the conference room
or in one of our offices a lot of
visionary integrator duos will
you know they’ll do this over dinner
they’ll do it on a golf course
you know they’ll go smoke cigars they’ll
you know whatever right so
it’s just about having that time
together where we we’ve got the space
for us to talk about the things that we
need to talk about in a relational
manner
to achieve this level of alignment uh
that we’re committed to maintaining
and mark i have to say we have ours at a
mexican restaurant okay
and they know when we’re gonna be there
they’ve got everything ready and
we found that we are are so much more
productive together
there than we are here because there’s
just so many
regular day-to-day distractions that
pulls our information even if the door
is shut
yeah oh for sure yeah so definitely be
sensitive to that
you know if it’s in the office other
things that can pull you away and i want
you to protect this time just like you
would time with a client
you know that’s how important it is
another thing that you just sort of
reminded me of there is
uh you know the really great duos you
know you own the fact that you’re
bringing your stuff to it that you you
should be bringing to that to that
meeting
but you want to understand your
counterpart and and do what you can to
kind of play to their
how they’re wired and so i have some
integrators that they
they understand their visionary so well
that they know like what point in a meal
is the right time to ask about a certain
thing
you know they have ways to phrase things
that just really help the
the visionary kind of get focused in on
whatever it is that they need to focus
on so
uh you know it’s not either parties
responsibility to to adapt all the way
to the other person’s style
but it’s really both responsibility to
understand
the other person and you know do what
you can to find that place in the middle
where you can be most effective
we did a temperament study here and it
was specifically to learn
what others temperaments were and then
what language
people of that particular temperament
seem to
agree with or are processed better that
was huge that was huge and especially
our same page meetings but
everybody throughout the company because
a word i might say might have a
completely totally different meaning
for how somebody might hear it 100 and
they’ll
they may assume that your intent is one
thing when that couldn’t be farther from
the truth right and so there’s there’s a
lot of different profiling systems out
there a lot of really great ones you
know
colby’s really great culture index
strength finders
disc you know you’ve got all these
different things and they’re all
different
and and come at it from a little bit
different angle but those are all good
exercises for the visionary integrator
duo
or for the whole leadership team to go
through like you said
and really understand all right you know
we’re all different and so the more
i can understand that you know the more
effective we can be together
my integrator asked me one time if you
were me what do you
think i would do and i thought that was
a great way
of him trying to really get me inside of
his head so i could understand what he
was dealing with
yeah that is a great one another good
one is if you were
you know sitting in my seat right now
and responding to the question you just
asked me or
or trying to give you some advice on the
situation how would you coach yourself
right and and so again then that helps
me kind of see in the other
other party’s brain a little bit so yeah
there’s lots of lots of interesting
conversational techniques to try to
again understand each other better so we
can do a better job getting to the truth
and getting aligned on it
at the end of the same page meeting
let’s say we’ve gone for
a couple of hours there’s just no more
time in the day there’s issues left is
it okay to leave
issues on that page i’d rather you
didn’t but uh
you know sometimes you got to make that
call if it’s if the things that are left
are not
game-changing things then that may be
the right thing to do and
you just got to kind of be good judges
of that the other thing that you can do
there if you find you’re having trouble
getting through the list is dial up the
frequency
so monthly is the prescription at least
monthly but a lot of times in a new
relationship a new vision or integrator
dealer’s relationship
that needs to be every week or maybe
even every few days
that they’re they’re same paging and
working through the stuff because it’s
just happening so fast
but then you reach a point where the
cadence of monthly
is right and you should be able to get
through the list if you find that
that you’re not able to get through the
list on a consistent basis then maybe
you want to
tighten that cadence up make it a little
bit shorter for a period of time until
you can kind of get back to that but at
least monthly
if the ones left over are not biggies
it’s probably okay but if you’re
not addressing some big important
impactful things that could show up
between that one and the next one uh
you’re making a mistake by not talking
it through
whenever doors are closed or people that
are in charge of the company are going
out and
talking there’s always the internal
dialogue within the company
and in typical meetings we cascade
messages to say
this is what we talked about during this
meeting
should we be doing that with the same
page uh you should be asking yourself if
you should be doing that
so for some things i think the answer is
probably yes for some probably not
but everyone should know what you’re
doing so what we’re committed to as a
visionary integrated duo is staying on
the same page so
to help us be able to do that we have
these same page meetings
so that’s what’s happening there we’re
talking about anything and everything
that we can think of making sure that
we’re aligned
and you know for the leadership team the
the big benefit for them and maybe
you’ve seen the other end of this
i know i have is in the leadership team
meeting
if the visionary and the integrator
aren’t aligned if they’re not on the
same page
that meeting will turn to them kind of
hashing it out
and everybody else on the leadership
team is just kind of sitting there
twiddling their thumbs watching them
fight over this thing right which is a
tremendous waste of time and energy
and just really beats the rest of the
leadership team down so so that’s what
you’re saving them from so if they
understand okay
this is what they’re doing this is why
they’re doing it and you know if
occasionally something gets cascaded out
whether it comes out in some sort of an
announcement or
uh in the leadership team meeting or
wherever it may show up
then i think they’re going to be fine
with that balance the regular leadership
meeting that you just alluded to
at the end of that and the reason we
called an l 10 a level 10 meeting
because the best meeting ever
it gets a 10 rating should we be rating
same page meetings
uh we don’t prescribe it uh i i think
it’s you know there’s just two of you
uh i think there’s there’s certainly
room and i want you to be
comfortable to ask how do we do today
if you’re feeling like it’s not working
you know and again the level 10 rating
is really about how do we do
working together as a team right and
and there’s a lot that goes into that
and one of the biggest things on the
list is is
how engaged you are with each other so
if the vision or the integrator aren’t
engaged with each other
in a in a same page meeting you know
there’s probably something
subsurface going on there that’s really
concerning
uh so yeah i would be super comfortable
asking you know how’d we do today and if
you want to put a number on that
fine uh but i think it’s more of a
verbal discussion that should get right
into
you know here’s here’s what i’m feeling
i’m seeing that you seem distracted and
and i wouldn’t want to hold that
until the end for a rating i would want
to bring that up in real time
whatever the issue is whatever it is
that you’re sensing and i want you to
get to kind of that level in the
relationship where you’re
you know you’re hearing the words you’re
hearing the message but you’re also
reading the body language
and you’re really always trying to
understand what’s going on with your
counterpart
and seeing if there’s something else
there you need to talk about something
you might be able to help with
uh whatever the situation might be is
there ever a situation where we should
consider bringing a third party into
this meeting
yeah so i would say only maybe a point
specific
kind of issue where there’s somebody
that you need to
consult i mean they they need to bring
you some data they need to present
something
you know so they pop in and kind of do
that but really this
is this is about the two of you talking
about whatever you need to talk about
getting aligned and as you know anytime
somebody else is
present you know the chemistry changes
people may be inhibited
to bring up things that they would
otherwise bring up if
the other people weren’t there so just
be super sensitive to that really no
reason for anybody else to be there
unless they’re providing
some additional piece of data that we
need to be able to talk about what it is
we really need to talk about
mark let’s say you have an owner working
in the business
there’s probably a special meeting for
that how do we handle that
yeah so this is a particularly in
partnership models where you’ve got
multiple owners a super sensitive
uh topic and so you know when i was
laying out the five rules i sort of told
you how important it is that the
the owner behaves and plays as an
employee if they’re going to take a role
in the organization and a couple points
i want to make here so number one
one of the key tools of the the whole
process is the accountability chart it’s
to to get this structure
lined out intentionally in terms of you
know who’s going to do
what really first what needs to be done
then who’s going to do it and then who
are they accountable
to okay so think of it as different from
an org chart it’s not about levels and
titles it’s truly functional around
what’s going to happen and
and who’s going to do it and where the
accountability is going to lie
so if if an owner is going to take a
seat in that accountability
chart it must be true that they
objectively are the best answer to fill
that seat
and this is where people go well i’m an
owner i get to
sit wherever i want i you know because
i’m an owner i get a seat and yeah not
so much
you have basically two rights as an
owner of the business number one
is you have your right to the share of
the profits based on however profit
distribution
happens in your structure you have your
right to get your share of of any
profits that there might be
second right that you have is is your
voice
in the major decisions of the business
okay so again just the major decision so
it’s not every little decision but
you know whatever uh decisions are
reserved to that owner box structure
which we’ll come back to in a sec
it’s your right to either vote or
whatever however that mechanism works in
your structure to have your say
in those major decisions but that’s it
it’s not a long list it’s two rights
that you’ve got as an owner
you do not have a right to be an
employee in the business so
you you literally would have to be the
best answer
that we could come up with to fill that
seat and again have to play by all the
rules that any other employee would so
let’s go back now
to that owner’s box so that owner’s box
think of it as a structure
that sits up above the accountability
chart it’s not a direct linkage it’s a
rather indirect linkage
and so anybody who’s an owner in the
business
they sit there if they also have a seat
in the accountability chart they sit in
both places but they they sit there for
sure if they’re
an owner and that that that owner’s
group should have a meeting
uh monthly an informational meeting and
then at least quarterly it’s really kind
of an
in-depth meeting where you really dig
into the financials and and really
anything and here’s what goes on in the
owner’s box meeting
an owner has a right there to ask any
question that they want
so you know while they have a right to
vote maybe in the major decisions if
there’s something else they want to know
about they have a right in that meeting
to ask that question
and then have it responded to by you
know the other owners
or maybe we bring somebody in to visit
that meeting perhaps the integrator
that has the knowledge and can give us
that information and give us that
perspective
and then within the owners they can
discuss and debate
and hash out and complain about stuff i
mean whatever it might be
the owners need to air it all there in
the owner’s box
and then the commitment of the owners is
that
we’ll make whatever decisions we make
there we’ll have whatever discussions we
want to have there
but once we walk out of this owner’s box
that’s it
we’re aligned we’re locked arm and arm
if there are disputes between owners
they cannot bring
those into the organization that’s just
not fair play
and so the owner’s box is designed to
give you the place to get whatever
information you need or want as an owner
air whatever perspectives you you may
feel compelled to share
as an owner have your vote on big deals
and get your profit distribution and and
that’s it so that’s the owner’s box
what would you say the maximum amount of
time
you want to go between having those
meetings
a month so i’d say at least monthly and
again
at least quarterly you’re diving pretty
deep into the financials ideally you
know every month you’re seeing at least
some high level financial stuff whatever
the big numbers are that you’re
concerned about and again every owner
group has a little bit different uh
perspective on what it is they’re trying
to do are they trying to grow super fast
are they trying to
maximize the cash out they’re pulling
off this you know whatever it is
so you’re probably looking at some
numbers that are in alignment with
whatever that high level
ownership direction is and then that
leads you to talk about the things you
need to talk about
in smaller companies probably the owner
is also
the visionary and they’re also the
integrator
is that okay and for how long is that
okay
yeah so there may be more than one
question there but it
is often true that the visionary
is an owner it is also often true
that there may be an owner sitting in
one or more other seats in the
accountability chart
that really could be anything and
everything so maybe it’s the integrator
maybe it’s the head of sales uh maybe
it’s a
key salesperson on the sales team right
so
so they can sit anywhere and everywhere
and as long as they will
commit to play as an employee in that
seat and as long as they’re truly okay
with that which a lot of times trace
it’s about ego
you know if their ego can live with that
and they can get comfortable with that
because they
feel like that’s the place they can best
contribute and they see it as hey the
more i can contribute
and this the better this thing can work
the better we can maximize the
opportunity the more i’m going to
benefit as an
owner that can go on for a long long
long time that can go on
indefinitely if however they can’t get
comfortable
with that playing as an employee rule
then
it’s dangerous coming trouble’s coming
and it’s just a matter of of how long
it’s going to take before it’s going to
rear it’s its ugly head
i’ve seen lots of teams struggle with
that for
a long long long time before they
finally got healthy enough
to deal with it and dealing with it
sometimes means that
that owner has to leave you know they
get fired as an employee
i’ve actually had to do this myself so
i’ve had this happen in one of my
companies years ago
where there was an owner that was an
employee and they did something that was
just totally out of alignment with our
with our core values
and you know i had to have that
situation and fire them
you know really hard get right but
sometimes that’s that’s what you have to
do
to get it past it and you know when when
i did it in that case
and almost every situation i see it
happen when you do it
the whole organization breathes a sigh
of relief
because now this this source of conflict
and anxiety
and just pain and drama and all that
stuff
it’s it’s gone and everybody can get
back focused on the stuff that’s
the main stuff and it’s just better for
everybody
let’s say someone is the visionary and
the integrator they’re doing that well
but they’re doing that because they
can’t afford to hire somebody else
and maybe they enjoy because i think we
all enjoy one side over the other
they identify what that side is do they
have to hire somebody for the entire
job or is there a part-time position
that they could consider
yeah good question so again it’s a it’s
a very very
very small percentage that truly are
great at both visionary and integrator
and really
love doing both much more common is it’s
the founder who
got good at integrator type stuff to
survive
and get the business to this point but
when you really you really push them
hard and come come on if you had to pick
one which one would you really love to
spend
most of your time on they’ll pick one
and you know a lot of times it’s a
visionary but not always
some of them will go the integrator
direction some of them will go a whole
different direction
so it’s most healthy even if the same
person is doing both
to have both of those functions
visionary function and integrator
function visible
so have both seats on the accountability
chart so you can really see what both
are
have them clearly defined so you can
really see what should be happening
and have it transparent to the whole
team the whole company
so that you can kind of have that sense
of is
it working well here is it working well
there so is this
one person doing great in this seat and
great in that seat
if they really are again and they love
doing it then that can go on forever
if they really say that you know this
visionary seat that’s the thing for me
but it’s too expensive for me to
hire a full-time integrator to come in
and do that right now
then your options are what we call
fractional integrator
and so fractional integrating the idea
of fractional professional services has
has really
exploded you know over the last uh
decade or so
you may have a fractional cfo you may
have a fractional marketing person right
so that’s that’s pretty common and so
the integrator is no different
and it can be very effective where
somebody who’s really good at this kind
of stuff
gives you a portion of their time in a
week to come in and play
the most critical roles that an
integrator might play for you
that gets the high leverage stuff off of
your plate as the visionary
trying to focus more there so what are
the things that you’re really struggling
with maybe in that integrator seat so
they can do that
a lot of times it’s sort of a try before
you buy
scenario so uh that may work so well
that that fractional relationship may
actually grow into a full-time
relationship
uh the other thing that can happen is
there are a lot of folks out there that
you know hang their shingle out as a
fractional integrator
that part of their service offering is
they will help you find
the integrator okay so so they’ll
they’ll help get you organized get you
going
and then they’ll help you find somebody
to come in and fill that seat when you
are
ready right and again if you’re in a
healthy growing company
it’s not unreasonable to expect that if
you can’t afford it today
you may grow you should grow to the
place where you would be able to afford
it
the other possibility there trace is
that you’re not really
looking properly at the question of
whether or not you can afford it
and a great exercise to take a visionary
through here is you know we’ll have them
create
a wish list of all the things that they
would love for a visionary to be able to
make
true for them or make go away for them
or whatever
also just your issues list or the one
that you have right now in your
leadership level
10 look at all the issues that are there
and then go through that and go all
right if i had a great integrator here
which of which of these issues would
that solve and kind of tick
tick all those issues and then go back
through and go okay what kind of dollar
impact would that have for our business
and and kind of come up with some rough
guess of what kind of dollar impact that
would have for your business
and add it up and many times that dollar
figure dwarfs
whatever it would cost you to have an
integrator there
you know fractional or even even full
time and so that
all of a sudden now they’re clear and
that gets them to move forward
on getting somebody more fully engaged
that answer the question
i think you did but you’ve also sparked
several more questions
oh good well that’s the idea so a
visionary’s just listened to that
and they’re like wow mark nailed it
that’s exactly what’s going on
if i were able to get somebody in here
that was truly dedicated
to the integrator position either
part-time or full-time
we could check those things off and i
would have a happier life
everybody in the company will have a
happier life how does somebody go about
finding an integrator
oh there’s the billion dollar question
right so
so a typical pattern i see trace is the
visionary picks up rocket fuel they read
the first chapter they love it because
it’s all about them
exactly what you said they read the
second chapter it’s about integrators
and they go
that makes sense i think that could help
me and then they asked that question
how do i find one and that’s where it
gets kind of hard okay
i will tell you we’re working hard on
this question because we understand how
important it is
in the meantime the things that i can
suggest to you is
you know at the high level there are
recruiting firms that are sort of
pivoted to really focus their practice
on this and so
integrated recruiting firms are a real
thing where there’s people that are you
know they do this a lot and so they’re
really really good at it
and so they can hold your hand take you
through this and basically do this all
for you
short of that you know it’s really about
getting the word out there of what
you’re looking for
okay and so in the book we’ve got sort
of a a process called the seven step
vi connection process and it walks you
through
getting clear on what it is that you’re
looking for uh in a in a fashion that
then you can put that word
out there and begin to hire for it like
you would
anything else there’s a job description
so there’s an integrator job description
that is a great starting place for what
you’re looking for that then you can
adapt uh to yourself
we have the assessments the visionary
integrator assessments we call it the
crystallizer assessment that gives
you a both a visionary score and an
integrator score any candidate
you would want to have take that so that
you can see how they score
and then also to compare your answers
right so so the the
how you answered those questions
compared to how they answered those
questions
and we’re looking for two things in
terms of fit there we’re looking for
a gap and a gap would be where on
one of those 40 questions you both
scored low
that’s a gap right so neither one of us
is is particularly well wired for that
so
that could be an issue and if you have
one gap probably not a big deal if you
have
10 gaps on a 40 question instrument
that’s probably an issue you’re probably
not a great combo
so we’re looking for gas also looking
for overlap so let’s say you and i both
score really high
on this area so instinctively we
both may want to fight for the wheel in
that area and if we haven’t talked about
it and cleared it up okay who’s
is that who’s going to lead that who’s
going to hold the accountability for
that
that can cause this process we got to
get clear on all those areas where we
may have gaps or overlaps
so that’s really important as you’re
working through uh candidates
but you know short of using the
recruiter the the big answer here
is put the word out and and
you know there’s some of our communities
so in rockefeller university
in the linkedin group there are organic
threads where people are finding each
other it’ll be a post you know visionary
seeking integrator
integrator seeking visionary and we’ve
got lots of examples of folks that have
found each other that way
and then gone on to be successful duos
you’ll be surprised
when you know people have sort of uh
started to use the integrator term
and so the the linkedin profile has been
changed now it doesn’t say general
manager anymore it says integrator
it doesn’t say president says integra
right so so whatever traditional title
they may have used in the past they’ve
adopted this term and so it’s out there
and so you can search for
integrators uh on on linkedin so you can
find them that way and then again just
let your
circles of influence know that this is
what you’re looking for
and then you’re going to get you’re
going to get a lot of attention that way
mark my integrator went through
one of the classes that you offer
several people
in the rising tide mastermind have gone
through those classes
tremendous work it’s amazing of the
tools that chris came away
from that class can you tell the scaling
up nation a little bit about what you’ve
put together
and who’s it for sure yeah so it really
all starts with what we call rocket fuel
university so rocket fuel university is
a place for all visionaries and
integrators and anybody else who
who cares about their success to come
together and it begins with a short
video course called rocket fuel 101
and it’s there to basically cover all
these basic fundamentals of what it
means to
really crystallize your understanding of
the relationship
talk about you know getting connected
and then really how to maximize the
relationship which dives deeper into the
five rules and the five tools
and once somebody gets through that
course they enter into a community that
we call the launch pad
and this is where we’ve got again all
those visionaries and integrators and
and
others who who are interested in them
gathered together to
to talk to each other meet each other i
actually
host a monthly q a with that group in
fact once we get off this interview
that’s my next stop is a
is a q a call with the uh with the
launch pad community inside rocket fuel
university
where they get to ask questions and you
know what i answer
a good chunk of those questions but the
community answers a great chunk of those
questions and they get to share stories
you know here was my experience here’s
how it worked for me
here’s what i did in that situation so
it’s it’s really powerful
in that regard as a as a peer group and
once somebody’s in the launchpad
community
and they’re really clear on okay this is
what i am then we have a path for them
so if somebody really knows that they’re
an integrator
and they want to commit to being the
best integrator they can possibly be
then we we guide them to what we call
the integrator academy master class
which is what your integrator and some
other folks in your community have have
gone through
and that’s a four week intensive where
there’s a combination of
video based training that goes deep dive
in in all this stuff that we’re talking
about for what it looks like
to be truly great as an integrator and
then i do live
group coaching with those cohorts we do
that on a cohort basis so they go
through in a group
and uh you know once a week i get on
with them and we talk about
sort of all those higher level questions
so the launch pad community you get some
more fundamental questions and then
in the master class obviously we get to
talk about things that may be more
more complex uh even more fun kind of
stuff to figure out
well i have to say the the understanding
and clarity
that the people i know that have sat
through the class
it’s just been incredible one of my
favorite tools came
from somebody that attended that and it
was
the issue atomizer oh yeah and it’s a
great visual that i never really got
before you put that out there
do you mind telling people what the
atomizer is
yeah so the issue atomizer is just a
simple idea
that some issues are big right some
issues we can knock out and we can solve
and take it to action
and and that’s it uh some issues though
are a lot bigger that so when you get
a big issue and you realize wow this is
a really big issue then there’s there’s
one of two things going on either one
it’s actually
four or five smaller issues that you’ve
just kind of glommed together and if
that’s the case
identify that break them apart and deal
with the one that’s the smaller one that
we can deal with right now
put the rest of those back on the issues
list okay if however it really is this
big gnarly issue
then that’s where the issue atomizer
comes into play and the idea is your job
is not to solve that big gnarly issue
completely
this week your job is to identify the
one thing
that if we could solve it if we could
take this action if we could get this
thing
unstuck and we could get this part of it
done by next week’s level 10
and do that then it’s going to make that
issue more clear and more refined so we
do that we we focus on that to do
we get it done the next week we come
back and maybe
it’s just a smaller a bit more refined
issue and we talk about that again
and then we what’s the one thing we can
do this week to get it unstuck and
moving forward we do that then it gets a
little bit more refined
at some point whoever owns that area on
the accountability chart
they’re going to have what they need
they’re not going to be stuck anymore
and so we’re going to have got them
clear and they’re going to be able to
take that maybe even if it’s not solved
it no longer needs to get solved with
the leadership team
they’re going to be able to solve it in
their department to carry it the rest of
the way to get it
you know across the finish line at the
end of the track that was huge the
visuals great
that was a true game changer in our
level 10s
awesome love hearing that all right my
last question
uh and basically it’s it’s just what’s
the point you want to get across today
so and i get this question a fair amount
and really the
the one thing that’s i want everybody to
take from my message is it’s super
important that you know yourself
and and who who you are what you
love doing what you’re great at and
go find your compliment right so so
whoever that is on the other side of you
that is great at and loves all that
stuff that you
hate and stink at right and get paired
up with them and that’s going to be the
key to making this thing go so
understand who you are and then go look
for that person that’ll be your
complimentary ideal counterpart
well mark thank you for coming on the
show and i personally want to thank you
for your help in all the work that
you’ve done
you’ve come into our company through
your books through your courses
and you’ve made our company better
you’ve made our people happier you’ve
made me happier thank you
i couldn’t appreciate that anymore trace
that’s awesome thank you so much for
sharing that and thank you for having me
on
nation i learn so much when mark
speaks i’m telling you when you have the
right people
in the right seats that means they’re
doing the right jobs and they’re the
jobs that
they love doing your
company is ignited with rocket fuel and
there’s no wonder
why mark named his book rocket fuel
we’ve seen it here in our firm i’ve seen
it in other
companies that i know are running on the
entrepreneur operating
system and they’re making sure that
they’re utilizing
the visionary integrator relationship
properly
it is amazing how well all the teams do
within the company
how happy all the people are who work in
the company
and how successful the company itself
actually
is now if you want to learn more about
the programs that mark
mentioned in our interview you can go to
rocketfueluniversity.com
and i know so many of us are driving
while we’re listening to this podcast so
don’t worry
i’ve got all of those items on our show
notes page and they will direct you
right over there i wanted to touch on
a few things that mark and i mentioned
today so you can go back
and review one of them was the
temperament study and we’ve had kathleen
edelman
on our residents scaling up h2o
temperament
expert and she came on on episode 117
and taught us
all about temperaments this
is how do we see ourselves
how are we wired and then how are we
using particular language because of
that wiring
and then the realization that even
though that we say something
and we know what we mean it doesn’t
necessarily translate
to the other person how they hear
what they say hence her book i
said this you heard that well that was
episode 117
and then she was kind enough to come
back
on episode 179 where we talked
even more about the temperaments and
nation
i gotta say i am so impressed with all
of the feedback that i’ve received from
you where you have done the temperament
study
and you’ve told me it’s helped with your
co-workers it’s helped with
your family and the overwhelming
response that i
heard was it has helped with how you
communicate
with your spouse i know that was the
case with me
because i knew exactly what was in my
head but somehow it didn’t translate
well
when it came out of my mouth after we
started working with kathleen
stacy and i just communicate better we
understand what the other one is saying
but better yet
we try to communicate in a way for
the other person and i love how kathleen
says
the words we use are the gifts we choose
to give the people that listen
so great mindset if you haven’t listened
to episode 117 and 179
you’re gonna love those but we briefly
brought that up in the interview so i
wanted to throw that out
additionally i want to throw out the
five tools we talked about that in the
interview
but we didn’t really cover what it was
these are the main tools within eos
that allow us to do what we need to do
working within the entrepreneurial
operating system
the first of the five tools is called
the vision traction
organizer and this is the document that
puts all your core values
your core focus what your target is what
your marketing strategy is
where you’re going to be in three years
what you’re going to do
this current year what goals you’re
working on
this quarter and finally what are the
issues that are going to come up that
you can see
that you need to start working on
the second tool is the accountability
chart
the accountability chart a lot of people
have org charts where the accountability
chart is different
that actually shows not like an org
chart
who reports to who it says who is
responsible for
what and folks i got to tell you that is
a game changer when people truly
understand what their responsibilities
are
they are able to hone in and
truly own their job so you might want to
look
into that if you’re still using an org
chart
the next tool is rocks rocks are 90 day
goals what’s
one super important thing that if i got
done it’s going to be a game changer for
my department
for my company that is a rock
i say one thing because less is more
here i would always advise you never
have more than three
of these just depending on what your
load is but
don’t do a mediocre job on three
do a superb job on one
and that i think is a much better
accomplishment
the fourth tool is the meeting pulse and
that’s where we’re getting together on a
regular basis we’re getting together
every week for a level 10 meeting you
heard mark and i talk about that
it’s also meaning every quarter that we
are getting together for a quarterly
meeting
and then we’re getting together for a
two-day annual
meeting we’re making sure that we’ve
scheduled time for these meetings
so we can talk about the things we need
to talk about we can observe the things
that the company
is showing us and we can make sure that
we’re making
little adjustments along the way the
final tool is the scorecard
and folks there’s just so much data out
there
the scorecard are the boiled down items
that we can look at
that are telling us what’s going on in
the company
what’s going on in particular
departments and allow us to make
decisions and see
if things are working or if they are not
the last thing i want to point out that
mark mentioned
i think was huge he mentioned when i
asked him is it okay
for somebody to hold several positions
and i was specifically talking about the
visionary and the integrator
he said eventually you have to realize
that it’s not about i have to
spend the money to hire somebody else
you have to change your mindset that it
is costing me money because
i’m not doing what i am best and highest
at and that is costing me money that is
costing the company money
and if i can get somebody that comes in
and now their best and highest
are those tasks imagine how much better
they’re going to get done
imagine how much better the company is
going to do
and i had to think of the story when i
was working with my coach
tim fulton and tim asked me after
one of our meetings and by the way
during that meeting he was telling me
that i was way too busy
i had too much on my plate and i needed
to figure out
how to get rid of some of the items
because i was just running out of
bandwidth
he asked me what i was doing when i got
home later that friday and i told him
i was cutting the grass and i think he
threw out there where you’re not taking
your wife out to dinner you’re not doing
you know
probably a number of five things that he
had mentioned and i said no i’m gonna
cut my grass
and he said well how much do you think
it would cost to get somebody to cut
your grass and it was fifty dollars
and i was not going to pay somebody
fifty dollars to do something that i was
perfectly capable of doing and he asked
me
what was the cost of not spending that
fifty dollars
now think about the time that i could
have spent with my wife
of course that is priceless you can’t
put a price on that
but look at all the other things that i
wasn’t doing for my company i wasn’t
doing for the people within my company
that i could have committed those
two to three hours with that
i was not spending fifty dollars on so
to date
i have a company come and do my lawn my
lawn has never looked better
they have a crew that gets out of a
truck they have equipment that i will
never acquire in my lifetime and it
looks like i’m
living on a golf course my lawn looks
great
and i don’t have to worry about it it
just gets done
so my challenge for you is what are
you good at what do you love
doing and why aren’t you doing those
things
what is causing you not to be able to
do them and shift to realize that you
shouldn’t be doing those things to
begin with do the things that you’re
good at that you
love doing and i promise that will
unlock
the potential that you have it will make
life
more fun it will make you more happy
and i promise it will give you the
bandwidth that you need to
spend time with the people that matter
most and folks i hope that helps i know
it helped me
and i really appreciate you listening to
my favorite podcast scaling up h2o
and i will have another brand new
episode for you
next friday have a great week folks
[Music]
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i am going to be the best water treater
that i
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that’s not a mastermind that is a
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is when like-minded people get together
we process issues we form common bonds
of friendship around each other and we
celebrate and push each other towards
success it is the key
to so many people unlocking their
potential
to find out more go to scaling up
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you