Flywheel Leadership

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com   The Cost of Just Hitting Numbers Is your organization truly invested in its people? Really!? Author Graham Peelle December 04, 2023 The Cost of Just Hitting Numbers Technology share chart Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash Is your organization truly invested in its people? Really!? This article was first published by Graham Peelle on Medium, on July 21, 2023 Driving revenue, activity supporting revenue, and key business activities are critical to maintain focus in moving your business forward. This focus promotes growth, performance, and builds the business. But it can’t come at a cost to your people. Your people, or talent, drive your future, your name in the market, and hold the keys to your future. As companies grow, and even those with some of the best reputations as employers from the Fortune 500, they can miss the opportunity to grow with their people, and struggle with making their people an afterthought, or maybe it’s that some organizations view people as a commodity. People are people, so when you lay thousands off, don’t expect people to come running when you hire again when work gets tough. It goes both ways and after what we saw from 2018–2022 and before, you would think some learning took place. But it’s business — terminate to reduce cost or raise stock prices, restructure cost, etc. and figure out your headcount needs later. Even when six months ago, adding talent was your priority. The hamster wheel is real. Hire like crazy, layoff, hire again, no true plan for doing anything differently, but this churn isn’t sustainable, nor good business. It’s about the people, stupid, if I dare to play off the infamous 90’s campaign slogan. People are the priority. Happy employees equals happy clients, high performance and a higher level of ownership and accountability. Some companies don’t get it, or maybe even scarier, is when they see it, yet choose to ignore it and prefer to invest in other areas at a cost to their people. Action shows your priorities, not talk. Organizations continue to talk about how people are their priority, but many show that people rank behind a whole slew of corporate priorities, including their customers. If you don’t make your people feel you care and want to advance them, in turn, they will deprioritize their work for you as well. Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash Companies can understand the bottom line figures, KPIs, OKRs, whatever your flavor, but when it comes to people, organizations can struggle because people change and sometimes numbers don’t tell the full story. Groups of people evolve over time, but more recently with the rapidly changing socially connected world, with a variety of events and movements, the rate of change is starting to rival tech at times. MeToo, social justice, COVID pandemic, climate crisis, inflation, school violence, and so on. Not to mention the individual rate of change with your leaders and teams- people change individually often, but the community change has shifted to a hyper speed. It’s about the people- I have seen organizations claim people were at the center of everything, but as the companies grip the bat and struggle to meet revenue and profit expectations, that mindset fades away over time. Some companies try, but stopped making the necessary sacrifices to live it, breathe it, and grow it. It is in danger to become just another tagline, not a real mantra to live by. Some organizations abandon their core principle because they weren’t hitting expectations, when really it was a number of other factors impacting that, and not something to hold against its people. Companies underestimate the cost associated with their actions as seen in a recent common example shared by Cameron Herold…add customer service headcount, or fix the actual problem? Some companies choose an ongoing drain on their margin in the name of short term numbers, instead of doing the right thing for sustainable growth. Or for companies that focus on numbers that aren’t controllable, rather than working with their teams and holding them to activity-based metrics. This concept all came to a tipping point with the pandemic, really disrupting the labor market, and I would argue it was already in motion, but accelerated at a significant rate since 2020. Attrition spiked for companies that didn’t support their people, turned their back, or required unrealistic performance or physical presence during a global pandemic. This realization hit some harder than others in 2021–2022, when companies actually started to see that labor supply actually is limited. You cannot expect unlimited churn and you have to see that sometimes it does catch up you. People leadership will continue to be a hot topic, and some companies will excel, while others fall further behind. Be a positive part of the labor movement and make it about taking care of your people, and not realizing too late that your employees win for you, so be a winner for

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com   Missionary Over Mercenary — Building an Intentional Culture Are you on a team of purpose and mission? Author Graham Peelle November 27, 2023 Missionary Over Mercenary — Building an Intentional Culture Are you on a team of purpose and mission? This article was originally published by Graham Peelle on Medium, August 22, 2023 Mission Driven Jeff Bezos and other business titans have been known for referencing hiring missionaries, instead of mercenaries. Missionaries are here to build something and partner with you to drive your business forward with the right intention, care, and purpose. Mercenaries are not — mercenaries are here to get their share, drive their own initiatives, and favor unhealthy selfish drive with an an unhealthy desire to get ahead at all costs. They want their money, they don’t want to give their allegiance or full commitment to the cause. Will everyone be a missionary or a mercenary, probably not. You likely have some that are really in neither bucket, or have a foot in each. You’re wondering how that works, well let’s consider this for a moment. How many associates do you find that are coasting along, just earning a paycheck, disengaged in most of the non-essential aspects of the business, and ultimately are here to get a paycheck, and nothing more. They aren’t overly selfish, but not overly committed. You’ll always have these middle to bottom players, that just work, and don’t really sway or have strong motivators besides that paycheck. The larger your business, the more you tend to have these types, and while it’s not the best, it’s bound to happen and the more you can foster a safe environment for team members to just work, be productive, and as long as they are producing positively above cost, and not a cultural drain, there is value in having them on your bus. Not everyone can be all in, get promoted, or be the teammate everyone wants. But many can still be solid performers or doers. You need those as well — not everyone can or wants to be the CEO or CFO. You need some solid performers with aspirations at being a good worker and teammate. What you don’t need is those poor performers, those with ill intentions, or those driving their own mission and mindset, contrary to the company’s. These low performers on one end and and mercenaries on the other, are a critical detriment to your culture and business. It is important to weed them out over time. It’s not a witch hunt, but it’s important to shed the dead weight dragging your business down. That drain is killing you slowly if you let it. Negativity, inefficiency, and unproductive are costing you in time, money, and culture. Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash Value in a People-Aligned Mission So what’s the value in have a core missionaries that believe, deliver, and jump on board to support the organizational vision, mission, and core purpose. They are here for more. They are here to do great work and support the cause, whatever that may be. They don’t want just a check, they want to have purpose, which positively drives all the work metrics upward, with just two key two concerns from this — Retention — it’s harder to keep the best people, because they expect more of you and the company in all areas Opportunity — it can be hard to meet the continued needs of individuals that are most driven and expect opportunity, promotion, or compensation for their contributions Promoting a Mission-based Culture People — Hiring and maintaining a center for mission-based purpose Process — Keeping your mission front and center of every conversation Technology — Aligning tech to support your mission, not distract from it Vision — Promote a view into the future, drive the purpose of how to get there Mission — concise with clarity, on what our mission is If you want mission-based team members, consider what is behind everything you do in your work, or business. Think back about what you drive as motivators, incentives, business speak, and culture. This overall culture drives your willingness to accept mercenary types or promote the benefits of mission-driven associates. Make your mission clear and loud, and help drown out the mercenaries that must not be tolerated in your organization. There is so much more that can go into promoting your mission — for more on building a Performance Operations Culture, check out my newsletter, OpCo. Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading. Climb Higher, Raise Your^ROI OpCo: The People Ops Blueprint — Operations | People | Culture | Opportunity If Performance Operations Culture means something to you, or you would like to be notified for future posts on operations leadership, culture, and people related topics from the world of work, make sure you click the 🔔 on my LinkedIn profile page. Also, please share OpCo with anyone else who may benefit from the newsletter. For additional daily content, check ou

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com Your Life’s Work: Harnessing Your Passion, Vision & Purpose Finding and committing to your life’s work Author Graham Peelle November 20, 2023 Your Life’s Work: Harnessing Your Passion, Vision & Purpose Finding and committing to your life’s work In October 2023, I attended an event called Founder Mentality, hosted by Patrick O’Shaughnessy (CEO of Positive Sum, and host of the podcast, Invest Like the Best) featuring David Senra, along with Jeremy Giffon. It was a one-off event as Patrick helps launch David Senra and gain exposure to grow his audience as part of the Colossus Podcast Network. The event dove into the craft, commitment, and passion of David Senra with the Founders podcast, touching on the motivations for David’s work, and brought in Jeremy to the conversation to add his insights into what drives him as well. It was a fun event, and really got me thinking about a theme Patrick and David continue to discuss, with finding and committing to your life’s work. Founder Mentality, 10.19.2023 - Webster Hall, NYC Your life’s work is your own personal mission driving your motivation, discipline, and your expertise. It is your professional why of doing what you do, and is the root of your purpose and love for your work. Your life’s work guides your own personal —> Purpose | Vision | Goal | Mission (Source: ScaleX Summit) as described by Dr. Oleg Konovalov when talking about organizational vision. You are the CEO of your own life and career (Kinglsey Aikins, Network Institute), so having these concepts in your own personal framework can be extremely valuable. Having clarity with a laser-focused direction in mind brings so much power, increasing your capacity and capability, along with your chances for deep fulfillment and success. Scattered focus and time allocation, destroys your capacity for personal leverage, so going through a discovery to find your life’s work can bring you the purpose you may be seeking in your professional career. Dr. Oleg Konovalov at the 2023 ScaleX Summit, Belfast, UK, 11.15.2023 Can you live and work without this? Of course you can, and many do, but a select few may see this as walking through life aimlessly, running on the hamster wheel of life, without a why, passion, purpose, or any kind of insight into their own personal vision. And when you think about it, so many live a life with meaning and happiness without discovery into this area, but especially for those with curiosity, drive, and the pull for more meaning and impact, this exercise may be essential if it doesn’t fall in your lap. For some, it comes naturally in some way, through experience, education, handed down through family, hobbies, and for some, it takes a a bit of personal discovery and work to really identify and hone in on what is important to us. For my own personal discovery, I have done significant deep work over the last 18 months to consider my own priorities and pull in my passion and purpose to understand what I want, and what I can bring to the world (April 2022 - November 2023). I have learned firsthand there is a need for finding focus in what you do. When you go through this discovery phase, you become more self-aware and as you get introspective, it makes you think about how much you spread yourself thin in the course of life, dabbling, weaving in and out, experimenting aimlessly, and never stepping back to look at what do I want, what do I love, and how can I make this my mission. There are so many resources available on how to find this purpose so I won’t dive into those here, but a few resources are listed below, following this article, along with in the links throughout the article. I have touched on related topics in some of my other writing as well: Building an intentional life Find your one thing Live your life Design your career For today, I want to focus on the value in finding purpose and hopefully give you the final push if you aren’t convinced and haven’t yet found what your personal mission really is. For my own discovery, I started walking through what interests me, what value can I bring, what have I already succeeded at, what do others see in me, what do others ask me for help with, and I have realized that your purpose may take a while to find or refine too. It’s not going to click for everyone with a quick session. For some, it may take decades, for some they found it when they found it as a child. But the time, effort, self-reflection, and struggle at times - it’s all worth it. The power that comes with clarity in finding your life’s work, harnessing your passion and purpose, and building a vision is one of the most valuable exercises you can do in your life. It’s your own story you’re writing, so why would you not take the time and effort to refine your life’s work. You are worth it and your value can help so many people if you can find a way to find, define, and share it. Your life’s work gives you a voice, the power, and

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com The Value of Talent: Don’t Short Change Your Future Navigating the Talent Landscape Author Graham Peelle November 13, 2023 The Value of Talent: Don’t Short Change Your Future Navigating the Talent Landscape Originally published by Graham Peelle on Medium on July 22, 2023 Talent Strategy & Solutions — There are a multitude of ways to get work done. Talent Solutions is the larger segment made up of many of those options. It’s important to understand the various ways to get work done to position your work mix for your business model. Just some of those talent options include: Contingent Labor (contract, temp, etc.) Managed Services (bundled, staffing+, or BPO in some cases) Independent Contractors (1099) Gig Workers (Think Uber and DoorDash related concepts, work on demand, with a variety of big players in the on-demand digital flexible staffing models, like Swipejobs) Engineering Services (Also referred to as Professional Services, Technical Services, Managed Services, Project Work, etc.) Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Talent Acquisition Your internal recruiting team with a dedicated individual, group, or entire department Drives your internal strategy and accountable for delivering on organization’s strategy Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Talent Attraction & Cultivation Marketing — includes all aspects of marketing, with the biggest being digital Talent engagement through talent communities and social awareness This includes not only marketing to talent, but also keeping them warm and interested in hearing from or about your company as a way to drive future talent University, technology and trade school partnerships are a subset of this area This is the key to tapping into external talent Talent Management & Development Actively managing and developing your current internal talent pool Driving career pathing and skills development Closely aligned with Learning & Development (L&D), but more specific to the overall strategy of taking your organization’s talent to the next level This is your talent engine and what can build your next level leaders, managers and supervisors, but also brings value to the entire organization by providing your talent career guidance, motivation and tools to drive forward So what does this all mean? Talent matters. It is critical, and whether it be talent for your organization, division, team, or group, you can drive your talent forward with a holistic Talent Solutions approach. Only focusing on talent acquisition or talent management for example, will leave you with a major gap in your talent strategy, even if you still think your talent can be replaced, consider the last couple years, as we have learned there is a definite level of talent. It’s not unlimited and when you think of it as truly a resource, or human capital investment, your approach changes. Now, you may wonder, how can I succeed as a leader in the world of talent? Leverage your available expertise in-house, hire that expertise, or work with a consultant to help set-up your talent strategy and can provide specialization. Position your expert talent consultant or talent leader however necessary to help build your talent strategy, and align with your business needs. Bring your Talent Leader or Consultant to the table to help form your strategy, not hand it to them. Talent Strategy is best formed in partnership, not as a directive, as this drives clear targets, expectations and aligns business objectives. Provide your talent leader a seat at the table, depending on your organization size, a seat as part of the ELT, reporting to the owner, or for larger companies, reporting to the CHRO, but provide them the title, voice, and mandate to help drive organizational change centered on talent. If your talent leader isn’t reporting to the owner or CHRO, find a way to engage them at the highest level that you can in your organization. Never short change talent — it will leave you grasping to hang on for your industry’s best of the best. Hire and retain talent, as it’s your rock for the ability to hit your growth targets. Talent drives growth, and as a leader if you can understand the landscape and learn to navigate, you can master the talent game. Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading. Climb Higher, Raise Your^ROI CONTENT RESOURCES 6 Workforce Development Strategies to Build Agile, Resilient Teams Competence or innovation? You need both. These workforce development strategies grow your team’s skills and agility by building a people-centric culture. www.betterup.com/blog/workforce-development-strategies Creating A Winning Talent Management Strategy In 2023 Learn the best practices for developing a talent management strategy to attract, retain and develop top talent in 2023. arielle.com.au/talent-management-strategy Playing to win: The new rules for leading talent in 2023 https://www.fastcompany.c

https://eidigitial.com https://grahampeelle.com   Client & Associate Retention: Slowing Down to Speed Up Build a thriving business at any scale with sustainable fundamentals, not chasing the squirrel Originally written by Graham Peelle on Medium, July 20, 2023 Founders, companies, and organizations see challenges and problems all of the time, but what do they do about them? Do they push them aside, ignore them, form a project team, special initiative, or make it a focus area? Companies sometimes ignore issues, and often take action to solve problems, but do they actually work towards understanding the root cause of the problem, and solving it, or simply patch an easier straightforward target that is the popular or a more “sellable” option to leadership? Companies are often not taking action or trying to solve the wrong problem, and it happens repeatedly, over and over, wasting time and money, and potentially harming the business. It’s time to stop this churn and burn. It’s time to not solely focus on your own priorities that focus on your acquisition. Acquisition is one piece of the puzzle, but not the only piece. Prioritize retention and unlock the key to long-term, sustainable and compounding growth. Not to mention, saving money, eliminating unnecessary headaches, and exhausting rework. Value your current business and talent, with talent retention or customer retention. Yes, the principles are quite similar and you can align your organizational mindset and culture at a high level. It’s time to form clear aligned strategies focused on your customer retention, and talent retention. Most companies understand and want to to have a plan and want to execute in both areas, but not all know how to build the customized plan for their needs. What drives customer and talent retention? Don’t over-complicate it, but you must dig below the surface. It’s about delivering on the wants and needs of each group, while most organizations tend to deliver a something, but don’t truly validate if it’s what our customers or talent truly want. Many of us make assumptions, which turn into investment decisions, sometimes costly decisions. Like giving a raise or retention bonus, and assuming that will improve retention, or adding a service and assuming that will hold on to your customer. Understand the challenges, and understand the solution and its impacts, never assume you understand the pattern and impacts. Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash We need to change the culture and listen to our audience to determine what our talent wants, and what our customers want. And not at face value, but taking the real feedback, reporting, and facts, to develop a strategy and planning the execution. Data driven retention strategy. Below are a few highlights on how to understand what your customer or talent want, in order build a true Retention Strategy: Collect Evidence from your current customers (or talent from that perspective). This can be direct feedback, market intel, surveys, reports, facts, data, etc. During this step, it’s important to remove your preconceived notions and judgments about what’s important to your own company, versus what your audience wants. Organize your findings into actionable analysis, and where possible validate your analysis with a sampling of your audience. Collaboration within your organization to educate and align on the path forward. Build Vision, including a short-term and long-term picture based on your findings and aligned to your mission. Communication & Culture involves making it part of you every day a go activities even if it is a large dedicated project or initiative. Execution & Evaluation is focused on implementation of your strategy, monitoring data and outcomes, and making any specific targeted adjustments as necessary. Whether it be retention of talent or customers, not all companies are ready to form this strategy as part of our core business and excuse on it. You need to make it your core, or get the help necessary. The demands of everyday business will consume any organization that doesn’t embed this into its culture. It’s time to clear the clutter, reflect on what’s a priority for your organization, and take the time to weed through excuses, reasons, justifications, and road blocks thrown at us by our own teams or clients, to focus on achieving retention success. Reflect as a leader and get real with yourself with some organizational self-awareness. Is it time for a change in your business? To compete in today’s landscape you must commit, focus, and iterate based on your fact-based intelligence, AND your gut. Level-up: Win new business AND retain your existing customers.Transform now to build your business of the future and create your biggest fans with your current client base. Choose both, don’t let your current clients down, uphold your promises to them and solidify your partnerships with a winning account retention stratgegy and execution. These delighted customers will eff

  https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com   A Look at Servant Leadership: A Must Have Skill for New Leaders Your team is your mission, not your self-advancement Graham PeelleOctober 30, 2023   A Look at Servant Leadership: A Must Have Skill for New Leaders Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash Your team is your mission, not your self-advancement Originally written by Graham Peelle on Medium, July 18, 2023 Servant leadership is referenced often, but since it’s so common, the definition and what it really means isn’t always discussed. Servant leadership is about everyone else and not you as the leader, and it’s about truly embracing the concept of serving your team instead of having an authoritative mindset and serving your own selfish priorities. How do you show up for your team? Do people fear you or respect you? Does your team act the same while you are there, as when you are not? Are you truly putting your team’s well being and trajectory ahead of your own? All of this while delivering on business objectives can be quite overwhelming when you list it out. John Maxwell is commonly known as the expert on the topic, but let’s dive in here on what you can do to serve your team. Servant leadership sounds like it comes with a significant responsibility, and it does. Leadership, generally speaking, does come with an enormous level of responsibility. You have someone’s career in your hands. You can then continue to beat yourself about it, like considering what is your purpose? Are you serving you or serving the team? Are you building a team or controlling a group of people? How are you bringing others along for the journey? Heavy questions for any leader, so how do you model this? Trust, empowerment and providing the tools to get the job done. Taking away pressures that are not suited for your team, and putting your team first. Putting your team first involves considering your team’s development, tools, and positioning before your own and also having their back to ensure they have the support needed to feel free from undue encumbrance from corporate or organizational pressures. I really like empowerment, as it breeds engagement, ownership and accountability within a business operation. Empower your team to own their world. From the opposite side of empowerment, comes micromanagement, which breeds fear and lack of transparency. Micromanagement when utilized as a broad tool and mindset, is toxic, and should only be the path when an associate shows they need the oversight at that level during increased performance management, or possibly during an intense training program for a new hire. Micromanagement is where you limit an associate’s growth, empowerment and confidence and truly cuts professionals down, eating away at their self-worth and attitude. Micromanagement destroyed my work spirit in a past org and position, and I can share from experience, it can be a dark feeling of isolation, pressure and self-questioning. It’s hard to shake it even when you’re in family time — you never feel like you’re even good enough to be there. So how do you know if you are you building a growth-minded team or a group of followers? Much of it can be seen by when the team has a decision to make and how they handle the process. If they can run without you, this is one good sign. Another is the interest in taking on increased responsibility, a showing of care for their work and focus on driving the business forward. If your team takes initiatives forward, focuses on priorities and has a positive mindset, you have the right start at taking your team along for the journey, instead of riding them for their worth. And remember as a leader, don’t forget to share your care, before your demands. If an associate feels your care for their well being and growth, that trust built translates into productivity, performance and organizational alignment to own their business, which drives your business forward. Be a servant leader and continue to learn how to support your team with care, resources and empowerment. This will allow you to take your team to the ideal state of opportunity and excellence. Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading. Climb Higher, Raise Your^ROI   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com   Customer Obsession Drives Customer Retention How to focus on your client and provide exceptional service to wow clients and fuel growth: 7 steps to service and retain your client Author Graham Peelle October 23, 2023 Customer Obsession Drives Customer Retention How to focus on your client and provide exceptional service to wow clients and fuel growth: 7 steps to service and retain your client Originally written by Graham Peelle on Medium, July, 18, 2023 When was the last time you considered your customer priorities in front of your own priorities? I continue to see organizations and client-facing teams focus on their own advancement, while missing the realization that you advance with promotions, income, and growth, through advancing your client. In my experience, that is a major factor when looking at those who truly understand account management, and those who just don’t — do they prioritize their customer, or are they really truly prioritizing their own interests? Answering that question usually gives you your answer. What spurred my thinking about this is what really drives customer satisfaction, retention, and profitability. Some companies are better than others at prioritizing their clients and their clients’ business, but I still see a significant gap in understanding why putting customers first, must be an obsession. Jeff Bezos preached this tirelessly and would not lower his expectations, upholding this core belief. There is a key lesson we should take away from that Amazon mentality when it comes to customers. You must have that drive and fire to take care of your customer for a sustainable future, growth, and putting a product forward that really makes a difference. You need to have the right motivation that drives you in a positive manner to create successful outcomes and make yourself irreplaceable. You need to be willing to manage with your customer’s nuisances and go the extra mile enough to differentiate yourself from other providers. Learn when to give in and work to let them they’re wrong, in a productive manner and from a partnership lens. Remember, besides price, which most of us don’t want to win purely on price, you win on value because of the service you can deliver. Your customer can like you, but that only goes so far compared to your ability to build value. Value is why customers stick around in the long run — make customer obsession your organizational focus and your growth driver. You can win all the new business you want, but if you can’t retain clients, you aren’t growing. Companies want to ignore that fact continuously, but it’s not going away. I’m going to attempt to articulate how market leading companies drive customer experience and that wow factor we all look for in a partner. Here are a few core areas to focus on to drive real customer satisfaction: Communication & Commitment — Do what you say you are going to do, tell your client what you will do, and the timing you will complete it Operational Excellence Customer Service including response time, flexibility, and agility Trust & Consistency — be truthful, clear, and up front about what is important to share Delivery with FTQ (first-time quality) — get the job done right the first time Expertise & Presence — know your craft, don’t be selfish with knowledge, go all in with being there for your customer. I give a lot of credit to my experience with a past organization. That firm taught me a great deal on how to deliver on a customer program, manage accounts, and grow and retain accounts, with a positive experience that is not only achievable, sustainable, but is also scalable. So, what’s next with retaining accounts through exceptional service operations and customer delight? 7 Key Steps to Build a Customer Obsessive Operation Determine what your customer actually wants, not what you want or think they need — they may not be right, but you must understand the expectation they are laying out and how you will deliver, this must be aligned Set a target- determine a number, a goal, or expectation for where your service level is considered exceptional — determine what good looks like Determine how you will achieve that target — identify the action necessary and owners of that action to transform your account or business using these principles Continue to monitor progress and results — what metrics or data will you use to determine you are or aren’t making progress. Manage your business. Operate, learn, and iterate — you get better by doing, reflecting and adjusting your work. Don’t do the same thing, expecting different results Prioritize and leverage retention to drive growth — use your current business to help learn, operate, and win new business. Companies grow when they retain clients, prioritize their clients, otherwise BD is a no win churn game, and way more expensive than retention. Your current clients should be your biggest source of references, referral

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com   Leading Through Uncertainty with Confidence and Candor Your leadership capability and capacity continues to get tested by outside forces Author Graham Peelle October 16, 2023 Leading Through Uncertainty with Confidence and Candor Your leadership capability and capacity continues to get tested by outside forces Uncertainty is everywhere. If you dwell on it, it can be quite unsettling and paralyzing, actually. For you as an executive, manager, or founder, leading a team through turbulent times or times of uncertainty, must become a skill you master. Leading through uncertainty with the objective of achieving organizational focus and action, instead of your teams dwelling on the worst potential outcomes, has become one of the most critical skills we can hold as leaders. External Factors Recently with a recent global pandemic, climate crisis and events, social injustice, economic turbulence such as inflation to name one, recession (or pending recession) to name a second, or war, leaders must navigate a multitude of forks in the road where stockholders, stakeholders, customers, employees, partners, and suppliers, are watching, listening, and either judging or reacting to your communication and action, or lack thereof. When things get tough in your business, with your team, community, or generally in your country, or across the world, how you respond, matters. The manner in which many leaders or companies respond is a great start to review what the natural reactions are and give you some perspective to consider on a more appropriate approach to responding or reacting to external forces. Indonesia Stock Exchange Photo by Ruben Sukatendel on Unsplash Leadership Reaction Typical responses often set off patterns of nervousness and anxiety, leaving increased concern and distraction, not putting people at ease. The natural reaction aligns with fear. Fear drives reduced productivity, performance, and upheaval. Creating fear or trying to squash fear by communicating around the topic, instead of addressing it head-on, must be handled with care. Companies and leaders also tend to overreact in the short-term, under-reacting in the long run. While budgets, plans, and focus should already account for worst case scenarios to a point, they are often inflated with waste and overinflated numbers, including wasteful spending and wasteful time and effort, compounded by unrealistic expectations for margins and growth. This creates a perfect storm of over-hiring, underperforming, all exaggerated or misaligned by poor planning and a reactionary approach. What do companies often do when things get tough, they start managing their business differently. Natural reaction when business turns south or uncertainty increases, creates the following: Tightening up the budget cost reduction Reducing headcount Closing up in positions hiring freezes Closing locations Getting out the microscope on operations Focusing on any noise that could be seen as adding value to the business In many cases, adding work that takes away from the bottom line The Impact The impact elevates employee anxiety on job, creating a decreased feeling of job security, hurting culture and reducing performance all to hit a number, which is driven by those same team members. Some would say the downside of the cycles allows for an opportunity to “right size”, others would say right sizing is a quick fix to a poor business model, poor strategy, or ineffective management. What comes to mind for you to consider as a leader or future leader, is the importance of true ongoing, consistent, performance management. Leadership, management, human resources, and talent management basics by managing the performance and development of your team. That’s management and leadership, and when proactive can prevent a lot of the aforementioned impacts, but it often gets pushed aside for distractions along the way which eventually causes reactionary moves when it’s too late. You’re right sizing, by managing over time, not in one artificial event, where the impact is amplified. Yes, the organization should have been built to withstand typical business cycles in the first place. Typical cycles, not the apocalyptic event every 100 years, but to be able to survive and even thrive during or after an economic event. This isn’t a shout at any one organization or even a group like those in the Fortune 500, rather, this is a call out to all of us as leaders to learn from these decision patters and the status quo. Let’s be different and squash the way business has always been done. There are some firms that have excelled at this - let’s learn from them. How can we handle uncertainty with communication? See below for a standard SOP. Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash Here’s the skeleton for the SOP on handing uncertainty: Calm, concise, and communicative - bringing the calm and steady force is leadership your team needs Be out in front of your team - no hidi

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com   Professional Service Operations & Account Management: The Top 10 Principles for Customer Retention Your customer is a partner in your future - service them with that in mind Author Graham Peelle September 18, 2023 Professional Service Operations & Account Management: The Top 10 Principles for Customer Retention Your customer is a partner in your future - service them with that in mind Above all, take care of your employees. They are partners in your business. Your customer will never get truly next level optimum service without employees being a priority and getting the proper care and consideration. Happy employees create happy customers. I’ve heard Cameron Herold reference this. Once you have that set as a priority and moving in the right direction, keep reading. A customer 1st approach A customer 1st approach is paramount to service operations success. You may be thinking, wait, I thought he said the employer was first. Associates are first at an organizational and interpersonal level, as they are your first customers in a sense, and it becomes engrained in the organization, not requiring focused attention, because you have done the ground work to make it an expectation that goes beyond conscious thinking and action. You’ve made it a fundamental core value in your culture. But in day-to-day operations, everyone’s focus is your customer. This may be an internal customer or your external end customer. A customer-first operational mindset starts with mindset and culture. A belief in driving service and value for your customer, with everyone having the customer in mind at any level. There are a multitude of philosophies and approaches with customer service and account management, but in my experience, there are 10 principles to effective customer retention along the path to customer delight with professional service operations and account management. Protect the flag Below is an overview of my Top 10 Principles to Effective Customer Retention: Truly care - show your customer you actually have a vested interest in their success. This does not mean you’re required to be their best friend, although helpful, this means show them that you’ll actually be there in good times or in bad. Your customer is the star. Emotions drive decisions. Never make the client feel they are simply replaceable- companies want to invest and prioritize in new business, which is essential to growth and diversification. Unfortunately, far too many companies invest an underwhelming amount in their current customers. Why go get a new flag to wave and not protect your own flag that you already have in place. New business development is critical, and one of the key blood flows of business, but if you don’t have any of your current customers from this year, why is it helpful to have new customers next year. Account management, account retention, account strategy, account saturation, and customer intelligence are extremely underrated. Current customers are your best agents and an extension of your BD team. If you want new customers, take care of your current current customers. If you lost that big deal, look carefully into the mirror and see the likely possibly that your current customer had at least a small part of contributing to this. if you don’t take care of them. customers impact your future success, It’s a shared journey. Customers are along for your journey. You are along your customers’ journey. Once you separate the two, you no longer have a sustainable business or customer. Value drives decisions right alongside emotions. Provide value, and prove it, and if you’re worried about giving away “the farm”, you likely need a more fruitful farm. Service given away and added value builds trust, attention, and supplements your overall value if delivered and communicated properly. Be fair, but make it business you want. Never take advantage of your customers. Your profit is monetized value provided to your customer. Don’t discount your product or position in your business, but don’t ripoff your customer - they can feel it. Culture drives your customer retention mindset. From the top down, your company’s personnel must have your customers top of mind. In order for that to truly happen, employees must be focused on nothing else, but taking care of the customer, with leaders and peers taking care of employees. This approach enables everyone to take care of your customers. Internal distractions are the kryptonite to caring for your customers. Customers must be respected and listened to. No, the customer isn’t always right, but the customer often decides when you’re right. Service over saving pennies. Your level of service and attention to your customer will dictate how long you work with that customer. Never take them for granted. Don’t break the first 9 principles. This list of ten principles helps shown the value of advancing your customer relationships, customer approach, and custom

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com Organizations & Careers Fueled by Aligned Talent Development Mutual benefit stems from empowering your team’s personal growth to accelerate their career and your business The teams you lead, consisting of career professionals, have career goals and aspirations. They have goals and want to make progress, find fulfillment, and build wealth through career growth. You as a business or company leader, have company or group business objectives and growth aspirations. But do these priorities align with the work your team does and wants to do? Do your associates’ goals support your business objectives? Do they plan for their work supporting your company’s business as the backbone to build their career on, or is this a stepping stone for them, and they’re out in 1-2 years? These are important questions about leadership’s perception, awareness, and talent management approach, and I’d venture to guess that many of us as leaders, don’t know theses answers for many of our team members, or for our company. This alignment is critical to making long-term sustainable company and personal growth, to exist in harmony, and not working against each other. Aligning your teams growth with company growth, ensures mutual benefit The rise of personal growth and development has been remarkable over the last 50 years. Companies have supported the worker more and more with multiple avenues for development opportunities, including everything from online learning modules to conferences and many types of learning and development avenues in between. These trainings or learning and development opportunities can be great, but can be limited in effectiveness when real genuine alignment is missing for some companies. Organizations can easily miss fostering and promoting personal growth that aligns with company growth, which adds to the bottom line with gains in skills, confidence, and commitment, but also brings value to the associate. Providing development opportunities is great and it’s a big step in the right direction for companies that would have balked at it the further you go back in history, but the magic for companies to realize the full up side, is to link employee development to company growth and success. Mutual growth and success, in alignment, is the way for learning and development to support your organization of the future. How to align individual career growth with organizational objectives Individual Development Plan (IDP) or Personal Development Plan Organizational succession strategies or maps Assigning/requesting projects aligned to personal interests Seeking promotion or lateral moves in areas of interest Employee understanding of organizational structure, business units, or groups and the associated roles relevant to their skills and experience Organizations leading talent reviews to understand each individual’s skills and experience at a deeper level Companies providing exploratory development beyond training, like company, business unit, group, product, or development update sessions (good old lunch and learn) Companies looking at their core objectives, and aligning talent management priorities, IDPs, and talent reviews to assemble one clear talent development roadmap Strategic hiring - pause, and before hiring externally, consider who internally can do this job, who has relevant skills, who can we train for the role, versus hire each time) Importance to talent As a talented professional or if you are interested in achieving more in your career, consider prioritizing organizations that invest in your development and go above and beyond with supporting your efforts to prepare yourself for your next role. This doesn’t mean your company steers your personal development journey - that’s your job, but look for employers that will foster an environment of mentors, leaders interested in promoting their team members, a culture of succession planning, opportunities for stretch assignments, and real tangible time allowed for personal growth. For additional context on personal development, check out one of my features on Medium regarding career development, a the article on getting promoted in corporate America and another on designing and building and intentional career. For companies, prioritizing personal development will continue to differentiate you as one of the best places to work if you embrace it, invest in your people, and show it through action. If you want to be a top place to work, invest in your people, promote your people, and show them that their growth is one of your top three priorities. In today’s talent landscape, this isn’t a nice to have, or something we can be okay at as an organization, but a requirement to compete for talent and requires real work and commitment. Competing for talent without a strong culture of talent management and leadership development, quickly becomes a commoditized salary bidding war. Some of this can come down to where you want to p

https://eidigital.com https://grahampeelle.com Establishing Organizational Rhythm: Finding Alignment with People and Work Planning your work, working your plan Organizational | Design, Structure, Discipline, Culture, Development, Effectiveness, Change….all things we do or follow as leaders and managers, and much of the time we don’t even actively think about them or label them. We’re on cruise control, at least those with more experience in leadership, and we tend to get things set-up, have some regular change, otherwise we have a lot of firefighting, customer attention aspects, and supporting internal/external priorities. For those newer in leadership positions or that have been at it for sometime, we can use a good pulse check on ourselves - are we proactively driving the business, or is the business driving us? Planning our work This isn’t referring to how you track action items or to do’s, rather the approach to your actual work - the business your group or company executes on to serve its internal or external customer, while driving service and profitability. The approach to how you look at the following: Work to be done Resource allocation Investment People, process, and technology Where you are today, compared to where you want to go How do you get there from a work perspective Quality product or service Continuous improvement Operational process control Performance management Profitability In a sense, I’m talking about how you’re going to operate, how you want to approach this job or this business, all focused on building an organization to grow opportunity for your people and stakeholders. Failing to plan, is planning to fail Yes, when you create a plan, a lot of it will change during the course of day-to-day business, but have you seen work without any plan at all? Exactly. You can wing it for awhile, but if you haven’t yet, you will likely find that building even a high level plan, and iterating along the way is a better way for operation. And before you get into the debate of your location of work, meaning where your team actually sits to get the work done, consider planning your work to support your vision. Work location is a byproduct of the work and needs of the business. We’re not talking about mission or vision statements either, we’re talking about our approach to the actual work. Your plan to getting the work done and advancing the work is so important to support the vision which encourages much needed innovation. Having a vision is great, but if you’re ultimately going to let the business run you from there, your vision is a myth. It’s a hope, not a vision. If you have a vision, it’s best to structure work to support it, which means having a strategy to achieve that vision, and some kind of tactical plan to support your overarching strategy. Your plan is what will drive how you structure your organization’s work. We often jump in and just want to work, we don’t want to slow down and plot out how we want to work, and truly consider what the work is meant to achieve. Others plan and don’t want to do the work out of fear; too much planning isn’t helpful either. Moving with urgency is important, but urgent work and action haphazardly focused, shouldn’t mean, rushed building or aimlessly productive cycles. Rushed without proper consideration equals a mess of a business driving in all the wrong directions. Photo by louis magnotti on Unsplash The view from 50,000 feet It can be helpful when building from scratch or transforming your current operation to step back and consider: How your business supports your customer How your business develops current customers and new business How your business is sustainable and profitable How it fights fires How it promotes simplicity and collaboration How it supports your vision How does the market perceive your business compared to the competition Step back and take a look at your organization at the 50,000 foot level and consider, how does your current mode of operation really promote your vision. A lot of clarity comes from alignment, and in this case, alignment with vision and organizational dynamics. An article published by IGI, touches on organizational discipline. “Organizational discipline is the practice of self-restraint and learning to follow the best course of action which may not be according to one’s desire. Discipline is important as it binds the employees and also motivates them to respect their organization.” This takes me to discipline over motivation and which one is more sustainable, with discipline being the logical answer. Motivation can come and go, but if you can build your discipline muscle, you can have sustainable operations, and organizations act similarly to people. Discipline wins, because it sustains over time, versus running on motivation which can come and go. Disciplined alignment matters. The more your organization is aligned to your people, the more opportunities are created for connectivity, innovation, and promotion of

https://eidigital.com/ Building brands by fostering deeper connections with your audience at every step of their journey. https://grahampeelle.com Developing a Performance Operations Culture Through People Alignment, Development & Commitment Each leader in operations may have a different application of operations fundamentals across industry, product, service, application, areas of focus, level of technical aptitude, etc. But the core of operations principles still hold true, supporting the science of delivering a product or service to an internal or external customer. There is a lot of nuance to operations because it is a common thread across business delivery which varies so widely, however there is so much commonality that allows us to breakdown the operations science and learn from all industries and specialties, versus demanding separation. Keeping an open mind into how we can take away concepts and fundamentals from others is key to developing greatness in your operation. Below are a few rudimentary fundamentals that transcend any differences in operations. Yes, some may very, but this is the start of a list of the basics. Learn to master these areas, start learning to be an operations leader, or step-up as an operations executive. Fundamentals for a Successful Operations Leader View the business from high level and low level at fundamental level until ELT (or next level down), is built out to own itself Break down the business in People • Process • Technology Hire great people Promote high performers and leaders Pay your people what they worth, and even better if you can, pay them a bit more to show your deep level of appreciation, and to take challenges with retention for compensation off the table Develop your people Let your team run and execute on what you hired them to do (don’t get in the way) Lead and manage your people with respect Mediocrity is the opposite of growth Clear expectations, accountability, & ownership Control what you can control Hit production numbers Trust but verify (inspect what you expect) Align key metrics to key outcomes and business process - measure what matters Hit financial numbers, not for revenue sake, but in order to create opportunities for your people - this concept alone will drive growth beyond your imagination if you can cultivate this Performance Operations Culture with genuine development of your people and their careers Add technology to build efficiency, save money, or make your associates’ job better, and not for the sake of tech Keep it simple. Complexity should be kept to technical aspects of product or service, not to impress, be fancy, or make you feel like you accomplished something of significance Progression over perfect, process over persnickety Competition is only competitive if you let it exploit your weaknesses- the market is big enough for both, if it was big enough to launch both companies in the first place - find and cultivate your differentiator, don't dwell on what others are doing, but be aware of it Build your teams, process, scalability, profitability, efficiency, culture, customer connectivity, and technology Keep the main thing, the main thing If you don’t get the people part right, the rest will never happen. Focus on your people.   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Simplified - it’s about the location of the work I prefer to avoid the hot, trendy, or touchy subjects across business {enter catch slogan or phrase here on corporate work or business}. Trends aren’t really my thing. But after seeing so many individuals, organizations, articles, and posts focused on remote work as their focus, it pushed me to consider what are some of the other points of view on remote work. If that’s your passion and focus, more power to you, and certainly not passing judgment, but it makes me wonder more - why is this debate even a thing at this point? Remote, hybrid, virtual, work from home, etc. have been around a long time, but in 2020 it of course changed dramatically, with so many working from home, completely unplanned and with so much immediacy. But this concept isn’t new, it just became more mainstream and more impactful in the world of work, across less autonomous workers compared with the past. And for three years there has been so much talk about all of the benefits, and yes the in office stalwarts have been popping up, but overall a positive sentiment remained clear - remote work, works, generally speaking. Well, the battle continues, and I wonder why it’s still a conversation when so many other important topics need more attention. Over the last three years, preferences can certainly vary, and some environments and work styles work better for others, but the sentiment was quite positive. For mid to high performing workers, what are the concerns with allowing them to work where they can and want to work best as long as it doesn’t hold the business back directly? And for low performers, maybe it’s time we address those performance concerns head on, instead of allowing them to simmer. For intentional in person collaboration, there is certainly a time and a place for that in meetings, conferences, 1:1’s, group meetings, etc. For newer team members in certain groups, maybe there is an argument at times to start in office, with certain peers or leaders. 100% work from office, or even 50%+ really should be scrutinized on the value it brings based on the work and the role. Hearing stories of people required to sit in their company’s office space, only to spend all day on video meetings and calls- so what are they bringing in value by being in office, if most work is local, regional, national, global, anyway, and not in the office? Much of collaboration is remote now anyways, so even if you want people in office, leaders and workers must be great at remote collaboration and work. Who cares where people work, if work is getting done? If work isn’t getting done, what is the real gap - work location, how it’s being communicated, leadership, the organization, or the people, etc. I’d like to see a more logical approach to designing work, including work location. Let’s make it about what makes sense for the actual work to be done for specific jobs, teams, or divisions, blended with associate job satisfaction, and the company’s communication and collaboration culture, product, and customer requirements. It has nothing to do with where associates are sitting The question remains, is on-site or off-site essential to the work. Similar to the mindset from the Jobs to be Done Framework. What is the work, and lets create a structure that supports getting the work done. Establish a framework that is focused on hitting the targets goals set up to support your internal or external customers. Don’t set parameters that limit your potential to justify preferences, preconceived notions, or an old-school mentality. That’s really just to serve themselves instead of supporting the actual work getting done. Let’s get back to working our plan, and planning our work, and targets for work, versus building structure to serve the purpose of serving the organizational entity. It’s location of work, not a strategy - are some leaders still spending countless hours and resources on this topic? The headline in this CNBC interview, got me thinking a bit more of the benefits and detractors from remote work- “Remote work expands labor force participation”. Increasing your talent pool alone was a huge benefit to some companies through the really tough hiring periods. Being able to hire across the country or the world, is a whole different game. So I wonder - is the tightening only because of the current economic uncertainty, and not just because we’re further away from 2020. Probably a little of both, and a lot of the former. It’s natural for companies and leaders to want to pull back freedoms when financials get tight. It’s natural, but it’s not correct in many cases. Our greatest opportunities often come from our tightest times financially, and if we are overly tight with finances, we will squander the opportunity away, trying to pinch pennies, instead of focusing on capitalizing on the business opportunity in front of us. Consider this course of events and see if resonates, as just one example - 1. Economy gets uncerta

https://grahampeelle.com Building a Performance Operations Culture: Raise Your Culture Index Define & Craft Intentional Organizational Culture Define & Craft Intentional Organizational Culture Culture continues to be that mythical concept in much of the business world. Culture can be hard to comprehend when you’ve never experienced a clear and strong culture, appreciated an organization’s culture, or truly felt the energy and power of what culture really is. For some, they have seen a bland or negative culture for so long, it doesn't seem important, because they haven't that shining example. If your organization is trying to build something unique and capable of so much more, but you are still trying to crack the secret of culture, consider raising your culture index for your leadership style and your organization. The ROI from great culture driving business results can be substantial, yet it's so foggy on how to define, measure, and build it. Great culture can be felt, it's an energy that buzzes distinctly, and produces an amazing environment, and can produce incredible results. How do you build a strong culture as a leader? First, define why you need it and what a “great” or “strong” culture really means to you and your organization. If you can’t define it, it’s tough to communicate what it is and build it. You hear about unique cultures at places like Netflix, Google, or Tesla, for good or bad, depending on what your idea of culture is and what good looks like. Craft Your Culture: Articulate & Define It Why: Culture exists whether intentional or not Why not create and steer it, promoting your ideals, not allowing a culture to grow that is counter-productive to your core values and mission What: Culture Definition & Determination Company culture is a shared set of workplace beliefs, values, attitudes, standards, purposes and behaviors. It reflects both the written and unwritten rules that people in an organization follow. Your organization's culture is the sum of all that you and your colleagues think, say, and do as you work together. (Bamboo HR) Culture Determination Aligned Passion & Mission - Know Your Organizational Why Communication Focus Operational Ways of Working Mindset It’s about aligning the core company competency, community, and care, with how you work together and serve your customer. Yes, customers see your culture and often feel it through how you serve them, and associates living your culture, translates to customers feeling the culture. How: By creating strong alignment of what’s important with the right people who care. Aligning people with purpose. But going deeper, how do we achieve this? By breaking up the core areas to build a framework of successful culture. I saw a quote that said something like, “if you look at a teams leader you will see a snapshot of what the team will look like.” I didn’t record the source of that quote and haven't found it yet, but it made me think about being the example as a leader, after all, we as leaders should be the model showing our team the way. Here are a few of the raw concepts and areas to consider in shaping your organization's Performance Operations Culture - Values Business Ethics aligned with purpose Character Over Competence Doing things the right way the first time (FTQ = First Time Quality) If you don’t have the fundamental framework of doing things with excellence and character, then why are we even here? Make your work important enough to care Taking care of each other - Associates #1, Customers #2 Ethical behavior and mindset is the root of being a good human, and in turn will have the truth shine through and your customer and team will see the truth eventually Personal Validation Recognize what people have going on at home and in their lives is more important than work Find fundamental trust in people - trust but verify Treat people like people, not machines or property Align their personal and professional goals with their journey within your organization, just like a true customer partnership Empathy An empathetic leader can command respect and drive results Being realistic with goals and expectations Aligned to personal purpose is a way of empathetic leadership Caring for your team is fundamental You have to care about them as people, before they will respect you as a leader. If you don’t care about them, why should they truly care about a future with your team or org? Doing the job is different than actually giving your all and being invested…we have heard enough about that topic in 2022. Authenticity Drives trust, transparency, and healthy level of feeling secure Your flaws are your power, show you're real and allow your team to be real Your ability to show you’re a human, make mistakes, even some vulnerability, grows respect, empowers your team, and helps them know there is safety in 99% of mistakes if intentions are good Your team knowing they can’t break the operation by making an error and that everything c

Go after the hard stuff After hearing about the story of James Cameron on the Founders podcast by David Senra, it has provoked a lot of thought about what it takes to be great. Not good, but actually great, meaning a level that is at the top of your profession, industry or specialization, top 1% great at what you do. The more I reflect, the more I realize that most don't actually want to be at that level. Many want to be good, and many say they want to be great and would certainly take it, if it weren't for the time, effort, and sacrifice, blood, sweat, and tears that it takes to get to the truly exceptional, great level. When you look at someone like James Cameron, Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, or other true greats, you realize the level of sacrifice it requires, which most of us just aren't willing to make. It's a brutal reality that most of us want the positives, but don't want to take on the negatives that go along with it. We don't want to give up that time with family, friends, that time on the golf course, on the lake, or binging Netflix. We want to do great things, but also have that balance, harmony - we want both. And that's okay that many of us aren't willing to give up everything for that GOATlevel, and I would argue it's actually good that most of us aren't from that perspective - we're not all built like a robot, raised like Tiger Woods, or so cold, calculating, or with a touch of crazy, that we put all aside to achieve what we want or feel pulled to create. Not everyone can be the greatest at the same time. And we of course need those who have more of a caring side, have other community motives, or are willing to put aside careers for others. Sacrifice for the greater good, versus achievement in many cases, which has a different kind of power, and a whole lot of earned respect for those who can dedicate so much to others or a cause. Regardless if you are willing to go to the James Cameron level, or work like Kobe, you can still have the focus, intensity, and work ethic that can allow you to do exceptional work. You may not be a star or celebrity that everyone knows, but you can do great work, making a meaningful impact across an industry, supporting a significant mission. You're capable of delivering or creating work that is at a different level than others, and still have a life. How do you have both? This isn't a piece on work-life balance, it's about doing the difficult work. Getting into the real work of your specialization or profession. Finding your niche and not shying away from the level of work it takes to become one of the best in your field, and develop yourself. In order to get to that higher level, being better than most, you need to have that killer instinct. People talk about being a killer, but what does that mean? For me, it means an achiever or striver, a level of dedication, commitment, effort that allows you to power through, and develop a passion for the work that few can find or maintain. It's about developing a passion for the most difficult work. Channeling your energy into your passion and not letting anything get in your way to winning and growing as a person. Difficult work doesn't mean simply working on hard things, rather it means not shying away from the most challenging, complex, or far-fetched projects, tasks, or initiatives. You seek out challenging, you seek out the work no one else wants because others think it's the impossible. This is what hit home with the story of James Cameron, with it being how he thrived on difficult. He sought out difficult and did anything to stay away from easy. This sets us a part many from ordinary. In my own career, I can relate how I was able to find success at different points, with some coincidental and some instances more intentional of finding the hard stuff, not focusing on taking the easy route. Looking back, I intentionally took on the challenging work because I loved the challenge. If others were scared of it, didn't think it could be done, or didn't have success with it, I gravitated to it. Not because of intelligence or some magic answer, but I aligned well with the projects where an organized approach, resilience, grit, and a get it done mentality worked well. It wasn't rocket science, but it was more of aligning with the other side, the non-glamourous work. I gravitated towards the dirty work, and it thankfully went over well that others didn't understand it, because you couldn't be placed in a box, like other projects or programs. No comparison intended to underwater filming or making Terminator, like Cameron, as there is no comparison to individuals at this level, but I share this to say - go do the hard stuff. Find the difficult work, don't shy away from complex or messy, as you can do that impossible. Impossible was meant to be transformed into what has been done. The difficult work was put before you to tackle it, not hide from it. In terms of what this means for Operations - you can get by with the simple stuff,

  https://grahampeelle.com Reinvent Your Organizational Culture to Drive Transformative Results Through Your People The key lies with empowering your people through ownership in their work   Graham Peelle       Reinvent Your Organizational Culture to Drive Transformative Results Through Your People The key lies with empowering your people through ownership in their work Empowering associate ownership drives everything else. With an empowered team, you have a team that cares beyond basic “employee” care for their work. There is another level that not every team or individual maintains. A notch up to a level of ownership and a strive for excellence where proactivity, accountability, deep care for outcomes, and an inherit responsibility are rooted in the associate's work. Here are a few benefits of an empowered team working with an ownership mentality: A team that cares, accomplishes more Retention increases with the level of ownership Care beyond compensation - missionary not mercenary Performance and productivity Innovation thrives Empowered ownership leads, drives, and incentivizes not only the best fit behaviors for your business, but leads to outcomes through work aligned to the mission. In short, you have your employees working in the right way for your business, with the right mindset, all focused on driving the desired results. Sounds simple? It may be more rare than we would expect. Hiring for Empowerment If you want great empowered associate and team performance, consider looking for the characteristics in people you hire: Hold the desire and drive for success Looking for responsibility Ownership in what they say and what they do Proof of accountability in their life and career Ability to learn and apply Pride and care in their own education or previous work experience Genuine care and interest in the work and other people Provide signs of interest in being a teammate, not an individual Show up on time Self-awareness Incentives Incentives often drive ownership, yet don’t align with the culture that leadership is hoping to drive. Companies may offer an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), preferred stock, performance bonuses, merit increases, etc., but then don’t link the work with their incentives for their people. There essentially is a work-incentive gap, where both exist, but they don’t coincide to actually support each other. They are siloed. Consider creating incentives aligned to what you will allow your people to impact - why provide a bonus, if an individual can truly not impact the metric or it doesn’t actually incentivize any tangible action? And if an overall company or group incentive bonus, exude transparency up front on the target to hit that incentive, to actually incentivize the work and results. Strong alignment, often correlates to strong incentives where outside factors aren't overly powerful. Providing a bonus that someone feels no way to impact and feels completely out of their control, actually provides little value, maybe as low as 25% of what you are compensating for when you consider the dilemma, and in some cases could be demotivating when you look at the psychological side of your compensation plan being tied to goals you really have little to no control over. This impacts the strength of the incentive, but also the interest working to achieve the target. Level of Power, Aligns with Level of Output The more power and responsibility you give to your people the more empowered they are to lead, run, operate and own, and be your business. One approach I have seen work tremendously well, is really pushing your people to step-up into their roles, and start leveling-up to that next role where it applies. This is not just a form of intentional delegation and empowerment, rather a push towards ownership in the actual business leadership. Bring each team member up to allow for them to work to their potential, elevate to the next level potentially, and beyond: Your people will surprise you positively, if you let them. They can often do more than you allow them to do. Build your business so you don’t have to be there for it to survive. Empowering your team and elevating them to the level they should be and what the business needs, drives a level of ownership you won't experience otherwise. For the highest leader on the team to help elevate your team individuals and org, they must have time and autonomy to build and think beyond day-to-day ops, and thankfully that’s what your team is meant to run, and own. Addition by Subtraction: Building by Not Doing How do you build a Performance Operations Culture centered with associate empowerment? It starts with letting go: Control False pressure or urgency Distractions Intimidation or threatening style Busy work adding little to no value Reports, attendance, meetings, recurring responsibilities --> if they serve little to no value Babysitting or micro-management In office work to serve leadership’

  Operations: Delivering https://grahampeelle.com Business Results Through People, Process, & Technology Finding Your Framework for Operations: OpCo My passion for operations and delivering on customer needs started while in high school, spending summers and breaks, working at a small electrical controls business. This interest grew sharply as I worked in automotive, heavy truck, and industrial environments while servicing staffing and recruitment needs for clients I managed. My focus always started with the people or talent needs, and quickly gravitated towards a holistic program operations approach, and discovering how I could help deliver a full solution, not just people to fill a gap. Growing up earlier in my career, so much of the organizational mindset was geared towards a high growth sales environment, and I felt there was a lack of formalization or context of what operations really was, or maybe it was my own inability to understand and align with what I excelled at, and for which I was unknowingly growing as a specialization. I found a niche without seeking it, but by giving the work my full attention and immersing myself in the business I led, or was involved with in some way, I learned the business at a deep level to understand the full story, not just where my role plugged into that story. Getting out of the office and into the field, working with teams who are leading, staffing, recruiting, and the doing the physical work through staffing, managed, and engineering services, always brought a great deal of fulfillment for me. Seeing a team move the needle from barely surviving in some cases, or running on the hamster wheel, to seeing teams run with an organized, scalable, and profitable approach, brought a lot of satisfaction. Seeing teams come together to achieve tangible results that serve client deliverables is fun to be a part of. I have been fortunate to work with teams responsible for some amazing results, delivering on expectations, driving internal and external results, or against significant odds. Below are a few to share as examples: Checking 1000+ assembled vehicles parked outside in 30 degree weather for a part underneath the vehicle, in the dark Taking on a fully outsourced maintenance department, delivering higher quality work at a quarter of the cost Hiring 50+ niche sales reps in less than 6 months across Europe, against all odds given by internal or external stakeholders Stabilized and accelerated a program with more than 10,000 hires per year Established customer satisfaction within Germany at a remote manufacturing plant by delivering on hourly manufacturing talent Upgraded and formalized a decentralized coast-to-coast multi-site SOW-centered set-up, transformed to a structured consolidated program with a unified mission I share these achievements as examples of teams coming together to produce great work, delight customers, and deliver real business results. These teams were experts at their craft, and when I started leading these teams, I was an expert at none of these. How does that work? What allows this to happen where someone who isn’t the most knowledgeable, doesn’t have the most experience, and has so much to learn, to be a part of engagements delivering these significantly improved and sustained results? Operations. Yes, technology, leadership, investment, account management, project administration, all play a role, but it all comes down to Ops and making the business run with all of these different areas considered. What makes up Operations? It comes down to People, Process, and Technology, drilling down further to Customer, Culture, Talent Development, Business Management, and Productive Performance. The list goes on of what makes up Operations, what is closely tied to Ops, or is fundamental to Ops, but these are a start to get you thinking in the Ops world. Operations is different across industry, product, service, application, areas of focus, etc., but many of the principles are transferrable and apply seamlessly in other areas. Operations requires a strong methodology to continue elevating business to the next level. Building a sustainable fully scalable operational framework, is something I will reference as Performance Operations Culture. This framework encompasses the core of so much within Ops: Performance | Results, Metrics, Profitability Operations | Delivery, Productivity, Quality Culture | People, Mission, Purpose When assembled together, it gives you the ability to deliver on business and build something special. I love the critical aspects of performance, ownership, accountability, motivation, and that each day is different. Numbers show the performance facts, and much of the story comes from the people, culture, and customers together proving the value from those operational results. Others may dream it or sell it, but Operations makes it happen. If you’re a strategic and proactive, solutions-minded, both process driven and

  https://grahampeelle.com  How Culture Can Shape an Intentional Life & Career I have had a few ask about what the 1914 represents in the “GP” monogram. It is the year the Panama Canal construction was completed in Central America. It’s a tribute to my family’s heritage with my grandmother who is Panamanian who met my grandfather, an American, while working in the Panama Canal Zone in multiple jobs as part of the US presence there. After meeting my grandmother, my grandfather, a WWII veteran, started raising a family in Panama, including my mother who was born there and moved to the US when she was five. My grandmother traveled and moved permanently to the US, making her way over by plane. For more on her story, please see this college paper, outlining her story, based on an interview written thirteen years ago, when my grandmother was 82 - Victoria's Story - Immigration from Panama to the US. I take a lot away from my grandmother's story. Victoria of course had a significant transition when moving to the US, leaving all her own family and friends, her entire life as she knew it, to move with Robert (my grandfather) to start their new life. The trust, resilience, and courage it must have taken had to be tremendous. The faith and love in that relationship and future, must have been powerful. How does that translate in life for me today? It reminds me to have faith in the future, curiosity with what’s in front of me, continue learning, and continue pushing forward with what’s important and be relentless to get there, while remembering, that journey on the boat is one step that matters along the way, not the end destination. When I reflect on the takeaways from Victoria’s story, I consider multiple aspects of how this applies to my own growth and development, and becoming the person I want to be, which may bring some relevancy for you as well. Consider the Parallel Value of putting yourself out there, breaking through your comfort zone Raising your perceived ceiling in life Going to get what you want Not settling for the status quo Intentionality with life, not allowing life to drive you, but you drive life Why Family and friends Your own fulfillment and enjoyment Live your dreams Do something rewarding and worth your time Step up to match your full potential If you have interest in living towards your potential, I have had success with creating a map of my interests, abilities, and experience, and identifying how they match up with where I want to be with goals and the vision for my own life. Building an intentional vision takes some time, but the value gained is undeniable. How to Create Your Intentional Life Map out your priorities to find your “Hedgehog”, in the words of Jim Collins Consider what you do now and want to do soon - goals, expectations, and vision Identify who your advisors are, whether they know it or not- who are you modeling to help get there or taking advice from, to build your own version. Develop your life game plan, vision board, your ideal path. Below is an example Matt Gray assembled for his own life Discover, realize, and align on how you will execute on your plan, by breaking your vision down into fundamental steps to achieve your journey and future Matt Gray - Vision Board If you doubt the value in building your vision of the future and the steps to get there, take one hour to walk through it, and then try to tell me it’s honestly not helpful. You won’t be able to dismiss it. You will have the direction laid out all in front of you, with clarity on the steps to get there, or at least a start, leaving you with no choice but to to go out and do it. Removing all excuses besides fear is great, but remember that fear is often what holds us back. So effectively if you try to say it’s not powerful and useful, it’s because of the fear holding you back with what scares you about seeing what you want and the gap in where you are. That fear is there by human nature, telling you to stay safe, comfortable, and in the known. But that vision is giving you the ultimate roadmap to focus, clarity, and conviction to go after the future you, the life you are meant for deep down inside. Sounds a bit woo-woo, you bet, but it’s real. Vision and roadmap execution is how we do everything else in business, school, and in many parts of life, but we discount the time and importance dedicated to our own life. Sure it'll change, you'll take a varied route, but the plan keeps you focused on what's important, not all of life's distractions. Would you rather have a plan that changes, that gives you a chance to achieve your dreams, or just ignore those dreams so your plan doesn't change? Get on that boat and set sail on your voyage towards your full potential, you. You won’t regret trying, but will regret what you don’t try. And when things get tough, think of the story of Victoria or someone in your own life, and consider why it was worth it to them for the steps th

https://grahampeelle.com These lessons, some learned or realized throughout my career, with some from the last year, have helped me grow personally and professionally. Sharing perspective and experience can be a meaningful way to help others find encouragement, accelerate learning, and bolster their own personal or career progression, or simply help professionals find fulfillment. By taking a moment to record a few thoughts and share realizations, it may help support a few on their journey with People, Operations, and Culture, or just life in general. “None of this matters, at the end of the day we're all gonna die. Let's have fun along the journey” (CAMERON HEROLD). Everything is temporary, we’re all just making money to live, so don’t make everything an emergency or end of world event. Character over competence…yes both are ideal, but character is #1 (Steve Bisciotti & Jim Davis, Warren Buffett). Everything involves sales, and in Operations everything is tied to the People formula. "The more you make it about others, the more you are fulfilled and opportunities find their way to you." (John C. Maxwell) Leadership (not management) and Teaching is your path to fulfillment. Developing others leaves a lasting impact, much more than giving something to others. (Alex Hormozi) Operations delivers on the vision, while Sales leverages Ops' success to further monetize and grow. If they aren’t working in alignment, neither is your business. Culture is more important in business than everything, except character: these two attributes drive everything else. Aligned Character and Culture drive value, profitability, and growth. "Empower your people, don’t suppress them." (Simon Sinek) Relationships matter…you will eventually value close relationships even more than you do today Study Warren Buffett (perspective and fundamentals), Steve Jobs (marketing and creativity), Jeff Bezos (customer), Simon Sinek (leadership), CAMERON HEROLD (Ops) for many keys to the game. The definition of professionalism has changed for the foreseeable future. If Alex Hormozi doing YouTube videos and interviews in “jorts” doesn’t prove that, I’m not sure what does. You often don’t realize how much you appreciate something until it’s gone, and that performance or masterpiece you have witnessed has ended. I realized this with many, including Mears, Miller, Manning, and my dad. Mindset matters. If you think mindset, perspective, or the lens which you look through isn’t important, spend two hours listening to Alex Hormozi and Andreessen Marc L. Leadership without strings attached has the power to change the world by impacting people for the greater good, not a selfish agenda. Let it go. Control the controllable, keep the main thing, the main thing, focus on what matters…can’t express enough how much this can help center you when times get tough, or distractions pressure your path forward (Several past leaders and various thought leaders). Leave everything better off the way you found it…great overall guidance to remember on your journey. (Many have said something similar, most recently I heard it from Jim Collins, Good to Great) Effort promotes achievement to a certain point, but being savvy, business acumen, and real life experience, while seeing the big picture and learning all you can, helps leverage resources beyond one’s own effort. The sooner you realize you need both hard work, knowledge from experience, leverage, and learning to be great, the better off you’ll be. Start sooner and be intentional…once you are in a spot in life with enough experience and perspective, really sit down to evaluate what you’ve learned, what you enjoy, and where you want to go in life. You won’t get there if you don’t determine a focus and work towards it. Some of us realize it at 16, for others its 50 years into life. It’s doesn’t mean wait until it's “a good time” or convenient, it means allow for yourself to be in a spot where you recognize and want it, and have enough in your head and heart to go get it. Justin Welsh teaches this practice well. It’s up to you to prioritize what matters to you. If you don’t, no one is going to do it for you. You are responsible for you…and no one is going to make it happen for you. So do it for yourself and commit to you, and it allows you to impact others in a more meaningful way. It will be worth it. Alex Lieberman has been inspirational in being introspective and showing the importance with taking accountability for yourself. Accountability for your own life and career seems obvious, but how many of us coast through doing what we are "supposed to do" at various points along the way.   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not

CHRO/I  Pavithri Kilgore of KPSK Consulting joins us to talk about government compliance and how to manage and de-risk your SMB. Pavithri shares some great insights into the world of government compliance, associate relations, and several areas related to people and organizational risk.   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

https://grahampeelle.com   The making of an exceptional team, and how to build What is a team? When I dug a little deeper on building teams, it quickly took me back to the fundamentals of what makes up a team. We throw around the term team, but what do we really mean in the world of work. It's similar to a sports team, but it is different. The goal is to compete and win, come together to achieve something, and work together to drive towards a common goal. The goal is to win, but together, and not at the cost of one another, but the advancement of the team. New Oxford American Dictionary Definition - collection of people working together towards a common goal What does good like? What does it take to have a great team? What communication is necessary? What leadership, what resources, what parameters? What rules? A great team has a basic purpose, mission, and common connectivity, but it’s really whatever you want it to be - the leader, and the team determine what good looks like. A team is set-up to achieve the team's goals and expectations. I think back to Good to Great, Jim Collins, where the connection of people and business advancement is so strong, proving you don't have one without the other. Here are a few core points centered from the people lens, adopted from concepts and quotes from Good to Great, by Jim Collins: Build a culture of discipline and commitment to business and people, not a hierarchy to manage poor or average performers Contagious culture and success Ambition for institution, not themselves, humility and intense professional will Team First (We not I) Talent builds the future, they know where to take company when you don’t Ability to get and keep great people- growth throttle Throughout, Jim Collins makes the logical individual points come together into a wider philosophy, which I refer to as building a Performance Operations Culture. Trust Trust is the fundamental groundwork for business and teams. Trust is a feeling, a path to connectivity, a mutual understanding, a currency. But how do you build trust and the team feeling, versus the instinctive urge for survival which ultimately focuses on encroaching on one another. The answer: the group cares more about each other and the broader team, more than their individual advancement. Each team member has a team first mindset, one team attitude, and genuinely cares about the person next to them. Leadership & Ownership The leadership role on a team is the facilitator, sometimes a guide, yes, and they must be directive at times, but much of leadership with the right people on the bus, is about steering a ship loosely. I saw a quote recently that said leadership is much more about the ship, than the leader (I believe it's from John Tomlinson). Team ownership is about the team, not the leader, it's the team's team, not a leader's possie or following. When you can drive ownership amongst your team, their commitment prevails above all else. Commitment with an army or football team like mentality, but with the flexibility and trust that makes VPs, execs, HR, and entrepreneurs jealous. This where performance meets culture. This all starts with trust. Teams have a common goal, mission, or directive, serving their end customer, but also each other. Teams win together, and fail together Rough times bring people together Want growth, build loyalty with your customers - Russell Brunson stated - Russell Brunson, Facebook post Taking it a step further to support Brunson's comment, is Richard Branson about the employee focus - "Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” The Collective Target: Care, Culture, Mission, & Purpose Drives the Makings of a Great Team Culminates with achievement of ideal state, working towards or achieving your organizational/group BEHAG, or progress towards operational focus and vision, driving financial and operational results Can take you really wherever you want in the context of the business, but you need a collective goal, more powerful than the individual priorities Accomplishing something as a team is so much more special than individual achievement, but why? - People tend to care more when the people they care for are achieving something significant - There is collective power in community - When the achievement is by the team and strengthens the team, it has the likelihood to raise performance, satisfaction, and engagement - The bigger the team and effort, the more engagement it builds, driving the motivation and mental side, tied to the achievement How to Build a Great Team By the leader, organization, and peers amongst the team working on the following: Genuine care for colleagues (teammates), which builds trust and comradery Expectations AND flexibility - eliminate performance tied to hours, face time, etc. Focus on real performance results that drives business, not the quantity of time or location of work if not critical to de

Founder, CEO, or entry-level professional, you're not getting promoted tomorrow, without putting in the work today.   https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

https://grahampeelle.com   Operations leaders are builders As I considered what additional operations topics I would cover over the next few weeks, I heard a comment that stuck with me. Operations leaders are builders. Building a team, building a business, building products, or building a service. This resonates with me because of the creation mode that relates to more of the artistic professions, product designers, movie makers, and similar roles, but also those building an operation or building a business. We are builders. Just a matter of what we build compared to others. It’s often assumed things just run. Some assume the work just gets done, but Operations is who makes it happen, many times behind the scenes, under the radar, and behind the curtain. Why is this important to remember? Because similar to artistic liberties someone in the arts may need to be creative and productive, operations needs the same kind of freedom to create, innovate, and build. The ability to build without having to stay between the lines. Ops having runway to work, allows for the organic improvements in all aspects of the operation by running business in an intentional manner. Ultimately, Operations encompasses this ability to deliver on the day-to-day, but also work on building the next best thing, or improving the process, experience, or service. Developing your team, helping your customer succeed, delivering on quality - all Operations. Sometimes we have those that want things to “just run”, rely on Operations, but allow the flexibility to deliver just that. The more barriers, hoops, or bureaucracy, the less likely Ops can have the necessary freedom to build. Want greatness, let Operations do its job. Think about the parallel with sales - yes there are policies and procedures focused on how orgs sell, but how often do we see sales professionals limited by too much restriction, process, rules, admin, reporting, and structure that is contrary to the sales craft itself, in turn, limiting your ability to grow, by limiting sales activity, incentives, or power. It’s similar for Ops, so as we look at different functions, maybe it’s as simple as allowing teams and individuals to do their jobs. Hire the best people and allow them to their jobs. How many companies spend so much time effort and money to find the best people, to handcuff them and tell them what to do? Steve Jobs said it well, “It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do, we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Operations leaders are builders: builders of culture, builders of products, builders or service, and builders of business. If you’re leading an organization, let your builders, build. David Senra provided the inspiration from his comment about being a “Builder” …from the Founders episode regarding Henry Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil (with JD Rockefeller), who also built a bridge to the Florida Keys back when Key West was the largest city in FL, and what is now Miami was then called Ft. Dallas.   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

https://grahampeelle.com   Leadership concepts are often simple, common sense, and even logical, so why do so many struggle with leadership? It comes down to two different mindsets: Choosing to put people first, with empathy and actual care Putting other priorities first, and trying to make it look like people are first, prioritizing other priorities over people, forcing people into the equation Choose people-first, because people prove to be your most important resource in the long run for the majority of business models, people are your customers in many circumstances, and prioritizing people always shines through eventually, with the leaders and companies that are truly supportive of their people, vs. those that claim to focus on people. A People-First Approach ensures you prioritize your primary focus has the deserving attention, compared to an outcome-based focus, which prioritizes the result vs. the culture and inputs to get there. A culture and inputs focus will build a sustainable model for future growth, because it engrains the why and the how, not just the results, while outcomes-focus drives only caring about the end game. The outcome is important and is necessary to drive performance and results, but would you ever replace "People" in your Purpose, Mission, or Values statements, with Outcomes or Margin? People Performance, not Outcomes forcing people into the equation, builds a sustainable growth-oriented model bringing your team along with the mission. If you would like to be notified for future posts on operations leadership, culture, and talent related topics, make sure you click the 🔔 on my profile page. Or subscribe to the monthly newsletter and find it in your email or LinkedIn. For additional daily content, check out https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

  Close the gap - find the way to connect your business goals with your people's goals, which actually usually happens in reverse of that.  https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

It's about the people.   Cameron Herold's Show The Second in Command  Mainly tied to Cameron's work founding the COO Alliance   grahampeelle.com The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Jay Clouse of "Creator Science" with Chase Jarvis, referenced in this show   https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

https://grahampeelle.com Going the “extra mile” as a leader to support your team can many times mean simply being a good person, listening to what they need, and showing your support for your team. It doesn’t make leadership easy, but leadership doesn’t have to be complex. Here are a few examples: Story telling: share the firm’s past or your own stories to help make a better future. Not dwelling, but learning from past experience, accelerating learning for others. Look how effective a story is to truly illustrate a point - stories create and grow culture. Give them some feedback about something no one else had the guts to share, but they need to hear it. This requires genuine trust and care to deliver it AND they have it received in a positive and impactful way. Checking-in to see if they need something, and really caring if they need help. Not redirecting endlessly, but actually helping connect them to resources and those who can help. Teaching to have them help themselves is great, but if they aren’t able to help themselves, sometimes it backfires. Take time to coach and teach them when it’s that time. If not a critical directive and the situation allows for some nuance, but they’re lost- have them to speak to a peer or an additional leader that excels in that area. Or give them two options that could work, but have them make and own the decision. Removing roadblocks that are preventing success, or frustrating for job satisfaction and not business critical. Be approachable and open to conversation. If you want your team to update you, share with you, be vulnerable with where they need help, you better make it comfortable for them to reach out. Have a coffee or meal…without them asking. And if remote, schedule an informal catch-up and not mention business at all. If you’re shaking from even the idea of not having an agenda, the agenda is to connect outside of business and have a relaxed and open environment. Put yourself out there to encourage them to do the same. Buy a team member a new jacket when they need one (one of the most meaningful gestures I have seen someone do for someone else), or whatever simple gesture that goes a long way and shows you actually care about them as a human. Support, Care, Guide, Coach, Direct, Empower, but not isolating, leaving behind, or degrading. Sounds simple, but often times it’s not easy. In an effort to teach someone to fish, or to mature and learn, leaders often miss opportunities to develop their teams and leave them feeling lost for answers with no clear resource to help. Be the kind of leader that teaches someone to fish, but sticks around or is available if they lose their way and need leadership.   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Positioning is about intentionally crafting your leadership journey. Your willingness to contribute makes you an expert at some level in the eyes of your audience.     https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Find your people. Find your Tribe. You may feel strongly about chasing those who have already "made" it, but consider seeking out your peer group to learn from, support you, and find friends in a similar spot looking to grow.   https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Authentic Leadership The little things are the big things Going the “extra mile” as a leader to support your team can many times mean simply being a good person, listening to what they need, and showing your support for your team. It doesn’t make leadership easy, but leadership doesn’t have to be complex. https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Grow and refine your culture, grow your business. This episode is the start of our thoughts around looking at Organizational Culture as one of your greatest assets, because it embodies who you are and what you do. Intentional and purposeful executing of your core values to enable a culture clients and people want to be a part of.   https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

The Power of Leadership Confidence • Voicing confidence in people • Showing belief in people • Sharing feedback • Teaching and coaching • Mentoring • Taking a chance on people • Bringing out the best in people • Seeing the capability and potential in people • Helping others finds their super power, or unique ability • Showing others the value they bring • Investing in people • Not allowing the team to limit themselves   https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Advice or Reminders for Leaders: Understand your business Understand your people Understand your customer Understand your process Understand the challenges Understand the opportunities Understand the risks Understand necessary adjustments   Impact: Understand, evaluate, act, iterate, and repeat…continuous improvement, never settling for mediocrity. Timeless business principles In business operations Not growing or improving means your business is dying Leadership Get curious and ask questions Prioritization https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

KPIs & Data - One core metric as new leader of organization, department, or team - Future state moving to 3 metrics can make sense, and then eventually 4-5 if you have core areas of focus, but pointless if you can’t drive change and improvement in #1 - Data as a tool for visibility, not the full story - Review you trends, correlations, performance, and risks - Your direct leaders may have 2-3 to start to drive that #1 overall metric https://grahampeelle.com   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

What to consider when working on changing culture as a new leader Turnaround Formula Operations | People | Culture | Organizations 1. Observe and assess your people, process, and technology, understanding your culture and relationship dynamics impacting your performance, results, clients, retention, profitability, and the business overall 2. Determine what your critical goal is as a business - what is the one thing you will change in 30/60/90 days, or 6-12 months, and the top 3-4 additional items 3. Build your vision and organizational “why” or purpose, to support and grow your people to help achieve your desired business results 4. Set activity, action and KPI Expectations 5. Act, review, iterate, communicate, and repeat   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Dive into leadership philosophies, many that look more like traits or principles. Sharing some thoughts on each before building core frameworks focused on this. • Transformational • Democratic (Participative) • Coaching • Transactional (Managerial) • Strategic • Servant • Autocratic (Authoritarian) • Laissez-faire (Delegation) • Democratic • Authentic • Learning • Solution-based • Dynamic • Empowerment • Directive • Core Elements of a Leadership Philosophy • Integrity • Empathy • Accountability   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.

Hello and welcome everyone, I’m Graham Peelle and this is Flywheel Leadership. This show is an expansive discovery into the world of work, leadership, culture, performance, and company operations, focused on empowering leaders and organizations to Unlock Greatness through Scaling People, Process, and Technology    We’re reinventing how to build and scale business.   The thoughts shared on this podcast, whether original content or content from others, represent my own personal views or those of other individuals, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of organizations for which I am affiliated. This is not legal or investment advice, please seek professional advice for such advice.