Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Infinite Future. I'm Todd Thomas and today we're exploring the innovations shaping tomorrow's world. You're watching Now Media tv.
Welcome to Infinite Future. This is the show where we look beyond predictions and ask what it actually takes to build, lead and operate in a world that is changing faster than most organizations can comfortably absorb.
Today we're talking about the leadership side of the future.
How businesses make better decisions before disruption makes those decisions for them. My guest is Ryan Herpin. He is a business strategist and high performance consultant with more than a decade of experience helping organizations grow, improve operations and identify new opportunities. He specializes in leadership development, operational strategy and performance optimization, turning complex challenges into practical plans for sustainable growth.
Ryan is known for combining strategic thinking with strong interpersonal skills to help entrepreneurs and executives gain clarity and build more resilient businesses.
The future rarely arrives as one clean event.
It shows up as a series of signals. New technology, changing customer expectations, new competitors, workforce pressures, operational strain.
The leaders who respond early create options. The leaders who wait often inherit constraints. So, Ryan, when a company says it wants to become future ready, what does that actually mean operationally? Not just as a slogan.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: You know, it's a, it's a good question because there's a few different ways you can look at it. But I think one of the biggest misconceptions in business is that being future ready means being able to predict the future.
It doesn't. Right. Nobody knows exactly what the next five years will bring. Technology will change, markets will shift, customer expectations will certainly evolve, and some of the business models we rely on today will become utterly obsolete. But here's what we can control and that's our ability to respond. Right. So when I evaluate an organization, I'm asking whether its leadership can make decisions quickly, whether it's people understand their responsibilities, whether its processes can actually scale, and whether the company has the financial and operational flexibility to change direction when it's actually necessary. So, you know, because ultimately future readiness isn't about knowing what's coming. It's about building an organization that's actually capable of responding when it really does arrive. So of a good way to sum that up is I, I would say you don't predict the future like you don't have to.
The future really is just meant to be prepared for.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: So you talked a lot about responsiveness.
How important is responsiveness versus flexibility? Are they, are they interrelated?
[00:03:05] Speaker B: I would say they are interrelated. You know, it, I think of it as, there's a difference between responding and reacting. Reacting is, okay, there's another fire, there's another problem. Something pops up that's unexpected. Now, unexpected events are going to happen, but there's a difference between response and reaction. Reaction is a lot of the time, almost involuntary. And that applies to business just as it does people. But when it comes to response, that means you're prepared for things to go sideways.
Right. In a perfect world, things never go wrong. But in the world we live in, we can just be prepared for the inevitable curveballs we receive. Whether it's customer interest changes. Okay, well, how do we stay in front of that? Whether it's market demand shifts. Okay, well, what's changing in the market that we can be a part of? Right. There's. There's a difference there. So readiness, reaction and response, everything all kind of goes together. But just make sure. When you're looking at a strategy, just ask, does this involve flexibility, as in responsiveness, or does it really all based around our ability to react?
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I love your, your comment that, you know, nobody can predict the future. Right. I talk to young entrepreneurs a lot, and a lot of that is around planning. And I say, look, you don't know what is going to go wrong, but something is going to go wrong. And you need to have some flexibility. You need to have some margin of error.
Because if you're planning on the perfect world, that is not going to happen. You just don't know what problem is going to land on your desk tomorrow. But something's going to land there.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: What are early signs or what early signs tell you that an organization is adapting too slowly to changes in its market or in its technology?
[00:04:59] Speaker B: You know, I would say one of the biggest warning signs is ultimately when leadership spends more time defending how things have always been done than questioning how things could be done better.
And everyone that's in business has seen this before. But I've spent a significant part of my career in operational leadership, and I've seen organizations become incredibly efficient at doing things that no longer make sense. Right. They've perfected the wrong process.
Another warning sign is when customer, really, the customers start changing faster than the organization does. Right. The, the complaints, they increase, the margins, they shrink, or, you know, employees develop workarounds, and leadership keeps assuming the problem is temporary. And the dangerous part is that a company can remain profitable for a period of time while becoming increasingly irrelevant. Right. You know, past success can become of the greatest obstacles to future success when we allow it to replace this powerful world, this powerful word, curiosity. Right. So yesterday's success can become Tomorrow's blind spot is kind of a good way to put that.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: So I actually think one of the interesting side benefits of agentic AI is really the fight against the way we've always done it.
I think a lot of software development or a lot of technology changes provide incremental improvements. And that's great. You always want to be improving, constant improvement, that's great.
But companies out there today that are embracing AI simply to automate existing processes are only getting incremental improvement. Whereas if they look at embracing agentic AI as an opportunity to really reevaluate the entire process and really redesign entire processes from an agentic AI first perspective, you can realize that a lot of what's built into those pre existing processes, the processes we've been using for years, they aren't necessary at all anymore. Entire processes can be eliminated, or certainly steps within a process can be eliminated.
Are you seeing that in your work?
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it's something that I try to encourage all the businesses and leaders and people I work with on a regular basis to put in a scheduled routine evaluation of the structure, the processes, the operations overall. Because there's more resources available to us, especially with the advancement of AI.
Challenge the status quo. Challenge the way that we think the saying iron sharpens iron can be applied in real time. Utilizing AI for our own development and growth. It might also help us open up new avenues of the way we think. I like to challenge the way I think frequently and I try to ask my clients and people I work with to do the same thing. So one process that might work today is not going to necessarily work five years from now. So I try to have my, my clients and even my teams evaluate the way we do things quarterly, not on a full scale, but you know, at least in some of the major areas that could potentially have improvement right now. It's not always the easiest thing to squeeze in when we're all fighting for moments, but those moments or minutes or hours spent on evaluation can turn into something that saves an astronomical amount of time or resource.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: So I got what I thought was some great advice really early on in my career, and that was to carve out a portion of your day every single day just for mental space to think about the business, to think about strategies, to think about. Really anything you need, but just a period of time when you aren't performing a task, you are using that time to think about the business.
Is that a practice you like?
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. I tie it in the right with my self reflection type time where I'm not Only measuring me. I'm trying to measure the business, the operations, the growth strategy, whatever it may be having. Really, the position of a leader is not to be the one to do everything. It is the one to map out where we're going and to evaluate if we're getting there. Efficient.
Right. So there has to be time focused on what's next, where are we going, how is it done? It's not. The leader's focus should not be putting out fires. I'm sorry, but that should be the last thing on your plate when you've got capable people on your team. What it should be is, okay, how do we avoid future fires, and how do we stay ahead of the curve so that we keep having the privilege to have fires to put out in the first place? Because fires will always exist. Problems always be there. But if you put yourself down the wrong path and you're looking behind instead of looking forward, you can run yourself right out of business without even realizing.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Where do you most often see a gap between a company's strategy and what its people are actually executing? Every day,
[00:10:09] Speaker B: I see it in the space between what leadership says is important and what employees are actually rewarded, measured, and expected to do. Right. And an owner tells me they want to improve profitability, but their salespeople are rewarded exclusively for revenue. That's probably the most common one that I see. Or like, they tell me customer experience is their highest priority, but their employees are measured only on speed. Right. These are things that are direct conflict. You know, they'll tell me they want people to take ownership, but every meaningful decision still requires the owner's approval. Right. Those are alignment problems. You know, one of the first things I do when working with an organization is connect the strategic objectives to the daily activities of the people that are actually responsible for delivering the results. Right. Because strategy isn't what you write in your boardroom. Strategy is what your people execute when you're not in the room. So your strategy isn't what you say. It's what your organization actually does.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: That's absolute gold. Align the incentives with what you really want. People will do what they are incented to do. People will perform the action that gives them the reward. That's. That's just. That's gold right there. Thank you so much, Ryan.
We've got to take a quick break, but that is a great nugget to end on.
When we come back, we want to move from seeing change to managing change, because recognizing disruption is one thing, but building an organization that can actually respond is another. Stay with me. We'll be right back.
More with Ryan. We'll be right back with more conversations at the edge of technology and transformation. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Infinite Future on NOW Media tv. Let's look ahead.
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Another housekeeping item. My new book, Starving for Innovation just came out. It came out on October 1st and it's doing great. So thank you all of you that have gone out and ordered the book. It it hit number one new release on day one and hit the number one bestseller list on day six. So thank you so much. I appreciate everybody out there.
Starving for Innovation is similar to my previous books. It definitely is set with a backdrop of AI, energy and innovation. But this book gets a lot more personal. We really use Starving for Innovation to tell the story of Woodchuck, how we built the company, early clients, early investors, early struggles and early hurdles. You get to learn from all of our mistakes and you get to celebrate and the things that we did well. So if you are interested in AI, energy, innovation, or if you are a young entrepreneur or a founder looking to launch a startup, you can pick up the book and hopefully avoid some of the minefields that that we stepped on.
So check it out. It's available at Amazon.com now we are back with Ryan Herpin. Ryan is a business strategist and high performance consultant helping leaders turn complex growth and operational challenges into practical plans for stronger performance and substantial results.
A strategy only matters if the organization can execute it. Adaptability depends on decision, speed, accountability, communication, and whether people understand what the priorities actually are.
So Ryan, why do strong strategic plans so often break down when they reach the stage of execution?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: To put it simply, because planning and executing require two completely different disciplines. You know, a strategy can look incredible on paper. Beautiful presentations, ambitious goals, impressive forecasts. But then Monday morning comes around and employees return to their existing responsibilities. Customers need attention, problems emerge and that strat, you know, that beautiful strategic plan becomes another document sitting in a folder somewhere. You know, I believe a lot of companies don't have a strategy problem. And I say this from my own experience and Struggling with this as well. They have an execution problem. That's why my work doesn't stop at telling an organization what it needs to do. I want to help build the structure, the accountability, the leadership, and the operational rhythms necessary to actually make it happen. Right. Because a brilliant strategy that never gets executed is worth. Worth less than a good strategy consistently implemented. So, you know, a strategy without execution is just a really expensive wish.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: So one of my favorite phrases is execution is the chariot of genius.
And I use it a lot because you're exactly right. A great strategy sitting in a drawer that no one is executing on is. Is worthless.
And in little things that everybody overlooks. Like we talked about just at the end of last segment with that. That beautiful piece of gold you shared with us of aligning incentives with what you really want your employees to do. Sounds really simple. And you say that out loud and most people will be like, well, of course, but nobody does it. You see that mistake all the time. All the time, yeah.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: It's easy to be too close to the tree to see the forest beyond it. That's where working with somebody that has a third perspective and outside looking in, it really does add significant value.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: So how can leaders create accountability without building a culture where people become afraid to make decisions?
[00:16:27] Speaker B: You know, I think we've misunderstood accountability in a lot of organizations. Right? Accountability shouldn't be about finding somebody to blame when something goes wrong. I really, really feel like it should be about creating clarity around expectations, responsibilities, authority, and results.
You can't hold somebody accountable for an outcome while denying them the authority to influence it themselves.
And you can't expect people to become confident decision makers if every imperfect decision results in punishment. Right? I mean, the same thing with your kids. How can you expect your kids to learn and grow if every time they mess up, they're scolded or they're punished? But we learn and grow a lot from our mistakes. But accountability and empowerment shouldn't work like they really should work together. So accountability without authority isn't leadership. It's simply blame.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: It also seems that accountability and incentives are kind of two sides of the same coin as well.
If you're going to hold people accountable for specific actions, their incentives should also pull them in that same direction.
How often are you seeing organizations where people are incented for one action and held accountable for a different result?
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Constantly. I would say that is one of the number one consistent problems I see in any business. Now, some businesses have it great in some areas, some have it rough in other areas. But just because Things on the surface might look like, okay, we have our incentives aligned correctly.
Are you making sure your incentives are correct? As the leader, are you making sure the upper management incentives are correct? Are you making sure the incentives for the day to day people that are actually building the product or creating the service or whatnot, are their incentives completely aligned? Because clarity and alignment with incentives go hand in hand. If you don't know what direction you're going to, how can anybody really participate in getting there?
[00:18:39] Speaker A: So what operating systems or rhythms help teams stay aligned and keep their incentives and the things they're being held accountable to aligned with priorities?
And how do you do that in a world that is changing so quickly?
[00:18:57] Speaker B: You know, this boils back to the response over react type thing, but I, I believe in creating a predictable rhythm of communication and accountability, right? Communication is the key to solving problems before they're really problems. But this might include daily operational huddles, weekly KPI reviews, monthly strategic meetings, and even quarterly evaluations of the organization's direction, kind of overall. But here's the, the key to this, right? Meetings themselves don't create alignment, decisions do. Just because you meet and talk doesn't mean there's a, an alignment outcome there, right? There has to be intentional effort in that. But every meeting should produce clarity about what matters, who's responsible and what success actually looks like and when we're going to evaluate that process again. So one of the biggest mistakes organizations make is confusing activity with productivity, right? There's a difference between doing more and getting more done, right? They have meetings about meetings, reports about reports and dashboards that nobody actually uses. Now, for some of the audience, that might sound a little bit like a punch to an open nerve, but it should be. I mean, because the fact is a lot of us create these steps that are completely unnecessary and don't get used. But I want operating systems that simplify decision making, not complicated. My methodology of consulting and coaching is real simple. It's cardboard and crayon methodology. If you make it so simple that it's hard to fail at it, you're going to win. But to kind of sum up what I was saying there, if your meetings don't drive decisions, they're just organized interruptions.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: So I think we've all been in that scenario. We're in the reoccurring meeting. It happens every week or however often it happens.
And we talk about the same thing over and over and over. And just to your exact point, all we do is talk and there are no decisions made and nothing ever Happens.
It doesn't have to be recurring meetings. That could be one off meetings as well. So do you have a formula that you use or one that you share with your clients to set up a successful meeting?
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Absolutely.
It's kind of funny because depending on the business or the industry, that agenda changes a little bit. But if there's a formula for it, I like to save. Okay, everybody that brings a problem to the table, you better bring two to three possible solutions.
I don't want to hear a list of problems. To change the way of thinking for leaders and people alike. Require a solution to be presented, even if it's not a good one. You just want people thinking differently.
My mentor used to tell me, once you see a problem, don't dwell on it immediately start looking for a solution because you find what you're looking for.
So in an effort to create that routine schedule or, or, or that structure for one of those meetings, it's okay.
Think of all the information a, a, a department could have, a sales team, okay? If you can fit it all on one page, what are the most important things you'd fit on that page?
If you're going to be presenting to a CEO or an investor, what are the important things you want to bring to the table? Bring only the important things.
And when you bring a problem, bring a solution.
So the structure I have is okay. What is immediate, what is temporary, what is permanent? There's a few different things. You can kind of play with the mix there. But threats, opportunities, weaknesses, strengths, it's essentially a swat, but on a smaller scale, on a regular basis is one of the best disciplines you can implement in any kind of team dynamic.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: So earlier when you were talking about accountability, you also brought up empowerment.
And so I think along the same lines of don't be a problem, don't bring a problem without a couple of solution options. I love that. But I think another, maybe even more proactivist, empower your people to make some of these decisions themselves.
I've got a guy that works for me, Zach Glenn. Great kid. And I get a text from him every single morning. And it's often my very first text. And almost every time he's informing me what the problem of the morning is.
But very rarely is he asking me anything. He's like, this is the problem. This is what I have in place to solve it and should be fixed by noon or by tomorrow. And I love it. It makes me so happy every time because he's got the answer, he knows what it is, and you know, he's empowered to make that decision. And in fact, he knows that if he calls me with just a problem, I'm going to be grumpy. If he calls me with a couple solutions, that's great. We can have a conversation. But if he calls me and he's already got a solution in process.
Oh, that's brilliant.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Exactly. That's like music to my ears.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: All right, well, this is a great discussion. We need to take a little bit of break. We'll be right back with Ryan Herpin. Stay with us.
We'll be right back with more conversations at the edge of technology and transformation. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Infinite Future on NOW Media tv. Let's look ahead.
Welcome back. I'm continuing my conversation with Ryan Herpin.
Ryan's work sits at the intersection of strategy, leadership, operations and high performance.
AI can accelerate analysis. It can automate workflows and reshape entire operating models. But technology does not remove the need for leadership.
In fact, it raises the standard for it. The faster the tools become, the more important judgment, communication and organizational clarity become.
So Ryan, where do you see AI creating the greatest near term opportunity for small and mid sized businesses?
[00:25:07] Speaker B: You know, I'll kind of start this with a recognizing that it is easier now to be an entrepreneur than ever has. And that is really due to the advancement of technology. But I think the greatest opportunity is giving smaller organizations access to capabilities that historically require larger teams and much bigger budgets. Right. I think about market research, financial analysis, customer communication, you know, content development, administrative workflows, goodness, documentation, so much more. Right. I mean, a small business owner who used to spend hours gathering information can potentially accomplish portions of that work within just a few minutes. Right. Especially when you've worked with AI long enough, it understands what you're looking for and it knows how to go after it. But here's where I think we need to be extremely careful. Right. The value isn't simply that AI allows us to do more, it's whether AI allows us to accomplish something more valuable. Again, I go back to the is, you know, that fine line between doing more and getting more done. Because if we use technology to produce, you know, 10 minutes more work, that doesn't really matter. We haven't improved anything. Right. We simply accelerate inefficiency. So AI can accelerate your business. Just make sure it's accelerating you in the right direction.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: So what mistakes do leaders make when they treat AI adoption as a technology project instead of a business transformation?
[00:26:44] Speaker B: You know, this, this is a good One and chewing on it. I would say this might be contrary to some popular belief here, but I think they start with the tool instead of the problem.
Right. They hear about a new AI platform, get excited about what it can do, and immediately start trying to implement it. Right. But.
But they haven't clearly defined the problem they're trying to solve.
So when I'm evaluating an organization or a team, I want to understand the process first. You know, where are we losing time? Where are errors occurring? What are employees performing repetitive tasks, and what do those look like? You know, what. What information's getting stuck or getting mixed up? Then we can determine whether technology can approve the outcome or just as an unnecessary step. Right. Otherwise, we risk automating broken processes, and that's a very expensive way to become inefficient much faster. So automating a broken process doesn't fix it. It just breaks things up even faster.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I absolutely love that. That's. That's more gold. Thank you, Ryan. That. That is total gold. And that's, you know, one of the phrases that I love, which is start with the problem.
And I. I think the data really bears out the story that you're telling as well.
I mean, the. The numbers for last year for AI projects are atrocious. Like 90% of AI projects failed. But it's exactly as you were describing.
Companies were just either in love with the technology or just felt pressured that they felt, you know, their company needed to be doing something with AI.
So they went with technology first, and they ran around. You know, they've got the hammer and they're running around looking for nails that just almost never works. And the data would suggest that never works. Right.
Start with the problem. That's just.
That's gold. Thank you, Ryan.
So how should organizations decide what to automate, what to augment, and what should remain deeply human?
[00:28:45] Speaker B: You know, this is a topic I've had to think a lot about, especially as technology continues to evolve. So, typically, I would divide the work into three categories. First, repetitive and predictable tasks. Those are often strong candidates for automation. Second, you know, analytical or creative tasks where technology can assist someone in making a better decision.
You know, that's. That's augmentation. Third, I would say responsibilities that require human judgment, trust, empathy, accountability, or meaningful relationships. Right. Those deserve particular care. Right. For example, AI might help a manager analyze employee performance data, but I don't believe we should confuse that with the human responsibility of mentoring, developing, and caring for that employee. Right.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: It's.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: It's clear to me that there's some things that need to remain human and some things that don't, but technology should enhance our ability to lead people, not become an excuse to stop leading them. So automate the repetitive, augment the analytical and protect the relational. Is, is kind of the way that I like to look at it.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: I think that's, that's right on. I completely agree with that. So if you are a leader and, and that's your intent, how do you really, how do you help people put those guardrails in place that keep the human decision making element in line and not over automating and turning too much of that over to AI? How do you help leaders make those definitions?
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Got to make it personal.
There's no way around it. Business is personal, life is personal, success is personal. I mean, you got to make it personal and relatable to everybody to understand it's easy for us just to look at something and decide to go a direction with it rather than break it down and really see the value in the possible directions we can go. So the way that I make it personal is I always bring it back to parenting. So even if someone's not a parent, it still gives a glimpse of what we can understand here. Because think of if it's, your child is on the team, you've got objectives, things that have to be done around the house. Do you want AI leading your child, educating your child, mentoring your child, growing your child, or do you want it to support the activities in the growth process of your child?
If you don't make it personal in your own thought process, it's easy to overlook what's important and relational driven. Like I said, you know, if it's repetitive, yes, it can be automated. Some things that are repetitive shouldn't be automated because of the value of growth that people can really incur. But you know, in augmenting the analytical, you know, use these things as, as tools or resources to kind of help break down what can improve how things can be interpreted. But when it comes to the, the addressing the root cause of people problems, you've got to keep that personal. You need to keep it real, you need to keep it relational, plain and simple. So you know, it's, you can look at a million different ways, but I make it personal for leaders so that it's harder for us to just skip over something we want to, you know, automate or, or keep relational.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: Do you like to use AI to suggest options in that type of scenario? Like AI can identify this issue, but it's a personal decision that needs to be made by a human being.
Do you still want AI to present you a list of potential options that you can start with?
[00:32:27] Speaker B: I would say yes, but be careful.
One of the problems I'm seeing occur with AI right now is people are utilizing it as their thought engine.
You have a built in thought engine. You have a personality and filters built within you to think about things, to solve problems, and to determine what is morally right, what is not.
Now, a big problem I'm seeing, especially with students and even some young entrepreneurs, is their whole brain process is being sacrificed or handed right over to AI. So it's hey, what are my options? How should I think about them? What makes the most sense? You're taking the heart out of it. Although an AI tool might understand a little bit of how you think and how you act, eventually your identity is your AI tool and not who you are. That is a problem. That is a big risk.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: So what are some of the guardrails or the rules of thumb that you share with companies to help them to use technology to improve performance without taking away their thought process? So how do you use technology to get better performance while still requiring your employees to use their own critical thinking, their own thought process?
[00:33:45] Speaker B: You know, I would, I would start by asking a very simple question. What are we trying to make easier?
Right. Before I go to AI for a lot of things, I try to process it myself, establish what I think and what I believe, and then I'll feed it to an AI, you know, communication about whatever it may be to try to help me get a bigger picture. It's really perspective, right? Bringing perspective in the mix. But you know, if implementing a new technology requires six new systems, three additional meetings and hours of training without producing a meaningful improvement, we need to reconsider what we're doing.
So having the human factor in the mix can help prevent a lot of those issues. But utilizing the tools correctly can help us jump leaps and bounds and trials and tribulations by just adding perspective to the mix.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: So as AI continues to increase speed, output, what it can do, what leadership skills really are becoming invaluable.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: I, I, this is, this is such a good question. I, I recently had a conversation with one of my mentees about this and you know, I would say I, I believe discernment communication, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and the ability to develop people become increasingly valuable, right? Because as technology makes information more accessible, information itself becomes less of a competitive advantage.
That's just the reality of it. The advantage becomes knowing what to do with it. Right?
Knowledge without action is merely information.
Right.
Think about it like this. You know, two leaders can have access to the exact same information and technology, yet produce dramatically different results.
Why? Well, it's because leadership isn't simply about having answers. It's about asking better questions, making good sound decisions, inspiring people and, and creating alignment around a shared objective.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: And I think, I think as technology advances, those abilities become even more important. Right. When somebody has access to intelligence, wisdom becomes the advantage.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Fantastic stuff, Ryan. Thank you so much.
We're going to take another quick break. We've got another segment with Ryan, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back with more conversations at the edge of technology and transformation. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Infinite Future on on NOW Media tv. Let's look ahead.
We're back with Ryan. Ryan is a business strategist and high performance consultant. For our final conversation about what it takes to build organizations that can grow, adapt and perform in a changing world.
The strongest organizations do not predict every disruption correctly. Nobody can see the future.
They create the capacity to respond financially, operationally, strategically and culturally without losing the clarity that made them successful in the first place.
So, Ryan, what does a genuinely resilient business have in place before a crisis or disruption arrives?
[00:37:16] Speaker B: You know, I think a lot of people confuse resilience with just motivation and a fired up team that's hungry for an outcome personally, through working with goodness. Over the last few years, 38 businesses and 24 different industries at this point, I would say, I think resilience really comes down to one powerful word and that's options.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Does the company have the financial flexibility? Can it survive losing a major customer? Can operations continue if a key employee leaves or something bad happens?
Leadership know how to respond when something unexpected pops up. Right.
A lot of companies mistake stability for resilience all at the same time. You know, they believe they're stronger because nothing has, has gone wrong recently. But you know, the absence of a crisis isn't evidence that you're prepared for one. Right. When I evaluate a business, I'm looking for single points of failure. Those places where one customer, one employee, one, you know, supplier or one decision maker can jeopardize the entire organization or a big part of it. Right. The, the more we reduce those dependencies, the more resilience we build within a business. Right. Resilience isn't proven when everything goes right. It's revealed when something does go.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: Yeah, there's, there's that old plan or that old phrase, you know, failure to plan is, is planning to fail.
And I, I kind of hate that phrase because it sounds like something that, you know, the curmudgeonally old staff sergeant would say. But at the same time, you know, it's, it's not wrong. Right.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: I would say it's, it's pretty accurate for the most part.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And kind of, kind of brings us around full circle to where we started, which is, you know, a good company can't predict the future. You don't know what problem is coming.
But you do know, or you certainly should know, that a problem is coming, something's going to go wrong. And kind of some of the things you mentioned, right. Losing a key employee, losing a key client.
I mean, it doesn't have to be a technology failure. There's so many points of failure within a business and sometimes one failure will cause a whole series of failures and so resiliency becomes even more important.
So when you're, when you're working with a client, are there some really critical single points of failure that are, that are most at risk because if they fail, it's going to cause additional problems?
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So when it comes to operations especially, everyone's always looking for bottlenecks.
I'm looking for a different kind of bottleneck outside of operations. Organizationally, it's points of dependence. Right. So great example. If a company, which a lot of small to midsize businesses get to this point, especially in the midsize range, where a lot of the major decisions, most of the major decisions depend on the owner's choice, their, their ability to decide and move on. So you're creating owner dependency in a way that is detrimental to the success of a business because if something happens, is your team really prepared to make those decisions based on the best interest of the business and the customers?
That's just one example where decisions being delayed can cause a cascade of other issues that just compound over time. And one, one of those points of dependency turns into countless other problems that typically stay hidden for a long time.
So I mean, really.
Oh man, the list just goes on and on of the different types of, of cascading problems that can occur when you've got one area or a multitude of areas that have that singular point of dependence where every business is dependent on something. Just identify the same way you would a bottleneck for operations.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: What role do you see leadership development playing in building a resilient business?
[00:41:36] Speaker B: I think this is one of the most important responsibilities any leader actually has. Right. Because eventually every leader faces and faces a limitation in their own capacity.
Right. You only have so many hours, so much energy, and so much attention. Right. Capacity is often the problem, not competency. Right. If the organization depends on you for every important decision, as I was just talking about, then your capacity becomes the organization's capacity. And that's a dangerous, dangerous position to be in. You know, leadership development is, is how we multiply the organization's ability to think, decide, and most of all, execute. You know, when I work with leaders of all different types, you know, I want them to understand that their greatest contribution isn't necessarily what they personally accomplish, it's what they make possible through other people. You know, a great leader doesn't just build a successful organization. A great leader builds an organization capable of succeeding without their constant involvement. You know, if everything depends on you, you haven't built leadership, you've built dependence and something. My, my business partner or my mentor, he taught me a long time ago as he gave me an opportunity to be in charge of 350plus employees. He said, your responsibility is not to be the expert of everything, it's to be the person has a great relationship with all the experts. Your job is to solve problems without being the one to actually implement anything. You solve the problems through others. And through that process, I learned very, very quickly my job as a leader was not to solve the problems. It was to build the people to become better problem solvers.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: I love that one of the, I saw a phrase similar to that recently and it basically said the leadership superpower is not knowing everything, but building a culture where everyone can learn anything.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: I love that. It ties into a phrase I like to think about and it's, it's attitude over aptitude.
Someone with the right attitude can learn anything necessary to be successful.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Build a culture of continuous learning and give your folks the tools they need to go teach themselves.
Yeah, great stuff.
If you were advising a company today that wants to be stronger three years from now, what capabilities would you tell them to start building immediately?
[00:44:20] Speaker B: I, I would focus primarily on five areas.
First and foremost, the, the important one in my mind is, is leadership development. Because growth requires people capable of making increasingly complex decisions. Right.
Second, I would say operational discipline, because processes need to become repeatable and most importantly, measurable. You cannot manage what you do not measure. Third, financial visibility. My goodness. Because you can't make intelligent decisions about what you don't understand.
So you've got to have some visibility financially now. Fourth, I would say technological adaptability.
And this is becoming Increasingly important because the tools and you know, expectations around us will continue to evolve.
Right now, the 5th and this one is quite difficult to get put in place a lot of the time. But it's organizational culture because ultimately people determine whether any strategy succeeds or fails.
But here's the part I'd really emphasize. You don't build those capabilities once you need them. You build them before you need them. If you're waiting until you need them, it's too late right now. The organizations that are successful three years from now will likely be the ones making disciplined decisions today.
Not that don't necessarily produce immediate applause. Tomorrow's strength is built through decisions made today.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: That's really important points, all five of those. I completely agree with all those great stuff. I want to double click real quickly on number four, technical adaptability.
And I think you said earlier in our call that it's easier than ever to be a new entrepreneur and I think that's particularly true in this area.
Technical adaptability, the ability to learn new technology.
It has never been easier to learn new technologies and honestly probably never cheaper. Right. There are so many tools that are available online and so many of them are free and huge really well known institutions that are just giving away programming and giving away courses. Harvard, Stanford, MIT.
Claude is giving away a 13 class program that at the end of which you'll be cloud certified and it's all free and it's all online.
It's amazing. I've had so many people that have said hey, you know, I'm scared AI is going to take my job. And one of the pieces of advices that I give them is okay, teach yourself agentic AI and here's all these free tools you can go get.
Build your own replacement and then go to your boss and pitch them on your ability to build five more of these agents and you'll run a Tina agents and you'll 5x your output.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: It boils down to the how does it work?
Yeah, it's attitude over aptitude genuinely because a lot of people are afraid of what they don't understand. But we have supercomputers in our pockets. We have the ability to learn pretty much anything and most of the stuff is just free like you said. So YouTube, Google.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Goodness.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Countless things out there you can learn from resources just as that. I mean a lot of business I've learned was through being self taught by spending hours on end on Google, YouTube and many other platforms.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So many tools that are out there, so many available. So yes, apply yourself and learn. Ryan, this has been a great conversation. You've shared some real gold nuggets with us.
If people want to get in touch with you, if people want to follow you, where do they see you? Where do they find you? How do they engage you?
[00:48:16] Speaker B: Yeah, a few ways. Super easy. You can find me on. You can connect to me through my website, impactstrategyc.com easy way to reach out to me and my team. I do have a book that is out. It's on the process I've used to grow a company from $10 million revenue to a $200 million sale.
There's a lot of ways you can find me, but LinkedIn's also another great way to connect with me directly.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: The book. What's the name of the book?
Ah, there we go. Okay.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Yeah. The book is Breaking the Circle. You can get it on Amazon. Go through the links for my website.
Many different ways to find. It's something that I've put together over years of trial and error.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, Ryan, thanks again. Great conversation today. You shared some real gold.
Appreciate it everybody out there for watching. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week on Infinite Future.
