Episode Transcript
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I love to dive into the world of business, of leadership, of just trying to grow our business, to grow as an individual, to grow the people that we work with, work for, or who work for us. And there's a lot of intricacies with that, a lot of complexity. Of course, the big conversation nowadays is how is AI affecting all of this? But long before AI, and even with AI, what about ourselves and the people we work with and the environment? Those are always gonna be there, regardless of AI. So really excited to have this conversation here with John Weathington to talk about all of this. And Mr. Weathington, if you could just go ahead and give us an introduction, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Hey, thanks, Mr. Whiskey. Thanks for having me on. It's great to be here. Um, yeah, so in short, I've been... I'm a management consultant, so I help leaders improve individual and organizational performance. Um, I cast a pretty wide net, but typically where I get called in is in matters of strategy or org design, innovation, uh, or leadership development, uh, major transformations. Um, so I usually work with, um, the, uh, large, larger companies. So you're talking about strategic business u- uh, leaders of larger companies, uh, that are really sort of dealing with some sort of challenge that they need some help with, right? Some, some sort of, uh, whether it's from an advisory standpoint or actually getting hands-in and, and trying to figure out exactly how do we get underneath an issue. So, um, yeah, that, that's basically me in a nutshell. We're sure, and we know there's a lot of different issues, monetization, retention, engagement, all kinds of stuff. But before we get into all the technical terms and all the knowledge you have, I wanna know how you got all that knowledge, what your personal journey has been like, uh, both personally and of course career-wise, and how they have kind of intersected and brought you to where you are now. I, uh, yeah, it's a great question because, you know, I never set out when I was 12 years old to say, "Hey, I wanna be a management consultant someday," right? Right. So I, I would say just management consulting, and consulting in general, found me. I, I didn't really... I, I kind of fell into it, right? And so, um, my, uh, earlier in my year- in my, you know, uh, career, um, I... And, and actually, if you kind of rewind back to my high school days and stuff like that, I was, um... I'm from Silicon Valley for the most part. Um, and, um, you know, w- I was, I was fortunate enough to experience, you know, a really, you know, a really special time in history with the Silicon Valley boom and everything. But, you know, I was, I was headstrong into computer science, and I, I, I knew for sure I was gonna be a computer programmer. Um, and, um, just to kind of short circuit, you know, m- my journey, 'cause it's a very long and twisted and serpentine journey. Um, but, um, you know, I got, I kinda got tired of getting, um, stuck on projects with a project manager that will al- always sign us up for really sort of impossible stuff, right? Um, but, you know, we're, you know, we have honor and we have, you know, professionalism, and so we go ahead and knock it out, and then that just sets up a pattern of just continuing to sign us up for knocking out impossible stuff. Right. So then one day I said, "You know what? I'm gonna be the project manager," right? And, "I'm gonna learn how to do project management." Um, which I did. And then project management, um, led to, um, process improvement, Six Sigma, this kind of thing, um, which led to just management consulting in general, um, which brought me to more change management and dealing with people, um, and helping them with stuff. And then as soon as you start kind of assembling that, um, corral of, of, uh, of, um, abilities, then I started kinda getting called in to do more strategy and org design and, and, um, and, um, and those kinds of things, uh, to help people with very, very large transformations. So it's, it's kind of like a twisted journey. I, I've kind of gone with the flow as much as I can, uh, and try to be as opportunistic, um, and, and, um, kind of take a- uh, take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. Right. And so you became a bit of a problem solver, a bit of, you know, giving advice and planning strategy. And so with all of that, all these years of experience, you know, let's start with the big question most people are wondering. What is the most common issue that businesses are facing? And of course, every business has its own challenges. Some things are very niche specific. But in general, I'm sure you've noticed quite a bit of patterns over the years. So what are some of those big common issues? You know, they... I think that's a great question because it changes, um, as, as we go through different periods of time. I think right now, um I think, I think leaders are struggling to get on the same page with the people that they're leading, to be honest with you. Mm. I think, um, what COVID did, and I write about this in the book that I just, um, that I just put out in January, and, um, really, what, what really prompted me to do that was that question. I was noticing a pattern of just leaders getting on, um, getting on a different page with the people, um, that, that they're leading. Um, I think COVID exacerbated that. We saw a period of time where people were pretty much forced to shelter in and, um, we learned how to be productive, you know, without having to go into an office. Um, and then once we started emerging from COVID, um, and leaders started bringing, you know, people back to the office, it was more of a concession or a compromise than really sort of a meeting of the minds, um, where- Mm ... you know, I, I think that, um, I think, you know, what, what, you know, what, what people really wanted to be able to do is have the autonomy to do their work, you know, um, in, in more of a, a work at home situation or maybe even a hybrid situation. Um, and I, and I think that kind of started us down this road of, like I said, of leaders and, and, and the people that they're leading really sort of being at conflict with each other. Um, w- and, and it's just not a healthy environment. It's not, it's not good for the leader and it's not good for the people that they're leading. Um, so as I go into organizations right now, uh, what I, what I often see is that, um, you know, leaders are trying to do things, but, you know, they need to have their people that they lead on board with them with- when they're doing things, and sometimes there's just not enough consideration, um, taken for the people that are gonna be affected by whatever sort of change they're making. Um, and so, you know, from the leader's standpoint, what they find is this sort of resistance that they struggle with. That... Your question was what are leaders struggle with. They're struggling from a resistance that's kind of caused by not understanding the changes that they're making from the, th- from the perspective of the people that are being impacted by the change. And because of that, you're gonna get these kinds of resistances that are, are, that they struggle with. A hundred percent. So it's always a people problem, right? Right. And you know, the thing too is that they, the leaders are not just to blame solely too. We see a huge shift in just l- people being lazier. Like you said, peop- Mm ... everyone wants to work from home. And there's all these people who I, especially from the younger generations, you talk to them and they're saying, "Well, why can't we do this job from home? Logistically, we can do everything from home, so why do we need to go into the office?" There, I think there's this huge resentment towards authority figures, towards the office environment, and COVID definitely, like you said, I mean, drastically shifted that. In fact, there's a- A lot of people who are just quitting jobs to go look for a remote job or do a remote job. It is harder for, you know, employers now to keep employees with saying, "Hey, you only get five days of, of vacation or time to do this, that, or that." Whereas a remote job, "Hey, there's time to do work and everything I need to do," or, "There's time to do work and be on vacation." So what incentives can employers truly give to combat this? We've created a situation where the grass is always greener, you know? Yeah. Or where the work is always more remote, so to speak, you know? More remote. Yeah, right. And that is difficult. Um, but also I, I love what you talk about the environment and the resistance, you know, especially having served in the military, having served under some terrible leadership- Yeah, me too. Yeah ... under some people who, you know, created a, a, a place where you don't feel psychologically or emotionally safe to bring up accountability or correction to leadership. That's right. And that is really important too, to have leaders who say, "I do not know everything. Even if I've been here..." And I worked, unfortunately, blue collar side with people who said, "I've been here for 30 years, so everything that has happened is what has happened and can happen and nothing new can happen." I remember, I, I give an example all the time. "Hey, boss man, you know, this, this valve is broken." "Well, it hasn't been broken in 30 years. It's not broken today. You just don't wanna work." You know? You know, when you have leadership like that- Yeah, leadership like that, yeah ... it is hard to keep retention in that kind of environment. And we know blue collar industry is a great example of a fast retention rate of, of people leaving and- Yeah, attrition rate. Yeah. Uh-huh ... people don't realize how much money is lost in continually issuing new equipment and spending money on training to lose people, and to constantly have this cycle. Yeah. Same with the restaurant industry, although they can make up that money faster and, and, you know, train people faster, but it's just a, a pain. And then you bring that to the corporate world. The last thing you want is people coming in and out, in and out. You never have anyone who's fully skilled. And then the person who is skilled gets overworked, overburdened, and they leave. Yeah. So we see some vicious cycles being made. Now, what would you say, because we've talked about a lot of these common issues, but in your decades of experience- Mm-hmm ... was there ever a problem at a company, uh, you, you know, you're consulting, strategizing, and you're like, "This is just, this is a difficult issue to tackle. Like, this is by far the most challenging, uh, you know, job I've had so far." Was there anything that really made you take a step back and you're like, "This one's gonna be tricky to figure out compared to everything else"? Yeah, sure. Um, and I, I've had some doozies in my, in my time. Um- I'd say that, um, kind of... I'd, I'd say that there's one company that stands out, and again, there's, um... You're gonna, you're gonna find a lot of, uh, inspiration in the book that comes from this one particular company because after, you know, after we kinda did what we needed to do, you know, there was a lot of takeaways for me, all right? So this was a particular company that, um, was doing very well. They, they, uh, they accelerated to about a billion dollars in sales very quickly. Um, and then their aspiration from their leader was to accelerate to $5 billion in sales. And it was more than an aspiration because what had happened was that they had done so well as a company that the market was pulling on that company for more products and services over and above the capability that they could, they could deliver. And so it's kind of a envious but unenvious situation because you wanna be able to deliver to that market, but you don't have the capability, and so you need to grow. So this is what I call the hypergrowth imperative, um, because either you grow or you're gonna fold, right? Um, and what makes that, what made that particular situation tricky was a lot of their strategic advantage was actually tied up in their people. Their people was their strategy. Their human... They, they, they were able to propel themselves to a billion dollars of sales because of the human ingenuity of the people that they had. And so, sure, I could scale them up to five billion, but we had to do it in a way that, um, to where people wouldn't walk out under the pressure of s- of, of trying to scale so fast. Um, because if their, if their good people left, then their whole strategic advantage was gone, right? Does that make sense? So, so how do you design an organization, um, that first of all can support five billion versus a billion dollars in sales? And second, how do you scale that, right, on a transformation cur- on a hypercurve, um, and then keep all of your people intact? That, that was, that was tricky. They wanted to do it on a short timeframe too. Within four years they wanted to go from a billion to five billion in sales. Right ... that was a good one. But as you kind of mentioned there with your job, you know, it gets easier and easier in a sense that you can kind of, I don't wanna say copy and paste, but there's a lot of, like you mentioned, takeaways that you can then bring to the next company or the next business. And so along those lines, you've mentioned a couple times this book, and I definitely wanna get into the title, the content, and especially is this for all businesses, for very specific types of businesses? Let's get into this book that you wrote and kind of why you wrote it. Okay. No, thanks for asking. No, it's, it's not really for all businesses, but it's for the type of businesses that I see sort of on the next wave. Um, and it's really, uh, i- the, the title of the book is Grow Your Business Up, and then the subtitle is Unlocking the Full Potential of Gifted and Precocious Organizations. Um, so there's a whole generation or two of people that weren't around when Silicon Valley had its boom. Um, but I'm old enough in order to remember that. And so... And remember, what came out of that were giants of industry right now, right? Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, um, Google, right? So these are huge, huge companies that came out of Silicon Valley. Um, and, um, and, and, and, and really, you know, that story that I just told you about that company that tried to scale was, was the inspiration for writing it, and sort of what we were t- even talking about before about people not being on the same page with their leaders. Um, because back then, the, the Sil- and I, and I spell it out in the book, there's a Silicon Valley playbook that I, that I kind of, um, extricated out of that time period of, um, that involves just a real care and concern for your people and, and a real respect for this environment where people can thrive and do their best work. And so, you know, going back to the mistake that, or the str- you know, the struggle that most leaders have, it's because of mistakeness, you know, sort of paradigm that leaders adopt, um, unfortunately where they put humans, the, the people that they lead- kind of on the opposite side of their strategy. Um, you know, they, and, and, and because I've done a lot of org design work, and, um, the, you know, the, um, the ugly underbelly of org design is that when you kind of get into those inner circles, there's a lot of people that just view these people as numbers, right? They're just cogs, you know, in, in a machine. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and you, you know, especially, like, you have some real seasoned org designers that get really sort of, um, numb to the fact, even, even org designers like me, numb to the fact that you're dealing with real people here. I mean, these people have emotions, and these people have, you know, human ingenuity. And, um, and they just kind of start treating them like, like, you know, um, like numbers. Um, they, they... There's a word for them even, you know, attrits, you know. So, you know, these attrits or those attrits. So, so really the reason why I wrote this book is because, you know, there is a scenario where leaders can have their cake and eat it too. Um, and I spell it out in the book about how you can build a competitive strategy around human ingenuity, um, but you have to have the right kind of people. Uh, and, and the leader that I am targeting this to are the leaders that are really g- have acknowledged that they're real... They're leading a very, very gifted, uh, group of people. Precocious is the word that I use, right? They're advanced beyond their time. Um, and, and they're good, you know. And, and so when, when you have a group of people like that, um, then you can harness their human ingenuity into a competitive strategy, right? You can, you can build a competitive strategy around the ingenuity of their people, but in order to foster that human ingenuity, you really have to give them an environment where they thrive, right? I mean, you're not gonna get a lot of creative, you know, um, juice out of somebody that's being suppressed, uh, as we were talking about before, right? Mm-hmm. So what you really wanna do is just create a, you know, an environment where they really do their best work, and then when they do their best work, they feed your competitive advantage. And that competitive advantage can, um, really accelerate you in the competitive landscape. And, and that's kind of what I, what I try to write about in the book here. And so how do we as leaders recognize these, these gifted people with their ingenuity, and how do we create that environment for them in order for them to thrive? Yeah. I mean, these are people... It, it, it's hard. I mean, the, the easiest way to, to know that you have it is just to see it. I mean, these are people that are always outperforming their peers, right? These, these are peop- And, and so, you know, and the thing about precocious teams is that you can have... You don't need, you know, a whole lot of precocious individuals to create a precocious team. You know, we saw that in the Dream Team, right? In the O- in, when, when we brought the Dream Team to the Olympics. You know, in some cases they did really well, but, you know, there was those, you know, couple of years there where we brought a lot of talented basketball stars together and, you know, they, they barely got bronze, right? It's like, you know, when they came together as a team it just didn't click. So, um, so you know, you gotta recognize that you have a precocious team and not just a whole bunch of bright people. Um- Mm ... so, and, and the way that you know that is every time you set them off to do something, they outperform because they love doing what they're doing. Um, and if you step back and you observe, you can tell that you- there's a little bit of a pattern here. Um, the tricky part here with that question though is you don't, you don't need to understand why, because a lot of people try to understand, well, what is it about this team that makes them special? In a lot of cases you won't know that answer. Um, it's just the way that human dynamics work. Mm. But you can see it. You can see it when it's at play. You just know, oh, you know, these are, this is a gifted group of people, right? Um, and then, you know, to your, the second half of your question, what you wanna do is you really want to listen to your people. You have to h- you have to take an active interest in your people and listen to what they want. And it's not all, it's not all about just giving them everything that they want, right? Um, there's comedies that have been made about the Silicon Valley days, right? When we had egg pods that we would take naps in and everything else, right? Um, and, and so it's not about just giving them everything that they want, but it's about listening to what they want and, and, and really being, um, considerate about, you know, um, making them happy, you know? Uh, y- like I said, it's not about spoiling them, but, you know, you need them to be inspired. And in order to be inspired, they need to, they need to be happy. They need, they need to be happy at their job. They w- they need to be able to wake up and, and, you know, and be e- eager to go to their job, excited to go to their job. And that's the way that it was back in the Silicon Valley days in the '90s. Um, and I think that that wave is gonna come again here pretty soon, and so that's why I think the timing of this book is right. So I just wanna really hone in here on who really should read the book So it's gonna... It's, it's particular- it's specifically targeted at leaders that are running large organizations, and so you're talking about maybe a half a billion, a billion-dollar organization. Um, these are leaders that have, uh, recognized, um, and, and that have recognized that they do have a precocious group of people that they're dealing with. They're very, very talented and, and they feel like they don't know how to take the next step with this group, right? Um, I've come across a lot of, um, leaders and friends, um, of, of people with gifted children, and so the... it- it's the exact same analogy. It's kind of a special situation when you have a gifted kid. Um, a lot of times you can't send them to the same schools that other parents are sending them to, um, and they, and they need special treatment. And so, you know, when you have a, a gifted group of people, um, you... they just need, you know, special handling and care. Some- sometimes it's, it- it's difficult to deal with gifted people, right? Because, you know, and I, and I write about the book, I mean, you get into like super chicken personalities where they're over competitive, right? Um, or, you know, they run into the yips and, you know, if you and I get the yips, that's fine, we just kinda get over it. But somebody that's really sort of got that disposition for being precocious, if they get the yips, um, it really, it really will get under their skin. I mean, they can get really, really depressed if, you know, they get a B on, on, on a test, right? Right. Or something like that, right? So, um, I think it's about leaders that recognize that they have a group like that, and they need to figure out like, you know, how, how can I... What... You know, what do I... How do I take the next step with this? Or m- or if they just have this drive that they want to, um, they, they want to be able to succeed in business with their organization, um, but they also want their people to succeed as well as they succeed. Because I think too often... Once that light bulb comes on, then I really think that you should read the book. Uh, because I think too often people in their brain kind of make that an either/or. Either I'm gonna succeed and I'm gonna... Usually, unfortunately, what happens is that people at some point, um, think that they, in order to succeed at business, it's gonna be at the expense of people, and that's not the case. I mean, you can do it, but you have to do it with the right group of people, and you have to do it with the right strategy, and these are the kinds of things that I lay out in the book. Right. So again, that's Grow Your Business Up, and we're gonna have the link in the description below for people to check out. And I think it's important, like you said, we're at a time where the world of work is, is really shifting, and I think, like you said, that boom is coming. And so I really encourage everyone, uh, to, uh, check it out, even if it's not for you to share it and to provide these, 'cause I think it's important. You know, why should we all be involved with this? Well, how we continue to impact and shape the working world is gonna affect all of us. It's gonna affect, it all trickles down. Uh, I'm sure you've- That's right ... talked and done a lot of work on how it trickles down from the employer to the employees to, you know, they go off and start their own businesses. So I think that's really important. That's why conversations like these are important. You know, you talk about recognizing your people and treating them as people, and I've been in situations in the government where we were told we were government property, where if we weren't a certain rank, we didn't have rights, you know? And it's not just the military. I'm sure there are people you mentioned who label you down to a number, right? Yeah. They don't even see your identity. They see your output or your input- Oh, yeah ... or whatever it is. And so I think it's really important that we bring back humanity, especially in a day and age where we're trying to outsource everything to AI, and, uh, that can be the beauty where AI is not resistive, uh, for now. I hope it doesn't get resistive for now. Oh, no. Right. Um, and it doesn't have the needs, but it's important to recognize that while people come with certain needs and certain, like you said, uh, tension, uh, their output can be drastically amazing for whatever we're doing, and recognizing that and just balancing it all can certainly be a strategy. As you mentioned, the word strategy, that's what it's about. So I encourage everyone to check out that book. We're gonna have the link in the description below. And then, Mr. Weathington, do you have anything else you'd like to share on this note? Yeah, I mean, I, I, I would echo, um, I, I would echo your encouragement. I, I think that the, what, you know, what I would really wanna leave people with, especially for the leaders out there, is that, um, you can create a scenario where you succeed and your people succeed. Um, that's- Yeah ... something that is something that should be planted in your head, even if you don't know all the answers right now for how that's gonna work. I think that, um... And, and it's, and it's more than just a, a play on, on being humane, right? Because obviously, you know, it's good to be humane to the people that you're, that are working for you, and I think to a certain extent, every leader sort of knows that. But, um, with a lot of leaders, there's a line that seems to be crossed where now, um, you know, it's about success at the, at the expense of people, like I said before. Right, right. And just all... My, my message to leaders is that it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah. Just, just know that. And, and, and, and I think that the, the higher moral route is to explore, you know, how can I succeed, and how can I have my people succeed at the same time? And just know that that's possible because I've seen it, I live it, and I practice it every day. 100%. I, I agree with that so much. You know, I think we see so many people who say, "Sacrifices are gonna have to be made. Some people-" Yeah. "... are gonna have to suffer," right? Uh, and like you said, there is a way to do it. Uh, you know, the difference is between is there a way or is there a way and it's difficult so I don't wanna do it? That's the real- ... thing right there, the difference between easy and difficult. But I think, like you said, uh, with the more difficult path, there is greater success and, and we, we know that. So thank you for all your insights today and for continuing to help companies to grow. Like we said, uh, it's a, a trickle effect, a ripple effect across all of us, so I appreciate your time, and I wish you success with the book, and I hope that everyone listening, please check that out, take a look at that, and, and see how it can help you. All right. Thanks a lot for having me, Mr. Whiskey. It's been great being here.
