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LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 19:08:25 GMT

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

I’m not a big car guy, but a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to take part in the Porsche Driving Experience at Barber Motor Speedway. Over the two-day intense course, I went from thinking I knew how to drive to being deathly afraid to go over 40 MPH, all of which culminated in approaching hairpin turns at 120 MPH and wanting more! While it was an incredible experience that changed the way I think about automobiles, it also taught me some important leadership lessons about rapid progress and avoiding Scale-ure.

I strolled into Birmingham having no idea what to expect, but was confident that whatever it was, I could handle it. After all, I had been driving for more than 25 years, how much different could if be? Oh, and I definitely wouldn’t need the Dramamine everyone kept talking about.

We grabbed a big breakfast, and it was off to the classroom. I fully anticipated we were going to talk about the precision manufacturing of these luxury racing vehicles, basically a live Porsche infomercial. Instead, we got physics lesson. We learned how tires are designed to stay flat on the road, how the use of the brakes helps balance the G forces on those tires while driving, dictating speed and direction. We learned about hitting the apex of turns so you could drive straighter longer (which equals faster). As a matter of fact, the only time we talked about using the accelerator was when we talked about when and how to back off the gas pedal to better manage upcoming turns in the road.

Once we left the classroom, we spent the next four hours on the practice pads. All the drills were centered around mastering two skills: brake usage and course vision.

If they said these things once, they said them 1000 times: “The key to going fast is learning how to use the brakes!” and “Where you look is where you will go.”

It was my turn up on the first course. The cones were set up in a figure-eight pattern featuring two long straightaways and two giant half-moon turns. The course was marked with signs on where to apply the brakes at critical points in the drive. Like every other testosterone-infused adrenaline junkie that went before me, I strapped into the Porsche Boxster, got the “GO” sign, and floored it down the first straightaway blowing right through the first brake sign and into the half-moon turn.

That’s when I wished I had listened to the instructor!

What started as a screaming tear down the straightaway turned into almost a dead standstill. I was doing everything I could to keep the car inside the cones. The momentum I had built up on the easy part of the course was too much for me to handle without coming to virtually a complete stop. And my eyes, well they were dead set on the cones directly in front of me…I had no idea what was around the bend.

OK, my guess is you are already starting to draw some of your own conclusions about the business lessons I learned from this experience…and you’re probably right. But let me try to summarize the most important ones.

The first, and maybe the hardest lesson I learned was that I was capable of more than I imagined, but I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. I had the privilege of having a dozen instructors who dedicated their lives to the sport of auto racing giving me sage advice on how to approach this new challenge and I chose to jump in the car and lean on my own knowledge and experience. How often do we do this when trying to scale our businesses?

There are books, advisors, employees, friends, and consultants from whom we can gather insights (and who would be happy to give them). We may have even taken one of their classes. But, the first chance we have to put that advice to use, we say “I got this” and ignore everything we heard. We are proud of ourselves and everything seems to be going well until we hit that first turn, lose control, and can’t see what’s around bend.

Next, in order to go faster you have to learn to master the brakes. Brakes aren’t just used to avoid a crash, they are used to control the momentum of the car, enabling you to effectively navigate twists and turns. While your organization doesn’t have a physical brake pedal, you make those adjustments through your decision making, specifically the things you say “no” to. When your business is speeding down the straightaway you are often only thinking about capitalizing on that momentum. You use your high-water mark for planning and ignore the signs telling you to slow down because there is a curve coming up ahead. It’s pedal to the metal until you hit the corner; then it’s slam on the brakes or hit the wall. Saying “no” or “not now” to good things and recognizing the warning signs will enable you to recognize the benefits of the best things and manage the curves when they come.

Finally, reorienting your line of sight will determine the direction of your organization because “Where you look is where you will go”. One of the hardest drills to master (at least for me) was on the splash pad, a specially coated section of blacktop that is sprayed with water to be ten times slicker than ice. The goal here was to drive in a circle and keep the car from spinning out. As you start out, the natural reaction when the car starts to spin is to look toward the slide to see what you are sliding into. Unfortunately, all that does is prolong the slide because your brain gives your body the wrong cues to correct course. And if that happens off the splash pad and during the race, the wall comes faster and you hit harder!

Even if you are not in jeopardy of spinning out, shifting your gaze to look further down the track allows you to hit your marks, recognize hazards earlier, and follow the curves in the road more effectively. Reorienting your line of sight as a business leader is not different. Small, early adjustments allow you to capitalize on opportunities and avoid potential hazards while smoothing out the twists and turns.

THAT IS HOW WE GOT HERE

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 18:40:22 GMT

THAT IS HOW WE GOT HERE

Over the years, I’ve seen what I’ve termed, “Scale-ure”, handicap organizations and, in some cases, grind them to a halt. Some may not consider it fortunate to experience Scale-ure early in their careers, but, for me, it was a tough lesson that’s subsequently shaped my leadership.

I started my career in banking and quickly became a top individual contributor,

winning sales contests, awards, and accolades. That success allowed me to take on increasing responsibilities and start leading teams.

My career progressed rapidly. I started out leading a small team of five people, then a larger team of 8-10. During that time, while I was challenged to grow my people leadership

capabilities and become a better coach and mentor, I leaned heavily on my personal

production ability to generate results. I tended to be responsible for most of the big wins

and used my team to execute the day-to-day. I was ultimately the rainmaker, and the

team served as cogs in my production machine.

When was asked to lead a larger distributed team–20 people over two locations–the

pressure started to mount. I felt stressed all the time and it seemed no matter how hard

I worked, I could never quite close the gap. I had always been so successful and

regarded as a key talent and an emerging leader, so why was it different this time? If

anything, there was more opportunity, and I just couldn’t seem to capitalize.

As I searched for answers a blind spot came to light that completely reoriented my

leadership posture. Up to this point, I had leveraged my individual strengths to make up

for capability gaps in my team. If we needed more deposit dollars to hit our goal, I

scoured my network and returned with a $1-million check. If we were light on loans, I

sat in on client conversations, built debt consolidation worksheets, and helped close the

deal. That worked fine with five, eight, 10 people…but at 20+, my individual strengths just

couldn’t make up for the gaps in my team. If I wanted to continue winning, I had to move

from frontman to facilitator. Leading became less about me doing all the things and

instead was intently focused on enabling the team to get all the things done well.

I have seen this narrative play out in businesses looking to scale from their

entrepreneurial roots into an enterprise organization. The owners, founders, and

partners have built strong businesses by leveraging their networks, spearheading the

big wins, shouldering the tough decisions, and building a team around them to help

execute against their successes. Often, they are (or are viewed as) the smartest people

in the room, headstrong, and intently focused on what they need to do to develop the next

win. They value people who think, act, and respond like them, and tend to push aside

folks that bring a different perspective or ways of working. “This is how we got here”

rings in the hallways and boardroom. As they look to scale, they base their decision-making on the myth that doing more of what got them to this point will take them to the

next level.

Ultimately, just like I did, they hit a wall. The growth projections aren’t being hit,

pressure mounts, and morale falls. The investments they have made in the future state of

the business are not providing a return and in the worst cases are sucking the life and

cash out of what was once a profitable business. Even worse, because the people they

have surrounded themselves with think, act, and respond like them, there is little to no

insight to be gained on how to get back on track.

Hopefully, you are reading this before the school of hard knocks has started to teach

you a costly lesson in Scale-ure. Even if you are in the middle of the storm, it’s probably

not too late to reorient your leadership team and transform your organization to

effectively execute on your scale up plans. Continuing in our Scale-ure series, we will

explore the foundational elements of preparing to scale and provide insights and key

questions to answer along the way. Things like “Has the growth of the organization

outpaced the leadership capability I have in house?”, Where would I benefit from

experience and expertise to solve a problem”, and “Am I growing, maturing, or both?”

If you are wrestling with Scale-ure and want to connect, visit our website at

www.myvantagepoint.net and click on “Let’s Talk”.

AVOIDING SCALE-URE

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 18:31:24 GMT

Avoiding Scale-ure

Congratulations, your entrepreneurial spirit and sound decision-making have helped you successfully avoid the 82% chance your business would fail, and you are now running a thriving small business.

While late nights and long hours may not yet be a thing of the past, gone is the fear of when your next check is arriving.. Bonus–you’re enjoying the benefits of what you’ve built and the people you have been able to help along the way! It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been worth it!

Now, as you look out at the future, what used to seem like the destination has turned into a doorway to do something you never dreamed of (or maybe it’s exactly where you dreamed you would be). Either way, you have the chance to become part of the .01% of companies that make up America’s large and middle-market business community. But, there is a reason that only .01% make that leap…they have figured out how to successfully morph their organizations over time to avoid Scale-ure!

Defining Scale-ure:

Scale-ure is term I’ve coined to describe the lack of success in expanding a company past its entrepreneurial roots and into an enterprise organization. This definition is based on the reality that as organizations grow past the founders, owners, and partners, they require a different structure, set of boundaries, management routines, and operational safeguards to run effectively.

More specifically, as companies grow into larger organizations, a natural tension develops between the need to decentralize decision-making authority and operational execution while keeping a central and critical set of core values, mission, identity, and messaging. Understanding the need for that pivot, executing it effectively, and embedding the necessary leadership capability in the organization to make that happen is no small task and one that is too often underestimated because of the success that got you to this point.

To quote Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here, won’t get you there.” Recognizing that truth early, understanding the new drivers of success, and systematically embedding the proper fundamentals of a solid foundation for your next phase of growth will be vital to your future success.

In my upcoming posts, I will start to unpack the transition from entrepreneur to enterprise with the goal of helping you recognize the signs that you may be headed for Scale-ure and give you practical insights on avoiding its pitfalls and living into a new level of organizational prosperity.