Business Innovators Radio - Ron Reich: How to Inspire with Vision and Lead with Mission

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Ron Reich has 30 years of training and development and consulting experience. has worked for major organizations such as Toshiba, The Chubb Corporation, and Organon Pharmaceuticals. He has have done consulting work in many industries including medical, assisted living facilities, manufacturing, high tech, retail, pharmaceuticals and banking.Learn more at: linkedin.com/inron-reich7809839Rebelpreneur Radio with Ralph Brogdenhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/rebelpreneur-radio-with-ralph-brogden/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/ron-reich-how-to-inspire-with-vision-and-lead-with-mission

You're Bar-B-B-B-B-B-Ten to the line of the planet. Resistance is future. The revolution has begun. You're listening to Revelepreneur Radio, helping you break the rules and build the business you need

for the life you want. And now, broadcasting his pirate signal from somewhere beyond the status quo. Here's your host, best-selling author, marketing and media strategist, Ralph Brogden. Hello and welcome to Rebelpreneur Radio.

It's the show that helps you build the business you need so you can live the life you want. I am Ralph Brogden. You know, management and leadership is always a topic that is in season and in style. And I love having people on who can give us the latest and greatest breakthroughs, innovations, technologies, for helping us to do more with less, but not in a scarcity mindset, but just trying to optimize and maximize every opportunity that we have. So for you, solopreneurs,

I always say you're working for a lunatic. If you could fire yourself, your business would be better, but you can't fire yourself. So you can, even though you are a solopreneur, maybe you can take some management and leadership lessons and learn to manage and lead yourself

the way you need to. Those of you who are in a small business or you're in a scaling mode in your business can always benefit from learning how to work better with other people. And listen, even if you are a solopreneur, you still have relationships with prospects, with clients, with service providers, with potential partners, JV partners. And if you're a jerk, no one wants to work with you. No one wants to do any projects with you.

So it is about managing yourself. And today's guest is going to help us and bring us up to speed with the latest in management and leadership. Organizational development. I love that. We talk about personal development all the time. But what is an organization? It's a framework where people come together and try to accomplish something. So organizational development makes sense.

If you are into personal development, you'll love organizational development. How do we get everybody to do better? So today's guest is Ron Reich. He has 30 years of training and development and consulting experience. He has worked for some major companies such as Toshiba, the Cheb Corporation. He has recently focused on leadership management development along with corporate training and organizational development. Glad to have you, Ron Reich. Welcome to Rebel Burnuer Radio.

Thank you, Ralph. It is really good to be. here, and I really am looking forward to chatting with you. Yes, sir. So I gave the really brief overview, but you can probably tell your own story better than I can. Tell us a little bit about who you are and who you help. Essentially, you know, the overview was very accurate. I work in leadership development, management development, helping small to mid-sized firms for the most part.

rising leaders, emerging leaders, helping them to do their jobs more effectively through training, education, coaching, and organizational development. And I mean, that's something that I've just been starting to get into a little bit more. I mean, I've done it in the past with some of the big companies that I've worked with. And the more I think about it and the more I get into it, the more I'm realizing how. important it is for all of these organizations. And even like you mentioned before, even just somebody who's by himself or by herself, this information is critically important. Absolutely. So what got you interested in leadership and organizational development? Is there a story back there that just kind of sparked you one day? And then, yeah, yeah, this is something

I can really get into. Ralph, there really is. And it's an interesting. story. I'll give you the short version of it. I began my career in human resources all those years ago. And I was in the banking industry for the most part, a bunch of different mergers taking place for a number of different reasons. There were five of us who decided to start an HR consulting firm. And we did that for about, I don't know, maybe five, six years. For a number of different reasons, we decided to close the doors. At that time, I was going through a very nasty divorce. I had nowhere to go except to move back in with my mom and dad. 33 years old, and I had always had the inkling.

You know what? I like HR. It's fun. I would love to get into training and development. Out of nowhere, I'm in New Jersey. I get a telephone call from a recruiter in Dallas, Texas. I've got a job with Toshiba that has. the exact opposite of what you are.

They're looking for somebody who has strong training, some HR. You've got a lot of HR and some training. I'll get you in front of them. You need to get them to flip their competencies. Ralph, that's what happened. I have not looked back since. Started in sales training. Some people at Toshiba saw something in me that I didn't see

and just kept opening doors for me. Would you like to get into some management development? Do you want to get into leadership development? And I've been doing it for 30 years, and I have not looked back. Wonderful. Wonderful. I mean, that's so critically important. The human resources often are treated as liabilities on the corporate balance sheet instead of assets.

So I am all for personal development and helping people to achieve more, achieving the mission. figuring out what that is, bringing meaning and purpose and significance to your work, critically important. So tell me, you test on this a little bit, but who are you working with? You said small organization, small businesses. Yeah. Small to mid-sized firms. We are talking about firms.

50 employees up through maybe 250, 300, something along those lines. I can go, and I have gone a little bit bigger than that. I'm comfortable with that. My concern with it simply is I'm by myself, and I don't have the bandwidth to do, to really do justice for organizations that are much bigger than that. And again, I care so deeply, and I really do, Ralph. That's not a, oh, I care.

I care so deeply about my clients and I want to do them justice. And if I can't, that disturbs me. I know how you feel. I feel the same way. You become invested in the success of your clients. Sometimes we get a little too invested and we begin to take ownership of it instead of realizing that we are there to support and to assist them in getting to, where they want to be. But I'd rather err on the side of caring too much and loving too much

than not loving and caring enough or not at all. So this is a really good way to approach client relations. In your work with smaller firms, what do you think are some of the most unique challenges that they are struggling with. What's the big problem, as you see it, the biggest problem? Yeah, I've been thinking about this. And the more thought that I give it, the more it crystallizes for me, I think so many of these firms are just unaware. And the leaders within the organizations are unaware of what they need and what's available to them. And one of the reasons I'm saying that, Ralph, is I do a lot of work for the American Management Association. And typically, not always, typically, many of the people who attend the public sessions are from small to mid-sized organizations.

And in the past year or so, just presenting whatever course it may be, you know, managing people effectively, building work relationships, again, whatever, seeing the look in some of these people's eyes where it's like, oh, I never knew that before. Gee, that's what feedback is. And oh, this is emotional intelligence. Gee, and it's just like, what? Yeah. And I mean, I think it's just so much of it is just an unawareness. Like I said, and when people become aware of it, they start to realize like, whoa, we really need.

need to have this. Yeah. So what's the benefit of bringing you in, having you look? I mean, but what's your process? When you're, you got a new client, you step in. I guess you've got to do some kind of an assessment and then take them down a path. But how do you typically, I mean, because for me, if I don't, I don't do what you do. If I did, I would kind of feel overwhelmed, I think, to go in and try.

try to untangle all this. This is your area of expertise. If I were to bring you in to do some kind of marketing or media campaign, you might feel the same way I feel about trying to do your work. So we all have our superpower. So that's why I'm asking, because I'm curious, something that seems overwhelming to me, how do you begin to untangle that sort of a situation and begin to address the issue? It is just that.

It's doing an assessment, and it's talking to all different levels of people within the organization. I mean, very often, it's the middle managers that get tasked with. Here, we need some training. Go find somebody. And that's fine. I mean, of course I'm glad to talk with them. I also want to talk to the senior leaders of the organization and find out what their perspectives are, equally as important, I also want to go down to the individual contributors and talk with them as well.

And what's it like to work here? What kind of relationships do you have with your coworkers, with your manager? How often do you interact with the senior leaders? And it's from gathering all of that information, you can get a true picture of what needs to happen. And I mean, I can provide you with an example. Sure. I got a call from a pretty small food company in New Jersey. They're going to say maybe about 150 employees, something along those lines,

saying to me, Ron, we need management training. The managers need training. And I was talking with some of the senior leaders. And as they were telling me, it was like, okay, okay, fine. I talked with the managers, and I did not get a chance to talk with anybody on the floor. Still and all, it was just so crystal clear to me, Ralph. They were saying, we need management training. They need to learn how to get people, you know, do these things.

And I say, hold it, hold it, hold it. Before we do anything, you, the senior leaders need some training. And to go back to the term we used early on, this organization, need some organizational development help. You need to develop a culture because they were very small. They grew throughout the years. And everybody was making the comment to me. We all do what we want to do.

And I mean, it's, you know, I don't want to say it's mayhem because that's too strong a term. Still in all, there was no structure. And just people were just saying, yeah, okay, I'll do this. No, you do this. You can't do that. And I'll say, you know, so we have taken the time. Again, people being unaware going back to the problem we were talking about. And the point is, it has been so much fun helping them.

Because over the past two and a half months, we have developed a culture statement, what it's like to work for the organization. We have come up with three values by which everybody, everybody, the senior leaders, the managers, and every other employee needs to abide. That's how we behave. This is how we treat each other. And what's going to happen next week,

I'm going back to take the senior leaders through some actual training and development. And then I'll take the managers through the same training and development. And there'll be some training and development, not at the same depth still for the individual contributors. And that way, we've pulled it all. the way through. Isn't it amazing how senior management, the executive level, they perceive that there's something wrong at the lower level, and they want to hire the consultant or hire the

trainer to come in and fix what's wrong below their level. Once you get in there, as you just described, you find that you've got the work your way back up to the top and fix what's wrong at the top, and then it's got to, it's got to trickle down to everyone else. But isn't it interesting? It's like, I guess it's like calling the cops on somebody else and then realizing you're, you're the one with, you're the one disturbing the peace, not your neighbors. Yeah. It's like, oh gee, I was the one. That just occurred to me.

It seems to happen over and over again, doesn't it? Well, and, you know, I really do want to add, though, Ralph, because for me, this is so important. I have so much respect for the senior leaders at this organization. They were willing to hear some difficult truths. They made a commitment, and they are dedicating the time and the resources to get it right. And I really respect that because so often we don't have the time for this. it's too expensive for us. We can't do this.

It's like, man, if you keep getting it, what do you expect is going to change? Because nothing changes if nothing changes. Yeah, yeah. Wow, powerful. So if someone is listening right now, let's say that they are either a solopreneur or they are a small business. And maybe they have a few employees or maybe they're trying to, work, build relationships with strategic partners, with investors, with JV partners. What are a couple of things you could advise them that they could begin to think about,

maybe even implement, that would get them moving in the right direction? It's not going to be the full-scale solution, but it will help them get to a little bit of success in this area, or at least avoid. some of the pitfalls, what would you recommend? The first thing for me, and it's one of the first questions I always ask, what's your vision? What's your mission? What is this company all about? And if you can't answer that, that's where we need to start.

And that's true for so many different reasons. Number one, I always say to people, when you have a big thing. decision to make, a key decision on what do you base it? What's your, what's your guiding light? And for me, that needs to be the mission of the organization. That's your North Star. That's your guiding light. I mean, I had a conversation with an owner one time of a for-profit hospice company. And he was struggling. He was talking about marketing not going well and just some other things. And I was like, David, what's the mission of your organization? We don't have one. Okay. Do you find yourself making inconsistent decisions all the time when you, when you have a

major decision to make on what do you base it? How things are going at that time? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. He's got your work cut out for you then. I mean, just imagine. I like to use, when we talk about mission statements and having a mission, I like to use the Starship Enterprise, Star Trek, as like the best mission statement in the history of mankind. Space, the final frontier, that's just the prelude. And then these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's five-year mission. Now comes the mission statement to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. That's very simple and succinct.

But to your point, when Captain Kirk is there on the bridge and he's got to decide, do we engage with this alien unknown presence or not? And everyone else is saying, hey, we got to back off. We got to go in a different direction. Captain Kirk's like, this is our mission. This is exactly what we're here. To seek it out. Not to avoid it. Not to circumnavigate around it, but to seek out new life and new civilizations.

So we're going to boldly go. And even that is boldly go, not go fearfully, not go reluctantly, but boldly go and confront the alien monster out there. We've got to get that kind of a mission happening in our earthly organizations. And, you know, there was one word you used in there, too, that, again, for me, is really important, and that is succinct. This needs to be short. It needs to be really specific and really clear. One, two sentences. And beyond that, it just becomes muck.

People need to be able to memorize it easily. And everyone, and again, the senior leaders, everybody organizationally, when they're making a decision, does this fit into the mission? Is, again, am I following the mission of this organization? And that's when you know you're really headed in the right direction. Now, if you were in management consulting and you're talking about mission and vision, you like me are probably a big fan of Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly effective people because he talks all about vision and mission and statement and so forth.

So give us your perspective on the difference. between vision and mission. Mission is what we're trying to accomplish. But how do we distinguish between that and the vision of the organization? I'm going to ask you just a very, very quick question first. Did you know that I am certified to teach the seven habits? I did not know that. See?

I am. How about that? I was in Boston. I was in Boston last week teaching the seven habits. Okay. And I am passionate about it, passionate for many different reasons. reasons. Let's go back. To answer your question, the differences for me between vision and mission, a vision should be something that is so far reaching and just so out there, it's unattainable.

It's unattainable. And it should be unattainable. Because if I ever reach my vision, what do I do? What do? What do? The vision for my organization, I am by myself. My vision is to satisfy every client and colleague fully with whom I interact. It's never going to happen. It's impossible because I can't satisfy everybody fully. The mission is how I try to accomplish my vision.

And, you know, my mission statement. to provide emerging and current leaders, managers, and contributors with the most effective education and training tools, allowing everyone to maximize full potential, both professionally and personally. That's very specific. That's the difference. I mean, just to give another quick example, I think they changed their vision. Years ago, as I understand it, J&J, the pharma, their vision was. to completely eliminate disease. Okay.

Impossible as it should be. Right. As it should be. And it just makes sense to me. Yeah. Okay. Well, so then the vision is what you want to accomplish that is larger, so much larger than you, larger than your organization.

And that's the thing that kind of pulls you out of the mundane. and the easy. We're going to the moon, not because it's easy, but because it's hard. Now, some people don't know if we've actually gone to the moon or not. Since the Internet and social media has come along, maybe we did, or maybe it was a hoax. But even so that vision seems impossible, and yet apparently we achieved it. Maybe we did. Maybe we didn't.

But you're defining vision as something like eradicating disease. world peace for like a diplomatic vision, things that are impossible, but things that drive you and motivate you and pull you in that direction every single day you get up and go to work. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't want to beat this to death, except it's on my mind right now because a number of years ago, I ran the New York Marathon. And the only way that I could get a bib was to raise money for a charity. And I just said the charity for whom I decided to raise money was Sloan Kettering.

And their vision, very, very simply, imagine a world without cancer. That's it. And Ralph, as I sit here, I don't know if there was seven, eight years ago, whenever I ran that, whenever I spoke with someone at Sloan, that was how they started and ended every single conversation. We would start and say, you know, hi, Mary Jane, it's Ron. Hey, Ron, how are you? Imagine a world without cancer. We would talk about, you know, whatever I needed to ask her.

And as we finished, Ron, good to talk with you. Imagine a world without cancer. That's amazing to me. And that's powerful. They bought into that vision. Exactly. Exactly. They bought into it. Back to Covey, he was talking about the futility of creating a vision or a mission statement and handing it down from the corporate Mount Olympus.

This is why you get everybody, all the stakeholders involved, get everyone involved. And that is something that everyone in the organization can come on board with. Imagine a world without cancer. imagine a world without crime or domestic violence. I mean, all you got to do, and this is part of my process for helping people to master their message,

is to focus on what problems do you solve, what results do you create, and a great way to begin thinking about that is what is a big problem that your organization, if it had a magic wand, it could just eradicate, just eliminate. that by focusing on that problem, cancer, or whatever the problem is, it immediately gets

attention and interest because that's the only thing people care about, problems they have that they don't want, results they want that they don't have. And especially if you have cancer or if someone you love has cancer, you resonate with that. So that's what's so cool about how you just define this. the vision not only gets buy-in from everybody in the organization, it gets buy-in from all the stakeholders outside of the organization. People want to partner with somebody to accomplish that. People want to donate. People want to collaborate. People want to volunteer because they buy

into this enormous vision. We've got to create that for our version of whatever we're trying to accomplish in business. And this becomes one of the big things. And this becomes one of the big selling points for organizations as they recruit and as they sell. It's exactly what you're saying because it's not limited to just the people within the organization. Suppliers want to be a part of it. Vendors want to be a part of it. Customers buy into it. I mean, I had an encounter with a friend of mine this morning who was going to be running the New York Marathon in a couple weeks. She too is running for Sloan. And we were talking for only about five minutes or so. And I don't know, Monique, extremely well, still in all. We were talking about it. And I gave her the biggest hug as we

parted company. And I was like, I wish you all the best on the 5th, November 5th, when the race is, I will be thinking of you. And again, and it's true. I will be. Yeah, yeah. That's, that's, uh, Wow, powerful distinctions there. Vision? What's your vision? What's your mission? You don't have to be commanding a starship or running a cancer organization to have a powerful vision and mission.

And then would you say, Ron, that purpose is, it's wrapped up in that? Where do you put purpose in this hierarchy? Is it the combination of vision? vision and mission, or is that the purpose? I know this is, these are words, but words are important. Speaking for me, for myself, I think purpose and mission are synonymous. Okay. I do.

Okay. Makes sense. So regardless of how big you are or how small you are, even if you are just a solopreneur, I say just a solopreneur, Ron is a solopreneur. Ralph is a solopreneur. So when I say just that, I mean it in every positive sense. You are a rebelpreneur. You are making it happen.

Vision and mission is not just for large companies, large organizations, nonprofits. It is for everybody. Vision and mission gives you a reason to get up out of bed in the morning to come to work, to get here early, to stay late, to work weekends, to work nights, to do whatever it is you have to do to get your vision and your purpose in place or to see that vision fulfilled. And then everything else is how do we optimize, manage ourselves, how do we manage other people, manage relationships, how do we balance work and life? I do believe in work and life balance.

I believe with Michael Gerber that the purpose of a business, is to give you more life, but your business must be designed specifically to give you more life, or it will do the opposite. It will take the life that you've got. So this is why we talk about these things. We offer them to you so that you can build the business you need to get the life that you want without burning out or burning up in the process. Ron, what are you working on right now that's got you really excited?

really right now it is finishing up what we were talking about earlier with that food organization is finishing up the culture finishing starting and finishing the actual training and then equally as important you know with that ralph is the reinforcement work that we'll do beyond that because this can't be one and done you know we've been talking about the importance of relationships and it's also just about as a, okay, my work here is done, bye. It's like, no, the training is finished. How can we reinforce it? How can I help?

And I want to continue to be visible. I want to become a part of in context, like you were saying earlier, of these organizations or of this organization. And, you know, my goal, when I go back there is for people to just look up from their tubes are from their office and just say, oh, hi, Ron. And not like, oh, God, the consultant is back. That's funny. Yeah, so I talk about the same thing with my clients,

where I'm trying to help them master their message and integrate it in their marketing, their media, and all of their collateral and advertising. and even in their training how they talk to clients, how they get clients. Mindset, of course, is a huge part of that. And I would love to just be able to say, hey, here is a six-part training course on mindset. And if you'll just take this course, at the end of six modules, you'll have the mindset you need and you'll be set for the rest of your life. But what I have found is that is naive because it is such a fluid.

thing. You've got to be able to install certain mindsets, but you have to maintain them because they are always shifting. I'm feeling on top of the world today. Next week, I'm not feeling on top of the world. How do I navigate that? How do I deal with that? So it's a commitment, isn't it? Not just to let's get through the training. Okay, training's done. But training is the foundation. it's the ongoing support, the ongoing feedback, the relationship over the long term that you build with people, whether as a consultant or as a coach. So that's also a key takeaway from what I'm getting from you, what I'm hearing from you. Ron, any final thoughts or words of wisdom that you'd like to leave us with? You know, there are two.

and number one we're talking about people you know vision mission and you made the comment a couple I used the term a couple minutes ago that people need to manage themselves the best advice someone came to me

years ago he's a chief financial officer for a technology firm in Manhattan Ron what's the one tip one tip you can throw me to make me the best leader possible and it has to the only one. So I thought about it and I was like, Peter, if you're going to limit me to just

one tip, it would be get to know yourself extraordinarily well. Because the better you know yourself, the more effectively you're going to work with other people. Get to know what is your vision. What's your mission? And know it deeply. What are your strengths? What are your limitations? What triggers you? Just all of these things. Because the best of you know yourself, the more effective you'll be outside. Wonderful. Wonderful. The best piece of business advice I ever got, Ralph, and again, very quickly, talking

to an old boss one time, he just said to me, if you want to become better at what you do and you want to become a resource to people, start reading. Start reading. And it was the best piece of advice I ever got. And over the last, I got that advice about 23 years ago, I'd probably read over 400 leadership management relationship building books. And it's, like I said, it has made an enormous difference to me. Always be learning, always be growing. Ron, what is the best way for people to reach out and get in touch with you?

Best way is through LinkedIn. Just very simply, my name, you know, Ron Reich, R-E-I-S, name of my company, RLB Training and Development. Go to LinkedIn. I welcome the opportunity to connect. I welcome the opportunity to have a conversation with anybody. Wonderful. Ron Reich, thank you so much for being on the program today and sharing your wisdom with us.

I really appreciate it. Ralph, it's been my pleasure. Thank you. You've been listening to Rebelpreneur Radio with Ralph Brogden. Download the show notes and much more at Rebelpreneur.com. com.