EntreLeadership - #152: Suzy Welch—Are You Ready to Grow Your Business?

Episode Date: June 20, 2016

Suzy Welch, co-author of the best-selling The Real-Life MBA, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, and wife of the legendary Jack Welch, joins us to talk all things business. She’s covering everything from why you need an overall strategy to best practices to working with your spouse. Also on this episode, we’re featuring a lesson from Dave on how to grow your business bigger than you.   entreleadership.com/podcast The EntreLeader's Guide to Delegation Infusionsoft's Webinar Guide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation and a belated, happy Father's Day. All your fathers' day is out there. This is coming to you the day after Father's Day. I'm a father of three, so blessed.

And Fathers, you matter. So I hope you had a great Father's Day. If you didn't, keep your chin up, get through there, you matter. You are shaping future generations. Don't ever forget that. So excited to have you with us in the month of June. We're focusing on the theme of delegation. And so we've got some great content coming to you on that.

But before we get to it, I've told you several episodes ago that we were going to share with you some of the results of a listener survey that we did. And this is important because it's about you. Over 2,500 of you responded, which is huge. experts on our team said that they were thrilled with over a thousand. And we had 2,500 of you respond. So first of all, for those of you that responded, let me say a heartfelt thank you because we really care what you think. So a couple of things I want to share with you because this is going to inform you and inform us

on how we deliver content to you. We didn't do it to get a bunch of out of boys and out of girls. We got it because we want to make sure we're bringing you more of what you want. So a couple of things. First, another thank you, not just for responding. But 72% of you have shared this podcast with friends, with coworkers, with your leaders. And we appreciate that. That is the greatest compliment.

If you send us a nice email, which by the way you can, you tell us what you want, I want to point that out. We still want to hear from you. Podcast at Entreeleadership.com gets to me and Eric. We read it. We care what you think. But if you were to send us a nice note, I honestly mean this. It wouldn't mean as much to me to hear a nice note as it is to read the data that says 72% of you are saying to other people, you need to listen to this. So thank you.

Keep sharing, by the way. That's how we grow. Second data point I want to share with you. Who are you people? This is always fun. And I think this is interesting for you so that you know who is listening. Who are you folks? 9 and 10 of you listeners are running a company with a yearly revenue mark at about 5 million.

dollars or a little bit under that mark. That's interesting. This is also fascinating. The top three industries of our listeners, construction industry, healthcare, advertising marketing. 71% of you are managing, leading team members, employees. This is very fascinating stuff. So then I looked at this is what mattered most to me. And that's where I want to focus. And I want to set you up for the future because Eric, the producer, and I are treating this like the Entree Leadership Bible. Content preferences. Here are the top preferences. Now, we got a ton, but these are the top content preferences, and this is where we're going to spend our time.

Leadership, personal growth slash personal performance. I love this one. Huge. Number three, people want to be better communicators, Eric. I love that. As a professional communicator, I've got to tell you, I'm nerding out on that. That makes me happy. Because, by the way, no matter what you're doing in life,

if you're a better communicator, going to be better at what you're doing. Productivity. Vision. And I assume vision casting. So I'm very excited. I've already got something in the shoot for that one. Very excited about that. Team building and culture.

So there you go. I'll run through the list again. Now, we're not going to stay exclusively in this area. But I want to know what you people want, and now I know. And so this is where we're going to focus. Leadership, personal growth slash personal performance, being a better communicator, being more productive, productivity, vision, vision casting, team building and culture. Really, really excited about this.

So I told you folks that I was going to give you this information, and there it is. Now, there was so much more, and we are literally digesting it. In fact, it's really fun. We are now making decisions. And when we're making these decisions, we're going, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's go back to the survey. And this really matters. So one more time, if I could ask you to do two things for those of you who really love this podcast.

If you're new, welcome aboard. We're going to start feeding you very quickly. But if you've been listening for a while, please continue to share. You can do that multiple ways. Word of mouth is huge. Send an email with a link. share on social media. Make sure you're subscribing on iTunes.

So share, share, share. And then not just share the podcast, but continue to share with us. Podcast at entreleadership.com. The email goes directly to us. You can also reach out to me on Twitter. I'm very active on Twitter. I'm on Facebook as well. I have a public page there.

Eric and I are monitoring all that stuff. Reach out to us. We love to hear from you. We want to know what you think and what you want. So there it is. I told you folks if you're new to us, we're going to feed you right away, and this is fun because the theme of July is delegation. We've been hammering on this issue. Chris Hogan was a guest on the last episode, and there was a point in our conversation where we kind of talked about the rope analogy that Dave uses so effectively here at Ramsey Solutions.

And we talked about what is it like to use that rope, and it was really, really a good conversation there. And so Eric has gone back to the number one best-selling book, Entree Leadership. that Dave wrote, Dave Ramsey, and he's pulled from chapter 15, which is all about delegation. It's entitled, Mastering the Rope. Delegation, the best way to build a business bigger than you. And I love the name of the chapter, and I love, if you will, the subtitle of the chapter. It's not really a subtitle, but it's the explanation of delegation, the best way to build a business bigger than you. And that connects with all of us. You folks care about what you do. You want it to matter beyond just.

your personal achievements. So this is just a snippet of Dave reading from the audiobook. Of course, you can buy Entree Leadership, wherever books are sold, Dave Ramsey.com, Entree Leadership, and the audiobook is a real treasure. And so here it is Dave, reading from the book on Mastering the Rope, Delegation. When my oldest daughter was about to be our first child to leave home and head to college, it was a time of reflection and an emotional time. As our children were growing up and starting to make those first team decisions on their own, we talk to them a lot about trust. Humpty Dumpty is hard to put back together, and so is trust.

We explained to the kids that the more they kept their word and the more we observed them making great decisions, the more freedom they would have. Visualized that I have a rope attached to you, and the more worthy of trust you have proven yourself, the more I will lengthen the rope. If you lie or exhibit bad peer-based decision-making, the rope will be shortened. Every teen yearns more than anything on the planet to be treated like an adult. So if you want more rope, more freedom, then act more and more like an adult. So if someone comes in later than promised, the rope is shortened. And the next time there is an event, the answer might be no. Parents who let teens run around with unearned adult freedoms are naive and stupid.

They grow children with no boundaries who generally end up with serious problems. Parents who use a very short rope or a straitjacket preventing teens from ever developing the emotional skill of wise decision-making are controlling. They raise children who go crazy the first semester at college because they don't know how to make wise decisions. That week we were packing the car for the first one to fly away to college. I had a great idea. I stopped by the local drapery store and bought some beautiful rope. I coiled the rope and tied it with ribbons. One purple ribbon for her spiritual walk, a red one for academics, a white one for sexual purity,

a yellow one because she could feel safe that home was waiting, and an orange one because she was going to the University of Tennessee, go vals. We gathered the whole family in the rec room and presented her with her rope. I reminded her that because of her life, she had earned our trust. She was trustworthy. I told her she was moving several hundred miles away, and now she would be making her own decisions about every area of her life. We were sure she was capable of doing that. We told her that we were standing behind her now, not over her. This event was a ride of passage. We all cried. It was wonderful. Two months later, we visited her dorm room, and there on her bedpost was the rope. Wow! I thought that corny deal

would be in the bottom of a box. No, instead, the rope had become legendary in that dorm. As the story spread, girls she hardly knew would drop by her room and ask to hear the story and see the rope. Powerful. The art of delegating to your team is somewhat like lengthening the rope for your teens. I realize you are dealing with adults, or you should be, and so there are differences, but at its core, delegation is the lengthening of the rope. Beginning leaders always ask me how they can properly delegate. As a young owner, I wanted to hire people quickly and have them carry out tasks and goals I didn't want to fool with.

I wanted people to read my mind and do things I didn't like. like doing. Delegation may be the most misunderstood and abused subject area of leadership. When you delegate to someone improperly, you will make a huge mess and add more drama to your life than you can stand. But when you properly prepare your organization's culture, hire and keep only the right people, build unity and loyalty, recognize achievement, and creatively compensate, then delegation will become the joy of your life. you were looking for the magic formula for how to delegate. Here it is. Are you ready?

In order for an entree leader to successfully delegate, they must come to trust the team members integrity and competency. Wise people trust other people with big, important things, only to the extent they have spent time with them. The more important the delegation, the more time you will, need to spend making sure the person gets it. Important can be relative. What is important for one company might not be important for another.

When we were first starting and had no money, what we paid for copy or paper was important relative to staying open. If you run a small to medium-sized business and you turn over all the financial decisions and accounting duties to someone you don't have a long track record with, you are a candidate for embezzlement. Before someone works with your money, know them a long time. Their reference from the last job is not enough. When I said earlier that the building of a team and an organizational culture in which delegation flows is a lengthy process,

it's because it takes time to trust in people's integrity and competency. other than spending large blocks of raw time to create a relationship that fosters enough trust for you to be able to delegate, you also use follow-up and reporting systems. You can only delegate important, complicated tasks to someone to the degree you can trust their integrity. That is why I will spend zero time trying to redeem a team member who steals. I just fire them instantly. Once they steal, I can't trust them with anything. Integrity is more than simply telling the truth and not stealing, although those are foundational.

Hiring for wholeness is hiring for integrity. The longer you work with someone and observe consistency in their life and their work, the more you can delegate to them. To the extent you give big tasks to unproven people, you will have drama and problems. don't delegate too quickly. Competency. You can't delegate to someone until you trust their competency. And there is no better way to trust their competency than to walk with them as they display their knowledge and abilities.

We have brought talented, proven people on board with us several times, and we don't toss them the keys the first day. For someone on your team to be competent, they have to have the ability not only to do the task, but to do the task within your culture. Don't think because you hired talent that they are competent. Competency is more than just the simple ability to accomplish the task. Competency involves how the task was accomplished. How did all the people involved feel? Were all the problems handled right?

were all the downsides considered, were all the financial considerations of cash flow and profit accounted for and handled. As an entree leader, you never expect what you don't inspect. You never throw the whole rope at a team member or even a leader. You are always holding the end of the rope, watching and measuring integrity and competency. The larger the delegation, the more your inspection methods change. but you never surrender 100% of the oversight. That type of surrender is leadership laziness and will cause your organization to stray from its vision.

That's so good, folks. The rope analogy is so powerful. Make sure that you go back and listen to that. Take some notes if you didn't take some notes there and make sure that you really begin to apply that analogy because it's such a wonderful word picture that people can get. I want to make sure you also have gotten the entree leader. guide to delegation. This is the free tool this month. The Entree leader's guide to delegation,

it's absolutely free, the best way to build a business bigger than you. I've broken this down for you, but if you haven't heard about it, I'll tell you about it, because there's some practical stuff here. And what we give you is a delegation checklist. These are practical steps, step by step, on how to begin to delegate properly. We're going to give you 10 basics of delegation so that you, again, can set some context for how to use it, how to use it properly. And then we give you a time on it worksheet. And for people like me, this is huge. This gives you that instant snapshot, consistent snapshot of where you're spending your time. What tasks you need to be handling versus giving to someone else? This worksheet will really help you. Two ways to get it. For those of you who want

to text, you can text the word delegation to 3344-344-34-3-44 text the word delegation and we'll get it to you. Or you can simply go to Entreeleadership.com slash podcast. Go to this episode. We'll have a link there for it. You can download it. It's absolutely free and it's full of goodness. So make sure that you check that out. And again, one more time, the book, Entree Leadership, just as relevant today as the day it came out. It was a number one runaway hit, still very popular. And we're letting you hear the audiobook. So you can get the audiobook. And you can get the book at Dave Ramsey.com. So make sure you check that out. Several months ago, I had Jack Welch on the podcast and we talked about he and his wife Susie's new book, The Real Life MBA. It was so fun. And let's just be. honest. If you have Jack Welch on and he's talking about anything, it's fun. The guy's a legend, such a treat to talk to, he just gives it to you straight. And that's what makes him such an effective leader and so fun to learn from. But the book itself, the real life MBA, I just digested it. I think it's so practical for our audience. And so we asked Susie if she would come back. And of course, we have a completely different conversation. There's a lot of stuff in there that we

talk about from her point of view. And it really is a lot of fun. So when we come back from the conversation, I'm going to give you one thing that I took away that I think is huge. And it's right on target for the conversation, the theme of delegation that we've been talking about this month. But right now, let's get you right to my conversation with Susie Welch. Well, Susie, this is a treat. Several months ago, we had Jack on this podcast to talk about the book you co-wrote, the real-life NBA. And that was great fun and really excited about your perspective. Before we dive in, all the business stuff. I was looking at your Twitter profile today, and I just got to know who's the dog in your Twitter picture. That is Happy. Happy is a rescue dog. She's 75% Great Pyrenees,

25% golden. We got her from a high kill shelter in Georgia. She is, we are besotted. We love our dog so much. I also saw on the Twitter feed that she recently ate a jellyfish. Is that true, or were you playing around with us? I wish I could say it was one jellyfish. She ate so many jellyfish. We live here in South Florida. And, you know, you have jellyfish they wash in. And I take her for a walk in the morning with her little sister dog, Chrissy. And she was eating jellyfish like potato chips. And amazingly, there were no ill after effects.

But I had a nervous day staring at her saying, when's it going to happen. Yeah. Okay. That question was purely for me because I was curious as to what, how could a dog stomach candle multiple jellyfish? But there we go. Well, hey, so much to talk about with you. And we're going to talk about some of the stuff in the book. but I know recently you did a segment for the Today Show.

Around the topic that I think applies a lot to our audience, people that are in small business. Inevitably, many of them are running businesses together with a spouse, and you and Jack are in business together, and you did a segment on couples in business. So I want you to kind of share what you've learned about what works and what doesn't work, because I know that's very applicable to our audience.

I think that people who are married and go into business together do it because they have a sense going in, that they really like each other and they want to work together. I mean, we definitely have met people who've said, I could never do it. I couldn't take her all day long. I couldn't stand him all day long. I have to have a break. But the people who go in, they go in because they have a sense already that they complement each other. In fact, one of the things I believe why it's been so successful for Jack and I working together, writing the books and doing the columns and giving our speeches and running the school and all the things that we do together is that we know what the other one does well. And we don't

try to do the other person's job. So I, you know, I say, I was not the CEO of General Electric. I mean, I am the writer and the editor of the content, but I'm not going to, I don't come up with the big ideas on strategy. I know what Jack's good at. And he never messes with the writing. He reads it and and he suggests a word change here or there, but he knows I'm the writer. And so that's often a very good leading indicator for how well people work together, is that they understand and respect what the other person does well. Yeah, I love that answer. And that's fascinating, giving you guys write books together, very successful books. And it's a beautiful segue looking at an article that I've read so much of what you and Jack write. And in preparing for this, I really love the article

on LinkedIn that you guys did, five questions that makes strategy real. This is so important. So I'm just going to tee you up on each of these questions and let you talk on this, because I think this hits so many people across the spectrum of our listeners. So the first one is, what does the playing field look like now? That's the first question in asking. those important questions to make strategy real. First question, what does the playing field look like now? Why is that important? Well, look, I'm so glad you're asking me about strategy because when you're running a small business, you often let strategy go to the wayside. You think strategy is for the big corporations. You think strategy is for the consultants and the gurus, but you have to be as strategic

as anybody. I mean, even if you're running a storefront, okay, if you're running a standalone store, you're running a business that makes a good living for you but is not, you know, throwing off cash, you still have to be strategic because the pace of change today is so fast. And if you're not looking around corners, which is really what strategy is, okay, if you're not looking around corners and getting a general direction and then executing on it, you're just going to try to be all things to all people. And that is a surefire way not to succeed. So that question, you know, what does the playing look like? Now, that's something for you to do with the people in your business or somebody who's a good ear and you sit down and say, okay, what,

business are we in? You know, and who else is in it? What do we actually sell? And who else sells it? And what's coming down the pike in terms of technology or demographic changes that could affect this playing field? You know, what is the business we're really in? You know, when you're running a small business, days go by in a blur. And when do you stop and ask yourself, what is the business we're in and where is that business going? So that's the place to start that question. Yeah, it's a great snapshot. So question for you. I don't know if there's a formula like answer, but I'll ask. Is this a weekly question, a monthly question, bi-annual question, this assessment question of what does the playing field look like now? How often should we be asking that?

At the very minimum, twice a year, okay? But it depends what business you're in. I mean, some businesses have very rapid turnover, and you've got to be asking that question again. Again, some technology businesses, you should be asking that once a month because of what's going on. Like, you know, if you're in the cloud-based storage business, you've got to be asking that much more frequently than if you're in the restaurant business. But look, the restaurant business is changing too, isn't it, because of people ordering food online and changes in how people eat and all sorts of different chances. So at the very minimum twice a year, and I would say quarterly would be a good place for most people.

All right, let's move along. Second question, what has the competition been up to? Again, tell us about this question. Look, first you've got to figure out who your competition is. I mean, you can get really stuck in the mud about, okay, our competition is these three other organizations. we've always been competing with them, but sometimes the competition is really, really disruptive. You know, if you're a restaurant, again, going back to that example, and you think your competition is, you're an Indian restaurant, you think the competition is the other Indian restaurant in town.

Oh, but no, your competition is now these services that deliver food to your homes. I mean, you've got to think very expansively, who's the competition now and who's going to be our competition and what do we know about them? And of course, look, I just want to add that we're all human beings and there is a very human propensity to look around at the competition and say, we have nothing to worry about with them. We've got this under control. But as the late great Andy Grove said, only the paranoid survive. And you have to be wildly paranoid about what your competition is up to. Well, that's so true. Jim Collins has said that in interviews with him before.

And that research from good to great and all the subsequent books bore that out. That's a great point. Okay. So if we've got to be paranoid, the second question is, what has the competition been up to? Now we flip the mirror towards us and our organization. for question three, what have you been up to? And sometimes you think, look, I'm just trying to keep myself, you know, my head out of water. You know, I'm just trying to keep it on. I'm trying to make sure that we've got enough cash at the end of the week. And you've got to say, well, look, let me step back and ask, what strategic moves have I made?

Look, even if you're very small, have I thought about an acquisition? Have I thought about trying to get this person who I've had my eye on for a long time into my organization? What am I doing strategically? Am I thinking strategically or am I just existing? And it's very, very easy to get into a just, I am just getting through the day mode. I get that. But you have to ask yourself, what moves have I made and what moves should I be making?

And this question strikes me, Susie, as important for those of us who are winning. You just gave us a great example. Even if we look at our competition and we think, oh, we've got this, there is that idea of competing against yourself, we're not getting complacent. And so this question really helps you fight complacency, correct? Yeah, and complacency is such a comfortable warm bath to be in. And so we actually sort of seek it because it feels so good. And everything in this world is always changing in our personal lives, in politics. And so, you know, we're always sort of seeking someplace that's not changing. And so you're right, complacency is where we go. And we have to fight it like crazy. We have to fight it like crazy. Okay, that leads us to the fourth question. What's around the corner? This is a gigantic, scary question, isn't it? It really is because when you're thinking about this, you're not sort of thinking, okay, well, there's another store that's going to open that sells similar things or you're not thinking about small incremental things. You're thinking about big demographic changes. The age range of people in the United States were aging up, okay? What other big demographic changes? What huge technological changes could come? You know, what if your Hertz rent a car, you know, what's around the corners, driverless cars? I mean, do you think Hertz saw Uber coming? I mean, you got to think. You got to think. You got to think.

what is around the corner in terms of demographic, technological, geopolitical changes. I mean, you know, there are different things going on in our society and our culture that you've got to face into because the change will come upon you and the people who inherit the business from you are going to wish you were thinking about them. Wow, I love that. Okay, so let's review folks before. We hit the last question. First question, what does the playing field look like now? Second, what has the competition been up to? Third, what have you been up to? fourth, what's around the corner in the final of these five questions for making strategies? What's your winning move? That's a loaded question. Yeah. And you know what? You're not going to know if you're right or wrong, okay?

So you have to make a decision. I mean, you have to say, okay, doing nothing is not an option. What is our winning move? Is it hiring somebody? Is it acquiring the piece of a business? Is it shutting down a piece of our business that we really, really like, but is not growing? I mean, because you've got to put your resources somewhere. And so if you're not deciding, anything, then you're not doing strategy. Your strategy impels you to make decisions. It's not going to be comfortable. But that, you have to think about what is going to make us win now and in two years and in five years. Good stuff there. And folks, you can get this article on LinkedIn if you go to Susie's profile there for you. All right, I want to move to the book, the real life MBA, the latest

book from Jack and Susie Welch. Chapter 9, building a wow team. There's some great stuff in here. And I'm just going to ask you to summarize the thought. Again, I love how you described, you do the writing and you and Jack kind of work together on the big ideas. But why that chapter? And what in your definition, in Jack's definition, what does a wow team look and feel like? Well, look, you know, everything happens in teams. Everything happens in teams. And it's dangerous when you've got a bunch of people who are all working near each other, who sort of inform each other about what's going on, but don't get together and just wallow in it and show. ideas and teams are where really good work happens. And really, you know, like Jack says all the time, the team with the best players wins. And so a wow team is you working very hard to find people where there's creative friction, where everybody does not all agree on everything so that you're testing each other and you're pushing each other and you're saying, but what if? I actually bumped into a friend yesterday and she runs a documentary film company. And she said, you know,

I'm really the flaky one on the team. I'm up there at 20,000 feet and I have all sorts of wiki creative ideas and they are the people down on the ground really making the films come together and none of us could do without each other. And so you want to have a team where the output is greater than the sum of its parts where the people together have some kind of, as I said, creative friction and productivity and give and take where they are making everything better, the product better, the process better, the customer's happier and the profits bigger. And I read somewhere in the book, you were talking about the character issue, and the personality traits, all the things you want out of a great team member.

One of the things you pointed out, and I think it's true, is that smarter people, this is a big deal. So you've got to be hiring for IQ as well. I think sometimes we overlook that. We want the great person to be around. But at the end of the day, using that quote from Jackie just mentioned, you know, if you're looking at a sports analogy, it's about the best athletes, the best skilled players, blend in with great character players. So you can't overlook smarts. Right.

So look, this is a very delicate balance. You've got a strike. because number one, they have to have good character. Okay, they have to be honest. They have to have high integrity. They have to be self-aware, all the things, because without that, you can't even start to have a conversation about IQ, unless, of course, you're out at Silicon Valley, where really all that matters is the, you know, you've just got to have the smartest people, but let's say you're running a company, a small business. First, there has to be good character. Because people with bad character, they drive their co-workers crazy and it's very dysfunctional.

But then, you know, people sometimes play down the importance of IQ. and in today's economy, especially an economy driven by technology, high IQ, it really matters. Because if you're up against a company with people who are just smarter than your people, okay, you've got a hand-tied behind your back. So it's a delicate balance when you're interviewing people and when you're evaluating your own team. You know, Mary has wonderful character. She carries, this is the line I always love, she carries so much institutional memory. Okay, that means she's been there a long time and knows where all the skeletons are buried, right?

You know, Mary's a wonderful person. We love her. She makes us feel good about being here. She just hasn't kept up with technology. She just hasn't kept up with market changes. Do you carry her forever? I mean, what if your main competition has got somebody with nice character like Mary, but is super smart?

You know, that's not a fight I want to be in. That's right. And that is a, that's a tension that exists. We're talking a lot about delegation in our Entree Leadership tribe this month at entreleadership.com and on this podcast as well. And so since we're talking about building that wow team, you know, building a wow team allows leaders to delegate, I would imagine, a whole lot easier because of the confidence and you know you've got the right people. I want you to speak to delegation and your career and what you've noticed that works and doesn't work. Your thoughts on

delegating well. Yeah. And one of the things that blew my mind was when I was a manager myself, people always wanted somebody working for them, okay, because it was sort of a badge. You know, I've got five direct reports. I've got three direct reports. And so I ended up creating an organization where there was a pretty small span of control. There were actually people walking around with one direct report. And there were some people with five direct reports and so forth and so on. And then I remember Jack telling me that when he was CEO, he had 50 direct reports because he just didn't want to be doing anybody's job. He had great people and everybody, he had this massive, gigantic span of control. And if you've got too few direct reports,

there's two people doing the job, you and the person whose shoulder you're looking over. And so delegation, it starts and ends with you really trusting your people. And if you have people who are great and you put them in the job because they're great and you trust them, then you've got to trust them to make some mistakes, just like you did coming up. And you've got to give them the work to do because if you're not delegating, you're doing their job and your job, and that is unproductive. That's good. Chapter 10, I love the title of the chapter, Geniuses, Tramps, and Thieves. It's actually inspired by Cher's huge hit from 1971, Gypsy's Tramps and Thieves. You guys came up with Genius's Tramps and Thieves.

I'm going to let you summarize that chapter and why you wrote it. Well, there are three new types of employees that we really wanted to touch on in this book and talk about how to manage them. And the first one is geniuses. And these are the people who you manage, whose work you don't understand. So we're talking about coders. We're talking about people who deal with intellectual property. law. We're talking about people who create financial instruments that you don't understand

what go into them. How do you actually manage people whose work you don't understand or you could not do yourself? Because, you know, look, not that long ago, to get to the top of an organization, you did every job, okay? And you moved up and you slowly but surely learned every job. And then one day you were at the top of the organization. You know, if you ended up being the CEO of a car company, you designed fenders, then you designed bumpers, then you worked in the electronics, then you did purchasing, then you did customer research, and then you were the CEO. But now you can be the CEO of a company, and you can manage 35 coders, okay, and you could have majored in anthropology in college, okay? And you came up through sales, and you have no idea what the people in the guts of

the organization do. How do you manage them? Now, Tramps is a different type of employee group that's really grown, massively grown over the past 10 years. And we mean no disrespect by using this term, but we thought it was sort of fun because of the song. I mean, these are people who don't work in the office. These are people who are either contract workers or people who work from home or people who, because they're the best person you could hire, you're in Boston and they're in Seattle. And so how do you manage people who you don't see? Okay, people who are either on the road all the time or who are remote. And that is so important because if you want to get the best out of people, they can't feel remote. You have to have a million different ways to touch them and bring them

into the group. And luckily, everyday technology is helping that more and more. But it's on you to use that technology, you know, to make it a video call instead of a phone call, to make it a video call instead of an email. And then the last one, thieves. People sometimes hear us talk about this third employee group and they think, oh yeah, they're going to talk about the bad people in business because business is filled with so many rotten skunks. And we just don't feel this at all. In fact, we think that most people in business are really good, wonderful, productive, optimistic, hardworking people who want to make their lives better, want to make America better, all these different things. When we're talking about thieves, though, in this reference, thieves are the worst kind of people

have in your organization because what they're stealing is energy. They're the energy removers. I think in the book we call them energy suckers. And you know who they are. They are the disenfranchised. They are the people who are boss haters just because they've got that sort of constitutionally in their bone marrow. they are the people who are against business but end up working in business. They are the gossips. They are the people who are too emotional. And look, I love emotion. I'm Italian.

I'm filled with emotion. But there are people who bring their emotionality to work in inappropriate ways. And they are energy takers. And so as a person running an organization anyway, is to understand that people are either energy givers or they are energy takers. and the people who are energy takers, sometimes they're quite good performers, but they are dragging down your organization and you have to identify them and you have to move them out. They are sucking the life out of the business. And that's tough to do in the scenario that you just gave us because if they're actually doing

good work or they're somewhat efficient, yet they have this bigger problem of dragging everybody down. That's a tough decision to make. It is. It's tough until you do it. And then the day that person's gone, everybody comes up to you and says, what took you so long? That's so true. And it's what happens.

You got rid of Eeyore, and we're all thankful. Exactly. All right, I want to switch gears on what I think is an important topic. We have a diverse leadership audience, and I'm a father of two boys and one girl. And as I look at the future for Josie as a female in business and in leadership specifically, this isn't a women's liberation question at all. Yet you sit in a very unique vantage point, someone in your position, the role that you've played, the people that you know, the trends that you've seen, just give us your snapshot.

What does Susie Welch think of the opportunity for women in business, specifically in entrepreneurship? I think it's unlimited. I mean, I think it's un-bligate. I have two sons and two daughters, and my daughters are actually wildly entrepreneurial and very ambitious. They only saw me working when they were growing up. I worked the whole time, and part of what I did partly because I needed to partly because I loved doing it. And also there was a piece of me that I wanted my daughters to see what it looks. like and they love the excitement of it and the engagement in the world. And I certainly know that there are

still places in the working world where it's very tough to be a woman. I mean, I think it's said that it's hard to be a woman director in Hollywood. And I have no reason to doubt that. I've heard it enough times. And I think that women have said it's quite complicated to be an engineer in Silicon Valley as a woman or to, in particular, to sort of be a woman in that situation where you've got children because there's sort of this expectation of 24-7 availability. But when we were on the book to wherever we went, we were blown away by the incredible positive energy of young women entrepreneurs and their sense of confidence and their sense of possibility

and their sense that nothing but nothing is going to hold them back from doing what they wanted to do. And the United States is one of the reasons why this country is so great is because they're right, that it is achievable, that there are people who want them to succeed and want them to win and who will support them and cheer them on. This is a nuanced question, but I think an important one. The fact is that there are many women in all walks of society that are leading men and doing it well.

And there's not necessarily a manual out there for it. Yet it is a unique dynamic, the difference between the sexes. So for some women that may be listening in here who are new at leading men or look to be moving up the leadership ladder at a point in their career and that will happen, what insight would you give them on what works? I don't think you should think about gender when you're leading. You should just think about what kind of leader you want to be and who you are and let the chips fall where they may. I mean, I have been managed and I have managed both men and women my whole career.

And I think that it's a dangerous rabbit hole to start making presumptions about where people are coming from if they're by their gender. And interestingly, you know, that question, which is a great and nuanced one, is luckily a question with a real shelf life to it. Because, you know, my thing about one of my sons right now works at Twitter and his boss is a woman and he will only know bosses that are women and the onus will be on him to respond to every boss. Now, of course, he had me as a mother, so I'm sure he responds quite well to a female boss because he's used to being bossed around by a female.

But I think let that go, you know, don't have that, don't have that self-talk. Yeah, I like that. Well, she is Susie Welch. Of course, folks, you know the book Well, the real life MBA. You're no BS guide to winning the game, building a team, and growing your career. Susie, thank you so much for spending time with us. We're all better for it. Oh, you're great.

Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed that, folks. I want to go back to a part of the conversation that Susie and I had around building a wild team. That's chapter nine in the book. And there's so much good stuff there, but there's one sentence on the last page, 156, of chapter nine. And it's a simple statement, but it has so much power. Once you've got the right people, you need to be.

to create an environment that motivates and retains them. Once you've got the right people, you need to create an environment that motivates and retains them. Now, I want to take you back because I read that, and I'm thinking about building a wild team, and I can't help but think about our conversation at the start of the month with Craig Rochelle. He dropped a lot of bombs on us, but one of the things he said is we were talking around how they build and develop their team, and they're spread out all over the country with all

those multiple campuses. He said something that I'll never forget, and many of you wrote it down. And I'm going to remind you, because it really feels. feeds into what Jack and Susie wrote right here. He said you can either have control or growth. You can't have both. And when you get the right people, sometimes I think, oh, I've got the right people. Now I'm just going to kind of go as business as usual.

And when we talk about delegation, which is a huge theme this month, I just wanted to bring that up because it just bounced to my head as I'm listening into the conversation while interviewing Susie and then preparing for this podcast. Here's the big takeaway. don't forget about creating that environment that motivates and retains them. And I think one of the best ways to do that is how you delegate. When you get the right people, then you've brought in people who are already motivated, but now you just need to give them the rope.

I mean, Dave's teaching on that is so huge. What Craig Rochelle said was huge. You didn't have control or growth. If you want growth, you better let go of your control. And you've already hired the right people in this wow team. So put it all together. So I'm just mixing it all together because I think there's some. so much practicality here to help you delegate better as leaders.

We love the free stuff here on the Entree Leadership Podcast, and thankfully, Infusion Soft, our partners help give you free stuff every month. In June, we are giving you eight steps, eight very actionable steps to help you win in the webinar space. Everybody's doing a webinar. Like, if you're not on the webinar train, you're behind. But you just can't do it and make it work just by throwing it out there. You've got to have some basic steps, and then you can get going, and InfusionSoft has figured it out. They've got a great playbook for you.

This free guide is going to cover everything from what platform should you be using? Topics? How do you prepare your team in advance? What about the script and slides? Most importantly, how do you get people to actually participate in your webinar? What are the pitfalls? What are some great checklist and planning templates so that you can do it? without it sapping all of your time and energy.

It really is helpful. And you need to be in the webinar game. I'm telling you, you need to be. That's where everybody is. So infusionsoft.com, the number eight, and then the word steps. Infusionsoft.com slash eight steps. Infusionsoft.com slash eight steps. Remember, eight is the number.

Check it out. It's very, very simple. We also have the Infusionsoft link in our show notes of this episode. if you want to go that direction as well, this will really help you. Well, folks, we're very excited. We recently announced the brand new summit 2017 lineup. This event is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to do. Entreeleadership.com slash summit is the place where you can go and find out all the details and the speaker lineup.

We have some surprises as we like to unveil those on our own timing. So those will be coming down the pike. So stay tuned for that. But the dates are May 21 through 24, 2017. in beautiful Orlando, Florida. It'll be nice and steamy, Eric, the producer, that time of year. And, you know, you keep doing a good job like you are. Maybe I'll take you to Disney.

You're not excited about going to Disney. I understand. And so we'll see how that plays out. But we'd love to see you there in Orlando. It is really going to be fun. What a great week that is. High energy, such a great group of people. And we'd love for you to check it out.

So go to entreleadership.com slash summit. Well, we want to thank Susie Welch, Dave Ramsey, for contributing to our podcast this week. Coming up, we are going to continue this fun new series that we have started, where is that lunch with leaders. These are entree leaders who happen to work in our building, Ramsey Solution Leaders. What does leadership look like specifically within our culture as we're trying to take the entree leadership principles and give them to you? This is going to be fun. This is where we sit down and eat lunch. It's a nightmare for Eric the producer to engineer this because we're clanging forks.

And I apparently talk with my mouthful too much. So we have to edit around that. We're sparing you people. I'm having to hear that, so I need to apologize publicly to Eric because I get so excited. I'm chewing and talking, and it's a disaster, but he protects me with the almighty editing button, so we appreciate that. So that's going to be fun. We're going to keep the great content coming to you.

And as always, I want to say on behalf of our producer, Eric Anthony, and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.