EntreLeadership - #288: 5 Keys to Future Success with Dr. Henry Cloud

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

No matter where you’re trying to take your business, clinical psychologist and leadership expert Dr. Henry Cloud says you can’t get there without one thing: vision. It’s that vision—something the best-selling author likes to call a desired future state--that dictates every single action you take, as well as who you need on your team. Tune in as Dr. Cloud gives an overview of five practical and effective steps to help you reach your next big goal. Also joining us is Blake Thompson, Executive Producer of Ramsey Solutions Media, who shares why and how a unified goal rallies the entire team. entreleadership.com/podcast Dr. Henry Cloud's Leadership University EntreLeadership Summit Grand Hall Experience Office Automation Guide from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of course you have to measure against a goal, but that's not how you reach the goal. You reach the goal by measuring the activities and the behaviors that drive that needle. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. much for joining the conversation. Here's what we have coming up for you. Dr. Henry Cloud, return guest and a big friend of Ramsey Solutions will join us. He's been one of our summit

speakers, is a continued summit speaker, and I love the information you're going to get from him today, desired future. This is going to change your life. And then Blake Thompson, who is our chief production officer and board member at Ramsey Solutions, has been with Dave for 22 years. I asked him to stop by because I wanted you to hear from him how our leader, team and how he and his own leadership are using this process of the desired future, what you're about to hear from Dr. Henry Cloud. Stay tuned after the interviews for a very important summit announcement. You don't want to miss this.

Very exciting stuff. So let's get right to it. Dr. Henry Cloud back with this new content. You better be taking notes. You better be pausing. You better be rewinding because what you're about to hear while simple is profound. Here is Dr. Henry Cloud. Well, this is fun. Dr. Henry Cloud for the first time joining us in the Entree Leadership Studio,

so we have to say welcome to our home. It's good to be here. I've never been in your house before. It's exactly right. Now, is this where you keep all those cool clothes that you wear and when I see you at the conferences? That's right. We have an entree leadership shoe closet, and so before we go out on a trip or an event, I come and I peruse through there and put everything together. I wondered how you did it. That's exactly how we do it. You always want to see the inner workings. That's really true. Speaking of inner workings, I'm I'm excited to have you in here. And this is cool background for our conversation because I want our audience to know that you've been hanging out with Dave and our top leaders.

Yeah. And really walking them through, I'm guessing, a lot of what we will talk about today. So before we dive into some of the content, we've really adopted this idea of a desired future. We're going to talk about that in a moment. But just give us a summary without all the details of what it's been like hanging out with our leadership team and how you do that with other companies. First of all, I love what you guys do. And I love the people. And it's one of those places where I don't feel like I have to, like, leave parts of myself somewhere else.

You know, you can truly be in your own skin hair because they're so great. But the thing I loved about it was, you know, a lot of times you have to get people to think about, when they're talking about their purpose and their plans, that there's somebody on the other end of that. Vision makes something different in some way for somebody. And there's an object to everything that we do. And the great thing about everything Ramsey does is they always have that person in mind. In intra-leadership, you're thinking about the person that's running something, right? A department or a company, you know, in finance, you're thinking about that family.

And I love working with groups that are that purposeful, but also just so creative and entrepreneurial. Fun stuff. Okay, now, I mentioned desire. There's not even a few laughs long on the way to. Sure there were. Sure there were. Because we need to mention you and Dave been friends for a long time, and you're one of our favorite speakers. We've adopted this idea of the desire future. And we really wanted you to talk about that and why words matter. What does that really mean when you help our company? And we've institutionalized that way of thinking if you introduced it to us. So I'd love for you to just unpack that for our listeners and our viewers. Well, you know, I've been working in leadership for a long time. My first job as a clinical psychologist. was in a leadership consulting firm. And so I was kind of like had this parallel track of being a psychologist and clinically

how people are glued together and work, but also with leaders. So I began to early on, my niche was high performers and who they are and how that affects results and their businesses and cultures that they build and all that. So I got deep into the leadership literature a long time ago, like, you know, three decades ago is when I started really studying that. And it was interesting from a clinical background. When I looked at leadership and all of the leadership literature, I did kind of a factor analysis of it. Like what are all these topics they're talking about? And what was amazing was if you weren't a leadership person, you'd look at this literature and you would think you're reading

neuroscience. Now here's what I mean by that. Leadership is about the different parts of putting into practice what a person's brain actually does. Now here's what I mean by that. Your brain, your prefrontal cortex, you know, the highest regions, that's the CEO of you. So I started studying what does the brain do? Because if you could lead people in ways that they're brains actually work, then you're going to get better results. So back to the drawing board, what does the brain do? Well, the first thing a brain does, and I made a five-step model, first thing a brain does is it figures out where it is, and it figures out, you know, it'd be better if I was over there. You know, you've heard about leaderships, moving things from here to

there. Where I am today, and I think, you know, Ken, I could talk to you better. If I were sitting over there, what is that? That's a desired future state. Yes. Three words. Desired future state. Now, desired is important because it means it's compelling enough for me to get off my butt and go do something about it. Right.

I really want this. Other half of that is I don't want to stay here. So you get to the positive and the negative aspects of motivation. And your brain is wired to. to seek something better and to move away from things that aren't good. So now I've got that desired future state. That's my vision. That orders everything.

Now, here's the next thing, though, when you talk about leadership, tell your brain to go there. It can't. Right. What is the next thing your brain does? Well, if I'm going to get there, I've got to engage the right talent to pull that off. So I'm going to need a couple of legs to walk. I'm going to need a eye to full.

focus or a couple of eyes to focus, inner ear is going to bounce. So we get the right talent engaged, and your brain engages it. It reaches out to it. It gives it the vision. It motivates it. It sends chemicals. See, that's what leadership does. So then I go, okay, time to go over there. Well, how am I going to get there? I'm going to crawl? Am I going to ride a bike? Am I going to go on a pogo stick? Well, you know, I think when I look at this task, the way, I'm going to get there. My strategy, I'm going to walk. Now, that strategy has also got to have a plan. So the strategy, how am I going to win? How am I going to get there? I think walking is the best strategy to win this game. But I got to have a plan. And a plan puts a timeline to it. Your brain goes,

that should take you four seconds. It's about six steps. It goes in this direction. So now you know what to execute against. Then I start walking. Well, what if I start walking and all of a sudden I bump into the wall? What does your brain do? It measures the right things and holds you accountable. It says, you know what? You're not going fast enough. Oh, you're going too fast. You're not taking steps. You're one and off. And as soon as it measures the right things, it fixes that. It adapts. So five steps. It's the way everything happens. Desired future, what do you want your business to look like. What do you want the numbers to look like? What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you want your life to look like? You get that in place where you're not going there by yourself. You've got to engage

the right talent. That may mean a team. It may be a coach. It may be a mentor. You know, it takes a village, right? So you've got to engage the right talent. And then you've got to know how you're going to pull it off. Then once you do it, you better start measuring the right things to make sure it's happening and then you better fix it quickly. That's it. And we're going to dive into some of those. But it really is wonderful. But I want to review those for you folks. Desired future, engaged talent, execute strategy and the plan. You need to measure. And once you measure it, you're adapting and fixing so that you can

move forward. When you work with companies, all shape, sizes, which you've worked with some of the biggest, and you work with small teams as well, is there. an area in these five, or let's call them of the steps, where leaders seem to be a little bit more apt to blind spots? Yeah, I would say there is. What is that? There's usually two or three of them, and they're not the same. Oh. See, here's where it gets really interesting.

Those five components are absolutely required to make anything successful. all right you're not going to get there if you don't have a vision you're not going to get there if you don't have talent you're not going to get there if you don't have a plan so that's what's required now my makeup if i took any a number of the different kinds of tests out there i'd come out strong on a couple of those and not as strong on a couple of others let's say that somebody is really good at big picture and vision they don't really think linearly in steps So you're going to have a visionary that can't keep things moving towards a goal, right? It's not good at execution.

Or you might have somebody that's really good at engaging talent and motivating them and getting them moving and picking and all that. But they don't like conflicts. So now they're not good at holding people accountable. They're afraid to do that. So what do we have? Well, we got a leader. And if they're not aware of this, they'll create that.

their company in their own image. That's right. They'll create a great execution company. It doesn't really have any big vision or anything new. Then they're going to keep executing what they're doing. Or I was in a company the other day and I said, what do you have to do to get fired around here? Because they were talking about a lot of people who have been there and weren't performing and they've been languishing.

And basically they said, I don't know. I don't think we've ever fired anybody. So that would be a situation where they were measuring, but they're not adapting and fixing. They're not holding them accountable and fixing the problems they're fine. So what leaders have to watch out for is everybody's got a style, everybody's got things you gravitate towards, things you shy away from, things you're not good at. That's fine. That's human. But your company can't have the same weakness.

That's right. And if you build something, a team, or anything else, you build it in your own image. It's going to look like you, but let's make it a whole you, right, where all the different parts are working. Which these are the five parts. All five have got to be present or you're not going to be the company that you set out to be. So let me ask you this. I mean, point to one of them that you want to erase, I don't know. Yeah, it doesn't work.

So let me ask you this. As I'm following along, I've got to have the right people. If I'm the CEO and I don't, because we have a lot of small business people listening here. So as a CEO, they're going, oh, Dr. Cloud, you nailed it. My company is basically me. And so if they want it to be a well-rounded... Well, at least the meetings are small. That's right.

Is it the right people and the right practices? Like, you've got to have the right people who have those talents. If we look at the individual leader, so if the CEO has two... Now, hold on one second. I'm not just talking about have the right talents. I'm also talking about the talent. Oh, that's right. That's what I'm saying.

So, yeah, it's... You got to have the people who fill in your holes as the CEO. Right, you've got to have the right... If you're going to win the Super Bowl, you don't just need 11 people around you. Oh, that's right. You need very specific competencies around that table. Exactly right. And a lot of times leaders don't think about it.

This is why, for example, Jim Collins would say, you've got to get the right seats on the bus. That's right. And then you've got to get the right people in the seat. But you figure out what are the competencies I need first? A lot of small businesses, for example, I've seen, you know, a lot of small businesses. They're one hire away from success. Some of them are one firing away from success. Because this talent piece, rain's not going to get there on its own.

That's right. You've got to have strong legs. You've got to have focused eyes. You've got to have a heart that's pumping fuel through the system. I mean, there's all these parts. That's exactly right. To your point, you can lose a Super Bowl on a special teams play. That's right.

You really can. Or win one. That's right. That's exactly right. You got the right kicker. He's super valuable. Somebody does have to get him somewhat close enough to where he kick. That's exactly right.

Well, it's to your point, though. I mean, I don't want to belabor this, but I want people to really understand what you just said. I love football, so we'll stay here. It's amazing how many big-time football games come down to the kick, to a kicker, to a field to win. Now, the team had to, the quarterback, the whole offensive unit had to get the ball in field goal range. But then when it's time to execute the field goal, you got the guy that nobody, two guys that hardly any football fans ever think about. Right. The guy who snaps the long snap.

That's right. It has to be a strike. Then there's the guy holding the ball who has to catch it and spin the laces so that if the kicker doesn't, if he kicks it on the laces, it's going to go crazy. So there are three really, really important people who most fans are. don't pay attention to during the game. Unless they screw up. Then everybody knows their name. Exactly right.

That's how important they are. You know you're important. It's so true. You know you're important when people only know your name when you screw up. Because otherwise, you're making everything work. Nobody goes to the long snappers unless he sails it over the holder's head. Right. Okay, so how about this?

You got the guy that snaps it. You got the guy that holds it. How are you going to hold it if a linebacker's bust in your chops? That's right. The guy's got a whole lot. Somebody else has got to block that guy. That's exactly right. If you don't have the right talent that's going to take to get there, the right competencies.

Yes. Sometimes small business, many of those competencies can live in one body or two bodies or whatever. You just got to make sure they're there. All right. So now let's stay here in this analogy just because I love football and I think it works. We're talking about the right talent, but there are some teams in the NFL that are almost equally talented. You could make the case that their best 11 on each side of the ball, they're pretty equal, but it's the system. And that's what this is.

This isn't just about talent to pull this off. This is the practice of what you've outlined. These five practices are so vital, and that's what makes a championship team. You could have equal talent, but if you're not practicing this, that's the difference between a championship team and a winning company. Right. I mean, if something, back to the brain, if something's not sitting a. it, getting it all to work the right code or the right path. I can take a bunch of really good wires and a bunch of really good switches and put them in Apollo there. I got all the players

we need. I still don't have an iPad. That's exactly right. Or they're not connected into where they need to be connected. They're not functioning properly. Really important point there, but I want to have you talk through strategy and plan. I'm not trying to oversimplify, but I think, you know, for the small business owner, we need to understand the difference between a strategy. Right. And then once we all agree, this is the strategy, this is a part of the vision, this is how we get to the vision, how we then plan to fit the strategy.

Well, strategy really is about how we're going to win. Yeah. Let's say that you're in a business, and there are several businesses, in your area that are like yours. Okay? In other words, they're in the same business. You've got to have some way that you're going to beat them. And there's a lot of different ways.

You might beat them on price. Let's say price is your strategy. We're going to win on price, all right? What's our plan to do that? Well, then we've got to start to figure out what steps do I need to take to make sure I can get the cost down and delivered better than somebody else. Let's say your strategy is you are going to beat everybody else because you have bigger brand recognition.

Then you better have a really good plan to make that brand the only one that people know about. So one is how I'm going to win. The other one is how I'm going to make that strategy unfold and be. able to execute. Yeah. We're going to, when you look at this other team, we can beat them in the air. They're too strong in the defense on the ground.

That's right. We can beat them in the air. Great, let's beat them in the air. Well, you better have some good plays you're going to run. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And know which one to run when. Right.

Well, let's take Chick-fil-A. You know Dan, the CEO, you know that company well. Here they come into the fast food, you know, or the quick service business that they call it now. And they're taking on giants like McDonald's and Burger Camp. and all these kind of things, and they're also doing chicken. A lot of them, yeah. Only operating six days a week. But you know their culture well.

You know, it's like, I mean, they had a strategy. Okay, we want to sell chicken and we want to, you know, compete out there. Well, then they had to come up with a plan on how they were going to differentiate themselves. And I would say that they chose service. Sell chicken as a strategy. That's the business they were in. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's really not in the business they're in.

The business they're in. It's about serving those people. Right. But they chose customer service. I think as their differentiated. Yeah, it's one of their pillars. That's right. And so it's the experience.

So they came up with a plan. So now everybody knows that when you say thank you, I don't care what story you're in. My pleasure. Where you're at. It's institutionalized. That's right. That's just one small example. But isn't that a part of a plan?

They said, okay, this is how we're going to treat people. And this is what it's going to be like when they come in and eat. Right. And part of that plan is how are you going to train all those people to do that? Right. So you got a, there's a lot of execution that, but you want to keep it. simple. Yes.

You know, another example you hear a lot in leadership circles is like when Southwest Airlines first started, their strategy was we're going to democratize air travel because it was expensive and all this kind of stuff. They have these three pillars, lowest price, on time, customer loyalty. That's how we're going to beat everybody else. If we can do those three things, everybody throughout the company, you go to a gate agent and you're so different in the other airline. You run to the gate agent and say,

hey, I'm here early. My flight's in an hour. Can I get on this one? The gate agent looks at your ticket, says, yeah, I'll hop on. Now, how did they make that decision? They didn't get on the phone and start calling, what kind of who am it, well, it was the prize,

call eight supervisors. They ask three questions. Well, I'm going to hold us up. We got a second. We can get them on the plane, on time. It's not going to cost anymore. And third thing is, it's going to create great customer loyalty.

Are those the three I said? Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, absolutely. Check the box as decision made. The decision was made much earlier. It's a strategic decision at every level. Yeah, yeah, boy, that's really good. I want to ask you about measurement.

Do we tend to, as leaders... Measure the wrong things? I was going to ask that, and do we make it too complex? Way too complex and often the wrong things. All right, so break those down. Give us some examples. The most common things, when people, some people don't measure anything.

Well, there's that. That's so true. They just, let's go work. Let's go make it happen. And kind of at the end they go ahead. Wait, wait, wait a second, Henry. I look at the balance sheet at the end of the month. That's not what you're talking about.

Here's the problem. That's like a football team. Back to football. That's like, yeah, you guys do measurement? Yeah. How do you do it? Well, at the end of the game, we look up the scoreboard. Yes.

See, a lot of people measure against their goals. goals. Of course you have to measure against a goal, but that's not how you reach the goal. Right. You reach the goal by measuring the activities and the behaviors, the tasks that drive that needle. That's right. In literature, it's referred to as the difference between the lagging indicators and the leading indicators. So take a simple example. You want to lose 50 pounds. A lot of people have a goal. So they're going to keep looking at the scales. Am I losing weight? And that's what they measure. Well, that's way too late. But if you have some key things to measure, like I know if I'm taking my 45 minute walk every day, if I'm hitting this calorie count and this diet thing every day,

if I'm calling, maybe I'm calling the person that supports me. And, you know, if I'm, you know, If I'm doing those three things every day and I'm measuring those and I'm checking them off, that scale's going to look way different. That's right. So we have to measure the things that drive the needle. That's the main thing. Yes, yes, yes. Now, let's talk about the complexity side.

We make measurements too complex. How does leader guard against complexity and make sure you're simply, is it what you just described? The three don't make it too many measurables? Well, yes and no. I think what's most important is that you're measuring the right things for the right people. For example, let's say that one of the things you measure is you're looking at certain financial metrics, right? And, you know, revenues and blah about sales and et cetera, et cetera.

If I'm sitting in customer service at a hotel, I'm managing a hotel, if I'm at that level, certainly my revenues, my P&L, that's important. But let's go over to customer service. What makes that work? It may be a measurement of what's my room service delivery time. See, there are things that drive that needle. Yes. So where a CEO might not look at how fast somebody's room service order gets there,

but that's going to affect and drive the needle of what that group is measuring that loads on what the CEO is measuring, which is the financial performance. So, you know, if you got somebody in the boiler room of a ship, they've got instruments and things they're measuring that you're not going to see. in the pilot house, but the appropriate measurements for the right people in the right place on the right things. That's good. Well, unfortunately, our time is up with you, but before I let you go, I started off our conversation with a little summary of how you've been working with our leadership team, including Dave, and I want our audience to know that you're putting out content for them,

and we want them to go over to what you're doing because you're doing some great stuff with your leadership university. Oh, that's so much fun. It is. It is. It's great stuff. Have you seen it? Of course I've seen it. You've shown me some of your great videos. You literally go around the world. I don't want to give it away, but I want our audience to know real quick how they connect with you and why they should, other than me just saying, hey, it's great content.

You're doing some great stuff. Well, go to leadu. Okay. Lead you. Lead you. Is that Y-O-U? No. L-A-D-U.

Got it. Letter U. Okay. Lead you. Good, good. Like university. Yeah. Dot TV.

Got it. And what? What I tried to do was I tried to take the core leadership constructs that businesses could scale and take people through without spending a lot of money, sending them off to all, because a lot of times you can or can't afford coaches or whatever. And we tried to make it interesting and engaging. So what I did was leadership development happens in a path. You don't grow leaders by information only. That's right. Right? You've also got to have them focus their attention on doing that in their work and deliberately practicing it, you know, with some feedback. And you're moving them down a path of development. So what Leadership University does is it creates an internal leadership development path for people in your organization, whether you have, I've got, you know, very, very small companies that take it. And then I've got really big ones that take it to,

thousands of leaders within the organization. So you can do it on your own. You can do it with your team, but it's fun. We went around the world. We anchored, you know, in this generation, you don't want a talking head, right? So we created, it's basically like a TV show. Oh, there's no question. Yeah.

And so I go a different part in the world, and we interview someone or tell the story of something that illustrates the principle. And I'll give an example of the pruning principle. which is, I talk about that a lot in necessary endings. You know, pruning is something that's really, really important for businesses. They've got to always be, because you're going to create more activities, product lines, strategies, people, positions, all this. They made sense at a moment, but they don't make sense. And you've got to always be getting rid of what's in the way.

And so the good stuff can thrive. So we went to, we went to Tuscany. and the guy that won the number one wine in the world, three different years, he walked me through the vineyards and explained the science of pruning. And you won't believe the metaphors of how it fits in business. I give you another example.

The I did a ride. Yes. You know, the dog races in Alaska. We got the world record holder for the Iditarod. ride. We flew to Alaska, got on helicopters, went up in the glaciers, and he took me on the dog team sled and talked about how you push the team to the next level. Wow. And it was amazing how the dynamics of what you do there is exactly what you do with a sales team or anybody else. Oh, for sure. And then you go from there to assignments and it's fun. It's incredible. So again, folks, it is

lead you.tv. Check it out. Incredible stuff. I've had the opportunity to see several of these videos before they went public, and it's great teaching content. Dr. Henry Cloud, thanks for hanging out with us. Good to be here, man. And congratulations on what y'all are doing here. You're reaching a lot of people helping them. And I'd love the abundance mentality that there's always better and more for everybody. If we'll just get in the flow of going out there and getting it, and it's really cool. Well, that's why we recommend what you do, because it's so good. There's a reason why we put you on the Entree leadership stages because of how you've influenced Dave and how you've influenced our leadership team. You've influenced me tremendously as well. So you're a great friend and we're

better for your time. Thanks. Good to be here. Thanks. Well, folks, hope you enjoyed Henry Cloud and you heard me talk about the desired future process that he actually came and implemented and consulted and guided with our top leadership, our executive committee, the operating board here at Ramsey's solution. So what we wanted to do is bring in someone who was in the room. that day and was there to not only experience it, but now implementing it as a leader of our company and then with his team. He is Blake Thompson, our chief production officer, Blake, welcome to the studio. Thank you. It's great to be in here with you. So our audience just heard about the desire future. We unpacked it. And you were in the room that day when Henry came in.

And as I alluded to earlier in the program, we have institutionalized it. So I want to talk a little bit about that. One, I would love for you to give us an overview of how Dave Ramsey, the leadership team at the very top, received that, and now how is it being implemented? How do we use it on a day-to-day basis? It was like a light bulb went on the way, you know, Henry Cloud, he can make the most difficult trying to get your mind around Performa or how do you reach your ultimate business strategy and all that. He can put it in such great terms and make it so simple that he just said, hey, guys, you know where you are today. Where are you headed or where do you want to be? And all you have to do is write that down. And so he started to explain the desired future.

We'll call that the desired future. And he said, you're here. Where do you want to be? So you come up with a measurable thing. Is it, in my world, how many viewers or listeners Dave gets on the radio show or YouTube? How much ROI can we get on the new Rachel Cruz show? And also say, it will take us this long, our goal is 12 months to hit this number. And it's so simple, but we forget that it's as easy as, and I think Cloud's the one that describes it like this or did with us, it's a weight loss strategy. It's anything like that where you just set out a goal. So when he set that out, it was like everyone just went, duh, but Henry went deeper with

the defining objectives. And the beauty of the dashboard is you say where you're headed, then you have your defining objectives, which I believe cloud calls the plan, which it is. That's how I view it. And you have the categories on and just say, what is the plan or how do we get to that defining objective? And then, as you know, Ken, the key to any of this is that you have people own those objectives and you hold them accountable. And it's two things I think that we really jumped on. It was a great goal kind of mechanism, but more importantly, it's a great way to communicate with your team on how you're doing. One of the things you do is chief production officer. You oversee,

obviously, this program. Rachel Cruz came out with her show and has done very, very well. This would be a fun example for people to see how you took this desired future process and you plugged it into something that was already planned and something that needed to happen. And you've really put it to play with this entire team. Take us through that. Again, if you don't have that stuff written out and saying, okay, what is the whole team going to rally around? the beauty is you have an editor all the way up to the brand leader or a VP around Rachel that can show what each one of them are doing to help that goal to get down the field. And so once we started putting stuff like, okay, Rachel, by the end of 2018,

we're going to make X amount. And here's our defining objectives. Production, you own this. Marketing, you own this. It just took it to another whole level. and it really rallied the team. So they look forward to coming in each month, looking at that, seeing what their color is.

It's almost like a little competition. We want to get to green. And if they can't, it's not that they're not doing well. They're not doing their job. But again, it's that time to raise a flag and go, we need some more resources or we need some more people to help us focus on getting this red to a green. It's really a team effort.

Yeah, it's true. I love that you pointed out that it's almost like a scoreboard. But while it may be healthy competition, the reverse is true that when one team may be a little bit behind or maybe an objective is behind because of an unforeseen circumstance or whatever. I've heard stories within the company where a team like that will go, okay, then we all need to, let's rally, let's lock arms, let's go over here and put some sandbags over here, whatever the situation is. And that is a result of what? Why does that happen?

It's because, again, when you have a unified goal together, you all want to hit that. You might have a piece that is your expertise in hitting that, but if someone is not hitting it due to we just need some help or we need all guns on deck, then you feel rallied enough not to be siloed in your area to go, this is all of us unified to hit this. If we don't hit this, I got to look back to myself and said, you know what, if I didn't jump in there to help them, it's on me. Yeah. Now that we've put this desired future process in place at Ramsey Solutions, I'm just curious about

this. Has it stepped up the leaders and the teams game when they sit down and think about what is our desired future? And what I'm saying, in other words, does it put a little extra pressure to go, wait a way, say, am I looking far enough? Yeah. The beauty of Dave Ramsey and the board is that we have them come in when we first tried this and just went, that's what you should be doing every day. Yeah, that's your KRA. Exactly. Let's aim a little. higher. So to your point, Ken, it's very important that you step out on an edge and go for it. And you're not going to hit it every time, maybe. Maybe it's so big. But guess what? That thing that's been a red for years is now a yellow trend into green. And it's been sitting over there for three years being the

same thing. But just because you're intentional, make this dashboard and bring the team together, you were so much further than you were. So we are intentional as leaders to look down at the teams we lead and those creating the dashboards in trying to be that filter or that guideline of, hey, you can aim a little higher than that. You mentioned Dave Ramsey. I think this is an important point that I want our listeners to grab and put it back in the context of what we've just heard Henry say and what you're talking about. It's how we practically use what Henry has taught us today.

And that is this Dave thinks in terms of decades. Like he's thinking 30 years, 50 years. Honestly, I don't think I'm overstating the point that he may have thought, 100 years from now. Right. Big picture. But when you start thinking about that desired future, what's great about that, Blake, and tell me if I'm wrong, but I just sense that when we think that far ahead,

it also makes everything else become more clear. It makes us think five years, 10 years, 15 and 20, because there is no 30-year vision if you don't win where you need to win in the next 12 months. Isn't that the power of what Henry's taught us? It's totally true. It's like, you know, you're a sports fan and it's a hundred yards. is a good ways to go, but if we know what the goal is as a team to get the five or the 10, and same thing with the years.

It's so much for a guy like me who is so tactical in the production world where it's right then that day, get on the air, make sure it's done in all the details. Dave is so forward-thinking because the man wants the message to outlive the man that he thinks that way, and it's naturally brought us more tactical daily thinkers to be more visionary and strategic. All right, final word from you, Blake Thompson, and our chief production officer. What would you say to our audience?

They've just heard Henry Cloud unpack this. What would you tell him to do with what he's taught? I'll tell you what to do, and it's very simple, and it might sound so simple, but when you do the simple things, you'll see major results. If it's a goal and a good communication tool with you personally or your team, take a piece of paper right at the top,

my desired future, sure it's measurable and it's specific, whether it's a certain number you want to hit, whether it's a certain revenue you want to hit, and don't go too long, do within the next 12 months, maybe, or 18 months, and then write out what are those boxes below it, we call defining objectives, write in those boxes the three to five, six things that it'll take to hit that goal, and if you have a team, give owners that are the best of those, and bring that thing in as a team weekly or monthly, whatever your rhythm, and start saying, oh, that's a red, that's a yellow or green. And if you start seeing reds, what's it take to get that to a yellow? If you see a green, you might not

spend as much time, but you want to continue to make sure that stays a green, or you might need to adjust your goal. But, hey, it's a miracle what that simple sheet and bringing it in front of a team and you all are unified around it can do. There it is, straight from Blake Thompson. Blake, thanks for hanging out with us. Yeah, thanks for having me, man. All right, folks, I told you how to special announcement about Summit 2019. Now, if you have not heard the Summit sold out and it sold out really fast for San Diego, $2,400 plus tickets and we're just a few months removed from our last summit this past May. But today, we have two huge announcements for those of you who would love to come.

We're opening up an additional room at Summit called the Grand Hall Experience and we're adding two incredible speakers to the already amazing lineup. First, let me tell you what the grand hall experience means. We are sold out, as I just said, but we kicked out another conference, and we have taken the adjacent ballroom over so that we can put more of you in the room. So it's going to be the same content as the main stage. It's going to be broadcast live right across the hall, if you will, to the grand hall ballroom. We're going to have the same level of production that you come to expect, huge screens, live MC, and so much more. The live from Summit stage will be in this room. Speakers come off the main stage in the other room and they'll come over and do special

interviews in this grand hall experience room. The access to all the other events is main stage attendees, the opening, the off-site reception, lunch every day, books and materials, and all the other network opportunities, those are all still available to you. So that just means that you're going to get to experience this when we thought maybe you wouldn't. So really exciting stuff to open up another room. And then I told you two great speakers added to the lineup. How about Jesse Itzler? You know him from this program? He co-founded Marquis Jet, which is the world's largest prepaid private jet card company. He's the author of the bestselling Living with a Seal, been a guest on this program. And then his wife, hello, the billionaire and founder and CEO of Spanx, Sarah Blakely. She was selected as

Time magazines, 100 most influential people in the world. So both of them going to be joining us at Summit. Now, this is the first day you can get in this overflow room. It's going to sell out fast. Prices will also be increasing soon. So make the move today. Register and learn more at Entreleadership.com slash summit. That's Entreeleadership.com slash summit. See you in San Diego. And speaking of stuff that will help you, how about our infusion soft friends, bringing you the office automation guide. Entrepreneurs spend, you ready for this? 68% of their time managing daily tasks. That is not a recipe for winning.

You need to be working on your business, not spending 68% of your time, doing daily drudgery. So if you want to write fewer emails, spend less time chasing paperwork, and stop repeating. processes over and over again, you need to get serious about automation. This tool is going to help you and your team have more time to focus on strategy and personal interactions. Get it at infusionsoft.com slash office dash automation. That's infusionsoft.com slash office dash automation. Or you can get the link in show notes. It's episode 288. All right, folks, that's going to do it on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening.

We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help women all over the country take their ideas and passions and hobbies and turn them into profitable businesses. If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart

and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help. Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to businessboutique.com.