EntreLeadership - How to Use Systems to Achieve Your Goals with Craig Groeschel

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks to Craig Groeschel. Craig is a bestselling author. He is also a co-founder and the senior pastor of Life.Church—one of the largest churches in the U.S. with dozens of locations all over the country. Craig talks through creating systems on your team and the role they play in a growing organization. Later in the episode, George chats with Kacy Maxwell—the executive director of marketing for EntreLeadership. He shares some of the roadblocks you’ll probably face when implementing a new system and how you can overcome them. You’ll learn: •      If systems are an obstacle to your success •      The three questions to answer to hit your goals •      Craig Groeschel’s daily habits for crushing goals •      The three reasons people fail to accomplish their goals Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Craig Groeschel’s website: https://bit.ly/3AxqwJA •      Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast: https://apple.co/3K5GEoH •      Lead Like It Matters by Craig Groeschel: https://bit.ly/3QUCylD •      Learn how you can be debt-free: https://bit.ly/3PsIh0Y •      Start a free trial of EntreLeadership Elite: https://bit.ly/3a4HQv7 Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, how to use systems to achieve your goals. Then, how to overcome the roadblocks that you might face as you're looking to start a new system. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast from the Ramsey Network, where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Camel, and each week here on the podcast, I sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. My guest today is Craig Rochelle. He's a best-selling author, co-founding, and senior pastor of Life Church, one of the largest churches in America today with over 40 locations across the U.S.

He's also an innovator who launched the first fully digital church experience and the most downloaded Bible app in history, U-version. And on top of that, he's a leadership expert and host of the Craig Rochelle Leadership podcast. Now, here at Entree Leadership, we believe that if you want to grow yourself, your team, and your profits, you've got to have the right systems in place. and this involves delegation and empowering your team. And it takes some time, but it's going to save you way more time down the road. I'm excited to have Craig on today to talk through creating systems and the role they play in a growing organization. So let's get to it. Here's our conversation.

Pastor Craig, it's so good to have you back on the podcast. How you been? Hey, George, Ben. I'm doing great, and I'm really excited to be back with you. Thanks for having me on Entree leadership. You are looking happy and healthy, and we are here today to talk about systems. and that's something you're very passionate about, and something that most leaders,

they hear that word and their brain just kind of melts a little bit. How do you describe what a system is? The word isn't very exciting. Well, yeah, the word's not exciting, and it's, oddly enough, George, a lot of times it's something that leaders don't talk a lot about, don't think a lot about, but really in many ways in every type of organization, everything is going to rise and fall based on the quality of your systems.

And so to take a step back and to take something that doesn't, sound very exciting, but really to try to emphasize the importance, a system to make it really, really simple is how you accomplish the what, is making it as bottom shelf as we can, that we all have a what in every nonprofit or every business or ministry that we lead. This is what we want to accomplish. We know what the end product is. We know what the end goal is. A system is a really clear, clearly defined, specific, targeted process in how,

how we get to that end result. And again, that doesn't sound real exciting unless you get really excited about having a great end result. And if you want a great end result, then you're going to be really, really wise to create great systems. Well, most leaders, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, you just want to go after it. And it feels like process and systems, it's an obstacle in the path of success. It's just red tape and bureaucracy and, you know, pencil pushers. How do you see systems? And how do you help your leaders see it a different way? Yeah, so I say on several different levels. So one is I am more entrepreneurial-minded.

I was the founder of our organization and have started other things as well. And so it does seem like systems that's somebody else's job to slow things down. But I'll answer it in a couple different ways, George. One is let's say if people are listening, imagine I'm drawing a line up into the right. So we're seeing growth in our organization. The entrepreneur, the salespeople, they're going to usually be the person has a line and arrow pointing up. They're creating revenue.

They're driving sales. They're innovating products. They're growing the ministry, whatever it is. There's an upward line. If the line is going up into the right, if there's not pressure from below on that line, imagine if it's a bridge going across the body of water. If there's not support below the bridge,

eventually the bridge is going to fall. And so you're going to have people that are naturally, what I call above the line leaders, who are driving revenue, growth, expansion, and if they don't either value or surround themselves with what I call below the line leaders creating the structure and the support, their growth trajectory is going to be limited. So whether you do it or not, whether you understand it or not, you have to value it as a leader,

and it's your job to make sure those systems are in place. You may not even create them. You may not even understand them, but you have to demand them, create the environment where people can create them. and it's again, everything's going to rise and fall based on the quality of your systems. Yeah, a lot of leaders listening. They may have gotten to where they are today through just grit and scrappiness and they go, Craig, I don't think I need a system. We're doing pretty well today. Was there a time when you thought the same way where you didn't have systems in place? What was your

life like and what was your leadership like? Yeah, so it's kind of the difference between like a mom-pop business and something that goes to the next level. A lot of times, the thing that is missing, is healthy systems. And so I like the way you ask the question because that's the way, that's the way I used to ask the question. And it's something like, was there time when you didn't have systems? And to respond to that, I would have said yes a long time ago, but I recognize that everybody's got systems. They may not be good systems, but they're systems, right? A bad system might be you walk to your business, you unlock the door, you turn on the lights, you respond to problems all day long, you turn off the lights, you lock the door and you go home.

That is a system. It's not a good system, but it is a system. And so what we need to recognize, George, is that we all have systems. We have them either by intent or by default. And what is our system? It essentially is a result of either what we have created or what we've allowed. And I want to say it again, because this is really important, that we all have systems. We either have them intentionally or they're there accidentally, they're by default. You're never going to have a great system by accident. You have to create the systems. And so to answer your question is there was really never a time under my leadership that I didn't have systems, but there's a lot of times where I didn't have good systems at all. And it was because I'm not naturally a systems person in the

way that I think, I had to surround myself with people who are. And once I started to see the value of what they do. I started to learn the how, the why, what do they think about, how do they see it, how do they create it. And then I wasn't just one who appreciated it, but I got better at creating the right systems. And now, as a leader of our church is currently in 42 different locations in 12 or 13 different states or whatever, with, you know, hundreds of employees spread across the U.S., we are only able to have the ministry impact that we are because we've created healthy systems. And anytime we struggle, one of the first places we're going to look, we're going to look at the quality of the leaders and we're going to look at the quality of the systems again and again.

So this is something all leaders we should be thinking about. It's one of the, I'd say one of the top five or six different categories. We're thinking about the quality of our people. We're thinking about our asset allocation. We're thinking about our culture. We're thinking about driving values. We're thinking about systems. These are the things that are going to be able on the top of the list of things we're working on as leaders.

Wow. Yeah, it's impressive how you've been able to scale your organization, and it's largely due to the systems that you're talking about. And we've been preaching a system here on the money side for a long time with Dave Ramsey, the seven baby steps. And there's a reason that it works. It's a proven process. And that's what we're talking about here. So what is other examples in the business world? In the business world, I mean, it would be anything. It would be, you know, how do you, you launch a product? How do you launch a new location? How do you franchise something? How do you send weekly emails? How do you send daily emails? How do you create a podcast? So for example, this is maybe, I'm guessing my third or fourth time on the Entree Leadership podcast. And before we started, who did I talk to? I talked to Will. Same person we talked to last time.

What does Will do? Will has a system that goes on behind the scenes of here's when we set up the camera, here's when we set up the light. There's someone on your team who contacts my office. They talk a certain amount of time ahead of time. They put it on the date. They give me the theme. They give me two or three questions that you're going to ask. So everything we're doing right now is a result of a system. The reason we started on time, the reason we know what we're talking about, the reason we're organized,

the reason why I've got a team of one, two, three, four, five, six people here. And you've got a team on your side is because there was a system in place of this is how we create a podcast experience. Everything we do is a result of systems. when it's done well, it's a result of good systems. When it's done poorly, I promise you're going to find systems that have room for improvement. So you mentioned all leaders have systems in place, whether they're good or bad. So that leaders that are self-aware and they're going, all right, Craig, I don't have a great system in place. How do you go about creating the right kind of system?

Great question. So I'm going to give you the most simple answer and then it'll be a little bit more complex in how we bring it about. But as a leader, what we can do is very, very simply ask three questions or I should say answer three questions. The first question would be, what is expected? If we're, you know, if we're a pastor and we want everyone to receive a follow-up phone call by Monday, that's expected. Or if we want all of our employees to receive feedback within two hours of a presentation or whatever, what is expected, then we're going to ask what is rewarded and what is corrected. So if we can determine very, very clearly, this is what is expected. We want this product to launch by October the 31st.

We want to close on our building by such and such time. We want to hire a staff member to be in this role by the beginning of the third quarter, whatever we're clear on the what. And then we reward whatever's done well. If you get it done, you get a bonus, you get a high five, you get your name applauded. And if we correct what's not done well, meaning if you don't hit that, deadline, you hear about it, you don't get your bonus, you don't get your raised, you don't get us clapping for you, you get corrected. What's going to happen is you're going to create the

system. Your team is. It's not our job to create the systems. In fact, if we're creating all the systems, we're limiting the organization. Our job is to be really, really clear on the expectations. Here's what we want to see happen. For example, I'm a pastor. Let's say we want all first-time guests to receive a phone call or a text or an email by noon on Monday after coming to church. If we say that's what we want to see happen and then we applaud it when it is, correct it when it's not, our team's going to develop the system. When they develop it, they own it. It's theirs. They believe in it. If they're getting the end result is a good system. If they're not getting the desired end result, then it's our job as leaders to come in and say,

this was what was expected, why didn't you do it, and bring correction. And then they'll work the system out. So, again, it sounds overly simplistic, but it's not. It's clarity. Here's what we want to see happen by when, and we're going to trust you to figure out the how. The more that you can delegate and empower your team to create systems, the more they're going to own it, the more they're going to believe in it. And if I created all the systems, number one, it wouldn't be very good.

but two is there wouldn't be emotional buy-in because that was Craig's system. I don't need things done my way. What I want is I want the outcomes to be what we've all agreed the outcomes should be. And if we hire good people, they're going to create good systems. And then we don't just let them run forever. We analyze them. We ask how can we make them better? What do we need to change?

We continue to look is sometimes over time, a system will not create necessarily the same outcome because the economy changes or the culture changes. And so we may need to tweak the system. But eventually, essentially, it's just clarity. Here's what we'd like to see by when. And we celebrate it what it is. We correct it when it's not. And then watch as your people make great systems.

And they will. They'll figure it out. That's very freeing to hear as a leader that's not all on your shoulders, that you can empower your team and delegate. And so it's a win-win there to know it's not. not all on Craig, and I'm empowering the team to have some freedom and liberty here to do it the way they want to do it as long as we see the results. And like you mentioned, this is not a set it and forget it. The leader is checking in, analyzing, tweaking along the way to make sure the

team is feeling supported. Yeah, and your leaders, they get better when they create it. And so if we do everything for them, if we're if we're delegating tasks, essentially we're creating followers, we're creating people that do what they're told. If instead we're delegating authority, Here's what we want to see, but we give you the authority to figure out how to get the end result. We're creating leaders. And then they have more buy-in. They grow as leaders. Our retention is better when we give people freedom to lead rather than just do what they're told.

And it helps the whole organization get better. It is not our job to create all the systems. It's our job to create the vision, hold people accountable, celebrate their wins, and have a blast doing it. And that creates a really good culture where we make money or we make disciples or we make a difference. whatever it is, but we do it together. And we have a system. Here's how we do. We've agreed upon.

This is the way we're going to accomplish the what. And it's really special and it's freeing. And you don't have to think as much. You don't have as much miscommunication. You don't have departments fighting with each other. This is how we do the what and we win together. Yeah. For a lot of leaders, do you find that they struggle letting go and being able to let the team

figure out how to do it? Because there can be a little bit of when you have the vision and you see exactly how it should be done, it can be hard to see it done a different way than you imagine. No, 100%. And I like what you said, too, about being done a different way. So as leaders, we typically, generally, most leaders are more controlling than they are empowering. And the reason that we're more controlling is because we care so much. And a lot of us started what we did or, you know, that we feel the weight. And so we should be a little bit controlling. But if we're not very strategically empowering, we're going to always limit our leaders. And we, as a key leader or a department head or whatever, we have a limited amount of time.

We have a limited amount of perspective. We have a limited amount of energy. And if we're trying to do it all ourselves, then actually we become the greatest limiting factor to the organization. The more we control, the less other people grow. The more we control, the less of a difference we can make. I tell leaders all the time. It's that your success isn't a reflection of what happens in your presence. Your true success, your true impact is a reflection of what happens in your absence.

It's what you're empowering other people to do. And our church, you know, honestly, in many different locations and the Uversion Bible app, which is, you know, on half a billion devices, literally, that is not a reflection of systems that I created at all. That's not even a reflection of the systems

that our top leaders create. That's a reflection of many leaders who believed in other great leaders who together agreed upon a goal and celebrated it when people hit the goal and correct it when they didn't. And then hundreds of really, really capable leaders in our organizations created systems upon systems upon systems. They blow me away. We've got a warehouse that ships out ministry supplies to all these different. The systems they've created make a retail. organization at times look behind. I'm blown away by the distribution systems. I don't

understand. It can't explain it, but I celebrate it because great leaders have created great systems. And the really powerful thing, we have a lot of young staff members like Ramsey organization does that don't have all the experience. And here's what I know is that a bad system can make a good leader look bad. But a strong system can make an average leader look good. So it's, again, I'll say I'm a boring. I'm a boring leader. Boring people say the same things over again, but they're effective. Your organization is going to be a reflection of the quality of your system. It's going to rise and fall on how stronger systems are.

Yeah, it's a game-changing question to ask yourself as a leader. How much impact and success am I giving up so that I can have more control? That will, man, that makes you think for sure. Yeah, no, yeah, we always say this. you can have control or you can have growth, but you can't have both. If you're controlling too much, you're the limiting factor. Yeah. And I know you're a fan of James Clear and Atomic Habits, and you mentioned you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And I looked up the original version of that, and it's from the Greek poet. I can't even say it,

Arcalocus. I have no idea. He said, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training, which is another cool way to say that. So have you found any personal wins recently when it comes to systems that you or your team had put in place? Yeah, so I'd say on both personally and professionally, in fact, we were talking just kind of personally before we started about fitness and how you have a good diet and such. And my personal life is really a reflection of systems, meaning someone may say, how do you stay fit at your age, or how do you have a good marriage, or how do you stay spiritually strong, or how do you grow in your leadership? And the result of all those things would be a system. From the time I wake up in the morning,

and like I said, boring. George, I tried to write a book called Boring Your Way to Success, and the publishers wouldn't go with it. They weren't excited about that. Not at all. I think boring is the new exciting. And so it's the small, consistent things that people do that bring about the visible results that everybody wants. So it's anything that you see in my personal life or in my professional life or my spiritual life, physical life, anything that's good is a reflection of a good system.

Anything that's not there. So from in the morning time, it's boring. I get up at the same time. I eat the same breakfast. in the same way, in the same bowl. I do my devotion in the same way. I go through kind of a mental checklist in my mind in the same way.

I get to the office, and I spend the first three hours doing the same thing. I leave at the same time. I go to the gym. And so those are systems. In our office right now, we've restructured our office and we're creating new systems

to expand our impact. Systems are a multiplier. If you've got systems, there's less energy, there's less oversight, there's less thinking, there's fewer decisions. So by creating more systems, that frees you up mentally, creatively, spiritually, relationally to invest in other places. And so it takes work. You have to put a lot of work on the front side to create a good system. And then once you have a healthy system in place, it takes a lot less oversight. So you do the hard work at first.

you create the steps who does what, when, and how, then the system starts running, and then it frees you up to do more things and to expand. So it may seem like a lot of work that's unnecessary, but it's a multiplier of influence, of impact, of profit, of ministry, whatever, over time, if you'll do the work to put the good systems in place. Yeah, it reminds me of the legendary Steve Jobs, Black Turtle Neck, that he would wear every day because it was one less decision. that freed up more creative space to do the job that he had to do. And it's boring, right? Like you mentioned, culture celebrates the exciting, the new, the fun. And what you're saying is it's the small, consistent, disciplined habits that you create is what actually leads to success. It is, 100%. It's the small things that no one sees that leads to the big results everybody wants. It's what we do consistently that makes a difference, not what we do occasionally. And a lot of leaders, We want to occasionally, we want to systematize everything.

We want to systematize our feedback. So we're going to have a great feedback culture. So we don't wait to give feedback until we feel moved until there's something that's worthy of feedback. We say everything's worthy of feedback. So we're going to create those systems. Same thing. If you want to stay small, let your systems be healthy.

If you want to reach more, if you want to stay small, let your systems be accidental. Let them be incidental. If you want to be big, have a bigger impact, be intentional about it. it, do the work up front, and watch as it multiplies your ability to grow or impact whatever you care about. Great reminders. And you devoted a whole chapter in your new book, Lead Like It Matters. It's all about systems. So what's the heart behind the book, and how does systems play into that? So the heart behind the book, lead like it matters. In fact, if anybody's watching it happen to have a copy because someone had a good system, I put it right by me,

but it's lead like it matters. And there's seven principles of leadership. The story of behind it, George, is interesting. Because we have multiple churches and multiple locations, years ago when we were starting, we tried to create a very systematic approach. So the buildings were very similar. The music was almost identical. The message was the same because it was transported via video.

The staff was hired in the same way. But what we noticed is when we'd walk it to one church location, there might be this vibe, this anticipation, this buzz, this hum, this fun, fun atmosphere, and we'd go 10 miles down the road to a very similar design with similar buildings, people, music, and such, and there's a really different outcome. We started saying, wait a minute, this one has it, this one doesn't, what is it, what contributes to it?

And so in 2008, I wrote a book called It, and this is a very, very revised, very expanded, half the book is brand new, called Lead Like It Matters. And so we talk about what is it? How do you get it in your business? How do you get it in your ministry? What contributes to it? And the chapter I did on systems was the idea that the leaders that have it, systematize it. They see what's working. They see where they want to end up. And they create systems toward it. If your systems are incidental or accidental, you won't lead toward it. If you value whatever the it is, the end product, you're going to create systems toward it. And so that's what that chapter is about. Wow. I'm excited to pick it up and dig into it. A lot of great gems in there, I'm sure.

Thank you. So regardless of what industry or business our leaders are in, what is one system every leader needs to have in place? Great question. What is one system every leader needs to have in place? I would say what I would do is I would probably sit down with each specific leader and I would ask, what is one outcome that you don't have that you want to have? And I would start there. or I would say what is the most important outcome, what's the most important result that you want. And there would be some right now that they, they would be healing their marriage. Their marriage might be in a bad place. There would be some people, George, that you work with every day, that it would be like they're sick and tired of being sick and tired of being in debt.

And for them, they want to go through the baby steps, the seven baby steps that is a system that leads to, on debt free, to financial freedom. It's a proven system. And so I would say, I can't tell you which one each person would need, but I would help try to determine what is it. And this is one of the most important things, a good coach can do, a leadership coach, a performance psychologist, just a good friend can help bring clarity. What do you want to do? For example, you said kind of off, and I don't want to betray our private conversation, but you said, hey, if I want to improve in this area, what do we do? And what we would do is we would say, okay, here's what you want.

Now, George, what do you need to do to bring about that result you want? And we'd create a system. If it's working out, we're going to say whenever your day begins, you're going to do these three things and then you're going to work out. Or whenever your day ends, this is what you're going to do. If we're changing our diet, what I do talk about boring is I have the same few meals delivered to me every day. We order them from a company. They sit in the freezer. Our team thaws them out.

They put them in front of me. and I never have to go cheeseburger or chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. I don't ever have to make that decision because the system is in place, the meals come. I mean, it's all the way down to like, I don't drive to a restaurant. I don't take 20 minutes to get there, 20 minutes to get back. If you want to have lunch, you're coming to my place and I've got my meals and it's all systematized. Again, it's boring, it's nerdy, but it does bring about really special results. Yeah, well, it creates margin and freedom in your life as a leader and as a husband and a father, all those things. So it's incredible, Craig. I know you've been a friend of Dave's for many, many years now, a friend to this organization, and we always love having you on. We're continually inspired by your leadership. Thanks for being with us today.

Hey, same with you guys. And you have a really well-led organization. So I respect, you know, Dave and Sharon are due to their friends. But we always love working with you guys and feel like, Every time we're around, do we learn from you? And thanks for creating great resources that we can learn from, not just how to get debt-free, but be better leaders, be better people. And it's an honor to work with you again, George. Well, we are honored. Thanks for being a part of it, Craig. Appreciate it.

All right, thank you. Big thanks to Pastor Craig for joining us today. Always love his insight and wisdom. If you want to grab a copy of his new book, Lead Like It Matters, we've got a link for you in the show notes. So Craig gave us some great ways to create systems on our team, some great questions to ask, and he challenged us. What are some outcomes you desire that you don't currently have? Put some time on your calendar this week and get started. Up next, we're going to talk

about how to overcome the roadblocks that you might face as you're looking to start a new system. We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, coming up, I talk with Casey Maxwell, our executive director of marketing for Entree leadership. And this guy is all about systems and frameworks. and he's going to share some of the roadblocks you'll probably face when trying to implement a new system, and he's going to show you how to overcome them. Let's get right to it. Casey, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks, George.

Excited to be here. So we've got to talk about this before we dive in. You were on a different team here at Ramsey in leadership, and now you're on the Entree leadership team. What happened? Yeah, I joined the team about six years ago, and I was leading the overall website team, and I moved over to lead the marketing about two and a half, three months ago.

But honestly, entree leadership was one of the main reasons that I came to work here at Ramsey. I had applied and was kind of just looking for a new job. And during my interview process, the hiring leader gave me the entree leadership book and asked me had I read it. I was like, no, I've never even heard of that word. And so they said, well, if you want to work here, you should read this. This is our playbook. This is how we do business.

So I was like, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard on an interview, but I'm going to do it. So I sat down and read the book. And when we got back together, I said, I've just got one question about the book. And they said, okay, okay, what is it? And I said, is it true? I go, it's easy to write a book of a way of doing things. It's another thing to actually live out those principles. And the response was, it is true. And there's so much more beyond the book. And so at that, at that, point I was like, I'm in. Wow. And here you are executive marketing director for Entree leadership. Yeah. It's exciting. They've cut me around. It's huge. Well, congrats in the new role. I know you're a big fan of the Entree team, as am I. And we were talking to Craig Rochelle earlier about systems. And I know you love a good system. You love a good framework. And one of the questions I asked him was, why do leaders struggle creating systems? Why do you think it's a struggle? Yeah, there's a lot of reasons. I think one of the things that I love that Craig Grischel always says is we have systems by design or by default. And so a lot of people think, oh, I don't have a systematic way of doing things, right? That most

likely means you have it by default, right? You're reacting to the way that things happen, and because it kind of worked in the past, you just start doing that. And so a lot of people, when they go out and want to create a new system or start a new system, they think they're starting with a clean slate. and they're not, right? They already have a system in place. And so you kind of have to change your mindset to think, oh, I'm replacing a system I have, not just creating a new one. And so that's, that's one of the first mindset shifts that you have to have when implementing a new system. It's kind of like a junk drawer. And you know exactly where the Phillips head is in the junk drawer. And if someone comes along and messes with it, you go, I had a system. I knew exactly where the

Phillips had was in the junk drawer. Well, it's a terrible system, but it's the system you've been working off of for a long time now. And that's a hard thing to break from as a business owner as a leader. Yeah, a lot of leaders fall into this trap because they start off their career being a really great doer, right? That's why they get promoted into leadership because they are consistently delivering on the doing. The problem is they've developed a system around doing, right? And then they become a leader, and they don't realize they need to develop a new system for how to lead. Instead, they just take that and I'm just going to add leadership to my list of things to do

versus I'm going to redefine what all of these things mean. I need to become a coach, right? My one-on-ones need to change. I need to think about what success looks like a little differently. And so if you're not thinking of, I need to redo a system, I need to change a system, you're going to miss all of these things that surround them. Like your example of that screwdriver, like there is something in your mind that you've created, that junk drawer makes sense to put a screwdriver there. But if all of a sudden you want to create a new garage system, you're not going to still use that junk drawer, right? So you need to think of, like, what are all the things that surround it? So as leaders, how do we start a new system if the current system is getting in our way and it's holding us back? Yeah, so we have a lot of coaches here on the Entry leadership team. And every week they talk to a lot of different business owners, right?

And over the past 10 years, we've talked to thousands of business owners that, to create these new systems in their lives. And there's really three main areas that kind of come to the surface as ways that are kind of holding people back from implementing those new systems. And the first one is they don't know the end goal, right? The second one is they don't go all in. And the third one is they don't have accountability. So let's talk about each of those. So when you say they don't have an end goal in mind, is it just, it's not specific? It's just kind of a squishy vision? Yeah, we talk about, like, we're talking about systems, right, which is kind of like a plan or a framework for how to get somewhere, but that is to get somewhere for a goal, for a purpose, right?

There's this end state that you want to get to. And so when we talk about goal setting around here, we talk about there's five different components, and one of those is it needs to be specific. A lot of times people will get sold on, I just want to be better, or I want to lose weight. and those goals are not specific enough, one, to set a plan around them, right, and to figure out what things need to change in order for me to hit that goal. We also talk about desired future. We talk about that a lot in Entree, and that's from a business perspective, where do you want to be in a year, two years? But it's not just, I want to be bigger and I want to have more money. It's how many markets do you want to be in, right?

How many stores do you want to have? being very specific around that helps you say what needs to change today for me to get there. Yeah, and we've got the desired future dashboard now inside of Entre Leadership Elite so that business owners all over the country can really dial that down. And not only for themselves to have that clarity, but for their team, something we can all look at and go, are we on track for the goal that we all decided was the vision that we're heading towards? And so it's such a powerful reminder that a goal of, hey, we want to grow this year. great how how much when are we going to do that by and so for the whole team to get on board it gives us something to aim at and you know zig zigg-ziggler we say if you aim at nothing you'll hit it every time

and so as a business owner you've got to be real clear about communicating that constantly with your team so that everyone's on board yeah that's that's so important the a team that doesn't have a clear goal they're always going to be uncertain of whether they're doing the right thing so if as a leader you're setting that clear goal, they're going to be able to be empowered to run and push in a way that they can't when there's not clarity. Which goes to the next point you made, which was they're not all in. Yeah. And it's hard to be all in when there's not real clarity. You don't know why you're doing something. So talk about that piece of a business owner or leader not being all in on a system. Yeah. So I used to work for an advertising agency. And we'd have clients come in all the time saying,

hey, I want to, they'd have a very specific goal. I want to grow revenue in this quarter, or I want brand awareness to grow by 35% in this market. And they needed a marketing plan to do that. So we would take that goal. We'd sit down and put together a marketing plan and then bring it back and present it to the client, say, do this to get to your goal. What would happen all the time is they would say, oh, this is great. Thank you for all your hard work on this. We're going to do these four things. we're not going to do those two. We want to do that, but tweak it a little bit, and yet not those for either. And we would sit there and go, well, you're not actually doing the plan. We don't think that's going to work. And they're like, well, no, we need that to work. And that's what we do a lot of times in our business. That's what we do in our personal lives. We see a system and we say, I'm just going to take two of these pieces and implement it and do it in the current system that I already have. And then we're just shocked. that it didn't work. We're like, this whole thing is false. This whole system doesn't work because those two things, when we're not seeing that it's actually the entire system. So going all in,

actually stress tests to say, is this system going to work or not? Yeah. It's amazing the results that happen when you just decide to go all in and as a team, you all commit to going all in. And the last piece of this is accountability. So we've talked about specificity with the goal, being all in on that, and then accountability is the last piece. Accountability is so important, and it's most often the one that people don't do. So when we think of accountability, a lot of times when we approach something, we go with our own willpower. Right. We want this new system. We want to push through. We want to do it on our own. The problem is willpower is a finite resource. It's going to run out.

And if we don't have something there to help kind of like boost the, that on an ongoing basis, it's going to eventually fizzle out. And so we have, like I said, we have coaches on Entree leadership. And so they have weekly sessions with clients. And so in those sessions, they talk about, hey, what are the things that we need to do in the next week to continue to move your business forward? So they get action items. Well, the next week, they follow up on those action items. And what they hear all the time is, hey, did you do the action items from last week? And the the business owner would be like, yes, 20 minutes ago, right? And the reason I did it is because I knew I was about to come on a call with you and I did not want to have to say I didn't do it. There is something

very powerful about not wanting to say I didn't accomplish this. I didn't do that to someone else. And so having that layer of accountability will help you push through when you get too busy, when you don't have enough time, when you don't have like you've got a fire. And you're like, Well, no, I'm going to have to go and talk to this person, right? And I'm going to have to tell them that I didn't do it. It gives you that little extra push to keep you progressing on your goals. So as we wrap here, Casey, what's an example of a way a leader could implement this, apply to their life this week? Maybe they're struggling with one or three of these things. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I think, you know, for each of these, I think there's a very simple thing to do, right? I think the first one when it comes to knowing the end goal is whenever you're about to do something, just get very clear about it. Like, it has to run this through. Here's the thing I need to do, right? Is it measurable? Right. If it's not specific, you're not going to be able to measure it. Right. So go back in stress test all of the things, the goals that you have and say, like, is this measurable? And is it specific enough that if I tell somebody else, it's going to make sense to keep my team on board with that. The second is, if you're going to do a system,

if you're going to try a new way of thinking, go all in, right? Say, I'm going to do this the way that they say, but give it a time limit. Don't go all in on a system and say, well, whether it works or not, I'm doing it for the next 10 years, right? Set a certain amount of time to say, if I'm not seeing progress in my business, in my life, then I'm going to say this system is probably not working, but do everything in the system. And last is just find someone to be that accountability, someone that is going to ask you questions. It could be a coach. It could be an online group. It could be just a group of people that you get together with.

But it's not a, it's not just a, hey, here's three friends that get together and have a beer and say, oh, hey, you're doing your thing, right? You want somebody that is going to say, hey, you said you wanted to do this thing. Are you actually doing it? What progress have you made? So that it gives you that sense of like, oh, I don't want to let this person down. I need to do that. So those are three things that I would focus on if you're ever wanting to make a change in your life from a system perspective. Well, Casey, I appreciate you being on with us today, encouraging our leaders to break some systems that were probably already broken and implement some new.

ones, which is not easy. It's no small feet, but man, it is so worth it if you want to grow yourself, your team, and your profits. Thanks so much for being with us. My pleasure. Always fun times with Casey. Congrats again on joining the Entree Leadership team. Well, if you all are encouraged, you're inspired by this episode. You want to keep going and keep growing, then you've got to check out Entree Leadership Elite. And right now, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial. This system helps you create a strategic plan, build a healthy culture, and scale your business the Ramsey way. So if you find yourself putting out fires all day, not knowing how your team is really doing, stressing out about your never-ending to-do list, then this is for you.

Start your free trial of Entre Leadership Elite today with the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed today's episode of the show, do us a quick favor, follow or subscribe, wherever you listen, and leave us a review. And if you're feeling extra generous, share this episode with your team, with your friends, or on social media. All of this helps us impact more people and more leaders like you. Be sure to follow us at Entree Leadership wherever you hang out on social media. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening.

Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.