Tag Archive for: leadership insights

Leadership Spotlight: Fueling Team Performance

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #25 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Sam Arseneau has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Sam is the Founder & CEO at SupportMyMac. For the past 15 years, Sam and his team have been delivering drama-free Apple IT services to organizations across Southern Ontario and Montreal. Starting by servicing residential services, Sam quickly grew their company into the corporate world and was awarded the Fastest Growing Company by the Ottawa Business Journal in 2015.

Here are the top 3 insights Sam shared with the community.

1. What does Whole Person Performance mean to you, and how do you fuel that performance?

Performance for us can be summarized by three main principles: Accountability, a growth mindset and a positive attitude. It’s important to have a “getting things done mindset”, things don’t need to be perfect – perfect is the enemy of done.

We have a daily huddle, where we outline our three big rocks that need accomplished that day – the things that will move the business forward. It could be from the operation side, the sales side, or the accounting side. Everybody participates, and it gives a sense of accountability, and keeps everyone intune with the team touch points.

The other thing that aids performance is having the mindset of growth, always looking for opportunities, even when you’re busy, that activity brings activity. So that’s something we’ve always done, even through the pandemic. We are always looking for a new way, whether it’s improving our operations, launching a new service. Lastly, we believe that maintaining a positive mindset helps take performance to a whole other level.

Also, Seeing challenges as learning opportunities has been crucial in helping us identify what we can do differently. Asking ourselves: What can we learn from this? I think, has really fueled our performance and allowed us to reach new heights every year.

Also, going back to basics can be so important, for example: responding to people quickly. I feel that it’s basic things like this that people in the marketplace are just not respecting. Organizations want to have a shiny new service or product, but they have yet to master the basics. I think back to basics is a good place to start to reach top performance.

2. How do you ensure that there is alignment between your three main performance drivers in relation to workplace culture, and the behaviours and habits implemented within your team?

As a CEO, you need to set the company vision. Where are we going? What’s not allowed on the bus? We are talking about the non-negotiables. It’s important to define your culture points, and to make sure that you are bringing people on that are aligning with those culture points, and that these culture points are always reiterated through conversation. So as long as the right people are on the bus, and in the right seats, I think the three things I talked about align and happen naturally. I mean, you see quite quickly when you bring the wrong person on and they don’t align with your culture. They won’t respect our performance principals: getting things done, always growing, and having a positive mindset.

3. Have you faced challenges with growing your team in relation to culture points and the misalignment of new or existing employees?

Yeah, definitely, like every business, sometimes you hire people that you think are a good fit. Sometimes it’s a surprise, and they’re not. So I think the lesson is to hire slow, and fire fast. It’s important to realize quickly when something is not right, and to correct the issue, or to get the person off the bus. I know from experience, when you keep the wrong people on the bus too long, it can quickly affect workplace culture and team development. In some cases a coaching conversation can be had.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leadership, check out Jeff McCann’s post on The Key To Performance is Execution.

Leadership Spotlight: Building Team Trust

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #34 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Todd has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Todd Usen is a digital surgery pioneer, envisioning the future of surgical intelligence. Working within the medical industry for the past two decades, Todd has led teams as President of the Orthopaedic Organizations and Olympus Corporation. Now serving as CEO at Active Surgical he is empowering his team to develop surgical intelligence to help see what humans cannot.

Here are the top 3 insights he shared with the community.

1. What has fueled you throughout this journey? We want to hear more about what plants your feet on the floor every single morning as a CEO.

It’s interesting when I was young and I competed in sports through college I was really honoured and blessed.It forced a great time management system to play a sport where you’re on planes all week with tutors travelling with you and attending big conferences and then having to maintain your grades. You really learn some time management, but also the competitive nature that you have.

I got into the medical field years ago because of personal reasons. My mother had multiple sclerosis and I was somewhat inquisitive and never understood how someone that could have such healthy kids and a healthy family could have a disease like that, so I was just intrigued by being in the medical world and working towards making sure that would make a difference for patients. And the reason I say that is because every day when I wake up it’s those two things.

To the business world, I’ve always been grounded because I love taking a coach-approach. I’m not a big title person. I like being part of a team. I love making sure that I empower and develop people so that they can go do great things and even tell me what to do.

But I also keep my feet on the ground because I realize that it’s all about the patient, not trying to make robotics better. I’m not trying to make surgeons better. I’m not trying to bring a technology that is going to make me millions of dollars. It’s never really my thought process. It’s that we have something that’s going to make patients better, reduce complications, help overall health care. I know it sounds like, well, there’s no way that’s true, but it really is. It’s always been my mission, it’s always been going in there and talking realistically, it’s not selling, it’s not doing anything. It’s, hey, I have something that is going to make a difference for you and those patients who are on the operating room table every single day. It’s not only them that I think about. I think of their families that are in the waiting room freaking out because they have someone on the operating room table, and I want to make sure that I’m grounded because we’re bringing technology that will make a difference.

So I hope that makes sense. But it’s no more or less than that. It’s that I love coaching, I love team development, I love watching, I love when people shine, and I want to make sure that we’re delivering something that helps patient outcomes.

2. Can you tell us more about your vision for your team at Activ Surgical?

Well again it’s still about the ultimate vision, it’s still about patients and you want to make sure that you’re doing the best that you can to reduce complications for patients. But when you look at the company, we say that from a technical standpoint, we are the computer vision engine of the operating room. So we envision a future of true collaborative or autonomous surgery where surgical intelligence, things that are way above me, can empower folks and robots too.

We’re seeing things that humans can’t see. So we want to make sure that we’re bringing that to the operating room. Our founder, Dr. Peter Kim is brilliant, but Dr. Kim cannot be in every surgery around the world at the same time. Dr. Kim’s information and insights can be, so anytime a doctor is in a surgical procedure, Dr. Kim’s data, as well as a bunch of Dr. Kim’s colleagues and people from all across the industry, crowdsourced data can identify key land mines and landmarks, key areas to cut and if it’s surgery in key areas to avoid, if it’s vessels or something, you can damage. That information needs to be in the hands of doctors because, again, the people part is that every patient in the world should have the confidence that their doctor, whether their surgeon has done one surgery of a specific specialty or five thousand surgeries of that same specialty, every patient should have the trust and confidence that their doctor has the same information available to him or her to make that surgery a success.

You can think about it like driving cars now, and when I think about when I got my license, when I was 16 or 17 year old, if I wanted to back up, I mean, I turned around. If I wanted to look at my side view mirror, I did. But then there was a blind spot, so I’d peek over my shoulder – now a 16 year old can get their driver’s license and they still have to do all of those things, but when they’re in reverse and they’re about to crash into a cone that they can’t see, the car might beep really loud or it may stop some cars, or there might be a big flashing orange light on your side view mirror to tell you that, hey, there’s someone in your blind spot, so that 16 year old is a much better driver today than they were when I first learned. I am still relying on intuition now and experience, but we say the same things in surgery.

So a new surgeon should have the same information available, should have the rearview camera, should have the side view mirror, should have a beeping sound, all these things that can help him or her perform better surgery and that the Peter Kym’s of the world, can be providing them with his or her data. So it’s a broad vision. But at the end of the day, if someone asked me my vision, I wouldn’t normally explain it that long. It’s pretty much a couple of sentences. But for this discussion, I wanted to make sure that I explained it and it’s still all about the patient.

3. I think what I’m really hearing is that you’re making decisions not for yourself, but rather on behalf of the company, and it’s taken on the mindset that, OK, if I’m going to make this decision or spend this money, is it in the best interest of Activ Surgical and what impact will it have on us, the team and the growth of the company itself. Does that resonate with you?

It resonates a lot because you know what? I absolutely believe in rewarding success and celebrating successes and having little milestones, because you can’t just go on and expect the things, you have to call things out. But in your example, Scott. Yeah. So I have one hundred dollars in my budget. OK, actually nobody has anything in their budget. So is there a downside if you didn’t need to spend something that you just saved? Now you’re going to need that one hundred dollars a month and a half from now and you’re going to realize, wow, I’m glad I have this because I was smart in the way I spent my money, and now there’s a huge opportunity, a huge project that I can do. So I think when people realize that you get hired, even first line sellers are called territory managers. You’re managing the territory, you’re representing the company.

Every single day that you walk outside, you represent the company. That question that you asked earlier of being grounded and what makes you grounded every day. But the same thing that ties right back to this, Scott, is that the representation of a company is a big deal, and I also realized this a long time ago, and I always share this in developing any first line regional sales manager or head of marketing or our R&D manager or operations manager for the first time is after your family and close friends, who the single most important person in someone’s life? Whether they think it is or not, is probably their boss because of what that boss potentially can control.

Who controls your livelihood? It controls your job. It controls your raises. It controls whether you’re hired or fired, potentially if you work. So I say that in two ways. Anyone that is a boss of someone, remember when I said you have to earn their respect, get off to earn yours. You want people to run? They’re willing to run through a wall for you because they know that you have their back and it’s a really important position and something that you shouldn’t take lightly when you’re someone’s boss.

I mean, it’s a really big responsibility to be someone’s boss. I’ve always taken it seriously in a good way and I hope people around me have done it as well. I try to remind people of the role that they’re in. They’re not in the boss’s role so they can boss people around or so that they can show off their business card, you know, because I’ve been promoted by the best bosses.

People really want to work for them and like I said, they’ll run through a wall for them. That’s the way I try to think every day about the roles we play and the way that we hire, and in the way that we develop, and the way you should be thinking about business.

If you’re interested in learning more from our other Spotlight Leaders, check out Moncef Lakouas’s take on Leadership is Learning.

Leadership Spotlight: Facilitating Empowered Teams

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In this episode, we chat with Dustin DeVries, the Co-Founder of Caffeine Interactive Technologies, about how leaders co-create success with their teams through EI-Q and strong communication.

Dustin is proud to work with some of the most talented business analysts and developers in the industry. He is a solopreneur and has grown his company based on a 100% remote team which has been thriving for the last eight years.

Communicating with Intention

Dustin DeVries: From a culture perspective, you know, I think we try to really over communicate on things to be very transparent. We have a lot of activities that go on, you know, on Slack, for example, it is our primary method of communication. We have, like, you know, photo Thursday. We all contribute and jump in and share photos of things we’re doing to learn more about each other, and like find out that we have team members who are big into hiking or running or whatever the case may be, and find out some things about their life that we wouldn’t otherwise just in a virtual workspace like Slack and just communicating about work all the time. So there are some things we do that I would say, try to be intentional about.

Leading with Transparency

Dustin DeVries: I’ll just be completely transparent on this. I’ve had some candid conversations with members of my team about the performance, about the expectations and we set up OKRs and things like that. This concern on their parts, like, well, I know I’m not hitting what I need to and I’m doing all these different things and I’m nervous for my job. And the fact that we have a culture that allows an employee to make those kinds of comments. It’s awesome. Right? Because I’m reassured, I’m like, here’s what I think we do need to improve this. I recognize it’s not all on you, it’s on me because I’m helping with a lot of strategy. You’re a marketing expert, but you don’t understand all the ins and outs of everything we do. You’re not a software developer. So I’ve got to draw that connection there so there’s a response on my side and also just reassuring them that we’re going to work through this, there’s a process and I’ll be transparent with you. If I feel like things are in jeopardy, I’m not going to blindside you with anything. Right. And I think that makes people feel that better.

Maintaining Self-awareness

Dustin DeVries: The things that I do well I always want to be checking myself to make sure I still do them well. We get over confident and we start making mistakes. We get sloppy. But on the flip side of the things we don’t do well, that doesn’t mean well, I can’t you know, like I used to say, I used to make this excuse all the time. I’m the primary person running sales within our company. So when it comes to sales calls and things like that, I thought to myself, I’m not good at sales. I’m a computer programmer by trade. I would use this as my cop out. I don’t have to do marketing sales well. I can’t do marketing sales. It’s just that it may not come naturally. So I have to train myself more. I have to be more intentional and empathetic about things. You find yourself constantly, like, thinking, wow, I completely ignore the fact that this team member had, like, a family crisis. I didn’t even really say anything to them other than, you improve your PTO and maybe I should have done more. Well, that’s when you start setting up systems and processes to try to account for those blind spots.

Identifying and Overcoming Blind Spots

Ange Maccabe: You know, we can’t utilize our blind spots as crutches or weaknesses as crutches. We need to put an SOP or system in place. Where my head goes is more to the human side of things and I like how you’re thinking about this but injecting also what resources are you utilizing to ensure that you’re understanding your blind spots and therefore being able to move to action? So things like different types of training that’s available online or in person or a coach specifically can help you go from that knowledge-to action place and can be kind of your champion when it comes to your blind spots. So I can really appreciate where you’re thinking from a place of a growth mindset. So everything is solvable especially when it comes to emotional intelligence pieces or our soft skills. And so what are we doing? A to understand them within ourselves and then b what are we going to do by way of actions to drive it?

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check Dianna Butler’s Leadership Spotlight on: Difficult Conversations

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Leadership Spotlight: Leadership is Learning

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #38 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Moncef has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Moncef Lakouas leads the Boys and Girls Club of Moncton as Executive Director. Moncef has worked as the First Vice President and President-Elect of the New Brunswick Multicultural Council and acts as a board and community member of various not-for-profit organizations. He supports multicultural talent, entrepreneurship and aims to retain international students and immigrants by making communities more inclusive and welcoming.

Here are the top 3 insights he shared with the community.

1. Tell us a little more about your journey and how you came to where you are today?

So I didn’t have a plan in my younger days, I was spending most of my time being good at what I did, which was studying, but I didn’t have a plan.

Until my mother came to me one day and she was like, what is your plan?

I was like, what do you mean?

She asked again, what’s your plan? What do you want to do? What do you want to become?

I was like well, I never thought of it. I’m just having a blast! That was at 18- 20 years old and it made me realize that you cannot live your life on a daily basis, you have to have a 10-year plan or a 20-year plan to get at it and make it even bigger.

So I sat down for the first time in my life and made a plan. I’m going to finish whatever I’m doing right now and I’m going to pursue my higher education. I sat down for a family meeting. Back then it was my father and my mother and myself. They asked me, OK, what do you want to do? We’ll support anything that you choose.

I said I guess I’m going to Canada. Why do you want to go to Canada? Well, I guess I’m intrigued by winter, and I’d like to see it, how it feels to live in winter for six months at a time and I just heard so many good things about Canada. A country of peace and the country of fairness and the country of human decency and what you can achieve, your full potential.

And then there I was on a plane. I’ve never travelled outside my country my whole life, and I packed my bags with some tears and goodbyes and I got to a land where I did not know a single person, but it was a plan. The first one that I ever had was just to finish my B.A. That’s it.

So my parents pretty much sold all they had to be able to help me afford my living conditions and to fulfill my dreams. My mother and my father invested a lot in my education, which was only enough to get me by for the first two years and I had to manage to find a way to pay for my tuition and my living expenses for the next two years.

So the plan was just to get by for the first four years and get a degree. Failure was not an option because there was no way on Earth that I’m going back to my mother and my father and I say I failed just because I couldn’t be disciplined enough to really get at it and graduate with my first degree, which in the end I did.

It was phenomenal, but mostly I was doing it for them. The first one was mostly my gift to them. And then when you get to that level you have some kind of empowerment that if I can get this small one done, I can go after bigger plans. That was the journey that if I can get this one done with all the struggles that come with it, I can probably adjust and recycle that plan and make it way bigger!

2. What has been your biggest ah-ha moment stepping into the role of Executive Director?

Well, sure. In the business world where I come from, it was all about clients. If you drive the client value, they’ll stay, and you survive kind of thing. So the most the big question of the day was what is the most important asset for an organization? And everybody had to answer “the client”. But when you lead a team without proper management of a team, there are no clients.

So who drives the value every single day for the clients?

It’s the team who drives, who wins the triangle of value from clients? I think it’s the team. Who excites the clients on a daily basis? The team. And who’s there to improve and innovate and make sure that the client gets the best product and services based on what they need or sometimes solving the problems for clients? The team.

So there is a lot of things that lead in this organization that made me realize that you cannot drive the value for the clients without first driving team development. If the client is not perceiving the value of your team they probably decide to move on to a different organization, can provide them with the values and the services they deserve to have.

So I’ll have to take a stand and will definitely go with the team first, client second. And that’s really interesting. It seems like the pandemic has allowed a lot of businesses to pause and it feels like there’s a shift from having the best infrastructure or I.T. to having the best teams.

3. What is a guiding principle that has an impact on your work?

My previous boss, Merv Simms, will say, perfect is the enemy of improvements. So if you have that perfect idea, you will never act because you’ll just delay, delay, delay for things to become perfect.

Instead, just do it and be good at it. It’s like almost the idea of building a plane while flying.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leadership, check out Tanya Priske share about Supporting Women Leaders in Business.

How to Practice Mindful Leadership With Your Team

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Dr. Eric Holsapple, Founder and Lead Facilitator at Living in the Gap.

Dr. Eric, has realized the value of mindfulness as not only a path to personal success, but as a sound business strategy. Mindfulness can increase company productivity, reduce health-care costs, and give businesses a competitive edge. It also creates an opportunity for far-reaching influence and impact. When shared within an organization, mindfulness produces a ripple effect that can not only transform company culture but can also expand the happiness and well-being of its employees, their families, communities, and essentially –the world.

Eric’s book, Profit with Presence: The Twelve Pillars of Mindful Leadership (available 3/7/23), helps readers learn that bringing mindfulness to the workplace is an investment that pays out real dividends.

In this episode, Dr. Eric and I examine how to practice mindful leadership within teams.

Building Trust Through Emotional Intelligence

Dr. Eric Holsapple: When you really dive in and get to know the people you work with, there is a trust that forms. You got their back. They got your back. Things happen. We had to close the home building division during COVID. We did it compassionately. I love those people. I didn’t want to do it, but it wasn’t working anymore. And I know that profit, it’s not a purpose, but it’s essential for me to be in business. And I find the emotional side, the emotional intelligence side at work, to be real is so much easier than to put on a facade. Just being human.

Self-Awareness

Dr. Eric Holsapple: When I change, others change. Because of my perception of them, because of the space I give them to change and for whatever they choose to do or not do. Right? I’m the only one I can really control.

How Perception Plays Out In the Workplace

Ange MacCabe: We definitely have a choice to identify with feelings that either fill our cups or deplete our cups. And that really drives the way we think, feel, and act and tying that into the business world, It’s very impactful with regards to how we create and make leadership decisions and how we decide to perceive certain situations. One example could be a team member that was newly promoted. The leader is super excited about them stepping up in leadership. Fast forward four months, and if they’re not sitting within those expectations that probably weren’t communicated, then judgment creeps in from senior leadership. And I’ve seen it happen time and time again, and it really comes down to three or four things. Is that C-suite leader self-aware? Are they passing judgment? What’s the lens that they typically put on things? What type of personal biases do they have? And then what do they do with that outcome? Right?

Maintaining Focus and Knowing and Understanding Your Role

Dr. Eric Holsapple: Some of my best business successes have been from failures. What I’ve learned is when I have a very narrow focus, I live in disappointment, and I don’t notice other things. But if I can let go of that and stay aware, I see opportunities that come up. It may not have been what I thought. And the same thing with people. Sometimes they’re in a role, and they’re just not the right one for that role. Right. But they do have a role. And my role is to help them find it. Within my company, maybe not.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: The Difficult Conversation: 5 Tips For Leaders

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Supporting Women in Business

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We’re excited to announce that after appearing on Episode #39 of the Elevate Business Podcast, Tanya Priske has been selected for the Intuity Performance Leadership Spotlight series.

Tanya Priske is the Executive Director at the Center for Women in Business. She brings global and corporate connections to drive her community forward with big-picture strategies with a focus on women business owners across Nova Scotia. With a passion for people, economic development, and the ability to identify new opportunities where ever she goes, Tanya and her team are on a mission to provide the resources women entrepreneurs need to overcome challenges and thrive.

Here are the top 3 insights she shared with the community.

1. How do you create the type of environment that enables your team members to thrive?

Covid has given us a gift, and I hate to say it that way, but it has. It has allowed us to reach more women, especially under-represented women, because through video chat, and through interactions like this, we have evened the playing field. During meetings etc. there are interruptions like kids popping up, but it’s happening to all of us.

Also, because we are working in unprecedented times, I put a lot of focus on employee needs and creating a human-centred environment. Do you need another screen? Do you need your computer from work? Do you need your chair from work? Do you require help with professional development?

When we first went virtual, we connected no less than three times a week, so checking in to make sure everybody is doing okay is important.

I mean, I’ve worked remotely for 17 years, so it’s easy for me, but the transition was difficult. And even some of our team members, who I had said before to them before the Pandemic closed us down, you don’t have to be in the office.

I feel it is important to trust and understand that objectives and tasks will get done, regardless of what my team has on their plates.

2. What programs or development are you seeing women business owners seek in relation to growth during this time?

Over the last 14 months – a lot of the changes have been digital assets. Upgrading of websites, upgrading of shopping channels, for trainers and facilitators it was taking their programs totally virtual. There were also a lot of opportunities. A lot of businesses couldn’t keep up, depending on what sector they were in. I’m growing exponentially!

There has also been a focus on maintaining employees, both from the financial perspective of the business owner as well as the human perspective of their employees.

And of course the mental anguish the current situation is presenting, women are suddenly all things to everyone: babysitter, teacher, caretaker to elderly parents.

I try to help women understand that there are outlets for them and that they are not alone.

3. What exciting things can we expect to see from The Centre for Women in Business in the next 12 months?

We are turning 30 which is big! We’re looking ahead in terms of helping women with growth in their companies in terms of export markets and virtual markets. Virtual markets have been great, especially for women, because it can be challenging to not only just get away from your office, but also, to find time away from family, so the opportunity to be virtual has been tremendous.

Getting more women into supply chains, and making sure that women know of the advantages has been my passion for ten years. So that’s a piece that we’ll continue to look at.

In a few weeks our Greater Heights for Growth project is launching, which focuses on working specifically with women across Canada that have a million plus revenue.

We will also have a new President at Mount Saint Vincent University in the coming months, and we are excited about the new direction, and the focus that the Mount is putting on helping women on the entrepreneurship side.

If you enjoyed Tanya’s discussion on supporting women in business, check out Todd Usen’s spotlight series on Building Team Trust.

Leadership Spotlight: Difficult Conversations

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Diana Butler.

Diana is an HR professional working in the tech industry with a passion for people and an interest in how focusing on individual needs can drive performance in the workplace.

Leave Your Issues at The Door

Diana Butler: We hear a lot of people say, leave your home issues at home. We don’t have space for them at work. Right? And that’s not really fair. You can’t ask people to completely shut off areas in their life that they’re maybe struggling with or trying to understand better. I see it. As humans, things happening in our lives consume us. There’s a point where we need to just let people be who they are and have that conversation. What’s going on? Something seems off right now. Are you okay? And that is something that’s frowned upon. We’re getting better. Companies are doing better, and managers are doing better at taking a human-centric approach. And at the core of it, it frees people up to not have to hide the heavy. We talk at work as if we’re a family. Well, if somebody’s going through stuff and all you can think about are metrics, it’s like, okay, great, but there’s something off.

Why Self-awareness Is Important in the Workplace

Diana Butler: I’m at work, and something is incredibly triggering me today, and I don’t have the self-awareness around it; then I’m going to charge through my day and tear everything up in my path. Right? And so to me, that’s, oh, I see something. They’re triggering me. I need to be curious about it. What’s going on? You can drill down a little bit. For me, it’s, well, maybe I thought I was supporting correctly, and now I feel like I didn’t help. Right. And now I’m like I’m not good enough at this moment? And some people double down. Well, now I’m going to really prove it. And so, like, I’m just going to shrink. And that’s something I used to do. I used to shrink when I felt that little bit of, like, a pullback from maybe I didn’t do good enough. But if I haven’t worked on that in myself, that trigger can really cause issues in the relationships around me.

Framing Difficult Conversations as Opportunities

Ange MacCabe: Not that we want to approach every conversation with it being challenging or complex or difficult, but when they do arise, having the culture set in place, at the end of the day, we trust that we’re looking at this from a place of curiosity in the first instance and navigating it from a place of problem-solving. My business partner and I – whenever we’re strategizing, we make jokes, you know, Are you ready to rumble? Because we know what that signals to each other is that we may have disagreements, but at the end of the day, we’re two very different people that complement each other, which makes our business great. And so it’s ensuring that your team members know it’s okay to have differences of opinion. It’s how we go about it. And trusting that at the end of the conversation, we may not always have a resolution immediately, but minimally, we’re going to have some action steps or something else to percolate on so we can come back to the table for future conversations.

Having Difficult Conversations Can Lead To Team Connectivity

Diana Butler: People inherently want to do a really great job. And sometimes you hear the conversations of, oh, they’re lazy, or they don’t want to do this but are you motivating them correctly? Also, difficult conversations don’t always arise when something goes wrong. For some people, a hard conversation is getting to that next level of connection. And that’s where the magic is because you find out what makes people tick, and you find out, oh my gosh, you’re curious about this, and you’re motivated by this. I’ve been thinking about a project, and this is where we’re aligning. And so it’s giving people the freedom to express and be who they are without fear of, I’m not going to fit in here differently. And that creates the space for people to showcase the gifts and abilities we don’t see on a resume.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Jeff McCann’s Leadership Spotlight on: The Key to Performance is Executing

How to Effectively Lead Your People While Scaling

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Ryan Benn, CEO and Group Publisher at

Alive Publishing Group Inc.

In this episode, Ryan dives into the strategies behind establishing effective workplace relationships and how that translates to scaling business.

Building Effective Teams

Ryan Benn: So then it’s a way that makes sense for me because I think many of us would default to going out and being like, I’m going to hire the best person for that job. And then you go separately, two months later, I’m going to hire the best person for that job. I’m going to hire the best IT manager. I’m going to hire the best HR manager. I’m going to hire the best accountant that you can find. Kind of logical. It’s kind of how the process is built. It’s expected, right? You end up with the best in everything, and you go, none of these people want to work together. None of them are collaborative. They all have different interests. And this whole thing is breaking down.

Culture Misalignment

Ange MacCabe: What drives me crazy is when people in positions of power talk about their employees, like their family, to create that psychological contract, but they don’t treat them like family. Right. What you’re subscribing to, or what I’m hearing from you, is that you have a community, and it feels family-orientated. Like there is authenticity in what you’re saying, Ryan, which is absolutely amazing, the other piece that comes up for me is often, team members come into the workplace that they’re not going to be like, I’m going to do a shit job for Ryan today. They’re going to be like, I want to do the best job ever, and I don’t know how to do it. So I’m going to stress myself out until I get there. As leaders, the onus is on us to be able to help mentor, not manage the work-life integration pieces. And so that when you really know your people and what motivates them. For some people, they really do need that black and white.

Work is work. Personal is personal, and I need that divide, or I can’t shut off, and it stresses me out. If that’s their persona, then it’s leaning into them to help mentor so that it fits from a culture or company perspective.

Not Subscribing to Old School Leadership Styles

Ryan Benn: When you’re aware of your blind spots and accept them or work to change them. It really helps because these are such buzzwords when I say things like transparency and authenticity. But I really believe in them from a leadership perspective. I think it’s the modern world; I don’t think leaders should be viewed as infallible and more knowledgeable than everybody else. I think it’s such an old-school approach to leadership.

Relentlessly Self Aware

Ange MacCabe: Stepping back a little bit. You had identified early on that you were able to really go inward and identify your strengths and areas of growth, and therefore, you were able to hire for your weaknesses, and you were vulnerable about the same. That takes a bit of self-reflection and cause and effect. Ryan in the sense of being able to do this in a two-pronged step. So, one, what’s going on with me internally? And then two, how do I communicate that and exhibit that to my team members so that there’s actual validity behind what I’m saying versus discredit? What was your approach to that? How did you go about it?

Ryan Benn: Yeah. Super interesting. It’s not easy, and for me, it probably came easier. I don’t know why, nature vs. nurture, I’m not sure. But for certain, I think the skill is, I would say, relentlessly self-aware.

I like to be able to think that I can walk out of here and say, listen, you might not like it, I might not like it, but I’m this, then I can at least say, well, I want to change that, or I don’t want to change that, but at least knowing that it’s actually there. I think blind spots in leadership are one of the hardest things, which is not being able to step back and say, how are others viewing me?

You Can’t Fake Experience

Ryan Benn: From a leadership perspective. One of the things I’ve realized is that in one of my coin lines, you can’t fake experience. So when I was first jumping into the role, I could have energy, I could have vitality, I could have leadership skills, but I’d never been through a recession, I’d never led change, I never acquired a company, I’d never done any of these things. So first acknowledging that was a big point of personal growth for me was accepting the fact that I didn’t bring that experience. How was I going to surround myself and gain that experience with having peers and leadership around me and, at the same time, just being comfortable with the fact that I could ask questions and say, I’ve never done this before?

For more leadership insights check out my blog: Fostering Community

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Supporting Scaling Teams

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How to Support Teams as they Scale

I had the chance to chat with Phil Chang and Kenny Vannucci from This Commerce Life about what it looks like to support teams as they scale.

These are the main takeaways from this conversation.

Going from Player to Coach – Kenny

“I always go back to sports. You’ve got to go from being the player to being the coach. And you have to understand what that transition means you delegate. And delegate doesn’t mean you throw shit on people’s desks and walk away. Delegation is teaching – putting it on the desk, following up, and understanding what you’re good at and maybe not good at— potentially hiring a good assistant coach. But I think most fall apart because most entrepreneurs or founders think they can do it all. Yeah. And if they could do it all, why are they talking to anybody about anything? Just do it. Right. But what they should find out is there are only X amount of hours in a day, and quite frankly, you can’t do it all, and you can’t do it all well.”

Keeping Teams in The Loop – Phil

“In that process of growing, we need to keep doing is briefing our teams right like the ability to keep your team on track and yet give them enough room involves here’s where we want months ago here are the taboo things or the things you cannot do. Everything else is fair game. I don’t know what it’s going to look like because even the three of us, if I said, draw me a garden, the three of us would come up with something different, but at the end of the day, that’s what I wanted.”

Start Thinking Like a CEO – Phil

When you’re an owner, you’re used to doing everything independently. It’s a tried and true formula. You rely on yourself. The inspiration is from you. You have to have a certain stubbornness and no fear. Because everyone will say you can’t. I can’t do it. You can’t do it. And you build that kind of like ironclad. I can do it. I’m going to make it. Screw you, guys. I got to get it done. But when you want to scale, I feel like the first thing those folks need to do is stop thinking like an owner and start thinking like a CEO.

Leading Without Ego – Me (Ange MacCabe)

“And I can tell you within my growth and getting vulnerable here, the Ange three years ago would not sit in front of a group and say, hey, can you critique me on, you know, on my video or my presentation or hit, right? I could not do that at that point. I did it two months ago and didn’t even think about it. And my team, the first thing they said to me was, are you sure right now? Do you want us to take it away and then give you written feedback?

And I’m like; we’re doing a working meeting, so let’s hear what we have to say here. It’s okay. Safe space. We’re all flipping friends here. And it took them a minute.

And we’re all coaches and consultants. We play in this space. It took them a minute to adjust to that concept, I’m going to give my CEO and co-founder feedback, and she will be okay with it. And it was a huge learning opportunity for the team and me to be like, okay, so this is a safe space to speak.

For more leadership insights, check out our post on Fueling Team Performance.