IAM057 – Coach Helps Businesses & Associations Develop & Sustain High Performing Work Culture

Ron helps for profit businesses and non-for-profit associations develop and sustain a high performing work culture in which people trust each other and communicate effectively. They do this through personality insights, and teaching and implementing leadership principles. Ron leads Mastermind Groups and is also a Certified Coach.

• CEO Hack: Setting time aside for quality thinking and determining if every minute is intentional (e.g. appointments). “Am I more active than I am productive?”
• CEO Nugget: Pareto Principle – 80/20 rule
• CEO Defined: I am responsible for everything that happens within my organization

Website: http://www.thecooperculture.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCooperCulture

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ron Cooper of the Cooper Culture.

Well, what I want to do, is read a little bit more about Ron so you can learn a little bit more about all the awesome things that he's doing and has accomplished.

Ron helps for-profit businesses and non-for-profit associations develop and sustain a high-performing work culture in which people trust each other and communicate effectively. They do this through personality insights in teaching and implementing leadership principles.

Ron, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Ronald Cooper 1:02

I certainly am. Gresh. Let's go for it.

Gresham Harkless 1:04

Awesome. Well, the first question I have is just to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. What led you to start your business?

Ronald Cooper 1:11

Yes, thank you for the opportunity Gresh. I will tell you that I'm going to start out just very briefly CEO, Chief Executive Officer as a title and I personally am not as enamored with titles as I am functioning very effectively with people. I feel that my position is to work with people and put a focus on them. But as the CEO and founder of the company, the word culture is in my company name, because that is a somewhat euphemistic term. I think all of us are aware of culture, but we sometimes don't know exactly what it is that makes a culture.

Every company has a culture. Every family for that matter has a culture. That's the overall environment in which we operate in the net context Gresh in your audience, and what we do is help assess that culture, and is the culture one that would help a person grow professionally, if that's their goal, is there want a culture in the company that is aiding and abetting, communication, trust, and so forth, those are all things that go together collectively to help an organization function at its peak in those for-profit businesses, and the people trust each other and are operating at what we call high performing level profits will increase.

The other thing about it is personnel retention will increase because Gresh as you and I and many people know if the work environment is right if I feel that people actually value me, I'm going to enjoy going to work as opposed to Gosh, man, I just have to push myself to get into work. But all of those are some of the factors that go into a culture and one final word Gresh. The word transformation to people, those in an organization want to transform that culture, through transforming themselves, we want to be a catalyst to do that.

In other words, I'm here to help you, I will help you assess your organization and I'll help you go wherever it is you want to go in quality thinking is part of what we're about Gresh. So I don't want to dominate the time and pontificate. But that is a lot of what we're about in the term transformation, it is the very operative term.

Gresham Harkless 3:53

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And transformation is obviously a powerful word. And what I wanted to do was, I guess, hear a little bit more about how you help service those clients and how you help them to transform themselves, but also their organizations as a whole.

Ronald Cooper 4:05

I was 22 years with Air Force, I was an F-4 F-16 pilot in that 22 years experience with the Air Force and follow in the aerospace industry, I work with businesses and organizations some of which function very well, and were the type of organization I described. But then I've worked in places that were not what I just described, and Gresh I know that for those organizations that desire to have transformation affected in the organization, I can help with that. So I know what it is to be in a work environment where I just don't enjoy the work, I don't feel people trust each other, we don't communicate really well in or variations of that.

So I feel that having the discipline of the military, I can help with the discipline in a workplace to help achieve whatever level of transformation, a business owner or any decision maker may want to help. But one of the words that are very operative is intentional that nothing of lasting value, I have learned Gresh occurs without being intentional. So with the military discipline that I had, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I had in the military, I want to leverage that work ethic to help other organizations develop being intentional and to develop work ethic that is required to affect whatever transformation a business owner might want to make.

So I have a varied background, I was raised on a dairy farm and played high school and some college sports, so I know the rigor of discipline, and I know how important that is. So Gresh I want to help people and organizations to exercise that discipline.

Gresham Harkless 5:56

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And obviously, the repetition hits home though, because a lot of that goes back to the discipline and the idea of being intentional, like you said, and doing things on a consistent basis as mentioned. So that definitely hits home for all our readers and our listeners out there.

I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, which is something that you feel kind of distinguishes your organization, your business.

Ronald Cooper 6:17

Yeah, I think one of the things that do distinguish our business, I am a certified coach, the term coach is probably one of the most misunderstood disciplines, the coaching that I do is, I help people operate at their maximum potential, I want to help people stimulate their thinking and one of the unique things that we do is help people with a quality thinking process, and that quality thinking does involve critical thinking, which is a part of our very fundamental organization.

So that part of being able to think through what we're doing develops quality thinking time, and as a little bit of an aside, I found it to be very important. If we don't set aside time for quality thinking, it's not going to happen and that thinking is a matter of thinking about where we are versus where we want to be and whether can we always improve, and that improving necessarily equates to changing.

Gresham Harkless 7:22

Yeah, I love that. I love that aspect of incorporating the thinking and how important that is, and how, again, being intentional and making sure that, hey, I want to get to this point. So this is what I have to do to do that. But that does take the time and the resources that you provide, or that you help people to make sure that they have the time in order to have those conversations and figure out exactly where they want to go. So I think that's awesome that you guys are able to do that.

What I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app or book or habit that you have that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Ronald Cooper 7:57

I will tell you. I think there are several things that come to mind, again, in the context of quality thinking, if my schedule is full of appointments, and I use the term frequently, am I more active than I am productive? And I must take the time to think through my individual schedule. Am I just going through a bunch of activities? Am I traveling from place to place? Or can I say that each one of those points of activity is productive, in reaching my longer-range strategic goals?

Gresham Harkless 8:33

I love that it sounds so small, but just making sure that you schedule a time in order to do that does help you to reach your goals because you have that quality time and you're looking at quality versus quantity. Do I have 100 meetings this week? Or do I have 20 high-quality meetings and setting up time so that you're able to make those evaluations and look to see what's working and what's not aligned with what it is that you're doing? So I love that CEO hack.

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This might be a word of wisdom or piece of advice that you might have for entrepreneurs and business owners.

Ronald Cooper 9:04

I would say, Gresh, at least one thing is the Pareto Principle. Many people know that as the 80/20. That is over a longer term when you have a larger sampling 80% of your product will occur with 20% of the most productive people areas and so forth. I have been caught up perhaps you and some of your lessons have been caught up in this activity crunch, where we just keep going at something and it's part of the lesser productive part.

So I am not trying to say that I'm going to cast off anyone that is not productive. However, I do need to strategize and very carefully select those areas in which I choose to put time and I'm trying to continuously assess where I think that most productive time is. Yes, revenue counts but I don't focus exclusively on revenue, I am looking for growth that occurs in myself and others. But certainly, personal growth is more difficult to measure than Objective growth such as height, weight, and so forth. But that's just one aspect of things that I tried to focus on.

Gresham Harkless 10:24

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Like you said, it's all in alignment, which I love is that the aspect is you're taking time in order to kind of look at exactly what's working and what's related to the Pareto principle that's actually moving the needle and not moving the needle and understanding, do you want something to accelerate growth as far as the number of sales? Or is it something that's more personal, that might serve you long-term, or just make you feel better? So getting that opportunity and creating time in order to evaluate that is huge. So I love that CEO nugget as well.

Ronald Cooper 10:51

Yeah, Gresh, that has worked very well with many of the clients we're working with. Again, there are a lot of people that get caught up in activity and if you don't take the time to be intentional to review your schedule, and just how productive you are, the day just tends to go by. People tend to schedule things, and you're just following a routine and leaders need to take action not to be reactive to what is happening.

So if taken in the wrong context, that could sound very dictatorial, but it's not, you just need to review what are doing and you need to be very purposeful and intentional about the direction you want to go.

Gresham Harkless 11:31

Yeah, and with time being one of those resources that you can't buy more of, to some degree, it's something you want to make sure that you definitely protect and to make sure that you're doing it with intent like you mentioned. So I appreciate that, Ron.

What I wanted to do is ask you what is my favorite question, you touched on it a little bit, which is how you would define being a CEO? We're hoping to have different CEOs on the podcast, but I want to ask you specifically what does being a CEO means to you?

Ronald Cooper 11:55

To me, It means that I am responsible for everything that happens in my organization. There is a marketing aspect that I want to make myself known to people. But first off, I want to be known for caring about other people. That is, yes, my company, and I certainly have the capability but I want to focus more on your needs and my prospective client's needs. So that to me, is a mindset. So one of the things that I try to focus on and our respective clients that the decision makers is a mindset, what is your mindset let's just talk briefly about personnel retention, if your goal is to maybe have 95% plus retention, are you focused on people, their needs, the environment, the culture, and so forth.

So as a CEO, I want to help people to be able to think about those things that have long-lasting consequences and the focus is on other people. It's not about me, the term again, CEO, to me means I have responsibilities to learn about and know how to effectively interact with other people. So everything about me Gresh is others in helping others achieve what it is they want to achieve. When I'm able to help others Zig Ziglar put it very well, “In life, I can have anything I want, when I have helped enough people get to where they want to be.”, and that to me is one of the principal, the operatives of a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 12:04

I love that Ron and wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak, to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get a hold of you.

Ronald Cooper 13:41

Well, yes, certainly they can go look on our website first. That is www.thecooperculture.com, that is about us, what we're about, we are a personality-based business and very briefly Gresh, I have learned through life that much of an organization, much about us is personality based my personality is, I tend to be a domineering kind of person, I feel very assured of who I am, which is very different from when I was at an earlier age and as we learn to know ourselves first, that law of awareness, then learn to know who others are, and that is going to be very appropriate in helping us to get along with each other.

So our website explains a lot of our capabilities but I would say first and foremost is for any organization that might resonate with what we're talking about, First off, start off with an assessment, if the decision maker knows their organization, knows what they need, and they know how to get to where they are, but they're a little bit uncertain of the steps needed to get there, I will do what I can to help assess them, but it all starts with an assessment and we have a couple of different ways that we can assess an organization and we can take it from the ground level one up, or I'll be happy to take an assessment of the decision making within an organization. So that personality underlying attribute is what we're about and then once we understand people and who it is that we have, then the leadership principles apply, and much of the other things that I've just discussed, so that is pretty much a succinct way, is what we're about, and how we might be able to help other organizations and individuals.

Gresham Harkless 15:33

Awesome. We'll make sure we have the link to your website in the show notes so anybody can follow up with you and set up that consultation and set down that initial conversation that you have as well, too. But Ron, thank you so much again for all the awesome things that you're doing and all the awesome value that you provided today.

I just hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ronald Cooper 15:52

Gresh, we certainly will. They can call us at 410-586-1875 and I use the approach, we'll just have an exploratory conversation and see if I might be able to help anyone add value to the organization and their people.

Outro 16:11

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless.

Thank you for listening.

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