IAM396- CEO Helps Companies Build Strong Teams and Grow Great Leaders

Murray Seward, CEO of Outback Team Building & Training. His team helps companies all over North America build strong teams, develop team member's soft skills, and grow great leaders. Murray is a proponent of CEOs working toward building a self-managing company to provide an extraordinary work-life balance and to be able to live stories worth telling.

• CEO Hack: Book/habit – Scaling up: Rockefeller's habits
• CEO Nugget: Make sure you have a lawyer, KPIs, and an accountant in your business
• CEO Defined: Empowering the younger generation

Website: http://outbackteambuilding.com/

HuffPost feature: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/this-entrepreneur-more-th_b_11306244

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Transcription

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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 the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I've Murray Seward of Outback team building and training. Marray, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Murray Seward 0:39

Gresh, great to be here looking forward to it

Gresham Harkless 0:42

Definitely looking forward to it as well. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Murray so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Murray is the CEO of Outback team building and training. His team helps companies all over North America, build strong teams develop team members' soft skills, and grow leaders. Murray's a proponent of CEOs working towards building a self-managing company to provide an extraordinary work-life balance, and to be able to live stories worth telling Murray, are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

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Murray Seward 1:09

Absolutely. Let's get it on.

Gresham Harkless 1:11

Let's do it. So they kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Murray Seward 1:17

Yeah, so I was always the kid. And it'll be perfectly humbling. Honestly, I was always the kid who was a terrible employee. You know, anytime if it was just a one, you know, figure that out. But if you put me into it, that's always the kid was one to organize it. So I was the kid who organized ski trips, and dances and, and all those sorts of fun things. So back in the mid-90s, I got an opportunity to sell ski trips for a living with this company called Canadian Outback. And got going with that. And over time, we ended up changing that company from ski trips around trips to getting into more corporate team-building activities.

My boss at the time decided he wanted to step away from the business. And he thought maybe that I could lead the business. Through the school of hard knocks and lots of great mentoring from, Jamie Corbett, we ended up growing the business I grew the business found some phenomenal leaders, and learned the important lesson of empowering leadership hiring great leaders, and hiring great team members. And then wonderful things can happen with your business because it's so much less reliant on you. So that was sort of my journey to get me from the start to where I am today.

Gresham Harkless 2:22

Yeah, and that's what I loved about you know, when I was reading your bio it was just the idea of building a self-managing company. Because I think so many times when you're trying to build an organization, it can sometimes start, you know, with you doing a lot or especially if you're a startup founder, but it starts a fall behind that. And that's sometimes one of the biggest and hardest things that leaders and CEOs in C suite and people really struggle with is growing beyond themselves and being able to have that great team so you can be successful.

Murray Seward 2:48

Yeah, a lot, a lot of that comes down to being humble, right, and being able to accept the fact that others may be better than you, and likely are better than you at certain components of things. So figuring out what your unique abilities are, we'll continue to do those things. But those things that aren't your unique ability, those things you don't like to do, therefore, you put them off, or don't do them very well find others who do like to do those things.

As I learned many, many years ago, it's incredible what those people when they're engaged will do and how they will help you build things to be far better and far more palatable as far as work-life balance as well.

Gresham Harkless 3:23

Absolutely, yeah, we all have kind of our zones of genius. And if we as leaders, but also as people that are on our teams, as well, too, are able to kind of work in those zones of geniuses, I guess you can call them. And that's when you know, really great things start to happen.

Murray Seward 3:36

Yeah, absolutely. So very true.

Gresham Harkless 3:38

Nice. And so I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing with Outback team building and training, could you break down, you know, some of the things that you're doing, how you're serving the client you're working with?

Murray Seward 3:46

Yeah, so you know, product lines are really, really quite simple. I mean, really, it's everything from fun team building activities to soft skill training, where people maybe have a leadership team or their own team within their group that wants to learn how to communicate with each other better, those types of things, up to mindset leadership, mindset training for C level, C suite, groups, that type of thing.

Really, what we've done is we've taken those products and tried to figure out how to market and sell them a little bit more effectively, how to reach the community more so how to find those people that are needing that they're eating those products and services. And then really selling on a consultative basis, not not a hard sell by any means. Finding those people that have the pains, that they really want to try and fix things and maybe they tried things in the past. And we tried to provide a more customized approach to how to solve those problems. So that's kind of what we're what we're all about.

Gresham Harkless 4:39

That makes perfect sense. And it's definitely you know, straightforward. Well, let me ask you this because I know you touched on a little bit of those pains. Do you find that there a common pains that you know, sometimes you know, you need help but you're not really sure when you need help those pains kind of showcase that there are there's some of those that you find come up with your clients.

Murray Seward 4:56

Yeah, no, absolutely. And everything from you know, minor pain leads to major pain. But literally, it typically is that team leader, whether they're a manager or coordinator, whatever they might be that team leader who decides that things aren't working exactly how they want them to work, or that they're trying to get things to work differently, and they have a change management issue they need to do.

And then that's when they're trying to figure out, hey, are there other things that I can do to help facilitate this change, to make people or help them think differently, that type of thing? So that's when they'll start searching the internet trying to find ways to do this. And often they'll come across our team, and we can chat with them about that.

Gresham Harkless 5:32

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. And I know those pains, you try to always be on the offensive so that you don't have the, you know, feel those pains. But a lot of times, that just kind of happens with time. And with evolution, as you said, pivoting and changing things. Sometimes that just happens as a course of business.

Murray Seward 5:47

Yeah, and depends too on the higher leadership, you know, whether it's, as I call them, a new school company, organization, or an old school organization, well, tool organizations, you know, frankly, don't really care all that much about those types of things. And it's just business as usual. We're a new school, you know, they want their people to be engaged, they want their people to grow. And so they're looking for often external resources. Some companies do all this internally and have internal teams that work on all this. And that's great, too. But it's those companies that typically are reaching out to us, they're trying to figure out how they can invest in their people to help things work better.

Gresham Harkless 6:21

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think as you know, millennials and younger generations probably have different values and different things they're looking for in companies, it probably is on the C suite to also look into how they can do things on a better level to connect with, you know, those types of potential employees.

Murray Seward 6:39

Yeah, that makes total sense. I'm a firm believer, whether millennial or not or whatever, you know, the bottom line is people want to know, what are they responsible for delivering in their role? What skills? Or do they need to do that? What attitudes do they need to achieve that mental outlook? Do they need to do that? And can they get assistance with growing those things if they don't quite have what they need to do that?

If so, they're provided the learning opportunities, leadership, growth opportunities, whatever it might be in order to meet the responsibilities in their role, then everybody that works out great, and maybe that person isn't capable of fulfilling those responsibilities in the role, then you need to move on to a different role. That's a good thing. But you know, the companies that believe that people can grow and will help them grow, those companies will typically my mind entities always do better.

Gresham Harkless 7:24

Yeah, that makes perfect sense when putting the people first is always you know, of tremendous importance. And I wanted to ask you, you might have already touched on this for what I call your secret sauce, and it could be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Murray Seward 7:37

Yeah, I think it really ties into that last answer I just gave, which was talking about people knowing what their responsibilities are for delivering in their role. And if you can get that clarified, we use what we call a performance management system to do that, where everything is documented with the team member, you know, this on a half-yearly basis.

So this six months, this is what we're hoping that you can deliver for us. And also in that agreement, a really nice piece of secret sauce, this is how we want you to deliver it. So this is kind of what your actions are that we want you to do and that you agreed to do. And then this is sort of how you're going to do those things that kind of tie in with core values.

So when you come across a problem, you're going to react this way instead of this way, that type of thing, getting that alignment off the bat, right off the bat before the period starts, instead of waiting till the end of the period for that end of year review, where you have that surprise meeting where the employee thought they were doing great, but the leader didn't think they're doing great, you can avoid that using this performance management system. So that's one of the one of the great secret sauces that we've used. We're still trying to get better at it. We're still trying to perfect it. But it's made a big difference.

Gresham Harkless 8:43

Yeah, it definitely sounds like it comes down to, you know, a lot of communication especially the in the forefront. Because a lot of times like you said, and when you get to that last or end of the year review, you think you're doing a great job. And then you know, you're told you're not doing a great job. But you don't really know because there's been a lack of communication sometimes.

Murray Seward 8:58

Exactly. Yeah. As part of it, we do monthly catch up. So every month, that document comes out, talk about these three, the seven things that we wanted you to work on this month and get done, how are they going? I cannot I can't get to that anymore, because this new thing has happened. So let's remove that from the performance agreement. It's all out in the open on open, honest communication. Everything is there, there are no surprises doesn't mean that everything always gets delivered. But at least it's this open communication channel that there's no surprise at the end.

Gresham Harkless 9:27

Exactly. So nobody definitely you know, likes that as much. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Murray Seward 9:39

Yeah, for me, the big one has been Vern Harnish and his Rockefeller Habits, book and Scaling Up the book. That was a huge pivot for us. Prior to finding him and finding that methodology. I was doing things very randomly in the business and our leaders were doing things quite randomly in the business. Once we've adopted that methodology to the Scaling Up methodology, you're taking care of some key components of your business in a very organized way.

Gresham Harkless 10:09

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. And funny enough, I think I was at a yard sale about a month or two ago. And I was looking at a bunch of books and I said, Hey, I'm gonna grab this book because you can't go wrong with getting something to say Rockefeller habits. And it was actually that book that you're speaking about. So that's funny, and I definitely haven't gone all the way through it. But now I definitely will.

Murray Seward 10:26

Yeah, no, it just adds a very structured methodology to how you run the business. Starting from an annual planning session down to quarterly is down the monthly performance agreements that we talked about upgrading and different recruiting systems, and it just sort of gives you a formula. It doesn't guarantee success. Absolutely not. But at least it's going to give you a fighting chance of being successful as you scale up and grow your business.

Gresham Harkless 10:48

Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of times, it's all about kind of stacking the deck. So you can't guarantee success, but you try to do as much as possible to make sure you're as close to success as possible. So it's definitely a great example of a hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you could happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Murray Seward 11:08

Yeah, I think I remember one of my very first pieces of advice in business was to make sure that you have a lawyer and an accountant. And I thought, why do I need that sort of my bank balance, see how it's doing? A piece of advice for that is not only, you know, have an accountant, but have KPIs in your business that you can measure regularly. KPI means key performance indicators. So that you can see trends that are happening, you can see bad things happening before you go broke or before you go out of business. That's something I didn't have any concept of many, many years ago, again, I ran my business, my bank account balance was more than zero, and I thought I was doing great.

Ignore the fact that I would be offending other people's money and all this sort of thing. So I've KPIs and there's all kinds of tools now in the cloud, Google Sheets, all the rest of it, where you can track all this stuff. But keep an eye on things. It's like playing golf, if you don't actually use the scorecard, you might think you play great. But the reality is you shot 115, again, or even more. So right to break down that scorecard. You know, how did I? How did they draw it? So how do those measurables you figure out where you need to improve your game? In real-time, ideally, so that's that's a hack. I think that's a great thing for people to do.

Gresham Harkless 12:19

Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely say that. Yeah, because a lot of times, it's kind of like, well, we go back to, when we're talking about what these, you know, your clients work with, a lot of times, we don't pay attention to those KPIs, and then we have that pain. But if you're paying attention to those KPIs, and all the time, a lot of times you can, you know, be ahead of those pains before they actually happen.

Murray Seward 12:40

It's like the engine light in the car, right? I mean, it's there for a reason, a lot of people ignore the answer, and then they wonder why their car caught on fire. Engine light is that morning, like, it's looking at all these measurables that don't mean the car is gonna die. But it's like, okay, there's something here I gotta look at. So that's what I'm suggesting is building that engine light into your business that's constantly monitoring different systems.

But that, again, comes back to that self-managing company, where if you're, you're busy in the day to day in the trees, doing everything, you don't have time or energy to do that sort of stuff. Unfortunately, when you're in startup mode, often you have to do both. And that's, you know, that's the working big hours to do the job. And then the evenings, you got to kind of assess the company and how it's doing so. But that's the check engine light security.

Gresham Harkless 13:22

Exactly. That makes perfect sense. And so now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So Murray, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Murray Seward 13:34

To me, it means empowering, in my case, the younger generation of what the reality and phenomenal things of a great work-life can be, and how they can impart power to you. So as a CEO, I get the chance to do that, I get the chance to meet lots of people who are typically in their 20s and early 30s. This may be their first job, their first company, or they may have been in other companies, but I'd like to paint a picture for them of what work can be, what a great work environment can be, and how to assess what those are and whether they are a great fit for you in order and if, for example, if our business isn't a great fit for you, how to find companies that are a great fit for you. So that's you know, the beauty for me I'm getting to be a CEO is is to do just that, to help these people get off on a great foot in their career, whether they stay with us or move on to others. It's how to get on that great start in their career.

Gresham Harkless 14:31

Yeah, absolutely. It definitely is something awesome and you know, a lot of times you know, being able to pay it forward is sometimes one of the best gifts you can you can have. So you've been able to do that. It's definitely great. And I appreciate you for even doing that with us today. And I appreciate your time and all the awesome things you're doing what I wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course how best they can get a hold of you.

Murray Seward 14:54

Yeah, I guess I mean, the only other thing I would say is that I never went to school for business. I learned the business through books. I highly recommend it to people, there's just so much nowadays, it's not just books, there's podcasts, there's everything you could ever want to know from the most brilliant minds in business, doesn't matter who it is, you know, starting Bill Gates, whoever you may hear about or like to read about all the information is there. So absorb that information as much as you can.

My other piece about that is although don't get overloaded, absorb and then implement. So those are those are that's a little nugget I like to give people for that. As far as how to get a hold of me and our company. We're outbackteambuilding.com. You can reach me anytime. My email is simply murray@outbackteambuilding.com more than happy to answer any questions.

I love talking with other entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to the self-managing concept and this work-life balance concept. A few nuggets I can share and some tips that you may want to try to implement if you're if you're really feeling stressed out about that balance. Get him to get in touch with me and I can certainly give you a few pieces of advice.

Gresham Harkless 16:02

Nice Well I definitely appreciate that Murray and what we'll do is we'll have those links in that information in the show notes as well. But again, I appreciate you for paying it forward and giving us so much great information and knowledge so that we can be better leaders and CEOs and people and team members as well. But they appreciate you again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Murray Seward 16:20

Nice Gresh Thank you.

OUTRO 16:22

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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