IAM2304 – CEO Helps Clients Articulate their Visions through Compelling Stories

Title: Transcript - Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:43:02 GMT

Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:43:02 GMT, Duration: [00:16:59.71]

[00:00:00.32] - Mike Wittenstein

So what we typically do is somebody will come to us and say, hey Story miners, I'm stuck. Because. And then they'll fill in the blank. One of their stucks is I can't get my people to follow me. I've got all these ideas, but nobody's on board. So whether that's a mid level manager or an executive, we blend the power of story and customer experience to suck out of them all the juicy parts of their ideas and recast it back as an experience of the future.

[00:00:29.17] - Intro

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 Harkness 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.

[00:00:54.45] - Gresham Harkless

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 Mike Wittenstein of Story Miners. Mike, it's awesome to have you on.

[00:01:03.67] - Mike Wittenstein

Thanks for having me.

[00:01:04.89] - Gresham Harkless

No problem, no problem. And what the first thing that I wanted to do is introduce Mike so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Mike Winstein is a serial entrepreneur and CEO in the professional services space. He started his first consultancy while still in grad school called Galileo, one of the world's first Digital Agencies in 1992. Joined IBM's Global Services in the role of Evisionary, then founded Storyminers, one of the world's first customer experience design consultancies in 2002. He's worked with global brands, regional leaders and startups as an advisor, board member, consultant and facilitator. Mike's businesses always support his clients desired outcomes. He believes that building in agility has helped him to succeed over time. Mike, are you ready to speak to the IMCEO community?

[00:01:52.23] - Mike Wittenstein

I am ready to go. Let's start.

[00:01:54.04] - Gresham Harkless

Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business?

[00:02:00.62] - Mike Wittenstein

Sure. Well, you know, I've been CEO a few times. The first time when I was 13 years old, I had a micromanufacturing business and that's when I learned that it's lonely at the top. Believe it or not, a 13 year old could figure that out. There are a lot of people that are interested in watching what you're doing and some people are hoping that you're going to do well. And others aren't really there to help you. They're there for the entertainment. That was my first experience. But let's fast forward to storyminers. That was your real question. Before storyminers, I was evisionary for IBM Global Services. And when I was inside of that huge company with hundreds of thousands of employees, I realized that a lot of it worked well and a lot of it didn't work that well. So I was known as the guy who would try to boil the ocean. Not a really good moniker in a company that large.

[00:02:48.63] - Gresham Harkless

Yes.

[00:02:49.18] - Mike Wittenstein

What I learned from IBM was two things. One is that you could apply the principles of systems thinking to the way you structure your enterprise. Much like running a scrum. It's all agile. But think about it. Make your business run on capabilities rather than on hierarchy and it can respond more quickly. The other thing I learned was the value of not focusing so much on everything that goes on inside the business. If everybody inside the business focuses on the customers outcomes, everybody's naturally aligned to the same metrics, to the same heartbeat, to the same, you know, everything that matters. So blending those two things together is what I wanted to do at Story Miners. I believe, and I've done it a few times with clients, but I still believe there's a lot of work to be done in not just making the front end of the business more responsive to customers, but making the back end more agile. You do those two at the same time and you can get that to that unicorn status. You can be a real mover and shaker. Most companies today only work on one side. They work on higher sales on the front end or lower costs on the back end. But if you do both at the same time with your customers goals in mind, that's when you can really leapfrog the competition. So that's why I wanted to become a CEO.

[00:04:02.12] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I know you touched on a little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you're doing that with storyminers. Like how are you kind of helping support those clients so that they do reach that unicorn status, so to speak.

[00:04:12.09] - Mike Wittenstein

Well, not everybody can be a unicorn. They're very unique by definition. But we can help people to become a lot more agile, a lot more profitable, and to make it a lot more fun to work there. So what we typically do is somebody will come to us and say, hey story miners, I'm stuck because. And then they'll fill in the blank. One of their stucks is I can't get My people to follow me. I've got all these ideas, but nobody's on board. So whether that's a mid level manager or an executive, we blend the power of story and customer experience to suck out of them all the juicy parts of their ideas and recast it back as an experience of the future. When that person shares their vision. Not so much in terms of I want you to do this, I want you to do that, but in terms of a little bit of a fairy tale, that's believable and that's got some hard nosed business numbers to it as well. People start to turn their heads, they get interested, they go, you know, that's something I could support. I really like that idea that, that feels like me. That's why I came to work at this company. And that gets them very excited. Another thing they could be facing is a pivot. And your show, Gresham, is people in pivots. You know, you could have named it that. Everybody's looking at a new angle. They're, they're being pressured or they feel a calling. And when you're facing a pivot, we don't get the luxury of, you know, 50 years ago where you can just make one small turn of a single dial and your business is better. It's much more complicated than that. You've got multiple things you've got to touch at the same time. So in order to orchestrate all that change, everybody's got to get behind a singular vision. And it can't be just a mission statement like we're going to be the best in the Southeast. What the heck does that mean? Nobody can follow that. That's not leadership. That's just rah rah talk. You know, too much beer, not enough time for that mission statement. You want people to finish, Let them put the icing on the cake. Let them cross the baton, you know, to the finish line. So let them put their own stamp on the way their work is going to be, the way the experience is going to come across, the way the operations are going to change. That gets everybody involved, you know, pulling on the rope instead of pushing it. Pushing on a rope never works. It's always, it always ends up in a knot. But pulling it creates alignment and everybody gets to pull more and makes more progress.

[00:06:24.63] - Gresham Harkless

That makes perfect sense. And it sounds like when you start with like a story and you have that story to align and bring everybody together, but you don't go all the way, like you mentioned in your secret sauce, you go 90% or I guess, whatever around There it not only becomes the person's story that started the company or has the company, but also it starts to become everybody's story.

[00:06:42.62] - Mike Wittenstein

It seems like you're a wise man.

[00:06:44.81] - Gresham Harkless

There you go. And so now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

[00:06:56.56] - Mike Wittenstein

One of the things that makes sense for any business, especially those that provide a service, and super especially for those that see their clients in person, you know, face to face, is to shop your own business. This is really old advice. I think they did this in the 1700s, but it still makes a lot of sense. We are sometimes so separated from our customers, we don't know what their reality is. Like when you walk in your customer's shoes, when you look at the business from their perspective and see how easy or how hard it is, how friendly or how frustrating it is, you almost know instinctively what needs to change. It's like that TV show, Undercover Boss, but without all the drama and the crying. You know, it's just. It's common sense that is my big thing. The second one is, however much technology you have in your business right now, double down and get more. You can't get behind the curve on technology, lest it swallow you or your competition swallow you or you become irrelevant. The in my opinion, one of the most important competitive factors today for every business, especially for CEOs of small business and mid companies, is how fast they can learn. Learning is not seen as a strategic capability the way I think it should be. It's usually like a training thing that happens after the fact. But you need to pick the technologies and the tools that you want to use in your business earlier and start your people learning about them so that you can incorporate their goodness or avoid them. But you got to learn first. You can't just take someone else's advice because then you're going to be doing a best practices thing. And if you're trying to be first, best practices is the worst strategy to follow because it guarantees to get you in second place or third place by the time you get to where your competitors are. Well, wait, that's where your competitors were. They've moved ahead, right?

[00:08:47.20] - Gresham Harkless

They're already working on the next white paper. I guess a lot of advice, what people say is to follow what somebody else has done so that you can be successful as well. But if you're trying to be, like we talked about, the Unicorn status or innovator status. You can't do that to some degree. So I guess you're saying that you should really focus on learning what these technologies are and kind of being an innovator within yourself by testing it out and being the subject matter expert, I guess.

[00:09:12.46] - Mike Wittenstein

Well, you need to be your own subject matter expert so that you can apply it to your business. Let's go back to unicorns for a second, Gresh. Nobody can be Bill Gates or Steven Jobs or Isaac Newton or Joe Namath or anybody that has achieved rockstar status. Every one of those people came prepared and they got lucky. So we can try as hard as we want, but this idea that everybody can be a unicorn, it's just not real. But everybody can be of great value to a certain number of customers. And if you go down that path, you're guaranteed more success than if you try to imitate. Because posers always get figured out. There's no value in doing that. We use the word value, which is really cool. It has a couple of meanings. One is like the financial value or the time value or the experience value, but the other has to do with your principles. And I think you need to move forward with both, because brands today make a statement not just by what they do, but by who they are and how they are. From my perspective, my little purview in the world here in Atlanta, I'm seeing more buyers. B2B and B2C. Look inside of companies to find out how they're wired before they make a decision to buy. So this idea that your brand is invisible or you're transparent if you will, is key. So you need to create value for others, and you need to bring your values with you, because that makes it easier for people to shop, and it also makes them easier for them to say yes to you. It also means that people who don't share your values won't be your customers, and you have to be okay with that.

[00:10:49.92] - Gresham Harkless

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 can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

[00:10:58.64] - Mike Wittenstein

I've used this as a closer on keynotes around the world for the last few years, and I think this is the best answer for your audience. No matter how hard you try or how much you spend, your brand can't be any better than what your customers experience. What that means to me is you've got to put an inordinate amount of attention on the very front lines of your business and understand intimately and in detail how your customers are dealing with that chatbot, with that website, with that call in service, with that old fashioned fax machine, with how dirty the lobby is in the waiting room, with how fast your delivery is, blah, blah, blah. Think about your business from your customer's perspective. That is your brand. That's the one you earn from them every single day. And your brand is no better than what you give them.

[00:11:46.42] - Gresham Harkless

I love that. And that makes perfect sense because I think a lot of times we sometimes are so close to whatever we build or we create and we think it's so great and it might be great, but the only way to kind of truly measure that is like you said, your clients and your customers, how are they interacting, how are they, what is their feedback based off what it is that you're doing or you're providing.

[00:12:04.08] - Mike Wittenstein

And again, building off of what you just said, I love it. Because what you just implied is if you're there on the front lines paying careful attention to how your customers react, you are in a position to know what they want next. Which means it's easier for you to provide a better experience. And it doesn't cost as much because designing costs less than reacting every single time. So if it's something worth doing, put it into the way you normally work. Don't make it an exception to the rule.

[00:12:33.80] - Gresham Harkless

There you go. That makes perfect sense. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show, and as I know you've been one from 13 on up. I wanted to ask you, Mike, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:48.77] - Mike Wittenstein

Hey, I've also been an employee and a partner. So this answer is coming from. I think the most important thing about being a CEO is to remember that you are first and foremost an example for other people. It's one thing to lead a great company and to have a wonderful marketing plan and to be an astute financier. And you have to live your values. You've got to be the kind of person that you want other people to see, to become, to follow. Don't underestimate your role as an inspirer of your employees, of your partners, of your even your competitors. You need to be yourself. And everything you do sets an example. The better you do as a CEO. And I'm talking personal values as well as business processes, following through on your promises, keeping checklists, Providing order, whatever's of value to you, keep doing that. Double down, triple down on that. Because that's going to create the rhythm, the vibe, the energy inside of your organization. Truly being a CEO is a state of mind and you need to be conscious of that. You need to be living that fully all the time. And I know that sounds a little philosophical, especially for folks that are just starting off on their careers, but the things that you master in life, you have to work really, really, really hard at. You'll dedicate dozens of years to mastering those two things and they are so worth it. Whether you're young and lucky or old and tried and true. Those are two truths that make up being a CEO.

[00:14:27.28] - Gresham Harkless

Mike, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then also how best they can get a hold of you.

[00:14:37.75] - Mike Wittenstein

I encourage you to experiment, but don't experiment at your customers expense. I see a lot of companies out there trying one thing, trying something else, trying something else. Take a breath man. Walk in your customer's shoes. Get a chance to know what the market really needs. There's action and a bustling craziness about your business. There's no substitute for thinking long and hard and smart about what the world needs. Stay focused on the value that you can create for the world and then do your experimentation. Don't try to like waste everybody's time and effort and money going in a bazillion different directions. Just still yourself, calm yourself and think first to get in touch with storyminders. The best way to do that is just to pick up the phone and give us a call. We love telephone calls. 770-425-9830. Our website is storyminers.com S T O R Y M I N E R S. You can book time there. Of course you can send us an email, info OR hi@storyminers.com and we welcome chatting with just about everybody. We're big believers that story and experience are two sides of the same coin. If you know the story that your customers want to tell about you, that kind of tells you what kind of experience to create and building that experience is your strategy. There really is no other strategy. Every strategy that you see in the world, whether it's financially, operationally or scientifically oriented, it's all aimed at making value through experience for the customers. So that's our perspective and we love that Great digression. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It was really fun. Great questions.

[00:16:14.66] - Gresham Harkless

I truly appreciate you again. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day and we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes as well.

[00:16:20.14] - Intro

Thank you for listening to The I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo. Co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow, follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five star rating. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.