IAM1068- Best-selling Author Helps Build Great Leadership Teams

Mike Goldman is an award-winning leadership team coach and the #1 Amazon bestselling author of two books, Breakthrough Leadership Team and Performance Breakthrough. He speaks internationally to groups of business leaders, such as the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and the Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO). During his 30+ year coaching and consulting career he has worked with clients including Disney, Verizon, CHANEL and Polo Ralph Lauren. His insights have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and Chief Executive Magazine and he is widely regarded by CEO’s as the expert on building great leadership teams. As both coach and speaker, Mike is on a mission to help CEO’s grow their business and have more impact while creating a more engaging, fulfilling environment for their team using his Breakthrough Leadership Team approach. Mike is a life-long learner. In fact, he often tells his clients that he if he’s gone ninety minutes without recommending a book, they should dial 911 because there may be a serious issue.

• CEO Hack: Journalling first thing in the morning by writing 3-5 outcomes for the day
• CEO Nugget: One equals three philosophy
• CEO Defined: A model for the rest of the organisation

Website: https://www.mike-goldman.com/

Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldman10/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mikegoldmancoach/

My Book – Breakthrough Leadership Team: Strengthening the Heart and Soul of Your Company

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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00:16 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:44 – 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 Goldman, a performance breakthrough. Mike, it's great to have you on the show.

00:53 – Mike Goldman

Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Gresham.

00:55 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. And before I jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Mike so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Mike is an award-winning leadership team coach and the number one best-selling author of two books, Breakthrough Leadership Teams and Performance Breakthrough. He speaks internationally to groups of business leaders such as the Young Young Presidents Organization and the Entrepreneurs Organization. During his thirty-plus year coaching and consulting career, he has worked with clients including Disney, Verizon, Chanel, and Polo Ralph Lauren.

His insights have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and Chief Executive Magazine, and he is widely regarded by CEOs as the expert on building great leadership teams. As both coach and speaker, Mike is on a mission to help CEOs grow their business and have even more impact while creating a more engaging, fulfilling environment for their team using his breakthrough leadership team approach.

Mike is a lifelong learner-learner. He often tells his clients that he's gone ninety minutes without recommending a book, they should dial nine one one because there may be a serious issue. Mike, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:58 – Mike Goldman

I'm ready. Let's do it.

02:00 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit on how you guys started, what I call your CEO story.

02:07 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. I started right out of, undergrad, which is way back in the ancient days of nineteen eighty-seven. And went to work for a big consulting firm. And, they're they're now called Accenture back when I worked with them. They were Arthur Andersen. But went from there, spent about three years with what I'd say was my only real job out in industry, and then got back into consulting. I spent the first fifteen or seventeen years of my career working for big consulting firms. My clients were all Fortune five hundred companies. If you weren't two or three billion in revenue, we wouldn't even look at you.

And, frankly, that, for several reasons, was it was a nice career, and it was, you know, a lucrative career for a while. But the travel was a nightmare, and my kids were young, and I was gone every week, living in New Jersey, traveling to California, believe it or not, every single week for four or five days. So a combination of that and the fact that in working with these big companies, you could come up with an idea or a strategy that would save them thirty million dollars, present it, and they need to go back to work the next day and realize you have not changed anybody's life.

Some investors made a few pennies off of what you did, but you haven't changed anybody's life. People are still going to work and not enjoying what they're doing, praying for just waiting for that day they could retire. Right. So at that point, shifted my career. I started my first business, Woods, which was a staffing and recruiting firm, which was not the right business for me. That was three years of a whole lot of money flying out the window. But I tell everybody, and it's true, that was my MBA in small business.

04:01 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

04:01 – Mike Goldman

I got my job in consulting right out of undergrad. Never got my MBA. So it was an expensive MBA, but went from there and decided to go back to my consulting roots in my next business, but as more of a coach. And these days for the last fifteen years or so, I've worked with small and mid-market companies to help them grow. And what I love about it is I get to do what I love every day, and I get to have a real impact. You know, unlike my big Fortune five hundred consulting days, I get to change people's lives every day, which is just incredibly satisfying and fulfilling.

04:37 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I imagine that's incredibly rewarding to get that opportunity to do that on such a regular basis. But I'm a big believer, and I'm sure you'll probably echo the same that we're all kinda looking for purpose and that opportunity to make an impact in our lives. And when we can do that regularly as you're able to do so well, I think it just makes everything so much more gratifying when you're able to get in that alignment.

04:58 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. And it could be frankly as simple as somebody saying, I haven't been able to take a vacation in ten years, and now my team is running well. I just took a week-long vacation and didn't work. It could be something as simple as that or something as important as a CEO and a leadership team where we're able to have a real impact on their community or a real impact on society, creating a fulfilling work environment for their team.

To me, there's nothing more important than that because there are so many people sleepwalking through lives and jobs they hate. If I could be part of creating a fulfilling environment where people could have a real impact, then, man, I sleep like a baby at night now knowing that's what I do.

05:44 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And I imagine just because you spend so much time and energy in your work, especially too and in organizations, you want to, if at all possible, make sure that you are making that impact and you do and are excited to do the projects that you have and go into work or even virtually go into work, whatever that might be and however that looks. At the end of the day, you wanna make sure that you have some type of purpose.

06:06 – Mike Goldman

Absolutely. One of the things I do is help my clients come up with what their purpose is as an organization and as individuals. And, you know, I just if I'm not having that impact, then it's the wrong client. It's really and as a coach, I must pick the right clients.

06:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. That makes so much sense. And so you touched on a little bit about how you work with your clients and what that looks like. Could you drill down a little bit more, and tell us a little bit more about how that engagement goes and what exactly you do?

06:37 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. I'm a leadership team coach. So there are a lot of business coaches out there. You know, anything from someone who might hire a coach to deal with a problem employee to an executive coach who only works with CEOs. I'm a little different in that. What I do is I work with leadership teams as a group. My whole job when I work with the company is to help them create a great leadership team so that they can create a great company. So most of my work is working, with leadership teams, and I become, the way my clients think of me is I'm a senior coach that's a part-time member of the leadership team.

07:17 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

07:18 – Mike Goldman

So it's great to have that relationship with my clients. So I do leadership team coaching, written a couple of books. The last one is the breakthrough leadership team, so I'm able to, have more impact. As a business owner of a company with a total of one coach, which is me. I love doing what I'm doing. I don't wanna build a team of coaches. Having the books is a way to add more impact, spread spread the impact. And the last thing I do and I'm starting to do a lot more of, although it's virtually, typically these days is get out there and do more public speaking, which is a great way for me, like the book, to have a greater impact than I could have just working with my private clients.

08:03 – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate that. And so I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself or the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:15 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. I guess I'll answer it two ways. One, from the standpoint of the business. My secret sauce is really about the focus on creating a great leadership team, and it's kind of the reason I wrote the book. I woke up a couple of years ago, and random thoughts going through my mind. And I always thought that what I do is help companies grow. I work with leaders to help companies grow. And all of a sudden, it hit me. It said, no. What I do is help build great leadership teams. And I thought, well, that's a different way to think about it.

So being a big reader, I went on Amazon, and said, let me read about a book a week, and I don't remember reading any books specifically about structuring a great leadership team and finding the right people for your leadership team and executing as a leadership team, building the right culture as a leadership team, continuing to develop and improve as a leadership team. Man, I should find a book because if that's what I do, man, I gotta read that book. I searched for hours and did not find the book. Thousands of books on leadership, dozens and dozens on team building, but nothing that put it together as to how to create a great leadership team.

So from a business standpoint, the secret sauce is that process and that framework of helping my clients create a great leadership team and helping them to make sure that that greatness on the leadership team then cascades down to the rest of the organization. So that secret sauce is understanding that it starts and ends with the leadership team. And for me, it's a different secret sauce. And part of it's just in my nature. I tend to get bored kind of easily, which can sometimes be frustrating, but other times just sparks great new ideas.

And for me, I believe the secret personally is to find ways to keep that fire burning. I call it always finding the next dragon to slay. You know, I always like to find what's that next scary thing that I'm not sure I can do, but I'm gonna do, and it's what keeps that fire burning in me so that I'm always striving to do more and do better and add more value and have more impact versus just getting comfortable with what I'm doing.

10:26 – Gresham Harkless

Truly appreciate that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something you feel makes you more effective and efficient?

10:38 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. What one of the things I do and and when I say the word, a lot of people are gonna say, I do that, but I'll but I'll describe how I do it. For me, it's journaling every morning. And journaling is not a dear diary, my wife yelled at me today. It's not just sit down and write anything. That's beautiful, and I've done that journaling. But very specifically, a thing I learned to do many years ago is first thing in the morning and I start most mornings taking a nice four-mile walk, and it just opens up my mind and I feel great.

Then I get in front of my journal, and I write down what are the three to five outcomes that I'm committed to achieving today. Not my twelve or hundred and twenty to-dos. Not that I'm gonna have this meeting, but today's the day I'm closing the deal in that meeting. Not that I'm doing a coaching session with a client, but today we're gonna have a breakthrough in that coaching session. What's the outcome? If I get to the end of the day and I've achieved nothing else, what are the two, three, five things that have that that are the way I'm gonna gauge whether it was a successful day?

11:45 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:57 – Mike Goldman

I'm gonna give you a very difficult math equation.

11:59 – Gresham Harkless

Okay.

12:00 – Mike Goldman

Here. So everybody write this down. It's one equals three. I was kidding. It's not that difficult. But it doesn't make any sense until I explain it. So one equals three, I got from there's a book called Uncontainable that was written by a gentleman named Kip Tindall, who's the founder and longtime CEO of a company called The Container Store. And his one equals three philosophy, that's where I learned it from, is one a player, one superstar performer equals the productivity of three mediocre or average performers.

And I love that philosophy, and I hit my clients with that on day one of our work together because it drives so much of what we do. You've gotta surround yourself with a player. You gotta surround yourself with the right people, and you should be willing to pay them more because the right people are gonna be three times as productive as just the mediocre performance.

And I'd argue on your leadership team if you've got a company that's got a few different levels in the organization, I'd argue when you're talking about the leadership team, it's probably one equals ten or one equals twenty, not one equals three. So that one equals three philosophy is that nugget that I typically share with my clients early on that's so important.

13:16 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now 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. So, Mike, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:25 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. For me, being a CEO, I mean, there's we could probably talk about that for about five hours, right, or five days. But to me, being a great CEO means you understand you are a model for the rest of the organization. And what I mean by that is your company is a reflection of you. If you are undisciplined, your company is gonna be undisciplined. If you don't trust people, your company's gonna be a place where people don't trust people. If you don't take your culture seriously, if you as the CEO are not living your core values, you're gonna have a whole bunch of people not living your core values.

So I think you need to think of a CEO as a mirror. And if you are not happy with your organization, you've gotta look in the mirror because not only did you hire all those folks and develop them, so whose fault is it? But whether you realize it or not, they are a reflection of you. So for me, a CEO is a model and a mirror for the rest of the organization.

14:33 – Gresham Harkless

Truly appreciate that definition, Mike, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you, get a copy of your books, and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

14:48 – Mike Goldman

Yeah. So the new book newest book, is called Breakthrough Leadership Team, and that's available on, Amazon, in all formats. If you like my Bronx accent, you could listen to me read it to you for about seven hours. But, so my website is mike dash Goldman dot com. You could have a weekly video blog that comes out. So if you wanna subscribe to the blog, you can go to mike-goldman.com/blogsignup.

And the other thing I do, is, for folks for you listening, if you wanna find out more about what I do or you've got a challenge around building your company, your leadership team, you could schedule a free coaching call with me if you got a mike-goldman.com /freetocall.

15:38 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Mike, truly appreciate that. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. But I truly appreciate the work that you do. I think so many times, like I said before, we can look externally to try to solve these problems. But as leaders and leadership teams, it's so important that we make sure that we're you're being the change that we hope to see in our organizations and the world. So I thank you so much for the work that you do and, of course, the time you took today, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:05 – Outro

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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