IAM1849 – Best-selling Author Helps Build Great Leadership Teams

Transcription:

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Mike Goldman Teaser 00:00

Being a CEO, we can 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.

Intro 00:15

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. Gresham Harkless 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.

Gresham Harkless 00:43

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, or what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focused on leadership, management and coaching. When we think of leadership, management and coaching, we often think of doing all of the things, but often it's the person that's able to build up their team, that's able to cultivate a creative and innovative culture so that people can excel and actually be their own leaders. So that's why this month we're focusing on those 3 big topics because they make a huge impact on the organizations that we're part of.

Now, you'll hear some of those topics this month, of course some really great perspectives on how people are even defining leadership, which I think is extremely exciting. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I am CEO podcast.

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 of performance breakthrough. Mike, it's great to have you on the show.

Mike Goldman 02:02

Great to be here. Thanks for having me Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 02:04

Definitely super excited to have you on. Before I jumped 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 2 books, Breakthrough Leadership Teams and Performance Breakthrough. He speaks internationally to groups of business leaders, such as the Young President's Organization and the Entrepreneurs Organization, and during his 30-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 the 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. In fact, he often tells his clients that if he's gone 90 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?

Mike Goldman 03:05

I'm ready. Let's do it.

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Gresham Harkless 03:07

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. To kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Mike Goldman 03:14

Yeah, I started out right out of undergrad, which is way back in the ancient days of 1987 and went to work for a big consulting firm. They're now called Accenture, back when I worked with them, they were Arthur Anderson. But went from there, spent about three years with what I'd say was my only real job out in industry. They got back into consulting. I basically spent the first 15 or 17 years of my career working for big consulting firms. My clients were all Fortune 500 companies. If you weren't 2 or 3 billion in revenue, we wouldn't even look at you. And frankly, that for a number of reasons was it was a nice career and it was a lucrative career for a while.

But the travel was a nightmare, 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 4 or 5 days. So a combination of that and the fact that in working with these big companies, you could literally come up with an idea or a strategy that would save them $30 million presented. And then you need to go back to work the next day and realize you have not changed anybody's life. There are some investors that made a few pennies off of what you did, but you haven't really changed anybody's life. People are still going to work and not enjoying what they're doing praying, just. waiting for that day they could retire.

So at that point I shifted my career, and actually 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. I got my job of consulting right out of undergrad, never got my MBA. So it was a really expensive MBA, but went from there and decided to go back to my consulting roots in my next business. But it's more of a coach.

These days for the last 15 years or so, I've worked with small and mid-market companies to help them grow. What I love about it is I get to do what I love every day and I get to have real impact. Unlike my big Fortune 500 consulting days, I get to change people's lives every day, which is just incredibly satisfying and fulfilling.

Gresham Harkless 05:40

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 looking for purpose and that opportunity to make an impact in our lives.

When we can do that on a regular basis, 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.

Mike Goldman 05:59

Yeah, and it could be frankly, as simple as somebody saying, I haven't been able to take a vacation in 10 years and now my team is running. I just took a week-long vacation and didn't want, 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 real impact on their community on 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. If I could be part of creating a fulfilling environment where people could have real impact, then man, I sleep like a baby at night knowing that's what I do.

Gresham Harkless 06:43

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? Tell us a little bit more on how that engagement goes and what exactly you do.

Mike Goldman 06:54

Yeah, basically, I'm a leadership team coach. So there are a lot of business coaches out there, anything from, someone might hire a coach to deal with the problem employee to an executive coach that only works with CEOs. I'm a little different than 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. I actually become the way my clients think of me as I'm a senior coach. That's a part-time member of the leadership team. So it's great to have that kind of relationship with my clients. So I do leadership team coaching, written a couple of books the last one is breakthrough leadership team. So I'm able to have more impact as a business owner of a company with a grand total of one coach, which is me.

I love doing what I'm doing. I don't want to build a team of coaches. Having the books is a way to add more impact, spread the impact. 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 greater impact than I could have just working with my private clients.

Gresham Harkless 08:19

I definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself personally or the business or a combination of both. But what do you feel such a part of makes you unique?

Mike Goldman 08:30

Yeah, I guess I'll answer 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 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 what I do is I help companies grow. I work with leaders to help companies grow. And all of a sudden they hit me and said, no, no, no. What I do is I help build great leadership teams.

I thought that's a different way to think about it. So being a big reader, I went on Amazon and I 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. 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, nothing that put it together as to how to create a great leadership team.

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

For me, I believe the secret personally is to find ways to keep that fire burning. I call it always finding the next Brandon to slay. I always like to find what's that next scary thing that I'm not sure I can do, but I'm going to 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.

Gresham Harkless 10:38

Truly appreciate that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and 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 like makes you more effective and efficient.

Mike Goldman 10:50

Yeah, one of the things I do and when I say the word, a lot of people are going to say, I do that, but I'll describe how I do it. For me, it's journaling every morning and journaling is not, dear diary my wife yelled at me today. It's not just sit down and write anything you want. That's beautiful and I've done that kind of journaling.

But very specifically, a thing I learned to do many years ago is first thing in the morning and I start out most mornings taking a nice 4 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 3 to 5 outcomes that I'm committed to achieve today? Not my 12 or 120 to do's. Not I'm going to have this meeting, but today's the day I'm closing the deal in that meeting. Not I'm doing a coaching session with the 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 2, 3, 5 things that are the way I'm going to gauge whether it was a successful day?

Gresham Harkless 11:56

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

Mike Goldman 12:08

I'm going to give you a very difficult math equation here. So everybody write this down. It's one equals three. So I was kidding. It's not that difficult, but doesn't make any sense until I explain it.

So one equals three. There's a book called Uncontainable that was written by a gentleman named Kip Tyndall, 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 superstar performer equals the productivity of three mediocre or average performers. 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 got to surround yourself with a player. You got to surround yourself with the right people and you should be willing to pay them more because the right people are going to be 3 times as productive. That's 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 leadership team, it's probably 1 equals 10 or 1 equals 20, not 1 equals 3.

So that 1 equals 3 philosophy is that nugget that I typically share with my clients early on. That's so important.

Gresham Harkless 13:27

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 and quote CEOs on the show. So, Mike, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Mike Goldman 13:36

Yeah, for me, being a CEO, we can probably talk about that for about 5 hours, right? Or 5 days, but to me being a great CEO, means you understand you are a model for the rest of the organization. What I mean by that is your company is a reflection of you. If you are undisciplined, your company is going to be undisciplined. If you don't trust people, your company is going to 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 going to 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 got to 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 absolutely a reflection of you.

So, for me, a CEO is a model and a mirror for the rest of the organization.

Gresham Harkless 14:42

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 I can get ahold of you, get a copy of your books and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

Mike Goldman 14:57

Yeah, so the newest book is called Breakthrough Leadership Team, and that's available on Amazon in all formats. If you like my Bronx accent, you can listen to me, read it to you for about 7 hours. But so my website is mike-goldman.com.

I have a weekly video blog that comes out, so if you wanna subscribe to the blog, you can go to mike-goldman.com/blogsignup. 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 actually a free coaching call with me, if you've got a mike-goldman.com/freecall.

Gresham Harkless 15:43

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. 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 is so important that we make sure that you're being the change that we hope to see in our organizations and in 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.

Outro 16:09

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and 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.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.