IAM2058 – Coach Helps Businesses and Associations Develop and Sustain High Performing Work Culture

In this episode, we have Ron Cooper, from the Cooper Culture.

Ron shares his experiences and insights from his 22 years in the Air Force and subsequent time in the aerospace industry to discuss how military discipline and work ethic can be leveraged to transform organizations.

He emphasizes the importance of being intentional, developing trust, and fostering effective communication within teams to create high-performing work cultures.

Ron also touches on the significance of understanding personality types and leadership principles to boost personnel retention and profit.

Furthermore, he offers advice on quality thinking, productivity, and the Pareto principle alongside providing tips for entrepreneurs and business owners on assessing their strategies and focusing on personal growth.

The conversation encapsulates Ron's mission to aid organizations and individuals in achieving their full potential through cultural transformation and leadership.

Website: www.thecooperculture.com

Previous Episode: coach-helps-businesses-associations-develop-sustain-high-performing-work-culture

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Transcription:

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Ronald Cooper Teaser 00:00

So with the military discipline that I had and 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 the work ethic that is required to affect whatever transformation a business owner might want to make.

Intro 00:21

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.

Gresham Harkless 00:49

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. What I wanted to do was just 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?

Ronald Cooper 01:23

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

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Gresham Harkless 01:25

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

Ronald Cooper 01:32

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 is 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 a CEO and the 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. And in that context, Gresh and your audience, 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 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. And those for profit businesses, when the people trust each other and are operating at that what we call high-performing level, profits will increase.

The other thing about it is personnel retention will increase because Grish 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 into 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 culture and one final word, Gresh the word transformation as 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.

And quality thinking. is a part of what we're about Gresh. So I don't want to dominate the time in pontificating. But that is a lot of what we're about. And the term transformation is the very operative term.

Gresham Harkless 04:11

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

Ronald Cooper 04:23

I was 22 years with the Air Force. I was an F4, F16 pilot. And in that 22 years experience with the Air Force and follow on with the aerospace industry, I worked with businesses and organizations that some of which function very well and were the type of organization I described, but then I've worked in places that were not.

But what I just described and Gresh, I know that for those organizations that desire to have a transformation effected in the organization, I can help with that. And 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 real well in their variations of that.

And 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. One other word that's 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 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 the work ethic that is required to affect whatever transformation a business owner might want to make.

So it's my, I have a very varied background just very quickly. I was raised on a dairy farm and played high school and some college sports. And so I know the rigor of discipline. I know how important that is. And so grass, I want to help people and organizations to exercise that discipline.

Gresham Harkless 06:11

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And obviously, the repetition hits home though, because a lot of that goes back to the discipline. plan and the idea of being intentional, like you said, and doing things on a consistent basis like you mentioned. So that definitely I think hits home for all our readers and our listeners out there. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, which is something that you feel distinguishes your organization, your business.

Ronald Cooper 06:32

Yeah, I think Gresh, one of the things that does this thing is our business. I'm gonna I am a certified coach. That 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, Gresh, 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, develop quality thinking time and as a little bit of an aside, but 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 can we always improve? And that improving necessarily equates to changing.

Gresham Harkless 07:37

Yeah, I love that. And I love that aspect of incorporating the thinking and how important that is and how again, being intentional and make 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 like where they want to go. So I think that's awesome that you guys are able to do that.

So what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what yeah. I call a CEO hack, and 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 08:11

I will tell you, I think there are several things that come to mind grass again in the context of quality thinking.

If my schedule is full of appointments and I am and I use the term frequently, am I more active? Then I am productive, and I must take the time to think through my individual schedule. Am I just going through a bunch of activity? Am I traveling from place to place? Or can I say that each one of those points of activity are productive to reaching my longer-range strategic goals?

Gresham Harkless 08:45

I love that. It sounds so small, but just making sure that you schedule a time in order to do that. Does help, help you to reach your goals because you have that quality time and you're looking at quality versus quality.

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 aligns with what it is that you're doing. So I love that CEO hack.

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

Ronald Cooper 09:16

I would say 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 percent of your productivity will be occur with 20 percent of the most productive people, areas and so forth. I have been caught up, perhaps you and some of your listeners have been caught up in this activity crunch where we just keep going at something and it's a 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 in 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 try to focus on.

Gresham Harkless 10:34

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And like you said, and it's all in alignment, which I love is that the aspect that you're taking time in order to 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 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 11:01

Yeah, that has worked very well with many of the clients we're working with. And 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 of a routine and leaders need to make 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 is going and you need to be very purposeful and intentional about the direction you want to go.

Gresham Harkless 11:41

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 make sure that you're doing it with intent, like you mentioned. So I appreciate that, Ron. And what I wanted to do is ask you, what is my favorite question?

You touched on it a little bit, which is what. And how you would define being a CEO. We're hoping to have different CEOs on the podcast, but I wanted to ask you specifically what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ronald Cooper 12:05

CEO to me means that I am responsible for everything that happens in my organization. There is a marketing aspect that I am. 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 a capability, but I want to focus more on. Your needs, my perspective, clients needs.

So that to me is a mindset. So one of the things that I try to focus on in the, our respective clients, the decision makers is a mindset. What is your mindset are in the context of? Let's just talk briefly about personnel retention.

If your goal is to maybe have 95 percent 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 against 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 and helping them achieve what it is they want to achieve. When I'm able to help others, and Zig Ziglar put it very well, and In life, I can have anything I want when I have helped enough people get to where they want to be.

And so that, that to me is one of the principle operatives of a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 13:42

I love that Ron. And what I 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 ahold of you.

Ronald Cooper 13:50

Well, yes, certainly that they can 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 what 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.

I 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 different ways that we can assess an organization.

And we can take it from the ground level on up, or I'll be happy to take an assessment of the decision-maker within an organization so that the 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 in much of the other things that I've just discussed.

So that in the and pretty much a succinct way. Grish is what we're about and how we might be able to help other organizations and individuals.

Gresham Harkless 15:41

Awesome. Awesome. And we'll make sure we'll have the link to your website in the show notes so anybody can follow up with you and set up that consultation and sit down in 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. And I just hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ronald Cooper 15:59

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

Outro 16:16

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Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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