Otis:   0:00
Hey, Episode 40 Glad you're listening and really appreciate the support. Big milestone. You know, we hit 1500 listeners between Episode 39 in this episode, so that's very exciting. And again appreciate that support. This week's show we take a crack at at the father son father son guest lineup. We have Greg Van, a rook who's returning. He was a guest in Episode 28 brought his dad in Bob. Join us and talk about leadership in business takeovers and really get into some great lessons learned, learned at some practical applications. Some great steps that you can take to change a culture in your business. And it's a lot of fun. We had a great time with Greg and Bob, and I hope you enjoy the show. Now here's the camera notice show way.

Otis:   1:12
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Bob:   3:04
And, you know, it's great to see a smiling face here.

Otis:   3:07
Yeah, Greg, what you put man has been two months, three months, I think since we talk,

Gregg:   3:13
that's right. Yeah, just about just thinking about that today. And unfortunately, the world has changed dramatically in this time, and we're all well, adapting as best we can. And so this is a great moment for the reflecting on leadership in family and connected,

Otis:   3:30
awesome, awesome, great segue with Greg, and that's unrehearsed. I know this is well, we'll put, and that's what that's what I would like to really get into. Is Bob in that leadership concept that, in theory, really is? How have you, you know, how have you adjusted to what's going on with Cove it right now with your business and and know your lifestyle, if you

Bob:   4:00
will. Well, I'm semi retired right now. I spent 30 years in business doing turnarounds and running challenging situations than I retired. I thought I wanted to just chill, but I got bored. So I began teaching leadership and then writing about it. Then break invited. I need a co author, a book with him and that put beyond the speaking circuit all that. So I've been trying to retire from 20 years. But you know what, Otis, I'm still so actively involved in so many things I have found in my lifetime. The answer your question more directly. But whenever there's a crisis, that's a great opportunity to just rethink all the parameters, rethink what you're doing with your life. We think how you wanna come out of this thing because when everything's going rosy, people tend to get from place when it goes upside down, as it certainly is. Right now, that's the opportunity to really shine and when great leadership comes to the fore. So I'm completely reinventing myself for probably the third dozen

Otis:   5:05
time, third dozen time and that that is awesome, and that's and that's the best attitude you know. That's what I've been pushing out, Can has been pushing out andare networks, and their messages out on social media is man

Otis:   5:23
what an opportunity,

Otis:   5:24
but an opportunity. This is what do you want to do? Different. Yeah, I love that. And I'll toss it to you. Greg. What? What are you doing? How are you shifting with this? And the waves, If you will ride him out.

Gregg:   5:36
Yeah, well, I think couple categories of that one would be on the personal front. Uh, you know, we are. We're all adjusting to this new reality individually and as families in my the family unit here. And that is under the state home order here in Colorado is before of us my wife, Christina, and our daughters. And we've actually just done an international move within the last year, we moved here from Sweden and we've adjusted to remote writing and all of these things. And so there's been a lot of support for us as a family in terms of supporting our dyers in seventh grade and fifth grade, with their schools putting teachers of education and also that emotional stability, trying to stay connected as a family, just trying to think of things through the eyes of a 13 year old. 1 11 year old was just reflecting a little blood together game about something that some a friend of mine sent me a long time ago when I was a new parents. And he said, They're only young once and that really hit me very hard. And so now, during this time in the category of leading self, including leading your family, they think of trying to go under. That's and be present for my wife and her girls. It's hard anyway with an international move. When you have family overseas, these things, it's a less big piece of it. And then in terms of the work that I do in terms of training, speaking, uh, teaching and these kinds of things trying Teoh bring some of some new thinking into it to help people think through leading in a crisis as well as focusing on the leading self piece of it and that sort of personal resilience sign. And so because I think there's definitely an inter game while playing the business model pigments and we're trying to figure out strategies and zoom technologies and everything. But there's also that inner voice on and in that inter game that we all have to play to keep ourselves censored and to find safe harbour. So I've been trying Teoh contribute in my way in that area.

Camden:   7:49
Yeah, I think that's something that, you know, we could dive right in on us. Faras there's so many different aspects to a situation like this you have to account for when you're planning and what you're talking about right there. To me, that's really the cornerstone. That's the building blocks of what you're starting off with is you have to have your mind right, and you have to have you have to be centered as far as what is going on and what that means for you, so you can then be able to plan out of it. And then when you start looking at planning, that's something I found interesting in the last. Because I've talked with a few folks is most people are doing some really big crisis planning of right now. What can I do right now to change, like, how am I gonna prevent this from the next pandemic when there's a pandemic in another 100 years? What? How am I gonna be ready for that? And the thing that struck me about it is that they're not talking too much about the transition out of the pendant I found, I found that was very interesting. It seems like there's a big planning wraps of preventing the next one and preventing the fallout that we're all facing right now and then trying to get everything going in this current situation. But not thinking about that first week out. And I think that's something that I would love to talk to a little bit more about as far as the strategy ghost, because if you don't have that, you're gonna fall behind Justus bad. You're gonna be three full. It's behind the curve of all your competitors because they're planning Teoh. Be ready for that. They have their second plan of actions that as soon as this, you know, as soon as the stay at home order gets lifted, they're ready to go and they already have that plan in place.

Gregg:   9:10
Well, I think I think that's a great point. And it I mean, I think it teams up one of the key things here. You want a crisis? We need to identify the root problem. You know, what's the one in the core issues that are affecting us deeply, obviously, For businesses. There's a cash position that we need to protect way need to protect most night will asset, which is our people. Be thoughtful about that, but to your point, I think that's right. I think there's this kind of immediate focus of this kind of what's going to be in the next pandemic or when it's all gone. But in the meantime, there says, probably extended transition period on. And I think communication, you know, is a really important part of this. And you know, that's difficult because I'm trying to get the fax. That's hard, because it was different viewpoints out there from public health experts and from economists, and the stock market's changing dramatically up and down. But also, you know, there's there's not a lot of clarity, but still, I think we need to communicate and over communicating his leaders rights and to try to prepare people to your points cam a mentally for what's coming and you know a lot of people have been talking about lately. You can't just put a switch here, right? It's not that simple, right? And so there's gonna be faces and so preparing your team, their colleagues psychologically for that and including them in the planning process, but that so that they are part of it. They feel valued. They feel heard. Andi, they're gonna own it then, as well as opposed to imposing it from the boardroom, etcetera. But those I think there's some key piece and scared.

Bob:   10:51
Let me just build on that, if I may, can because I think that's an excellent question. And great hit a lot of key points there about communication and stability, the psychology of things, the people, the relationships way wrote in Triple Crown leadership in our chapter on turnarounds that when you're the leader in a turnaround situation and we're all gonna be coming out of a turnaround situation because the world is going to be upside down before you can establish financial stability, you have to establish psychological stability because the people are panicked and if people are are overly emotional, you can't think rationally. And so it's not the first week of what you do in the first week. So much cam is what you do now with your teaching, preparing for the first week and so building trust, being honest with them, talking about your plans, not just having a great plan that you think about in the quiet of your room. And then you implemented in the first week it's You gotta have your plan, your strategy, your new normal. But it's got to be a team effort because whatever it's gonna be, you can't do it by yourself. So you you need to build those relationships. What we're seeing as we all shelter in place is that so many of us have been on these treadmills for so many years now. We're sheltering in place with our daughters or our spouses. It's a chance to rebuild the relationships is a great quote I heard years ago. Business life leadership is all about relationships. And so if we can use this time while we're still not coming out getting ready to to rebuild those relationships, to rebuild the trust, to get the psychological stability, to get the buy in from the people, about how we're gonna come roaring out of the gate, that's gonna mean all the difference in the world because there are many leaders who won't do that. They're gonna be on their own thinking about what they do. How do I get government on here, whatever. And their team won't be ready. The teams that come out of the date gate full bore all of them together with the culture, with the relationships built with the trust fire, that's going to be the winner.

Otis:   13:13
That's spot on a love. That, too. Because now, as you were saying that I was reflecting back Teoh my military days in the operations and kind of thinking in the different phases of operations. And by the way, if you didn't know all good military plans, always at five phases, I don't know why. I don't remember why that there was. I just remember that all good plans at five faces. Somebody told me,

Bob:   13:37
What are the five faces

Otis:   13:39
of 12345? No, it's not were simple military stuff, right? But you know in that minds that all joking aside, if you think about this, we could go back and this applies that. Actually, some operations that that I did set up and pre Cove it would be phased zero right? That's where we're in this doing, not really doing things where we may or may not be setting some things up for the crisis toe happen to us. And then phase one is bam. We get hit with. Okay, everything's shut down. And that's that's what happened, You know, 34 weeks ago and everybody right now should be like what you were talking about. Bob should be in phase two, which is Hey, guys, it's gonna be OK. We've got this. Why don't we figure out how to do this? How to set this up? What's next? What are who our customers we can talk to who are clients, existing clients, that we can stay in communication with all those little things that we can do as a team to when? When Aziz Governor Paul is called it face to happens now, the state's safe at home. I think it's what he called it when that happens next week. Now we can move into phase three kind of the pre. I'm referring to that kind of as a pre inter intermittent, not intermittent. And meet a man. I drew a blank on the work that that free phase of ah of intermittent boy. Howdy. I'm just lost that work. So anyway,

Bob:   15:22
Intermediate, maybe.

Otis:   15:23
Yeah, maybe intermediate, intermediate. Norm is what I was trying to go go towards and then a month or so down the line when we make another adjustment. Teoh What we doing? Restaurants and meetings and things like that. That's the next phase. And then finally, what is? What's the new normal phase? Five, if you will. What's that new normal of our operation? Go look like, you know, Is it every third seed at the Pepsi Center in an avalanche game or something like that? You know, whatever that's gonna be, What is that new? Normal. So, yeah, And you know, as I was as I was babbling about the I word, I couldn't think about it. One of the things I wanted it I wanted to ask you Bob was was with all the business, you said, 40 years of business experience, there's got to be. I mean, this is very different. We all know. But there's gotta have been Cem peaks and Valleys that that you've latched into and going Yeah, back then. This is what we did not just kind of curious. What? What's the blessings you pulled out of

Bob:   16:26
those? Well, we talked about a lot of the lessons in Triple Crown leadership. I worked over 30 years, Otis. And by the way, thank you for your service. That's that's wonderful service that you have military. But I worked in 30 years in business, and I was always a student of leadership. I was seeking out challenging situations to see what I could learn about leadership, because my premise waas that if I could learn to leave, need in precious times would be a lot easier to lead in normal times. And so I gravitated. We moved a lot. My wife and I have lived in 11 states. We've moved 18 times. I worked in eight different industries, from high tech to low tech, and I was always seeking challenging situations. And what I discovered was that the challenging situations, we're also more challenging than we thought they would be. When you take over a public company that's in crisis, where all the stakeholders air angry where the stockholders air selling your stock, the short sellers air coming in your best customers, you know, won't order anymore. Where vendors won't ship, you accept cash and your best people are leaving. You've got a crisis on our hands and so do you think you've hit the bottom and then some other whammy hits you and then you say, How about it? Couldn't get any worse. Those are the worst thing she could say. OK, Scott definitely gets worse. We called one turn around that I was running an organ donation because it literally felt like you gave a lung. You gave us spleen. You gave a kidney, you know, and then it just got worse. But what I learned was that it was all about the people. It was about the relationships. There are certain toxic people. Greg and I have a chapter in Triple Crown leadership. You could tell you about that steel on velvet. You got to take some of the toxic people out because they are a cancer on your organization. But once you've done that, once you establish the culture value, space culture, a culture that we can get through this. But on Lee, we together I was never smart enough. I couldn't work enough hours to do it. But I knew that we together could do that. And once the people believe that, then the answers came. The answers came from the manufacturing floor from the engineering lab from the sales floor from the customers. It was all about the relationships and the culture. And then there was nothing we couldn't accomplish. When she got through the bottom of the crisis and got rid of the toxic people, it was like Katy bar the door and that was us. And that's the opportunity we have right now. In this endemic we read of the toxic people. Get your culture, get your people, get your new thing. And just when that first week opens, his cam was asking, Just open the doors and let it go. You guys can be us. Those are the lessons that I learned

Otis:   19:30
I would love to get Greg. Yeah, since you co authored it, that same perspective from from your or same point from your perspective,

Gregg:   19:40
let's say this, you know, the famous expression culturing strategy for breakfast. You know, Bob was just talking about, uh, the importance of the people, anything you're looking back on, a career, that's what you remember. It's gonna be those relationships. And so obviously all these other things are important to you and strategy the operations, the business model. But all those sort of swim inside the culture, which is the relationships of the people. And so, you know, we really emphasized culture stewardship in triple kind of leadership. Where is the sense where everybody is a steward of the shared purpose? The shared values and a shared vision with a together have come up with. Everybody is a steward of the quest. When is the quest What is the ultimate aim of this organization? And in our model, we talk about it's called Triple Crown because we say, Why not aspire to build an organization? That is three things. It's excellent and ethical and enduring, and that's the Triple Crown with three needs, right? But everybody is a steward of that quest to be those things, and everybody is a steward of the culture and his leaders. We want to have them so involved and so engaged and feels a value. But they are unleashed to exhibit their own leadership, their own creativity, their own innovation, their own ownership and then dance, um, leadership and followership. And so we do that in a crisis, we can develop some kind of operating room, right? And so that's another thing that came out of my work. But I just have to pause and say, U s a question of me, but I want to answer it both for me and my dad because one of things that I learned from the bad his business career Andi all the crisis work was also the importance. When he of what he calls sanctuary, this goes back to the leading self. It's, you know, if we're gonna lead through a crisis, whether it's a the traditional business crisis. If there is such a thing as in traditional business crazy no or global health pandemic companions, a at least a double crisis, you know, help front of you. Um, you know, we have to find ways to ground ourselves. You know, what is the safe harbor? Right? It amidst the storm. And there's so much pressure on leaders. You know, people are looking to the leaders toe, have the answers and the soft things, and it is my dad's side. No one is that smart, steaming variables. It is too much complexity. There's too much money systems here, systems on tops of systems that air under straight. And so we have Teoh have big personal practices, for my dad was running five miles a day every day. And you know, each of us has our own thing and also creating environment and courage. Are comics have their own personal resilience. Actresses, too, so that we can be in our best so that we can survive so that we can thrive. You come to the opportunity on the other end of Oh,

Camden:   22:50
yeah, One thing I think kind of ties in on that I, Bob you mentioned earlier that I think would be a great thing to really dive in on is talking about how crisis refrains your situation, whether it's business or personal you, whether you're you're working your 60 hour week and now you're spending more time with your daughter or whatever type of switch it is. You're really reframed in your life that not in your reframing your business and something as as catastrophe frames life, I think one thing that's interesting there is how do you How do you simulate that? How can you simulate this artificial attached to be artificial crisis that can then present that opportunity for you in a normal situation? We've described it before as the pre mortem. We've talked about quite a bit that I love how you picture the day that you're launching your business and everything goes wrong, Why did it go wrong? And so I think the idea of creating our artificial crisis is it would be an extremely effective twist on that pre mortem of Okay, Everything freakin goes wrong, the whole economy collapses. What are we gonna do? And it allows you to reframe it so that you're looking at it in a more efficient way. You're no longer looking at it in a right now. What do I do to make sure I keep the lights on? You're looking at it in a big picture. How do I have a more successful business in the long run? So, Greg, do you have any thoughts on how How would you create an artificial crisis for your team?

Gregg:   24:08
I really like this line of thinking and your most people to your point, to talk about a postmortem. We talk about the after action review and you're talking about the pre mortem. And I think this is hard for human beings just because of the way that our brains are wired and so we don't have a good relationship when it comes to risk or his seeing risk in these kinds of things. I certainly experienced this now in my start startup chapters where we had a lot of prices, pricings and these kinds of things where we were seeing around quarter orders. So one of the things I like helps from Alexander Oscar Wall there. Who's the, uh, he created with big, knowing business model canvas that has become really world famous And that's that has become a real part of the lean startup movement and design thinking an agile software development. And he likes to do when he calls. He killed thrill with exercise with teams and science to do this with my students. And so you know, often if you have an idea for a new adventure. If you're an entrepreneur or entrepreneur of the new product or service, your brain kind of tricks you into falling in love with your own idea. H. And so we have to find ways to kind of de bias things through a good process with other people, and there's some group dynamics that work against that because you've got groupthink and things like that where a lot of people don't want to be the nay Sayer because they get shunned by the group and then you get the stress response and it has this wholesome team, and so you can actually do a kill real exercise, which is you take your idea and everybody on the team says, Let's go kill it. So everybody needs to brainstorm What could possibly go wrong with this like, But And if you get a lot of energy because there's no wrong answer, and you're just like almost the worst scenario better in like the more bad scenarios, the better. But what you're doing is you're socializing, um, de risky. You're making it cool where you're rewarding people who can see around the corners and look at possible. So you spend some time doing that now so you can go back and kind of like probabilities, which is always a good idea, right? And you can also rank mission critical like some things may go wrong, but it's not a big deal. But if this goes wrong, that's a black swan event in. So we really need to avoid that. You want to look at one of the risks, one of the probabilities, and then wonder that the effects. But then so you finished the kill brainstorming right? And then you turn into Okay, let's will. But let's go rain storm on how to de risk the killer's right And then everybody's part of saying how to be part of the solution. I think that's a really good tool. It's also a lot of fun, and it's a good bonding experience with which is always nice.

Camden:   27:06
Well, I think is interesting on that. It's something and I'm not even sure we're gonna question now. This is much is just an interesting behavioural phenomenon that, you see, is that when you talk about it this way, you, ah, people in general have this headwind tailwind fallacy that it's you feel everything hitting you in the face. You don't realize all the things working behind you, but then, for some reason, whenever you need to think about the things that are hitting you in the face, you can no longer think about it. For some reason that bad point, you have to come up with things like pre mortem or the killer thrill, which I love, by the way. Ah, and implement those because otherwise everyone's just focusing on the tail winds. How great that idea is, How smart their feeling right now. But in reality, that's not the real situation. And so I think you know what, It really comes around to it again, not really coming to a question and the more I talk about it. But what do you wind up with this headwind? Tailwind fallacy and then what you're talking about the kill through is your reframing the question in trying to remove any of the emotional biases that that each individual the team has, And the point is that they have, that they can have both types. Those fallacy so you can have the negative Nancy's who Onley feel the things that are hidden in the face. All they feel is ahead, and that could suck. And I could drag your team down. That's you know that's a toxic that can be a toxic person inside your team that you've been talking about. But just in the same way you can have people that could be over positive. I know I I fall in that category more than I don't that I love my ideas. I'm so smart. I had such a great idea last night. It's the best business idea ever, but never comes together quite right that, and so you have to really be able to remove all of those biases from those situations.

Gregg:   28:35
I really think we're talking about the importance of people here and has people. We've got these brains that evolved over no real longer time like we talked about the last time, and we really need to understand the way our brains would continue. Point Cam. One of the other robust findings from the research on the brain is the planning fallacy Way found, which is that when we're making plans, we tend Teoh overestimates that the positives, the revenue growth in the profits, that we tend to underestimate the costs and the time and all three of those air true at the same time. In other words, they're compounding in which becomes a really big problem for your cash for it. And so we need to be able to work through that again. There are, you know, I used to be the people would do. The business plan on the business plan is still I think it is a good tool it in some circumstances still, but for early stage or situations when there's a lot of annoyance. I think Belene adroll models that the kind of first screen, the kind of very lean and mean ways to kind of actually test a supposed to having a cascading set of dozens of assumptions that you believe will become true and you model appropriately. I think there is some of the ways to kind of be bias the people in the process.

Bob:   30:00
Let me chime in on some of that because I think those are excellent questions. You know, I'm I'm not sure I'm going to sign up to saying We have to remove biases and we have to create artificial crises. Eso So I'm gonna go beyond that. I mean, I think what we're talking about his change and a crisis is just extreme change. So how do we get people to be willing to accept change? Most of us don't want to accept change. Why? Because we're in a box. We know the box were comfortable in the box. The box has known parameters were managers. We plan and we budget and the schedule and those are all the techniques of management. But management and leadership overlap but they're not the same thing. Leadership says Okay, here we are managing in our box. We're really comfortable. We don't need a lot of change. But you know what, guys? There's another box over there that's really, really better. Oh, yeah, boss, What she wanted, that's what they were gonna be sure how to do that. We know what to do. This box of hot spots over here. So how do you get people to move out of a box that they're comfortable with and go to a box? That they're uncomfortable with that which is likely much better for them. That's and that's what a crisis is. This pandemic is a huge change movement. How do we get people were never gonna go back to the old normal camp? It's gonna be a new normal. Restaurants, travel, sports, They're going to be different. Some things would be the same, but a lot will be different. So thinking we're going to just flip the switch and go back to the way it waas in January 2020. That's fallacious thinking what's gonna be So how can we prep people as leaders not to create artificial crises, but what can we practice what we do? Well, I just made a notice. Several things. We can rotate people out of their assignments. Finance people should go into sales for a while. Manufacturing people should go in the engineering, you know, strategic planning. People should go work in the factory or something like that. We should have signed buddies. So a finance person works with the marketing person, and an engineer works with A with a sales person. We should demand that we reinvent our products, that we assume that it's going to be gone, that somebody will come in with a whammy from the side and say, How are we going to re invent this product line? We oughta have Devil's Advocates every time we're coming to a consensus on something in the room is getting groupthink going. A wonderful Who's going to play Devil's Advocate say, Wait a minute. No, I need to challenge that assumption. And somebody ought to be tasked with being the devil's advocate. Uh, Otis military after action reports, after every engagement, we did an after action report. What went well and what went? Uh huh. And what did we learn from that? And how do we build it into our training for the next one that comes up. If you keep doing that, you will prepare yourself for a change going down to the first line. Who is the person making the product? Who is the person serving the customers? Are we in touch with them, or are we sitting up in our office in our cubicle? I every toe. So there's a lot of things that we could do without creating an artificial crisis or trying to artificially removed biases to get people ready to change and embracing change. The key parameter for success in today's world is the adaptability of your people. Can they embrace change if they can't, you're gonna be toast if they can. And you've got that culture that embraces it that Greg was talking about. Then you can ride out all these cross ice storms, come out better on the others. Does that make sense to him?

Camden:   33:47
I think so. And I think you know, draws me back something, Dad, you taught us back playing rugby. You got to be flexible. That's what it really comes down to is no matter how many tools you have, you have to know when to use them. If it doesn't work, you have to know to use the other tools. And you kind of have tohave that constant flow of flexibility and be able to use that in order to be flexible and make those adjustments as you go.

Otis:   34:08
Yeah, I mean, the the cross training is is what we thrived on and special forces. I mean, we were each each guy on the team, extreme specially I mean the training that the guys went through on my teams, you know, it's just unbelievable the amount of knowledge they would gain. But we spent all of our time and we weren't deployed cross training each other on our skills, and that provided a balanced approach. We still had the expert. But if something happened, that expert we had, we had enough people that, you know, knew enough to get us by and feel kind of fill that space and plus, and this is the point. I think that that's great about what you're talking about. Then you can sit in that other seat and see what the perspective this you can understand why, why The finance guy needs this information from the shop, former and why that has to happen in orderto enable him to do his job. And I think that is by doing that, and that experience is such a a key piece to man. I mean, there's so many aspects of building your team that go into that. And now I wanted that while I got the floor because there's so much good going on. I wanted to throw something else at you. Bob, that was really curious about when you would go into the business. And I think this is gonna be something that helps her, our listeners. When you go into one of those new businesses that you're building back up a takeover. I'm sorry, I don't remember the phrase you use for that. But what was the triage process you use when you walked in? Because I think that's something that business leaders right now can use that same thought process or or however you describe it

Bob:   36:00
well, one of the things that I learned the hard way by not doing it screwing up a few times I've been fired a couple times in my life, hired, promoted, and I think I learned the most when I got fired. But when I up, But I learned one thing. We talked about it and took found leadership at one large public company that was in serious crisis, Lawson's and all all the terrible things going on. I gather this senior staff and and some other people 2025 people in a conference room. I asked him to plan for the whole day and I said, I want to go through and list here from all of you, each of you one at a time and no more than 30 seconds each. A problem that we face whether it's major of mine and I'm going to write it down on this with revenge would go around this table of 25 people until it's OK, Pass or you can say, Here's a problem. You have to describe it in 30 seconds or less, and I'm gonna write it down. So we have all problems and we're gonna go around this table until all 25 people have cast three times 75 passes because I want all the passes up. So we're going to start over here with Sam. Sam says, uh, pets. Okay, Mary, pass. Uh, Well, uh, now, I'm not sure we should have reserved parking in this kind of crisis. Okay. Reserved parking question past fast of. You know, I think we've cut back on quality. Its's this silly thing, but the toilet papers really scratched scratchy toilet paper, you know? So you're going around the room, passed in the mall and stuff until finally somebody says, Well, I think the board has been complicity in some of these financial restatements board complicity and financial restatements past past, past, past this'll process takes several hours and you have to take breaks, things like that. And it gets really frustrating because then you get 50 60 passes and already people are ready to go on. And then somebody says where I got another one. You know, sales thinks that engineering lies to them about release states of new products, engineering lives to sales about released. Then we have to start all over again. Well, so this takes 1/2 a day or something like that. And then what you've done is you have just got everything off of everybody's chest. By the time you get 75 passes, it's all there. Let me go through a Let's put these into groups. Well, they're certain financial issues there. Certain communication issues there certainly H Irish there. Certain boar dishes. Okay, now let's put priorities on ABC is We can't do everything at once. This is clearly a is mission critical, and this is urgent. That's in a This is mission critical, but it's not really urgent. That's a B. This is not This is the see? Okay, Now let's just take the AIDS. We're not gonna do any of the seas Will try to do all the A's who could volunteer to lead some of this stuff. So you get some violent here. Well, that's a financial issue. I could take that or, you know, that's in my area. I can ask. Mary was not here to head that up, and I'll make sure she does. Okay, so you get some volunteers and you notice who's not volunteering. Notice You notice who's just sitting back here like this on their sound? Sick back there. It's like this. What the hell is going on here?

Otis:   39:22
No, I don't.

Bob:   39:23
Then now we come to keep our alright, Guys, we're now gonna talk about some shared values. We've got all this history behind us. How are we gonna operate? What are the behaviors that will guide us? We're gonna treat each other with respect. We're gonna build trust, or we're gonna operate with integrity. So you come out with the draft list of shared values that takes an hour. So and you say All right, this is a draft with we're gonna gonna work out. This is our draft list. Now, here's the key point, Otis. I don't have time to go back and deal with all the history here. Who shot John? Who's sleeping with who? Who lied to who. You know. So as of this moment, we've got all the issues. They're all we've got a prioritized. We've got volunteers. We've got her new shadow set of shared values. So I'm gonna ask you all to operate by these new shared values. As we attack these items, we'll have periodic meetings to see where we stand and regard to grant amnesty for all prior sins. I don't want toe here who lied. I don't want to hear who shot who. This is a new day amnesty. And if you can't live with that, come see me afterwards. will make arrangements for you to be very successful elsewhere. Because this is the way we're going up. That one day process was critical to get rid of all the crap to get a new focus, to get a new set of behaviors and go forward, I found that single day was very possible. Hope that answers you.

Otis:   41:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that process. I mean, it's this methodical. It's it's involving the leadership because it's so critical toe have to have the leadership there because you're trying to change. You need you need to know the early adopters to it and the change managers in there. Oh, and then the thing that I thought was awesome I mean, you did a one day culture change. Now it it truly takes time to to really go all the way out into the, you know, all the way down into the lowest levels of the company. But by doing that right there, it's it's a stop. Old stuff gone. We're moving this way in this fashion and that that right there, cause I get approached by a lot of guys about a what about culture? What if my if I'm in a company. That culture sucks. That's a great process right there to just bam hard Stop. If you will cut it away, move forward in this direction. So I appreciate that, Bob,

Gregg:   42:09
One of the one of the things that we addressed in Triple Crown WAAS leadership breakdowns, which is, you know, why do organisations break down what leads to the crisis? So we studied that, too, and we've developed a leadership derailer is exercise that we use when we're working with the years Thanks leaders off track in additional It takes organizations in the break and one of the derailer zits very common among even successful leaders that we found that I've noticed is conflict avoidance tends to be a really big problem in a lot of cultures. Patrick Quincy on you talked about this in his work. And so Bob mentioned earlier. One of the key points of the Triple Crown model is what we call steel and velvets. And so this is the notion that we all his leaders, have a certain personality in certain disposition and preferences, and some of us are softer and some of us are harder by nature, and that's okay, but an excellent leader needs to do what the situation we're quackers regardless of their person out. And so in a crisis, we need to be steel operating at the hard edge of leadership, much more off much. One off accountability intensity. Toronto that I think the example that Bob just want this through. It was an example of steel, right? I mean, it is a mix in some points because there's participating. You shouldn't want not but this kind ocean of. If you can't get on board with this and if you're not willing to provide amnesty, you cannot stay because we're now forward looking. We're not backward, look, and that's an example of steel. And I think people in a crisis will respond to that very well that they're looking for that kind of character with that kind of courage for that leadership, because they see that it's required not people who were gonna differ back. And they're not comfortable. I don't want to make someone else comfortable. They need people to step into the charge on something that that will earn you some credibility,

Camden:   44:19
something big that I think we've kind of touched on it in a few different ways I think would be good to get into is the idea. So what do you focus on during a crisis? I think something I picked up on. And I want to say it was Jeff Bourgeois that gave me this last week. I'm not 100% sure on that. Those about give him the credit, but it's You want to focus on things that are important but not urgent. This is the time where you're you're no longer bound, like we're all talking about you, no longer bound by the traditional constraints that we're all stuck inside of your past. That now because your stuff working from home all the time or whatever, you know, whatever your situation is. And so now it's the time. Look for that second quandary. If you do, you know the what is important and urgent. Important. Not urgent. This the Eisenhower Matrix Eisenhower matrix. There we go. Makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about. But that was the time you look into the important, not urgent stuff. And as as we've been talking through this, I'm really the way I see it is that's the reframing that's needs to be going on inside a company. That's the cultural shifts that need to go down inside a company because those don't strike you as urgent when they're in the day to day operations. You know, it doesn't matter that I'm going to use his name. Jeff over an accounting is gonna be a problem. And he was a c p a. To use that word. But Jeff Jeff, over an accounting is being a problem. That doesn't matter in your day to day operation necessarily. But once you step back like this and you kind of reframed the problem and reframe your business, then you realize that those type of things are really pulling your steers, your team's performance down and that those are the type of thing you need to be addressing right now. Those are the big pivots, those air, the cultural changes in those type of things that you've been putting off for a long time. But right now is the best time to do

Gregg:   46:00
this, right? I think, uh, you know what? We pay attention to you. First of all, we need to stay above the death line, I think is Jim Collins said, and So we need to make sure that in the crisis, you know, Cash is king. When I'm running out of cash, we're you know, we're protecting the people in these kinds of things, but I think it's easy for everybody and can you're talking about this earlier? Everybody is sort of goto immediate short tour machines. I think somebody's got arrives up. I think the chief executive, other leaders on the board actually make sure that you're thinking about the short term as well as the long term. How is this all going to play out and what's the bridge in the medium term to get there? And so in the turnaround chapter, way made a distinction of different types of turnarounds. And some of the turnarounds are I forget the term but kind of craft is just about flip, and it's It's a it's a flip right verses. Is this a rebirth, you know, and is there an opportunity to become even better, have a stronger culture? And so in that something's of what we focused on that was the focus of my guys turn on career in business and so thinking about the decisions in both time dimensions and this really goes to had enduring elements of the Triple Crown to be well today. But we also want you said it set us up for sustainable while in overtime as well while operating.

Camden:   47:32
So one other thing I think, Bob, you were touching on a little bit as faras the mechanisms you were talking about as far as creating that culture and moving forward. One thing that I really latched on to it that is the idea of, you know, to use the phrase sunk cost, that everything that has already happened. It's a sunk cost. You don't need to be thinking about that. And that's something I found myself so much in a leadership position trying to trust the people, and they can't break out of that logical fallacy that that's all they want to think about. You know, I'll use the easy example before I pick up my older kids of going to my little kids, my engaged foundation and you know so well such and such pushed me over, and so I went over and I tried to push him over it, and I said, It's just like you said Bob, I really don't care I don't care who's sleeping with who. His wife. I don't care who shot who I does not matter because we're looking at right now and we're moving forward and you have to be able to have that perspective. And ideally, your team can have that perspective as well. But really, just as a leader, you have to be able to leave all of that crap in the past and just move forward and push forward through everything. Take everything. It's all. It's all facts. That's what happened. Does we're moving forward? No matter what happened in the past, it doesn't actually matter because the futures went in front of us. You know, there's, ah diving in a bother, trying to get the exact quote. It's a cynical quote about death that we all were all fearful of death that because we think death is ahead of us, death is behind us. Death is everything that's happened to us already, and that's kind. I think that really just epitomises the sunk cost fallacy. It's already happened. It's dead. Who cares? Let's move

Otis:   49:02
forward. You didn't get the quote right? But you sure got the meeting right in it. Yeah, spot on. Go ahead, Bob.

Bob:   49:08
And it all comes back to what Greg was talking about before about culture and establishing those shared values. One of the things we talked about in our work and the Greg does a lot of work out now is I'm trying to retire is way actually advocate that. Everybody have two jobs. That is, that sound crazy to you guys to jobs. And, you know, you gotta have clear job. One of my friends. Will you have your normal job in finance or marketing you whatever. But we've now got the shared values. We've got this vision statement. We've got this purpose of why we exist beyond just to make money or something like that. And we've all bought into that, and Greg used the term. It's Chapter six and our book called Stewards Your Stewart for the Country. And so we give everybody an irrevocable licence to leave by the values. Let me repeat that we give them an irrevocable, ear revocable license to lead by the values That means you have two jobs. You have your regular job in finance and if you see anything that any of us do, even me, the boss that you think is in conflict with our vision, our values, our culture. You are empowered to speak up. We will never shoot the message. We will never shoot the messenger. Everybody is he's got a second job of being a steward for the culture. Then you really have a chance to ask, Greg said before unleashed people. None of us are smart enough in this constantly changing world to deal with all the stuff being from all we can do is unleash all the good people that we have around us that are bought into our purpose, values, vision, our culture. All we can do is unleashed them. Give them an irrevocable licence to lead, and that's gonna be awesome. Sorry about background.

Otis:   51:07
That's all right. That's awesome. Because, you know, it reminds me of in the military, everybody's a safety officer. I mean, it was there was some debate, right? You see anything that's unsafe? Stop the exercise immediately.

Bob:   51:21
That's your job and tanks or artillery or infantry or a pilot. But you're also a safety officer.

Otis:   51:28
Exactly 100%. I love that, and I hadn't heard it put that way with the values. But that's A. That's a great lesson for for businesses to instill that to continue to grow that culture. Now on a shift gears a little bit because I wanna I wanna ask a, uh what could be considered a dangerous question is what lesson, Greg? What lesson did you gain from Dad from that experience? Joan, Your experience growing up and working with Daddy wherever. At what point? In life where ever you want toe pull that lesson. What's that number? One lesson Dad gave, you

Gregg:   52:06
know? Well, there are many to choose from when it's when it comes to my father and my mother. One of the big lessons from business leadership turnarounds and just the whole approach is the people point that we talked about earlier. I remember as a kid growing up, my dad would invite the family over to the company picnic certain by my brother on me over to the office and he would introduce us to people. And just and always we make a priority now is hectic as it wasan asst Muchas yet on its plate, wanna must called, you know, it was like everything stops. You know what's going on? Is everything okay? with being a party but also make a priority of the relationships. And, uh, I really noticed. I got to know some of my father's colleagues as I got older. I got the university in grad school on my own career, and a lot of them talked about the remarkable experience they had together as a team. But it was a highlight of their career. These people talking about brutal times. I mean, they look back on that organ donation experience of four years, and they would look back fondly on its not because the punishing hours of personal sacrifices they made, but because of the bonding and the respect for the culture that they did it together. And so that was a real lesson that truly is all about relationships. And it's all about all

Otis:   53:46
right now it's your turn. Camden.

Camden:   53:48
I see. Okay, I was writing it down because I thought you were going to send it over to me. I was ready for this.

Otis:   53:53
Oh, I made Greg go first, so consider yourself lucky.

Camden:   53:57
Here's here's the big question. Is this the best lesson I got from Coach Otis or best lesson I got from Dad cause That's a big difference. Your pick. Your pick. Okay, well, I'll take Dad. That's the one I wrote down. So I figured. I see I anticipated reactions on that a little bit. So you taught me this. We're talking about this in high school, uh, with soccer and rugby. Uh, giving a captaincy of the hardest thing you will do in life is be a leader of your peers. And now that was a great life less of met. But I've realized recently how much that applies in everything besides sports. That's not just sports. Because in reality, everyone I work with is my peer. You know, when I have, when I'm starting my company, especially the situation I'm in when I'm just recruiting random people who are willing to put in work for free like I am, that's their You know, we're pulling people together like that. They're all my peers. They're my friends. That's the reason that I've reached out to them because they're in my network. But it is still a very hard thing to do to be the leader in that situation, because you have to get him to work. You have to, you know, push them. You have to push him beyond things. You have to be strict, but you also have to walk that fine line of like you were saying, Greg, it's still personal. It's a very personal when they're your peers and you have to walk that fine line and make sure you're not stepping on toes too much because you don't want to ruin a friendship over some business thing, which in my case, might have lasted two weeks, Right? If I have great business idea, they only last two weeks. I don't want to lose the friendship over that. That's just stupid. Or even if it lasts longer time that there's no sense in having something come in the way of it. Just like how If you're a captain on a rugby team, you shouldn't have your friends hating you over it. You shouldn't lose friendships because you were trying to get them to perform at a high level. You have to be able to walk that fine line, and I think by far that's one of the best things you've talked.

Otis:   55:40
Well, thank

Bob:   55:41
you. I'm Otis and Cam for me to answer the question of what I learned from Greg.

Otis:   55:46
That's exactly what I was gonna ask you next. Bob. You got it, man. When

Bob:   55:50
we decided to write Triple Crown leadership, Greg invited me to write it. He had co authored two books and I was honored. I was a student leadership. He became a student leadership over his life, and he invited me to write it. And that was a highlight of my life. That work. The launch of that book was one of the rare moments, like getting married or the birth of our sons. That was one of the highlights of my life. And we approached it. Not his father and son, Aziz, Dad and son. But as Piers Bob and great and I was on this treadmill in turn around work that was probably putting me on the road to a heart attack. I wanted to write a book on leadership, get it out there fast getting we are publisher. And, you know, and Greg said, No, just way Want to write the definitive book leadership? We want to do our research. We want to interview people. We want to go deep. I want to be thoughtful. And because we approach this as piers I said okay. And so I slow down and he probably sped up and we compromised And we listened. And I learned how deep Iwas and learned how incredibly smart Iwas, how thoughtful he was. The things from his generation that he brought in and a huge amount of respect was created for me with my son. Working with them has appeared appear adult and he taught me about the value of family. My wife had raised our boys. I didn't spend as much time. I'm spending a lot more time. I'm making up for that now. So the life lessons I learned about family, about depth, about sanctuary, about people. A lot of that came from Gray. And that's that's a lesson that he taught me, that I will be forever.

Otis:   57:45
That's awesome. So I'll just move onto the next subject now. Oh, come on. I mean, and I mean, I could quite frankly say, say, Dido there, Bob, because you know what? What? Candid? I mean, he's the youngster in our in our quadrant here, But you know, here's this young man who is figuring things out as he goes along with this. He's got a base of knowledge, but he continues to improve that knowledge that continues to challenge himself. And that right there, you know, leads me back to the okay, I'll figure this out, All right, I'll try that again. Because you know, if if he's able to do that, he's able to take on these new challenges and new ways of thinking and doing things based on old school thinking, they learn from me and a bunch of stoics. You know, uh, that that right there is motivation enough for me to bounce me for into that that same respect and then the other piece. And I love this, that you said this Bob, too, is the fact that it's it's really cool, and somebody else had said this once before and I remember who it was. But you you transition from this father son relationship to a co relationship and almost appear relationship, and that's that's a that's a really unique thing to be ableto have with with One of Your Children are and all your Children remain, quite frankly, is really kind of cool that Teoh you know, it's it's no longer the age of taking out the trash. I need you to mobile on it. It's no longer that's like eight. Let's go grab a beer and let's let's talk about this problem set. And I think that that right there is one of the coolest things that as a father, when you get to that point with your Children Ah, that that that that's fun. You know, it's, you know, it's the Yeah, I like hanging out with my kids cause I like to talk to him, like to spend time with them. So, yeah, that that spot on Bob think thanks for thanks for leading that Leading that force,

Bob:   1:0:07
Greg suggested that we asked Stephen coming and his son Steven M. R. Covey, to write forward to triple calm leadership, and we had some contact with them. And so I think Greg contacted them and they said, Well, we'll take a look at the manuscript and if we like it will write something. So we sent it. So, uh, but so we sent them the manuscript and they loved it, and they rode a very, very heartwarming forward to teach your books. And then then afterwards, Steven Covey, unfortunately, died in a biking accident, and I spoke to Steven M R. Covey afterwards, and he said, I will always remember working with my dad, uh, to write the foreword for the book that you have Greg. Well, it was the last thing that we worked on together, and it was one of the most wonderful things. And he said, That will be a lifelong for me. That's how important was so these father son, whether it's mother, son, mother, daughter, father, daughter relationships these kinds of relationships to build as they become adults is Piers are so important. And Stephen M. R. Covey said that about his work for us with his dad, it just really touched,

Otis:   1:1:20
uh, that that's an unbelievable memory and something to hold onto. What an honor. Uh, so what do you learn, Camden?

Camden:   1:1:31
Well, so one thing I just want to say real quick was as we're tying all these together, you know, mine was talking about leading your peers and as, uh, Otis and Bob, we're talking one thing I talked. One thing I was thinking about so much is the ability to switch years like that. I think that's something really profound that you have to have that ability in life of you know, like I have friends that are You know, I guess that's not as the lead entrepreneur. They might be my employees if you put that perspective, whatever. I don't think that way employees you exactly so. But you have that shifted perspective of their my friend right now. Sometimes they're the employees, and I know I've had an interaction with you multiple times, Dad, because I know I do social media for him, for lto. So I am an employee and he is the boss. We do the camera, No to show together. So we are Piers and I still call him, asking for fatherly advice that we're still father and son, and it's being able to shift those years like that, I think is just something that is just so fundamentally useful in life because we all have different relationship of the people. But you want to build utilize every level of that relationship properly, So there's a roundabout way of getting into our closing

Otis:   1:2:41
segment with that, what you learned that's enough.

Camden:   1:2:45
That's just the thesis. I could keep going eso the thing I learned. I started a few things. We're talking one. I just want to give Bob, This isn't the main thing I want to learn, but I really wanted reiterated that I love the quote of just I learned that the most when I got fired. I love that because I just think failure could teach you so much and not necessarily not necessarily your failed a failure every time you got fired. I don't want conjecture that together too much, but the big thing that I really want to take away from this is what you were talking about, Greg the kill through. I think that takes what I've what I've used before in my experience of business of the pre mortem, and it just puts it on steroids. Honestly, it really takes that pre mortem concept and just ramps it up another five or six more levels. How can you kill this project? And then how can we combat the things that we were just trying to kill? I love that perspective on it, Greg. So a great

Otis:   1:3:38
throw it to Greg then. Thank you. Oh, no, you don't operate. Degree

Gregg:   1:3:43
s for me. What's really popping up here is hard to actually, we kind of ended with Covey's, you know, like so many people around the world. I just admire the cubbies. They filled my heart with the inspiration and so much. And when we have the opportunity to talkto cam and onus here, you guys have heart now. I mean, it's just really specialist father and son Teoh be with another father son Bearing or to think about all that mothers and daughters of the mothers and sons except you out there. E think you everything we talked about today. To me, it goes back to heart. And you know, I think you work too often. We're in our heads and it's about spreadsheets, and it's about emails. It's about meetings and slack, and it's about, you know, strategies and budgets. Course on. That's important. We need to have a really good man bring on a game in that room. This but, um, but we also need a heart. You know, if we're gonna leave through a crisis, we need people with integrity. We need people with courage, people you know, there are emotionally intelligent people that we admire. People think it's better and, you know, and business is not just about the numbers, it's about your people in your customers in their community and in a crisis. It's not just about infection rates and death rates and, you know, viral spread. Yeah, it's it's people. So it all comes back to everything we said about people and culture. If we can engage people at the heart level, so there's a higher purpose of truly feel connected because they're vulnerable, there's friendships in their step. Then there's really care Infection shown that that becomes a beautiful thing that we'll look back on will be proud of. So for me, it's heart

Otis:   1:5:37
awesome. Thanks. Thanks, Bob. Your turn

Bob:   1:5:40
when I learned today is that Otis and Cam are exemplars of the quest of my life. Starting out as the captain of high school football team when I was 14. I've been out of quest to find a better brand of leadership. I think his Ronald Reagan once said, In the end, it all comes down to leadership, but there, on the left or the right, or pandemics or global warming or whatever, it all comes down to leadership, and we've got too many examples of bad leadership. Today's well, so my quest has been to find a way better brand of leadership. I found it took me a long time. Maybe I was a slow learner, but once I learned it began teaching it, grinding it. Thanks to Greg's invitation and what he brought to to my thinking on it. My purpose in life is to try and share with people what I've learned about a better brand of leadership. And the two of you exemplified that. And I can't tell you how much that warms my heart to see that you're carrying. That really touches me. It's

Otis:   1:6:48
nice, Bob. That was That was awesome. That's hard to fall. Gosh.

Camden:   1:6:53
Yeah, right. I'm getting real sentimental,

Otis:   1:6:55
Ana. Now I feel bad about what I learned. Goodness gracious, I hate y'all are all appear in this philosophical, beautiful place. And I'm like, Well,

Camden:   1:7:06
you're over there, like two plus

Otis:   1:7:08
two things. Practical approach for when I come into a business in a takeover, how to clean house very easily and find the problem sets and reset the culture, which is a very practical approach. And I'm putting that in my pocket. Bob, you're gonna get full credit every time I use it. Zero

Bob:   1:7:26
Oh, this. This is not a competition between four people. We collectively do this together,

Otis:   1:7:32
Gomera. That's even better. You can't follow that. I know, I know. It's

Camden:   1:7:39
just have Bob do the clothes and state.

Otis:   1:7:40
That's right. No, A guys. Uh, what an honor. What a privilege. Ah, a lot of fun. And, man, I But I thoroughly enjoyed myself and really appreciate you all taking got time out of the day and sharing, sharing your philosophy and your thought processes and an answer Some of those hard questions, you know, and and give it some lessons that that are practical and we can apply Moving forward.

Bob:   1:8:13
You're very welcome of this. Can't thank you for the invitation.

Camden:   1:8:17
Yeah, thanks for being here. Thank you. Greg and Bob Van Erected for being Ah, great guest today. Thank you to first for a sponsor mash chimp, military and athletic strength hemp oil. You guys can check out the camera notice show on instagram, Facebook Twitter and linked in a little bit. And then we also you can check out our podcast episodes on Spotify apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and check out a full archive at the camera. Nota showed dot was dot com. Thank you again for joining us today and they