Measure, Execute, WIN | Alex Castro | Episode 169

Friends could area alex mack welcome to the podcast so good to have you here time taking it’s completely my pleasure,

00:00:08

Speaker

so we are predominantly talk about your book measure execute win, which I like the evil undertone of winning, because I feel like as leaders. Leaders in in leadership roles is something that doesn’t get discussed enough, that winning aspect, but as just go back to the

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Speaker

forefront the front of that and measuring. So how does that help readers out there achieve peak performance? That’s what they want to do. We want hit peak performance as leaders in our inner selves in our teams arena organizations. So how does measuring help us to go and achieve that?

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Speaker

Yeah? You bet. Well, you know a it’s some. I think this might resonate for you. You know, in terms of your background, a little bit in the sense that you know, as leaders were out to drive, growth were out to drive performance out of teams, but in the mixture of do

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Speaker

doing that, you know good leadership

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positions you to win right. If you think about your life in general, every leader and mentor in near your parents, and

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ah teachers, coaches, everybody’s, their positioning, you in a way that you can succeed to the best of your abilities right in and the challenges you go through this process in in growing up in your life to an end. Eventually, you you come out of school at some point in you

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Speaker

go and you get a job and suddenly you go to work and nobody’s position you to win anymore

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Speaker

right and oftentimes you’re, given objectives in your given

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project projects, you’re, given some kind of a gaul that most of the time is unreachable. Most of the time you cannot deliver on that goal, and what that has begun to do is that organizations. You know there’s a lot of movement to ban

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Speaker

ah purpose and engagement and those things are very powerful, they’re very much needed, but they don’t substitute for aligning the ability for your teams to execute on your ideas in a way that allows them to realize the way and even if

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it’s a stretch goal

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and suddenly what happens is that leader started to get frustrated because it’s like I’m assigning these things out, I can’t find the people to deliver them. I can’t I can’t do what I want to do and you know the the thing that that comes to realization is that as a leader, you have really good ideas, you how you

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Speaker

you can see you’re there, because you can see the path you can see the other side of of the obstacle and say: look if we can get there. The opportunity is there for us and we can capitalize on it. The challenge is getting through the process of execution, and how can you optimize that process of execution

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Speaker

to getting there in this is where it all gets, really lost it. So, unfortunately, eighty percent of the ideas that we have as leaders in the innovations that are we pull from our team’s, never make it. They never make it to ah being realized in that loss. Inopportune,

00:03:38

Speaker

unity is so disappointing to watch. I mean in in mike throughout my career. I’ve seen some unbelievably great ideas, but because you know the organization was not aligned to succeed, because obstacles were there that were ignored and biases took over.

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Speaker

You know that the idea died and, more importantly, great great people would leave the organization because they didn’t feel like they were put in a position to win as well, and so it all begins to tie together

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in in you know how winning effects leadership,

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Speaker

yeah, eg a definitely agree with you, and I can see how it affects it. It is interesting how you started that off with saying younger the world right now isn’t focused on winning is like, I think, that’s doing us a huge disservice. Fromm yeah

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Speaker

kit to his way. Far back as kids little league, where you know everyone gets a turn at bat in and everyone gets out, there’s something to be said for giving everyone an opportunity and a chance for the same time, there’s something to be said for the growth that comes out of being pushed to compete

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Speaker

and execute towards that goal towards whatever it is that you’re going after in an indirect competition and sometimes even losing right now learning from that loss. So it’s it’s interesting how you how you frame that at the beginning, now in your book, you talk about

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Speaker

oh um,

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is it doug great great strategy? Bad execution in india hinted at it. You hinted at it a few times there in that opening new opening bit. So how does it that a huge organizations out there have these great ideas, but they just flop on executing weird?

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Speaker

Does where does it come that all suddenly, it’s a great idea: indigo! Yes, let’s go and do this, and also is great idea, just turns into dust f now

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really where it is. Is that, ah, that the thing that we need to recognize as leaders in their in in within our own businesses is the biases that we have right and many times we go through a very lengthy, extensive analysis on the validity of the idea you know, is

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Speaker

it’s gonna generate the growth we want? Is it gonna take us into the markets that we want? Is this opportunity er this this product that were were wanting to enhance or release or this acquisition we wanna do gonna make us the company we wanna be right, take us into the next evolution of who we are and

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Speaker

and once that analysis is happened right, there’s this sort of sense of accomplishment, but a little bit of a sense of exhaustion right in the sense that there’s been this deep analysis into the into the content of of whether or not we should proceed, and then we jump into execution and, and so what would happen

00:06:56

Speaker

there is. Then there is this whole set of biases says: look, you know everything that ranges from the fact is a halo. I got great hiring practices. I’ve got great retention practices, we’ve got a great organization, we run it in these different ways. My people can get us there

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Speaker

from that. Ah, all the way over to ah in a wall will just address the problems as they come

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and will be able to address them, because we’ve got good project management a week I could product management are, are good leads in the process and, unfortunately, in today’s environment, with customers day in especially with the twenty twenty crisis,

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Speaker

customers have shifted in a way that they no longer tolerate kind of sordid. You either have to hit it. You have to deliver on it. You have to deliver on it in a in a way that is fast. That today is typically digital in nature,

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Speaker

and if you can’t, and if you trip and fall that was it. That was your opportunity and there isn’t that dusting yourself up and moving on to the next. Really what what we’ve seen in- and I have

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have weekly conversations about this with executives from you- know, ten person companies to you know fortune hundred

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that they’ve gone from a cycle where they got eighteen months to implement a strategy to four and a half to five months

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and that compression that acceleration is not artificial. It’s driven by the fact that you and I’s consumers and everybody listening as a consumer

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is now expecting that continuous feed of results,

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and in order to do that, you have to really strip out all of the biases that you have in thinking. Oh yeah we’re good. We can do that. We can deliver on that. We can do those things, because there’s so much emphasis on the planning part of the the consideration is this at the right ideas: the right direction?

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Speaker

Ah too, then: okay! Well, let us go into execution and will just figure it out as we go along and the challenges that, if you, if you do, that, all of these little gaps in alignment between what your idea is in the ability of your business to actually deliver on that idea. The doing part

00:09:30

Speaker

really start to come out very aggressively and compound on each other, and I was as a result. We don’t we don’t get to realize the opportunities that we’ve spent and invested ourselves into. You know getting to the finish line where if we could get them there, they have the potential

00:09:50

Speaker

loyal to do so. Much for ourselves and ike and again I’ll reiterate it’s it’s it’s. You know. In the last twenty years, I’ve seen some unbelievably great ideas just peter out

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Speaker

and because they just can’t get it through execution and- and it’s just been a shame- and you know that’s the bottom line- is it you know for most of the listeners you even for yourself in many cases,

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you’re right.

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Speaker

If your ideas right, you got it and all those naysayers out there. You have the opportunity to really put them aside, but you’ve really gotta be able to do some positioning that allows you to be more aligned in hot in the execution, be more

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Speaker

truthful with yourself in terms of where you are in your capabilities, so that you can then plan and accelerate that implementation of the idea.

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Speaker

Yeah, like that,

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Speaker

I, like all that I liked the part where you said that you know if you don’t execute on the delivery of a service or good customers, are gonna sit around a way for you to figure it out right, they’re, just gonna pick up movement has guess what there’s fifty competitors today and every little thing and then there’s some other ones are a little bit nicer than what you are, and you turn around and

00:11:14

Speaker

ill ever ones popping up with great ideas and new ways of doing things and all the stuff ready to take you out. So you gotta, get those things squared away and execute relentlessly is how I often put it yeah. You even mention the alignment a number of times throughout throughout this interview or right

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Speaker

ready, some interested to get your take on. Was it look like and how do leaders ensure their organization is proper london in the first place?

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Speaker

Well, I think that one of the the biggest

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Speaker

one of the biggest things that we do as leaders is, we tend to reflect on what have we recently accomplished right in and we look at that as a framework sometimes and say, hey, look! We we were able to do this thing. We implemented some digital technology. Are we able to roll out a new product or by a company year

00:12:08

Speaker

open up into it and expand into a new market in in india? Went really really well or had some success in in you’re you’re like okay yeah, you know, we’ve we’ve got that skill and say well since, since we did it there, we can do it there and and that’s the moment where the bias and the dog

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dominoes of failure start to begin to tumble, and it’s a hard thing to really

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acknowledge right, because you believe so much not only in yourself and the idea you have in the in the company that you’re run in the people that you employ,

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but in the overall opportunity itself and the biggest challenge at every idea has is getting through execution, and you know really fur

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for us. It’s you know. We see that you know there are. There are steps that need to be taken to really assess. Is the business? Is the capabilities within your business aligned

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Speaker

to be able to carry out that specific mission that specific engagement right

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Speaker

and you have to take that on a real time current basis? You have to take it on a case by case scenario and you need to evaluate as a leader yeah that stuff is gone well in the past, but our conditions have changed in the last three months. I mean honestly for everybody, you know, let you know listening to this,

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Speaker

you know, could you have? Could you have forecast were where we all are in this moment today?

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Speaker

You know eighteen months ago and people may say well. This is a unique situation and you know I’ll grant that the severity of it is is unique, but we were seeing those levels of disruption happen anyways and they just became more accelerated on what the twenty twenty crisis did for everybody is suddenly the

00:14:11

Speaker

the veil got ripped off of all of our innovation. Had a hug, her efforts and suddenly people say I will let’s engage all this stuff. Let’s get it going, let’s go, let’s kick it into gear right. You know, we’ve we’ve already been working on it, we’re gonna we’re gonna move forward,

00:14:25

Speaker

and you know in it. You know, and and teams were like yeah about that um we’re we’re really not. As far along as as we we should be, and we can’t get it to go and suddenly it was like a holy smokes, how are we gonna how we’re going to retrench, and this is half

00:14:45

Speaker

and and globally I mean this- is something that’s happening. If you know, if you feel like yourself, like your insulated in some way or exposed, you know in the in another way, let’s say as a twenty person: company tempers economy, small company, right, you’re saying you know, I don’t have that muscle in that kind of they eat out dull, be disillusioned by the fact that you have this sort of insulate.

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Speaker

It opinion around things. You know when we have conversations with fortune on global fortune hundred leaders. They are scrambling hard right now to stay on not in front but on it

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Speaker

right. They are trying to do whatever they can to recover this year. You know if you talk to a a finance chief financial officer for twenty twenty one strategy. You know they’re all about how are we gonna recover revenue? How are we gonna, minimize and optimize costs associated to operations this year to really realize

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line ourselves in a way, because they’ve learned the hard way

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that they cannot? You know just because I did it yesterday doesn’t mean that tomorrow it’s gonna be the same kind of rodeo ends

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and so for those that want to really begin to drive more growth from their ideas from their innovations from their transformations

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alignment comes from understanding your capabilities against the idea and that’s move a measurement. It’s not an opinion, it’s something that you need to really truly be a metric of. It’s like it’s. Like a can you imagine banks making law

00:16:25

Speaker

loans without a fight, go score. You know, and just somebody saying yeah I I I think they can repay. Then I feel good about that. You know the guy, you know they they you know in in the misconception around a credit score in and of itself. It’s it’s well! It’s your payment. History is like no, it’s not just that! There’s there’s

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Speaker

multiple metrics that go into your credit scores. I hate how much outstanding debt do you have what your payment history and a few other factors in there right and so a business is really no different and you really need to be able to take a step back and say: where are my biases miss guiding me in my decision making

00:17:06

Speaker

you know or or masking issues that I’m gonna run into during execution that are going to be very expensive, very time consuming to correct?

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Speaker

And how many times am I gonna put my teams through this exercise and how much of my team is gonna go away because they’re gonna start losing faith in me as a leader. Is I’m keep putting them in positions where they can’t win?

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It all starts to compound, and so that’s a lot of of what we we try to really focus on.

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Speaker

Ah, there’s a lot to unpack in there

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Speaker

about your house of laughing when you’re when you’re talking about the pandemic and went ahead and people like well, you know that we can’t really plan for the severity like well. How many times have we said that in the past for all kinds of different things, you know no one plan for this

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verity of a two thousand acre crisis. The now no plan for that no plan for the two thousand dot co dot com bubble burst

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Speaker

right. All. I am for the nineteen nineties, tech for again

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yeah river

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raisa. So there’s a little bit of a common theme here, folks yeah yeah yo lake. Yes, it’s going to come and it’s going to suck, so you better start planning for the worse so that whenever whatever comes around the corner after we get out of this pandemic, and we get into the next new phase

00:18:39

Speaker

and whatever else turns around the fight and fight us, it actually doesn’t hurt so much strain. I I love the whole the canada, the theme of our what you’re talking about there is to he’ll give a while and make sure our practices are in place, and I really like the part where you talk to your doonan

00:18:59

Speaker

analysis, of whatever butter capabilities and who know what is it with that? We expect three need it was that delta so going down that road, because I’m a I’m a super analytical type like I will analyze the crap out of anything, and I will look for the metrics in and break a big problems into wwe

00:19:19

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very little problems and grab all the data. Look at the numbers myself and also male geek out with some charts and stuff, but

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to further visits own era. Business leaders out there any organizational leaders out there, where some key areas that they should be looking at this, because this day and age may we could look at all kinds of crazy types of data. But where should we really be looking at make sure that you know that that coverage is actually there or that I’ll help us

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Speaker

identify where world war were locking them?

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Speaker

It’s great question

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the the thing that that really has guided a lot of of what we do has been the deep investment by

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some of the largest and most pronounced universities around. Something called behavioral economics-

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and you know I I you know- is having this conversation with somebody recently, where

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you know I read h: b r, harvard business review in and different articles on a regular basis right and to your point.

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Those articles are littered with

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hum data and studies may in metrics and examples about you know: hey, look on a consistent basis, x percent of this, and this and this- and this is what the data is showing

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Speaker

and I was recently reading an article by by a guy and and he he he sat in his article. He basically started out

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by saying I’ve been saying this for the last thirty five years and nobody is listening,

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and I don’t understand why I don’t understand why they’re not listening

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and it’s because a lot of the data unfortunately, is structured in a way that makes you defensive in how you see yourself

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and so as a result, you know that the the challenge in communicating a lot of this

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for us is that it you know it it did to those that are going through this you’re, not wrong.

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Speaker

You know you’re you’re, you have the right positioning to do it.

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Speaker

The thing that’s hard is really taking a step back and reexamine in yourself in your abilities to do the work and that’s probably more likely than not what got you into leadership. To begin with. Is the ability to really say, hey wait, a minute, this formula isn’t working right

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Speaker

and, as a result, you know what what happens is that I tend to call good leaders really good wood, chipper shippers right they they have this innate processing capability and they take in rock

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content and they process it and produce a consistent output from their content.

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But the challenge that comes is that sometimes the lack of good raw information they start to fill in the gaps with with bias with what they think is the right thing. You know, I can’t I can’t express how many times I’ve been in a conversation with a really

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very accomplished individual who says wow. You know, based on my experience

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Speaker

and it’s like okay, but your experience in that situation is x, amount of time old and that that that that the world the ground under you is shifted in you need to stop looking at the experience and start to look at your capabilities

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and your ability to process that information. That’s where your strength, this as a leader, you know, don’t be misguided by the gaps that you’re automatically filling in, because there isn’t enough information for you bear to to pinpoint it

00:23:45

Speaker

yeah. I like that. I hear the theme of the buyers coming back out in in looking at the data, and often you do fine leaders out there who look for the numbers at as a form of confirmation bias. Yes, a perfectly what they think is right

00:24:04

Speaker

right, whereas instead of working at the numbers to analyze them to determine what’s going on and they own and figure out, okay, what’s the best way forward here, where are my my actual holes and gaps in were young,

00:24:22

Speaker

maybe wearer, or maybe you? Where am my over program? Where do I have too much capacity? Because lord knows no one wants to put their hand up say I got too much people. I got too much time. We got through amount of money. I got so much whatever right. I’ve been a leader of of leaders in and it’s easy I can tell right away,

00:24:42

Speaker

and I’ve also been on the other side of fence where I’m like. Do I really want to give the yolk raise my hand and give up this resource? Because I know, but that’s where I think, that’s where you has a leader- need to be selling the vision preaching about not preaching, but you are really selling the greater good

00:25:03

Speaker

of the organization, because, if you’re, a leader of leaders and when your subordinates deal with their pr department head, for example, of a company, if they have access capacity and me, while another program had a struggling and aid don’t, and they would know that you’re they should be putting their hand up the say.

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Speaker

Hey know, I got access capacity. What I cut a little bit over to joe said, jochen known, get his head above water and we can actually get aligned and execute on this problem. That’s going right right!

00:25:36

Speaker

I mean in many ways it’s it’s it’s all, so you know it’s it you don’t that the thing that affects a lot of people is that they get they get put into positions to deliver on on idea, and you know in it’s really the unknowns

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they tend to derail you in in you know, and there’s just been this traditional perspective on it that says.

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Ah

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I you know, I can’t see the unknowns

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in in we. We kind of disagree a little bit with that, because most of the unknowns that are out there are measurable in many ways.

00:26:21

Speaker

So one interesting thing is come though the I were talking about measuring our dad on in analyzing stuff like this, but one thing which a lot of leaders can easily find themselves trapped in. Is that analysis, paralysis? Worse, I owed skimming more

00:26:39

Speaker

you’ll. Give me more data of a measure. This are, let me get let’s get another metric or we need more time eccentrics at uni, just kind of going into this whole cycle circle. What’s your best advice for the leaves out there for both themselves and their subordinates to get out of this analysis, paralysis and say: okay, it’s now time to make it its

00:26:58

Speaker

vision. Yes, well, you know the challenges that sometimes we get so married to the idea we had so we are so committed.

00:27:09

Speaker

You know which it’s it’s it you know there there’s another biased, called a sunken cost bias

00:27:17

Speaker

right. We’ve we’ve already invested ourselves so much in this direction that it’s impossible to let go

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and it you know what it comes down to it. You know scott in many ways is that what what we all need to adapt to is that we need to be less. Ah,

00:27:38

Speaker

we let we need to begin to let go of this attitude. Oval will try this and then fast to fail or wool analysis paralysis ourselves into something, and the time passes for that that window of opportunity.

00:27:54

Speaker

We need to start to use data as a way to bake. More precise decisions as leaders so that, as a result, the things that we engage on the things we invest in have a direct return, because not only are our people positioned optimally, six to succeed, the idea is,

00:28:14

Speaker

is is really surrounded by truth. Where are we gap? And what do we need to do to fix that? You know it’s that military adage. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast right. You have to understand capability before you engage action

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and that’s where the real key is

00:28:35

Speaker

yeah, love that go slow to go fast. I wrote a post once about weapons training most going through my basic level, weapons weapon, a basic level, training, reddit,

00:28:45

Speaker

weapons, instructor and use always a smooth is fast smear against fast. The end, though, and I used ice ages, get it get our drills down so that we’re not stumbling with one, the rifle in our hand, with live rounds by the way ahead and to china, change magazines or trying to clear a jam,

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Speaker

and it would costly on one point he be yelling at us. The targets are your target start shooting in the next going to be yelling at someone, because they’re fumbling with the mag change- and maybe they are good egg- is still here. I am today like smooth pass through those fastest yelling at us, but a downgrade in it is true because you just take your time. You go through it

00:29:26

Speaker

smooth boy and the reality. Is you actually go through the drills to the point where you’re not actually moving fast but you’re? Still every little bit is, is so efficient. All your movements are so efficient, so I spent the two thousand nine from october to those

00:29:46

Speaker

nine to june twenty ten and kandahar afghanistan, and then I was actually embedded directly into an afghan national army unit, and one of my one of my rules was oddly enough weapons instructing. So we would actually spent a lot of extra extra time on the range on top of that and I’m a lefty.

00:30:06

Speaker

I live in a right handed world, be a lefty, suck c area left and that your product is your laugh at

00:30:12

Speaker

no. It’s my. I used to be a lefty when I was in grade school, but my teacher’s forced me to become irradiated right right, so I’m lefty am actually say miami dexterous, but eminem. Furthermore, the story of mystery irma, a lefty are weapons and rifles are made amie dexterous, but our pistols are so

00:30:31

Speaker

to to for me to use a pistol as a lefty. I need to draw my pistol

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Speaker

switch to my right hand, take the safety off switch back, to my left hand, bring up my sight picture and then squeeze off around way too long

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right,

00:30:49

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I muzzled. Throw just picked, draw the pistol, throated dang thing at the guy

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who’s, trying to shoot me, because it’s just too long. So during their yacht, our time at the the range were just practicing, I would actually go through weapon switch drills. I e o be shooting with my rifle the target. I would empty a magazine so basically fling my rifle behind me as I throw

00:31:15

Speaker

go through it. I drew my pistol simultaneously cock the empty pistol, because not enough the rabbit, the safety anymore brought it up to a site, pitcher and then capped off two rounds before my rifle actually hit my back, and that was all about being smooth and efficient. I talk with that often, and neither shown that when we were

00:31:35

Speaker

rush through our decisions, without being necessarily being smooth, be it’s the same principle. If we’re efficient name, we’re gonna actually go getter rounds on target lot. Redeker milo in in that that efficiency also comes from understand mean where you have a gap

00:31:56

Speaker

right, because I’m sure that, though, that that same scenario, you would have a very different narrative if you were in a jungle, verse is a desert. Verse is some high altitude snow environment right because there are different conditions that affect different elements, right yeah, for

00:32:16

Speaker

that’s what we look yeah! That’s what we look at right. I mean I the only the real significant data point that I can share. You know, because I could pull out twenty years where the data it starts to overwhelm you in in immediately. I think that it, you know any leader who’s listening to this, or even you know, driver of execution is, is he has like yea that doesn’t apply

00:32:36

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like us right.

00:32:39

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The data that that the one point that I want to make

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is that our customers that use at in measure execution readiness tend to see projects go into place thirty to fifty percent faster,

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and that’s because the thing that happens is that if you do not align that execution out the gate,

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the problem doesn’t go away.

00:33:09

Speaker

Yeah you’re now having to do you’re having to build and fly the plane at the same time as the well into it.

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Speaker

So as your own execution of your idea, the product, the acquisition, the the new market penetration, the back office, optimization whatever it is, that you’re doing

00:33:27

Speaker

you’re now trying to execute that project plan, plus all the corrective projects that you now have to do, because if you didn’t see them, you were unable to recognize that those issues were there and as a result, instead of having resources. Hundred percent report resource

00:33:46

Speaker

is dedicated to the core effort.

00:33:49

Speaker

You have this splintering that begins to happen,

00:33:53

Speaker

and suddenly you go from managing wine effort to two to three to five to seven because you’re having to to address all these little peccadilloes that are coming up right in terms of what’s happening right, so you may have a manager that does not know how to lead through a transformation effort.

00:34:13

Speaker

You may have

00:34:16

Speaker

an organization that cannot adapt to the change that’s being put on them. The vision is not clear enough.

00:34:25

Speaker

The business unit that you need to contribute to this is already at a hundred percent of capacity.

00:34:36

Speaker

So it’s things like that that truly began to crop up, and now you have to figure out how to address those while you’re trying to deliver your idea

00:34:51

Speaker

and that’s where it starts to unravel,

00:34:55

Speaker

because the costs go up, the time line gets longer. Okay, you know you can look at those metrics,

00:35:01

Speaker

but but the air comes out of the sails. The tolerance from customers or management to continue starts to go down.

00:35:10

Speaker

People start to you know, really minimize and started gonna crawl away from the effort, because they don’t want bad association and in many other things that happen and as a result eat. You know, as a leader now you’re managing this chaos in your project has turned into something that you’re striving for

00:35:29

Speaker

opportunity to damage control you’re just trying to get to the other side of whatever. This thing is with the least amount of reputational impact,

00:35:41

Speaker

and in the end that doesn’t help your career. It doesn’t help your company, it doesn’t help move the company forward, and

00:35:52

Speaker

you know how many times have people been through an effort and they’re like. I never want to do that again

00:36:01

Speaker

and that’s an area where absolutely that’s definitely not peak performance right there and actually that’s the inverse of it.

00:36:08

Speaker

And that’s now. That’s a nice little neat bow you just throughout this whole conversation,

00:36:15

Speaker

I don’t feel like actually deepak about one who leave a baby, because I felt fantastic,

00:36:21

Speaker

very good. Sir alex said this very great conversation I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the all good things must come to an end as they say what the. If for wrap up a deal, got a couple, ask questions for you, yeah yeah, for sure

00:36:32

Speaker

one is across all the guess here at peak performance, leadership, podcast and as for new alex castro. What makes agree,

00:36:42

Speaker

I think it’s the ability to leave your ego at the door

00:36:47

Speaker

to be able to truly understand what you’re good at and what you’re bad at I use em.

00:36:54

Speaker

I use the term internally with our teams. Very very often I call it a force multiplier right. So I say: look you know if if the ceo of walmart

00:37:07

Speaker

could do everything that walmart does today without a single employee,

00:37:14

Speaker

do you actually think they would go out and hire people?

00:37:18

Speaker

And you can you can meander through that answer, but at the end of the day, the answers now right? Why does walmart have all of these employees because, if force multiplier, there are things that I don’t do well or I do not have enough time to do it. It’s understanding what that multiplier looks like right in being able to be to let the ego down and anderson

00:37:38

Speaker

yeah, and I need to bring in better than me

00:37:42

Speaker

to do this or equal to me to do this and not feel threatened about it,

00:37:46

Speaker

because at the end of the day, it’s it’s it’s the mission, it’s the end state that you’re really looking to accomplish.

00:37:56

Speaker

You must be. I follow me for a while, because I talk about leadership, moral suppliers, which is based off of the military thing that we call force multiplier so yeah, hello. They rip words in my mouth here,

00:38:09

Speaker

it’s good.

00:38:10

Speaker

I mean there there’s a lot of great established concepts that we need to really just

00:38:16

Speaker

in the end lean into right is the fact that absolute, you know is that as head and we hire people and bring people in to multiply our capabilities movie for an emmy. We need is deeply recognize. What can and can not do it doesn’t diminish you as a leader to sit in a room and say

00:38:35

Speaker

I don’t know the answer to that, but we are gonna, go, find it

00:38:40

Speaker

thats leadership percent. That is leadership oversight. Are

00:38:45

Speaker

I say that if you’re the smartest person in the room as a leader in europe, either in the wrong room rig brought in the run pbs I mean I I tell I tell my folks. It’s like I, my entire goal with fit within my company is I I look forward to the day. I walk into a room

00:39:05

Speaker

and I have nothing to contribute

00:39:09

Speaker

right. There’s no answer. I can provide or idea that I can expand on

00:39:15

Speaker

that hasn’t been addressed in some way. That is the day that I know that I’ve actually done my job really well.

00:39:24

Speaker

That is our job. As a leader I mean imagine, being able to put a mechanism in place. They can address those things

00:39:34

Speaker

that that, to me is optimal. That’s the that’s the that’s the tip of the razor for my beautiful absolutely love it

00:39:43

Speaker

I often say were questions are not answers as leaders. That’s that’s the goal right. I follow sb question five percent of the podcast. Where can people find you? How can they call you a part of your journey? It’s all the know, yep

00:39:57

Speaker

ian out that the the name of the company is m. As in mary, corp and corporate

00:40:03

Speaker

the book talks about a platform called ram score r e m score at it means readiness measurement score.

00:40:12

Speaker

You can find the book on amazon. It was a best seller for a little while it’s on audible, if you want to just listen to it, it’s quick, quick and dirty a two and half hours. Long

00:40:23

Speaker

and yeah check it out because at the end of the day it you know whatever you can do to remove those obstacles in execution before you engage that’s the time. It costs you the least ah in terms of ah

00:40:41

Speaker

schedule in terms of actual dollars in and people and resources, and if you can get that alignment early, it you’re going to accelerate delivery. You’re going to get to market faster, you’re, gonna meet the demand faster and your employees are going to celebrate that with you,

00:41:00

Speaker

because they see that you are able to lead them through this post crisis environment into the future.

00:41:08

Speaker

There’s no lack of good ideas in today’s business world, yet 50% of them are doomed to failure. Executives will often greenlight a strategic initiative based on a business case and financial analyses alone, with no idea whether their company has the ability to execute it successfully. But there’s a better way to make corporate decisions. Alex Castro has developed the ReM Score™, a data-driven measurement for determining a company’s execution capability (or readiness) for each strategic initiative it is considering. Using this groundbreaking approach, business leaders can effectively evaluate potential acquisitions, new product concepts, new market expansions, and back-office optimizations by separating ideas that will actually work for them from those that are great in theory alone, while continuously measuring a business’s adaptability to evolving strategies. You don’t get two or three chances to make a strategy work in our rapidly shifting business environment. Measure, Execute, Win will help your company proceed on initiatives with full confidence that they will deliver the results you want.

Topics

During this interview Alex and I discuss the following topics:

• How measuring will enable you to hit peak performance
• How organizations fail at executing on their great ideas
• What alignment is and how to ensure your organization is aligned
• How to analyze your organization to determine your shortcomings
• How to avoid analysis paralysis

Guest Resources

If you are interested in learning more about Alex’s resources be sure to check out the following links:

• Buy “Measure, Execute, Win” on Amazon
• Check out M Corp website
• Check out ReM Score’s website
• Connect with Alex on LinkedIn

Transcript

Friends could area alex mack welcome to the podcast so good to have you here time taking it’s completely my pleasure,

00:00:08

Speaker

so we are predominantly talk about your book measure execute win, which I like the evil undertone of winning, because I feel like as leaders. Leaders in in leadership roles is something that doesn’t get discussed enough, that winning aspect, but as just go back to the

00:00:28

Speaker

forefront the front of that and measuring. So how does that help readers out there achieve peak performance? That’s what they want to do. We want hit peak performance as leaders in our inner selves in our teams arena organizations. So how does measuring help us to go and achieve that?

00:00:49

Speaker

Yeah? You bet. Well, you know a it’s some. I think this might resonate for you. You know, in terms of your background, a little bit in the sense that you know, as leaders were out to drive, growth were out to drive performance out of teams, but in the mixture of do

00:01:08

Speaker

doing that, you know good leadership

00:01:12

Speaker

positions you to win right. If you think about your life in general, every leader and mentor in near your parents, and

00:01:23

Speaker

ah teachers, coaches, everybody’s, their positioning, you in a way that you can succeed to the best of your abilities right in and the challenges you go through this process in in growing up in your life to an end. Eventually, you you come out of school at some point in you

00:01:43

Speaker

go and you get a job and suddenly you go to work and nobody’s position you to win anymore

00:01:49

Speaker

right and oftentimes you’re, given objectives in your given

00:01:55

Speaker

project projects, you’re, given some kind of a gaul that most of the time is unreachable. Most of the time you cannot deliver on that goal, and what that has begun to do is that organizations. You know there’s a lot of movement to ban

00:02:15

Speaker

ah purpose and engagement and those things are very powerful, they’re very much needed, but they don’t substitute for aligning the ability for your teams to execute on your ideas in a way that allows them to realize the way and even if

00:02:35

Speaker

it’s a stretch goal

00:02:38

Speaker

and suddenly what happens is that leader started to get frustrated because it’s like I’m assigning these things out, I can’t find the people to deliver them. I can’t I can’t do what I want to do and you know the the thing that that comes to realization is that as a leader, you have really good ideas, you how you

00:02:58

Speaker

you can see you’re there, because you can see the path you can see the other side of of the obstacle and say: look if we can get there. The opportunity is there for us and we can capitalize on it. The challenge is getting through the process of execution, and how can you optimize that process of execution

00:03:18

Speaker

to getting there in this is where it all gets, really lost it. So, unfortunately, eighty percent of the ideas that we have as leaders in the innovations that are we pull from our team’s, never make it. They never make it to ah being realized in that loss. Inopportune,

00:03:38

Speaker

unity is so disappointing to watch. I mean in in mike throughout my career. I’ve seen some unbelievably great ideas, but because you know the organization was not aligned to succeed, because obstacles were there that were ignored and biases took over.

00:04:00

Speaker

You know that the idea died and, more importantly, great great people would leave the organization because they didn’t feel like they were put in a position to win as well, and so it all begins to tie together

00:04:15

Speaker

in in you know how winning effects leadership,

00:04:21

Speaker

yeah, eg a definitely agree with you, and I can see how it affects it. It is interesting how you started that off with saying younger the world right now isn’t focused on winning is like, I think, that’s doing us a huge disservice. Fromm yeah

00:04:40

Speaker

kit to his way. Far back as kids little league, where you know everyone gets a turn at bat in and everyone gets out, there’s something to be said for giving everyone an opportunity and a chance for the same time, there’s something to be said for the growth that comes out of being pushed to compete

00:05:01

Speaker

and execute towards that goal towards whatever it is that you’re going after in an indirect competition and sometimes even losing right now learning from that loss. So it’s it’s interesting how you how you frame that at the beginning, now in your book, you talk about

00:05:21

Speaker

oh um,

00:05:22

Speaker

is it doug great great strategy? Bad execution in india hinted at it. You hinted at it a few times there in that opening new opening bit. So how does it that a huge organizations out there have these great ideas, but they just flop on executing weird?

00:05:42

Speaker

Does where does it come that all suddenly, it’s a great idea: indigo! Yes, let’s go and do this, and also is great idea, just turns into dust f now

00:05:56

Speaker

really where it is. Is that, ah, that the thing that we need to recognize as leaders in their in in within our own businesses is the biases that we have right and many times we go through a very lengthy, extensive analysis on the validity of the idea you know, is

00:06:16

Speaker

it’s gonna generate the growth we want? Is it gonna take us into the markets that we want? Is this opportunity er this this product that were were wanting to enhance or release or this acquisition we wanna do gonna make us the company we wanna be right, take us into the next evolution of who we are and

00:06:36

Speaker

and once that analysis is happened right, there’s this sort of sense of accomplishment, but a little bit of a sense of exhaustion right in the sense that there’s been this deep analysis into the into the content of of whether or not we should proceed, and then we jump into execution and, and so what would happen

00:06:56

Speaker

there is. Then there is this whole set of biases says: look, you know everything that ranges from the fact is a halo. I got great hiring practices. I’ve got great retention practices, we’ve got a great organization, we run it in these different ways. My people can get us there

00:07:12

Speaker

from that. Ah, all the way over to ah in a wall will just address the problems as they come

00:07:20

Speaker

and will be able to address them, because we’ve got good project management a week I could product management are, are good leads in the process and, unfortunately, in today’s environment, with customers day in especially with the twenty twenty crisis,

00:07:36

Speaker

customers have shifted in a way that they no longer tolerate kind of sordid. You either have to hit it. You have to deliver on it. You have to deliver on it in a in a way that is fast. That today is typically digital in nature,

00:07:57

Speaker

and if you can’t, and if you trip and fall that was it. That was your opportunity and there isn’t that dusting yourself up and moving on to the next. Really what what we’ve seen in- and I have

00:08:16

Speaker

have weekly conversations about this with executives from you- know, ten person companies to you know fortune hundred

00:08:26

Speaker

that they’ve gone from a cycle where they got eighteen months to implement a strategy to four and a half to five months

00:08:35

Speaker

and that compression that acceleration is not artificial. It’s driven by the fact that you and I’s consumers and everybody listening as a consumer

00:08:46

Speaker

is now expecting that continuous feed of results,

00:08:52

Speaker

and in order to do that, you have to really strip out all of the biases that you have in thinking. Oh yeah we’re good. We can do that. We can deliver on that. We can do those things, because there’s so much emphasis on the planning part of the the consideration is this at the right ideas: the right direction?

00:09:10

Speaker

Ah too, then: okay! Well, let us go into execution and will just figure it out as we go along and the challenges that, if you, if you do, that, all of these little gaps in alignment between what your idea is in the ability of your business to actually deliver on that idea. The doing part

00:09:30

Speaker

really start to come out very aggressively and compound on each other, and I was as a result. We don’t we don’t get to realize the opportunities that we’ve spent and invested ourselves into. You know getting to the finish line where if we could get them there, they have the potential

00:09:50

Speaker

loyal to do so. Much for ourselves and ike and again I’ll reiterate it’s it’s it’s. You know. In the last twenty years, I’ve seen some unbelievably great ideas just peter out

00:10:05

Speaker

and because they just can’t get it through execution and- and it’s just been a shame- and you know that’s the bottom line- is it you know for most of the listeners you even for yourself in many cases,

00:10:19

Speaker

you’re right.

00:10:20

Speaker

If your ideas right, you got it and all those naysayers out there. You have the opportunity to really put them aside, but you’ve really gotta be able to do some positioning that allows you to be more aligned in hot in the execution, be more

00:10:40

Speaker

truthful with yourself in terms of where you are in your capabilities, so that you can then plan and accelerate that implementation of the idea.

00:10:52

Speaker

Yeah, like that,

00:10:54

Speaker

I, like all that I liked the part where you said that you know if you don’t execute on the delivery of a service or good customers, are gonna sit around a way for you to figure it out right, they’re, just gonna pick up movement has guess what there’s fifty competitors today and every little thing and then there’s some other ones are a little bit nicer than what you are, and you turn around and

00:11:14

Speaker

ill ever ones popping up with great ideas and new ways of doing things and all the stuff ready to take you out. So you gotta, get those things squared away and execute relentlessly is how I often put it yeah. You even mention the alignment a number of times throughout throughout this interview or right

00:11:34

Speaker

ready, some interested to get your take on. Was it look like and how do leaders ensure their organization is proper london in the first place?

00:11:45

Speaker

Well, I think that one of the the biggest

00:11:48

Speaker

one of the biggest things that we do as leaders is, we tend to reflect on what have we recently accomplished right in and we look at that as a framework sometimes and say, hey, look! We we were able to do this thing. We implemented some digital technology. Are we able to roll out a new product or by a company year

00:12:08

Speaker

open up into it and expand into a new market in in india? Went really really well or had some success in in you’re you’re like okay yeah, you know, we’ve we’ve got that skill and say well since, since we did it there, we can do it there and and that’s the moment where the bias and the dog

00:12:28

Speaker

dominoes of failure start to begin to tumble, and it’s a hard thing to really

00:12:37

Speaker

acknowledge right, because you believe so much not only in yourself and the idea you have in the in the company that you’re run in the people that you employ,

00:12:50

Speaker

but in the overall opportunity itself and the biggest challenge at every idea has is getting through execution, and you know really fur

00:13:02

Speaker

for us. It’s you know. We see that you know there are. There are steps that need to be taken to really assess. Is the business? Is the capabilities within your business aligned

00:13:15

Speaker

to be able to carry out that specific mission that specific engagement right

00:13:24

Speaker

and you have to take that on a real time current basis? You have to take it on a case by case scenario and you need to evaluate as a leader yeah that stuff is gone well in the past, but our conditions have changed in the last three months. I mean honestly for everybody, you know, let you know listening to this,

00:13:44

Speaker

you know, could you have? Could you have forecast were where we all are in this moment today?

00:13:52

Speaker

You know eighteen months ago and people may say well. This is a unique situation and you know I’ll grant that the severity of it is is unique, but we were seeing those levels of disruption happen anyways and they just became more accelerated on what the twenty twenty crisis did for everybody is suddenly the

00:14:11

Speaker

the veil got ripped off of all of our innovation. Had a hug, her efforts and suddenly people say I will let’s engage all this stuff. Let’s get it going, let’s go, let’s kick it into gear right. You know, we’ve we’ve already been working on it, we’re gonna we’re gonna move forward,

00:14:25

Speaker

and you know in it. You know, and and teams were like yeah about that um we’re we’re really not. As far along as as we we should be, and we can’t get it to go and suddenly it was like a holy smokes, how are we gonna how we’re going to retrench, and this is half

00:14:45

Speaker

and and globally I mean this- is something that’s happening. If you know, if you feel like yourself, like your insulated in some way or exposed, you know in the in another way, let’s say as a twenty person: company tempers economy, small company, right, you’re saying you know, I don’t have that muscle in that kind of they eat out dull, be disillusioned by the fact that you have this sort of insulate.

00:15:06

Speaker

It opinion around things. You know when we have conversations with fortune on global fortune hundred leaders. They are scrambling hard right now to stay on not in front but on it

00:15:19

Speaker

right. They are trying to do whatever they can to recover this year. You know if you talk to a a finance chief financial officer for twenty twenty one strategy. You know they’re all about how are we gonna recover revenue? How are we gonna, minimize and optimize costs associated to operations this year to really realize

00:15:39

Speaker

line ourselves in a way, because they’ve learned the hard way

00:15:46

Speaker

that they cannot? You know just because I did it yesterday doesn’t mean that tomorrow it’s gonna be the same kind of rodeo ends

00:15:55

Speaker

and so for those that want to really begin to drive more growth from their ideas from their innovations from their transformations

00:16:05

Speaker

alignment comes from understanding your capabilities against the idea and that’s move a measurement. It’s not an opinion, it’s something that you need to really truly be a metric of. It’s like it’s. Like a can you imagine banks making law

00:16:25

Speaker

loans without a fight, go score. You know, and just somebody saying yeah I I I think they can repay. Then I feel good about that. You know the guy, you know they they you know in in the misconception around a credit score in and of itself. It’s it’s well! It’s your payment. History is like no, it’s not just that! There’s there’s

00:16:45

Speaker

multiple metrics that go into your credit scores. I hate how much outstanding debt do you have what your payment history and a few other factors in there right and so a business is really no different and you really need to be able to take a step back and say: where are my biases miss guiding me in my decision making

00:17:06

Speaker

you know or or masking issues that I’m gonna run into during execution that are going to be very expensive, very time consuming to correct?

00:17:19

Speaker

And how many times am I gonna put my teams through this exercise and how much of my team is gonna go away because they’re gonna start losing faith in me as a leader. Is I’m keep putting them in positions where they can’t win?

00:17:32

Speaker

It all starts to compound, and so that’s a lot of of what we we try to really focus on.

00:17:39

Speaker

Ah, there’s a lot to unpack in there

00:17:43

Speaker

about your house of laughing when you’re when you’re talking about the pandemic and went ahead and people like well, you know that we can’t really plan for the severity like well. How many times have we said that in the past for all kinds of different things, you know no one plan for this

00:18:02

Speaker

verity of a two thousand acre crisis. The now no plan for that no plan for the two thousand dot co dot com bubble burst

00:18:13

Speaker

right. All. I am for the nineteen nineties, tech for again

00:18:18

Speaker

yeah river

00:18:19

Speaker

raisa. So there’s a little bit of a common theme here, folks yeah yeah yo lake. Yes, it’s going to come and it’s going to suck, so you better start planning for the worse so that whenever whatever comes around the corner after we get out of this pandemic, and we get into the next new phase

00:18:39

Speaker

and whatever else turns around the fight and fight us, it actually doesn’t hurt so much strain. I I love the whole the canada, the theme of our what you’re talking about there is to he’ll give a while and make sure our practices are in place, and I really like the part where you talk to your doonan

00:18:59

Speaker

analysis, of whatever butter capabilities and who know what is it with that? We expect three need it was that delta so going down that road, because I’m a I’m a super analytical type like I will analyze the crap out of anything, and I will look for the metrics in and break a big problems into wwe

00:19:19

Speaker

very little problems and grab all the data. Look at the numbers myself and also male geek out with some charts and stuff, but

00:19:28

Speaker

to further visits own era. Business leaders out there any organizational leaders out there, where some key areas that they should be looking at this, because this day and age may we could look at all kinds of crazy types of data. But where should we really be looking at make sure that you know that that coverage is actually there or that I’ll help us

00:19:48

Speaker

identify where world war were locking them?

00:19:53

Speaker

It’s great question

00:19:55

Speaker

the the thing that that really has guided a lot of of what we do has been the deep investment by

00:20:07

Speaker

some of the largest and most pronounced universities around. Something called behavioral economics-

00:20:18

Speaker

and you know I I you know- is having this conversation with somebody recently, where

00:20:23

Speaker

you know I read h: b r, harvard business review in and different articles on a regular basis right and to your point.

00:20:31

Speaker

Those articles are littered with

00:20:36

Speaker

hum data and studies may in metrics and examples about you know: hey, look on a consistent basis, x percent of this, and this and this- and this is what the data is showing

00:20:53

Speaker

and I was recently reading an article by by a guy and and he he he sat in his article. He basically started out

00:21:06

Speaker

by saying I’ve been saying this for the last thirty five years and nobody is listening,

00:21:14

Speaker

and I don’t understand why I don’t understand why they’re not listening

00:21:21

Speaker

and it’s because a lot of the data unfortunately, is structured in a way that makes you defensive in how you see yourself

00:21:33

Speaker

and so as a result, you know that the the challenge in communicating a lot of this

00:21:41

Speaker

for us is that it you know it it did to those that are going through this you’re, not wrong.

00:21:51

Speaker

You know you’re you’re, you have the right positioning to do it.

00:21:57

Speaker

The thing that’s hard is really taking a step back and reexamine in yourself in your abilities to do the work and that’s probably more likely than not what got you into leadership. To begin with. Is the ability to really say, hey wait, a minute, this formula isn’t working right

00:22:18

Speaker

and, as a result, you know what what happens is that I tend to call good leaders really good wood, chipper shippers right they they have this innate processing capability and they take in rock

00:22:36

Speaker

content and they process it and produce a consistent output from their content.

00:22:43

Speaker

But the challenge that comes is that sometimes the lack of good raw information they start to fill in the gaps with with bias with what they think is the right thing. You know, I can’t I can’t express how many times I’ve been in a conversation with a really

00:23:02

Speaker

very accomplished individual who says wow. You know, based on my experience

00:23:09

Speaker

and it’s like okay, but your experience in that situation is x, amount of time old and that that that that the world the ground under you is shifted in you need to stop looking at the experience and start to look at your capabilities

00:23:29

Speaker

and your ability to process that information. That’s where your strength, this as a leader, you know, don’t be misguided by the gaps that you’re automatically filling in, because there isn’t enough information for you bear to to pinpoint it

00:23:45

Speaker

yeah. I like that. I hear the theme of the buyers coming back out in in looking at the data, and often you do fine leaders out there who look for the numbers at as a form of confirmation bias. Yes, a perfectly what they think is right

00:24:04

Speaker

right, whereas instead of working at the numbers to analyze them to determine what’s going on and they own and figure out, okay, what’s the best way forward here, where are my my actual holes and gaps in were young,

00:24:22

Speaker

maybe wearer, or maybe you? Where am my over program? Where do I have too much capacity? Because lord knows no one wants to put their hand up say I got too much people. I got too much time. We got through amount of money. I got so much whatever right. I’ve been a leader of of leaders in and it’s easy I can tell right away,

00:24:42

Speaker

and I’ve also been on the other side of fence where I’m like. Do I really want to give the yolk raise my hand and give up this resource? Because I know, but that’s where I think, that’s where you has a leader- need to be selling the vision preaching about not preaching, but you are really selling the greater good

00:25:03

Speaker

of the organization, because, if you’re, a leader of leaders and when your subordinates deal with their pr department head, for example, of a company, if they have access capacity and me, while another program had a struggling and aid don’t, and they would know that you’re they should be putting their hand up the say.

00:25:22

Speaker

Hey know, I got access capacity. What I cut a little bit over to joe said, jochen known, get his head above water and we can actually get aligned and execute on this problem. That’s going right right!

00:25:36

Speaker

I mean in many ways it’s it’s it’s all, so you know it’s it you don’t that the thing that affects a lot of people is that they get they get put into positions to deliver on on idea, and you know in it’s really the unknowns

00:25:56

Speaker

they tend to derail you in in you know, and there’s just been this traditional perspective on it that says.

00:26:03

Speaker

Ah

00:26:05

Speaker

I you know, I can’t see the unknowns

00:26:09

Speaker

in in we. We kind of disagree a little bit with that, because most of the unknowns that are out there are measurable in many ways.

00:26:21

Speaker

So one interesting thing is come though the I were talking about measuring our dad on in analyzing stuff like this, but one thing which a lot of leaders can easily find themselves trapped in. Is that analysis, paralysis? Worse, I owed skimming more

00:26:39

Speaker

you’ll. Give me more data of a measure. This are, let me get let’s get another metric or we need more time eccentrics at uni, just kind of going into this whole cycle circle. What’s your best advice for the leaves out there for both themselves and their subordinates to get out of this analysis, paralysis and say: okay, it’s now time to make it its

00:26:58

Speaker

vision. Yes, well, you know the challenges that sometimes we get so married to the idea we had so we are so committed.

00:27:09

Speaker

You know which it’s it’s it you know there there’s another biased, called a sunken cost bias

00:27:17

Speaker

right. We’ve we’ve already invested ourselves so much in this direction that it’s impossible to let go

00:27:24

Speaker

and it you know what it comes down to it. You know scott in many ways is that what what we all need to adapt to is that we need to be less. Ah,

00:27:38

Speaker

we let we need to begin to let go of this attitude. Oval will try this and then fast to fail or wool analysis paralysis ourselves into something, and the time passes for that that window of opportunity.

00:27:54

Speaker

We need to start to use data as a way to bake. More precise decisions as leaders so that, as a result, the things that we engage on the things we invest in have a direct return, because not only are our people positioned optimally, six to succeed, the idea is,

00:28:14

Speaker

is is really surrounded by truth. Where are we gap? And what do we need to do to fix that? You know it’s that military adage. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast right. You have to understand capability before you engage action

00:28:31

Speaker

and that’s where the real key is

00:28:35

Speaker

yeah, love that go slow to go fast. I wrote a post once about weapons training most going through my basic level, weapons weapon, a basic level, training, reddit,

00:28:45

Speaker

weapons, instructor and use always a smooth is fast smear against fast. The end, though, and I used ice ages, get it get our drills down so that we’re not stumbling with one, the rifle in our hand, with live rounds by the way ahead and to china, change magazines or trying to clear a jam,

00:29:06

Speaker

and it would costly on one point he be yelling at us. The targets are your target start shooting in the next going to be yelling at someone, because they’re fumbling with the mag change- and maybe they are good egg- is still here. I am today like smooth pass through those fastest yelling at us, but a downgrade in it is true because you just take your time. You go through it

00:29:26

Speaker

smooth boy and the reality. Is you actually go through the drills to the point where you’re not actually moving fast but you’re? Still every little bit is, is so efficient. All your movements are so efficient, so I spent the two thousand nine from october to those

00:29:46

Speaker

nine to june twenty ten and kandahar afghanistan, and then I was actually embedded directly into an afghan national army unit, and one of my one of my rules was oddly enough weapons instructing. So we would actually spent a lot of extra extra time on the range on top of that and I’m a lefty.

00:30:06

Speaker

I live in a right handed world, be a lefty, suck c area left and that your product is your laugh at

00:30:12

Speaker

no. It’s my. I used to be a lefty when I was in grade school, but my teacher’s forced me to become irradiated right right, so I’m lefty am actually say miami dexterous, but eminem. Furthermore, the story of mystery irma, a lefty are weapons and rifles are made amie dexterous, but our pistols are so

00:30:31

Speaker

to to for me to use a pistol as a lefty. I need to draw my pistol

00:30:39

Speaker

switch to my right hand, take the safety off switch back, to my left hand, bring up my sight picture and then squeeze off around way too long

00:30:49

Speaker

right,

00:30:49

Speaker

I muzzled. Throw just picked, draw the pistol, throated dang thing at the guy

00:30:55

Speaker

who’s, trying to shoot me, because it’s just too long. So during their yacht, our time at the the range were just practicing, I would actually go through weapon switch drills. I e o be shooting with my rifle the target. I would empty a magazine so basically fling my rifle behind me as I throw

00:31:15

Speaker

go through it. I drew my pistol simultaneously cock the empty pistol, because not enough the rabbit, the safety anymore brought it up to a site, pitcher and then capped off two rounds before my rifle actually hit my back, and that was all about being smooth and efficient. I talk with that often, and neither shown that when we were

00:31:35

Speaker

rush through our decisions, without being necessarily being smooth, be it’s the same principle. If we’re efficient name, we’re gonna actually go getter rounds on target lot. Redeker milo in in that that efficiency also comes from understand mean where you have a gap

00:31:56

Speaker

right, because I’m sure that, though, that that same scenario, you would have a very different narrative if you were in a jungle, verse is a desert. Verse is some high altitude snow environment right because there are different conditions that affect different elements, right yeah, for

00:32:16

Speaker

that’s what we look yeah! That’s what we look at right. I mean I the only the real significant data point that I can share. You know, because I could pull out twenty years where the data it starts to overwhelm you in in immediately. I think that it, you know any leader who’s listening to this, or even you know, driver of execution is, is he has like yea that doesn’t apply

00:32:36

Speaker

like us right.

00:32:39

Speaker

The data that that the one point that I want to make

00:32:42

Speaker

is that our customers that use at in measure execution readiness tend to see projects go into place thirty to fifty percent faster,

00:32:58

Speaker

and that’s because the thing that happens is that if you do not align that execution out the gate,

00:33:06

Speaker

the problem doesn’t go away.

00:33:09

Speaker

Yeah you’re now having to do you’re having to build and fly the plane at the same time as the well into it.

00:33:16

Speaker

So as your own execution of your idea, the product, the acquisition, the the new market penetration, the back office, optimization whatever it is, that you’re doing

00:33:27

Speaker

you’re now trying to execute that project plan, plus all the corrective projects that you now have to do, because if you didn’t see them, you were unable to recognize that those issues were there and as a result, instead of having resources. Hundred percent report resource

00:33:46

Speaker

is dedicated to the core effort.

00:33:49

Speaker

You have this splintering that begins to happen,

00:33:53

Speaker

and suddenly you go from managing wine effort to two to three to five to seven because you’re having to to address all these little peccadilloes that are coming up right in terms of what’s happening right, so you may have a manager that does not know how to lead through a transformation effort.

00:34:13

Speaker

You may have

00:34:16

Speaker

an organization that cannot adapt to the change that’s being put on them. The vision is not clear enough.

00:34:25

Speaker

The business unit that you need to contribute to this is already at a hundred percent of capacity.

00:34:36

Speaker

So it’s things like that that truly began to crop up, and now you have to figure out how to address those while you’re trying to deliver your idea

00:34:51

Speaker

and that’s where it starts to unravel,

00:34:55

Speaker

because the costs go up, the time line gets longer. Okay, you know you can look at those metrics,

00:35:01

Speaker

but but the air comes out of the sails. The tolerance from customers or management to continue starts to go down.

00:35:10

Speaker

People start to you know, really minimize and started gonna crawl away from the effort, because they don’t want bad association and in many other things that happen and as a result eat. You know, as a leader now you’re managing this chaos in your project has turned into something that you’re striving for

00:35:29

Speaker

opportunity to damage control you’re just trying to get to the other side of whatever. This thing is with the least amount of reputational impact,

00:35:41

Speaker

and in the end that doesn’t help your career. It doesn’t help your company, it doesn’t help move the company forward, and

00:35:52

Speaker

you know how many times have people been through an effort and they’re like. I never want to do that again

00:36:01

Speaker

and that’s an area where absolutely that’s definitely not peak performance right there and actually that’s the inverse of it.

00:36:08

Speaker

And that’s now. That’s a nice little neat bow you just throughout this whole conversation,

00:36:15

Speaker

I don’t feel like actually deepak about one who leave a baby, because I felt fantastic,

00:36:21

Speaker

very good. Sir alex said this very great conversation I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the all good things must come to an end as they say what the. If for wrap up a deal, got a couple, ask questions for you, yeah yeah, for sure

00:36:32

Speaker

one is across all the guess here at peak performance, leadership, podcast and as for new alex castro. What makes agree,

00:36:42

Speaker

I think it’s the ability to leave your ego at the door

00:36:47

Speaker

to be able to truly understand what you’re good at and what you’re bad at I use em.

00:36:54

Speaker

I use the term internally with our teams. Very very often I call it a force multiplier right. So I say: look you know if if the ceo of walmart

00:37:07

Speaker

could do everything that walmart does today without a single employee,

00:37:14

Speaker

do you actually think they would go out and hire people?

00:37:18

Speaker

And you can you can meander through that answer, but at the end of the day, the answers now right? Why does walmart have all of these employees because, if force multiplier, there are things that I don’t do well or I do not have enough time to do it. It’s understanding what that multiplier looks like right in being able to be to let the ego down and anderson

00:37:38

Speaker

yeah, and I need to bring in better than me

00:37:42

Speaker

to do this or equal to me to do this and not feel threatened about it,

00:37:46

Speaker

because at the end of the day, it’s it’s it’s the mission, it’s the end state that you’re really looking to accomplish.

00:37:56

Speaker

You must be. I follow me for a while, because I talk about leadership, moral suppliers, which is based off of the military thing that we call force multiplier so yeah, hello. They rip words in my mouth here,

00:38:09

Speaker

it’s good.

00:38:10

Speaker

I mean there there’s a lot of great established concepts that we need to really just

00:38:16

Speaker

in the end lean into right is the fact that absolute, you know is that as head and we hire people and bring people in to multiply our capabilities movie for an emmy. We need is deeply recognize. What can and can not do it doesn’t diminish you as a leader to sit in a room and say

00:38:35

Speaker

I don’t know the answer to that, but we are gonna, go, find it

00:38:40

Speaker

thats leadership percent. That is leadership oversight. Are

00:38:45

Speaker

I say that if you’re the smartest person in the room as a leader in europe, either in the wrong room rig brought in the run pbs I mean I I tell I tell my folks. It’s like I, my entire goal with fit within my company is I I look forward to the day. I walk into a room

00:39:05

Speaker

and I have nothing to contribute

00:39:09

Speaker

right. There’s no answer. I can provide or idea that I can expand on

00:39:15

Speaker

that hasn’t been addressed in some way. That is the day that I know that I’ve actually done my job really well.

00:39:24

Speaker

That is our job. As a leader I mean imagine, being able to put a mechanism in place. They can address those things

00:39:34

Speaker

that that, to me is optimal. That’s the that’s the that’s the tip of the razor for my beautiful absolutely love it

00:39:43

Speaker

I often say were questions are not answers as leaders. That’s that’s the goal right. I follow sb question five percent of the podcast. Where can people find you? How can they call you a part of your journey? It’s all the know, yep

00:39:57

Speaker

ian out that the the name of the company is m. As in mary, corp and corporate

00:40:03

Speaker

the book talks about a platform called ram score r e m score at it means readiness measurement score.

00:40:12

Speaker

You can find the book on amazon. It was a best seller for a little while it’s on audible, if you want to just listen to it, it’s quick, quick and dirty a two and half hours. Long

00:40:23

Speaker

and yeah check it out because at the end of the day it you know whatever you can do to remove those obstacles in execution before you engage that’s the time. It costs you the least ah in terms of ah

00:40:41

Speaker

schedule in terms of actual dollars in and people and resources, and if you can get that alignment early, it you’re going to accelerate delivery. You’re going to get to market faster, you’re, gonna meet the demand faster and your employees are going to celebrate that with you,

00:41:00

Speaker

because they see that you are able to lead them through this post crisis environment into the future.

00:41:08

Speaker

Not awesome love it, and for less of that, there’s always it’s easy. Just go to the show, notes and asset moving forward leadership, dot com forward, slash one six, nine one. Sixty nine alex! Oh man, thanks for coming out spin pleasure to an honor sir to have you on the show yeah. Thank you so much it’s! It’s just been great.

Not awesome love it, and for less of that, there’s always it’s easy. Just go to the show, notes and asset moving forward leadership, dot com forward, slash one six, nine one. Sixty nine alex! Oh man, thanks for coming out spin pleasure to an honor sir to have you on the show yeah. Thank you so much it’s! It’s just been great.