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Carl Smith, Builder of Community, Bureau of Digital
Growth. It’s a topic that touches every team and organization, one that can elicit a full spectrum of emotions ranging from optimism to fear, elation, doubt and a longing for the “good old days.” But as hard as growth is, change is inevitable. It’s something that we, as leaders, strive to embrace, and can successfully help one another navigate.
If you're the leader of a team or in charge of an organization, it often feels like you have to grow. Grow your leadership skill set, grow your team, scale your process, increase output, develop systems and so on. As you grow, you may start noticing cracks in the foundation: core values, culture and external brand perceptions may start to erode. You may even start seeing cracks in your own ability to lead.
Because growth changes us as leaders, sometimes in ways that we don’t anticipate. Sure, fear of failure can stop us in our tracks. But what about fear of success? Or a desire to just keep things as is? Tune in for musings on the roller coaster of growth and share your thoughts by commenting below.
Carl: Hello, true believers, and welcome back to The Bureau Briefing podcast. It is I, Carl, the fearless leader who doesn't want to be a leader. Okay, let's scratch that. It is I, Carl, your friend, your comrade, the person who is here to talk to you about stuff that impacts you as a leader in digital. Look, the work we do is tough and the more that we can help each other, connect with each other, share with each other, the things that are working, the questions that we're having, the better off we're all going to be. That's what the Bureau's all about.
Carl: Now, in today's show, I want to talk about a topic that circles around every aspect of the community and that's growth. Growing your team, growing your business, it's not that easy. It's not the kind of thing, there's just a checklist and everything's going to be fine. So how do you define growth? There are a lot of different ways. It could be the number of people. That is probably the most common concept is when I talk about growing my team, growing my company, I'm talking about the number of people that come in that are employed, that are remote, whatever, but just what's the size of the team? But, let's put that aside for a second and realize it could be about output. What if the size of the team in terms of the number of humans stays the same? How do you increase the amount they can produce? How does that work? Maybe it's about the profitability of your team or maybe it's about the bottom line revenue. Maybe it's about offering, like what are the different things that you can actually offer. Maybe that is another way to define growth.
Carl: But one of the biggest challenges, no matter how you define it, is often cash flow because if it is the number of people on the team, that definitely is going to impact cash flow because you're growing. You've got more mouths to feed, you've got more people to onboard, which by definition is going to cost money while people aren't working.
Carl: Okay. Maybe that's not by definition, but you know what I'm saying. We know cash flow is a big deal and if you're in like a product world or startup world, a lot of what you're doing is spending money as fast as you can because you have a set budget and you need to show that you're spending it. Right? If you're in the services world, you can often be worried about spending money. This is one definite difference, but regardless, cash flow is a huge part of growth. You have to have a plan and even more than that, you have to have an acceptance. You have to have an attitude. Things are changing, it's going to cost money. I'm okay with that because I have a defined goal. I know what I'm trying to accomplish. Do you?
Carl: Do you have a goal or is growth just a thing? Does it just seem like, "Oh, growing would be good. I will feel better if I have more people. I would feel better if I can see that we are creating more stuff. I will feel better if I know that we are seen a certain way because I want people to know that we are on the grow." That sounded so ridiculous, but I think it feels that way a lot of times. If you're the leader of a team, if you're in charge of an organization, it feels like you have to grow. A shark never stopped swimming forward, right? It's like all this crap that is inbrained in us. Inbrained is a new word. I hope you enjoy it. It means ingrained in our brain. It is called inbrained and that one is just for you. Feel free to use it, but attribution would be appreciated.
Carl: Now, when you're going through all of this, you yourself are going to change because your mindset has changed, right? You can't be scared of money. As a good friend once told me, "Scared money don't make money." You have to accept that all of this is going to be kind of crazy and new but normal. But, the impact that it has on every other aspect of your team is going to rattle you. It is going to change your process because you can't get to a new place doing things the way you're doing them now. If you just keep adding people, things are going to fall apart. The process is going to have to change. When you're a small team, you can have a lot of workarounds. When you start adding new people, you can't onboard somebody and say, "Well, this is the way we say to do it, but actually we're going to do it this way because Tom in marketing, he always gets a little squirrely, so we make sure that we work around him." Okay, this is not going to happen anymore.
Carl: Process is going to have to be a little more refined. The systems that you use are probably going to change. But, the biggest of all is structure. The structure of the team, the structure of the company. There's going to be some level of hierarchy. Even if you try to stay flat, what used to work isn't going to work anymore. Communication is going to become key, but no matter how well you do this, things are going to change and you're going to have people that were part of the organization for a long time. They don't want to be there anymore. They're part of your team. Maybe you were three people and they were one of those three. They were in it through thick and thin, but now suddenly because of a new hierarchy, because you're bringing in managers, because the way you've always done it isn't the way you're doing it, because the actual goal, the focus of your department or your team, it's changed and it's not in alignment with them anymore. This is not the dream. This is not what they signed up for and they're going to leave.
Carl: When these pillars of your group decide they want to go, you can get shaken. You can start to think, “Maybe this isn't right,” but you have to realize it's not right for them. It doesn't mean it's not right if you thought it through, if you know why it is that you're going to grow. You have to be okay with the team changing. It's going to change and when it changes, it's going to get tough because they did a lot of things you didn't know. You're going to start to question your systems, question new processes. This is unfortunately normal from everything I've experienced and everything I've been told.
Carl: You're also going to have this issue with legacy clients. If they're in-house clients, if they're out-house clients, that didn't sound right, but if you're a service shop, clients are going to expect you to do what you always did and this is true. It doesn't matter where it is. If you're providing a service, people are going to expect that service even when you've made a decision to change it and it's up to you to make sure you're communicating correctly and being okay with disruption externally with the people you had worked with and internally with the team that you had. It's going to be tough and it's also going to rattle your culture. When it rattles your culture, you have to be okay with culture changing. You have to have a plan to keep the glue of your team together and culture is the glue of the team. How are you going to do this? It's going to depend on who you are.
Carl: One thing that I saw when I was really early in my career, I think I was like 22 at a big meeting with a big corporate client, they started telling us what their core values were. As they explained their core values, I look behind them and on the wall was a poster that had their core values, but it wasn't what this person was saying. It was totally different. I had this look on my face and they looked at me and they were like, "Why do you look confused? I'm just explaining our core values." I say, "I am sorry. I hear you saying that, but on the wall behind you there's a poster." The person turned around, looked at the wall, took it, ripped it off the wall, crumbled it up, threw it down and said, "Those are from last month."
Carl: Okay. Core values have to be core values, but they do have to be flexible, especially as your team is changing because you need to let everybody in this new version, this growth mode version of your team, they have to have a say in what the core values are. Not necessarily the vision or the mission, but the core values because if the core values don't resonate with the team, then they are not real. Also, those core values need to be part of everyday conversation, not a poster on a wall. I feel we should do this because transparency is one of our core values. I feel we should do this because doing the right thing is one of our core values. They need to be integrated into everyday conversation. When there are discussions about decisions that need to be made, this is really, really important and it shows that they're real. But, your team is going to change and you have to be okay with culture changing. You have to be okay with core values changing if you had them.
Carl: A lot of groups when they're smaller, don't have core values. They just feel it because they're a team that knew each other. These need to be defined now. It's going to be the glue that helps you withstand this change.
Carl: You're also going to have a new effort in marketing, a new effort in sales. When you do that, it's going to change how you're perceived externally as well. This becomes really important because obviously you're going to have to be sustainable. If it's internal clients, if it's external clients, whatever it might be, you're going to have to make sure that people know what it is you do and they use your team. Your team has got to be integral to their success, to what they're doing and for that to happen, they have to know. For that to happen, you have to share that news. You have to share that message.
Carl: Well, that's your external perception. I was taught that external perception is brand. Internal perception is culture. Culture is a lot of things. We've all said it a thousand times. It's not ping-pong tables, it's not free beer. Right? Culture is how that team feels about the organization. It's how that team feels about the work that they are doing. Brand is how the external world sees you. It's how your clients feel about you. It's how your prospects feel about you. It's how the people that just found out about you feel about you.
Carl: Having your brand and culture be cohesive is critical. If it feels different inside than it does outside, that's not truth. The team is going to fall apart and it's very rare that a great culture is a bad brand. It's totally possible. But normally, it's a great brand that has a bad culture. When a great brand has a bad culture, that's what allows things like Glassdoor to rule the day. It shows us through to the reality of what's inside. I will say it is better to have a bad brand and a bad culture than it is to have a great brand and a bad culture because it's a false promise.
Carl: Let's compare Applebee's to Chili's, right? I was once in line at a theme park and people were playing the guessing game on their iPhones where like one person holds it up to their head and they've got a word and you're trying to guess. The word was Applebee's and somebody shouted “Shitty Chili's. A shitty Chili's.” And everybody said Applebee's. Now that, my friend, is definition of a bad brand. Right? Here's the thing. If I go into an Applebee's, I expect it to be a bad experience because that's what they've promised me and I have had to go into those Applebee's, right? When I go into Chili's, I expect it to be a better than average experience. I know I'm not going into some great steakhouse. Right. I'm going into Chili's. It's going to be fine. It's going to be clean. I'm going to Applebee's, probably not going to be clean, but that's the thing. You have to, as you go through this growth process, keep an eye on both your brand and your culture and try to keep them aligned.
Carl: Another huge part of this is you. Are you ready? Because I think what holds a lot of us back when it comes to growth, I am definitely part of this and I am focused in 2020 to let the Bureau be what the Bureau wants to be because I'm convinced that part of what's held it back is my personal fear of success, right? If the Bureau's successful, I'm going to have to change my life. I'm going to have to do more. I'm going to have to be on more calls. I'm going to have to be in more meetings. I'm going to have to travel more, which if you know me, that is a ridiculous idea to have to travel more. You worry about how you'll be perceived. Right? I do that all the time.
Carl: The Bureau is a grassroots community. You can't scale intimacy. There are all these things that hold me back because I'm worried that if the Bureau gets too big, we know the Bureau doesn't care what I think. It's growing anyway. We've have 8,000 people in the community now. My responsibility is to make sure that it gets people what they need from content, from relationships. Your responsibility for your team is going to be similar. You have to make sure that your fear of success is not holding you back, that you're not worried about what personal changes you may face. You're not worried about how you may be perceived. You're not worried about the new responsibilities.
Carl: If you're saying that you want to get from A to B and you look at B, you realize you are going to be a different person when you get there. You are going to have new responsibilities. You were going to have new things to do. You're going to have to learn and learning scares aa lot of us, especially those of us that have been around for awhile. Right? I am no spring chicken. So much so that I actually say things like I am no spring chicken but success is going to mean change and we have to be okay with the new pressures that that change brings. We're going to have a bigger role, we're going to have more responsibility. Get over it. This is what we're talking about.
Carl: We also have to let go of old beliefs. We have to let go of thinking that maybe certain things just don't work. Maybe they didn't work before but now we have new people, we have new customers, we have new clients, we have new whatever. Everything is becoming new because we are changing, we are evolving. We're going to have to let go of those old beliefs that we had because a lot of times, the biggest issue with growth is us as leaders. We can't change. We can't get out of the way. We self-sabotage. We started saying this isn't going to work or we start seeing the change that we may have even known was going to come and say this is going to be too disruptive. We are going to fail.
Carl: You know, I am not one who celebrates failure. Fail fast, fail forward, fail often. But if fear of failure is obviously healthy, fear of success, man, we got to get over that. If we want people to really follow us, and that's the definition of a leader, somebody who's followed, then we have to be ready to suck it up, buttercup and know that it's going to be uncomfortable. But at the other side, if the goal that we set is truly what we want, it's going to be worth it.
Carl: Now, I hope when you're looking at your 2020, if growth is one of the things that you have planned, I hope it happens for you. I hope it happens for you on the personal side, grow as a human being. That's a lovely idea because you're going to have to, if you're going to grow your team.
Carl: Now, that brings us to the end of this first episode of the 2020 Bureau Briefing and don't you worry, we're going to have some great guests on this show. You're not going to be stuck with me every week. I'm not just going to sit here and talk to you as fun as that is for me. But, I do have one favorite ask. Help us get the word out about The Bureau Briefing. We took a look over the break and honestly, we were amazed at the number of people who are listening to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you could not even write a review, that would be amazing if you'd actually write something, but just click a number of stars that you think we're worth. It doesn't take that long. Five is the most, or I'd ask you to give us eight, but if you help us with that, we can find more people who are running teams, who are looking to get better, who may have input for us, who may have advice and insights. Thank you so much and we'll see you next week. All the best.
