CEO

Jun

2021

Learning From A Special Needs Leader

I was talking with a woman who gets joy in being with people, specifically serving those with special needs. Kelly Hartman, CEO of Insights Consulting based in Indianapolis, IN is an authentic woman of great passion and purpose. Not only does she run Insights, but is also the founder of the non-profit organization Outside the Box which was founded in 2008.

She has spent decades serving in multiple leadership roles before becoming the CEO of Insights Consulting. While talking she described herself as a social entrepreneur who became CEO by accident. This leader of a Top Ten Best place to work in Indianapolis has a few principles that guide her leadership.

Do Business for Good and the Money Follows

Kelly leads a mission driven organization with an experienced leadership team and realizes the need to be profitable, but does not allow profit and money to be her focus. She believes if you do the right thing the money will follow. I think of this as the Golden Rule idea. If we treat others the way we would want to be treated results will follow.

With that being said, Kelly finds that since money does not drive her decisions she takes more risks. The mission is central to the organization therefore they will innovate and attempt new strategies to keep the mission moving forward. What helps her keep her staff turnover low, innovation high, and still maintain a profitable organization? The next principle helps us understand.

Flip the Organizational Chart

Picture the hierarchical top-down business structure and flip it upside down. This is how Kelly leads. She maintains as few layers between her and the front line for a couple reasons. First, she enjoys connecting with her staff and clients . . . that is why she entered the industry. Second, with fewer layers communication is fast and clear. This environment creates the ability to maintain an innovative culture that can rapidly execute plans and address challenges.

Trust the Team

The structure she created is based on Don Miguel Ruiz’ book The Four Agreements. Each of her staff agree to the following behaviors with one another:

Be impeccable with your word
Don’t make assumptions
Don’t take things personally
Always do your best

As these four agreements are lived out by herself and her team, the trust among team members increases. These four agreements create the foundation of trust: credibility. Authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their book The Truth About Leadership state:

“If you are going to lead, you must have a relationship to others that is responsive to their expectations that you are someone they can believe in.”

As Kelly and each team member live up to these four expectations the members believe in one another and trust one another so the team functions at the highest level possible.

As we closed our time, I asked her for a major leadership lesson. She used a simple illustration:

“Turn the hallway light on to see the other opportunities.”

While leading we can get stuck in the darkness of the day to day and feel in a rut. Imagine walking down a dark hallway full of doors, but the darkness prevents you from seeing the doors. When you turn on the light you see the doors of opportunity and can explore them. Surround yourself with other people who challenge you to think differently and therefore open doors of opportunity.

What about you? How are you leading? Do you trust your team and truly listen to them? What is one action step you can take from these principles. Are you not sure how your team really is doing and want to create an environment to assess your team? Contact me about to discuss facilitating The Leadership Game to build and assess your team at the same time. Lead well.

Sep

2018

Three Leadership Lessons from a CEO in the Technology Sector

I am sitting in a chair at ClearObject across from CEO John McDonald, but I am not in an office, at least not in the traditional sense. McDonald has his “office” in the corner, but it is another cubicle like everybody else.

The chair I sit in is a comfortable, couch-like seat. We are across from each other with a coffee table in between us and behind him are two workspace areas. One is an open area in the corner where a group of employees are working on a project while the other is a glass enclosed space where two employees sit working on yet another project.

As we discuss what it means to be a leader everyone in the office is capable of hearing our conversation just like everyone is able to hear his daily conversations from his “corner office.” This environment is a picture of his leadership approach.

The leader of this Internet of Things organization located in Fishers, IN that creates digital products to replace physical products serves three primary roles as CEO in this fast changing industry.

Raise venture capital
Hire people better than himself at everything
Retain talent

Those three descriptions define his job, but three principles define how he leads within this role.

Vision. When I asked how he described this popular and important leadership concept, he described it as sailing. Company goals are like the skyline, an objective that is far enough and challenging enough that he can’t do it on his own, but close enough to see. As leaders we can paint a grandiose picture, but the vision has to be tangible enough that the team members can define their roles in fulfilling that vision.
Culture. McDonald defines culture as the unwritten rules about how things are done. As a leader with new employees, he finds the most important time in an employee’s experience is the first day. This new individual will naturally test the culture. When a leader has clear norms and expectations, that have been accepted, the team members will quickly clarify for new employees how to perform when they are not aligned with expectations. A leader must be intentional and purposeful in the culture he or she creates in the organization.
Accountability. Accountability at ClearObject is less about punishment and more about acknowledgement. During their Quarterly meetings John will celebrate successes as a means of holding individuals accountable. How does he do this? He sets the bar so people can overachieve. Does he have low standards? Absolutely not. He sets the expectation and gives employees the freedom to go beyond the expectation, thereby exceeding customer expectations and creating an outstanding experience for the client.

As I described the layout of the office and we see McDonald’s guiding principles I realize that everything aligns. An open office space creates open dialogue which is essential in the fast moving tech sector. This also creates a culture where people are approachable whether that is a customer coming in or employees within the organization.

As a leader of your organization or team what kind of culture are you creating? How are you holding yourself and others accountable? Is your vision bigger than you, but still within sight? What is one way you can use these principles to help you grow as a leader at work and home? Comment below or contact me if you want help thinking into your personal or team leadership results.

Jun

2018

Three Leadership Principles from a Small Business Leader

As I sit in a comfortable orange rolling office chair I am across from the CEO of Imavex which is an Indianapolis area based technology and digital marketing organization. Gerald Stanley and his business partner Steve Burzynski have allowed me to invade their day to learn about their company, but more importantly, to me, how they lead it well.

Gerald is a man of many hats. He is the CEO of this organization, helps coach a high school football team, serves on the board of a faith-based non-profit organization called Hands of Hope and is the father of he and his wife’s four children two of which they adopted from another country. With all that and the family friendly travel baseball organization Orange Baseball as well as One Orphan Foundation that he and his business partner founded I think he is either crazy or a great leader. By the end of our conversation I realized he was definitely the latter.

As we talked Mr. Stanley explained to me three foundational principles that guide not only his leadership, but the organization as a whole.

Entrepreneurial – As an established organization that has been serving clients since 2001 they do not want to get stale and apathetic so they strive to take appropriate risks to help the organization grow. At times those risks do not work, but from my observations during our conversation these men learn and grow from mistakes instead of letting them define them and get them stuck. In true entrepreneurial fashion he understands the process of risk, fail, learn, change, and do it all again.
Servant Leaders – Both Gerald and Steve model servant leadership which is demonstrated in how they treat employees and structure their organization. Steve entered our meeting and I asked him what his three key leadership principles were and each principle defines what both men model as servant leaders: be genuine because it earns respect, be consistent as it earns credibility, be empathetic because it helps you connect and builds trust. These are not just theory, but practice for these two men and are foundational to their business culture.
Ownership – When he explained how their organization is structured this ownership idea was clearly evident. In their company three values drive their strategy and they have flattened their structure in a manner that these values are driven not by them, but by the employees. In each area an employee leads the growth and is equipped to bring results. This ownership is evidenced in another way. Both them as leaders and those they lead are accountable to each other and when there are mistakes in projects they have an organizational culture that expects people to take responsibility for their actions and make the appropriate adjustments.

One last question I asked them was how they develop leaders in their organization and the answer came in the form of an expectation: bring solutions not problems. I am not sure where you are in your leadership journey, but with those you lead are you a task master or servant? Are you still taking risks or is something holding you back and maybe even need help thinking into those challenges? Do you exemplify the traits of a servant leader and own what you have been entrusted with both when things go well and poorly? What is one way you can grow as a leader after learning these ideas? Lead well both at work and home and let me know how I can help you on the journey.