[00:00:00] Richard Ellis: According to research by DDI, leaders are nine times more likely to be engaged in their role and two and a half times more likely to stay at their company for the next year when they feel a strong sense of purpose. Today, we share some goodness around the purpose leaders have and the tasks they need to accomplish.
[00:00:27] Welcome to Some Goodness, where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future C level leaders maximize their impact. My guest today is Steve Graves, a strategist, CEO, advisor, and author. He's authored over a dozen books and worked with thousands of leaders, all aimed at helping people flourish in their life and work.
[00:00:50] He shares that wisdom with us today. I'm excited to learn from him. Steve, welcome. Hey, thanks so much for letting me join you guys today. Pleasure being here. I've been perusing your books, and one of them that caught my attention was The Five Tasks. And so, if you don't mind, I'd love to just dig into that for today's episode.
[00:01:10] Yeah, be great. Let's do it. All right, so just to give the listeners out there a bit of an overview, you've laid out five tasks that should take up 80 percent of a leader's time. You mentioned set direction, set speed, set risk, set resources, and set culture. Did I get that right?
[00:01:28] Steve Graves: You got them, you got them, you nailed them.
[00:01:30] That's it. There's so many different lists that people use for identifying what it is that leaders ought to be doing or not doing with their time. And it's very common for senior leaders to end up finding themselves doing a bunch of stuff that other people could do. I'm a really big believer that at the CEO level, actually at any level, the more work you can push down and push out, the better off you're going to be from an organizational dynamic standpoint, because then you get to find out.
[00:01:59] Can people really do the very thing that you hired them to do? As you begin to move into the CEO seat or a senior executive seat, there's all kinds of things people can do. From my estimation, after years and years on the street, working with CEOs and business owners, I came down to these five things. And Richard, the key is, I frame it around the idea of setting these five things, and depending on who you are and the company you're in and your personality, different people set things different.
[00:02:28] It's like setting a post in concrete, you can set them top down, you can set them bottom up, you can set them from the middle and let them spread. It doesn't matter, but the thing that must happen is a leader must get these five things established, set, firmed up, Inside their organization for their organization to actually flourish over time, in my opinion,
[00:02:50] Richard Ellis: that's wonderful.
[00:02:51] And I really like that word set. And I was going to ask you, it wasn't just, Hey, you have to have the right direction, the right culture, et cetera. You need to set direction, set culture. And so I was just wondering, were there any, as you've counseled and coached leaders, any kind of aha moments that really serve to highlight the importance of setting versus just having or recognizing.
[00:03:12] Steve Graves: Yeah, getting these five things in place, some of them are easier than others for some companies. Some of these are easier than others for some leadership personality styles. But at the end of the day, it's the composite combination of all five of these that hold each other intention that allows an organization to actually flourish and excel in an incredible way.
[00:03:36] That's the idea. I just can't emphasize enough that it's not one personality type. It's not, it's a CEO doing the things that the CEO is supposed to do. I was on a panel years ago. I remember we were being asked the question of what's the perfect CEO look like and different people been into kind of, Oh, they look like this age or this personality type, or they had this kind of executive polish and all those minor might not be important, but I came down and said, Hey, just a little bit of, maybe of a contrarian view from my seat.
[00:04:08] I think. The best CEO is the person who has the right experience and education and wiring to fit with a company or organization during its current and next season run, you put that together and that's what makes the best CEO. That's the reason why. Oftentimes we are somebody who was incredibly successful over there doing that.
[00:04:31] Then we move them over here and change their address. We changed their stage. We changed their setting. We changed their environment. All of a sudden they can't pull it off because there's a fit that's important. And so that's really critical. But then. Once the fit is there, then the question becomes, what is it that they go do?
[00:04:49] And that's where these five tasks come in.
[00:04:52] Richard Ellis: Love it. Love it. Well, obviously in our short 20 minutes today, we don't have time to get into all of them in great detail, but I'd love to just pick your brain about a few of them, if that makes sense. Sure. Love to, love to. Let's start about setting direction because on the surface that seems pretty obvious.
[00:05:07] Every leader has to share the direction, the strategy, all of that good stuff. But one of the things that caught my eye is you mentioned some truths around setting direction. And a phrase that stood out was that setting direction requires clear and courageous decision making. I'm curious, how hard is this and what did you mean by really emphasizing clear and courageous?
[00:05:29] Steve Graves: Yeah, I don't necessarily think that a leader has to set direction every single day. Most organizations don't require a leader to have to do that. However, your direction will be tested every day, in my opinion. One way or the other, your direction is going to be tested. But over time, you gotta be able to set the direction and the direction simply means I'm going there, not there.
[00:05:51] Now that could be physical. It could be literal. It could be geographical. It could be a Chick fil A saying we're going to stand up another store over on that side of town or not that side of town, so it could be literal. It can also be philosophical. It could be a fast food restaurant saying, you know what, we're getting out of the in house dining thing.
[00:06:09] We just want people to drive through one lane, two lanes, three lanes, or we want to be in the catering business, or we want to go internationally. So it could be a philosophical thing and a little thing again, though we don't necessarily get tested. We don't necessarily have to set direction every day, but we will get tested every day.
[00:06:27] So what happens often. Is a leader will have to courageously step out in front of the organization every now and then, not all the time, not every day, but every now and then. And the phrase I like to use is leadership and facilitation are not the same thing. Oftentimes leaders simply are facilitating Great activity and great progress and great thinking and great strategy.
[00:06:56] And they're just kind of steering a big team. You know, it'd be like an, an owner of a football team where they hit coach. All they really are doing is kind of steering all this amazing talent and that's fine, but every now and then the leader has to step up and say, no, we're going for two or no, we're going to go fourth and three or what you have to make a courageous decision that guess what?
[00:07:17] It's not a group call. You don't get everybody together and say, okay, we're just going to get all the votes on the table and we're going to go with the majority rule because the CEO often has to step out and make kind of a, and I don't mean a unilateral against all odds, because that's not necessarily the style people like to work in, but leadership.
[00:07:36] Strong executive CEO leadership is not always simply facilitating group decisions. There are times that a leader has to step out and set direction and set speed and set their risk and resources and culture. That's excellent.
[00:07:52] Richard Ellis: I'm just curious. Do you have any, without naming names, do you have an example of a leader that kind of fits?
[00:07:59] of being courageous when his or her direction was tested.
[00:08:01] Steve Graves: You know, I'm sure I do. What immediately came to mind is actually the opposite. And I know failure is critical. I remember having a CEO of a private company and they were, let's just call them, they were two to 300 million. They were in a bunch of states and I remember they were going so fast and this is a little bit about speed and a little bit about direction, but they were going so fast and they were just in this always this massive aspirational growth trajectory for all kinds of reasons.
[00:08:29] Now, granted, they had never taken outside capital, so they didn't have any outside investor breathing over them. And so this particular super majority owner could do what he thought was right. And I remember him saying to me one time, you know, we were talking and he said, look, I think I just need to slow my company down for about 18 months.
[00:08:48] And it was a speed thing, but it was really a conceptual directional thing. Whereas they were up into the right all the time for the previous years and years and years. He said, we're going to slow down and we're going to let our leadership engine and we're going to let our culture get healthy. And then we're going to turn it back on and go back into hyper growth.
[00:09:07] And they did. And today they're over a 500 million company and they're still private. Incredible, incredible company with a great culture, but people do fail. But at the same time, the point is, is that leaders often just have to step out and do something that the group might or might not necessarily always agree with.
[00:09:26] Richard Ellis: Got it. And of course that takes a lot of courage to do, right? It does. It does. We're like, wait a minute. Are you crazy? Uh, you want us to do what?
[00:09:33] Steve Graves: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:09:35] Richard Ellis: Well, mentioning that speed, that's a great segue of where I wanted to go next. And, you know, you hear the phrase, sometimes you have to slow down to go fast, right?
[00:09:44] I think about the clients we serve, and I have a number of clients across different industries, big and small, and you can clearly see that they run at different RPMs, right? But just in terms of thinking about speed, sometimes I think the tendency is to think faster is better. Yeah. Got it. Some insights that you have on setting speed.
[00:10:03] What does that mean?
[00:10:04] Steve Graves: Thanks for asking. The premise of the whole idea here is that. As a general rule, a person, much less a company, we don't set the speed of the market in any category. We just don't. We set the speed that we're going to relate to the speed of the market. Now, I might have just a second, just a minute from some innovation or for some acquisition or for some something that it looks like I'm, I'm driving the speed of the market.
[00:10:34] But I mean, the two big players, Amazon and Walmart, they're not driving the speed of e commerce. The market's driving its own speed. They're just trying to figure out how they're going to relate to the speed of the market. Apple's not driving the speed of risk technology. They're just driving the speed that they're going to relate to the speed of risk technology and all of that.
[00:10:54] And so the market has its own way for right or for wrong, good or bad, setting its own speed. And what I have to do as a leader and an organization is I have got to figure out how I'm going to relate to that speed with my speed. And my risk and that I've got to be willing to live with the outcomes. So for example, the example I just gave you, my buddy, that was the CEO and uh, owner of this particular company that we just talked about, he purposely decided to slow down.
[00:11:22] Now they didn't go into negative margins. I mean, they still made a little bit of money every year, but he flat slowed it down, but he put his whole company and said, Hey folks, we're going to downshift and maybe dial over two lanes and we're going to slow it down for about 18 months. And they did. They did.
[00:11:37] They slowed down every possible thing of the way they related to the market. Now that didn't mean necessarily that they were working slow every day. That didn't mean that everybody came in at 10 instead of early in the morning and they left at two. When I say speed. Translating the speed of the market and the speed of your company into your culture speed, that's different.
[00:12:00] If you're an early stage startup, if you're anything other than just a mature old style managing company, you probably are going to have a pretty big motor and a pretty fast speed to stay up with the speed of the market that we're in today. Probably.
[00:12:16] Richard Ellis: Got it. Got it. As you Think about your coaching of leaders.
[00:12:21] Is there any practical guidance on how to determine the right speed versus the market?
[00:12:26] Steve Graves: Absolutely. And it actually, I hate to keep leaning into the next topic or the next issue, but a lot of it goes back to your risk, which is the next one set direction, speed, risk. It depends upon a leader and an organization's being open eyed and thoughtful of saying, you know what, we just cannot take a risk of not staying up with this market speed.
[00:12:47] Conversely, we're fine. We're gonna let somebody come to town and build restaurants on every corner. I'm good. I'm good. I'm so confident in my product and my team that when we do decide to open up one right next to this particular restaurant, we're going to be good. But you're having to put a lot of confidence in your own culture, your own company, your own strategy, stuff like that.
[00:13:09] Figuring out your speed is a really tricky thing in today's world because as a general rule there's always going to be somebody who's going to be faster than you and somebody who's going to be slower than you. There's going to be somebody who is. A little bit more money or a little bit more focus money or their particular strategic product or service is a more narrow offering.
[00:13:30] And so they have the freedom to be faster than you. They're not as comprehensive as you are. And so what I've got to do is figure out how am I going to relate to the speed of the market relative to my product or service and then. What does that translate into my culture? And can I live with that?
[00:13:46] Because going too fast has certain unintended consequences and going too slow has certain unintended consequences. And so that's the thing that a leader has got to help their leadership team and their company navigate and figure out.
[00:14:00] Richard Ellis: That's great. And I think that there's just a real opportunity to think intentionally.
[00:14:05] About the speed of your company, your development, your go to market, and all of that in context with the speed of the market, sometimes I'll work with smaller companies that seem to be just pulled along in a draft, right, or a current and not really being intentional about, okay, where are we going to fit with regards to that?
[00:14:23] Steve Graves: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more, Richard. I totally agree with that.
[00:14:27] Richard Ellis: Let's go ahead and get into risk a little bit. You mentioned a number of risks, and some of them, based on my experience, are risks that come to mind, right? Investment risks, people risks, growth risks, right? Are you going to be aggressive or conservative, etc.?
[00:14:40] But one that I was intrigued with and kind of delighted that you put in there was this life balance risks. Tell me a little bit about that because we think of hard charging C level leaders, and you know, that's a real concern, right? I don't know what the stats are, but I remember somebody sharing with me that the divorce rate of CEOs is higher than average, right?
[00:15:00] And so, tell me a little bit about life balance risk.
[00:15:03] Steve Graves: Yeah, the idea is, is that as I'm building my company or as I'm leading a company, it might not be mine, but as I'm leading a company as a senior leader, what I've got to do is I'm going to figure out, you know, how much risk I'm willing to push to the middle of the table.
[00:15:20] And it can be that I'm betting my whole farm on this idea or this next opportunity. It could be that I'm betting your whole farm. I don't want to use my money. I want to use your money. That's a common thing in today's world. Could be that we're betting a little bit of everybody's money or resources or people.
[00:15:35] There's very little growth without some kind of risk along the way. I think embedded in the concept of good stewardship is leveraging and taking some chances and some risk in my opinion. So one of the things that you've got to risk is all the things you just talked about, but I also have to risk. You know, what is it that I'm willing to risk relative to my own personal lifestyle, my own cadence, my own sense of balance.
[00:16:01] I remember I had a client when years and years ago, who's the CEO of a public company, and they were about to do a massive expansion into all of Asia. And they were already there a little bit, but not at the level that they were about to go into it. And this particular CEO actually had three young kids at home.
[00:16:19] And I remember saying to him, let's just call him Bob. That wasn't his name, but I remember saying, Hey, Bob, I don't know how you're thinking about all this. But from my seat, I just can't fathom that the plans that you and your leadership team and your board have all agreed to, which is very, very exciting.
[00:16:35] I think this is awesome, but like, I think you need to be ready to tell your family a lot of the next 12 to 18 months you will be spending somewhere other than home. I'm not saying that other people couldn't pull it off because of the kind of company you have and all that. I just think that's going to happen.
[00:16:52] Have you chatted with your wife and your kiddos about what this decision is going to mean to you? Now, as a public company, he can't necessarily say no because he wants to stay home and go to t ball games every day. But, as an independent person, he gets to ask and answer, is that what I want to do with my life?
[00:17:10] Is that equilibrium and that cadence going to be something that I'm comfortable with? Is what And they ended up doing it and they kind of figured out a way for him to dial up his travel and make it a little bit easier and better. And I think it worked out for them. Okay. But that was a good example of I've got to ask an answer.
[00:17:26] What does this next strategic decision mean to my normal cadence of life? Because if I don't do that, nobody else probably will either. And I can't always have the best case scenario in every scenario, but I can certainly ask the question and that is a risk. That's a risk that everybody might be willing for me to take, but I might not be willing to take it myself.
[00:17:50] Richard Ellis: Love that, you know, because if you don't identify the risks, you can't mitigate them, right? And so
[00:17:55] Steve Graves: Exactly.
[00:17:57] Richard Ellis: To not ask some of those questions because you don't want to know the answer, right? And then you find, you know, and you find yourself in a situation where it's not good, right? But if you have some self awareness, you ask some of those questions in advance.
[00:18:11] Now you can put in a plan, even if it is, okay, 18 months of extensive international travel. Love that great example there. Anything else on risk that we just might think of maybe underappreciating or misunderstanding before we move on to our last movement here?
[00:18:30] Steve Graves: No, risk is a real thing. You can't dismiss it.
[00:18:33] Leaders have different risk profiles and different Risk tolerances. So to certain companies, if a CEO or a leader is trying to work in a company that is just tremendously misfit with their risk profile, that's a recipe waiting just for to that. I mean, like that's never going to work. And so make sure you're working in an environment that fits your risk profile.
[00:18:56] That's critical for somebody. Otherwise there's just going to be constant hardware going on because that's not who you are and how you're wired.
[00:19:03] Richard Ellis: Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah. I was thinking about the wiring comment you made early on. One more I would love your perspective on and that I wrote down on the back of your book here, culture, because it really stood out to me in serving tons of companies, right?
[00:19:20] You see a lot of different cultures, right? And there are some that you've just come away going, man, they have a great culture, right? And others, you're like, Oh, I'm not sure I would want to work there. The phrase, I think it was a header or a title. In the section that said culture is what you do and what you allow.
[00:19:38] Did I get that right?
[00:19:39] Steve Graves: Yep. Yeah, you did. So many times we think culture I mean, culture can be among the strongest assets of any company. They could be like a million dollars sitting in your line of credit, or it can be such a huge flywheel component of the overall formula card of any company. For sure.
[00:20:00] Culture is literally what we think, how we behave. But it's also what we allow. And so if I allow a culture that is constantly in an unhealthy, competitive way, I'll just pull one out of the air, you know, where people are always fighting with each other and nobody ever really feels like we're on a team or I never feel like anybody has my best interest at heart.
[00:20:25] It's always me against everybody. Oh, by the way, that's what every single person also thinks. Well, how are you going to ever get any kind of team collective dynamic going on that one? Good luck with that. That's like having a golf team, not a basketball or football team, where every single person really is about their score and it's just about me and my future and my career.
[00:20:44] Like what are, we can act like we're all dressed in the same jersey, but that's not happened and it's all about an individual thing. So a leader's got to make sure that they build a culture that reinforces the very thinking and behavior that they want to install and instill into. The life and the work of the company over time.
[00:21:06] And I mean, there's such a wide range of possible cultural models. It's not like everybody has got to look like Costco or everybody has to be Patagonia or everybody has to be Apple or whatever Chick fil A, but a leader and the owners and the board and the senior team and all of that, the major. They get to pick the kind of company that we want to build and that we want to hopefully have some sustainability with.
[00:21:31] So I really believe over time, the idea of culture can be such a powerful asset to a company once it's embedded and institutionalized inside the life of the company.
[00:21:44] Richard Ellis: That's great. Thinking about a larger company when there may be many layers between the leader and the individual contributors, what's one practical idea that a leader can adopt to make sure they understand what they're allowing to happen in the business?
[00:21:57] Steve Graves: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Three quick thoughts there. If you don't have a set of operating principles or core values or guiding thoughts or whatever you call those, you know, every company you start articulate those and bring those into some very precise. Phrases, statements, quotes, whatever. And then what happens is a leader needs to be able to kind of animate those.
[00:22:19] And so if I'm your boss and you work for me, Richard, I would make sure that I would catch you doing something good. That's reinforcing the very values that we talked about. So I would say to you, Hey, man, I don't even know if you even realized it. But last. Thursday, you were in a meeting and I was in there with you and you had incredible patience with not just me but oh Mike sitting across the table.
[00:22:41] 'cause I know you knew what he was talking about. Like I know that was your idea, but you know what? You gave him a lot of grace. You allowed him to act like that was his, without busting his chops. And also know that you knew he's trying to find his sea legs. 'cause he is a new employee here. And so well done, dude.
[00:22:58] Well done with you reinforcing our values. You know, now that's on the positive. I might also call you out, but remember, I'm not going to ever call you out. It's like a parent. I'm not going to call you out public. I'm going to wait till there's a time where you and I are chatting and we're going to grab a coffee or you pop by my office or me by yours.
[00:23:15] And then I would say that, The opposite. I would say, Hey, Richard, just a quick thing. I want to highlight for you real quick. I know you're probably working really hard, trying to install the values in everybody around you, but I think we missed a good chance last Thursday and that one meeting, and maybe it was just a tough day for you.
[00:23:31] And I could be very patient myself, as you well know, but I think you jumped across the table on old Mike a little too fast and called him out. And I don't know what all the backstory was on that, but you want to talk about that a little bit. Uh, because I really think you could do better on that. And I think that was a bad example of what we're trying to do here in our company.
[00:23:50] It probably wasn't one of your finest moments. Would you agree? And then I'm silent. I want to make you kind of own up to that as a boss. And so, you know, any of those, but that all is based on the fact that people only implement what they understand and what they've bought into. And so if we haven't clearly identified what good behavior looks like around here, how do I know you can do it?
[00:24:13] Richard Ellis: Right. Not only do we have to demonstrate those values as a leader, but also then reinforce them. And then think about your next level down, your direct reports and encouraging them to do the same. So you have that cascading effect. Yeah. Well, we could go on and on. I can't believe our time's already up. So unfortunately we're going to have to bring it to a close, but thank you for all of those great insights.
[00:24:34] If you've listened to our episodes before, you probably know that we like to close out with some goodness that has nothing to do with what we talked about here today. So just in your personal life or hobbies or just outside of leadership, what's some goodness that you've enjoyed recently?
[00:24:51] Steve Graves: Well, I've got so many items.
[00:24:53] I would probably say my grandbabies, my wife and I are in a season of being grandparents. Uh, we've got five grandchildren with only one out of diapers. And actually one of our kids is due in about a month. So we'll have six and the grandbabies zone. I've always heard from other friends, but man, it is one fun season of life.
[00:25:13] We are having us a ton of goodness during that season. So thanks for asking. And just can't encourage people enough. To enjoy that season. If in fact, that's where you are.
[00:25:23] Richard Ellis: That's excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so much
[00:25:26] Steve Graves: for
[00:25:26] Richard Ellis: that. Yeah. And thank you for your time today. And I look forward to having another episode with you sharing some goodness with us.
[00:25:33] Steve Graves: Absolutely. Thanks man. Thanks for having me on.
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