Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / From Management Mess to Leadership Success with Scott J Miller

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From Management Mess to Leadership Success with Scott J Miller · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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Melinda Emerson.
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Hi, everybody.
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I'm Melinda Emerson.
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This small lady, and welcome to small biz chat live.
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Now small biz chat live is a peer to peer interview show that gives small business owners
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a way to get and share invaluable business advice.
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The vision of small business chat is to end small business failure.
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We've been doing this thing 11 years, and we're not gonna stop anytime soon.
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We all know right now, we are living in perilous times, and we need motivation,
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inspiration, and good ideas.
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And that is what we have for you tonight.
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You know, our goal at small business chat is to give you information.
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Sage advice is gonna take your business to the next level.
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Tonight's guest or leadership expert Scott Miller.
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He's from Franklin Covey, and he's gonna talk to us about how to go from management mess to
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leadership success.
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I love to say that, by the way.
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So with that, I am very excited to welcome.
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His name is Scott Miller, and he's the executive vice president and chief marketing
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officer a frankly coming, but I've invited him here tonight because he's the author of the new
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book, management mess to leadership success.
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He's worked for Franklin Covey for 24 years.
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He started when he was 12, I think.
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Anyway, Scott and host 1 of the world's largest and fastest growing podcast devoted to
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leadership.
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It's called On Leadership.
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He's also the author of many books, including his latest management master leadership
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success.
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30 challenges to become the leader you would follow.
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Alright.
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Scott, welcome to Small Beach chat live.
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Melinda, it's my pleasure.
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Thank you for the platform.
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Oh, absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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I was really excited actually to invite you to be on after I read a little bit about your
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book, and I was excited to get to know more about you.
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And I really thought that what you talk about would really benefit my audience.
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And the reason why is I think as small business owners, you know, we work on our negotiating
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skills.
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We work on our marketing.
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We might even take sales training, but leadership is something that we don't clue
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into, I think, until a little bit later on in your business when your business is more mature
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because we don't know.
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I don't know if, you know, that you are working on leadership super early in the business
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because you're, like, high in survival mode in the 1st few years.
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So the first thing I really wanted to ask you about is this concept of, okay.
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We're currently in a time of crisis.
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You know, people are trying to figure out what they're gonna do next.
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Customers are not paying invoices.
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If you have employees, if you furloughed them, now you got this money, people are not wanting
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to come back because they'd rather stay on unemployment.
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I mean, you've got a lot lot of stuff going on out here, and small business owners are
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challenged with how to be a courageous leader.
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Facing a global pandemic.
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And I'm and I really kind of wanted to talk to you about that because people don't know what
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to do.
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That's for sure.
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I think it's it's appropriate and and fine to be scared.
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I think part of being a courageous person is being relatable.
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Part of being a courageous leader is being vulnerable.
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I think one of the talents that all business leaders should rally around right now is having
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high courage conversations with your clients, with your customers, with your staff, speaking
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with a consistent voice, making sure that you're declaring your intent and that there's
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no confusion around what your expectations are or theirs.
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I love this quote from one of our founders, and that is nearly all if not all conflict in life
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comes from mismatched or unfulfilled expectations.
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So as a leader, I think just now more than ever, when you show courage, it might show up
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in different ways.
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It might show up in fear.
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It might show up in scarcity, your self awareness around how you're responding to that
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is super important to how you treat your employees, your customers, your vendors, and
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how they treat you back?
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I agree with you more.
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So how can we remain resilient and hopeful, like, to help our teams stay motivated at this
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time.
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Yeah.
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I think one, you know, it'll be easier set on this program than done.
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But one is to think long term.
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I mean, obviously, we all have bills that are pressing on us, right, and invoices that aren't
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being collected and and people who were furloughed furloughing.
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And so it's hard not to think short term, but I would say balance your short term thinking with
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your long term thinking.
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The economy is going to survive.
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It might just survive differently.
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So I'd encourage all of your listeners and viewers to be thinking about how are you
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pivoting?
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How are you disrupting yourself?
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What are you doing to prepare the way you've done business for the way you'll need to do
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business in the future because every one of us is going to need to pivot somewhat differently.
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Another one as I think was it relates to all of your team members and your employees.
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People like leaders who are relatable.
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People wanna know that their leader is also scared.
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It's okay.
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I don't think you should project false confidence or project false humidity.
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I think it's very important for everybody in your life to be able to talk to you rationally,
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reasonably, control your emotions, calibrate your responses, to put put space between
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stimulus and response, right, be very thoughtful around how reactive you are.
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Again, these are easier said than done, but people follow leaders they can trust.
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I don't need to follow a leader who is un has unbridled confidence because usually that's
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misplaced, right, usually it's a show or an act.
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I wanna follow who, quite frankly, admits they're also scared and that they don't have
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all the answers.
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We're gonna figure it out together.
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Well, I mean, So let's switch gears a little bit because I think right now, there's a lot of
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leaders out here who are what you would describe as a management mess.
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I mean
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And only are their business finance is probably a mess.
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Their personal finances are probably a mess too.
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So so trying to manage how you maintain your household while trying to save your business.
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There's a lot there's a lot going on within within the individual business owner and and
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trying to apply for PPP loans and and waiting for the response and all, you know, and then
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you click on the news and hear that you know, 71 publicly traded companies got $300,000,000
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of the money that was supposed to come to us.
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You know, so there's a lot of there's a lot of angst that that's probably making people react
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very emotionally, you know, in in the workplace.
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And and I wanted to kinda talk about you know, is any leader a a management mess?
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Like, do we all kind of start out a mess and then we grow up and become big business leaders
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and then we're better?
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Like, you know, how does it work?
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That you you you go from being a mess to a a leadership success.
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I think every leader has a mess going on in their lives.
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In their marriage with their kids and their with their accounts payable, accounts
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receivable.
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So let's let's kinda level set it.
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Everyone has a mess in some part of their life.
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And I think the sooner that you own your mess that you that you recognize that you're not a
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perfect leader, everything's not perfect.
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You can't control everything.
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The sooner you own your own mess, the sooner you make it easier for other people to own
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theirs around you.
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So I'd argue that the first challenge in my book is called demonstrate humility.
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I mean, I'll do that right now.
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You know, like your guest as well, on stage program.
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I host a podcast.
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I have some best selling authors.
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I'm an officer in a public company.
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I spent a half an hour this morning with my private school kids headmaster renegotiating my
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tuition payments because I'm gonna be behind on them.
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Right?
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My storm by 60% in the last 30 days, and there'll be no bonus coming to the Miller
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family this year.
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My income's gonna be cut by a significant amount.
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I got a mess going on when it comes to some of my bills.
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Right?
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I'm gonna have to probably pay one of my mortgages payments a bit later.
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Have it moved on.
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So I think I'm right here on your program right now saying, I've got a mess going on.
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And some people might think that, you know, the more successful you are the less message you
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have.
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No.
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The more message you have, the more successful you are.
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Why would I believe there's a famous rapper who said more money, more problems.
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I don't know.
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Think so.
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Yeah.
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I think that's great.
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I think now is the time to demonstrate humility.
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Now is the time to be really honest and trans parent and vulnerable.
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Call up your mortgage company.
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Call up your lenders.
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Call up your landlord.
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Tell the truth.
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Talk straight.
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Have a high courage conversation.
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Talk about your situation that you're in.
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Everyone is in the same situation to some degree or another.
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That will, I think, create such currency with you and you and the person that you owe or
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perhaps who who owes you.
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I have people who owe me that are calling me money or calling me saying they can't pay.
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I understand.
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Let's talk about it.
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What does it look like?
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I think the I think the silver lining in this crisis is going to be leaders are going to own
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their messes They're gonna make it safe for others to own theirs, and everybody's gonna
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reset their priorities a little bit on what's most important in life.
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We're already seeing it happening around the world.
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Well, I think it's remarkable what has happened around the world, right, because it's not like
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Italy is in a war situation in the United States.
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I mean, or or Nigeria is in a worse situation in the United States.
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I actually had a conversation with a colleague in Nigeria earlier today And she was like, you
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know, Melinda, she said, for once, Africa's not the one taking the hit.
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You know what I say?
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I was like, you know what?
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You're right.
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I mean, she said, we've been through roll off.
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We've been through, you know.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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For what?
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If it's not here, they can't blame us, my dear.
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Like, we only got 300 cases in Legos.
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How about that?
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You know, he guys got 70,000 people not in Maryland.
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Like, I know.
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I know.
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So it's like, it's become the great equalizer, if you will.
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Yeah.
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But I I wanna talk about this concept of, like, what do bad bosses do?
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Cause I think we all Yeah.
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Just kind of, you know, what do good bosses do?
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They're great.
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They buy everything for everybody.
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Jewel and George office open.
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Okay.
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Well, what do bad bosses do?
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Because I really want people to kinda understand and hear this so that they might be
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able to course correct and really kinda understand maybe some of their own behavior.
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Sure.
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I'd I'd say 3 or 4 things.
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I think bad bosses have low self awareness.
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I don't think anybody wakes up.
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Deciding they're gonna be a bad boss.
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I I wanna diminish you today or I'm gonna humiliate you.
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I mean, that's a sociopath.
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They exist but the vast vast majority of bad bosses don't wake up deciding to be jerks.
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They usually have poor self awareness.
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They have low self esteem.
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What doctor Covey, our founder would say is they have a low private victory.
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I think there's easy easy things that they can do to circumvent that.
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One is if you wanna move from being a bad boss to being a good pot, boss, you recognize that
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as a leader, your job is to get work done with and through other people, that you are not the
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smartest person in the room, that you're not the genius at everything, that your job is to
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be the genius maker of other people.
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Therefore, if your job is to get work done within through other people, you see your role
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differently.
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You see your job as coach as mentor You become more patient.
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You slow down.
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You take the time to communicate the why behind the what.
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You set goals that are winnable for people.
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That you coach people continuously in ways that best work for them and may be different for
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each people.
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You know, Melinda, the research shows in a Harvard Business Review, that the average age
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that someone has promoted to be a manager in America is age thirty.
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And the average age they receive their 1st leadership development training age forty two.
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There's a 12 year span of otherwise good people that are wrecking havoc across corporate
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cultures.
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I think the same is to be set in small businesses, right, because you are an
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entrepreneur at heart, because you are an inventor, because you are a risk taker, does
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not mean you're a great leader of people.
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People don't come out of the womb being airline pilots or anesthesiologists.
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Why would we have the standard less for leaders?
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So I would say not everyone should be a leader, but if you are gonna be a leader, there are
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some consistent things you should be thinking about.
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And what is, are you a Maximizer, or are you a diminisher?
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And so I think bad leaders can be turned into great leaders with a bit of self awareness and
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only asking themselves, how do I wanna be treated?
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What kind of boss do I wanna work for?
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You know, I wanna work for someone who's kind.
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Chagunris has a high standard that gives me courageous feedback.
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And calls out my blind spot sits me down and tells me when I'm doing things that are crazy.
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So a great tip, if you want if you were if if you are in the in the market to be a better
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leader, go around to the people who work with you or work for you and say, hey.
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What's it like to be in a meeting with me?
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What's it like to work on a project with me?
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What's it like to have me as your leader?
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And then go home to your partner or spouse and say, hey.
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What's it like to be married to me?
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You'll learn a lot and don't just ask those who like you.
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Ask those who dislike you.
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Who are the detractors in your world?
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Because they're the ones who are likely to be the most courageous to you.
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I agree with that.
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And, Scott, you're on fire.
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I hate to stop you, but we gotta go to break.
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But when we come back, I'm gonna ask Scott about what is his biggest business disasters
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that he created.
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I'm Melinda Emerson.
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We will be right back.
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Hi.
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I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady.
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I know you might be thinking about quitting your business and going back into corporate
13:56
America, but wait.
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Before you give up, my new book fix your business could give you a whole new lease on
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life.
14:03
My twelve fees of running a successful business will walk you through step by step how to grow
14:08
your business revenue, how to hire great people, and streamline your processes and so
14:13
much more.
14:14
Grab a copy today, affix your business, and get your life back.
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Welcome back to smallbiz chat live.
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I'm Melinda Emerson, smallbiz lady, your host, and I'm so excited to be here with Scott
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Miller.
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He is Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer of Franklin Covey, and he's got a new
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book out, management mess to leadership success.
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Alright.
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I gotta hear it.
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I wanna hear your biggest, pretty story of how you just blew a leadership opportunity.
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Well, it's hard to decide because there's 30 of them I share in the book.
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Right?
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I mean, they're all pretty salacious, quite frankly.
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I think the one that I think is the most helpful for people was during my role as the
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chief marketing officer, I realized that I needed to be the smartest person in the room.
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There was a joke that went around that said best idea wins as long as it's Scotts.
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And I'm not sure it was a joke.
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And so I really had to do some self introspection around why did I have to be the
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most creative, the most talented, the most educated?
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And I think that resulted in me recruiting people around me that were not the most
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talented in the world.
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I was threatened by them.
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I wasn't secure enough to actually recruit people and retain them that would eclipse my
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skills.
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I think I actually did the company and our and our clients a bit of a disservice because I,
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for whatever reason, wasn't confident enough.
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Wasn't humble enough to recruit people who were the most talented SEO experts or the world's
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best Google analytics or the best digital designer.
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And as I matured, I realized, but that's my job.
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My job is to be a talent magnet.
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I think a lot of small business owners can relate you aren't supposed to be the smartest
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person in the room.
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Your job is to set the conditions for others to unleash the creativity and bring their best
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talent and be comfortable not being the genius, but rather, as I said earlier, the genius maker
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of others.
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Alright.
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So if I if you had to boil down your 30 lessons in your book to your top 3 things, you want
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people to learn.
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You just gave me one really good one, but give me 3 more.
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I think declare your intent where there is suspicion people make stuff up.
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Right?
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When people suspect you of having an agenda, they're gonna treat you that way.
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So be very clear in all of your conversations to declare your intent.
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Another one I think is understanding the difference between being efficient and being
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effective.
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A lot of high producing high highly successful entrepreneurs are very efficient people.
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They're very productive, but you cannot be efficient with relationships.
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With people slow as fast and fast as slow.
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Gotta slow down.
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The third one I would say was having high courage conversations.
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As a leader beyond recruiting, retaining talent, one of your most important
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contributions is to have the courage to move outside your comfort zone and discuss the
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undiscussables with the people who work with you might be on their technical talent might be
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their collaboration, might be their self awareness, whatever it is, you owe it to them
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to have these high courage conversations.
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The longer you let them linger, the more they the more they they become issues.
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I see.
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I see.
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Alright.
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Last question for you.
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What is the best advice you could give a small business owner right now who wants to be a
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better leader.
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Don't overcommunicate.
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I think you can overcommunicate.
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The more you talk, the more you say things that are confusing.
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So be very deliberate.
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Be very concise with with your vendors, with your your loan officer, with your employees,
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with your clients, don't just be extemporaneous and make it up on the fly.
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We see this happening a lot in politics today, and it's quite unsettling.
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You can overcommunicate Talk consistently, talk clearly, be vulnerable, own your mess.
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People are really gravitating towards those who are truthful and transparent.
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People wanna help people who are trustworthy.
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Talk straight.
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Don't make stuff up.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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Well, listen.
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Thank you so much for coming on small fish that live.
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I can't wait to finish reading your book.
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I've started it.
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I wanna finish it because I wanna be a better leader too.
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Alright?
18:21
Tell me what is your favorite podcast?
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Favorite podcast.
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Anything from Seth GoDaddy.
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Know, Seth Godin is a famous leadership author, and so I'm a big fan of Seth's, you know, this
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is marketing book and Seth's got a great podcast as well.
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So say Seth Godin.
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Tell me what's your favorite business app?
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You know, I have to tell you, I don't have one.
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I mean, I have, you know, the apps on my phone are downloaded from my 3 sons.
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I mean, I got so much going on parenting, and I'm at 60 hour a week officer in the company,
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teaching up my church, used to at least, podcast, radio program books.
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I've read an article for ink magazine.
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Girl, I ain't gonna have time for apps.
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I mean, I gotta I gotta Star Wars app.
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I think I got, like, a fortnight app.
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I got there's no apps that are business.
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Sorry.
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Show me up, John.
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What app do you have?
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You have 4 kids.
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Good grief.
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Business app.
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Alright, Skye.
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What do you got for me?
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What is your favorite old school marketing tip?
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Yeah.
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Will said, John.
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I I mean, that's obvious.
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You you you win.
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Sorry, Jennifer.
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You can beat me, but I think it's great.
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I think relationships are everything.
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I think the further up we get in the organization, the more we are ensconced in our
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office, on our 5th floor, the more we have people doing things for us, get out of your
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office.
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Get out the old fashion way face to face.
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Obviously, when the, you know, the world is back reset again, but you know, people make
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this mistake.
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They think that people are your most valuable asset in the company.
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It's not true.
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People are not your most valuable asset.
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It's the relationships between your people.
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That are your organization's killer app.
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And it's their relationships with your vendors, your clients, your suppliers, everybody around
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you.
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Take your time and get back.
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Move out of your office.
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Go out and meet with your people.
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What's your favorite business book?
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Yeah.
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The one thing for sure, this concept of goal setting to the now is transformative on focus
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and getting what you want to but not just 5 years, 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day, right
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now.
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This concept by Jay Papazana and Gary Keller and the and the one thing the big ideas goal
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setting to the now, absolutely transformative for making your goals come true.
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I couldn't agree with you more My favorite business book though is the Eamonth revisited
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by Michael Gerber, which is is one of my all of my favorites.
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I have many if, you know, my house ever burnt down, I'd be like, save my son and please save
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my books, but definitely, you know, my my favorite is that Oldie But Goody by Michael
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Gerber.
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Well, listen, thank you all so very much.
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I wanna leave you all with this.
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You never lose in business either you win or you learn.
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Wanna learn more about my guest tonight.
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Head over to my blog.
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Succeed is your own boss.com.
21:05
I am Melinda Emerson, the small business lady, and I will see you next time.
21:11
Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
21:16
For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
21:22
Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.