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The Reality of Entrepreneurship and Leadership with Jeff Leach · Better Together

• Shawn Sundsvold: Welcome back to Better Together. I'm Sean Sunsvold here with my wife and co-host, Kelly Sunsvold. Today's guest is Jeff Leach, co-founder of Adaptivity Group and a leader in business transformation, organizational agility, and high impact execution. Before launching Adaptivity, Jeff led a $750 million portfolio at Accenture. He oversaw nearly 10,000 people and he spent over 15 years guiding companies through major transformation. helping both startups and global giants unlock potential, scale with intention, and build the kind of operational foundations that lead to real resilience. In this episode, we dig into what it really takes to lead through change, how to navigate tough decisions, rebuild after setbacks, and stay grounded in a vision when the path ahead is unclear. If you've ever felt the weight of leading something bigger than yourself, Jeff's story is a reminder that growth, clarity, and strength are all built one decision at a time. Jeff, welcome to the show today. Great to have you. Jeff Leach: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. You make me sound so impressive. I'm not sure I'm going to lead up the hype is going to, you know, match the reality, but we're going to try. Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ come on now. I remember our intro call, man. I was just enamored by your story and all that. So I think this is going to be a really, really fun conversation. So let's just start there, right? Let's start at the beginning. What led you from the corporate world at Accenture to co-founding that Adaptivity Group? Was there like a single major turning point or just kind of walk us through that? Jeff Leach: Well, I think in order to answer that question, I need to talk a little bit about my past. So prior to Accenture, I worked for a small boutique consulting company called Solutions IQ. We were an agile transformation company. We were probably the largest in North America. We had grown from the tiny one to a larger one. And we had just an amazing culture. And our owners and founders of that company were very... in the day to day and really drove and created and curated a really powerful culture of growth and ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ learning. And that failure was okay. And when we got acquired by Accenture in 2017, it wasn't all bad. I learned a lot at Accenture, but the culture was definitely different. ⁓ And the driving factor for me was to get back to that culture because I loved it. I thrived in that culture. I did well at Accenture. You know, I have good friends still there. I would go back there if I needed to. But, you know, what I really was missing and longing for was the culture and the people and the sense of community that we had created before. So I wanted to recreate that. I knew what it took to build it the first time because I was a part of it. And I knew I could do it again at Adaptivity. Shawn Sundsvold: That's awesome. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, that's really cool. know, this is our Sean did the intro call with you. So this is my first opportunity to get to talk with you. And so, you know, when he in the intro that you were leading a seven hundred and fifty million dollar portfolio with thousands of people under you, I was like, OK. ⁓ How did shape your leadership philosophy and how how have you and what have you been able to? ⁓ carry into your entrepreneurship journey. Jeff Leach: Well, you learn in an account like I was at Accenture, you learn how to take small pieces of information and make quick decisions. And you have to learn how to go to use by your gut. And you also know how to get how to surround yourself with talented people that can help support you and how to help support them more importantly, because once they feel supported by you, they will help support you back and so and help with success. And so I learned how to get that wrong. But I also learned how to eventually get it right and to figure it out at scale. That scale was crazy. Like it was crazy. It was around the globe account. So follow the sun. I had people on every continent around the world working every time zone. I'd be on calls at two o'clock in the morning sometimes, at 10 o'clock at night. Like it just, didn't matter, Sundays, Saturdays, that we were always working. And so ⁓ took what I think was the best of the leadership my leadership skills and I moved that forward into adaptivity and pulled it down, right? Because I remember my roots, right? And I know what I learned. And again, I tried to surround myself with the right people, but I also, for me, it was really important that they feel supported and that they adopt a growth mindset. And so I helped them by coaching them to do that. I helped them by giving them feedback and giving them opportunities to stretch and to do things that they don't normally do and encouraging them. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Leach: to take a risk, that it's okay to fail. That's a hard one for a lot of people to wrap their, especially leaders to wrap their head around. I work with a lot of leaders as part of our consulting practice the for it to say it's okay to fail is a really hard one because we're never conditioned for that. We're just never conditioned for that. They don't teach you that in MBA school. They don't teach you that failure is okay. They should, ⁓ but don't, right? They don't teach you that. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Mm-mm, mm-mm. Yeah. Jeff Leach: There's a lot of learnings that happened in that. And so that's one of the things that I wanted to bring forward was that it's okay to take a risk. It's okay to get it wrong. It's, more concerned about, you learn anything and what would you do for it next time? What did we as an organization need to take from that and figure out how do we, how do we, what do we do and how do we spread the word, right? Take the good stuff, do more of an amplify it, take the bad stuff, learn from it, and then pivot and adjust. Hence the name adaptivity, learn how to inspect and adapt really quick, figure out how we actually teach organizations how to do that. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, exactly. So a lot of our listeners are really in the early stages of their business. We talk to a lot of them from Instagram to LinkedIn to email messages to our all of that. There's just there's just a lot of startups and people who are wanting to scale in our audience. So what surprised you most about starting fresh after years of high level leadership experience? I didn't mean to emphasize the Jeff Leach: how low my, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay, it's okay. This is a little tongue in cheek, but there's also some truth in it as well. ⁓ How low my paychecks were going to be for a while. ⁓ Because a little scary at first, right? You're starting out with nothing coming in and you've got to learn how to get that first sale. And then you got to learn how to get the second sale. And you've got to figure out, okay, Kelly Sundsvold: the years, but you do have a lot of experience that are... Ooh, yeah, yeah. Jeff Leach: When do I take the risk about hiring somebody? How does that work? Right? How do I, I had never set up benefits before. How do I do that? Right? How do I do these things that I don't normally do? And I, you just learn how to figure it out, roll your sleeve up, sleeves up and problem solve. And you know, for me, it's, you know, have to be a really good problem solver, but that your question was about the, the, ⁓ know, what's it like? Well, it's like, learning how to eat top ramen and be in college again for a while. And I joke with my staff that my business partner and I are the only thing we can afford to eat is top ramen. So on occasion, they send me as a joke boxes of top ramen to play with me a little bit. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm. Mm-hmm. Hold on. Hold on just a second. I'm sorry. phone, this is second time it's done that. My AirPods keep, ⁓ it on, turn off my phone. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. ⁓ have my AirPods off, I have it on airplane mode and it's still, so it's going off. I'm sorry, my AirPods jumped to that. So, okay, keep going. ⁓ blip. Jeff Leach: It's okay. It's okay. Okay, no worries. No worries. So that was really, I think that was really it to that specific question. I'm going to cut this so we can go to a different question if you want, or if you want to ask a follow up question about it, I'm happy. Kelly Sundsvold: Sure. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: All right, cool. We'll pick up here. So one of the things that you and I talked about in the, ⁓ know, kind of our intro call is, you know, that moment after you ⁓ Adaptivity, you went, crap, what did I just do? And my guess is it wasn't the word crap. might've been shit. What did I just do? You know, kind of a thing, but you know, walk us through what was going through your head and how did you get through that initial doubt and get things moving? ⁓ you know, it kind of ties back to our question. We, have, have a lot of, you know, newer business owners that are our listeners. And so I think this is a really good story for them just to kind of hear, you know, that we all kind of go through the same thing. Jeff Leach: in my... yeah. I think everybody goes through the self-doubt. Am I making the right decision? Is scary? How am I going to make ends meet? And so, for me, I had a couple of really good mentors, specifically one mentor who was the former owner of Solutions IQ. He and I are very close and he kind of helped me look around the corner about what was about to come. He's done it a couple of times, so he knew. And so he's like, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen, so prepare yourself. also knew that I'm very resilient, so I'd be able to figure it out. ⁓ you have to be able to step back and look at the problem and figure out how to work ⁓ your business and not in your business because you can't do both at the same time. ⁓ impossible to do both at the same time. And so I would have to step back and take a walk ⁓ look at the problem and say, if I was... advising somebody, what would I tell them to do? ⁓ I would tell them to do that, what's stopping me from doing it? And I'd have to have those talks with the inner Jeff and say, you got this, slow your roll. I know you're stressed, but it's ⁓ foot in front of the other. One little problem, solve one problem, then solve the next and solve the next and solve the next. It does feel like it's insurmountable and that you're really got to... pushing a boulder uphill with a bag of rocks on your back at the same time, but you gotta learn how to take the rocks out one piece at a time and just saw them as you're walking up the path. And if you don't, it crushes you. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. And I think something you mentioned there, you know, in that is, you know, the, the idea of work, not just working, you know, you got to work on your business, not just be in your business. And when a business is new, right. Or you've got somebody, when somebody, a founder starts out, right. There's a lot of in the business work, right. And it can consume you. So how do you teach people to start building in time to work on their business? Or do have any tips to help them do that? Jeff Leach: Yeah, I actually, it's a great question. actually, I did this for myself and I tell some people who I work with today in small businesses and help them kind of coach them you just need to set up a dedicated piece of time, a block of time on your calendar. ⁓ it's if you're in a retail space, maybe it's after hours or it's a specific block when somebody else is there ⁓ you just set aside two or three things that you're going to work on that is fundamental to the on your business part. If you're not intentional about it, I promise you, there's a million things that are in your business that aren't gonna get done that will consume you if you don't take the time to work on the business. You have to just carve it out. You have to be very intentional about it. And if you don't, that stuff gets shoved to the side. I still struggle with it today. So does my business partner. We have to make time for that piece. I was messaging with him earlier today. I go, I need time with you this afternoon. We have a couple things we need to align on. This is fundamental on the business. It's not transactional. It's not how people get paid. It's not a sales thing. It's the strategic intent of our company. How do we do certain things? What are we going to do here? So that we are always looking ahead, but you have to make the time. You have to be intentional about it. Just will never happen. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. That intentionality is just, is just so important. Um, you know, one of the things that we talked about again in that initial call and conversation, and I've, I've heard you mentioned other places was, you know, you've been really transparent about having some tough business moments, right? You know, one of them losing 80 % of your revenue from a single client, you know, so what do you talk, what do you do in a moment like that? Not only just practically, but emotionally as a business owner, how do you get through those things? Kelly Sundsvold: Hmm. Jeff Leach: you crack open the bottle of bourbon. You have a couple drinks and then you go, okay, you've been down this road before, you're gonna figure it out piece by piece by piece. The sky's not falling. It's raining, but it's not falling. And you've gotta just pick up ⁓ figure out how do you do a certain, what are you going to do to start to rebuild those pieces? Shawn Sundsvold: Good place to start. Kelly Sundsvold: You Jeff Leach: I mean, the reality is, is, you know, going into this, you knew it was a risk when you took that client on at that kind of scale and you didn't have other clients that matched it. And so you, you subconsciously, prepared yourself for this, but you were really hoping it wasn't going to happen. Right. And so, um, it's, it's a good warning to anybody in small business. When you, when you're getting revenue, a significant portion of your revenue, I'm going to say over 60 % of your revenue from a single source. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Leach: you need to start figuring out a strategy to get a supplemental source that is very close to that level it's just a dangerous spot, right? You have to pivot quick. You you ⁓ you at, you know, we have a mix of employees and subcontractors that do work for us. ⁓ I pivoted and I'm like, okay, subcontractors, I'm sorry, contracts are up. Employees, ⁓ have pivot and you have to move to a certain direction and we have to Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Leach: figure this out and start everybody works on business development at that point, right? If you're not billing, you're working on business development. And we all are in the row in the boat together rowing in the harbor, the same direction, trying to move the cruise ship back out, right? So that we can start collecting the passengers. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, we've actually we've had a client who a couple years ago who had this happen that same thing happened to them and they weren't prepared and it was a scary moment. You just kind of back up and you're like, ⁓ shit, like it's it's scary. ⁓ Yeah. And so that's really good advice about a second stream of income on there. know this isn't your first business. What are different ways that you've approached business building now versus earlier in your career and Jeff Leach: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: How has that definition of success kind of changed? Jeff Leach: Those are a couple of really good questions. I'm going to answer the latter part first, which is how has it changed? I think I look at success differently today. ⁓ Probably there a time in ⁓ my career ⁓ success was customers being happy ⁓ and always coming and that it wasn't about growth, right? For me in the latter half of my career, let's just face it, we're all getting older. We're in the latter half of our careers now. is shocking. It's more about, am I building something with my employee base who can carry it forward? Should I not be here anymore? Is it, are we growing? Are we building a business for the right reason? Am I building a business for the right reason? And I'll address that in a second. Kelly Sundsvold: You Jeff Leach: you know, do you, are customers happy? Will they refer a friend? Will they sit around and talk about, these guys at Adaptivity, they did an amazing job and they really helped us move the needle. You should really talk to them about your problem, right? That's, that for me is success, right? But I also layer it in with revenue growth, the growth of the company. And I think that goes to the reason why we are in business today and on our goal. right? And what's our goal? me, think businesses start for two primary reasons. One is to support a lifestyle, or two, it's to have an exit. And there's really not much in between, right? You're either doing one or the other, you're trying to build a lifestyle, or you're trying to grow through an exit strategy. I'm on the second path. I make no mistake about it. I know I talk about it. That's the goal. Kelly Sundsvold: Hmm. Jeff Leach: But that goal might be 10 years from now. It might be three years from now. I don't know when that is gonna be, but I also know what we need to look like in order for that to be true. And we're growing our company and our brand in order to help move towards that. If it happens, fantastic. If it doesn't, that's fantastic too. I'm gonna have a lot of fun along the way. I'm gonna make a little bit of money. I'm gonna grow some people and hopefully inspire them to do something on their own at some point, whether that's with us as maybe taking on some equity or on their own. Fantastic, I'll be there to support them all along the way. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's awesome. Let's kind of go back to what you just talked about there about the importance of understanding whether you're building a lifestyle business or you're getting ready to sell one or you want to sell one. What does that distinction or I guess why does that distinction matter so much and how does it shape your day to day decisions? Shawn Sundsvold: Thank Jeff Leach: me, the distinction is really crisp. I'm either building this to put money in my pockets, like on a daily basis, ⁓ or building it and investing money back into the business to make it look a certain type of way so it becomes attractive, which means it's profitable, has good brand recognition, you have the right people, right? Instead of putting money back into my pocket, we would be more profitable if we used all subcontractors. That's the reality. I wouldn't have the overhead of benefits. I could ⁓ expand and contract as I needed. But that is not how you build a business that has significant IP or significant kind of assets around it. So chose to ⁓ in the company and invest in the people and invest in the brand. ⁓ that's all to help support that. later goal, right? If we wanted it to be more of a lifestyle business, I could have 20 subcontractors doing different pieces of work, not work as much on the brand, get work as it comes in, and take most of the margin and put back into our mine and my business partner's pockets. But that's not the goal, right? And so you have to, I think, figure out which are you in for. I talked to, I helped with a CEO roundtable for small. companies, I've sat in on a couple of their sessions and I've talked to a few of their members and I've helped them talk about this. I'm like, look, you need to be honest with yourself. Why are you in it? And what's the role? Why are you doing this? Is it really? And when it comes down to it, it's really A or B. There's really, I don't believe there's a C. Maybe there is and I just am not aware to it, but I really think it's one of the two. You either, because if you're building wealth, if you're tuning it to build wealth and be your own. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Leach: you're probably doing it really for the exit. If you're doing it because enjoy it and you really want to make as much money as fast, you're doing it for the lifestyle. You want to work part time. ⁓ don't want to put that many hours in. It's why a lot of people buy franchises. They kind of are truncating. A lot of them run themselves or run most of themselves and there's very little effort, but they throw off cash, right? Are they really building wealth? only if they actually, if they are building a portfolio of them. And a lot of people don't have the means or the skill to do that in the small business piece. The scale scares them because they don't know how to scale. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great distinction there. I, and one of the things you just kind of, you know, mentioned there is being a part of different peer groups, right? Different groups to kind of help not only you, but to be able to help others. And I'm curious, you know, what is it that you love so much about helping other founders think through those challenges and what are common blind spots you see as you have those conversations? Jeff Leach: I thoroughly get so much energy out of sitting down with somebody who's an entrepreneur, who maybe is three months in or three years in or 10 years in, right? It doesn't really matter the duration and just listening to their story and then saying, listen to some problems that they have and go, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? What are you doing about this? And I just help them think through the ideas. I've been fortunate in a lot of ways in my career. I've had a lot of lucky breaks. I've done a lot of hard work, but I've been, as a consultant, I was in a lot of different companies and a lot of different industries of a lot of different sizes. And I've seen a lot of problems and I've seen a lot of greatness. And so I've got to be able to see how the sausage is made in a lot of really large brand that we, everybody would know companies. And so I'm able to take some of those pieces, figure out how to apply it at a much smaller scale. and figure out how to help organizations and people, individuals actually do apply those things. So for me, working with small business owners, it literally, it's paying it forward. Like I love to pay it forward. I will sit down with anybody and go have lunch with them or go have happy hour or go sit at their house around their pool and say, tell me about your story. I want to hear it. I want to hear your story. And I'm not here to sell consulting services to small businesses. They don't typically buy our type of services. But I am here to help. will answer calls. will answer will help people. Sometimes at one company, I've looked at their books and I said, guys, you're in trouble. You're really in trouble. You need a pivot. I can see freight train coming at you and it's a train. And if you don't figure out how to make a quick pivot, it's going to run you over. Kelly Sundsvold: Right. Jeff Leach: Right? And so I've helped them see the truth sometimes that they refuse to see. I'm not trying to be an asshole about it. I'm just trying to give them ⁓ so that they don't get caught off guard. I've the guy. I've been caught off guard before. I don't like that feeling. I don't want anybody for that feeling. And I just feel like, you know, I've had a lot of lucky breaks and had some really great leaders that I've worked for in my career ⁓ who've me to share my knowledge with others. This is my way of paying it forward. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I was just thinking that that was that's a really awesome pay it forward mentality that it's not just like you have to hoard all the knowledge that you're you're willing to share it. And that's you know, and that's I think that says a lot about your character as well. You know, a lot of small businesses, business owners struggle with knowing, you know, exactly which steps to take. ⁓ So it's it's good you're there to kind call it out. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: So knowing when to hire, delegate, or hold off, what advice would you give them about building a team the right way? Jeff Leach: First of all, before you even think about it, think you as a small business owner, you better really think about what is it the problem you're really trying to solve by an employee? Is the employer really going to solve the problem or is it going to make it more complicated? And then secondly, really honing in on what's the skill set that you're looking for. Like when you imagine who's the perfect person to come in and do this and figure out how to write that down and really look at it. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm. Jeff Leach: for a few days before you start posting job postings. And then I cannot stress this enough, not settle for much less ⁓ what you really need. It's one thing when you have somebody who's got really the right type of mentality, they wanna grow, ⁓ they've that through their career and their stories and ⁓ giving them opportunity. Maybe they don't have all quite the skills you have, but they have most of them and you think that they can grow into it. but you better know that they are able to grow. I've seen a lot of people, I've hired a lot of or a lot of ⁓ intended people who don't have the capability ⁓ the drive to actually learn and just not go well. Like I've hired hundreds of people, probably thousands of people in my career. You've got to learn how to interview people. You've got to learn how to ask hard questions. ⁓ And then got to be able to be a really good listener and listen to the answers that they're giving you. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Leach: because a lot of times it's words. Like we live in a time where a resume can read whatever. We have AI that can generate a resume better than anybody else's with minimal information. But the proof is in listening to the conversation. It's just listening to the conversation. And I think knowing when to hire is a whole nother practice. So if you, once you understand the need, you need to figure out, you afford it? And... Kelly Sundsvold: you Jeff Leach: What does affordability, you should be able to afford it for three to six months with no impact really to your business or minimal impact to your business. If you can't or that person's not directly gonna drive revenue for you, then you need to figure out why are you really doing this and what's really the need and what can you change in your organization to help afford that? Is it scale that you need to adjust for? Again, it goes back to the why. Why are you doing it and how are you? ⁓ How are you justifying it? And then I think you need to put, this is where I see a lot of organizations and a lot of people fall. And I've been trapped with this myself. So I've learned this from the school of hard knocks. You need to really define what the success look like for the role for this person ⁓ and able to measure success. And you don't measure success at 90 day increments. You measure success on a weekly, week by week basis. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Jeff Leach: or month by month basis at the tail end, 90 days is too long. You might have a goal at 90 days that's cumulative, but you need to have kind of, here's what success looks like, because when you're a small business and you wait three or four months to figure out if they're successful or not, boo, right? You've wasted a lot of money and a lot of time that you really don't have, you can't really afford most of the time. And so you need to figure out how do you do that. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Leach: quickly and you need to be able to say, this isn't working out. A lot of people don't, they're really uncomfortable having the you're not working out conversation. and rightfully so. And so they need to learn how to do that, how to have that conversation in a human way, right? Be humane about it, be sensitive about it, but also be truthful. It doesn't help people grow. If you're not honest with them about ⁓ shortcomings. And I think you shouldn't surprise people with performance stuff. I think they should know all along the way ⁓ there's a problem. and give them an ability to course correct, maybe help them course correct. And if they choose to not course correct or they don't have the capability of course correction, you need to have the conversation. This isn't working. We need to figure out, we need to go a different direction. I'm sorry, but. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Wow. That's such a good, honest approach. And I love that. And I think there's, you know, talking about kind of the hiring and then some of newer technology, right? AI, plays a whole new thing in this. How can somebody look at it and go and figure out, it a, like a, a process or automation problem versus a people problem and knowing which they need to choose? Jeff Leach: This is so contextually dependent, right? It depends on the industry, it depends on the problem. I do think you've got to look at the specific type of situation and just have an honest conversation. A lot of people, again, don't necessarily have the skills to actually assess it properly to go, can this be solved with technology? Is the tool actually causing the problem or is the tool limiting our ability to do certain things? Or is this a quality or a throughput problem with the individual? And I think you have to step back and look at what is the type of work that they're doing. do they act when you give them work? How do they when you point out there's a problem? Because defensiveness in is really hard. It's a really hard thing for people to overcome. And so they have a natural tendency to be defensive. So you're gonna need to look at why are they defensive? If they are, if they're not defensive about it, chances are it's not a people problem, but it could be still. And you gotta go with your eyes wide open. I think this is a really hard question to answer without some contextual relevance, right? But the tool ⁓ or versus people or automation ⁓ type thing is really, it's an important one to just be able to step back and go, where's the person start and stop? Where's the tool pick up and take over? And where is the failure point? There's a thing in Agile, which is one of the things that we do is Agile transformation type work around value stream, right? Understanding the process, the value chain, where do people and tools touch a problem from end to end? And so sometimes doing a little bit of that type of mapping, like actually taking sticky notes on a whiteboard. and mapping out here's where it starts, here's who's interacting with what, here's the inputs and the outputs of it, all the way along the chain will help you really get clarity in where's the problem, where's the pain at. You know, I've had people do this exercise when I give them a whiteboard marker and I say, take green and mark around everything in your chain that goes smoothly and then take orange for the things that. are not working quite well, but they're kind of painful and then red for all the stuff that really is painful and causing lots of delays. And then we can start digging into why, why are those things happening? And then we can figure out, is it a people problem or is it a process problem? Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. And it all runs back to priorities, right? And having, being able to have the time to work on your business enough to be able to see those priorities and roadblocks and, the importance of setting aside that time. I, I it's so interesting. You kind of came back to that, that single point. Jeff Leach: Yeah, yeah, is all about setting the time. This is the working on the business part, right? You to find the time to do it. If you don't, it's really to scale. It's really difficult ⁓ to problem It's really difficult to figure out ⁓ your next and to achieve, I think it's hard to achieve success if you're not intentional about the ⁓ working on business portion. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: All right, so last question. What does Better Together mean to you personally, professionally? We titled this podcast Better Together, because that was just Sean and I worked together. We've also had an enormous amount of leaders, mentors in... that helped us build our careers individually. So who has made your career and your journey better? Because they showed up. Jeff Leach: I literally could list probably 50 people, but I'm going to list like the top few, right? Number one, there's a man who was one of the former owners of Solutions IQ. name is John Rudd. He is probably my biggest mentor. I still call him today. He opened so many doors for me and allowed me to stumble and fall and trip and fall on my face really hard and then pick me back up and go, did that hurt? Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Leach: I go, yes. And he's like, yeah, what'd you learn? Right. And then go, all right, my lesson's done. got the message and now I know you're going to figure it out. Right. And you're going to, and if you want my help, I'll help you. If not, ⁓ going to stay out of my way. I stay out of your way. And like you run in your lane. He was ⁓ just amazing human being. Anybody who watches this that was from my past will say the exact same thing about him. There's not a, ⁓ nobody will anything different about him. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Leach: I mean, that entire company, he's been instrumental in helping me. There's also people that I worked adjacent to. Evan Campbell is another one. There's another gentleman who's a CTO where I was a COO. He was instrumental in helping to support me and move me, help me move forward and just help problem solve. And then there was a CFO, name's Tisha. Tisha Cornwall was another one who's, she was fantastic and we worked really close together. ⁓ I worked in another organization prior to that where I worked for a software company. George Cusack was my boss for many years and I had, I don't know how many roles at that organization under George and then eventually next to George. And again, amazing, amazing leader who showed me the way, me, helped really grow me, allowed me to go back to school and get my ⁓ you while I was under, under him. really helped encourage me to always take on a little bit more and little bit more and mentored me through the hard, ⁓ call it the hard people times ⁓ you're really learning how to manage people and lead people because those two things are not the same. They are not the same. Managing and leading are two very different things. ⁓ could have a whole other podcast just about that. ⁓ just not the same. And so learning the nuance of that and ⁓ kind of encouraged me to Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: different. Mm-hmm. Completely. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Leach: to push outside the box. of those people were super instrumental in helping me. I literally could name a hundred. I could name a hundred people who worked for me, who ⁓ were helped support me and uplift me and challenge me. There's so but those were the big ones. I could sit here for another half an hour and just name person by person by person. ⁓ I don't think it was valuable anybody other than the people. ⁓ Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, we've all got them and we've all got the names and the roles and all of just the people who really were that instrumental. we can, and I think we can all remember those moments, right? Like when they pulled us aside and had an honest, hard conversation, but it shifted changed our direction for the better. Jeff Leach: I add just a little piece to that? Because I think you're right. And it's funny as you said that ⁓ brain went to a specific moment where ⁓ I first started, was shortly after I started at Solutions IQ and I was a senior consultant and I was traveling a lot. I was working with large organizations and I remember coming back into the office one day and her name's Barb, she was the head of HR. She's like, do you have a few minutes to chat? And her and I were chatting and I was venting to her about a problem, an issue that I have with the organization as a whole. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Leach: And her first words out of her mouth to me were, please don't quit. We need you here. We need your energy here. We need you here. And I was like, I'm not quitting. But it was in that moment that it started to shift for me an individual. And I went, wait a second. People see value in why I'm here. I'm not just a dollar amount billing at the client, ⁓ they're expecting me to play a different role. And it was, it started to shift. And that was, it was a defining moment. have several defining moments in my career that were like that, that was like, wait, and I think we all have self-doubt, right? Everybody has self-doubt. Everybody ⁓ that the worst a lot of times ⁓ ⁓ reality is always so much easier than usually what's happens in our head. ⁓ those are the types of things and those types of moments that help you build your confidence, build your self-esteem, build your skill. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Leach: gives you the encouragement to take the next risk and do those things. So you look for those things. Don't gloss them over. Like really don't gloss them over. Put those things and file them away for the bad days and go, you know what? Today sucked. It just sucked. But you know what? Tomorrow's a new day and I'm going to do my best to get through today. I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to sleep it off. I might bourbon it off a little bit. Sleep it off. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Leach: And then tomorrow I get to push reset and I get to try something different and approach it with fresh set of eyes. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, I love that. a random question, because I'm a bourbon guy. Do you have a favorite bourbon since you've mentioned it a couple of times? Jeff Leach: like Whistlepig. I like a lot, but I like Whistlepig. know ⁓ not from the Bourbon Trail, it's ⁓ Vermont. ⁓ I like Whistlepig, I like Angel's Envy. I I like a lot. have a diverse set. like Woodford Reserve. ⁓ doing, you know, I like a lot. John, my friend John, at his house has quite an extensive collection. So I always enjoy going to his house in Cleveland and looking at his bar, which is rivals most Shawn Sundsvold: Okay. Yeah. Yep. Jeff Leach: bars that you'll ever go to period. commercial bar, he's got an extensive collection of really expensive and nice bourbons and whiskeys. So yeah, it's always fun. like, what do you have? Oh, wait, I have Johnny Walker Blue Label Scotch. That's $400 or $500 a bottle or whatever, right? I mean, he's got, you know, Happy Van Winkle at $3,000 a bottle, right? So I mean, it's like, all right, break them open. Let's go. So. Shawn Sundsvold: That's fine. That's fine. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I have a friend of mine who's really into bourbon as well. But when I, when my dad passed away a number of years ago, he loves scotch, right? And I've tried scotch. I'm not a scotch guy. And so I went to go give this of Johnny Walker blue that I had no clue. Right. And gave it to a friend and they're like, I can't take this. Like this is a $300 bottle of ⁓ can't, I can't. Yeah. ⁓ So, but awesome. Jeff Leach: Yeah. It's really good. Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ We tailed off into some personal stuff there, but thanks for that. So ⁓ can people find you and get in touch with you if they want to learn more about, you you or what you do, or just want to maybe get some ⁓ Jeff Leach: So you can find me on LinkedIn. That's an easy way to find me. I will say I get a tremendous amount of requests, connection requests, and a lot of messages on there. That's one way you can get a hold of me. You can also find us on my Adaptivity website. There's a link there to contact us. It's ⁓ And there's an About Us section, and it has myself and my business partner on there. And there's way to connect ⁓ through there. Those are probably the easiest ways to get a hold of me. Short of broadcasting my personal cell phone number out to the world. Which probably isn't that hard to actually find if you Google me. Shawn Sundsvold: Awesome. Awesome. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, don't do that. Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ well, Jeff, this has been a fantastic discussion. I've loved it. Thank you for your insight and your knowledge and just your willingness to kind of share your story. So again, appreciate you being here. Thanks for your time and we look forward to having you again. Jeff Leach: Yeah, I love it. Thank you guys very much. I really appreciate the opportunity.