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How to Align Your Leadership Team in 30 Days · Speak In Flow

• 0:03
  Melinda Lee: Welcome to the Speak and Flow podcast, where we help CEO build leadership teams to strengthen their communication so they move forward better together. I believe communication is not a soft skill, it's how we grow the company.
• 0:18
  Melinda Lee: Today, we are talking about how to align teams better. In our complicated world with so much going on, and the CEO focused on many different things, how do we have the teams aligned so that the CEO is not involved in everything?
• 0:34
  Melinda Lee: This is such an important topic, and joining me today is, MK Palmore. He's the founder of Apache Global RMS, and I'm so excited to dive in. MK has so much wealth of knowledge and information. Hi, MK! Welcome!
• 0:51
  MK Palmore: Hi, Melinda, thanks for having me.
• 0:53
  Melinda Lee: I am so glad you're here, and I'm excited to dive in. And so, I'm just gonna start off with first question. There's a busy CEO or leader who has stopped to listen to this episode.
• 1:05
  Melinda Lee: And so what do you hope can this person change in their life by just taking in the things you're about to tell them?
• 1:11
  MK Palmore: Yeah, I think that you hit the nail on the head with the startup of your podcast, which is the idea that communication is such a necessary component of leading in nearly every facet, that I think oftentimes we don't place enough emphasis on the topic of communication and how important it is.
• 1:31
  MK Palmore: I think that CEOs, leaders, founders need to overly communicate, and it's… it's hard. It's not…
• 1:39
  MK Palmore: it doesn't come natural, I think, to people to constantly, or consistently, I should say, check in, to make sure that folks are all pointed in the same direction and kind of aligned on objectives. And so I just think that your topic of communication and the emphasis that you're placing on it is spot on.
• 1:56
  MK Palmore: And something I think, as leaders, we sometimes need reminders about.
• 2:02
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, no, I agree, and so I would love to hear how you've seen this work in organizations. And so, for the audience, can you tell them a bit more about what you do, and what excites you?
• 2:15
  MK Palmore: Yeah, so I lead a consulting firm in the enterprise risk management space. Apogee Global RMS was started after my extensive career in both public service and my experience in the enterprise space. The idea that we profit to organizations is that
• 2:31
  MK Palmore: organizations, more often than not, are looking at risk through a single lens, single domain, approach to risk management. In other words, people, process, and technology, all in their own domains. Our proposition is, is that these risk domains are all
• 2:49
  MK Palmore: interrelated and interconnected, and so we try and help organizations understand that through providing observations around their people, process, and technology that can help them transform their business. We typically start our engagements with cybersecurity assessments, that's the most recent
• 3:06
  MK Palmore: deep experience that I've been privileged to have, and so the cybersecurity assessments and evaluation typically provide us with a landing point that allows us to then build trust and then expand into the other areas of process and people to help organizations really perfect their approach to risk.
• 3:26
  Melinda Lee: And what do you see? When people process and technology are aligned, what happens?
• 3:32
  MK Palmore: and optimization, I think, oftentimes. Everyone's seeking this optimization, but often than not, they're taking an approach that historically makes sense. You know, you give individual leaders the responsibility to
• 3:48
  MK Palmore: provide oversight to the domains that they're responsible for. You know, you have a cyber leader in an organization. If you're doing it right, you've got a cyber leader. You've got HR typically leading the, you know, the people component of it, and maybe you've got an ops person.
• 4:04
  MK Palmore: CIO in terms of the technology stack, and oftentimes these folks are looking at their domains in a vacuum.
• 4:11
  MK Palmore: And what we do as an organization is we come in and we help them see the seams and the overlap and the interconnectedness and places where they need to be looking around corners and over the horizon to plan for the kind of events that oftentimes have a negative impact on business. We help organizations avoid that negative impact.
• 4:29
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, what are the negative impacts that are happening nowadays?
• 4:32
  MK Palmore: Well, I mean, cybersecurity… cybersecurity's the easy one. Most times, when organizations reach out to us, they're either…
• 4:39
  MK Palmore: responding to an event that's happened in their environment, or they've gotten proactive and they're trying to prevent an event from happening in their environment. And so cybersecurity is the easy one. We all know that for the better part of a decade plus.
• 4:53
  MK Palmore: challenges to business have been basically increasing as it relates to the cybersecurity domain. Our friends that are out there building these new AI models have thrown a little bit of a complexity wrench into that, meaning it's even more challenging now.
• 5:09
  MK Palmore: With AI governance and the need to understand how AI might be impacting the security of your environment, and so we help organizations understand how to get their hands wrapped around that and really be able to grow scale at the pace and rate that they desire.
• 5:23
  MK Palmore: The other challenge, frankly, is that…
• 5:26
  MK Palmore: the people portion of development. Oftentimes, we think it is a process or a technology problem, when in fact, it's a people issue that you need to address. Maybe you don't have the right leaders in place. Maybe the leaders that you do have in place, or the managers that you have in place, aren't receiving the right developmental
• 5:43
  MK Palmore: training. We have very high expectations of leaders in organizations. We bring them in, we throw them into the deep end of the ocean.
• 5:50
  MK Palmore: And oftentimes, not only do we not provide them with the internal tools that they need, but you don't provide them with the external tools that they need, which is their own professional development. And so we concentrate across the board, because these are all areas that I've had deep experience with during the course of my 30-plus year career.
• 6:08
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, and especially leadership, senior leadership. I mean, all across the board, like you said, everybody's a part of the company, but I can see where you have your relationships and the people that you can help support them with to fill in the right seats with the right people.
• 6:25
  MK Palmore: Absolutely.
• 6:25
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 6:25
  MK Palmore: And if people are open to it, you know, leadership development in and of itself is a lifelong journey. I oftentimes say that folks should be students of leadership and understand that you're never going to be a leadership expert. I don't believe that they exist, although there's tons of folks out there calling themselves leadership experts. We all need to adopt a student mindset. It's a discipline that deserves study and introspection.
• 6:49
  MK Palmore: And everybody can use help, being a better leader.
• 6:52
  Melinda Lee: so both the risk and then the people, that's where you bring everything together, and
• 6:58
  MK Palmore: Yep.
• 6:59
  Melinda Lee: I love what you said, because people would think that it might be a technology or process, but then most of the time it could be probably just the people not in the right place. Right. And so to have that holistic perspective of the company.
• 7:13
  Melinda Lee: And so, you start off with a risk assessment, or you also see, and then you might find that the people are not in the right place.
• 7:22
  MK Palmore: Yeah, once we've helped, once, yeah, once we've helped you with your technology pieces, we've evaluated it, made observations, determined gaps, vulnerabilities, and…
• 7:31
  MK Palmore: We have an extensive network of solution partners. We're not a solution provider. We bring partners to the table that help implement solutions to close down those gaps. And once you've done all of that, if there are still pieces that don't seem to be working correctly, oftentimes you need to turn to.
• 7:47
  MK Palmore: The abstracted layer of the people working those processes and technologies, and make evaluations as to whether or not you have the right people in the right seats.
• 7:57
  MK Palmore: And that doesn't always mean that, you know, someone needs to be relieved of their duties. What it may mean is that someone needs some additional training in terms of developing themselves as a leader, or maybe you have someone in the mix who is better suited to have a different role and job in your particular enterprise. And I think these are thoughtful approaches that if an organization really has a
• 8:21
  MK Palmore: strategically-minded C-suite, they understand that that kind of investment yields dividends that you really can't put a dollar figure on.
• 8:30
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I mean, that's a good point, though. So, how do you know when a leadership team is a real strategic mindset, like, working together?
• 8:38
  MK Palmore: Well, when they're thinking proactively about things like this, you know, it's pretty rare, but, you know.
• 8:42
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 8:43
  MK Palmore: you come across the CEOs and chief operating officers who really, really understand this, especially when they're trying to build something new, that having the right people in place is a critical component of what it is that they're trying to accomplish.
• 8:57
  MK Palmore: And it's okay to take time out during the exercise of building something, to bring in teams to help you really understand whether or not you got the right people in place. And that's just a, you know, it's an exercise that,
• 9:12
  MK Palmore: And I think everyone should undergo, when you're in the process of leading, whether you're founding something or leading a massive organization.
• 9:19
  MK Palmore: it's helpful to understand what your leadership profile is, what your cultural profile is, and what leadership really looks like at the ground level in your organization. You know, when you're a small organization, it's pretty easy to understand what that looks like, because the feedback
• 9:35
  MK Palmore: That you get is nearly immediate.
• 9:37
  Melinda Lee: But the bigger.
• 9:38
  MK Palmore: your organization becomes, 100 people, 500 people, the more distant the C-suite typically gets away from what's happening at the ground level and the execution level of the organization, and it's nice to be able to put your hands on that at some point to really understand if things are operating the way that you think that they are.
• 9:55
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and what is that… yeah, tell me more about that. What are the challenges of becoming, you know, aligned? What are the key things.
• 10:03
  MK Palmore: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, at some point, depending on the growth and size, the C-suite, especially the CEO, gets so far away from the practical day-to-day execution of the organization that it's really hard to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening in an organization. And then if you have
• 10:22
  MK Palmore: folks in executive management who, frankly, aren't listening, or not inclined to listen to the things that are brought to their attention. The CEO messaging, or the messaging that's given to that person, can tend to be a little off. You know, there's all kinds of cultural
• 10:39
  MK Palmore: norms that we've become accustomed to, like not wanting to be the bearer of bad news. You know, there's people in organizations who, don't really have an interest in bringing news to the boss, that might be controversial, or things that require action.
• 10:56
  MK Palmore: And so if you've fostered a culture like that, and you're not getting a real sense as to what's happening in terms of what might be breaking down, you know, whether or not your customers are satisfied with your delivery, whether or not, you know, folks are executing an optimized system, are people internally happy with coming to
• 11:15
  MK Palmore: coming to work and the environment that they're… are they working for good people? You know, sometimes you can find some of these things out if you've created a survey culture where people find it comfortable to respond to surveys, but even that requires a lot of work and a lot of building, because more people
• 11:33
  MK Palmore: Than… than folks probably believe, don't feel comfortable filling out surveys in the workplace, because they have a sense that somehow that information
• 11:43
  MK Palmore: is going to be held against them if they say something that happens to be negative. So it, it, it, you have to start foundationally, understanding what kind of culture is in place, and so, once you understand that, then you can
• 11:59
  MK Palmore: Build a plan to,
• 12:02
  MK Palmore: put pieces in place that can help formalize or build into place the kind of culture that you want it and expect it to be. And it's, you know, it's not an overnight process. It takes, several weeks, several months to be able to actually get to where
• 12:17
  MK Palmore: it is that you'd like to be, and it's an ongoing process, but that's the whole piece that… where I think it's important to bring in outside help. The big mistake that organizations make is they think they can do this kind of stuff on their own, when in fact, no one has the time to do this on your own. You can't be an outside evaluator and do the day-to-day business operations of a company, so it's important to be able to bring in external
• 12:41
  MK Palmore: resources to help you get your hands wrapped around these things.
• 12:44
  Melinda Lee: I agree, and so it is true, because it's like, these are the day-to-day that are so important that impact the operations and the movement of the company, but then there's also the communication of the next strategy, like, the bigger goals. Right. And how do you do that together?
• 13:02
  MK Palmore: Yeah, so obviously I'm a consultant, right? I'm a fan of consulting. There are some folks that have, I think, a skewed view of what it means to bring in consultants, and whether or not the value of a consultant is what it's supposed to be. In other words, are you getting the return on investment?
• 13:21
  MK Palmore: Part of the reason I stood up Apogee was this idea that I think, especially in the small to medium-sized business space, they are aspirationally trying to build teams and organizations that resemble some of the biggest organizations in the world.
• 13:36
  MK Palmore: without the same level of resources that these organizations have, and so they're chasing an idea that oftentimes doesn't allow them to get there in exactly the same fashion that, you know, the big Fortune 500s of the world have gotten to where they are.
• 13:52
  MK Palmore: What that means is that they need to think of new and different ways to scale their resources, and oftentimes consultants are a way to do that, whether it be their internal, operations, or bringing in specialties or subject matter experts to help
• 14:06
  MK Palmore: get the organization from one stage to the next. You know, bringing on board fractional resources sometimes can be a scaling lever for a small to medium-sized business.
• 14:20
  MK Palmore: And consultants in and of themselves can be helpful, but they're resistant to it, because what do they think when they think consultants? They think of the big four. They think of these consulting companies that are going to charge enormous amounts of money to come in and
• 14:34
  MK Palmore: And will they be able to appropriately explain, hey, you know, we just spent, you know, in some cases, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars with consultants. What do we have to show for it? Well, guess what? You know, the…
• 14:45
  MK Palmore: The big consulting companies, they got buildings all over the world, they got lights to keep on, and they have these massive workforces that they have to pay for, that's why they're so expensive, and that's where I think the…
• 14:56
  MK Palmore: you know, the boutique firms, like our firm and others out there on the landscape, where you're going to get enterprise-grade, enterprise-level expertise and experience, but you're not going to have to pay, you know, the pricing associated with typically Big Four engagement. I would put our delivery up.
• 15:13
  MK Palmore: Against any of the big firms, and obviously, we're going to be at a fraction of the cost. Doesn't mean we're going to be cheap, but it means that, at the same time, you definitely are not going to be spending the amount that you would for, a larger firm, and again, the delivery
• 15:29
  MK Palmore: Of those larger firms, especially when you get down to, you know, the junior associates and the folks who are left to actually do these engagements. It's not… oftentimes, it's probably not worth the prices paid for.
• 15:42
  Melinda Lee: Right, right, I agree. So, as a consultant, what would you do to help a company that might be struggling with disseminating their strategy down to the people?
• 15:54
  MK Palmore: Well, the first question is, have they appropriately developed a strategy? You'd be surprised at the number of companies, small to large, that don't have a stated strategy, or haven't gone back over time.
• 16:06
  MK Palmore: And change the strategy based on what they're seeing on the landscape. And so it's first, as a consultant, we have to understand what work has been put into this endeavor up to this point, what's been voiced or communicated to the organization, how often is that communicated to the organization?
• 16:22
  MK Palmore: Does the organization actually reflect what you believe that strategy to be?
• 16:27
  MK Palmore: Does the newest person in the organization understand that strategy? Where can they find it? How often are they reminded about the objectives of the organization and where you're headed? All of these are relevant questions that need to be asked at various stages of an engagement process, and once you have the answers to questions like that.
• 16:47
  MK Palmore: You can appropriately put together a strategic plan and offer advice to the organization as to how to initially deliver that, you know, new strategic plan, how often it needs to be reiterated, at what level
• 17:01
  MK Palmore: In terms of your management personnel, because the organization lives and breathes at the mid-management level, and if your mid-level managers don't have a grasp on, the objectives of the organization, that breakage or that failure is then…
• 17:16
  MK Palmore: express to, or not express to the team members who are responsible for execution. So, I mean, it requires a lot of work, a lot of engagement. Again, the benefit of bringing in consultants is, you still get to do the day-to-day stuff that you're responsible for doing, the revenue-generating stuff, and maybe you bring in a consulting team to help you sharpen, sharpen your tools.
• 17:35
  Melinda Lee: And how often do you think that they need to communicate? Is it different across every organization?
• 17:40
  MK Palmore: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Melinda Lee: I find, like, oh, they have one, they need to probably revise it or update it, but it's the breakdown of the execution I usually see that that's where it fails.
• 17:50
  MK Palmore: Yeah, more often than you'd think.
• 17:53
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 17:53
  MK Palmore: I used to… I worked for…
• 17:56
  MK Palmore: A leader that, that…
• 18:00
  MK Palmore: I remember or recall would mention, our strategy. We would meet with this leader probably
• 18:07
  MK Palmore: once a month at particular levels, this really high executive leader, and then at the start of every briefing, they would reiterate the goals, objectives, and strategy of our particular organization. And although it came across sometimes as just rote amplification.
• 18:23
  MK Palmore: I think it was important. And, you know, maybe we all need to be a little bit more diligent about how we convey this information or communicate it, right? It still needs to be iterated.
• 18:35
  MK Palmore: And sometimes it's okay if that means every month, at the start of the group meeting, you reiterate, hey, here's what we're working towards.
• 18:42
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 18:43
  MK Palmore: These are the things that are most vitally important in terms of outcomes for us, and it helps to reset and re-level everyone's expectations, and sometimes the direction that they're going in. Someone in that room, virtually or otherwise, hears that and says, you know what?
• 19:00
  MK Palmore: The boss is right. We've been paying attention to this thing over here, when in fact.
• 19:03
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 19:04
  MK Palmore: that's not the thing that's going to contribute to the objectives that he just reiterated to us, or she just reiterated to us. Like, it's important, and oftentimes we get so busy that we forget these things.
• 19:16
  Melinda Lee: Yes, I agree. I love it. I love it. You're speaking my language!
• 19:21
  Melinda Lee: And that is where, I'm gonna take you to our last question. What if… what is possible for these companies when they have a standard, a consistent communication of what it truly matters? And they reinstate it, and people kept acting on it because it kept getting repeated? What is possible for companies?
• 19:39
  MK Palmore: Yeah, I mean, the sky's the limit. I hate using phrases like that, but oftentimes you don't know,
• 19:47
  MK Palmore: how many times, you know, to what degree you're going to be able to scale a particular idea. But the truth of the matter is, is that it will absolutely be exponential if you're doing all of the things that need to be done. You just don't know how many X's you're gonna get
• 20:03
  MK Palmore: In terms of output. And a lot of that has to do with how much you're investing in your people. I oftentimes say that, you know, investment in people is the thing that you're looking for to bring mission accomplishment and to bring the organization to that, exponential stage where things are just exploding, in terms of growth.
• 20:21
  MK Palmore: And that's another thing I just think we as leaders forget, often. You know, you have to individually invest in the individuals responsible for executing.
• 20:32
  MK Palmore: And when they know that they're being invested in, when they're being given an opportunity to grow and scale, and maybe even prepare them for follow-on opportunities outside of your organization.
• 20:42
  MK Palmore: actually will work harder for you, which is something I think we miss off… oftentimes. You know, there's this expectation.
• 20:49
  MK Palmore: That,
• 20:51
  MK Palmore: You know the old sayings, you know, what happens if you invest in your leadership team, and then they leave your organization, and then the counter to that is what happens if you don't?
• 21:02
  MK Palmore: investment in those people. It's okay to invest in people and to have them depart the organization. Hopefully, their experience is such that they're out there then being a champion for who you are as an organization, and pointing other people.
• 21:17
  MK Palmore: And the truth of the matter is, is that if someone's treated very well and decides to leave an organization for a promotion or otherwise, how many times have you seen those people actually come back to those organizations? Because they had a wonderful experience, and someone invested time and effort in them. You actually get back a better
• 21:36
  MK Palmore: higher executor, probably a better leader, because they've gone off and they've seen someone else's culture and had an opportunity to continue developing themselves. By the time that person slingshots back to your organization, you really have a honed, very polished, capable person that.
• 21:53
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 21:53
  MK Palmore: That's engaging. Right, right. Treat your people well.
• 21:57
  Melinda Lee: I agree. I completely agree. Oh, that was so amazing. I truly appreciate your insights. I really enjoyed how we talked about the different, leadership teams, the functional heads that are usually just so focused on their domain, and how you're able to bring them together to see the holistic picture and alignment, especially in our complex
• 22:17
  Melinda Lee: So much is happening, but it is so important. The more we do that as a CEO or leadership team, the more we build to accomplish. We're doing things together.
• 22:27
  MK Palmore: Yeah, I love the conversation as well, and these are all things I think, hopefully, you know, your listeners, if they even pick up a morsel, something to go in and change how it is that they're going about business, then that's a win, right?
• 22:39
  Melinda Lee: Awesome. And MK, do you offer the assessment? How do people start to take the assessment form?
• 22:46
  MK Palmore: Yeah, just reach out to us. ApogeeGlobalRMS.io is our website. You can certainly find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty prolific, and our company page on LinkedIn. Take a look at some of the work that we're doing, in the space, and open to free consultations to have a conversation and determine whether or not we are in a position to help you or not.
• 23:06
  Melinda Lee: Awesome. Awesome. Wonderful, MK. Thank you so much for your time and your insights. I really appreciate it.
• 23:12
  MK Palmore: Thanks, Melinda.
• 23:13
  Melinda Lee: Thank you, and thank you, listener, for being here, and remember, communicate what matters, communicate it often, so your people move together. Take care.
• 23:23
  Melinda Lee: Bye-bye. Bye, MK.
• 23:25
  MK Palmore: Bye.