Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Align Your Small Business with Dave Newell

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How to Align Your Small Business with Dave Newell · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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3, 2, 1, 0, ignition.
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Lift off.
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with the number 1 small business expert, Melinda
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Emerson.
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Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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you need succeed and live the life you dream of.
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Now here's your host, the small Biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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Hi, everybody.
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This is Melinda Emerson, the small bus lady.
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America's number one small business expert.
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Now let me introduce my guest, Dave Newell.
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He is on a mission to align the misaligned.
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He believes that connecting with leaders, he he loves to connect leaders with systems that
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foster outstanding work and personal fulfillment.
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He collaborates with small business leaders to implement what he calls the 5 facets of
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business.
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A small business operating system to optimize businesses and foster team alignment around
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culture, strategy, operation, story, and finances.
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This framework provides leaders with the necessary clarity and alignment to crush both
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short and long term goals.
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As CEO of Evolve Leadership Consulting, Dave has coached 100 of leaders, both nationally and
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Internationally, to implement his framework.
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For more information, go to Evolve dash consult dotcom.
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Dave, welcome to the Smart Bishop podcast.
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Well, hey.
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Thanks so much for having me.
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Now tell me your origins story.
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Right?
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How did you become the alignment guy?
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Right?
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Tell me about that.
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Yeah.
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The the term alignment really actually came from know, when I first started working, I
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actually started in community organizing and I was working with nonprofits and farmers and
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government agencies to help, do some environmental work.
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And you can imagine that all three of those entities had some different ideas about how to
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approach that work.
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And what I realized is that everybody had a different desire.
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Everybody had a different want, but they all were looking for how do we work together
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better?
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Right.
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And so my job was to find the common ground and build from common ground.
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And as I started getting more involved into small business and the business world, What I
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started to recognize is that businesses were often taking an approach of fixing one thing at
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a time.
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Like, alright.
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Our leads are down.
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Let's get after leads.
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Or you know, our operations, we need to documents and processes or finances.
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We need to shore up our finances, whatever it might be.
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And they were taking these one off approaches.
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What we started to realize is that if you turn one of those dials, it influences everything
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else.
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Right?
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If you change your target market, it might change your core business.
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If you change your core business might change who your target market is, so on and so forth.
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So what we realized is that, you know, instead of taking this kind of symptoms approach, The
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best way to address business challenges is to take a systems approach.
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Let's look at your business as a entire operating unit as opposed to each individual
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function operating on its own.
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And as we've been able to do that, we've been able to kind of pull alignment to the forefront
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to say, well, if let's let's make sure that all 5 of those major systems are moving in the same
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direction.
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When we see that, we see businesses scale.
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We see a lot of the you know, issues and challenges that they deal with kind of go to
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the wayside, so to speak.
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So how does a business know whether it's in or out of alignment?
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That's a really great question.
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There are lots of different variations to this.
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But some of those things are the symptoms that you would normally see.
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What we say is you often will see the outputs, right, which is, hey.
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We're missing our sales targets.
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Our, you know, product isn't getting shipped out the door.
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Nobody's signing up for our workshop.
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You have disgruntled employees.
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You have people asking for raise or, you know, equity.
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You have internal communication breakdowns.
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Hey, this thing isn't getting done.
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And those are often symptoms of system problems.
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Right?
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It's the output that you can see.
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So if it's tangible, if it's a tactical thing, and you find yourself Melinda dealing with
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these types of issues over and over again, that typically means that, hey.
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There's something upstream that isn't working very well.
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There's something upstream that if we fixed it, you wouldn't see these outcomes or you wouldn't
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see these outputs on the back end.
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So it looks differently in very many differences, in in all the different
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businesses, but often it's it's the outcomes that you can see.
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It's the outputs that you can see.
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Does it come down to the leadership though because, right, we all know that's, you know,
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stink starts at the head.
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Right?
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So so is it is it really Is it is it really about the leaders of the organization and how
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they're communicating and what they're prioritizing?
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Absolutely.
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We have a leadership framework that we tie to this, that has kind of 5 key disciplines to it
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or 5 key behaviors to it because what we know is yeah, we can implement the world's greatest
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operating system into your business, and it still doesn't work because people are the ones
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directing that system.
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And what we often say is that the system is perfectly designed to produce the results that
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it's producing, right, which is kind of a, well, obvious statement But, really, what that
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means is, you know, what it requires of the leaders to recognize, like, well, if we're
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getting this result, if the result is we're missing deadlines.
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If the result is we have internal communication breakdowns, if the result is our sales are down
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or our, you know, our revenue is stagnant, It's like, well, the system is designed to do that.
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So what we have to do as leaders then is step back and work on the business to say, Okay.
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Well, how are we organized?
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How am I sharing information?
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How am I, you know, what are we prioritizing or not prioritizing as leaders to then shift that
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and to produce a different result.
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So very much to your point, it is absolutely a leadership imperative to take that approach.
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And there's some behaviors and skills that come along with that.
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But what about Alright.
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So I okay.
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So you've worked with me.
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You you've trained me in your leadership training, but now I'm trying to implement
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achieving alignment in my business.
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Right?
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What are some of the common challenges that a small business leader might have when they're
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trying to, you know, write the ship, if you will.
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Yeah.
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2 things.
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One is often there is a there is a focus on the urgent.
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Right?
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So we there's a term out there called the tyranny of the urgent, which means we spend our
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time being reactive instead of proactive.
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And so everything that shows up all the different issues that you're gonna deal with,
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right, like, you know, whatever it is that employees frustrated or they're asking for more
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money or they didn't follow through on the thing that they're following through tends to
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divert our attention from the long term activity that we're trying to accomplish.
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Right?
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So it is managing that short term versus long term, which is one of those pieces is sticking
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with the priority, knowing this is the system that we wanna build, and holding to it.
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So the tyranny of the urgent is one of those things and number 2 is knowing where you are on
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the map.
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And so one of the things that we like to say is, you know, business leaders, I think, are
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really good generally speaking, it's saying, hey.
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This is where we're going.
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Right?
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Like, this is the end.
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This is the journey.
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This is the destination, but they're not very good at saying, well, where are we starting on
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the map?
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If you ever go, you know, hiking in the woods and you're looking at a hiking trail map,
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what's the first thing you look for when you look at that map?
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It's the you are here sticker.
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Right?
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And if you don't know where you are, you don't know how to get where you're going.
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And so one of the other symptoms that I think I see from a leadership perspective is a distance
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from the reality of where their business actually is.
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And so they are aiming for this vision.
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They're aiming for this place that they wanna go.
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But their starting point doesn't make sense because they're not aware of or not in touch
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with the current reality or the current state of their business.
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And so they start building things, but they're building things from a Rocky Foundation, not a
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not a firm foundation.
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Okay.
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So break down for us what you call the 5 facets of business.
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Yeah.
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So the 5 facets are, culture strategy operations story, which is the sales and
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marketing category and finances.
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And what we find is that, you know, when we do our assessments, when we when we come in and
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start with an organization, we find that most businesses are good at 2 or 3 of those things.
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Right?
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Especially small businesses.
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We typically work with businesses that are 5 to 50 employees.
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And, typically, they're good at 2 or 3 of those things.
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So they might have a great culture.
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They might have a great story.
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You know, sales and marketing machine, but they can't get the product out the door.
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And their finances are a little bit of a mess or they're, you know, constantly dealing with
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people issues, whatever it might be.
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And so our job is to elevate the aspects of the business that are failing or aren't as
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systematized or aren't as structured.
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And what happens is then you elevate everything in the business when you fix whichever facets
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are failing.
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And so we take that comprehensive look.
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Those are all the major buckets.
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Right?
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Those are all the major operating systems in your business.
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So when you put all five of those together, you know, it's rocket fuel at that point.
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Love it.
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Love it.
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Well, listen.
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You're watching the small biz shot podcast.
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We're come back and talk more about alignment, we'll be right back.
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Stay with us.
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Hi.
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I'm Melinda Emerson small biz lady.
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10:58
Welcome back to the small biz chat podcast.
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I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady, your host, and I'm here with my guest, Dave Newell
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Dave, you were talking about the 5 facets of business.
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Now can you talk about, you know, the the stages of alignment.
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Right?
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You said that one of the biggest challenges is people don't know where they are in the first.
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Everybody's good at saying the goal, but they don't know Well, you know, how far are we from
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the goal to begin with?
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So can you talk about how, you know, what are the three stages of alignment and, like, a key
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principle behind each one?
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Yeah.
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So, the 3 stages are alignment, misalignment, and realignment.
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And so alignment is, alright, our systems are short up, streamlined, simplify, our people are
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committed to those systems.
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Everything's Melinda moving in the same direction.
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The challenge with alignment is It's not a static state.
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Right?
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Like, once you achieve alignment, it doesn't mean you're gonna stay there.
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Contact situations, economy shifts, etcetera.
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Right?
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The environment around your business might change.
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And so it's a constant state of trying to stay in alignment.
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Misalignment, which we've already talked about a little bit is when you start to see those
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symptoms when your systems aren't working as well or your people aren't committed to
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operating those systems, And you start to see the pain points.
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Right?
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You start to see revenues, stagnation, internal communication breakdowns, you know, missed
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deadlines, those types of things.
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And realignment is the act of discerning where are we, right, where are we misaligned, making
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a plan, and then executing the plan to get back to alignment.
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And I think what I often see in the businesses that we work with is when they're in
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misalignment, it's not that they're unaware that they're misaligned.
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But what they haven't done is taken the intention to say, where are we misaligned?
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What's the plan?
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And and how are we gonna go ahead and execute this?
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Right?
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So the realignment is an active state of moving back towards alignment, but it is taking a
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systems approach, not a symptoms approach.
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Mhmm.
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So I I know that you sometimes say that you can leverage tension to drive positive change in a
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business.
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What do you mean by that?
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Yeah.
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So tension shows up all over the place in an organization.
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Tension is essentially where the hard things are.
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Right?
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So, you know, human beings have a natural tendency to resist difficult things.
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We like it when it's easy.
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We like it when it's comfortable.
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Right?
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But we often say, you know, what's in the way is the way.
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Right?
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So where are the hard play And so with the leaders that we work with, we try to build up a
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capacity to do what we call Melinda run to trouble.
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Meaning, Hey.
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This is a hard place.
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What we wanna do is actually Melinda turn ourselves towards the hard place and go dig
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into it and dig into it fully.
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Right?
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So tension is the space.
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That might be difficult conversations.
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Conversations, you're not having a lack of trust in a particular environment.
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It might be, hey.
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This process isn't working, you know, for us or, you know, our sales pitch isn't working,
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etcetera.
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We often under do those fixes.
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We've Melinda looked for the quick fix or the fast fix to those solutions or hear you deal
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with it.
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Right?
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Like, here, let's give that to somebody else and you take on that problem.
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And really what I'm looking for from leaders and organizations is to find the tense places
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to find the places where things aren't working and to really lean in and dig in and fix those
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things because when you fix it, then everything else starts to get better.
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Love it.
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Love it.
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Alright.
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And tell us what are some practical strategies or tools that small business owners can use to
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you know, improve alignment within their organizations.
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Yeah.
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There's really there's really kind of a generalized thing and then a very practical
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thing.
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The generalized thing is, what I often find in organizations and what we built into the 5
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facet system is there's design elements and there's execution elements.
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And generally speaking, your organization is more comfortable with one of those things than
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the other thing.
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Right?
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So ideation versus execution might be another way to break that tension a little bit.
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Right?
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But those design elements are target market, core business, vision, values, purpose, and
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kind of forecasting in your finances and making sure that those things are lined up because
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essentially, like, and key strategy.
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And, essentially, what that is, that the design of our business.
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That's why we do what we do.
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It's who we're gonna be while we do it.
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Right?
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And if those things are lined up, okay, now we have the frame We have the design.
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We have the structure for our business designed.
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Now we have to translate that into an execution element.
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Right?
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So I'll give you a really clean example.
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A lot of organizations do values.
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Right?
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Like, I think most small businesses were like, yes.
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We should have values.
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We've done values that often turns into a perfunctory exercise.
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Meaning, we did this exercise.
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We had to retreat.
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We designed values together.
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Everybody felt great.
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It was all puppies and kittens and cotton candy.
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And then we got back to the office on Melinda, and that guy was being a jerk.
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And then this thing didn't work, and we hold nobody accountable to the values that we came
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up with.
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Right?
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So values as a design element is a good thing.
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You need to have that.
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You also need to have it as an execution thing.
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So we often had behaviors that are controllable underneath those values.
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So what are the concrete controllable things that make those values true?
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We had ritual, which is how are we ritualizing culture?
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What are some of those touch points that we can add?
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And then we add an accountability through performance reviews.
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So it's a good example of being able to bridge the gap between Alright.
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We have a kind of clear structure that we can do from an design perspective and then a clear
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structure that we can do from an execution piece.
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The really tangible thing that you can do is, there are all sorts of kind of small business
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assessments that you can take.
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We have one on our website.
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That's free.
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People can take it as 26 questions takes 5 minutes.
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And it's a great indicator of where are we on the map?
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Right?
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You are here.
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You can do that monthly.
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You could do that weekly.
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You could do it as many times as you want.
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And really what it'll do is it'll just show you, like, where are we excelling and where
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aren't we?
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Right.
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So I think a real practical thing is to actually just pause for a minute and take stock
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and look for, alright, what are some of those symptoms that we're dealing with?
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And how is that teaching us about the systems that are broken behind it?
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Right?
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So it is that just stopping taking stock actually assessing your business.
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Well, Dave, you have just dropped so much knowledge on me in just this short amount of
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time.
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I just have one last question for you.
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What is the best business advice you've ever gotten?
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There's so many.
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I've been so blessed to have so many wonderful people around me.
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I've learned a lot from a lot of different entrepreneurs, and I think, one of the best
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stories I've had is about perspective.
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And so the the simple statement is have perspective.
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And if you find yourself agreeing with the majority, it's time to pause and reflect, which
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is don't just do what everybody else is doing.
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Don't just do it because it's trendy or because it's it's what the thing is, you know, that
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that you're hearing about all the time, you know, read this book, do this thing, follow
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this process, but do the thing that's really supposed to happen.
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Right?
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They can have an and have your own opinion about it, have your own perspective on it, and
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lean into that part.
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And I think that's been really helpful for me not to chase beds or not to just do the thing
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that everybody else is doing, but really having a perspective about something that maybe
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nobody's really talking about her thinking about.
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That's helped over time.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much, Dave.
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I really appreciate it learning so much about this.
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And that's a great antidote for us to leave it on.
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Thank you all for joining me for this episode of the Small Bishop podcast The mission of the
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small bitch tab podcast is to end small business failure.
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And I wanna leave you with this.
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You never lose in business.
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Either you win or you learn.
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God bless everybody.
18:56
Thanks for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
19:00
Subscribe to this podcast, wherever you listen to cast, and join us next Wednesday for more
19:06
fantastic information and interviews.
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You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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website succeed as your own boss.com.
19:16
Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.