Latest / Unstoppable Success Podcast / Mastering the Art of Strategic Thinking in Business with John Hillen

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Mastering the Art of Strategic Thinking in Business with John Hillen · Unstoppable Success Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Unstoppable Success Podcast, where we spotlight visionary leaders who have mastered the art of growth, purpose, and powerful connections.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jacqueline Schombinger, connector, high performance coach, and creator of the Leap to Your Success Framework in Two Steps TS.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Each week we dive into bold insights, real conversations, and powerful strategies to fuel your growth, deepen your relationships, and ignite transformational momentum.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And why?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were meant to be unstoppable.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's leap into the podcast.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Jacqueline Strominger.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And on this podcast, we hear from amazing leaders and their game-changing insights.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We want everybody to be better leaders so they can be truly unstoppable in the marketplace.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And today I have an amazing guest on, and his name is John Hillen.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just give you a little bit of background on John.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he is the honorable Dr.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: John Hillen, and he is a board chairman, corporate director, and he is a popular college professor and sought-after speaker.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to his board roles, he teaches strategy and leadership at Duke University, Hampton Sydney College, and in the MBA program at George Mason University, which is absolutely fantastic.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And currently, right now, he has a new book out called The Strategy Dialogue, and it is entertaining.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he makes strategy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: John makes a strategy actionable and understandable.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And by Marshall Goldsmith, a must-read for anyone looking to get clarity and bring these tools to their business.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, John, welcome.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: As we were talking pre-show, we were talking a little bit about how strategy is not really talk.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I am so happy that you are.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Jacqueline.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a funny thing because every executive, no matter what they do, small companies, big companies earlier in their career, later in the career, are always told that they need to assemble this group of what we call executive competencies, you know, things they need to be good at.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there's always a category for thinking strategically, you know, big picture, long range, understanding the forces that shape your market.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And yet almost all the corporate training, by my estimation, about 80% of it, is oriented on giving people more technical and tactical skills to get things done day to day.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so uh it's this gap in things we say we must be able to master and then things we actually train and give people an opportunity to work on.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, so tell me, like, where you know, where was the genesis?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you were writing, like when you're thinking about the book, I mean, obviously, you know, obviously you know that there's this gap.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So why did you decide to write the book?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I came across this really interesting study um that looked at executives, tested thousands of executives, and asked, what is their natural action logic?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: This is the way they make decisions.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: They try to win the day in the meeting, they try to get people to come their way.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're defending their turf if they're under pressure.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they use a natural logic.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh only 4% of the executives they tested naturally think strategically.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's their go-to move.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that, if you say, John, you know, this report is really due Friday, if you're trying to talk me into that strategically, you say, Well, look, you know, if you get it to me by Friday, then I have what I need to uh see we're gonna where we're gonna be at the end of the month.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if I know we're gonna be at the end of the month, I can maybe shape our ambitions for the quarter.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if we get to there by the end of the quarter, I can look at our year end.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I can even shape, you know, going out further.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you'll interconnect a series of pieces of why the thing do Friday connects to the longer-term picture.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you've seen that movie, The Queen's Gambit, you know, the chess player, she sees the moves on the ceiling as she's laying in bed ahead of her matches.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit like that, which is why people associate chess with strategy.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Only 4% of people naturally try to connect today's move to a bunch of tomorrow's outcomes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Most executives are really focused on short-term achievement or mastering the data or trying to give everybody a little bit of their way so everybody gets, you know, some piece of the decision.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why I said, wow, only 4% are natural strategists.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: How can we put something into the literature that helps the 96% find this muscle and exercise it?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because everybody's got the capacity to think this way.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: It just tends to be an unused muscle.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: And just like if you have a good trainer in the gym, they'll show you how to activate a muscle and then they'll show you what machines in the gym to go use to build it.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can do the same thing with the strategic part of your brain.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so funny as you're sitting the time.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's so true.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also at the same time, like I'm thinking like the gym.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you, you know, if the end game at the gym is to make sure that you've got big guns or whatever it is, or you want to drop 10 pounds or whatever the what the whatever that end game goal is, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You you work backwards.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I need, what do I need to do to get there?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's the same thing, and you what you were just saying about so many people are looking at what they have to do today to move the needle.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But in actuality, right, you know, we really need to look at if I want to be a five billion dollar company in five years, I need to go backwards.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so that what I do today is actually building on the things that I need to do to get me to the five.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: You've nailed it because strategy, first of all, and you touched on this, it's a way to think, not a what to think, right?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's not some perfect outcome.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a magic answer.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a way you interpret your surroundings, you process information, and you start to put together plans.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Those plans, those moves interconnect and add up to where you're going.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so that whole journey, that strategy, it's a complete blueprint, it's a game plan to get you from one place to another.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: The nother place should be a place of more advantage, whether it's growth, whether it's competitive strength, whether it can be it can be a defensive move in the marketplace, but it's a series of things that interconnect to get you to a place of greater advantage.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's my question for you.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So people are listening right now, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got leaders that are listening and they're like, okay, I get this, I'm understanding the whole concept.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's the first thing that I need to do today to think more strategically?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's, you know, in Vegas, you know, they have these tells.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I always say, what's the tell of somebody thinking strategically?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: They're thinking long range, not short term.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: They're thinking big picture, not their immediate surroundings, you know, their challenges that week.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're seeking to connect things.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Analysts break problems down.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: A strategic mind weaves everything back together.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: What's going on with my suppliers, my customers, my competition, technology, the regulatory environment, the economic environment, consumer habits.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And they look at the way all these ecosystems that affect their business interconnect.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that's another uh giveaway for a strategic mind.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing I found, Jacqueline, is that people who are thinking strategically are oriented towards the future, and they tend to have a different attitude.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: They don't say no to themselves.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: They say, hmm, if I'm going to do that in the future, what would have to be true for that to happen?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: They don't say, oh, that'll never work.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: They say, what would have to be true for that to happen?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: And they can start playing with scenarios and seeing how realistic it could be, way pros and cons.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a creativity, there's an art of the possible attitude about thinking strategically.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think those kind of characteristics really separate strategic mind.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody can practice this.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: I tell you know, companies, I say, don't wait for your mysterious once-a-year strategy off site.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is daily off, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because everybody has it, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: This should be daily hygiene.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like have a strategy moment in your meetings where at the end of the meeting you say, okay, this thing we just decided on, everybody, let's go around the room and make sure everybody understands how it connects to the big picture and the long-range plans.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess that's it, the the other key question is is as a leader, you know, it's it do you would you say take a look at, and I'm gonna think about this in the stand of standpoint almost like from the standpoint A, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, where you've got your solopreneur, right?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: They still need to think there's thinking big in strategy, but then they also have all the day-to-day.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So do you would you say look at those, you know, I shouldn't say, like, what it would you say to them?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are the like what are the what's the way for you to think strategically as the entrepreneur?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and really important.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I say, you know, one of the excuses I hear from people sometimes they say, Oh, I don't need the strategy stuff because we're a small company or I'm just getting started.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's a big company thing.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, IBM needs a strategy.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, of course you don't.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I would never want to know what the weather is.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: I would never want to be prepared for it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna go out every day and hope something good happens to me.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then people say, Okay, I get where you're going.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: But even smaller companies, and there's a day in the life of every entrepreneur where in the morning they're working on the biggest deal they've ever worked on, and in the afternoon they're fixing the office coffee machine, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's just the life you go through as an entrepreneur.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm a swimmer, and you know, nobody ever asks me what I am I swim with.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: I swim with both arms and both legs.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, so people need to think of it the same way.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: You have to get your tactical things done.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're paid as executives at any level to get things done.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: But you also have to think and plan for the future and start to put together those pieces we talked about.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: These are two different parts of the brain, quite literally, right brain, left brain in many ways.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you've got to have all muscles working.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when I coach executives, actually color code on their calendar activities that were oriented around short-term execution and activities that were oriented around strategic progress, which are tend to be longer range in nature.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: People can see how their day breaks up, which meeting satisfied which kind of tasks that they're responsible for.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I actually love it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, people talk about like what what what what bucket or what is what shelf are you know are you working on right now?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like where is that right in that play?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something that you said too that I just I kind of want to go back to a little bit.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So and we were chuckling about it, uh, about the the yearly strategy, strategic meeting, whatever.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't begin to say how many that I've been through, and you're like, okay, why did we even do that?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: We've done like it's like you do it and then everybody comes at him as like, gosh, now I just lost two days of answering my emails because I've been sitting in a strategy off site.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we've never we we actually didn't come out.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: You you talk about strategy, but what's the action plan?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, that that's really important.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I was doing an off-site earlier today with a company, and I said, one of the most first you've got to manage expectations, right?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's not something, there's not like some leprechaun at the end of the strategy rainbow that's hey, here's your magic answer, here's your plan for the next five years.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a process and your and your and your bucket of gold, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not that.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, thinking about strategy, working on strategy, which should always be a collective exercise.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you get the whole team in there, uh, is not something that gives you this magic solution.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's not pixie dust.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: So there's expectations.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing, the worst thing you can do is just let it sit.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think all executives, all leaders need to be oriented towards action.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so you immediately pluck out, which is one of the things we did at the end of the off-site today, which was okay, what can we act on now?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: We we know directionally, we've agreed directionally where we need to go.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: We've even begun to perceive and write down some of the actual individual moves and when they might happen that'll pull us in that direction.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: A direction we've all decided leaves us to a better place, whatever better means for your business.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: So let's knock it out.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: What low-hanging fruit?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: What can we do today?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's celebrate that when we get it done tomorrow.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: What's a monthly thing?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: What's a quarterly thing?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I think people can start to lay out almost like stepping stones, you know, these moves, as long as they keep the momentum of the organization going in the strategic direction upon which they've decided.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is so true.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, creating that act on, I I think that is so it's so important to be able to have that.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: So something that you said that I kind of want to ask you about too is you know, and I think this is um it's a huge insight is that that strategy session should be collective, it's with the whole team.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how many times you know, in your experience have you seen it be just the executive team?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, too often, too often.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, a lot of the best thoughts about the things I'm gonna talk about, strategy, how our customers behaving, how our suppliers behaving, they tend to come from the people who in an organization who are actually touching those ecosystems.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I do think you want different voices in the room, people with different perspectives who are viewing the world of that enterprise uh differently.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you think together.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, I do it in my offsite very structured way, everybody does, but you want to think together.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we use these things called frameworks and strategy work, and they're simply a way to organize your thinking, you know, like the old BCG matrix.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just a way to organize your thinking and start to ask hard questions.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Gosh, we which of the businesses we're in are in the growth areas and should we invest in those?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Which ones are are great businesses, but they're not really going anywhere.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe we'll just harvest those things and which things you know, we're trying, but they're not working out so well.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we need to stop doing that or divest.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: But it's just a way to organize thinking and get people talking.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: I find that if you can get the right people having the right conversation at the right time, you're in the you know, 90th percentile of high performing organizations.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it really starts with having that dialogue, that conversation where people are talking about strategic things instead of just how do I get this, you know, report out by Thursday.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So so if somebody today said, Oh, I you know what I've I've got my corporate meeting scheduled with our executives, you know, what do you what would you say to them, like thinking, like, I mean, I know you said, you know, obviously the people that are touching it the ecosystem need to be in the room, but so many people don't think that way.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's it's I think one of the biggest challenges, there's two challenges here.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: One is people misunderstand what strategy is, though they they think it's a goal.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, goals are part of it, but they're not a full strategy.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was doing work with with a big public bank in New York a couple of months ago, and they said, Well, we have a strategy.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Great.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I said, that saves me time.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, What is it?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: They said, we're gonna raise our stock price by 8%.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, that's a goal.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's a good goal, maybe it's a bad goal.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's not a strategy.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: The strategy is the series of things you would do to get there.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, why there are good moves within the context of your current environment?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: What's happening in your environment that would cause you to make these moves?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: How might people react to them?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: What resources do you need to do those?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: How do you know success when you see it?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: How are we going to keep score along the way?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then who's doing what on this journey and how all those pieces fit together?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, uh, okay, you know, a vision's not a strategy, a mission is not a strategy, a set of values is not a strategy.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: All those things are important and inform the strategy, but the strategy is that, you know, that full game plan.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's problem one is just knowing what you're trying to do.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: The second biggest problem, and you probably experience this a lot, is we mistake strategic planning for strategic thinking.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times, what we call strategic planning is a thinly disguised annual budget drill.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and it's bottom-up.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody wants data.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you have data, we can only have data on the past or maybe the present.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it naturally drags your mind backwards.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas, you know, as I mentioned, strategy is casting your mind forward into the unknown.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the future.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: The future hasn't happened yet.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So there's not really data for it.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh these two things get confused.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And what you often get with what I call corporate programming, or what a lot of people think is strategic planning, is you get a bottom-up assessment based on last year's baseline.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's some modest improvement.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: People say, Well, there's our new strategy.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Yeah, you're modestly improved over last year, um, which may be fine.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're really looking to transform the organization and move into a place of greater advantage, you can cast your mind forward and away from the data in the past.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit more top-down ribbon, you know.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so if I can get organizations past these two hurdles, sort of opens up the aperture.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody's like, oh yeah, let's start thinking of what's happening in our market.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: What is our competition doing?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Why are consumers behaving the way they're behaving?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: What changes are coming down the road?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, technology, everybody's talking, AI, you know, how's it going to affect us?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the conversations you want to have when you're doing strategic thinking.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so the thing that just came out came to my brain, and I really and I is like, is it's you know, your um your goal versus aiming.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like, you know, how are you and strategy versus just aiming to something?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how am I gonna get there?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for and and I I'll share a funny example of something that that made me actually walk away from a company.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was um in magazine publishing, I was sitting in a room and I I love consumer consumer to my brain, consumer marketing is both left brain, right brain, because you have to be creative and you have to be analytical.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I loved that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was like my like you know, um I would geek out on econometrics, you know, whatever.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when I'm sitting in this meeting, and I I'll never forget this, like it was just like yesterday.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I got the president of company on one side and the senior VP of sales and marketing on the other end of the conference table.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: CEO goes, I think we need to make a little bit more money.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the VP goes, we're gonna raise the price.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: You two should talk.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was and and then I said, and I'm sitting there thinking about this, and I'm thinking, what he's like, you want more money, you're gonna raise the price.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about the implications?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you know that if you increase your price, like statistically speaking, if you increase your price by 10%, you're gonna lose this number of customers?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Which do they they could both be right if they took the time to sit down and say what would be the things that might link these two goals?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna add additional features, you're gonna go after new subscribers, and you know, even at the higher price point, people feel like they're getting something that's differentiated, and and then you you can run models, right?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right, but yeah, I I find that all the time.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: People come in with a goal, it's often something that is uniquely suited to them.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the finance people have a finance goal, and the marketing people have a marketing goal, and the engineering people have an engineering goal, and so on.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, the meeting up of these things and making sure they all fit together, that's when you a strategy starts to emerge.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say, because you you those all need to come to come together so that you know, there's that crossover, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where they all come together so that they're at the same, they're at the end point, they're all working towards the same future value that they want to have.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which is quite interesting.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite interesting.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, so tell me, you know, you have had like this amazing career, you've you've worked in government.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're thinking about how that, like all of those pieces, from CEO to like does strategy differ?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it really doesn't.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is one of the themes of the book, which is that I'm a classically trained strategist, which in um classic terms we apply to the word itself, it comes from the Greek word for general.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: So strategies associated with military stuff, it's associated with you know nations doing their thing on the global stage.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: all that and uh you know i've been in i was a assistant secretary of state under conde lisa rice so i get that world right and she's a genius at the big picture uh close up but that's just like the basic science the applied science is applying thinking strategically to any setting a sports team a business a nonprofit and i worked with all of them uh the basic elements of strategy which we've been talking about you just apply them to the all the rest is x's and o's yeah and you figure it out so for me when I made the leap from the military and government into business I came in with only I came into the business world with only two skills one is I knew how to think strategically you know where's this organization going?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Why you know how do we know who's doing what along the way all that and I came in with leadership skills which is now that we've established a direction how do I get people to work together to accomplish something and so that was that was it I had no skills I had to learn all the business skills and running a in running a business including you know right and up through when I was a public company CEO uh but the basic tenets of how any human organization works where are we going and how are we going to work together to get there?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the stuff of leadership right and so you know people who are listening if you could say to them besides reading your book you know what what what is something that they could do today that will help them become a better strategic thinker which will then of course help them be a better leader.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well I would say you know just start to adapt uh flow some strategic moments into your leadership life which can be as simple as uh let's talk a little bit about the future.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Let's examine the environment in which we're existing and talk about what it means for the future.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let's think about where are we positioned correctly or do we want to be positioned differently and what would a movement to the better position look like.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that can flow into everyday work.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that would be no point of mind.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: The second thing is there's strategic activities in building an organization, scaling an organization among them I would label developing other leaders.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this is a real superpower leaders can access.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: I tell people in charge whether they're entrepreneurs or big company leaders your job is not just to run the company you are your job is to create the company you ain't the company of the future.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so that requires thinking about the company you ain't yet and then it requires you thinking about firing yourself from your current job of running the company you are and hiring your new self to build the company you are not yet.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that implies that you need to leave the company you are in good hands, which means you need to spend time coaching, developing others, you know um tell a story in my last book leadership book this amazing a CEO and she had a mug on her desk and on one side it said boss and on the other side it said coach.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And when you came into her office depending on what kind of meeting you were with her she would spin the mug around.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: So you knew this was a coaching session or this was a boss meeting which I thought was a really cool device.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love that that's that's really great.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's really great.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: But but what she really internalized is that she had both jobs not just to run the shop but to develop people to to help her do that so that she could keep growing as a leader and and build the company going forward.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know it's I I I absolutely love that.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I you know I think you know one of the things that I see is that I and I'll I want to if this is sort of a a statement and a question at the same time I think a lot of people forget that the word leader is to actually lead people to something.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right like we are you know and so you know my question is is as you as as we think of that word leader you know what happens when people you know are in these companies and they just they forget they forget that oh gosh it happens all the time I do a test with companies which is I'll talk to the CEO or the other top leaders and I'll say do you think everybody's clear on the strategy?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely we've hammered it out we put it on our cards it's posted on posters in the break room everybody knows where we're going I'll say well this is a testable proposition let me walk around and talk to people I'm like hey uh did you hear about the new thing oh yeah I heard about the new thing how do you know the new thing when you see it uh uh bosses tell me you know people really struggle with so you can never uh underestimate how much people are not on the same sheet of music and uh so I think finding ways to make sure that the direction of the company the the way it's going to behave the things that matter the things on which they're keeping score the kind of culture that will be rewarded because it propels success those things need to be really explicitly understood rewarded when they happen corrected when they don't and I think leaders really need to be kind of ruthless about this you know always making sure that you know the uh people can see what direction the direction of the enterprise looks like when they bump into it in the hallway what does it look like when they bumped into it you know our new strategy when you encounter it what was it well and something that you just said too is like does everybody know this and I think there's two things here that I think are are slightly different.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know and so correct me if I'm wrong is you know do they know the strategy number one that what's like the new strategy but also what's the mission?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so you said like it's posted on the in the break room.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well the missions should be like and then and to me a mission statement is not something that you write in chisel and stone it's something that you need to it's fluid it needs to be yeah it's need to be changed but the but mission and strategy are different they're they're combined they they work off each other but they're two different yeah yeah a mission you know look a vision what you want the world to look like because you exist as an enterprise the values how you're going to behave what kind of uh things you reward around around the place and the mission what you're actually doing and why you exist what you hope to accomplish those are all really important and they inform a strategy they kind of sit over top of it like rain clouds and they feed it but the strategy is a more detailed game plan of all the different moves that will be made if it's ever out of sync with the mission or vision or values it can be pretty obvious.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right but um the the strategy itself is a more detailed plan for how you're actually going to make the movement.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: In some ways it's like it's like what's the playbook and everybody almost needs to have that playbook.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know like you know whether it's a copy that everyone's okay this is our playbook for right now.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is this is our five year playbook and you know you in the marketing department you've got this section but you need to make sure that you're working with engineering or whatever with yeah absolutely I find it fascinating because and and something else that you know that you said is is that you know and I think it's and listeners as you're hearing this it's start now to think about the flow that you have.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like get into the that habit of of thinking and vision and and thinking about what the future is so that you can plan and get the people that are on in your you know you again I hate the word employees but get your team because those are that's your team right get them thinking they've got to be they I will guarantee you the creativity will come out you know and the the one thing that's coming out to my brain that's like all of a sudden like you know jumping into my brain is the guy who created this flaming hot Cheetos, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah no absolutely everybody needs to be involved and I would say even outside of the enterprise one of the things I I coach leaders on is you have a lot of stakeholders you know you have your team in the enterprise you have your customers you have suppliers you have stakeholders when I became a public company CEO all of a sudden among my stakeholders were industry analysts, press politicians, regulators I was like whoa I haven't been trained in any of those things, right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: But they were important stakeholders.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: The clearer my strategy was the clearer the purpose of the organization was the easier it became for me to communicate all our actions to all these groups of stakeholders and everybody felt more invested as a result.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it it lends a coherence to organizations that uh goes beyond your product or your services or something like that.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: It really cements why we exist and what what we're trying to get done around here.
• 31:28
  unknown: Right.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know and it's something that you just you know you're thinking like you know those stakeholders the people that it's the people that you're touching the people that are impacting and it's also who are those people that have a perceived value or of what your company is or what you are doing need to be included in some way shape or form because you might think that everybody thinks that your company is you know raging amazing but in actuality they have a different opinion.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah completely completely I often will go I I'll test with companies and I'll say why do people choose you over your competitors and I'll say this that I'll get a lot of great marketing feedback.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say well we're gonna talk to some customers you know why did you pick them?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: I often don't hear the marketing back which I hate to depress you know great marketing professionals but I don't hear the advertisement back.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: I hear different things and that's the kind of stuff that needs to be back taken back and imported.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know I'll make another point because something you said raised in my mind which is another strategic activity I think all leaders need to work in our stakeholder management.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know um we tend to spend time as leaders with people that are in close proximity to us or with whom we're really familiar or that work for us.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: And what leaders really need to do is uh make and cultivate relationships with stakeholders outside of their enterprise because if you wait until you need a relationship it's too late to form it.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think I always tell people I'm like get out of the office oh there's so much to do around here I don't care you know go to that industry happy hour.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Go take your competitors to lunch my competitors yes take your competitor to lunch you'll be amazed at how much they'll talk uh you know just because uh they want to talk um but get to know people outside of the company that can have some influence or impact on your future because you want to have a relationship with them uh you know when you're gonna need it.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am so happy that you said that so I 100% agree and I think that is so critically important.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually just had a conversation with one of my uh really great friends who's a CMO of a company and we were talking about how you know and I actually just I did a a post on this too is that leaders like you as a person at a company you need to be able to get yourself out of the company to meet other people because no offense to companies it's not like it used to be where you were employed by X company for your entire career right so things happen companies get sold you don't know what's you might not be in the C-suite knowing what's happening and even if you are in the C-suite you might be there one day and all of a sudden you're out but if you don't have those relationships right it could take you years to find another job but if you have the like if you can pick up the phone and say hey John Jaclyn you know whatever I you know we connected this is where I am whatever it is like and you've built a relationship right so critical.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and I think that's the key thing as you've implied the best strategic relationships are non-transactional yeah right they're not they're not there I'll scratch your back you scratch mine there.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Those are you know I tell people you have three I tell executives you have three buckets of relationships.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: You have your your personal network which is great that's like your personal board of directors people that get you, know you can give you advice.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have your operational network which is the 10 or 12 people you need to touch every day to get your job done.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of chosen for you.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: But your strategic network is up to you and that's a set of people that you don't necessarily rely on day to day to be successful.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: But you know them, they know you you respect them they respect you.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: They'll take your call you'll take their call they'll do things for you you'll do things for them with no you know implicit reward that day um but you just you each matter to each other and that's if you can build those kind of relationships they always stand you in good stead.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you you know you ask you know what what is a set of strategic activities other than planning for the company people can do in their lives I tell executives you know build those leadership networks outside of your business.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yep and I it's a true so I my post or my I did a I don't know if it was a post or wrote about it whatever but it was on that point but also don't hold your network to yourself.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yes yeah that's right I think you actually gain power by giving it away yeah yeah there was a very famous woman you you probably heard of her Heidi Roisen in Silicone Valley and um Heidi became basically the relationship broker during Silicon Valley's formative years and she you know literally introduced Bill Gates to you know Steve Jobs and things like that.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: And she would have spaghetti dinners that she would make herself and her kids would be running around pajamas at her house in Palo Alto and everybody would come because Heidi was an honest broker.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: You guys have a lot in common you get along I could see ways you could help each other.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so to be a relationship broker to build those relationships is uh is a powerful thing.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if you guard your network and refuse to use it then it it atrophies.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so you know and I and I think it's so important and I so I feel like leaders as you're listening remember you're you're you're leading people you're trying to be strategic and by leading people too and and helping you want to help those people in your fold also be strategic in where they want to go with their life.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're the leader right so to me it's like help them be the best they that they can be.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: I went I was running a company once and I stood up a high uh potential program for you know our up and coming younger vice presidents who had extraordinary potential and a couple of the older executives like gosh what are you doing?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know you're you're gonna wake them up to their own potential and then they're gonna leave and and it happened a couple of them you know realized how amazing they were in the course of these this trading and they did leave and uh I said don't don't worry they're gonna be in our network forever and some will even come back.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: But but the people were viewing their high potentials as just a great worker as opposed to someone who can be developed and do more as if they were just a you know slower smaller slightly better smelling horse right just pull your wagon and uh and and no I I don't you know in in a knowledge economy you can't treat people that way.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I you know I'm for the more I've helped people unlock potential the more I've been rewarded in the enterprises I'm leading it always comes back it's not just karma it's just good business.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure you probably have read it but Bob Berg wrote Givers Game or good go givers right so Bob Berg was was a guest on the podcast and his episode's coming out but great like the whole philosophy right of being able to to give without you know detaching from an outcome like there's no outcome you're not you're not it's not a transactional give right it's just a give like I want to help you oh who can I connect you with this is exciting right like right I mean that's like to me like that fills my cup anyway um John I could talk to you for hours because I love this stuff.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: I love talking about leadership I love talking about strategy and then and helping our leaders so tell everybody where they can um connect with you find your book and which I I will also just say I will actually put a link to the book in the show notes too but yeah you know so the books on Amazon or wherever you get your uh or your books all the very sad every format it's out now in Audible it's uh I think the Audible it should be popping out next week or so but it's on Spotify and Apple iBooks and all the rest of it.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then uh my website's johnhilland.com and you can see some of the work I do there and some of the things I write about there.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah it's great.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just um I'm excited you know to be on your show first of all but I'm also just excited to uh help bring other leaders along when I look out at the world whether it's the business world or other parts of the world I'm like we need more people who are operating thinking about themselves as leaders who are there to help others and help organizations.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that propels the whole human enterprise forward.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it you know it truly does it really truly does so I John I have loved having you as a guest listeners please do me a favor click the link that's going to be in the show notes and get his book.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Go check out his work because he's truly amazing.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then please do me a favor if you have enjoyed this episode please make sure you have hit subscribe and also share this episode with your business friends and colleagues because that is so important.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: The more we can create better leaders the better world we will create so this is the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast I'm your host Jacqueline Strominger and thank you John for being an amazing guest.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you thank you so much for joining me on the Unstoppable Success Podcast where we don't just talk about growth we leap toward it.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: If something today lit a fire within you sparked a new idea or gave you the extra push forward please don't keep it to yourself.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Share this episode and podcast with a friend, colleague or fellow be sure to subscribe rate and review and most importantly connect with me to your leading to your success community in your network keep leading with intention keep building your network with purpose and most of leaping because you are meant to be unstoppable