Latest / Integrity at Scale™ / Scaling Without Betraying What Made the Business Good
Transcript
- Hey, Dr. Tara Vossenkemper here. You're listening to the Culture Focus Practice podcast. Thank you for being here with me, of course. Let's talk scaling. Specifically, I want to talk about scaling without betraying what made the business good in the first place. What I can say for myself is that when it comes to scaling, I'm not really afraid of the business getting harder, like more difficult, more complex, more multilayered. I kind of anticipate that thing happening. My biggest fear just across the board with scaling is that it becomes something I don't recognize. Like the heart and soul of the business has changed to such an extent that this is not what I set out to do, like this is not it. That's what I'm afraid of. I think like most owners or maybe even just people in leadership at a business or at a practice, you want more stability. I want more stability I should say. I would like more capacity in my own life, and I for sure want less dependence on me. Not only am I probably like most owners and I want less dependence on me, but I mean, that's really, very tried and true visionary. Like I don't want to be needed consistently. I want something set up and I want it to run. That said, at the exact same time as I'm talking about less dependence, of course, there's this part of me that's worried. Like what if my proximity or my sort of like living memory, my visionary vigilance. I'm worried that these are the things that are protecting the quality and the humanity of the business. This creates a really brutal is a strong word, but a little bit of a brutal tension because I want the organization to carry more, and at the same time, I'm not really sure that I trust it entirely to carry what is most important. So the real question for me, and the crux of this entire episode, is how do we make integrity transferable to such an extent that growth doesn't require the founder or the owner to keep personally carrying most of the things or everything or a lot of the weight that makes the business good? That's what I'm after. My caveat to this whole episode is that I don't know. I don't know exactly. This is something I contend with a lot. Like, I'm constantly wondering about this and thinking about it. And the agenda items I have for today are the start of the things that I think are required, but by no means do I think this is the end of the line. Like, this is the answer. This is it. You don't need to go anywhere else. I'm never gonna update on this. Like, no, that's not the case at all. This is what I think at this point in time. This feels like a very important caveat to share, which is why I am doing it. So let's talk agenda items. We've got four today. Number one, defining what must remain true. Number two, founder-held quality becomes visible. Love this one. Number three, build systems that carry context. And number four, practice imperfect transfer. Let's dig into each of these. So defining what must remain true, agenda item number one. Let's think about this. If you take any process that you have and you are going to break it down step by step, there's probably a thousand different ways you could do that thing, whatever that thing is. Just choose an important process at your business, something that is very important to you like I said, break it down step by step. Realistically, there's a lot of different ways to do that specific thing. Why is it that you want it done the way that you do? And I'm asking you that question because what I hope this gets at is the essence of the process. So when we talk about defining what must remain true, this is about protecting the underlying values and commitment. And for me, I think, like, core truths that I have about business, about people that I employ, about leadership, there are key things, tenets, philosophical stances, foundational pillars, whatever the fuck language you wanna use it, there are key things that need to remain in place regardless of the methodology surrounding them, regardless of the steps that are, built out upon them. Like I said, any methodology, any steps could probably get you an outcome. However, if the core essence, if that value, that central pillar is not held intact, that's when shit starts to crumble. For example, I'll talk about... I think you know that I love hiring. If you don't, welcome to the show. I love hiring. I love hiring processes, let me say that much. They're incredible. I think people hardcore underutilize them, and I love them. So let's talk about hiring. What I know is that in our hiring process, there are a couple things that are very, very important. Of course, we're always gonna hire for values, duh. You know, we have, like, our practice values. That's a giant duh. But there's two other things, three technically, but let's just focus on two, that I am looking at underneath the process that are, like, structural components to as we're going throughout this process, these things have to be intact, otherwise the answer is no. And regardless of what we decide to do with the steps in the process, this has to remain true. Those things for me, two of the things are coachability/humility, we could call these the same thing, and direct communication. You don't have to be somebody who doesn't get defensive or doesn't even shut down sometimes. But ultimately There has to be something in place that is trying to get at when under pressure, does this person communicate sideways to their peer or straight at the source? Because I want straight at the source across the board in every facet of the business. That's a must. And so that's sort of what I'm talking about. I'm not gonna get into the super nitty-gritty and talk through like, well, what's the difference between core values and some of these other pieces? I don't think that's, like, worth this conversation. The essence of what I'm trying to say is that we have to have what's the promise? We have to have something that we're holding true regardless of what goes on surrounding it And that thing has to remain true without the owner intact. So that's agenda item number one, defining what must remain true. I would really say take any, like I said, any key process for you, what feels like a key process in your business, and distill it all the way down to if this method was shaken up entirely, like, what is the thing that I'm ultimately after with this? Why am I doing it this way? Or what has resulted in me building out the process to look like A, B, C, and D? What's that central force, you know, that driving force? And that's what this is. That's what we're trying to get at. All right. Agenda item number two, founder-held quality becomes visible. Look, I'm gonna be real honest with you. I love this one, but I think it's super fucking difficult. It's like it's really difficult to do. So let's assume that you are like a lot of other, practices, a lot of other mid-size, small to mid-size businesses or practices, whatever. I would guess that at some point or maybe even currently, a lot of the quality of what happens is dependent on the owner or the founder noticing, remembering, or correcting. That's what happens, especially initially, and that's what happens also if we're, not trying to scale with integrity. So until quality becomes something that is observable or operationalized in different contexts and something that we can discuss when we go to delegate, like as an owner, if I'm going to delegate something, but I haven't discussed quality and, like, what is necessary for this thing to be a high-quality thing, whatever it is that's being built, delegation ends up feeling like lowering the bar. Like I've passed something over, and it is way below my standards. It might have been executed. It might have been something like, well, this person, they did what was asked, but it's missing something. Or why didn't they include this? Or Why didn't they think to ask about this? Or, you know, whatever, whatever the question might be. It feels like you're getting a product from somebody else that is just not up to par with your perceived quality and the quality that you want out of the business and then of course, if that does happen, that might point to your version of quality not being observable and not being discussable Here's why I say this is hard. Because when I'm going to do something or look at something or work through a process or think about the team, my brain is just working in the way that it works. I don't know what is compatible or the same or unique or different from the person that's sitting across from me or the team that I'm working with on whatever the project is So it sort of feels like something might be obvious to me that is not even in the minds of the people that I'm interacting with or talking with about the topic. Just the other day, for example, I was talking with my clinical team leads, and I developed something with clinical metrics like a couple things. It doesn't matter, but a guide for how to really think through your clinical metrics, and I also developed an interactive table for my clinicians so that if they're struggling with a number, they can click, you know, I'm struggling with my utilization. They click that number. They have specific cross-check points that they can also then select, and then they're given, like, check this. This is in your control. This is out of your control. Go to this person for help if you need it. It's awesome actually. I fucking love what I built. But that, that's beside the point. So I'm talking about this right now because when I was meeting with my clinical team leads, and this is a few weeks back, we were talking through metrics-related things. And for just additional context, we've done a bigger push at the practice lately with CTLs being more proactive with their clinical teams with regard to metrics. And so as the acting DCO right now, director of clinical operations, I am trying to get them trained up on thinking through metrics, and I'm trying to ensure that they understand the significance of cross-referencing numbers, cross-checking things, reviewing core metrics on a consistent basis with their team, by themselves, et cetera. They've all been around for a while, so they mostly got it, but at one point we started working through some clinicians, some providers at the practice, and working through specific like metrics related hang-ups, and when that happens, what inevitably occurs is that I realize the gap between how I'm thinking about something and how my team is thinking about something. That is not shade at them. They are smart, they are supportive, they are proactive, they are incredible people. It's just the difference between me living inside this for years and spending my spare time thinking about it compared to stepping into something relatively new and then having to learn how to do it. I'm using this example because when we're talking about founder-held quality like I said, super hard to do, but one of the things that has been most helpful for me in doing this is going through processes live with people who are then going to be doing those processes. So pulling up a clinician, talking through the metrics, actively pulling up the interactive table, actively pulling up a client list, referencing past data, doing all of that, and then talking through what I'm thinking as I'm doing it, asking the person who I'm working with to tell me, "What are you thinking? Okay, why are you thinking this? All right would that be the issue if this thing were in place? And then why not or why?" That has been one of the most helpful ways of making quality, like founder quality, a little more observable and a little more discussable. So I think that the thing for me with the founder-held quality becoming visible is that it might feel, I don't think elementary is the right word. I think it might feel, like, why the fuck am I writing this down? Isn't this just obvious? And my answer to you is maybe, but maybe not. And Ultimately, that's one of the ways that we ensure that the quality that we want is going to remain intact whenever it starts to be dispersed across people and teams and systems, you know? So there's that. Okay, agenda item number three. Building systems that carry context. Here we go. Think about this: a useful system carries the why or the rationale, the trade-offs, we opted for this over this and this and this, here's why, and the exceptions. In these cases, we'll do X instead of Y. That's a useful system. A system with rigid black/white rules with no nuance, no context, and no rationale feels like a tyranny. Maybe that's a little excessive, but to me, I know if I'm on the receiving end, all I have is questions. I'm like, "Why am I doing this?" Like, why? Why the fuck? I don't really care. Why would I do this, though? That's stupid. It doesn't make any sense. So if we are trying to build systems that carry context, we have to provide that context so that people understand what they're doing within the system that they're existing in. For example, let's think about hiring. Our hiring has quite a few moving parts From start to finish, like not only the phone screen, everything about it is intentional. Everything about what I'm asking is purposeful. That purpose is captured in my master hiring process. Why do I do it this way? Here's what we're after. Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're going for. So all the way from the phone screen to the feedback processes and ultimately the decision. So all of these things are not living within the founder/owner/me. They're living in this entire system that's been built out with context baked in the entire way And all of that is transparent. Nothing is hidden. Anybody on the hiring committee has this master hiring guide to understand why are we doing this at this point? What is it that we're after? What's my role in this? Plus probably extra information that they don't even care about, but I think they need to have if and when they do have questions about the process that they are engaged in The only other piece to the building systems that carry context is that the decisions and principles and feedback, all of this stuff should not live with one person. So when you're building a system You should always think about the system existing without you in place, specifically you, if you're a founder or owner. If I wasn't here, what would need to be in place for this thing to exist and carry on? And capture the things that are most important if we're doing a call back to agenda item number one. I always like to think of the no stone left unturned. Like, that's where it's like, yeah, how would I apply pressure to this to ensure that the system carries enough context in order to result in good decisions without me at the helm or in the center point, you know? Also what feels important to the systems caring context piece is that When things happen that don't fit in the process or they're not like clarified as a person who is implementing a system, if it's not clear what to do or I'm really unsure about, "Oh, fuck, I don't know how to handle this," that does not mean it's a failure. What that means is that we have more context now. That's what it means. If this rule we have in place, for example, if it's missed the mark, like This is not right, and Then what we do is we assess what happened, we adjust the rule or the policy or the process or the system if needed, and we ensure that it's clear why, and then that's it. That's what a system caring context really means and looks like And now I'm moving on. Last agenda item, practice imperfect transfer. I feel like this one's really obvious, but I'll just say it out loud anyway. You have to let other people make mistakes. So if you have everything in place, let's say, you know, you have defined what must remain true, you have really tried to make visible what founder quality looks like. You know, it's been operationalized, it's discussable. You have helped to build out systems that carry context people are still gonna fuck shit up, including you. Like, everybody is still going to make mistakes. That is fine. That's expected. It's a norm. It's absolutely okay that it happens What I will say is that when we're delegating something and we're practicing this imperfect transfer We might not pass over the entirety of something and then turn our back and say, "Good luck, Godspeed," "Peace the fuck out." What we can do is we might pass over one layer or two layers at a time. For example, if I brought on my DFA, my director of finance and admin, has been with the practice for a few years, is moving into the seat, has been moving into the seat, I'm not giving her everything at once. That would be really ridiculous on my part. What I'm doing is, and what I have done is, okay, let's start with accounts payable. Let's take stock of all of this. Here's how we get shit done over here if we need to. Let's get you access to the systems. Let's make you an admin on certain accounts. That's one month from start to finish, let's say. And in that same time, maybe, three weeks in, I might say, "Boom, I want you to oversee me doing payroll now. I want you to sit with me while I'm doing payroll. I'm gonna talk through what I'm doing, and you're gonna watch me run it a couple of different times, and then I'm gonna sit with you while you run it, and then I'm gonna let you be hands-off entirely." That's what bounded responsibility would look like. That's releasing something a layer or two at a time, and at the same time, getting feedback about this and giving feedback. So getting feedback about going through a process, a transfer of power, if you will, and also sharing feedback. So when she does something that is wrong, when she messes something up, which is inevitable, and again, no shade to her, I'm just saying that 'cause I always mess things up, then that's where feedback comes into play. There's just an assessment. Okay, what happened? Like, what went wrong? Oh, I see, I see. You did this instead of this. Cool. What do you do for next time? All right, done. Do you need it captured somewhere? Was that an oversight on your part? Does it need to be in writing? Do you need the context for why we do it this way? That's where we start to figure out, okay, what actually happened? What do we need in place to ensure it doesn't happen again? In this slow transfer of power, what we're getting at is somebody building a framework, building a map, building an understanding for this is how we do things and this is why, and doing that consistently with another person who's talking through, "This is why we do things. Here's why I'm doing it this way," is really, really helpful. I would say the goal for transferring things, and you could call it delegating or transferring, you know, the goal isn't instant replication because you're not gonna get that unless you clone yourself. You know, good fucking luck. You're not gonna get instant replication. But what you can get is visible learning, and you are helping somebody learn how to do something that then they ultimately are going to absorb And that is incredible when that comes to fruition. When that finally comes to pass and this person is off to the races, they're finally doing this thing on their own, that's what is one of the most relieving pieces of scalability, integrity with scale, delegation, less founder dependence. It's just so fucking relieving. I know that some of you know what I'm talking about. Hopefully all of you know to an extent what I'm talking about, because I'm sure that each of us has passed over at least something that somebody else is doing well. If you don't, I hope you find out soon, because it's very, very relieving Okay, let's wrap this up. So why this topic, Tara? I told you I think about it all the time. I think about scaling with integrity. How do I scale and grow without losing the essence of who we are? Because I'm not willing to grow if that means losing who we are. Like, that is... It's a non-negotiable for me. It just, it can't happen, and I think that it's really scary to step back or start to step back if you don't know whether or not you can trust the systems that you've built. So this topic, because I think each of us, to some extent, want to have A business that we love that is not entirely dependent on us, or if you're in leadership at a business, you wanna have a business that's running well that you're not the central linchpin part in every single move. Nobody wants that. We want a solid system without losing the humanity of what makes it special. So let's map this on the integrity at scale model, which was formerly the Living practice framework. What does this connect to if we're talking about this? It connects to leadership, it connects to culture, it connects to structure/EOS in my case, and it connects to feedback systems and financial health. If you leave with one thing, here's what it is. Choose one thing that you really want to protect at your practice, at your business. Name the commitment or value underneath, and redesign it so that the system, the organization, the group can start to carry it without you. Oh, I'm so excited. I really hope you do this. If you do, email me, because I wanna know what you did and how. And if you don't know where to email me, just go to my website, go to the contact page, and submit it there. I really am serious. I want you to tell me what you did and what you found out And on that note, make sure you subscribe to the podcast before you hop off and/or share this with a person who you know needs to hear it as an act of love. Peace out. I'll see you next time. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks. Bye Thanks for hanging out with me today. If this episode got your wheels turning, I would love for you to stick around. You can, of course, subscribe wherever you're listening. If you are interested in more ramblings about leadership culture, EOS, and all the weird fucking ways humans make organizations harder than they need to be, head over to my website and join the email list. Until next time, make sure you take care of yourself and the people around you. This shit is hard, and we are better together. See ya. Bye