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Four Stages of Leadership - Part 2: Stage 4 and the Stages' Importance · The Twenty One Clear Podcast

0:06
Adam Hatcher: Hey there.
0:07
Welcome to the 21 Clear Podcast.
0:09
I'm your host, Adam Hatcher, the founder of 21 Clear, a
0:12
family business consulting firm.
0:14
And with this and all of our other podcasts, we wanna provide resources
0:19
to you that help you think about your inner family business, the
0:23
unique way your family works in and owns your company together.
0:27
This episode is part two of my interview with Norm Smallwood.
0:32
Norm is the co-founder of the RBL Group, or Results Based Leadership,
0:37
and he has a concept that I wish I had known earlier in my career at
0:43
my family's company, a way to answer that question, am I performing well?
0:51
Am I a high performer?
0:53
Are my family members high performers compared to what this organization
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and what our customers need, and the people around us, too?
1:01
And Norm has a model, the four stages of leadership, that once I saw it,
1:06
was as simple as it was challenging.
1:10
In episode one, we went through stages one, two, and three.
1:15
If you haven't had a chance to listen to that yet, I encourage
1:18
you to look in the show notes and you'll see a link for episode one.
1:23
Go click there, start with that, and then pick up with this episode.
1:27
In part two, Norm and I are gonna move to stage four in his leadership stages,
1:34
and then we're gonna talk about some of the consequences, both the positive and
1:39
the difficult or negative consequences for understanding these stages and
1:44
applying them or for ignoring them.
1:47
And it's a fun conversation that draws on Norm's, Norm's career experience.
1:52
I mentioned in the first episode, over decades of leadership work,
1:56
he has worked with publicly and privately held companies.
1:59
He's worked with companies that were privately held and family
2:02
controlled or publicly owned and still controlled by a family.
2:06
So when Norm talks, he's talking about his experience and his study
2:10
of companies that understand the full range of that conditional nature
2:15
of business, that marketplace that doesn't care if you're family-owned.
2:19
It generally just wants to know what are you doing for your customers and what's
2:24
happening to your financial performance, your value, and your valuation.
2:28
That's the perspective he brings.
2:30
I hope episode one, when, when you listened to it, was helpful, and I really
2:34
hope you enjoy this time we take in episode two to flesh out the fourth stage,
2:42
but then really get into the impact of what it means for you and your company.
2:47
With that, here is part two of the conversation with Norm Smallwood
2:53
So what is stage four?
2:55
So stage three was you're able to contribute through others.
2:59
That's somebody who's gonna be a student of the organization, of their functional
3:03
area, of functional areas around them.
3:06
Differentiate that from stage four
3:09
Norm Smallwood: So the term we use, one was dependence, two was independence,
3:15
three is influence, four is power.
3:18
So the, the, the shift from I need to influence others in the organization,
3:25
others more senior people than me to make the-- to, to, to bring information
3:33
together to make important choices is the shift from three to four.
3:40
So, so in s-some of the other characteristics of, of, of stage four.
3:46
So I'm-- the buck stops with me, right?
3:50
I get to make these decisions.
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The, the next one is setting strategic direction, right?
3:57
I'm not setting it for the team, but the entire organâ¦
4:02
Even when you have a small organization, it can be very difficult to, to,
4:07
to say, you know, holistically, "Here's, here's where we're going."
4:12
Maybe small now, but it's that, uh, vision of the, of the future.
4:17
In stage three, you're a mentor, so you're working with
4:21
somebody like coach or mentor.
4:23
Mentor meaning that you're helping somebody develop their skills
4:29
and spending the time to do.
4:30
In stage four, you don't see that as much, and the term sponsor becomes more.
4:35
I'm gonna test the stage three people to see which of these are able to cut
4:43
it and to, uh, move to the next level.
4:47
So and then representing the business or the organization
4:52
to the outside world would be another element of, of stage four.
4:57
So I've shifted from dependence to independence to influence, influence
5:03
meaning the, the team and others, and then stage four is the entire organization,
5:10
assuming that it's, you know, of some size, and then setting direction,
5:16
um, sponsoring versus mentoring.
5:20
Um, anyway, so that's the, so that's the, uh, that's the final, uh, layer.
5:26
And, and again, it's even in a very large organization, there tend not to be
5:33
like less than five percent, uh, would, would typically be in, in stage four.
5:40
You'd see maybe up to twenty percent in stage three, especially if you
5:46
don't make it-- You, you don't have to have some kind of formal nomination.
5:51
The more stage threes you can have, the better.
5:54
Stage four, if there's too many of them, they'll probably
5:56
fight with each other, right?
5:58
So, uh, you, you don't need them, or they'll go off and
6:01
start their own thing, right?
6:03
So, uh-
6:05
Adam Hatcher: I heard you say stage four, the thing they s- the thing
6:08
a stage four CEO would say is, "My job is to ensure that the company is
6:13
utterly realistic about the difference between where we are, where we want
6:17
to go, and the path to get there."
6:19
And you got three or four of those together, you're
6:22
gonna have a lot of fights.
6:23
Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
6:24
Yeah.
6:24
Well, the thing, like I was at, uh, Esso Resources for several years,
6:30
you know, early in my career, and they, and s- they had stage four
6:34
technical people in, in jobs.
6:36
They had a chief geologist and a chief geophysicist, and these
6:41
were folks who had huge influence and really power, not influence.
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They had power over the, the careers of the geologists and geophysicists,
6:53
of which in exploration and production, there's a lot of those
6:57
in, in these big oil companies.
7:00
And, uh, so isâ¦
7:02
it's, uh, in Livermore, there's 7,000 physicists.
7:08
Oneâ¦
7:08
These are the guys that were doing Star Wars in the Reagan administration.
7:13
But, but, but I remember the guy that had the idea for Star
7:18
Wars was a g- guy in his 20s.
7:22
So this would be somebody very early moved to stage four, had a
7:27
vision for Livermore to have aâ¦
7:31
th- that, that's still important today, the idea of a defensive shield for
7:37
the military of weapons that could shoot down from space or from wherever
7:43
missiles coming in from other places.
7:45
So it, it sounds kind of science fictiony, but, but itâ¦
7:49
And it was completely bogus at the time.
7:51
It wasn'tâ¦
7:52
We couldn't really do it, but Reagan convinced Gorbachev to stand down
7:57
because, you know, the, the belief that Livermore was creating this, this Star
8:03
Wars invincible shield around America, that was the really cool idea of a
8:11
young stage four guy, PhD physicist.
8:15
So, uh,
8:17
Adam Hatcher: So
8:18
Norm Smallwood: anyway
8:18
Adam Hatcher: is, somebody listening is gonna think, all right, so if st- stage
8:22
two, three, and four can e- like, if stage one, two, or three could accidentally
8:28
get in a stage four position, or maybe we have, like you just described, stage fours
8:32
not in a CEO role, but because of our company, stage fours in different places.
8:38
Norm Smallwood: Yep
8:38
Adam Hatcher: someone has right now is, what's a way I can
8:41
figure out what I am right now?
8:44
Or if I'm managing my daughter, my nephew, what's a way I
8:48
can help them see themselves?
8:50
'Cause they probably have career aspirations.
8:53
Norm Smallwood: You know, the simplest way to do it that's, uh, is that we're
8:58
self-deceived ourselves about this one.
9:01
This is, uh, the only person who will be self-deceived about
9:05
what stage you're in is you.
9:07
Um, and so if you just had a, if you gave somebody the descriptions of the four
9:14
stages and that works with you, I mean, it could be a peer, it could be a boss, it
9:20
could, it could be your spouse, and, uh, and just say, "Which of these do you think
9:26
is more the way I can like to contribute?"
9:30
Uh, there's a, I think, a ninety-nine percent correlation in which those
9:34
around you would perceive you.
9:37
And, uh, time and again, you know, I've seen people be three-- I mean, I'veâ¦
9:43
Remember, uh, the, the program where people could defer working because
9:50
the company was downsizing, so they would, uh, offer them degrees.
9:55
I remember this person who was in, uh, this was again in an-
9:59
in another oil company where they were, uh, called a landman.
10:04
You can see Billy Bob Thornton in Paramount Plus's Landman
10:08
to find out what they do.
10:09
But, uh, this person was the landman, went off, got an MBA, and came back a
10:14
couple years later, and when they were a landman, they were perceived in stage one.
10:19
Came back a couple years later, everybody in the organization saw
10:23
them still as stage one, and they were sure that they were stage four, right?
10:28
So they wanted to start setting direction and sort of arguing with the, with
10:34
the, um, with the other senior leaders.
10:36
And what you can do to be really helpful with that is the, when you're coaching
10:41
somebody like that, it's, you know, the, the conversation is better run something
10:46
like, "Well, you know, you perceive you're in stage, um, four, but I've, you know,
10:54
I've talked to others, and there's sort of a general agreement that you're in one.
10:58
So regardless of where you are, how do you, how do we begin to show the
11:03
path that, uh, create the perception that, that you're not there?
11:07
And the first one would be, you know, show that you're in
11:10
two and then three and four.
11:11
We'll work you through this."
11:13
'Cause people can't go from one to four in terms of the same
11:17
person, um, that quickly, right?
11:21
It's a, it's a tough, tough, tough road
11:25
Adam Hatcher: It's tough.
11:26
Well, and that's what I like about the, you've and taught the stages is
11:31
'cause it gets to that question, in a family company, you want to be seen
11:35
as a strong performer, not just by your brother, not just by your father,
11:40
not by your uncle, but you wanna be seen that way by customers, by the
11:44
business, at least in family companies that want to build a great company,
11:48
uh, and stay together as family.
11:51
And this helps you see, okay, I am stage two.
11:55
let me show people how to get to three.
11:58
So we haveâ¦
12:00
I wanna t- we've focused a lot individually.
12:03
I wanna close this, uh, I, I wanna g- ask you one more question and pull it out to
12:10
organizationally.
12:11
So it's important f- for any of us to answer stage one, two, three, four for
12:15
our own careers, for the careers of the family members around us, and the cost of
12:20
that is you can end up a job that's over your qualifications or ov- you don't even
12:26
know the expectation and can be miserable.
12:29
And I saw a number that you wrote that actually, in your studies, 50% of leaders
12:33
in most organizations are operating below the stage required for their role.
12:40
Now, I know that when that's y- the case, it makes people miserable, but I am
12:44
curious, when we think of answering that, like, what's the cost to the organization?
12:50
If you've got family members who don't know their stage or are operating below
12:56
the level of their role, and maybe you got leaders that have been with
12:59
you for 15 years and they were your friends when you started the business
13:02
and they're operating below, itâ¦
13:04
In companies you've worked with, Norm, what does that cost them if they
13:08
don't recognize it and address it?
13:12
Norm Smallwood: Yeah, usually, you and I have had this conversation
13:15
before, so it's, uh, you know, a little bit of a repeat of, of
13:19
that, but our listeners haven't.
13:21
So,
13:21
Adam Hatcher: Right.
13:22
Norm Smallwood: so, so,
13:24
Adam Hatcher: stage rated me.
13:25
For anyone listening who's like, "Oh, no, no.
13:28
No, I went through this."
13:29
It's a pretty penetrating
13:30
Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
13:31
Adam Hatcher: uh, it'll wake you up in a hurry.
13:34
Norm Smallwood: Well, what, what, I mean, what happens, and it's, it, it's
13:37
in family businesses, it's, it's inâ¦
13:41
It's so, it's such an easy mistake to make, and I think it's a mistake,
13:46
is to assume that the, that the person that we're most concerned
13:51
about is the leader, right?
13:53
It's, it's, it's Bob, right?
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And so Bob's been around.
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We know Bob's not very good and, and Bob has, you know, created the conditions
14:04
where the, the business isn't profitable.
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We've got disgruntled employees.
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So you s- th- customers that aren't getting the experience that they want,
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and so it is, it's affecting the business.
14:17
So I mean, the first place I go is the impact on employees.
14:21
So it's not about Bob, it's about the 10 people that work for Bob that don't get
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any development, that, uh, if, if the, if your company does employee engagement
14:33
surveys and you're in Bob's group and Bob's an expert and Bob's competing
14:38
with you, um, it's, it sucks, right?
14:41
It sucks to work for Bob because then you're probably looking for another job.
14:46
If you're, uh, if you have external customers, you've got disgruntled
14:51
employees working for Bob, and now you've got the employees
14:56
that are, um, excuse me here
15:00
Adam Hatcher: I, uh, you have employees that are working
15:04
for him that are disgruntled.
15:05
They're probably customer-facing, or some of them, and customers have
15:10
a sixth s- sixth have a sixth sense for what's going on in the business.
15:15
I mean, what I hear you setting up
15:17
Norm Smallwood: Yeah
15:18
Adam Hatcher: y- tuh, this is the hardâ¦
15:20
In family companies, you mix the unconditional nature of family with
15:23
the conditional reality of business.
15:27
And if cust- and if you have unhappy employees, you're gonna lose value in the
15:31
Norm Smallwood: You're gonna have unhappy customers.
15:32
Yeah yeah
15:33
Adam Hatcher: you have unhap- happy customers, you will absolutely lose value.
15:37
And so withoutâ¦
15:39
What I like about the stages is it, it does two things.
15:42
It answers that question of, what do I need to be do- what kind of performer
15:46
am I, and what do I need to be d- to do to be seen as a strong performer?
15:51
But it also sets the stakes.
15:54
member or not, if I can get people in the right stage and match
15:59
the right stages to roles, can build a great company probably a
16:04
Norm Smallwood: Yeah
16:05
Adam Hatcher: av- avoid a lot of f- family fights and family meetings about, "Well,
16:09
that person shouldn't be this and that."
16:10
Like, we can do that and keep the family together
16:15
Norm Smallwood: So yeah, let me, let me just rephrase it slightly differently.
16:19
So at, at least my version of this.
16:22
You can be successful in any stage except stage one.
16:26
And so the question is the, the individual question, the question for
16:30
me is, what do I want in my career?
16:33
Do Iâ¦
16:34
And I can't, and, and we're gonna take one off the board.
16:37
I can't be a, uh, an employee who can't become an expert in the area
16:43
that I'm working in because over time I become unsettled about it.
16:48
I feel like a failure.
16:50
People, other people look at me and they, they think if I'm in a family-owned
16:54
business and I'm in stage one and I'm leading something, then I'm clearly
17:00
a, uh, that was nepotism, right?
17:03
Because you should have cleared me out of there.
17:06
So,
17:07
Adam Hatcher: as
17:07
Norm Smallwood: so I-
17:08
Adam Hatcher: have seen where families are uniquely able to do this, and I know this
17:11
isn't the circumstance you're thinking of.
17:13
I have seen family companies that in stage one will let people stay there,
17:16
particularly in the case of special needs.
17:18
Like, sometimes
17:20
Norm Smallwood: Oh,
17:20
Adam Hatcher: or
17:21
Norm Smallwood: okay
17:21
Adam Hatcher: yeah, stage one, that can be long-term.
17:24
But absent that,
17:26
Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
17:27
Absent dad
17:28
Adam Hatcher: see people progress in their career
17:32
Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
17:32
Well, and so you can-- The issue in stage two, if I wanna be an
17:36
expert my whole career, is just staying up to date technically.
17:39
If it's three, it's, it's really being great.
17:44
Like, I've seen people in stage three that are legendary for
17:49
developing the next generation.
17:51
Like, if, if you had your first job opportunity, let's, let's go from
17:56
Bob to Bill or Sue, and Sue is known for, like, working with people and
18:03
setting them up for success later.
18:06
And, and, and sh-she gets to be known as a, a talent builder and a s-- and a, and
18:14
a, and somebody who this is where talent is built in the, in the organization.
18:21
If you, if you get a chance to work for Sue, it'll be great for you
18:25
later in your career 'cause she's just so good at, at doing that.
18:29
And then in four, it's the success of the business, right?
18:32
It's like Sue is great in three because she's the generator and the, and the
18:39
supplier of talent for the future.
18:43
And then, uh, and then the stage four one is the success of that if, if I
18:49
wanna be that guy, it's the, the person who really grows the business and, and
18:55
has, you know, really happy customers and employees who are attracted to come
19:01
and work with us because of the type of leader and the opportunity, the type
19:07
of leaders we already have there, and the, what I can learn by going there.
19:10
And that's, that's the kind of the-- That's what you wanna see versus, you
19:17
know, this is, you know, just a place where it churns and there's no real future
19:23
there and, you know, it's, it's kind of a, not the place to, to, not the place to be.
19:29
So but, but yeah.
19:32
Adam Hatcher: oh, sorry, go ahead
19:33
Norm Smallwood: No, no, go ahead.
19:35
Adam Hatcher: Oh, tha- so from a, and from an ownership perspective, one
19:39
of the values of understanding these stages, if you are considering your
19:46
family company, selling your family company, stepping in, stepping into the,
19:53
a top leadership role in the company.
19:55
Let's say you've hit the right stage, stepping into the top leadership c-
19:59
leadership role, in an outside investment, trying to get some sort of liquidity out
20:04
of the business by bringing in outside investment, be it a private equity stake.
20:10
It has got to be helpful for understanding stages.
20:16
If you're about to
20:17
Norm Smallwood: Yes.
20:18
Yeah
20:18
Adam Hatcher: and you don't know how many stage one, two, three, fours you
20:21
have, or if you're gonna try to liquidate the business, and you've got a bunch
20:26
of stage twos and stage three and four roles, somebody's gonna figure that out.
20:30
Like, you need to know that ahead of time.
20:32
I assume when you've worked with companies, this has been valuable for
20:36
them to either understand the value of the organization they're running
20:41
Norm Smallwood: Yeah
20:42
Adam Hatcher: "What hill am I about to have to climb here?
20:45
What'd mom
20:45
Norm Smallwood: No, if you think, well, if you think about when
20:47
you say, you know, if, if the company's gonna sell or IPO thenâ¦
20:54
And, and you think about value, I mean, the value thirty years ago was, you
21:02
know, what's the EBITDA of this business?
21:05
And then you've got some kind of a multiplier in your industry
21:09
for the value of the company.
21:11
That's shifted s- to a place where, you know, about twenty percent of value today
21:20
is the financial value of the company.
21:22
And it's easy to see this when we think about investment.
21:25
When you make an investment, like if you're gonna IPO or somebody else is gonna
21:30
buy you or you're gonna buy somebody else, it doesn't matter, it's the same thing.
21:34
What you're valuing is the potential, the future potential of this business.
21:39
What can we do?
21:41
So if the, if the company you're looking at has a track record, a financial
21:46
track record, that's important, but how much does it count for?
21:49
What you're hoping for is we've got-- we can trust that the leaders in this company
21:57
will be able to continue to deliver the right results the right way over time.
22:02
And the only way you can do that is if you have leaders who can do that.
22:06
And the stages is a way to, you know, do a proxy of, you know, how strong are the
22:14
leaders that we have to create, you know, investor, customer, community, employee
22:21
confidence that, uh, because of the track record and because of the perspective that
22:29
they have about the, about the future.
22:31
So absolutely.
22:33
And, uh, if you were to want me to quantify it, we've
22:36
actually can quantify it.
22:38
We've, uh, um, in, in our work that we published in CFA Chartered Financial
22:44
Account Magazine and others, we see, uh, quality of leadership being about
22:49
twenty-five percent of the market cap of, of a publicly traded company, right?
22:55
So, um, so if you have a, uh, you know, a billion-dollar company market
23:04
valuation, about two hundred and fifty million of it would be attributable to
23:11
the, to the quality of leadership because they're the ones making the choices
23:15
about the future and what you're gonna invest in, what your strategy is, what
23:21
your brand is, what your pipeline is.
23:24
Leaders have all the-- get to make those choices
23:28
Adam Hatcher: I remember seeing one of the, one of the highest multiples val-
23:35
really one of the highest valuations to revenue I had seen in my industry.
23:41
Uh, the industry my family company came out of was a company whose,
23:45
though they were smaller than the acquirer, their talent was so strong,
23:50
their top leaders were made the top leaders of the acquiring company.
23:55
abs- to your point, that, I mean, that's circumstantial,
23:57
but it complements your study
24:00
Norm Smallwood: Yeah, absolutely
24:01
Adam Hatcher: value.
24:02
And if people are thinking it's not all about the money, that company, the one
24:05
being acquired, was also known as one of the best places to work in the industry.
24:10
And so it not only creates value, but for families that care about employee
24:15
experience and customer experience, having the right leaders, their stages and in the
24:20
right roles inevitably creates a company that's just better to work in and to own.
24:25
Right?
24:29
Norm Smallwood: right?
24:31
Yeah.
24:31
I like working for leaders who, you know, create a vision, treat me well,
24:37
are interested in my future, who care about our customers, yeah, versus, you
24:43
know, talking about, uh, um, you knowâ¦
24:47
But, it, it-- and like in some places it's all financial or
24:51
it's all technical, right?
24:52
So, uh, interesting
24:55
Adam Hatcher: Well, and, uh, and I'll close this with a, a
24:57
story here that you've told me.
24:59
Seeing the stages is okay.
25:02
Seeing the stages is great, then being comfortable where you are and reaching
25:07
as high as you can reach is fine.
25:09
And some of my favorite stories are when a family member or a family owner
25:16
could have probably grabbed the top, the top job, but knew it wasn't for them.
25:22
Now,
25:22
Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
25:23
Adam Hatcher: know this person, uh, but this is a story I, I enjoy.
25:26
So they're, uh, Willie G.
25:28
Davidson is of the Harley-Davidson family, he was the chief style officer.
25:35
As I understand, Willie G.
25:37
was responsible for designing a couple of the new, the new Harleys, uh, was
25:42
a cultural icon and ambas- and brand ambassador for a company that very
25:48
much relied on its brand for its value.
25:51
And then my favorite thing I ever heard about Willie G.
25:54
was that his job was to make sure that each new model, quote,
25:57
"sounded like a Harley," which is
25:59
Norm Smallwood: Yeah
26:00
Adam Hatcher: just one of the greatest job descriptions I've heard.
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It reminded me of Julian Van Winkle when he took over as
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the third generation of Pappy.
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He was the next generation that was responsible for making sure
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this tastes like Pappy Van Winkle.
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But in Willie G.
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and in Willie G.'s
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perspective, and Julian Van Winkle ends up selling to Buffalo Trace, to the Sazerac
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company, so neither of them operated the CEO job of the ultim- of the ultimate
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company, either Julian or Willie G.
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Smart businesspeople, but cultural ambassadors with uh, with that
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idea-shaping kind of ability.
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And to me, those struck me as two guys, as best I've studied them, were
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clearly in stage three were deeply comfortable being there and having
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stage fours to guide the organization.
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So you don'tâ¦
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To be successful in a family company, don't have to become the CEO.
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You don't have to be stage four.
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Norm Smallwood: No.
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Adam Hatcher: to become a
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Norm Smallwood: Mmhmm
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Adam Hatcher: It's what can you be, and being really great at it, and
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being willing to go if you're able.
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Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
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No, I, I love the, the story of Willie G.
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I, I, I mean, I've, I've, uh, my fond recollection of, of working with
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Willie G, and I've got today the Ride Free Willie G, um, uh, autograph that
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I asked him for at the, at the end.
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But, uh, yeah, he was, uh, he, heâ¦
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I was supposed to coach him for an afternoon and, and on some 360
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feedback that he had, and he said, "Do you mind if we don't do this?
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Because I really hate this kind of stuff."
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And, and I, and I said, "You know, it's fine with me."
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So we went to his house, and he showed me his, uh, collection of motorcycles, and it
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was one of the most memorable days for me.
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Willie G didn't move a, an inch on his, uh, people leadership
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skills, and, uh, I became a raving fan of, of Harley-Davidson.
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So, um, I think it was a great trade-off for me
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Adam Hatcher: And if you hear that story and he's the, the CEO,
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it would make your hair curl.
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But what I love is for the chief style officer
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Norm Smallwood: it was great.
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Adam Hatcher: that is right on.
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Norm Smallwood: Yeah.
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Yeah
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Adam Hatcher: I want them to hear it's not that Adam and Norm are saying to be
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successful you need to become stage four.
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If you wanna be the CEO, you need to become
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You need to work to stage four.
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But know where you are.
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You did this with me.
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to be the best you can in that stage, and be willing, if
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you're capable, being pushed.
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And if you're evaluating family members, don't be afraid to give
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them a stage one, two, three, four look, 'cause ultimately it's gonna
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help them and help the organization.
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Norm, this is such a huge
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Norm Smallwood: Good
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Adam Hatcher: family companies and talent and evaluating, and I am deeply thankful
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to you for both this model and for taking the time to walk through it with us,
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because I think for all the complicated leadership ideas and models out there,
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this is one of the best, simplest, but most challenging ways of looking at it.
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Thank you so much for walking this through.
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Norm Smallwood: Great to talk to you all the time, Adam, and, uh, enjoyed it a lot.
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And this is such a-- it's, it's a very helpful perspective to have and, you know,
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a good framework is, uh, is really useful
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Adam Hatcher: When Norm and I finished this conversation, I just want you to
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know I walked away from the microphone with a huge smile on my face.
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He is so fun to talk to, wise, insightful, honest, kind, but challenging.
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The podcast reminded me of the roughly two years we spent doing some deep looking at
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and restructuring of my family's company.
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I hope you got to experience just a bit of that in episode one and episode two.
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Two things I want to provide to you in the show notes.
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There is a link to RBL's website.
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There you can get in touch with Norm or the other consultants
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that Norm works with.
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That's how I got introduced to them, and I encourage you to do the same.
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Even in the first conversation, you will learn things about
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yourself and the company.
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And then since we concluded the podcast and the recording of it, Norm and
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I talked, and he wanted to make his four stages assessment available to
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family companies regardless of size.
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So you don't have to be one of these large international publicly
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traded companies to get access to what I think is a critical aid in
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helping you and your family company.
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My email address is in the show notes for this episode.
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If you send an email to me and ask for that, I'll connect you with the
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assessment, and Norm and I want to provide that to you just to give
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you a little bit more of an insight.
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So the show notes has a link to Norm and also to my email address
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to ask for the four stages.
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I hope episodes one and two combined help you get an additional insight
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into yourself, your company, the people who work there, both your
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family and non-family members, and I hope you've got a couple of things
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that you can do to help you on your way to building a great company while
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you keep your family together with a chaos proof in our family business.
31:54
Until next time, as my grandfather would have said, thank you so
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very, very much for listening