[00:00:00] Michael Pacheco: There we go. Let’s we’ll try it. We’ll try this again.
All right. Hello everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast as ever. I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And today joining me, I have binge Miller. Binge is the CEO of system in soul, a business operating framework that teaches leadership teams, how to find unity, get healthy and be more effective.
He’s also founded nine other businesses in varying industries from marketing to software and building those businesses and experiencing the successes and failures that we all encounter along the way. Benj has discovered a passion for helping others and their teams grow with purpose. Benj, welcome to The Remarkable Coach.
[00:00:43] Benj Miller: Thank you. It’s good to be
[00:00:44] Michael Pacheco: back. I should say, yeah, I should say welcome back to The Remarkable Coach. This is your second time on, I believe? I believe so. Yeah. Right on, man. Um, you’re also, it wasn’t in your bio, you’re also now the author of this guy, Renegades.
[00:01:00] Benj Miller: Yes. Labor of
[00:01:02] Michael Pacheco: Love. Which is, which is awesome.
Um, you know, to open up this podcast, I always like to invite our guests to, to just kind of start out by telling us a little bit about yourself, kind of in your own words, why it is you do what you do, and maybe, uh, just tell us a little bit about the book. Cause I think we’re going to be talking about that for the
[00:01:18] Benj Miller: most part.
Yeah, sure. Well, what I do in the book kind of have the same reason behind it. Um, I want to help people either avoid or accelerate some of the, the drama trial and, uh, and trials that I had in building some of my businesses and. Uh, there was a point in that season where I just, I went all in on learning everything that I possibly could about business building.
So, so many of us start businesses because we have an idea for a better product or market, or, you know, some unique, some unique spin on something that exists, but very few of us are actually taught in the practical world, how to run a business and how to grow a business past what you are individually capable of.
[00:02:04] Michael Pacheco: Nice. I like it, man. Um, well let’s, let’s dive right into the book. I, I read it. You sent, uh, you sent me kind of like a preview copy. I appreciate that. Um, I thought it was fantastic. I think, you know, when I dive into a book like this, I’m kind of the guy that’s always looking for tactical stuff and things that I can take away and apply for myself.
So, I mean, to that effect, tell us about, I think, you know, looking through kind of the, uh, the table of contents. Kind of what it all builds up to, right. Is these, these big, these six shifts and it’s kind of like, you know, that’s kind of, I feel like it’s kind of the focus and then what the, these shifts that, that entrepreneurs and business owners can make, um, in order to, you know, get past some of this stuff.
So why don’t you open up, talk, talk a little bit about those six shifts. There’s design, cadence, score, destination, ethos, and
[00:02:55] Benj Miller: people. Yeah. And, and to set the context for it a little bit, the. The premise of the book is that, and the reason it’s called renegades is because there’s, uh, it took some renegade energy to start the business that you have right now.
And everything we read society, culture, business school, Harvard business review is pulling us toward growing up. We want to grow the company, but, uh, we, we want to scale up without selling out. And so how do we do that? Because everything’s trying to get us to, you know, grow up and be a manager and leave, you know, whatever.
And it’s like, you know what, the company needs to grow, but we want the premise of the book is going from renegade leader, excuse me, renegade founder to renegade leader. So we, I’m not trying to, to get you to lose the renegade, but the organization is going to need you to be a renegade leader. Instead of a renegade founder in between is what we call the founders gap.
And, and most people get stuck there or frustrated there. Some tap out too early. Some, it takes too long for them to figure out how to get to the other side of it. Um, so we really identified. These 6 shifts that the organization needs to make, uh, and the founder moving toward leader needs to lead the organization through these shifts.
But it doesn’t mean they’re the 1 to carry the torch on all of these. There are other people in the organization or other people we might need to bring into the organization. They can, they can make sure these get executed on while the renegade founder, renegade leader keeps his renegade and actually moves more into his sweet spot, his or her sweet spot, uh, instead of trying to change into something they’re not.
[00:04:52] Michael Pacheco: Okay. Do you want me, did you want me to go into all of them? Yeah. I mean, let’s, let’s, I think, well, you know, yeah, I think let’s just, let’s just dive right in, man. Talk about, um, you know, yeah. Talk about the, let’s talk about the design, the design
[00:05:06] Benj Miller: shift. Yeah. So, so we, each one of these starts with the rule that culture kind of impregnates us with.
So in rule number one, it’s play the hand you’re dealt. , right? You gotta set of cards, just play it. That’s all that’s available to you. The Renegade comes along and says, I’m gonna bet on myself. I’m going, I’m going to, uh, bet my own, you know, I’m gonna create my own hand. I’ve got an ASCE up my sleeve. I’m, I’m gonna, whatever I create, I my own luck, right?
That, that’s I’m create my own luck. Exactly. Uh, and, and the shift that we need to make is to bet with intention. So you’ve been betting on yourself, which ends up with, you know, a man and a thousand helpers. Uh, and. It requires that founder to be the ultimate decision maker there. They’re making all of the bets in the business.
Who are the hires? Who are, where are the investments, where the resources go, where it’s the next market we need to go to. It’s all centered around that founder. So the first shift is
Bet with intention and it, it. Is a mindset that we can teach our teams. It is, there are some core things, structural things that we can give clarity to the people that they can now go make bets without the founder being involved.
Um, they can, you know, set the structure of the organization. Let’s get some repeatable processes. Most renegade leaders. When you say. You know, let’s get some repeatable processes. They like their skin starts crawling. Right? Like, I don’t, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to follow it. The reason I’m here is because I couldn’t follow a process.
I got fired, you know? So, um, but the organ, there are some people that it’s actually a way of giving them dignity to give them that clarity. So that’s the 1st rule that
[00:07:02] Michael Pacheco: culture. I want to, I want to jump in here real quick and, and, and talk a little bit about like the idea of the renegade entrepreneur.
Right. So I think, you know, like you said, like one of the reasons. Any of us are here as, as entrepreneurs, as business owners is because we’re most of us. I think the vast majority are basically unemployable. Yeah. I, I, you know, it’d be so hard. It would be so hard. So hard. And, and at the beginning. Of a business, you go out, you create your own business and in the beginning, I think you are as a founder, as a, as a, as a business owner, as a, you’re, you’re very much rewarded for that drive and for that hustle and for that, that owning of everything and that DIY attitude.
Right. And part of, part of this shift is, is the idea that as you grow. You need to, and, and, and, and correct me if I’m wrong, because this may not totally apply to, to this shift that we’re talking about right now, but I, I, there, it certainly seems there’s at least, you know, some crossover there in the Venn diagram, but at some point you’ve got to start relying on other people, relying on some processes and thinking about how to systemize things, because as the business grows, as, as, as everything grows, you’re, you’re going to drive yourself into the ground.
If you can try and do everything yourself.
[00:08:32] Benj Miller: And there’s a hundred books out there that’ll talk about, you know, predictable systems to scale. Like that’s, that’s not new. What I found that nobody talks about is the psychology, the almost counseling that I find myself doing with founders when they go, well, if I’m not doing all those things, then like, where am I adding any value to the organization?
Like you’re, you’re asking me to step aside so that you can, you know, put in this manager that’s actually going to do a better job managing the people leading the people than I ever did. Well, what do I do? Like that was my job. I’m supposed to be the leader. So there’s a lot of head trash that gets wrapped up in that.
And that’s part of the conversation that I wanted to bring to the surface.
[00:09:21] Michael Pacheco: Nice. I like it. I like it. Okay. You can go on.
[00:09:26] Benj Miller: Okay. Rule number two. Don’t quit your day job. That’s what everybody says. We just talked about it. We’re, you know, renegade the renegades unemployable, but, uh, the renegade says I’m going to be, I’m going to dance to the beat of my own drum.
Yeah. Right. Like you all are out there. You’re all in a Congo line doing the exact same thing, but that tune is not my tune. I’ve got a dance to the beat of my own drum. So, uh, they bet on themselves. Like we talked about, they go out, they’re positive that they could, you know, do things a better way. And what they do is they keep, uh, making those bets with their gut.
So if something’s not right with the business, they get a gut check. They go fix it. If something’s not right in the finances with a team, with a person, with a project, whatever, they’ve just got their finger on the pulse of everything. And so that they can jump in and do that. Well, that doesn’t scale.
Right. Um, so as this organization grows up a little bit. They’ve got to set the baseline. It’s the leader’s job to set the baseline. You don’t have to be in there dancing. You don’t have to be in there, but the baseline is the cadence for the organization. So what within this organization, when am I going to get a coaching conversation when it within this organization?
When do we stop and solve big problems? When do we stop and ask strategic questions? You know, all of these things that, um, most a lot of. Young organizations do kind of haphazardly, Hey, we need to have a meeting about this. Let’s have a meeting or let’s, you know, let’s try and have a weekly meeting. And that works for like three weeks.
And then it’s like, that wasn’t really great. So, uh, it’s getting a cadence and a baseline with everything in the organization. So that things stay on track so that people stay connected, uh, but also, again, every one of these has an underlying, uh, uh, active dignity that we can give the people that work for us.
So giving them the clarity of, Hey, we’re going to meet once a week as a team. Hey, we’re going to meet real quick once a week in one on one and we’re going to have a big quarterly. Coaching conversation. We’re going to work on big quarterly objectives that are going to move this business forward. So what is the, what is the cadence, the rhythms, the baseline of the organization?
Does that make sense?
[00:11:59] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, totally, totally, totally, totally. So at, yeah, at, at, at Boxer at my agency, we do, you know, we do it, we do weekly L10s every Monday we get together with everybody and we, we kind of run through that and it, it sets, you know, whether you do it on Mondays or another day of the week, I don’t know for us, Monday works because it sets our, it sets up kind of a cadence, right?
It sets up a pace and it sets up a vibe and a tone for what the rest of the week is going to, is going to feel
[00:12:24] Benj Miller: like. Yeah, that’s so perfect. And, and I, I, you know, when I got introduced to this idea and committed to it and saw it working, it was really weird to think about how any company can operate without it.
Did you feel that way? Oh
[00:12:40] Michael Pacheco: yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. How did we, how did we survive? Without doing this before.
[00:12:47] Benj Miller: Yeah. Yep. All right. So rule number three, know what you’re getting yourself into. Everybody says, you know, count the cost, know what you’re getting yourself into. And we just touched on this just a little bit, but that renegade founder says I’m going with my gut.
I’ve got to go with my gut. There’s something better down this road in the future. If I follow it. And that’s why they, they know I can, uh, I, I, I sense that there’s a problem over here. I’m, I sense that there’s an opportunity over there. Uh, that’s great. That doesn’t scale either. Cause you can’t, you know, once you get about 15 people, it’s really hard to keep a pulse on everything.
So the, the shift is. To know when we are winning and that’s where we introduce, um, some, some measurables and some sophisticated measurables into the business. And that’s all the way company level, team level, individual level. Not a whole lot there. Um, except for, I give some really practical tips on how to connect, like the interconnectivity of these metrics with some of the other pieces, um, again.
This was a problem for me as a, as a renegade founder, because I was a very soulful leader. And I thought it would be almost inhumane to put a number on somebody like how, you know, I don’t want to put them in that box. I don’t, you know, they’re more than just a number and what I learned in a very harsh conversation with an employee, when they were, when they were giving me candid feedback, it wasn’t harsh.
It was candid, but, but they said, you know, I want to know if I’m winning.
[00:14:31] Michael Pacheco: I don’t, I don’t know if I’m doing well or not.
[00:14:33] Benj Miller: Right, right. Yeah. How am I doing? And my attitude was like, well, if you weren’t doing good, I would tell you. Right. But, but that doesn’t work and it doesn’t scale. And most people need more than that.
So how do we help people know that they’re winning? And the reason we use the scoreboard analogy is because scorecards show up when the game’s over. Um, scoreboards, we can look up, we can see if we’re winning, we can call time out, we can adjust it. Halftime. There’s, there’s a lot of benefit to using that scoreboard.
A
[00:15:06] Michael Pacheco: scoreboard is updated in real time.
[00:15:08] Benj Miller: Yeah, yeah. More, more frequent feedback. Um, that gives you the information you need to note and know what trajectory you’re on. Totally. Yeah. All right. Number 4, everybody, the world tells us, Be patient and you might get lucky renegade says, I’ll make my own luck.
They’re absolutely not going to wait for the world to show up and save them and give them a handout. Uh, but the destination says, or excuse me, the destination choice, the shift here, we talk about start with the end in mind. So when we start with the end in the mind. We start to think big picture and we’ve made our own luck for ourselves in this business, but most people do a really horrible job translating that into a story that invites other people into it.
Customers, employees, vendors, partners, whatever we need, our organizations need a story and, uh, it’s, it’s made up of a few of a few pieces. So we’ve got like, where are we going? What are we trying to accomplish? Uh, and then we put a timeline on that and the timeline sets pace, like, uh, I don’t know how big boxer is, but let’s say you’re 10Million dollar company.
If you said, Hey, we want to get to 20Million dollars, the, the destination, the time you put on that really matters. Because if you said, we’re going to get there in 3 years, we’re going to double in 3 years. Okay. 20 percent year over year growth. That’s 1 thing. If we said, we’re going to get there this year, we’ve got to do things totally different.
Then we did it last year. We’ve got a new mindset. We might need new capital. We might need new, you know, we’re thinking. So when we start to articulate this, it starts to help us. Go back to the first one with our bets. Mm-Hmm. So, um, the third piece of this is, you, you’ve heard it, Simon Sinek said it so greatly.
Like, start with why. Why does any of that matter? Why does us putting blood, sweat to your time, resources to get to that destination? Why does any of that matter? And if we can articulate that around something that inspires our people, motivates our people, brings them in, um. It’s just the most powerful tool we have as leaders.
I will say that the one mistake that people make here and in the next rule is not being willing to repel the wrong people. We, we want to keep big open cast nets. Right. And like, why would I exclude that piece of the market? That just makes my tan bigger. Well, that’s just dumb because now you’re marketing to everybody.
And you’re going to attract nobody. It’s I use the magnet metaphor. Like you’re only going to be as attractive as you’re willing to repel. So people either love some Starbucks or they hate Starbucks. People love Apple or they hate Apple. Like the, the big brands create opinionated
[00:18:17] Michael Pacheco: customers. You try it.
Yeah. You want to, you want to avoid apathy. You want leverage and you want to avoid the apathy
apathy
[00:18:25] Benj Miller: and sounding like everybody else in the market.
[00:18:27] Michael Pacheco: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And a big part of that right is, is, is, is your marketing and you want to be able to market your product or your service as though you’re speaking to a single person, right?
The person on the other side of that marketing wants to feel like you’re talking to them. Yes. Your net is Cast so wide and you’re you, you haven’t excluded people, then no one, no one is going to feel special when they, when they see your marketing, when they’re exposed to your marketing.
[00:18:59] Benj Miller: Yeah. That’s a perfect segue.
Cause rule number five is there’s so much we can talk about exclusion and some of the tools that we break down here, but the rule is don’t make a scene. Like don’t make a scene and the renegade said, sorry, I got to be me, whatever that looks like, whatever it smells like, whatever happens, I got to be me.
Uh, but when we, when we start to get stuck in the, that founder gap, we’ve got to transition and make the shift into, we got to do we. And we call this the ethos shift, um, ethos is a word that we don’t use enough, but it really is that sense of like, what’s at our core of, as an organization. So we talk about the only in a statement, um, book, uh, called zag by Marty Neimeyer comes up with this only in a statement.
And it’s basically fill in the blank. We are the only blank. That blank, right. And if you can get that, then you’ve clearly articulated the, uh, sandbox that you play in and why you’re different. And that matters to people when it’s, you know, come work for us or come, you know, be part of us or buy from us.
That, that onlyness is, is something that helps you stand out from the crowd. Like we were just talking about, I think about, um, That scene from brave heart when William Wallace is like out in front of his army and he’s on his horse, given his big inspirational speech. And there’s a, you know, huge army on the other side.
And they’re all, they look like they’re actually outfitted as a, as a army. And these are rag tag guys and it’s panning his rag tag army. And it’s like, there’s the dude with the sword. Next to the guy with the spear next to the guy with the bow and arrow. And then all of a sudden about every 20 or 30 people, there’s some poor schmuck sitting there on a horse carrying a flag.
And it’s like, this, this dude’s about to go into battle. What’s he going to do with his flag? Like unarmed. Yeah. Cover somebody’s face and say, boo, like that, just that, that guy’s about to So why, why is it that you would take an asset as, as strong? As a soldier and put a flag in our arm. Well, you’ve got to, it reminds everybody else what we’re fighting for.
What are we about, um, as we go in and it said some, some, you know, cultural norms to that group about what you’re about. So we’ve got the only in a statement. We’ve got values. I’m a big fan of how Patrick Lynch, Yoni talks about. You don’t really know if your values are real until they inflict pain, like your values should hurt.
They should be something that’s a, that is a high, you have to sacrifice things, or maybe that person or that opportunity because of your values. And then, uh, Jim Collins introduced us to the hedgehog concept. So getting really clear that gives us focus on our organization. What are, what is our focus? So if we know who we are.
The values that we are committed to and the hedgehog of what to focus on. We’ve got a lot there to say, Hey, we are going to do. We we’ve now established that we that’s bigger than the founder and it enables other people to make decisions, uh, and not lose the ethos of the organization. Yeah.
[00:22:27] Michael Pacheco: I love that. I think that the value is, I think it was.
I think it’s Vern Harnish that said your, your values, you should, you should live your value, your company values so that you could hire over them, fire over them and take a financial hit over them. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, uh, that’s really easy to say. And
[00:22:45] Benj Miller: it’s really easy to say. And it’s, it’s like, you know, higher in your heads, nodding like, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Fire coach reward. That all makes sense. Take a financial hit. You’re like, Ooh, wait, no, you’ve gone too far.
[00:23:00] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s true. Right. And everyone, I think everyone who’s, who’s been through, um, you know, who’s, who’s ran a business for any length of time has, you know, certainly a service business, at least let’s say, um, has had that, that client.
That, that pushes in a certain way or, or you find, you know, something out about them and it’s just like, there’s, there’s not, it doesn’t match your ethos. It doesn’t match your values. And are you willing to fire that client to preserve the integrity of your company, of your business, of your employees?
[00:23:42] Benj Miller: Yeah. And all of your employees are aware. Right. Even if you’re not making a decision, they’re aware of your indecision. They’re, they’re aware that you’re not willing to protect the culture.
[00:23:55] Michael Pacheco: Totally. And that’s, yeah, that’s, that’s a big, I think that’s a, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s definitely harder to, to act upon than it is to, to repeat and to say, but, but it’s having been on, on both sides of that coin where I’ve let, yeah.
A client stay because they were paying us too much money and where I’ve fired. Yeah. You know, it’s when you fire the client, that next team meeting, everybody’s cheering, everybody’s, everybody’s happy about it. There’s no question. There’s just no quick. And everybody knows. And even if they’re not talking about it, they know.
And
[00:24:31] Benj Miller: the same is true when you get rid of that employee that is not a values fit. There, nobody said anything for three months about it. When it was a problem, but the minute they’re gone, they’re like, Oh, thank you. What took you so long? You’re like, what? Why didn’t you say something? Yeah. I’ll I’ll, uh, there there’s one thing that I like to remind myself and remind my clients when we’re talking through the, we gotta gotta be, uh, we, we gotta do.
We it’s the fitting in is driven by fear, but standing out is driven by purpose. Uh huh. I like it. So, so if we can tie who we are back to our purpose, it gives us the strength to move out of fitting in like everybody else.
[00:25:18] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. I like that. I wanna, if, if I can, I, I wanna, I wanna circle back, uh, just, just real quick.
I think this was part of the destination shift. One of your, your quotes in there, you said it’s not enough to know where you’re going and when. You also need to know why. And then part of that later on in that, in that, uh, in that paragraph, you mentioned that your why has to be big enough to carry the power of a common purpose.
And I think that that kind of relates to, to exactly what you just said, right? Your, your why has to be able to hold the weight of a purpose that is big enough and strong enough to give you the, the, to give you the balls to stand out. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:08] Benj Miller: And I would say if anybody. It can be intimidating. Like I remember the first time I heard some Simon Sinek’s Ted talk.
And I was like, well, now I got to come up with a why. And it was almost overwhelming, like to try and find my why. And, uh, we have a couple of tools to help people with that process now, but I didn’t back then. And I, my encouragement would be just like. Get as raw as you possibly can with why the, the business matters to you.
Why does this matter? Why, you know, if you’re, if you’re a digital agency, like why aren’t you an insurance company or why do you serve the clients that you serve? Like in the more raw and honest, you can get with that. Sometimes our, sometimes our raw answer. Well, I want to get it to 40 million so that I can exit and my family’s, you know, fine for the three generations.
Okay. That, that is real. There’s honesty in that when you can get down to that level and then you can build it back up and say, okay, well, that’s, what’s in it for me personally. What’s in it for us collectively. What happens if we achieve this? What happens along the way? What do we have to create in order to be a 40 million agency?
Um, and in there somewhere, there’s a little nugget that’ll lead you to the greater why that carries the purpose. Would you?
[00:27:33] Michael Pacheco: Would you retell or maybe just summarize the, um, the part in the book, um, where Bill Green, one of your coaches, uh, is working with Amy Watts at the Academy of Warren? I thought that was a really fantastic kind of a little part that you included in there, and their, their purpose is Significant right?
[00:27:56] Benj Miller: Yeah, I’d have to pull it up to to recite it. So give me a second.
[00:28:03] Michael Pacheco: Um, I can yeah, sure I can, I can talk a little bit about it. So essentially, um, Amy’s running a school in in Detroit. Um, and there, let’s see here. Oh, here we go. So she says we are the only K through eight Academy in Macomb County, uh, that offers a lifelong educational experience in safe, secure, and state of the art environment.
We are going to be the top 20 percent of all schools in Macomb County by 2030 because the health of a society depends upon producing quality individuals.
[00:28:41] Benj Miller: So what, what you’re reading here is what you just read is. 2 separate pieces that we’ve talked about, it was the only misstatement followed by that destination.
So what category are we’re in K through 8, uh, academy, uh, within a certain area. That offers lifelong educational experience and then they added that they, they went on to more, uh, add some language around that differentiator safe, secure, state of the art equipment, uh, we’re going to be in the top 20 percent of all the schools.
[00:29:16] Michael Pacheco: Destination
[00:29:17] Benj Miller: right now, that’s where we’re going by 2030. That’s the pace because the health of a society depends on producing quality individuals. So we can, we could, that teacher could show up every day. And be about teaching, or be about math, or be about, you know, but if, if we zoom out and say, you know, Hey, Mrs.
Yeah, Mrs. Smith, you know, what you’re doing is changing our, our community. Like you’re, you’re changing generations for this community by your work with these kids. Yeah, that’s super powerful. It takes it from a job where you show up and do something to a purpose where you can make a difference.
[00:30:05] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Um, and if you would, like, so obviously with what they’re doing in Detroit, it’s, I mean, I don’t want to say that it’s easy, but they’ve, they’ve got a pretty clear higher purpose. What would you, what would you say to, to a business that’s, you know, building widgets or, or, or doing X, Y, or Z, right?
Something that’s, it doesn’t so clearly have this higher purpose. How do you find, how do you define? Um, not only your why, but your, you know, your big purpose for everybody that gives people a sense of reason and belonging to be there every day.
[00:30:46] Benj Miller: Uh, well, I would asterisk the only reason it’s clear for them is because they put in the work to make it clear.
So there’s a million schools out there that don’t operate out of bigger purpose. They just operate out of government paychecks. Um, so what I, what I, 2 parts, the, the 1st 1, I already kind of mentioned, like, if you’re the leader, just some, like, honest journaling. Like, why do you do this business? What’s in it for you?
What do you want out of it? That’s probably not the answer, but there’s something in there that can lead you to the answer. And when you start to get a few nuggets, uh, I w I would invite other people into the conversation. So other people in the team, like start asking them, what do you, why do you do this?
Where do you find purpose in our work? Well, if, if people don’t have this widget. Then they can’t drive the trucks to deliver the, uh, you know, the, the medicine that the people need, you know, like there’s always a story if you can find it, um, there’s always a purpose, even if it’s, you know, some people that purpose is.
More internal than it is external, like it’s more about what you’re going to do for the people in the, in the company, in the organization, uh, or what you’re going to be about, uh, remember a strategy around who you’re going to be as an organization is way more powerful than a strategy around what you’re going to do.
I dig it.
[00:32:23] Michael Pacheco: Love it, man. Love it. Tell us about where we’re at now.
[00:32:28] Benj Miller: We’re on last one. We’re on rule number six. Uh, society says it matters who you work for. We all have heard that. And it, uh, we, we know that the number one reason people leave jobs is a crappy manager. Uh, and the renegade says, okay, if it matters who you work for, I’m going to work for myself.
And so they go out on their own journey, work for yourself. And the shift becomes we work together. And this is a big shift. This is the shift from lots of people work for me to we work together and it’s a lot of it’s elevating some other people to fill in some gaps so that you don’t have to it. It starts with engineering the culture that you want to have.
So, uh. We call this the people, the people shift, and it’s all about how we interact with our people. We define the culture ahead of time, and then we build in some habits to try and make to move us toward that aspirational culture we want to have and keep us pointed there. Uh, we teach our organization to be world class problem solvers.
And then the way that we approach leadership, um, every, everybody in leadership training. Leadership development wants to teach you how to lead other people. And there is some benefit to that. And the science says the benefit is 23 percent of the equation. And the other 77 percent is about who that leader is as they show up as a person.
So it’s. When we, when we get into leader development, we, uh, it starts with how do I lead myself? Well, in a bunch of areas, we have some definition. There’s some definition in the book about how do I lead myself? Well, and then if you can lead yourself, well, most people then go, okay, now I can lead other people and go, hold on.
It’s way more powerful. If you shift that from how, how can I lead myself? Well, to how can I help other people? Lead themselves well, because now you’ve created a leader, uh, that can
[00:34:35] Michael Pacheco: replicate that you’re talking about inwardly sound and others focused.
[00:34:38] Benj Miller: You nailed it. You didn’t do your homework. It’s a good book.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:34:47] Michael Pacheco: Um, Yeah. So, so, I mean, talk, yeah, keep, keep going. Keep talking about that. Go ahead. I didn’t mean to cut. I was
[00:34:53] Benj Miller: just. Yeah. So the, you know, the complexity in business isn’t going from 1 million to 10 million to a hundred million. The, the complexity in business is going from one person to 10 people to a hundred people to a thousand people.
And you’ve, you’ve really got to have a different mindset and energy around that. So most, uh, yeah. Most founders start to get frustrated around the, the 15 dozen 15, uh, where they can’t be all things to all people anymore. They’re spread too thin. They’re doing things that are outside of their, you know, flow state, what they love doing, what they’re really good at.
And, um, it really does. Take elevating people and trusting them, giving them the tools, trusting them, empowering them. I, I tell a story. I can’t remember if it’s in the book or not. Maybe you can tell me, but there was a moment in running my first business that I had when I had all kinds of. Execution problems in the business.
And I was sitting with my coach. I don’t, it’s funny when we tell this story, cause we both have different memories of it, but the similarity in the story is that neither one of us have a clue what we were talking about in the, in the meeting, but we both remember that. I. Just said, I know what I need to do.
And I got up and left. And so he tells that story. He’s like, okay, I wonder what that is. How’s that going to go? But what I did was I walked back to there. I drove back to the office, walked in, uh, the guy that led sales at the time. Uh, and I said, I think you’re supposed to run this company. So here’s the keys.
Tell me what you need. Because I wasn’t even equipped. Like I was doing a horrible job. I’m not the one to teach. Him what we need, but there was something I saw in him and I knew about him that I knew he was better wired for what that company needed at that moment. And so that, that was a big shift for me that has had to happen over and over and over, um, on smaller degrees.
But that was, that was the thing that, that changed my perspective.
[00:37:07] Michael Pacheco: Nice. Interesting. I don’t think that’s in the book. That doesn’t sound familiar.
[00:37:13] Benj Miller: I don’t think it is
[00:37:14] Michael Pacheco: either. There is, there is a story in the book about a time when you were working with a leadership team in Boston and you came back from lunch break and, and, and, and something interesting happened.
Uh, and, and you, it seemed like you kind of learned something from that episode. You want to talk a little bit about that?
[00:37:35] Benj Miller: Sure. Um, it was my first session with this group and, uh, very first day we were there at this beautiful offsite, you know, campus, we left our session room. We go to lunch, we come back after lunch and I’m about, you know, like I’m facilitating this.
So I’ve got my agenda. I know what we’re about to do. I’m like getting settled in about to go. Next thing I know there is music blaring and, and it’s, you know, There’s only five of them in the room, maybe six. Next thing I know, they’re up just absolutely dancing in their own little worlds. All six of them around this room.
They’re like, come on, you got to do it too. I’m like, Oh, okay. You know, I am. The worst dancer, but so were they, and it didn’t matter. And, uh, I immediately, of course, my brain started going, why in the world is this happening? And I had a few hypothesis, uh, but I asked them when we were done, I was like, okay, so what was that about?
And the school that a few of them went to, to do what they do, uh, taught them this exercise. Because it’s pretty impossible for let’s call it 90 percent of us that aren’t amazing dancers. You have absolutely drop your ego in every sense of it in order to dance in a giant room with six other people and a, and a boom box.
So, uh, this, this idea of dancing as a way to drop your ego, we adopted that within our own team. We don’t do it enough, but. It’s, it’s very humbling every time we do make ourselves do it, uh, because it’s, it’s just, it’s, it makes us human, right? Like we’re not putting on a front. You can’t be cool. You’re not smart in the moment, none of that.
[00:39:32] Michael Pacheco: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Um, Benj, I want to be respectful of your time. Do you, do you, uh, do we have time to get into a little bit, maybe talk about a couple of tactics? Sure. A couple of tactical things. Um, tell us about the 1 3 1 tool and when, and when you use that and what the purpose of that is.
[00:39:51] Benj Miller: Okay, so the 1, 3, 1 tool came this. I got taught this, I think, by my co founder, Chris white. Um, but it’s a great way to, uh, delegate decision making. So, when you’re not quite, you know, somebody that’s working for you isn’t quite there to fully trust them to make all the decisions in their realm, uh, we implement this 1, 3, 1.
so, can you state the, the problem or opportunity that you’re trying to solve in 1 sentence? Clarity of thought, narrowing that down. What is the singular thing that you’re trying to do? Great. That’s the one. The three is what are the three options that you’ve considered? What are the three things that might work?
How much you go about them? And then the one is what, which one would you recommend? So instead of somebody coming in and saying, Michael, I’ve got this big problem, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s the first time they’ve thought about it. Like, they’re dumping as, uh, uh, the 5 minute manager. Great book says, you know, they’re bringing you their monkey and dropping it on your on your desk.
It’s a great way to to have a conversation to help them learn how to process through that issue. Uh, so that. Next time they come back with a one, three, one, next time that one, three, one’s a little better the next time it’s a little better. And at that point, you’re kind of like, Hey, I don’t think you need me for these types of decisions anymore.
You got this. That’s it.
[00:41:21] Michael Pacheco: I love this. When I read this, I love this so much. At Boxer, we do, I definitely have a rule. If someone comes to me with a problem, they need to come to me with a proposed solution. Um, so don’t just bring me problems, bring me problems and a potential solution. What is your idea? How can we, how can we fix this?
This kind of takes that like one step, one step further and it gets them to do even more thinking because now they’ve thought about three potential solutions and they get to pick a favorite. Yeah. I love this. Yeah, I love this so much, because otherwise, if you don’t do something like this, you’re training your people to rely on you for everything.
And you can’t, you can’t be You can’t be chat GPT to every employee, right? They can’t come to you with every single problem. So it’s
[00:42:10] Benj Miller: really interesting that you just said chat GPT because in this context, because I’ve been doing a lot of work with Patrick Lencioni’s, uh, uh, working genius. And what, one of the thing that, that’s, uh, now changing my view on the one, three, one, just a little bit is that not everyone’s capable of coming up with ideas.
Like some people that’s their frustration. They might be the absolute best person at identifying a problem, but then if they don’t bring that up, because they are not capable of finding the solution. Now, we have a problem. Um, so there’s a couple of ways around that. Know who the people on your team who are good at coming up with ideas.
And it may not be like, can it not be your boss all the time? Right. So now we’re back to the same scenario or what is the tool that we have? That’s really good at coming up with three ideas to a problem. Chat GPT, right? So this is the one, this is the best. Use of chat GPT within the working genius model.
[00:43:13] Michael Pacheco: I love it. That’s great. I’m, I’m, I’m implementing that on Monday.
[00:43:22] Benj Miller: Well, good. This was
[00:43:23] Michael Pacheco: valuable then. That’s good, man. Um, sweet. Six different types of compensation. Um, I think this is, you know, this is something that, uh, certainly new entrepreneurs don’t think about enough. I think, you know, um, what’s his name? Daniel Pink, I think touches upon some of this stuff in drive.
He does. Yeah, but, but talk about the, the six different types of compensation. Yeah.
[00:43:46] Benj Miller: So, uh, this was a tool that we developed out of a reoccurring frustration that we heard from a lot of the businesses that we worked with and it’s not just young businesses. Enterprise has this problem too. They don’t know how to.
Compensate their people. So they keep losing the talent war. So the lots of frustration attack, attracting talent, retaining talent, engaging talent. Um, the other problem that six dimensions It works to address in a small way in one, one aspect is so many managers are promoted into a place of management or leadership without any training on how to do that.
How do you have a coaching conversation with the people that work for you? So this tool is really around having a conversation where you can get to a realization of not only which of the six. Do you feel like you’re deficiently compensated or undercompensated, but also which ones matter to you the most?
So there’s the six dimensions we’ve got financial. We all know that one. We’ve got social, which is really just like, do I like the people that I work with? Do I enjoy the environment? We’ve got psychological, which is like. Do I get challenged? Do I get new opportunities? We’ve got physical. Physical is really around the flexibility or the space to do the things you want to do outside of work or sometimes within work, but mostly think about it as like flexibility for your life outside of work.
Spiritual does, does my work give me meaning and purpose? Um, was that six? I don’t know. I might’ve missed
Was it six? I don’t know.
[00:45:41] Michael Pacheco: I lost track. Ritual, social, psychological, spiritual, physical, and financial. You got them all. Yeah. Okay.
[00:45:47] Benj Miller: All right. So, imagine like, if, if people don’t know how to have this conversation, then all they ask for is money. Mm hmm. Right. That’s all we noted. And that’s all we know is employers to offer.
But if we can have this conversation and there’s two parts of it, you know, which, which do you feel are lacking right now? But the second part, the ranking is even more important. And I’ll tell you how we figured this out. We were testing our own tool and all we had was the the rating. So we, we have a survey with some questions and it gives you a score on each of the six at the end.
And I was doing this with Mackenzie, my co founder, we were having kind of a, uh, she gave me a review. I was giving her a review and on mine, I had two of the six dimensions at a two, two out of four. And you could tell in her eyes, she was like worried, like Benj is out of here. Like this is bad. And we, and, and I saw what was happening.
And then I had this realization. Wait a minute. Those two don’t even matter to me. Because the other ones are, are so high, I’ve got fours up here and those are the ones that I care about. I’m not going anywhere like this is great. Yeah. So the, if we don’t know that about our people, then we can keep pushing and, you know, offering more and more and more, but it might not be the stuff that matters to them.
So if we can just have a conversation, then we can do a better job. We can’t always meet every whim, but at least we have an opportunity to.
[00:47:24] Michael Pacheco: Yeah. And do you find, uh, uh, a questionnaire like that? Do you find that you get better results that way? Because I would imagine that, you know, many people just don’t have the self awareness to say spiritual compensation, right?
Purpose is very important to me or something like that.
[00:47:43] Benj Miller: Right. Right. Yeah. Um, uh, I, I use the phrase backdoor questions. I like to ask backdoor questions because, uh, we get a more honest response than if I said, are you, you know, how’s, how’s your comp package? You’d be like, uh, how would I even answer that?
Right? Like, so yeah, these backdoor questions, I think we have basically three questions for each of the six. So it’s a really lightweight survey, you know, eight, 18 questions to get the rating and then a few more to get the ranking and you’re set up to have a great conversation. Nice.
[00:48:18] Michael Pacheco: I dig it. Um, and then the last one, last one I wanted to chat about real quick here is, is the building out of your crew.
You’ve got kind of three things that you look at function values and fit. When you talk, talk about those a little bit.
[00:48:31] Benj Miller: Yeah. Um, so function is getting really clear about what is their job to do. Um, we like to even tie a mission to that job. Like why does this job exist? And the first time you do that exercise, you know, you’ll have some SVP of sales trying, you know, he’ll start writing, you know, align marketing and sales initiatives and strategies with blah, blah, you know, you know, I’m like, stop it, stop it, stop it.
Your mission, your seat here is to create revenue opportunities for this organization. Like bring in revenue, bring in money. I don’t, you know, make it rain. I don’t care how you write it, but that’s the, that’s the level of clarity we need on this seat. Everything else is just tactics and strategies of how you’re going to get there.
So the mission’s really big. And then, you know, the KPIs, if you can give me the mission of the seat. Boiled down the responsibilities to the 4 that matter most and give me 3 or 4 metrics that you’re going to put on that scoreboard. You’re that’s better than any job description. That’s ever been written because it’s got the clarity around what actually is required and expected in that role.
So that’s that’s the function. Um, the, um. We call the health. The second two pieces, healthy fit, the healthy piece is, is an alignment to the values that we have. Um, and, and those shift, you know, people have ability to change to some degree with good coaching and some reflection of how they’re showing up and in relation to what’s expected of those values.
And then the fit is an acronym. And, and then Michael, I love this, but the first parts, does it fuel your unique ability? So we’re talking about you in the specific job that you’re in right now. Does it fuel your unique ability? And if somebody doesn’t know how to answer that, we can talk through it, but most people have a sense that, yeah, this is, this is absolutely, you know, they know if it’s energizing or, or D D energizing, it’s not a word.
Energizing the eye is for impact. So can I create positive, significant impact in this role? This is huge because so many times as, as employers, we hire somebody to. Like fill a role. Like we even say that, like fill a role, like we’re just plugging a hole here. But if we focus in on that, then we start to look for who can level up this role, who can come in and just by us bringing them in, there’s positive significant impact.
And then the T is timely. So, it’s gotta be timely in the person’s career directory trajectory and the trajectory of the company. So if you’re a, if you’re a. CFO, yes, you could do the work, but of a controller or a bookkeeper, but you’re beyond it. Your, your trajectory of your career is beyond that. So it’s no longer a good fit.
Yeah.
[00:51:42] Michael Pacheco: Nice. I like it, man. Um, yeah. I mean, I think this is, this was, this was, um, interesting for me cause I was, I was, as I was reading that, I was thinking back to when I. You know, first started Boxer and we Boxer merged with another company and we had to, we had to get warm bodies in the door to just service clients and there was no, there was almost no thought, but behind it, like, literally just, we needed warm bodies to do some work.
Um, and you know, that. It kind of turned into a little bit of a, you know, uh, circus.
[00:52:23] Benj Miller: Yeah. Yeah. I think we’ve all been there. We’ve all made that mistake or been in that situation where you just don’t have a choice, but, um, you know, we, we want to keep evolving and getting better and better as we play this game of business.
[00:52:37] Michael Pacheco: Yeah, yeah. No, this is, this is a great, uh, I think it’s a great framework for, for hiring. And, uh, I just, yeah, I wanted to chat a little bit about it. Um, Benji, yeah, like I said, I want to be respectful of your time. I know we’re coming up here on the hour. Is there anything that you would like to talk about that we didn’t get a chance to touch upon?
[00:52:53] Benj Miller: I don’t know. We went, we went way more places. Uh, the one, the one thing that’s in the book that we didn’t touch on. So I’ll just tease you with it, but we, we go in and spend some time on like, what does it look like to build a team, um, the team that you need so that some of these other things can happen without you being the, the orchestrator of all of it.
And, um, I think that that’s really important, but, uh, you can, you can get the book and dig in there.
[00:53:23] Michael Pacheco: Um, Benj, thank you so much, man. Where can our viewers and listeners connect with you online? Uh,
[00:53:29] Benj Miller: LinkedIn, if you type Benj Miller, I’m not hard to find guy with the beard. And, um, yeah, that everything’s on there.
I’ve got a daily leadership email. That’s take you less than 10 seconds to read. That’s at the two six one. com.
[00:53:46] Michael Pacheco: Thank you very much, brother. I appreciate you making the time to chat with me. Great
[00:53:50] Benj Miller: book. Thanks for having me.
[00:53:51] Michael Pacheco: Appreciate it. Cheers, buddy. Take care. And thank you as always to our viewers and listeners.
Um, you guys are amazing without you. Of course, this podcast is nothing. Please. If you found some value here in, uh, in what binge was sharing with us, um, make sure to give us a like subscribe, do all the things. If you know someone that might benefit from this, be sure to share it with them. And we’ll see you guys next time.
Take care.
