[00:00:00] Speaker A: Everybody's responsible for the culture that they allow. And if you walk in as an individual contributor and you have good energy and you're here to do the job, that's an unbelievable thing that you've contributed to that team environment.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to Stand up to Stand out, the podcast where we help you master clarity, confidence, and influence. Join over 10,000 listeners worldwide and unlock the power to turn your goals into reality. This podcast is designed to bring you insights from the industry and some inspiration to get it done.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: At DNA, we believe that better communication leads to better outcomes.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: So let's dive in.
Please welcome my guest, George Dueair. So he is an experienced business expert, mentor, advisor, investor, CEO, but he's also looking to leverage his experience and energy to help people grow faster, scale more quickly, and hopefully avoid all the missteps. So, George, it's just a pleasure to talk to you on the show.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Thanks. So much. Fun to be here, Stuart.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: So I met you very recently through a mutual colleague, but the instant I started talking to you, George, I just noticed that you had an infectious energy. And that's the good kind of infectious.
I'm curious, is this how you've always been wired since you're a kid, or is this something that you've sort of grown into in your life?
[00:01:21] Speaker A: You know? Really? That's a great question. Which kind of leads into some of the things that I think you want to talk about. No, I was not.
I was kind of shy and I had to learn, quite honestly, what happened? Was it because of a potential failure? My knees blew out in high school and I was a very good football player, but I couldn't continue.
And I was literally dragged into the theater on crutches at an all boys high school outside of Chicago and pulled into the theater to get me to be involved in something else. And two things that attracted me to that one, there were girls there that were, you know, and when you saw women in all boys high school, it was like, hello. And I ended up, you know, going through several different plays and musicals. I had a lead in Damn Yankees with Joel Murray, you know, of the famous Murray brothers. And it was a transformative experience. It took me out of my comfort zone.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Wow, so you went from football, by the way, what position did you play?
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Oh, I'm a freak. I was a hybrid. I played middle linebacker and wide receiver, and I was also the kicker. Okay. Wow.
I was big for my age and I got moved up to varsity, and that's how my legs got blown up.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Hey, you were a triple threat before you were another triple threat, man. So what was it about that experience? And then we'll transition to the world of business and entrepreneurship and all of that. But what was it about those exercises that got you to go from seeing yourself one way to seeing yourself in a new way?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: You know, it was fun because you meet so many different people, right? And theater is always great. There's always very inclusive and open environment. You meet people of different walks. I had done the jock thing and now I was doing the theater thing. And it was so much fun to meet others who had different kind of ways of thinking about the world and looked at things. And also I remember I was so incredibly nervous the first time I went on. I had one line to deliver and I said it at I think if you were to use the Today's I was at 4x on the speed.
No one could understand what I was saying. And I got comfortable being in front of people and sharing ideas. Obviously they were written by somebody else. But then as it matriculated into my career in sales and then eventually morphing into leadership roles in different companies, the ability to communicate an idea.
As a CEO of a company, you're in sales because you're communicating a vision and an idea. And it's the same kind of thing that you're doing standing up in front of a pitch competition or something like that. All of those different elements became part of it.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: So interestingly, I feel like you have this perfect background to lead companies and now you're CEO of stridetech Medical. And we'll get into that. Your entrepreneur in residence at Venture Partners at C. CU Boulder. So Colorado University or uc. Is it UC Boulder or CU Boulder?
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Cu. Okay.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. And then also UC Boulder, lead school of business. So lots going on there. But I'm. I'm thinking of that sort of phenotype of athlete who has to wake up two a days. You know, discipline, that grit, that tenacity, and then the ability to connect with people, that communication, that sort of getting out of your shell, finding commonalities. I feel like if you fuse those two together, you get sort of a powerful combination for leadership. Is. Has that been your experience or something?
[00:04:53] Speaker A: And a lot of it, you know, there's a lot of confidence that comes from both of those different things.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: If you're athletic and you're good at what you do, there's a confidence, a quiet confidence that comes from that. And certainly the determination, the teamwork, the grit, the knockdown, get up, let's do it again. The ability to sustain Changes in the way things are ebbing and flowing based on your business. Not a full pivot, but, you know, reacting to market changes. And then the. The. The other piece of that. That theater piece, is that the ability to stand. I have. I don't have any compunction about getting up in front of people and talking. And I find it. Although I will say that, and I'd be interested because of your background, I still get butterflies. And I'm delighted when I have them, because if I don't have them, I don't care if. And I want those nerves because that means I'm prepared or at least excited.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: You know, it's funny. I was just doing a video today for. For clients. I'm building out this platform, and I talked about that, that you have to embrace this. So I call it a mindset management plan. And second phase is getting your butterflies in formation. And so what that means to me is they're always going to be there. There's evidence that people who have even been on Broadway for 50 years, you know, you're just going to have that. It's a. It's a physiological reaction that you're separating yourself from the tribe whenever you're standing up in front of others, no matter even if they love you, could be your family. You're. You're separating yourself. You're exposing your underbelly, and you're sort of. You're. You're becoming vulnerable. And so those butterflies kick in, and if you can interpret them the way you did George, that is the perfect way to see it as, this is my energy booster. This is my power source, and this is here to give me something to power me through this, to make sure I connect, hit the back of the room and let people know I care.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: And interestingly, there are so many different elements of what you just described that I think are so important. The most important thing is about that vulnerability.
If you're in sales and you are vulnerable and you're saying, hey, I want to help you. I'm not here to sell you this widget, but. But I want to help you build your company. Does this widget solve any needs you have? You have to figure out what their needs are, right? You have to ask questions. You have to become an active listener. And there's a vulnerability that comes from that, because otherwise, you're just kind of doing the spiel. And you know, that may or may not help you. I think I'm a good enough salesperson. I can sell something one time to anybody. But I learned early on that, if I was strategic about doing it and helping fill a need and being vulnerable and saying, you know what? You're not ready for us, or we can't do what you need, the respect you earn from that either, your name and your reputation, all of that ends up building into something that's exceptionally strong and powerful and learning what you don't know.
We spoke about that the other day. I know exactly what I don't know. And it's wide.
There's a lot of it. So you build people, you build teams to help you get through those things and, and let them do their jobs, because that's what a good leader does. And it becomes. It all emanates from a place of being willing to admit that you can't do it by yourself.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Right? And not knowing and not having the right solution for everybody. There's so much power in not knowing or, or being a no. And I can't help here. But here's something that can, or here's a way to think about it. And, you know, you and I have both been the audience of many people who are in sales and, and you feel like they're just a Scud missile looking for you as the target.
I can't run fast enough. But then people come at you and they're almost like bringing a bouquet of flowers. And I don't mean literally, I mean metaphorically with who they're being. They're just sort of saying, what do you think about this? Or what are you interested in? And there is no substitute, George, for being genuinely curious in somebody else. If you do that, the world starts to open up.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Networking, you know, I had a lunch with a gentleman yesterday. It was great. It was business oriented, but it was also the first 20 minutes we're just getting to know who each other are. And you build out the bonafides, if you will, and there's credibility that comes along with it, but it's also the relatability that comes. And, and, and, and everything you're doing is relationship management and expectation management and, and how those two things can interrelate.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: I love it. So I want to go into early days and then we'll get through the career progression and all that. Because I just feel as though sometimes there's a lot to learn by looking back and, and connecting the dots. And so out of college, it seems like at the Chicago Tribune in sales and then turning into marketing, but then, and then it turns into financial analysts. So I'm wondering about that, that early stages going from, you know, being in Sales and. And marketing to an analyst. I would love for you to connect those dots.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: As I tell students in the class, you know, your first job doesn't matter because there's. It's not going to define who you are for the rest of your life.
I have not taken a linear path to where I am today.
I started out selling ad space in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, was in recruitment advertising, which was a big deal back then, then moved to retail sales. And you're literally knocking on doors and trying to get, you know, somebody to put a $50, $75 ad in the paper. It was humbling in a lot of ways. You knock on a thousand doors and 500 of them are slammed in your face and you have to build up resilience to do it.
There was, it was an amazingly good learning experience because it built resilience. It helped you understand, for me anyway, to be strategic about the way I go things. And the people that I worked with are just amazing. Still friends today.
From the. This is in the early 80s, 1984 when I started.
I didn't take the typical career path, even at the Tribune. I was there for 12 years, started out in advertising and I think in my 12 year period there I had 14 different telephone numbers back when the number didn't follow you. So you get a new set of business cards and all that. Typically you went from sales maybe to marketing because it became a little bit more strategic. And then you went back into sales management.
I had always wanted to do something big. I thought about politics. When I was in college, I realized I don't suffer fools well enough and I wouldn't be able to do that because I can be a little bit sharp with some responses, especially if it's the fourth or fifth time somebody's asked the same question. So I chose to work for a company that I thought if I became a senior leader in that firm, I would be able to help the world. The politics, the way that things were being shaped in terms of the conversation. If you're the publisher of a newspaper, you can really effectuate change. And the Tribune happened to all nine of them. And I was on the career path of. I was building a career path that I hoped would take me to that level. Sales to marketing, then to finance. I got an MBA at night.
I was married, so we had two kids. And then I went into this grad school and I got. No, two kids were born while I was in grad school and doing it at night while working.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: Okay, so you don't like Sleep, I guess it was.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: But you know what? Again, it came back to the sports thing. It's about capacity. I didn't realize I could do it. It was hard.
But you know, when you. If you don't turn it off and you just keep going, you're fine. And you figure out when to take the breaks.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: It was a really good learning experience, obviously from the capacity side of it too. But also that strain among a variety of other things led to the failure of that marriage.
And while I was doing the finance side of it, I went through what was for a 29 year old person with three kids, an extraordinarily dramatic event. And it was life changing a lot of different levels. I had two things that happened there. One was I was vulnerable.
I had a boss who was amazing. She is the sole reason that I am the kind of person and manager that I am today because of the way she helped navigate all of that and it informed how I went about doing management from that point on. She was compassionate, she understood. She was a woman.
She was. Was unique in that there weren't a lot of women at that time, especially in that business, in leadership roles. She had a quiet way about her who was. And she was just an incredibly good person. That showed me that you can get through things while you're at work if the senior management or people that are managing you are helpful. But then she also said, I'll never forget it. You know, you kind of wallow and stuff. And I had to leave for. I'm a big believer in getting help. So I was going to counseling.
She turned to me, it was budget season and she said, I need you here now. Can you do it, man? I'd go through a wall for her.
And it was something that just. Yeah. And then I was able to. That kind of snapped me out of a little bit of the doldrums that I was in. Got to work. And then the other piece of that part though was that that career path that I was so invested in, I completely blew that up. Because what was most important is my kids. And as soon as I stopped worrying about my career, my career exploded. The effort and that, you know, the. Maybe it was because I was too ambitious. You know, if I turned people off or anything like that. Now the focus was, hey, I gotta go, I've gotta bring lunches over to school.
And then I also used that instead of staying with career, the career trajectory I was at, at Tribune, I went to a startup and it was closer to home. So it allowed Me the flexibility to be a single parent. It was people and a culture that I admire so much. To this day they're still friends of mine. It was a company called Peapod and it was the first online grocery order and delivery service. They started in 89. I was part of. By that time I had gotten to Tribune Corporate and was helping with strategic investments. When I went to there, I went there, I think in 93.
And you know, this was before the trip dub even existed. There was no World Wide Web.
There was a web, the Internet, but it was a pipe and we had a grocery shopping that was DOS based and it was all files and now you've got images and what you have in the world today.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: So I want to get back to that and I want to talk about that journey, but I really want to talk about this manager because I feel like. And if I unpack that and you tell me the compassion was rich and it was nuanced and she was giving you space to be human. Also seemed like. And you correct me was sort of advising or nudging you to. To lean on others. But then when it was go time asked you didn't tell you, you know, can you do it? So invited you into the dance and sort of signaled this is now the time where I need you to help me and all of that. That nuance is so elegant. I want you to correct what I missed but also add any additional commentary that. Because I feel like that's a playbook.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. It was. So I'm going to contextualize it even further. And it has informed the way I think about things today on a daily basis.
So Sales Tribune, the leadership primarily was a bunch of white men. Right. And now I'm working for Jackie, who was the manager, a. A white female. And my co. My partner in the finance department who taught me enormous amount on so many different levels. Paula Curry, an African American woman. And she was so incredibly knowledgeable. She was so gifted and she helped guide me along with the other people, people that were part of Jackie's team. One of the things that I remember about going into a meeting with Paula when I had gotten to a point where I was.
They called me a senior financial analyst. I think I would get up and say hello to everybody and shake everybody's hand and give up business cards. You know, do the. Do the thing as a salesperson would.
Paula was less confident and so she would go and sit at. Find a place at the table and sit down. I asked her why she had done that and she Said, well, you know, it's. I'm a African American woman and this is a white man's world.
And I said to her, you're teaching me how to do the financial, the spreadsheets and the analytics and all those kind of things. I'm going to teach you and help you learn how to be like this, more outgoing and willing to put yourself out there. I adore both of those women from the perspective of the gifts that they gave and the willingness that they had to give, but also the willingness to make it a. I wanted. I did. It wasn't a quid pro quo. Right. But I wanted to help her. It did help her and it helped her build her career. Both of those people informed the way that I look at. When I was at Eastman Kodak Co. And I was in a senior role as vice president of marketing and general manager of E business and e Commerce and Kodak.com and I had to do a presentation in top. In front of the top 120 global leaders. And I had my list of 10 things and I was brought in to kind of break glass. I was a digital guy. Right. We're going to take a look at and how's film going to transfer to that world. Obviously they didn't listen to me, so I didn't communicate my message very well. But one of the things I said was, I think you need to of those things. And it was an audible gasp that was received as a result was, I think you need to move out of Rochester, New York. The fact that I said that you need to move out of there. They said, why would I do that? Why should we do something like that? I said, if you're not a white man, please stand up. There are only two people and I believe they were both Asian males. There were no women at that time in their top 120 global leaders. There wasn't a representation of the diversity of thought, which is where you get the most strength.
You. You know, when I'm trying to build out an idea or think of something, I want to hear people who disagree with me. I want to hear people who have a different take on it. Because this bald white guy's perspective is just that narrow. And there's so much more out there. And if you weave it all together, the tapestry is so much stronger.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: So talk to me about the worst boss or manager you ever had and what you learned from that.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Ironically, also a one I want to make sure I couch this with the context of the era and the timeframe. A woman leader in A company that is male dominated. It was really challenging to be broken through. She had a challenge of taking credit for ideas that were not her. Hers.
There were times where she would be. She was aggressive unnecessarily. But I understand why I'm, you know, she was gotten to that kind of level and that kind of role.
But I've always. What I learned from that, again, it's the best bosses and the best. You know, you learn from the mistakes, take what is great and works for them. And you take and also flip it around and say, I don't want to ever do that. And the things that I learned from that experience.
If somebody else came up with the idea, I'll turn the microphone over and let them stand up in front. I like to bask in the reflected glow of other people's success because that's my job. If you think about it in terms of sports, if I'm the point guard, I'm dishing the ball out and everybody. The team wins. Maybe I could have taken the shot, but what's the point? Unless you're a, you know, freak superstar, you need a whole team. So.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Not to intervene here, George. And I'm. But I'm trying to get at what was it that made. And maybe you're getting there like what made her an ineffective manager or a terrible boss. If we want to use, you know, clickbait here. But I'm not. But what was it?
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Well, there were two people that were similar in the regard, one gentleman. But it was also. They didn't give you the full perspective ideas, they didn't communicate. They said, here's your job. It's a rifle shot. Just do this. Which you allow people to see the entire picture. They can bring in different perspectives and they have a better. They may come up with a better idea of how to do this. One task you'd assigned. So it's communication, it's style about, you know, not being. It's so easy to. To use the stick in management. And it works for a little while, but it never works for a long time. So building a culture where everybody is included in the success and you communicate well what you're trying to achieve so that all perspectives cut. Somebody can come up with an idea that you never would have thought. The IT guy came up with something on strategy. Hey, good ideas are wherever they are. Find them wherever they are.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: So Daniel Coyle wrote a book. I think he has a new one. But he wrote the Talent Code and then he wrote one called the Culture Code. And he looked around the world, from, you know, companies to sports organizations, what made high performing cultures. And it boiled down to these three things. First thing was there had to be a culture of psychological safety. Not just what you say, but actually feeling safe, risking yourself and not being judged so that all the ideas can flow. The second was vulnerability that people, especially leaders, will admit. Mistakes, I screwed that up, are the four most powerful words that a leader can say. And then finally there has to be a shared purpose or a destination. Where are we going with this? Do you, do you tend to agree? It sounds like those are all check boxes for you in your experience wholeheartedly.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: And what my job as a manager, when you have a team of 12 running 3,000 people in an organization, is to collect all the ideas. Hopefully you build a consensus. If you don't build a consensus, I have to make the decision. It's my job and my role. I'll make that decision. The person who disagrees with me the most comes, sit right next to me, please, because you're going to tell me when I screwed up. And then it gives us an opportunity to react to that, to adjust, to pivot, whatever it might be, because you want that canary in the coal mine to help you navigate. You know, there might be an environmental change that took place. There's, there are tariffs now. Wow. We need to look at a different opportunity for our supply chain.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: I'm curious where this self awareness comes from, George, because you know what you've told me, you know, starting in sports and really focused on football, then having this transformative experience and then all your, your journeys along the way. And I want to get to the, the present day. But one of the things that you seem to signal to me throughout this whole interview is a sense of self awareness, that sort of social iq. Where does this come from? Is this something you've always had or have you sort of learned that over time, that awareness of self awareness of situation, that perspective?
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's both. And I certainly was, you know, sensitive as a kid to how other people were feeling. I have done in a lot of work on this. That divorce was an opportunity to learn and I spent a ton of time in therapy. And I mean that in the best part. If the, if the electricity doesn't work, I'm calling an electrician, because otherwise I'll burn the house down. Right? Yeah. So let experts guide you in. If you think about it the same way in terms of business, I'm not going to do the accounting. I know how to do it, but I'd Rather have an accountant do it because they're better at it than I. I mean, I, you know, can do the general strategic stuff. It's self awareness comes from failures, I think a lot of time. And embracing those failures and deciding that you're not going to let it knock you down.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Let's talk about that for a second, because I know that and you know that, and we can agree and nod along on a podcast, but. But saying it and feeling it are very different, right? Everything sounds good in a podcast, an article. Everyone's got to fail, fail to win, blah, blah, blah. And we all nod and go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it stabs you in the heart and you want to go, you know, throw up in the bushes and you just go, this is so agonizing. I'll do anything to avoid this feeling for the rest of my life. How do you reconcile that? Especially for mentoring people who are coming up? I mean, my kids are younger, your kids are more grown now. But to make sure that everyone feels like they can go through a painful period as a, as a stepstone for growth. Who's responsible for helping create that environment and how do you do it in a company setting?
[00:25:09] Speaker A: You know, you just, you understand where people are. Right. At the end of the day, if I try to understand what motivates you. Right. If you're. We are fundamentally opposed, if you will, when we're sitting across the table from each other and I'm hiring somebody, my job is to get the job done as well as I possibly can for the least amount of money. Your job is PAP Incorporated and you're taking care of your family and you want to get the job for the most amount of money possible.
So if I can understand what motivates you and I find out that finances are the only thing you're focused on, great. We put together a comp package that addresses that. If you need the spotlight or the accolades and you want to be recognized for your idea, great. I'm sure cops still going to be part of that, but we can blend those things and that kind of culture. If you, If I understand what you need. And our needs are always basically the same kind of thing. Some people want. People want a lot of time because they got young kids and they need to take them to school or to go pick them up if they're sick and they get a call from the nurse. If you create the opportunity that allows that to happen, man, just get the job done. And I don't care if you're here or you're Elsewhere, unless you need to be physically together. It's about allowing people to do the work that you've asked them to do. So you have to be clear about that. But in an environment that maybe flexes the time and allows people to have a life as well, then you build a culture where people treat each other like that and you get product that's so much better.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Walk me through the first 30, 60, 90 days. The time doesn't really matter, but when you join an organization, and it could be now with your current company, it could be a previous situation. What is your playbook or your checklist of things that you do to integrate with the team, to get to know people, to build that trust as quickly as possible? Because for a lot of my clients, I have a client, and they're growing exponentially and people are going from individual contributors to teams or teams to larger teams across functional.
And it's exciting, but also everyone wants to feel competent while they're also treading water and balancing a few dishes. What's your playbook on building that sense of trust and camaraderie and also shared vision and mission?
[00:27:26] Speaker A: It depends on my role, right? If I'm leadership or if I'm coming in as an individual contributor. At the end of the day, though, they break down to the same thing. It's listening. You're drinking from the fire host for the first 60 days anyway. The first 30, for sure. You're figuring out where it you know to go get your coffee and what badge you need to get in through what door. By listening. When I've done turnarounds, the first thing I did was I just listened to people. Not only the folks that are internal, but also you find out where your revenue concentration is when you go talk to your, you know, the people that are both suppliers and also customers, and find out what we're doing well and what we're not doing well. And by listening, you're giving an opportunity for folks to. To guide you. All the problems any company is ever going through you, if you ask the folks that are working there, they're going to tell you how to fix it. They just don't have the authority or the platform to communicate that. The same thing goes with, you know, when you're learning about people and creating a culture, because then you can take that, listen. And this is the big part, right? You listen. Then you have to turn that into action. Because if you listen, then you don't do anything with it. Then that's just hot air that's been wasted by turning that into something where you can have actionable items and goals and also be accountable to it and manage the expectations of all those folks and those constituencies. Now you've built yourself a culture that's going to, it's based on trust. Right. Actions speak louder than words.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: Whose responsibility is building a culture? And I'll give you an example before I let you answer that. You can make a team of 30, 300, it doesn't matter. You've got the people at the top and their second line and third and then your individual contributors and your teams.
And when I, when you look at that hierarchically, I think most people's instinct is leadership.
But oftentimes people may not feel that they can surface the issues that are of concern. And I, I've heard this countless times in conversations that are not at leadership level and people will say, you know, there are trust issues here or where do I begin? Or how should I start? So what about for somebody who is an individual contributor or lower ranking or just joining a team and, and they want to build a strong culture, whose responsibility is it? Do they just defer and say it's leadership, I can't do anything or is there something you can do? Or do you have to walk at a certain point and just say I can't sustain this?
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Sure, all those things are true. I mean everybody's responsible for the culture that they allow, right? Yeah. What's the old saying? You're only taken advantage of with your permission.
And if you walk in as an individual contributor and you have good energy and you're here to do the job and you're just being positive and delivering, that's an unbelievable thing that you've contributed to that team environment.
If everybody else around you is negative and it's, you know, that'll SAP your energy. Right. You can effectuate some change by just learning, but sometimes you're not going to be able to. I do think that there are two pieces of that. It's a top down, it's a push pull thing. The culture is certainly, the senior leadership is certainly responsible for that. If they're aloof, if they're just giving orders, if they don't care about their people, that will permeate throughout the organization.
Also in large companies where I saw this at his todak, there is an enormous bureaucracy. The Pentagon made Kodak look nimble because they were so slow. It was unbelievable. And there are leaders, there are thought leaders and influencers and they're typically within that bureaucracy.
And sometimes if you're trying to effectuate Change on a large cultural basis, a basis for a large organization, you have to signal that things are different. And if everybody in the bureaucracy feel safe, then they're not going to be incented to change. Now you can figure out ways to motivate things.
I did a comp plan that was exempt and non exempt. Are participating equally now based on their contribution to the revenue. But if somebody's answering the phones, that's a huge contribution and they should be part of it. The other piece of that though is senior management has to be willing to take things, make a symbolic drastic measure that will signify that change.
The only way you stop a stampede is to shoot the lead cow. And if you take one of those sacred cows and say, I'm sorry, it's not working for you, it's time for you to leave. Everybody else within that bureaucracy starts to think, whoa, this isn't the way it was. I can't just stick by with complacency. And that allows for a shift in the conversation and certainly within the culture.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: I'm wondering, as you've gone through these different iterations in your career, have there been habits or things that you've had to unlearn to drive effective execution for a team?
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. Well, yes, on both sides of that.
I'm not the smartest guy on this call. I'm not the smartest person. I'm alone in the room, so I'm the smartest person in this room. But that's it. And what I learned was I had to differentiate myself. And the way that I did that was time and use of time. I have turned on the lights in every office I've ever worked in. I get to the office at 7am and by doing that, I'm already got half a day in before the rest of the 9-5ers and the coffee drinkers start their day. Not that that's. Not that they're not necessary, but that's how I was going to differentiate me myself. The other piece of that is unlearning things. You know, if you're, I think freshman or sophomore year, I was the captain on defense, right. And you know, you're yelling and getting people jazzed up and slapping an ear hole, that doesn't work. So you have to unlearn that.
You have to learn how to effectively understand what the goals are and how you can help everybody achieve the success as a team of meeting those goals and celebrating that. So there are different leadership styles that you gain. One of the greatest lines from this camp, I went to in Wisconsin as a kid is leading from behind.
You don't have to be upfront, you have to lead by example. If it's reps on a calisthenics or if it's how you go about conducting yourself with clients and, or folks that are. How do you treat somebody in a restaurant, for heaven's sakes, is the guard. The janitor's doing a big job, man. And if you're at a startup, you gotta be willing to be the janitor too.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, you gotta wear every hat. But you also have to delegate. So how do you think about that? Now you're CEO of Stride Tech Medical and I want to hear about that and what the mission is and the team that you run. But it's an art and a science, right, that leadership. I mean yes, you can demonstrate humility by washing the bottles at 7 in the morning, but if you're CEO, it might be more effective to, you know, bring in another $10 million or find a strategic partner. So your job is to delegate your limited resources against the highest priority ideas at every given, you know, juncture. How do you think about that when you're leading a lean organization, a startup? Obviously you've worked in big corporate settings. How do you think of the role as a leader in any inception, whether it's a three person startup or it's a 3,000 person company or a 300,000 global entity?
[00:34:49] Speaker A: I think first it starts with appreciation for what the person who washes the bottles or takes out the trash. Right. And a willingness to do that when you're at a startup. A hundred percent. You know, how many times, how many whiteboards can one clean? And with that stuff not coming off, as well as being prepared to go out and do a pitch, you know, to investors and or clients within minutes. So their appreciation, appreciation for what everybody is doing is incredibly important. Understanding and delegating is a, is a, can be a very difficult thing to give up.
Especially if you have, you know, nobody can do it as well as I do kind of thought. Right, sure. Obviously that's not true. But you think the only way I know it'll get done is if I do it. I use the tactic of public accountability. So my staff meetings and team meetings were always, always had an agenda. I always laid out what things were being discussed. And then the question I always asked was, do you know, you unwind it from the top where if this has to be done by this project has a, you know, December 31st due date, we back down from that and what iterations and project management do we need to do to get there? And then you say to people on the team, are we hitting that? And if this can't, can you deliver this to me by Friday?
Now it's in the notes and it's in the agenda and the next meeting, next standup, where are we on this? Is it going, everything going okay? Because it allows people to tell you that they've run into a roadblock and the cascade effect that that might have on completion of a task. So the delegation is more in terms of allowing people to do the job, but then asking them how they're doing, communicating about that and then letting in them do their job. And if it doesn't get to where you want it to be at the end of the day there are so many opportunities that come from that learn maybe our process needs to change. It could be that the individual is not in the right position for success and that's a management problem. Right. If I've hired somebody, you know, hire slow, fire fast if you find out there's a problem. And when I say fire fast, I mean that you do the right things to help them become successful. Every PIP I've ever employed and every time I've ever had to sit down with a one on one situation like that, when they finally left, they said thank you because I gave them the opportunity to succeed, tried to help them prepare and if I didn't in this situation for this job, they were going to be successful someplace else.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: So I'm going to use Charlie Munger's inversion principle and I'm not going to ask you what makes an entrepreneur successful. I'm going to make ask you what makes an entrepreneur unsuccessful or guaranteed to fail or if you want to expand that to a company, what are some of the principles that are guaranteed to make them fail?
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Not enough market research and validation of what the product. If you build a widget that's fantastic but nobody needs it, that's great. Nothing's happened there. That was my, I loved that at Kodak these people were geniuses and they put so much money into research and they would come in with. An engineer would come in with something we built. That's a great idea. This is my mom. Just the rule of thumb. Is she going to buy it? If it's not, it's not commercializable, we can't do it right. So understanding that there's a hubris sometimes founders, my gosh, the best success. I've scratched my edges in terms of leadership. If I find somebody that can do Stride tech better. I'm gone because I want the company to succeed. And as an investor and owning shares, I'll succeed as a result of that. But Peapod, the guys there, the Parkinson brothers, were geniuses in understanding how to get things to the point where they could no longer really get it to the next level. And they brought people in, they're still in charge. It doesn't. That's. That, you know, titles to me don't really make that much of a difference. It's about who gets stuff that done.
And if you're a founder, you need to know when to step back and let somebody else take it to the level. Because starting up a company is a very different skill set than managing and growing a company.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So no product market fit. Knowing when to step aside, knowing when to delegate. What else are cardinal sins of people who want to build and scale their businesses or their leadership?
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Hiring, advance of revenue. If you've gotten a lot of money in all of a sudden and you're, you know, you build out your team, don't do it too fast because your burn rate is going to. You don't have the Runway to get to the places you need to. And it always takes longer and is more expensive than you think. The business that I'm in now is a hardware device, a medical device. Holy cow, is it challenging?
I've done services, I've done products, I've had, you know, corporations, you have teams. But when you're doing it with a startup and you know, you gotta get it right, because if it's not right out of the box, you've lost, you've just sabotaged your own brand.
And so you've gotta make sure you have it done right and things take longer, especially when you're doing it on a shoestring. When I do my next startup after this, we get this to success. I won't do it without a good bankroll because going from and leaping from friends and family to the next $10,000 check, or maybe you get 25 and you're starting to build and suddenly you got a million bucks, that's great.
But all the work that you've done has had to hopscotch and you make decisions differently. So getting the money to do the thing that you're trying to accomplish well and give you the ability to do that is kind of going to be a prereq going forward.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Well, I feel like I've learned so much from you, not just about being an effective leader and entrepreneur, but also being a good person just in the way that you're bringing this humility, this vulnerability, but also turning those into lessons, knowing what you don't know. If you were to hunker down and give some fireside advice to somebody who's a new leader, somebody who's stepping into a new role, or people who are thinking of starting a venture or trying to scale it, and they're just looking at all these, these, these challenges. I know those are three different scenarios, but somebody who's just stepping into the next phase that they need to evolve into and to really step outside of their comfort zone to succeed. Like you did so many years ago, back from football into theater, what would you say to somebody who needs to go beyond their comfort zone to evolve, but is comfortable for a reason and may feel concerned about making that next stride?
[00:41:13] Speaker A: Self awareness is a really important thing. Right? And we already discussed that. And when you get comfortable with being uncomfortable, be it with yourself or having a conversation with an employee where they're not performing or, you know, with a partner in life, and you gotta say something that they're not gonna like, it's okay. It's about the way you deliver that message. Right.
I think the, the other piece is that especially for startups, you never stop working. One rule my wife and I now have is that, you know, I wake up at 5:30 and I don't necessarily want to get out of bed. I feed the dog. We have a rule now, no more working in bed. Right. You got to have your workplace and separate those things.
And that's part of the balance too, right? Mind, body, health. You got to take care of yourself physically. You got to exercise, because that will lead into mental acuity and awareness. You got to have a little bit of peace in your head too, so that you can do the things that you want to do for the company and the team. Because if you're not taking care of yourself, you're not going to be able to take care of the company or the employees or the investors and their dollars to be a good steward of their dollars. So asking for help, asking people who've been down the road talking, inventing and complaining in a safe environment so that you get that poison out and then you have the ability to deal with that challenge that's coming up.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: I love it. George. This has been an energizing and insightful conversation. I feel like we've just scratched the surface. So part two, I want to dive deep into the technology that drives Stride Tech Medical.
But for today, I just want to say thank you for your energy Your enthusiasm and also just your openness. I think it's something that, again, it looks good on the page, but you got to experience it. And I see that you're that type of leader. And I have one more question for you, because, you know, I look through my life through the lens of communication. Everything I've done and everything good that's come out of my life has been out of communication.
And you know, who you're being underneath the words is really a powerful person. You're open. I feel like you are a guy who, and this is high praise that you think, I would work for George. I would want to be on his team because he's fair.
He gives you a chance to be yourself, but he also holds you to high standards. And to paraphrase that, high culture, which is in the book by Daniel Coyle, he said, you know, one of the highest performing cultures is the San Antonio Spurs. Greg Popovich is probably the most beloved coach in the NBA, and it's because he did two things. I love you, and we hold ourselves to high standards.
So you have all my respect and love. He brings people over to his home constantly. You're welcome here. I see you as a person, and we're chasing something big. We're after big goals. And when you get those two there, everyone says they would walk through walls because they feel like they're. They're tied in. It's somebody who's vulnerable, they can trust, but also has high standards.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: And thank you. I appreciate that. That is high price, and I accept it as such. And it is something that is, who do you want to be and who do you want to work for and be around?
You know, and I never. I even said it just incorrectly now. I said, who do you want to work for? Who do you want to work with?
[00:44:33] Speaker B: With? Right.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: It's just. That's attitudinal and it's a. You know, it's such an. Is such a small little nuance. But, man, when you do it and you change that, it helps. It effectuates change all the way through your day.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: All right, last question. This is biased. And we'll wrap up here for today. Talk to me about the importance of communication for companies from early days through skills scaling, through growth, acquisition, exit, you name it. Talk to me about the importance of communication at every level.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Without it, you're dead. It is the lifeblood of what you're trying to accomplish.
Think about it on a tactical level or a strategic level. If it's tactical and it's me communicating with somebody about what time we're going to meet. That takes communication and how you go about communion and accountability, language and all the different things that are inherent in that. Because it's all about managing expectations all the way up to corporate strategy and your communication plan and your PR and what the sub elements of it. The world is so different now with social media and all the different things and the immediacy and if you don't have a frequent message that, you know, people lose interest. So you've got to stay in front and you've got to continue to move the value prop to the, your, your potential market. And if you don't have a fundamental understanding of checking in and communicating and managing expectations on every level, personal or business, you're doomed because it just, it creates an opportunity for things to fester and that's where problems, you know, exist.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. It corrodes. All right, George. George Dueair, I just so appreciated having you on this show. It gave me another thousand little bubbles of thought to pursue.
We will definitely have a part two and I really appreciate having this time with you. So thanks for being on the show and till we connect again soon, my friend.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Looking forward to it. Take care.
[00:46:30] Speaker B:
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