0:00:01 - Alex Shevelenko
Welcome to an exciting episode of Experience-Focused Leaders! I'm delighted to introduce you to RJ Grimshaw, who is an expert in business leadership, particularly focused on entrepreneurship. RJ is also the CEO of a high-growth company Unified Equipment Finance which grew from 13 million to 120 million in revenue in six years. We'd love to hear from RJ both on how to lead a business and innovate within an established business. RJ, welcome to the pod!
0:00:36 - RJ Grimshaw
Thanks, I'm glad to be here! I absolutely love talking about entrepreneurship as well as intrapreneurship because they really do run parallel to each other.
0:00:46 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, and I love having you on because I think before becoming an entrepreneur myself, I definitely felt like an itch. I needed to go and do something. People used to call me Maverick because I would just try to do things within larger organizations that were way beyond my title or my level of responsibility. I was in larger companies where success fighters eventually grew to be sold to SAP. I would switch roles every couple of years to try to do some new initiatives. So I felt a strong affinity with the term intrapreneur. But not everybody who's an intrapreneur needs to go and then eventually start their own business.
So let's talk about what is the impact of these very special people inside the enterprise. What's the most common career path for them? Because they don't necessarily always fit in the traditional path, and to me, they're some of the most special people. So I want to make sure I help them and make their life rewarding when we collaborate with them. So describe to us the term and who are the people that are thriving in that role?
0:02:04 - RJ Grimshaw
Sure! Well, the definition of intrapreneurship is when an employee with an entrepreneurial spirit works within the confines of another business. Think of it as a business within a business. The term originally appeared in the early 1980s when management consultants Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot published the book “Intrapreneuring” which is the Bible of intrapreneurship.
Let me provide some insight in terms of when customers utilize this type of culture. We call it the iOS and not to rip off the real iOS, but iOS is the Intrapreneur Operating System. What we did at UniFi with that mentality was what drove the growth. It wasn't RJ, it was the team and allowing the team or certain individuals within the organization to really take calculator risks. That's one of the characteristics of an intrapreneur.
Now, speaking of the individual, I would not be sitting here as a CEO and President of UniFi if I did not have that mentality. My journey is quite different than yours, Alex. I actually started as an entrepreneur at a very young age. I was 23 years old and just got out of the Air Force. My dad was a very successful entrepreneur. His business plan actually hangs behind me that he hand-written with two other partners in 1983. And they took this business plan from a plan to $50 million in revenue.
So again, my journey was the opposite. I owned my own first business at a young age, and then I fell into corporate America when I turned 30, by accident. Really it was just an easy transition, and I never identified myself as an intrapreneur until probably the early 2000s, when I heard the term and I self-identified. I said, “Yeah, this is what makes me successful. And I need to continue to fuel that fire in my belly to do that!”
So I went from an individual contributor carrying a sales bag and a sales rep. And then, within 13 years, multiple changes, like you just mentioned. When I was with Key Equipment Finance for eight years, I went from carrying a bag to running a banking team, which I had no experience running. However, when I asked the district president why he selected me for that position, primarily it was because of my intrapreneurship mentality, in terms of just the behaviors. And keep in mind I have zero risk other than my time. I'm not outlaying any of my capital. So when you really truly look at the ROI of intrapreneur and entrepreneur, you really would have to mess up as an entrepreneur and not be successful because you're gonna learn knowledge from being an intrapreneur. You're going to have those experiences that you can take on the rest of your career with you.
0:04:58 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, and I wanna build on that because it almost feels like there's this huge innovation wave in the smaller, younger companies. At RELAYTO, we're a company of founders. My co-founder ran his own startup beforehand and was the CEO. And then we just kept attracting other founders to the team to build that spirit that you're describing.
It's a little bit easier probably to find that in the startup ecosystem. But I think for our customers that are kind of taking a risk, they are ultimately taking a bet. They're trying to do something new. They are not blasé about their work. They feel like it means something. They feel like they wanna make a difference and make an impact. That's fundamentally human, that's the best of human characteristics. But there's some risk, right? You're taking on a new initiative. It might fail. You may still keep your job, but there is some risk. But it's, as you said, relatively de-risk. More importantly, it gives your life more meaning. If you're creating something right, you're a part of the creator economy.
0:06:21 - RJ Grimshaw
And that is proven in engagement surveys that we do. You see the level of engagement go up almost 15%. Right now, so many companies are struggling with just the engagement of employees and team members. So when we do work with larger companies to deploy this again, you see the discretionary effort, you see the engagement goes up tremendously. And the simple reason why is that these intrapreneurs and the team members feel valued because their voices are heard. They feel that they're adding value to the organization. So, there has to be alignment between the intrapreneur and the mission vision of that founder. If that aligns, it becomes extremely special.
0:07:05 - Alex Shevelenko
And I guess in a smaller organization, you could ask people to select outright. So, especially if you're a relatively junior candidate, we give you a challenging task to figure out and work something out that is a little bit unstructured, requires some resourcefulness, signals that this is not a place where you're just gonna skate, and put something in a resume. I think we even called it in the echo of the intrapreneur term. As I was telling you earlier, we have a role, we call it “internpreneur”, and it's one of the best things that we've come up with because it allows people that are either career changers, by the way, or folks that are kind of very early in their career, go and feel ownership over what they do. Some take a lot, and some realize that they need more structure, but it's also a good discovery. But at least they're drawn to that. They wouldn't apply to this if they felt they just wanna put something in the resume and move on.
0:08:16 - RJ Grimshaw
So I'd like to have a question. Do you actually advertise that term in your job descriptions?
0:08:23 - Alex Shevelenko
We do it, and sometimes we forget, and we say, “Oh, an intern.” And I keep reminding the team, “No, no, no, they're internpreneurs.” Because it actually means a lot. It means that they can go and develop for themselves, first and foremost, take an ownership mindset, deliver something, and deliver value quickly. Like I told you, Zuckerberg started Facebook. He was in college, doesn't matter. Why wouldn't you think like that? And if you go and build something better, afterward a hundred times bigger than what we're building, then I already feel like, as a CEO, that I've actually had a positive impact. Even if you don't stay in our company and move on and explore because you've been endowed with that idea.
0:09:14 - RJ Grimshaw
And I would assume that probably gives you a more sense of purpose than anything else. When you see someone come through under your tool and then become successful in the future down the line.
0:09:26 - Alex Shevelenko
Well, it differs in a business. So, I'd say we've been pretty privileged to work on a very mission-driven company itself. I think, as you're pointing out the way you do, it is just as important as the mission and, ideally, the tool line. Our mission, and we talked about it a little bit, we're reimagining the book. So, this is like a civilizational project. And so I think I could get excited, fired up and still with people who would love to work on this.
I try to manage that part of me, and I will create a more challenging and inspiring environment. If your mission is worthy, you don't want to mess it up with your execution around it and alien people from the ocean.
0:10:23 - RJ Grimshaw
It's all about delivering. I'd like to ask you do you feel, or does your team feel, that bite having the job description? Read that title and I haven't read it or I've seen it, but I applaud you for doing that. The caliber of the candidates has improved.
0:10:42 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, and I think I think this is what we were discussing earlier in one of you know what I've read um on one of your blogs.
I, I think it has for you.
Um, I, I think, uh, the combination of that Uh and a pretty strict Uh execution requirements Sort of weeds out, like, I think there's a lot of people that aspire to be entrepreneurs, especially in their early their career, right, and if you have a, for example, let's say you have a part-time thing, you're doing something in school and you're, you're, you know, you're doing something Uh with us, and we've noticed that some people kind of um, are optimistic about their ability to execute or their ability to ramp up, or their ability to juggle a few balls effectively, and so I think it does get people, but some of them, you know, they either they can't commit, you know, or or they just just can't execute rapidly enough.
So I think there is there's, but it's very quickly, we can figure that out very quickly. That's the beauty of it, right, like you don't need to wait For, you know, for weeks you're kind of like, hey, can't get stuff done, um, you know. Great, this is a good, good lesson for you, right, like the, the in the, in the operating environment that's high, demanding you either. You need to bring you know, bring points, points on board quickly.
0:12:05 - RJ Grimshaw
It's a dose of reality, especially if they're still in university and college. You know it's a reality, the way that the real world works in terms of you have to deliver value to the organization that you're joining.
0:12:15 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think there's some and you know, I think that's a lesson that somebody's got to give out and I actually, interestingly, there's somebody that you know we we've been running this for a few years, so there's somebody that basically we exited and they came back to me in a gentle way for, like, explaining the rationale and everything. But it's like they came back to me later they kind of stayed state of fan of what we're doing and they, like they clearly took on some of this messages and adapted their career. So I don't know what you're finding, but, like, when you're bringing people that, that kind of their sense of Themselves is a bit higher than the reality. Um, in there, how do you, how do you help them grow right? Like, like, is it, was it you make this grow, was in your organization? Um, you know, do, do you feel like, okay, you, you know you're not quite ready to be real entrepreneur, entrepreneur, you know, here's what you need to grow like. I'm sure it's a ladder of some kind, right.
0:13:17 - RJ Grimshaw
I would. I would expand on this, and I it was. This is a true story that that happened. Within unify, we had a gentleman who clearly was an entrepreneur. Clearly, he had all the signs, the characteristics to behaviors Of of being an entrepreneur. If you don't mind, I like to define those real quick for your audience To so, please find out self-identify within their organization.
There's really five things to look for. From a basic high-level Perspective, it's really an ownership mentality of their Responsibilities, which means they're held accountable and they're fine with that. They're a life learner. They're a person that's always trying to learn On a daily basis. They're passionate about life. It's just they don't just show up, go through the motions, but they're passionate outside of work. They're passionate inside of work. They take calculated risks. Okay, so they are, they will take the risk, but it's going to be very calculated, and then they have a drive to spark change and it could be innovation, it could be improvement. A lot of the customers or customers companies that we work with, they want to start with innovation first, because that's a catchy buzzword innovate, innovate, innovate. A lot of times we say let's start with improvement.
Let's have a, have a, have a plan and program set up where ideas can be shared by the people in the trenches, because close to 38% of all employees feel they have great ideas to share. So you need to set up that mechanism. However, I also want to say and and make sure people are others. You cannot, alex, have a company of a hundred percent Entrepreneurs within your company.
0:14:46 - Alex Shevelenko
It won't work right and what we do all these, all these new projects that never get completed.
0:14:52 - RJ Grimshaw
There's absolutely no execution at all. Taking time.
Yeah, it wasn't for the whiteboard all day just drawing and dreaming and envisioning. So what we do is is we have a principle, you know the 80 20 principle, and we define it as you need. 80 percent of your team members or employees within your organization is functional. Okay, that's a level one employee. They show up every day, file a process, they have a good attitude, but you're never, ever, they're never going to do anything more.
As you transition to level two, they show signs of, of, of becoming a vital employee and can create process ones asked. However, they're never going to take that ownership mentality. And then the holy grail is what we call the, the vital level three. They show all the signs of an entrepreneur and they understand the inputs and the outputs to create systems and they solve Problems to scale across departments. So there's a three. There's definitely a three different behaviors of those three different type of employees. And if I'm a founder in a startup and I'm going all in on this I want to identify a level three to join me in my mission, and what we call that is commissioning, because, at the end of the day, the biggest investment we all make is in the people that we're surrounding ourselves with.
0:16:03 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, yeah, I think ultimately, the the sign of a great Founder or entrepreneur is that the ownership mindset will make them, will make them complete things and get it done, but they can only do it for a Ex period of time, right. Like at some point they need that functional team To go and scale it right, because it's also like non scalable, like if I yeah, I can execute, yeah, I can follow up with every customer and prospect, but you know, at some point there's got to be a sales organization that like picks up on that, or a marketing organization that nurtures that right. So the that kind of approach seems to be Missing, because oftentimes in the startup literature, like you know, it's all about like it's sort of a myth of the founder and everybody's a founder Ba ba, ba ba. But but like, I really like what you've said. Like you got to have a Complement, complementary team but there's probably shared values and that is what like, some of.
Like, when you're starting to describe some of the values right, like lifelong learning, like I think that's exciting, right, or that you want it was people that believe that change is possible. You want, you want, you know, you want some of those characteristics, what do you think are kind of essential values, if not of an entrepreneur, that are a person that would Succeed in an organization that wants to move right but it wants to progress. What's like, what's one or two Of those values there must have?
0:17:36 - RJ Grimshaw
you know. I would say, from a value perspective, it one of the main values that they're you know, they're trustworthy, they're a good communicator, and I don't know if that's behaviors or values, but in the same respect it's someone that you know. There's always a simple rule of thumb that I've always used when hiring people, and it's a simple principle of would I go to dinner with this person and enjoy the couple hours of dinner with them? And if the answer is yes, then I want you know. That's one of the barriers. Another thing that I ask you again and I'm not answering your question specifically, but it's again trying to pull out signs that someone could be an inshippinore is a question I always personally ask every candidate that comes to unify is If money was not an object, what would your dream job be and I'll go first and the answer isn't to come to work for unified, because that's not my answer as the CEO President, so it shouldn't be yours either. My dream job would be I'd be the coach of the University of Michigan's football team or hockey team. I love coaching, I love athletics, I love competing. That's another value. They have a high competition, they have a high compete rate and typically you get those out of athletes. So we love hiring athletes that come out of a team sport environment because they have discipline, they have work ethic, they understand team in a high compete level. So and then I'll ask them.
And Alex, there's been people that I've thought through the whole interview there's now. They're not a good fit, they've answered that question in a certain way and I've hired them. There's been other people that have come through interviewing up thinking yeah, this is great. And then they, and then they answer it. And you know, obviously it just doesn't come down to that one question, but that question does wear on or have value in the overall. Because that's where I'm going to go, I'm going to go back to the question that we were all, because that's really you're speaking to their heart and they're giving you a real answer, not a calculated answer, because they're taking off guard by. I've also had people start crying. You know they. They usually there's an event, maybe in their family and you know someone passed away from cancer or something and they want to Start a foundation and do that. So it's a hit it home. You know it's home, you know, but again it's trying to extrapolate, you know, because at the end of the day, we're all.
0:19:50 - Alex Shevelenko
What really matters to them, what really? What's, what's what's at the what's at the heart? Yeah, and that just works for.
0:19:54 - RJ Grimshaw
RJ, but I but I love what you're doing again with your job description for your intrapin, your Internpreneurs I got to learn that word, that's a new one for me, because we help companies actually just tweak that on their job description and, as you said the blog that I've written and we have data behind this You'll see the quality of your candidates go up tremendously. However, you have to be on a guard because you want to ensure. The downside with entrepreneurs Is that maybe they'll get out in front over their skis a little bit and you have to rain them back in.
0:20:27 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, I think I think I'm just weighing in on some of these questions in the interviews, right, because I think that that sort of is a an important dimension of of getting people into the right role Sometimes you're going to be having, you know, you have a great candidate and they may have technical expertise in your domain, but, you know, do you put them in a role that's structured or the role that's unstructured, right, and you know, like that's sort of one, one sort of question you know, echoes, I think, one of the legendary questions from from my alma mater, when they, when you're, when I was applying to an ABA program, they, the question which was the bulk of the application essay, is what matters most to you and why? And, believe it or not, the question and it was very different than any, pretty much any other MBA questions, and people would still go back to the answer that they wrote not just throughout their MBA program, right Sharing, it was their, you know, classmates. They go back and reflect on that 510, x years after you know afterwards, because it's sort of it does force you to be specific, it does force you to reflect and and I think I'm grateful to the institution for doing that Right. And so I wonder, like what you know, have you done things in your recruiting process that also just force people to? You know, even if they don't join you, right, like, but like, leave some sort of positive impact in them? And I think about it.
Right, we want to leave our customers better, but we also want to leave our prospects in the better off we like, even if we're not a right fit, you're still a good human being. We want to thank you for taking the time to investigate what we are up to. You know, who knows, maybe we'll meet again, but we want to create value experience, right, obviously, customers, but, you know, same as employees, right, like, you obviously want to create value for your team. But what about all the people that don't make it through through the lens? And I worry about that, right, because we, you have to say no. Well, how have you found, you know, was, was, particularly was the lens of the sort of intra intrapreneur and high growth organization in a relatively mature industry, right, like, which is even more impressive. What did you find, like to select out those people? And then, you know, led the ones that didn't make it know why?
0:23:04 - RJ Grimshaw
And typically I would always tell candidates, for some reason from our filter, out of the mold, the way that you frame that and position it that it's probably us and not them. It just don't fit into who we are, and I would always say where you were unique, because Unify actually started in 1978, so when I came into the organization in 2013, it was a well established organization, and I was the second president CEO of the company to jump started again, so I had a lot of legacy employees, which really were the show of the success that we had. The good news, though, alex, is when you deploy an iOS operating system within your company the intrapreneur operating system you're going to reduce your turnover because they're again back to engagement and they feel their value and they don't want to leave the company, so it really actually reduces your turnover considerably. We had a company that was had all kinds of turnover. We went in, deployed this and within two years, they decreased their turnover 87%.
0:24:06 - Alex Shevelenko
And again, to summarize for our audience, the value is that I am leaving a legacy, right, I am creating something, I am part of the creation machine. I'm not just doing a job. I never get to the stage where people feel like it's their calling or it's just that I really love my job. So I'm very privileged to be working at, you know, and I shaped it. It's not an accident. Right, I wanted to write books.
I knew I didn't have any talent as a writer, but I can kind of help others create, you know, more engaging and, you know, reimagine the book. So I was kind of I'm geeking out, like that. I wanted to marry a French girl, ended up marrying a French girl. So I've been like very deliberate, you know, in my kind of shaping my life to fit into some sort of however rightly or wrongly kind of set of values. Now, not everybody can do this and I wasn't able to do it at times either. So I'm really curious, you know what for people like you said, they've discovered this other. Their passion is not your. You would rather be coaching, you know, you Michigan hockey team and you know making them, you know. You know be where the puck is going to be right, like you know, do that thing more so and how do you, how do you, how do you make the combine?
0:25:28 - RJ Grimshaw
it right? That's a wonderful question because I always I also say my second job, or my, my other dream job probably would have been a gym teacher in high school, coaching high school football or hockey, but that didn't compensate me for the lifestyle that I wanted to live. So that's where you have to make it to adjustment, where what is going to get to get, what vehicle get to get me to where I want to go? All right, and I firmly believe in everything you're saying, alex, in terms of what is your North Star, what are you trying to get to? And when I fell into corporate America and I was working with businesses financing their equipment, it filled that void of not being my own entrepreneur because I was still in the trenches with them and I could add value. Those relationships from my experiences I was like you know, I got it.
0:26:16 - Alex Shevelenko
So you're basically, it's a combination of like look, you have other values, right. Like you got to take care of your family you have. You know you have to want to see the world, explore, like there is like not everybody's independently wealthy and can do whatever they want, right. Like you know we are where we are and so what you're training is like within the constraints of, you know, maybe the company that I'm in, the industry that I'm in the job that I'm in, how do I make that to be the most co-creative, innovative, like the you know, positive experience that makes me feel connected to the mission and actually influence the mission.
0:26:55 - RJ Grimshaw
Yeah, and that has that alignment has to be there Truly for an entrepreneur, that alignment has to be there. If you're a vital employee, you have to believe in the mission and the vision and the values of the organization or just won't work. And it's easy enough to go seek and find that. And the other thing that I'm trying to do, alex, is really educate people to self-identify of an entrepreneur so they understand the value and then they can be compensated for that value accordingly. Okay, because it's you know they have a more robust job performance, they increase the organization commitment and things of that nature, and they should be proud of that and they should be compensated accordingly. Because we all know what happens. Right, as a business owner, as a CEO, you're always going to continue to squeeze more and more production or more and more value out of your entrepreneurs or your high vital employees. So why shouldn't they self-reflect and self-discover and identify as that and understand the true value that they are bringing to the organization? And I have an example of that.
I hired a lady out of the Detroit Red Wings. She was. She worked for the Red Wings for eight years. She was referred to me by another friend through LinkedIn. I thought why would this lady want to come to Unify? She works for the Red Wings. I mean, that's the coolest job. You want to work for the?
0:28:06 - Alex Shevelenko
Red Wings.
0:28:07 - RJ Grimshaw
You want to work for the Red Wings. It's a cool spot role, okay, but she was burnt out. Very demanding job, very demanding for eight years. So we interviewed her and this also plays into the question you asked before around. Maybe she didn't pass the lens, or the candidate didn't pass through the proper lens the first time, but she came through For some reason. It wasn't a fit, but she continued to follow up with me and stay in touch with me and not just, hey, I'm following up, but hey, I saw this article and I thought of you, or I thought this would be relevant to you, or Congratulations if we had a press release. Ultimately, we hired her as my executive assistant and she came in and within three years she went being my executive assistant To running the portfolio on the back end of the business. Just because of her, she was an entrepreneur. She is an entrepreneur through and through. She owned everything. She took out later risk and an everyday.
0:29:00 - Alex Shevelenko
Her main mission was to make the company better because she believed in how we were serving our customers and, again in a line with her mission and vision, Well, so we talked a lot about internal right and this is actually but you brought up the word customer and this is a word that's near and dear to my heart. So I think the the risk for most companies as they become successful, as they go a little bit further away from their customer Right and some of our clients, they have these sort of innovation, you know, initiatives, right, and they, they, and so that's how we got to like working was very large in organizations. You, you know, you, they, they want to be, appear innovative to their customers, and so they create these internal innovation teams and Some people that are on the cynical side, you know, rather, you know, maybe some some English chat would say what it's, alex. No, it's a bit of innovation theater, you know that, that we're engaging in here, so some sort of a kabuki thing where we pretend like we're innovating, you know, and you know, you know, we pretend like we'll implement something with startups, and so we saw we got, we got pulled into some of that.
We've found some amazing people and we found a lot of people that were Doing like they had to get stuff done internally, but the ones that were the most impactful were the ones that actually were really customer centric so they could get stuff done internally. That was a prerequisite for working was in some of these larger organizations. But you kind of need to To be you know, get, get access somehow and get you know, get that mindset of like where the customer shoes, you know, on a more regular basis, and the larger the company, the harder that becomes. How do, how do entrepreneurs kind of avoid the theater part and really like get something done and become that voice of the customer in In in larger institutions?
0:31:07 - RJ Grimshaw
specifically in larger institutions, if they, if you have that iOS system set up where ideas are being shared in a format that's being, you know, calculated and reviewed and things of that nature. As I mentioned earlier, 38% of all employees believe they have great ideas because they're working with a customer on a daily basis. The CEO isn't, you're not. They are, so if you have a vehicle where they can share that feedback and share those ideas, there's been a recent survey by Bain and company that found the companies with an entrepreneur culture had a 30% higher net promoter score.
0:31:44 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah.
0:31:45 - RJ Grimshaw
So, again, it's the right mindset and even this is a key, key point here. Alex, even if I spoke earlier about the 80 20 rule, with your functional and vital, even if the functional or just functional which we want them, but you have an insipid neural culture within your organization, you're gonna start seeing the functional with ideas because now they they can, they know that their voice is heard, they know that they're not gonna be Ritualed with their ideas or it's going to go Unheard or not valued. So you see discretionary effort, even from your functional employees as well.
0:32:25 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, and, by the way, we we incur, we actively solicit that and we find that Like, let's say, I'm still junior, junior team member, but I'm working on something very specific and if I'm able to pull up and see how that specific thing impacts our customers in the either positive way, so we need to amplify it, or a negative way, so we need to address it. They are closer sometimes, given their functional role, they're closer to the to the actual nuts and bolts of what people may do was a product or was a service. And you know, because of a larger number, they also the ones that are in touch with the most number of customers, most frequently right. So they are essential, you know, and if you can imbue everybody, was that feeling to your point, because it's a culture that's reinforced, it's Some. Sometimes, you know, I could dream up a great customer idea, but I'm not the one that's dealing with the painful problem On a day-to-day basis right, right, I completely agree with that.
0:33:29 - RJ Grimshaw
And we have blind spots as leaders. You know, a lot of times we're, you know, getting back to. You know we're thinking about different things. We're worried like right now I'm worried about 2024, with a financial plan in the draft and things of that nature, and we were not as close to it as you just mentioned and then we just have a blind spot to it.
I'll give you an example of that at Unify, one of ourselves man again this he was an entrepreneur through and through an attorney by trade. He had his law degree came to me and said RJ, I really think we need to build out a online portal to receive payments. And I said well, tell me more. He said well, you know, he gave me some data points. In all, entrepreneurs are typically Well documented and educated before they come and present an idea. That's up significance, okay.
And I said to him I said if you want to run with it, you're gonna have to influence our IT department. You're also gonna have to influence the outside provider and you're also gonna have to continue yours you know yourselves production. He said I want to take it on it, I'm gonna learn from it. He's tech Sally. Well, lo and behold, he built this out and in three months, 90 days Today. Today we went from zero. We did not have that as a product or a function within the organization. Today we process over a hundred thousand dollars of multi payments through that portal and it was not in his job.
Job description it wasn't, it wasn't, he wasn't compensated for it, but he understood that, from my Philosophy, of my culture, we're all about the customer and he took the lead on that.
0:35:02 - Alex Shevelenko
So I love it because it basically says it the like no initiative is too small to be an owner, right, like, like any like, this is this is not a, this is a valuable. It's not like a total game changer, but, you know, for the business, but it's valuable. It creates meaning for them and that's already valuable. It creates a moment of improvement. So one thing that you brought up is like presenting, communicating. So I feel like one of the biggest tragedies that I see in the world, but particularly in the corporate, you know, global 2000 universe that you know we often live in, is that these innovation teams Like talk a lot about we're gonna do digital transformation, right, we're gonna do this. They hire Bain, you know, like you know, and say, bain and us, we work through and digital transformation here's a 200 page Paper optimized PDF report and how we're gonna do those digital transformation. And now like, if somebody wants to read that in, like in paper, right, by all means. So that's actually great.
0:36:06 - RJ Grimshaw
I'm gonna be pulled out, I'm going to see and say give me the five bullet points I can take away from this document.
0:36:13 - Alex Shevelenko
Yeah, or like something like show me, like, help me imagine it, help me like, show me the, the Customer story, walk me through that. Or let me drill in right, like I. I think One of the lessons I learned at Microsoft was just the stories of like of Bill Gates as a manager. He would like he would take see here the overall presentation, but then he would go and drill in right and, but he doesn't need to go through every page of everything, but by drilling in he kind of understood. Have you guys thought the shrew? Have you said you have a high level strategy and overview, but then you have the supporting evidence. And that's how a lot of people think about it, like I don't need to hear your whole 200 page spiel, but I don't mind, you know getting the high level summary and saying, hey, this is likely an interesting area or troubled area or the one that's not obvious. Let's drill in here.
The problem is I don't think a lot of the innovation or entrepreneur projects are presented In in that way. So I think that's a good point. Projects are presented in in that way and so a lot of them never get take, never get started and they lose. You know, if you're introducing digital, digital transformation on paper For, or you're selling, you know, sustainability on, you know on the couple of trees that you killed. You're just not credible, like from the gates right, and I think that just Kind of it seems ironic to me. Maybe I'm too focused on this because I'm a little bit in this world, but I'm curious what's your opinion on kind of being congruent, right, the messenger, the message, the delivery, you know, do they align and how important is that and how important is that?
0:37:55 - RJ Grimshaw
it's critical and the worst thing that you can do is is start vocalizing, communicating that you're open to ideas and you're building this culture and education. That's what we do. We educate the employee, we educate the management team around this system and you roll it out and we always tell our customers it's not gonna happen overnight. You don't go to the gym one time, work out, and you have muscles. The same thing if you go on a prescription from your doctor you don't take it one time and you're fixed. You have to have it part of it, Especially if it's antibiotic right.
Exactly exactly so. It's more of a journey and I actually tell business owners if you aren't committed to this for a minimum 12 to 18 months, don't do it. Please don't do it, because you're actually setting yourself up for more failure. You're actually going to hurt your level and engagement and your employees. You're gonna have more turnover. But if you are committed, you have to commit to it for 18 months 12 to 18 months and when you do that, that's where we set up that vehicle for that communication and we have stack rankings of ideas and as long as even if it's a believe me, we've had really crazy ideas that come to us and as long as the employee.
You go back to the employee and it takes time and this is where leaders are challenged. You know, the most valuable asset we have is our time and explain to them why it doesn't fit, because this is an education piece, all right, and then you allow them just to make the simple changes. Again, alex, we like to start small before we go big with the. You know the innovating, so start with the small ideas, basic improvement and again, the benefits of that. You're gonna get higher engagement, you're gonna get higher discretionary offer, you're gonna get a culture that is more open, trustworthy and things of that nature. The other thing you're gonna do is weed out your people that you quickly can identify as not team players because they won't buy in. They will not buy in and you can quickly say okay, you know they're not part of this team longterm.
0:39:58 - Alex Shevelenko
Right, that makes a lot of sense. But let's drill into one area that I think is very real for a lot of folks. So you're kind of, you've created excitement. We're like, we're inclusive culture. We get, we love, ideas from everyone, right, and I show up as an idea, right, and I think obviously your idea is great, you know, and I think most people do.
In fact, I think one of the reasons why we started related to was, like I was like hey, my ideas for some reason are not winning in some conversations, like it can't be because I'm not particularly brilliant, you know, whatever, at least I'm talking of myself like in my 20s or something like that, right, so something is like these people look like they're pretty smart, so I need to figure something out.
Like it was sort of the sort of disconnect, right, so people don't think that their ideas suck by definition, right, and so they show up and then their idea doesn't get chosen for good reasons, right, like, reasons could be that you need to prioritize, right, there is like there is a matrix of some sort of how you select them. But what do you say to that feeling that like, oh, you know, it's not my thing, right, like, and I actually wanted to do something different, and you know why is you know that person's idea better than mine, right, and yeah, I'll do it for the team. But is there like, do you find these sort of resentment that builds up if your idea doesn't get picked up a couple of times?
0:41:32 - RJ Grimshaw
You know that could be, it could be. But it's really where you start the program, where you know you have to have the why behind why you're deploying this type of culture, and then the business goal and then how it plays. We have a waterfall where the business goal plays into the strategic initiative to the objective of the program, and then the metrics. So we can't pick 15 different ideas. Typically we say, pick one or two again, get wins, get momentum behind that and clearly identify that. And then you have the measurement around that in terms of capturing it, managing it, putting it on a short list, implementing it, engaging and then analyzing it. Because there's been ideas too, Alex, that we've deployed that were complete flops.
But that's okay because we learned from that we have that in our mind in our business plan, where 20% of ideas will flop, and we're okay with that, Because again back to my point- yeah, and it's a very important point right.
0:42:31 - Alex Shevelenko
Like, and I think it's almost so, I have a 12 year old who you know has been doing well academically and now has had her first like hiccup and it's tough, it's like it's a mentally kind of, you know, it's a great learning right, but it's just kind of an adjustment like, oh okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna be kind of fitting into that perfection mode and I think you know I as in like somebody who's an entrepreneur who like, fails, you know, on a regular basis and encourages I get it right.
But I think me in my corporate America or corporate Europe hat, you know, I was a little bit more probably conservative on that failure right, like, and there was a big, especially if you were kind of done well academically, you know, and kind of have, you know, pleased your parents with high marks and credentials and all that and you're that's your personality. And then you hit reality of the market and all of a sudden there's disappointments and things don't work. So how do you help people who are not quite there yet in terms of accepting failure and learning from failure and even almost celebrating that okay, we failed on this and you know you don't wanna celebrate failure too much because you still wanna win more often than not. So it's sort of a tricky balance because people are like oh yeah, I failed, good job. Well, maybe you failed because you didn't like do basic customer research. You know, like that's not a good reason to fail, right. Like, oh, I failed fast, well, okay, still you wasted a bunch of you know either company or investor resources or people's time.
So you don't wanna be like, oh great, I'm failed, you know, get another star right. It's not like that. But at the same time, you don't wanna be discouraging people from taking on things and like what's your take on this? And like you may have a portfolio across the company, right, and a VC may have a portfolio across the ton of startups, but as an entrepreneur and like entrepreneur, they don't have a portfolio like like their startup needs to work right and their project kind of needs to work because that's there. Like they probably have one, maybe two initiatives and so I don't know if there is there a kind of a pattern that you found around this.
0:44:56 - RJ Grimshaw
There is, and it's really you know where the business is in life cycle, right, is it a pre-rav, startup, post-rev, commercial, growing, scaling? And I think that the entrepreneur in all those situations play a different role. Okay, so you can't have and again, that's where the co-missioning comes together but if you are truly a startup and you're trying to surround yourself with the best of the best in terms of you're going all in on this idea, so you're risking a lot. Why wouldn't you want to identify an entrepreneur that's going to have a co-ownership mentality to help you be successful? You would. I would want that on my team. Yeah, absolutely, by all means.
Now I also want to say, alex, it's very critical and we've seen this before where we roll it out and, all of a sudden, people within the organization feel they're overwhelmed. Oh, we're being asked to do something else. Oh, you know what's in it for me, and that's where the education comes. What's in it for them, if they want to participate and self-identify, that they're going to have more work, satisfaction, things of that nature, and helping the overall organization as well as serving the customer. So it's really each business owner and leader in their company they have to craft it to their culture. It's not a peanut butter approach where it makes sense for everyone. And again they have to identify what is going to resonate with their team.
0:46:25 - Alex Shevelenko
Right, and the risk profile. I guess what you're saying is the risk profile varies by stage of the business. Which makes sense, right? Like you can't? You know, I think I will say, like some of, at least in the technology industry, where I'm biased by bulk of my experience not necessarily our customers but like you, have to make bold bets, even if you're a large company. But I think in some other industries I think it's more of a portfolio strategy that could actually, you know, hey, we do a bunch of things really well and they add up to some magical outcomes. So it's not, it's sort of. I think it also varies a bit by the industry, competitive nature of the industry, I would imagine.
0:47:07 - RJ Grimshaw
But you can also seek feedback, and we did this at Unify in 2016, where we went out and said we really want to identify who we are, what our personality is, because when you grow like we did in 14 and 15 and 16, the metaphor I use is we're a restaurant. We found a good location. We wanted cash loan. We wanted people coming in, so it didn't matter what they ordered Alex, they could order a steak. If we didn't have it, we run the store, cook the steak. If they want a pasta, they could order sushi tie. It didn't matter. We're good location, good atmosphere.
However, we can never scale it like that, so we had to make an educated decision and that's where working with the team of who we are, where do we want to go and who are we going to say no to? Because we can't serve all and by serving all, we're actually hurting the value that we bring. So we became a steak shop and then, as soon as we made that pivot, that's where the business went to the next level, because we went again from 13 to 35, to 74, we kind of stagnated around 80 for a little bit. Then we went to 100 when we made that decision because we could scale it and we were self identifying. And again the team had a voice in that it wasn't RJ, it wasn't a leadership team, it was all of us combined. Because they are dealing with the customers every day. They know the filter, that to understand the growth and things of that nature.
0:48:28 - Alex Shevelenko
So, if I connect the dots, I'm going to have some of the themes. So entrepreneurs have a distinct nose for delivering a customer outcome, Because ultimately every business initiative, whether it's internal, customer, external, so they come with the customer ownership mindset and then you, in the process, you create the environment that's more, creates a great cultural employee and team member experience that makes people feel like this is worthwhile of the sacrifices and the extra investment, the extra love that they need to put in the business, because it's sort of anything that you put more of your heart into is also more meaningful to you and the outcome is more likely to be successful. Your kids are hard, but you put love into them.
0:49:20 - RJ Grimshaw
And they don't look at it. And that's the other beautiful thing about an entrepreneur they don't look at it from a monetary perspective. Ok, and that's why I'm trying to educate them that they should be. They're doing it because they love what they do. An example of that is, you know, college athletes. I'll use them as an example. But they're paid now too, as their season goes on and they make it to the playoffs and the championship or NFL football. Guess what that? They didn't sign up for that at the beginning of the season. Now they're playing action. Do they care? No, because they want to win and compete and have the glory. At the end and entrepreneur thinks the same way they want the glory of seeing this business owner, this entrepreneur, be successful, as well as their customers be successful. So there's other motivating factors for the entrepreneur than just higher compensation and things of that nature.
0:50:11 - Alex Shevelenko
Well, the more I hear you, the more I think entrepreneurs are just wonderful human beings and we want more of them. So if you have a budding entrepreneur, come out.
0:50:23 - RJ Grimshaw
Well, here's the thing I painted all the positives. The negative side of it is the gentleman that I brought up that built the portal for us. He ultimately left because I could not fulfill his needs of more initiatives, so that is a downside, because they're again, they're life learners, they're passionate, they take calculator risk takers and he used his experience to go obtain a better job for him.
0:50:47 - Alex Shevelenko
And I applaud that. But that's the thing I think you and I we agree that that's actually. That is a you know. Now, that is a testament to you as a leader, right, a great leader is not somebody who leads. A great leader is who helps others become leaders and fundamentally, I think that is also something that a great entrepreneur does right, because they lead their team and they may lose their team, but that's life because people want to be the sort of a magnet, be known as a magnet where people come and join you and you know they learn and they do great things and you know that's why you're a coach, right Like that. You love coaching, right Like you're. This is your dream job and, effectively, I think what you're telling us is that you are doing your dream job. It's just not in the in the field of University of Michigan football team.
It's just in the field of you know people doing things in their job and I think that's amazing. I don't know, I like call me, call me like overly enthusiastic, but I think that's a great sign of somebody who inspires others through your examples, through the structure that you do. Sometimes not through your example, I need to tell people hey, don't do what I do here. This is me improvising, right Like you. Really, you know you're this is not sure it's the best and anyway it's hard to imitate.
0:52:15 - RJ Grimshaw
You and I are aware of the same way, cause I'll tell my sales guys a lot of times they'll come and ask me for my opinion and of course I'll give it and I'll say but that's the way that RJ does. It Doesn't mean you have to do it like that. You and I'm always coaching them. You should take attributes from individuals that you come in contact with to build out your personality, which has to be your own individual personality. But just don't take someone and just repeat them, because it's not from, it's not authentic, it's not from the heart.
And one last example everyone's very familiar with the EOS operating system by track, with traction and things of that nature. And here's a real easy way to remember what an entrepreneur is in the EOS system the visionary, the entrepreneur, the idea guy or gal. They're here. The implementer in the EOS system comes along next to them and coal missions. This is your entrepreneur. Implementers are. All of them are entrepreneurs. They're wired like entrepreneurs and they make the dreams, or they're the doers to make the dream happen for the visionary, and it's their doers and they're typically very good operators.
And again back to the risk question you asked earlier the entrepreneurs that we work with and there's a lot of data and science out there that we've studied are very calculated with the risk taking, hence why they're not entrepreneurs. So sometimes they look at spending the money like it's their own money and understand like I said earlier about level three, they understand the inputs, the outputs and what it does for the business. So typically they are very conscientious of the resource and the dollars, so they'll do everything that they possibly can to maintain it. My example earlier with the portal I can't even remember what that costs us, but it wasn't a lot if I don't remember.
0:53:59 - Alex Shevelenko
So yeah, it's interesting. I also think there's this trend and this may be like a broader topic, but there's a lot of studies that come out that more entrepreneurs are successful at the end of like in their 40s and they're in like a bit after. And they are definitely not. Hey, I'm just gonna throw some stuff at the wall and see what happens. They've acquired some knowledge. They're taking in a more seasoned, calculated risk. They probably have family obligations at that stage in their life or take care of older family members, whatever it is. They have some obligations.
So not just like they're throwing some dice. And they happen to be the ones that are the most successful in the entrepreneur kind of universe as a founders and that sort of is a counterintuitive finding, because in the press that doesn't really come out that much right. So it may be the case here that it's never too late to be that kind of. Find that part of yourself and hopefully this conversation has gotten people fired up. Rj, if people wanna learn more, get more coaching, how do they get connect with you? Like I think you're? You've wear two hats, so tell us about what's the best way to connect with your facilitator hat.
0:55:27 - RJ Grimshaw
Yeah, the easy way is rjgrmshawcom. That's the main point of all the information in terms of the contact me If you'd like to join. We have two groups where we have an individual in-chip and nor group where you wanna learn more about it and be around like-minded people sharing best practices. And then the other group is we have for business owners that want to understand and learn how to deploy some of the tactics and strategies that we've talked about. Then, if they wanna select more, then we do full immersion courses while they're working with them. It's really their choice. So we try and serve everyone's needs if they wanna do a DIY or if they want our assistance. But that's really the two places to start to ensure that what we're teaching and coaching is something that you wanna participate in.
0:56:14 - Alex Shevelenko
Amazing RJ. Thank you so much for joining and sharing your wisdom.
0:56:17 - RJ Grimshaw
Thanks, Alex.