1570 – Delivering Your Commitments with Patrick Thean

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0:58with us right now patrick tian patrick you are the ceo of rhythm systems uh you are the author of the new book rhythm how to achieve breakthrough execution and accelerate growth which by the way is a wall street journal and usa today bestseller list listen that's saying a whole lot more than being an Amazon bestseller, I can tell you. So Patrick, it's your website. I want to share this as well as Patrick TN.com. And that's T H E A N.com is how you spell TN. Patrick, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, Josh, thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, I am so excited to have you on the show.

1:42And yeah, I think all of us are excited about, achieving breakthrough execution and certainly growth in business. What are the main tenets behind Rhythm? Let me give you a quick thought here. My job and my purpose is to help CEOs not fail and instead help them to succeed. I share that with you because I'm a serial entrepreneur. In my history, I've been very successful. But in my very first company, which was Inc. 500 firm, we made it to number 151 on Inc. 500 back then. I felt like I was going from crisis to crisis to crisis. And I survived each crisis long enough just to get another crisis. And I survived.

2:32And then suddenly I was successful and everybody was celebrating our success. And what I learned along the way was that I was really a half-breath away from failure. But I was fortunate enough to succeed. And I'm curious as to how many of your audiences kind of feel that way. And so in 1999, a article on Fortune magazine came out. It was called Why CEOs Fail. The punchline was they fail for lack of execution, not getting things done. And the definition for me, I'm not getting things done, is not achieving your commitments. So whatever commitments you have made, if you don't execute to deliver on your commitments, you are going to fail.

3:09Therefore, that's what I've been spending the last 20 years helping people do is to execute, make their commitments happen. And that's how they get their breakthroughs. In a nutshell, that's really at the end of the day. You know, most people come to me and I've found that they actually have their strategies. A lot of people say to me, hey, Patrick, I need you to help me with strategy. But when I show up, I find that their strategies are sound. They're just not getting it done. And then they're blaming it on strategy. Strategy is the fall guy when actually oftentimes execution is the culprit. So you're saying that the strategy is OK or they're just not following through and do it.

3:53And oftentimes when you think about strategy, it's going to involve a lot of other people. I think it's one thing for a leader or CEO to say, OK, I have it all in my mind. It's just exactly how it's going to go. And then you involve other people with all their biases, all their experiences, all their And they have valid input and feedback as well. But again, other people mean lots of other variables. Yes. And so you hit the nail on the head there. What a lot of folks don't end up doing is when they involve people, you've got to have good discussions. You've got to discuss, debate, and then you've got to decide.

4:28Once you've decided, you've got to say no to other things. You've got to be focused. You've got to get real focused. And where people fail is they lack the clarity. As you said, different people have different opinions. And thank you for sharing. However, with all these different varied ideas, we have decided to go this way, execute the strategy this way. Now, once we open that door and walk out, even on the remote virtual doors, I need everyone to be aligned and really clear what we're supposed to achieve. And that's how you get your commitments done. If you don't do that and you begin doing different things, you're not going to get your commitments done.

5:08So that's poor execution. So really, at the end of the day, what I've found, especially with the audience that you have, most people in the smaller companies, most of them already have a strategy. They wouldn't have achieved what they have so far if they had no strategy. They just maybe weren't as clear on communicating it. And then as they get bigger, it gets more and more difficult to communicate that strategy and to get all their teams aligned to execute that exact strategy. So what are some of the best ways that, you know, and okay, so part of me says, well, look, in order for me to come up with great strategy, I want to be collaborative in that certainly with my top leadership.

5:53but in having or chairing that conversation, I don't like, I guess I'm looking for maybe a good process or a good roadmap for how to do that. Because again, I want to do this collaboratively, but I don't want that lack of, you know, kind of executive decision-making that, you know, it's kind of like, I want them to feel like they have a say in it, right? But at the same time, I don't want them to feel like, well, this feels real nebulous here. How do we walk that line better? So in my book, I talk about a process. My process is very simple. Think, plan, and do. Now, unfortunately, a lot of people who are small companies tend to focus on doing.

6:34Oh, yeah. Right? So think, plan, do. So in the think side of the process, I'll show you a quick story. One of my clients came in and they said, hey, Patrick, we've got all these ideas. We're not questioning how to process it. So usually in a strategic planning session, we'll discuss each idea. And by the way, I like to say that all ideas begin life as great ideas. But why is it that some of them end up really being bad ideas? So because nobody walks into your office, Josh, and says, hey, Josh, I'm so excited to share a lousy idea with you today. Right. No one does that. Everyone believes they have great ideas.

7:10So we take each idea and we ask, what is the revenue opportunity? What is the impact of this particular idea? And we rank it from zero to 10 or one to 10. Then we ask, what is the ability for us as a firm and as a team to execute and make this idea happen? Zero to 10. 10 is easy. We have the right resources. We know how to do it. Zero to one is really hard. We don't know how. And then so we rate it on these two axes, you know, from impact zero to 10, ability to execute zero to 10. And then we plot it on four quadrants. So it's a very objective way to process subjective discussions. because I don't want us arguing about whether your idea is better or my idea is better.

7:55I want us arguing about whether or not, or debating, I should say, or whether or not we think this idea is worth$5 million,$2 million, or$1 million. We can at least agree on that. So we agree that this idea is worth$3,$4 million. We agree that this other idea is worth only$1 million. Now it gets ranked on impact. And then we discuss what is our ability to execute. When we've done that, we now plot it, and it's real simple. or things on the top right quadrant, easy to execute, as well as high impact and revenue. Those are easy to go, okay, you know what? These are the ones we want to do. Then the ones on the top left quadrant, these may be high impact, but difficult to execute on.

8:35And you may want to choose something from there if it creates a moat around your castle, so to speak, in strategic talk. You want to create something which gives you barriers to entry for your competitors, and maybe barriers to exit for your customers. Those are high impact and they may not be easy to execute. And then anything else that's low impact, we want you to just objectively be able to say no, because really most of us have more opportunities than we have the ability to execute. Patrick, your book, Rhythm, How to Achieve Breakthrough Execution, Accelerate Growth. It's in Kindle, it's an audio book, it's an audible hardcover, softcover.

9:16and you have 192 reviews. So you're definitely getting some traction. Why is this such a great book for right now? So, you know, a couple of my clients said they like the book because it's simple and easy. It gives you a very simple process, think, plan, do. In fact, we just finished our customer conference last week and we had over 200 people here in Charlotte sharing ideas and exchanging thoughts on how to execute. And somebody walked up to me and said, Patrick, you know, I love that your book helped me think. And what he shared with me was he had trouble with processing all these ideas until he started using this process that I just walked through, which is in the first part of the book on the think process and how to choose your ideas.

10:00And he said, Patrick, that really helped me get relaxed and go, okay, I have now chosen the top three ideas and I feel the anxiety melting away because I had a process to choose that. And then the next thing that we do is I like to put people into what I call a 13-week race. Every quarter is 13 weeks. The only way to have a great year is to have four great quarters and you work backwards. The only way to have a great quarter is to have 13 great weeks, one week at a time. And so the book shares with you how to plan the quarter, and how to work each quarter where each week is important for your overall success.

10:41So the book is very practical. It's chock full of case studies of companies who have done this and have shared their insights on how to do this. I like to think of it as the methodology is like a suit, you know, and when we put the suit on you, we'll tailor it down for you or tailor it up for you. We'll tuck it in here. We'll tuck it in on the waist a little bit because you look good on the waistline. We'll fit it for you. But because we have a series of processes that have worked over 20 years for thousands of companies, but we streamline it for every firm. And so I wanted to mention this here.

11:24So you're obviously the founder of Rhythm Systems. What is Rhythm Systems? So Rhythm Systems is a company that has methodology. We have a framework. One of our clients, Mike Prager, CEO of Avid Exchange, she shared that when you grow a company, you're always going to have chaos. What you need is to have a methodology to help you process the chaos. So Rhythm, first of all, we have a methodology to let you process your ideas, your cadence, any chaos that you have. It's like the operating system for the company. The second thing we have is we have software for you to document your goals and achieve accountability.

12:07Then we have consulting and coaching that helps you figure out what's your strategy, what's your priorities, what are you going to commit to. And all of our clients who are very successful basically sign up to this three-legged stool or this triangle strategy of having a methodology, having some consulting help, and having having software to document and keep track of all your priorities so that you can be accountable to deliver. Yeah. So that's what really does. Yeah. And then, of course, Patrick, your personal website, patricktn.com, and you've got resources, particularly if you've, you know, started consuming content from the book.

12:49And by the way, this is not your first book. I also have another bestselling book, Predictable Results, How Successful Companies Tackle Growth challenges win, execute without drama. Again, to our friend that's listening, you can go to Patrick's website. We've got the link directly in the show notes. But Patrick, when they go there, what would you recommend if they want more of the thought leadership that you've been helming here? So people always tell me, you know what, I don't know where to start. And can I have an easy way to start? So if you scroll down a little bit, there's an organizational effectiveness test.

13:23and that's a quiz. It's my gift to your audience for them to just take that quiz and we'll show you some of the things, what you're doing well in, what you're not doing well in. And so that's a good way to start getting some value and it's free really. It's my gift to everyone who wants to just improve themselves as they reach the ceiling of complexity and wondering, you know, what should I do? What should I work on? We'll show you where you're strong, where you're weak, and it'll help you think about, hey, should I strengthen a strength or should I work on a weakness? The organizational effectiveness test, scroll down.

14:02It's free. Please take that and enjoy it. Yep. I'm looking at it right here again. And this is again at patricktn.com. Patrick, it's been really great having you. Thank you so much again. Your book, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling book. It's called Rhythm, How to Achieve breakthroughs, execution, and accelerate growth. Patrick, thank you so much for being a guest. Josh, thank you so much for having me today.

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15:48Time ing guerra.