1932 – Transforming Organizations through Passion, Innovation, and Growth with Claris Consulting’s Hugh Blane

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

0:51Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:06With us right now, it's Hugh Blaine. Hugh, you are a well-known author. You are the founder and president of Claris Consulting. Your website is clarisconsulting.net. Your new book, it's forthcoming as of when we're recording this out due this summer. It's called Lead Boldly, How to Coach Others to Greatness. Hugh, it's great to have you. It's a delight to be here. Thank you. Yeah. Well, give us an impact. I kind of just gave some high level touch points there, but tell us about the impact you have in the world, who you serve and what you do. You know what? The impact that I have on the world is that there's a lot of people who are just kind of walking dead at work these days.

1:47You know, after COVID, there's a lot of people who are disengaged and the numbers are pretty staggering about the people who are disengaged and not really engaged at work. And that's the space where we step in and we actually say, how do you create a mindset set of passion, innovation, and growth post-pandemic so that you can create and capture your strategic priorities sooner and with greater effectiveness. That's what we do every day. Yeah. And so tell me, well, if you don't mind me bragging on you a little bit, lest someone thank you that you're small potatoes. Some of your clients include Microsoft, Pepperdine, REI, Starbucks, Sony, Texas A &M, UC Riverside, to name a few.

2:38Would you mind maybe just sharing a little bit more practically about what your engagement with your clients typically looks like? Yeah. So typically what happens is that the executives that we work with, they have a very strategic priority that they want to accomplish. And what we do is we kind of think about it this way. Josh, there's four wheels on a car. The front two wheels are strategy and execution. Those need to be completely aligned, not only with business strategy, but also with the leadership strategy as well as team strategy. If there's any misalignment, what happens is you burn through rubber and it takes more fuel to accomplish to get where you want to go.

3:15The two rear wheels are talent and mindset. And if you don't have the right talent to execute on your strategy, then you're going to have false starts and you're not going to get there as quickly as you want. Think about it from an F1 racing perspective. You've got to have a Lewis Hamilton behind the wheel to execute what will then be the Ferrari strategy. But then there's this mindset piece. And the mindset is, are you playing to win? Are you playing not to lose? And leaders are the steering wheel that drives this whole thing. And what we do is we help them get aligned. And every one of our clients says, we got a business strategy, but what we're missing is an individual leader strategy that they can execute with excellence on a daily basis that cultivates higher levels of talent and also brings in an elite level of performance mindset into their work.

4:12and that's the space where everyone is saying we we have less time and we want to accomplish more how do we do that and how do we get rid of the friction so that we can go faster and at the same time have fun doing it you know it's not supposed to be work is not supposed to be a slog through enemy territory on your belly with bullets flying over your head and that's how a lot of people feel these days. Yeah, certainly. What does it look like when I think about being a great leader of people? In a perfect world, how might leaders invest their attention and resources to ensure that we're just not giving lip service to investing in our people?

5:00You know, and that's a great question, Josh. One of the things, somebody came up to me after I did a speech recently, and they He said, here's what I'm really struggling with this. I don't see people really just, you know, giving their full-throated effort to something. And I said, okay, great. Let's do this. Tell me, do you have a definition of excellence for every person on your team, including yourself? And there was this long pause. And they went, I just figured out what the problem is. So we don't have a high standard. We've got a standard, but there's not, excellence is not the standard.

5:37So here's what I would do. I would look at a leader and say, just do me, answer one question. What is it you really, really want? What is it you want personally? What is it you want professionally? And you have to make it something that you have fallen in love with, that you care so much about that you are willing to exert effort and to pursue excellence. If you don't have that, it's going to be lukewarm. It's going to be half-hearted. So where I start is tell me the thing that you love the most and that you will absolutely unreservedly not allow it to go unfulfilled. You've got to start there.

6:21and in my most recent book, there's three sections, love deeply, learn daily, live boldly. And I'm going to suggest if you want a flourishing business, then you need to have a flourishing customer experience. You got to have a value proposition that people go, holy smokes, you are indispensable. I got to have you in my life. The only people that ever deliver on that are your employees. So here's the rub. You want a flourishing business? Great. Have flourishing employees. How are you going to do that? You're going to become the role model and the avatar for flourishing. And if you're not, you cannot think that somehow or another employees are just going to pick up on it through the ether.

7:10It's got to be done purposefully, intentionally. You got to curate that and give a holy crap about something, excuse me, so that people want to follow you. And if they're not following you, then you're missing the boat. Did I answer your question? Yeah, certainly. So let's think about trends, Hugh, that this is what you do. And you kind to mention some things, you know, again, kind of in a post-COVID world. Are there any other trends in leadership that you think, particularly I'm thinking of things that are a little bit imminent, like what's going on right now as of when we're speaking that you're seeing happening within organizations that leaders may want to pay attention to?

7:57Yeah. So here's the data point from 2018. It was research done by Microsoft. And here's just the state of affair that you need to be aware of, everybody listening, that employees said that they trust strangers more than they do their managers. So there's nothing really new here. People don't leave companies, they leave their direct supervisor. We've known that for years and years and years. So here's the thing I would say, the trend is going back to something that is old and it is tried and true. Are you worthy of being followed? Period. So I would suggest don't look for anything new. And remember this too.

8:45There are things that you are doing that have gotten you to where you are that are simply not going to serve you anymore. Don't look to add anything to what you're doing. Here's the real differentiator. EPO, elimination precedes optimization. Find the one thing that you're doing that no longer serves your customer, no longer serves your employee, one thing, and get really good at eliminating it. Because that's going to keep your employees engaged. That's what's going to help them flourish. And that's going to make for a much better customer experience. Yeah. Your website. I want to talk about your book.

9:27And again, I know that this is imminently getting ready to be published. July 8th. Yeah. Well, congratulations on that. And the title is Lead Boldly, How to Coach Others to Greatness. Who is this book for? And what would you expect the transformation that would take place when someone undertakes the journey? Love that. You used the word transformation. Here's what I'm thinking. I want people to transform the way that they approach work. So I have a deep, unbridled commitment. Infuse the word love into your work. Let's get back to the word love being a catalyst for greater profit, greater performance.

10:12What is it that you as a leader really love? Tell your employees what that is. And is it rooted in them being successful? So the book is really about how do you accelerate the learning for yourself as well as for your team around the ideas that everyone has fallen in love with? And that when you can articulate that and then learn about that every single day, there's an audacity for you to do something that is bold and to experiment, to take risks and to do things that you've never done before. You know, far too often what I see in the world of work and who I wrote this for are the people who are, yes, senior leaders.

10:56You can be role models and avatars for coaching people up. And then there are people who are in the messy middle, who are on the front lines, who are trying to figure out how do I engage my employees? So it's kind of a double helix. get really good at transforming your leadership first, and then you'll transform the organization. And I start with the leader so that they can know the context. And then I give to the middle managers the content with questions. This is how you do it. So it's senior execs and then the people who are in that messy middle. Now, Hugh, your website is clairsconsulting.net.

11:41To our friend that's been listening to our conversation and you've definitely piqued their interest. What does it usually begin to kind of at the beginning of that relationship or how you might be able to engage together? It starts with just a conversation saying, hey, listen, here's where I am. And here's where I am. Notice the vocabulary I'm going to use here, Joss. Here's where I'm committed to being. Now, here's what I would tell everyone whenever we have a conversation. If there is something that you really, really want to accomplish and that there is a line in the sand, there's no way we will not accomplish it, then what we help you do is reverse engineer how you're going to get there.

12:26We clearly define that future state for you with your help, of course, get crystal clear on that. And then we just identify all of the obstacles and the barriers, and we eliminate them faster over the course of 100 days. We call it a stretch 100, and we show you how to accelerate your learning in such a way that you can accomplish your most strategic priorities, or at least some of them, within 100 days. That's the whole purpose of that thing we call the million-dollar dialogue. Yeah. Your website is clarestconsulting.net. And by the way, we talked about the book, But I just want to make sure that I put a point on this because if it is July, then you should be able to go to Amazon and you should be able to order this book.

13:11Also, you can find it if you go to clarisconsulting.net. And again, just search for the title. It's called Lead Boldly, How to Coach Others to Greatness. Very great time. Very apropos for right now. But at clarisconsulting.net, aside from the book, what else would be kind of the next steps for our friend that's listening to us? You know, here's what I would do. is there is a clear, when we talked about strategy, execution, talent mindset, there's additional context there about what that really means. And if you go to the website, you can then see some of the key questions about these are the things that you're going to notice.

13:49There are four questions or statements for each one of those areas. Go there, take a look, do a self-assessment. And then if there's something where you go, I want to know more about that, then you can just do the contact us, send us an email and we'll follow up and answer any of your questions. Excellent. And again, the website, clarisconsulting.net. Hugh Blaine, you are the president and founder of Clarice Consulting. Again, congratulations on the launch of the book. Again, it's titled Lead Boldly, How to Coach Others to Greatness. Hugh Blaine, it's been a great pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.

14:28Okay, lead boldly.

14:35Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

15:17I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.

15:59I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening. And thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.