2183 - How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Curiosity and Operational Excellence with Lateral Solutions’ Jon Bassford

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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.

1:05And John Basford, right? Okay, here we go. With us right now, it's John Basford. John, you are the founder and CEO of Lateral Solutions. You're found on the web at think-lateral.com. John, it's great to have you. Thanks for having me. Well, before we get going and talking about what Lateral Solutions is and the work that you do with your clients, tell me, what do you do for fun when you're not working? So I'm going to give you the answer. One of those icebreakers. We're like, tell us something unique about yourself. Yeah. So I'm a powerlifting hockey player who loves Broadway musicals. And so those are the three things I spend a lot of time on.

1:48Working out, you know, five days a week, playing hockey one day a week. And then my wife and I are big theater goers and love doing that as well. Yeah. Okay. So I want to talk about theater. Let me, can I just ask you so about powerlifting. um that in tim so obviously you know i i love you know strength training and that sort of thing i'm always nervous about sore lifting because one of my you know as we age you know one thing that i've been just so careful of is injury prevention um because it's happened to me a few times and it's just that has actually made me fearful of probably lifting more than i i mean i wish i I wish I would be lifting more, but I feel like because I've injured myself a couple of times in the past, that I have to always overcome my fear now.

2:39No, no, no. You're going to be fine. Just take care of yourself. What are the things that you do to keep yourself safe and to keep yourself injury-free when you're doing powerlifting, which, again, feels intimidating to me? Well, at my age, I work around my injuries. I've had four weightlifting related surgeries throughout my thirties. And so, you know, you got to just find ways, you know, for me, what I do is I find exercise, there's fine equipment that allow me to still lift heavy without the strain on your joints. You know, there's things like, like I am someone, I mean, I say powerlifting, but like, I do not at this age, I don't do barbell bench anymore.

3:18I do hammer strength. I do, I do cables. I do things that still allow me to, I mean, I'll load up, you know, three 45 pound plates on each side for, you know, incline hammer strength. Uh, but I, I, I avoid certain, certain exercises that, that are prone to cause injury. Yeah. Yeah. And, and of course, um, the belt and everything else, you're always protecting the lower back is always the one I'm like always most nervous about. Cause I've, I've had that L4, L5 issue. And it's like, as long as I stay safe, never going to have a problem but if i try to do something stupid you know like and it was i'll tell you the first um was it was a um uh you know kind of that was where you're kind of like bending straight down you know kind of hinged at the hips and then lifting like that that's what did it to me okay okay so don't do that move anymore john yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i like the time i really started getting up there in weights to where um i mean not that i'm gonna be on the national stage or anything competition wise, but could really compete, you know, at a local level is just when my body started breaking down.

4:25I mean, that's, you know, once the shoulder surgery goes, you know, that, that kind of, that's a hard one to come back from. I've had elbow other things. So, you know, it's, it's tough, but I, I still enjoy it. It's, it's part of who I am and, and just, just get out there and, you know, the key is stay active, lift how you can find ways to work around the injuries and just keep going. We just, I'll speak up with the last thing here and we'll get to that. We're going to get to the work you do. So speaking of Broadway, I think my two favorite shows that I've seen recently, Mamma Mia, we just saw again.

4:58And it is always such a great time. I would see it again. Like we just saw it a handful of months ago. I would see it again this weekend if it were playing locally. It is just so much fun. Such a fun show. Also just saw Book of Mormon lately. And that was stunning. I'm a former Mormon. And so I got to tell you that it was, there was a little bit of catharsis there as well. But yeah, that was, what have been your favorite shows that you've seen? Yeah, that's tough to say, because they're all so different. I love some of the classics like Les Mis, you know, Rent is kind of a classic now, you know, it's over 20 years old, over 25 years old.

5:38So I like those, but, you know, we, Dear Evan Hansen was a really good one that the last few years, Kinky Boots was a good one. my wife and I just went to New York City for our birthday end of January and we saw four shows in three days so you know like we we're gonna go again my my uh for my book release I'm getting a billboard uh in Times Square so we're gonna go again in May uh stay in a hotel take photos of me in front of my billboard and go see another show there so we we go quite often we probably go to New York and here locally in the DC metro area go to between eight and nine shows a year probably Wow.

6:16It's so much fun. I never, and I can tell you that I never regret it. I always, always am so grateful. Because sometimes, you know, you look at the ticket price and you're like, ooh, mama, that's, you know, not cheap. But then afterwards, like, I'm so grateful we made that investment. A hundred percent. All right. So let's talk about the work you do with lateral solutions. Yeah. So what my company, what we're focusing on right now is, I think what we're doing is different than a lot of organizations. A lot of service companies that help SMBs, help nonprofits, that sort of thing, which is a lot of people when they're helping an organization grow, they have their pre-prescribed solution that they're going to give you.

6:59They're going to help you with your marketing. They're going to help you with your sales. They're going to help you hire people into the right roles. And they have that plan, that notion before they ever even talk to you. They may even do an audit of some sort, but they have what they're going to deliver on the back end. And that's where my company is different because we focus it from an operational standpoint, a 360 way of doing it. So we're coming in and analyzing your decision making process, your culture, your operational strength and maturity, your efficiency. So we're coming in, doing this 360 view, taking what would be 6, 12, 18 months embedded into an organization or business.

7:35And we're doing it in two to four weeks. So we come out of that and put together a growth plan for you for the next 12 months to help you tackle the gaps and holes that exist in your organization that are holding you back from growth. Then we also can stay with you from a consultant fractional standpoint to really help you execute on that growth plan. What types of companies are you working with? Yeah, so I would say our sweet spot right now is kind of the$5 to$50 million range. We've worked in nonprofits. We work with startups. We work with associations, small businesses, white collar, blue collar, because we're more operational focused.

8:12It really is industry agnostic more than probably the industry or size is the psychology and mindset of the leaders that they want to grow. They know things need to be evaluated. They know things need to change to get there and helping, allowing us to be that mechanism to help them discover what it is that needs to be changed. on the reverse side of that is a company that tends to not work for us or work with us is the one who says, you know what? This is a family-owned business. We've been doing the same thing for 30 years, and it's working just fine. Not going to hire us. It's got to have that mindset of, okay, we want to take things to another level.

8:50We want to lift the hood. We want to evaluate and figure out where we can grow. I neglected to mention, John, that you are also the author of the book, The Curious Leader, Unlocking Innovation, Empowering Teams, and Driving Change. It's been an Amazon number one bestseller. And it's available both in Kindle and paperback. Can you share a little bit about who this book is for? And by the way, this just published. So congratulations on that. And it's all, I mean, you've got some great reviews. So your readers love this book. Do you mind sharing just an overview of who this is for and what the impact would be of someone who read this book?

9:33Yeah, so it's geared towards business leaders, leaders of organizations. And what it really kind of helps you do is it kind of break down what it takes to be a curious leader. And I started leaning into curiosity from a leadership standpoint a couple years ago. It's something I feel that has been very innate in my life and in my leadership and business prowess. but like I didn't define it as curiosity until a couple years ago and really leaned into that. And for me to be a curious leader, you have to make three shifts, a shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. We were talking before about the kind of the family owned business and in wanting to have that growth.

10:12Right. And then moving towards operational excellence, which is a constant analysis of what you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it to continually look at ways to grow and change. Kind of look at as, you know, in the development world, agile development, right? Where they're constantly reiterating and putting it out there without stopping what already exists. And that's how I kind of look at operational excellence. And the last piece of it is, you know, unless you're the lead singer of a one-person band, you got to bring the team along with you. It's where a curious culture comes into play.

10:47And it's and allows feedback, pushback, questions, change, and allow it from every direction, every level to truly help the organization continue to innovate, grow, and change. Well, what stops an organization from that culture of curiosity? Us, humans. We are creatures of habit. We are creatures of comfort. We're fearful. All of these things that from a, you know, biological and evolutionary, you know, whatever your stance is on that, they exist for a reason, right? They keep us safe. That's what allowed us to get to where we are in humanity. But when it comes to innovation, they're the enemy.

11:31And so you gotta, they're natural, naturally occurring. So you have to create these mechanisms in your organization, in your life, in your mindset, that are going to allow you to move beyond those limitations. Yeah. What happens if a leader says to you, well, John, we're trying to create a culture of curiosity and we talk about it and I invite people, but no one is willing to stand up and push back or submit ideas. And I just can't figure out what we need to do. I'm sure you've heard this before. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'll give a little bit. So something I've been talking about for a while that I actually learned that Google did a study that really resonates towards this topic.

12:12They were trying to figure out what made teams successful within within Google. So they did surveys and interviews, all of the things they had their hypotheses of what it would be. What they came back with was psychological safety and creating the environment where people just feel safe to engage. And so that's what the goal is, is to create that psychologically safe environment. And some things that you can do that I recommend everyone do, and I talk about this in the book, is one, learn to speak last. With leaders, when we're in a meeting and we're talking about an event that just happened or some project and we're rehashing it, what's the first thing we do is say, hey, this just happened.

12:53Here are my thoughts. Here's what we went wrong. Here's what we need to improve. Now, let me know your thoughts. You just moved that entire conversation your direction. You might have someone who stands up a little bit and pushes back, but it's going to be watered down, right? So speak last and learn to invite them to speak first and explain to them why you want them to speak first. And then another big part of it is get to know your staff outside of the meetings, outside of find out what makes them tick and find out, you know, where the, where the, the struggles are in their role, how you can help them be better at their, at their job.

13:29What is it they need to perform better? It just starts creating that environment, that connection of trust that when you build that little by little, when you say, hey, guys, look, tell me how we messed up. They're going to be willing to jump in there and be honest because they know that you've built this environment about trust and collaboration. And it's not going to be this environment where, okay, if I say the wrong thing, I'm going to be fired. We build this community of trust. Yeah. You know, that was such a great tip too, to invite others to go first. because I can tell you, oh, you know, it's like, oh, and me, like I get into a team meeting, and I've got all these ideas, right?

14:10I'm the vision guy. And then of course, like, after I lay it all out, I can understand now that I think about it. It's like, well, why would, Josh has already got it figured out. Like, even if I'm saying like, I think this is my idea, but if they can see, you know, maybe if sometimes I'm coming with some enthusiasm or whatever, I can see that might be awkward for them to like, oh, I don't want to argue against Josh. But, you know, that's what I'm asking for it, but I'm not getting it. So the other thing to keep in mind is, you know, we're not assembly line workers anymore. Where we're building the same part 100 times a day.

14:49Every person in your organization has a different perspective of how the organization operates. Your accounting team has an amazing insight in how sales works, how marketing works, how partnerships work. Every person has insight and touches different parts of the organization different ways in allowing that environment where you normally say, you know, you work in accounting. Why are you talking about the sales process? Well, because that affects me and how I do my job. And so it breaks down the silos. It breaks down the hierarchy. and just allows everyone to collaborate and exchange ideas and be able to point out what's working, what's not working.

15:30Yeah. John, tell me about how folks in it. Well, so we talked about the book. Your website, by the way, is think-lateral.com. And can you tell me a little bit more about what discovery looks like or how might also, in addition to that, if you could kind of throw this in here as well, is how might someone know, like they've got good operational leaders within the company, but how might they know, oh, you know what? We really should grab a conversation with John because things are good, but they could be better. Yeah. I would say a lot of leaders fall into a few categories. One is sometimes is the organization's successful, but they just know something is off and they don't know what it is.

16:19And again, we have blind spots. We have habits that we just kind of sit in. And so having that third party come in and break down everything. Other ones are like, look, we want to grow. We want to take the next level. We don't know how. Or the third position is we want to grow. We want to take things to this level. We think we know how, but we want to make sure that the foundation is solid. Because if you don't make sure the operational foundation is solid, You can only grow so far to where it will stop, if not retract, because it's built on sand, if you will. And so I think everyone needs to find the time and the energy and the mindset to just truly have an honest conversation about where things are, how often you've changed.

17:08When's the last time you've changed a process or procedure? When's the last time you've questioned the things that no one's allowed to question? And if you can't do that internally for a variety of different reasons, or you just want the safety of and backup of a third party, that's when to call us and we'll come in. And again, we're always happy to do an initial consult and just talk through what the pain points are and see if we're a right fit. But truly, we have a process that we go through, right, which kind of breaks down the blind spots. But we're also bringing decades of operational experience.

17:45We are integrating AI into the process as well. We're looking at industry standards and we're bringing all of these things to the table to truly help organizations evaluate where they are so they can go to the next level. Yeah, yeah. And again, the book is available. It's called The Curious Leader, Unlocking Innovation, Empowering Teams, and Driving Change. It's got a bunch of five-star reviews. It's in paperback. It's on Kindle. It's on Amazon. John. And of course, on your website, think-lateral.com, folks can get to it. It's just under the resources tab. What other resources do you have available that you would recommend if someone's just like listening to us and they're like, okay, I want a little bit more John in my life.

18:27What would you recommend? Sure. So real quick on the book, if someone texts chapter, the word chapter to 33777, we will email you a PDF of the first chapter of the book. So that's one great way to get initial resource there. But we also have some very high level evaluations we can do, especially on decision making framework and some stuff. So on the resource page as well, there's a place where you can go and click on a link and fill out a organizational assessment on how you view your own organization. Now, when we do the full analysis, we're not just looking at one person's view of the organization.

19:09We're looking at all the decision makers, but that will at least start giving you some ability to look at how do I view my organization? How do I view my leadership and what changes do I need to make to go to the next level? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. All right. The website, think-lateral. John Basford, you're the founder and CEO. John's It's been great. Again, the book as well is available on Amazon. It's called The Curious Leader, Unlocking Innovation, Empowering Teams, and Driving Change. John Basford, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. It was a great conversation.

19:48Thanks 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.

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