2388 - The Playbook for a Winning Team Culture with BH Consultancy’s Bobby Humes

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0:38I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, Bobby Humes, a.k.a. Coach Bobby. Bobby, you are the founder and CEO of BH Consultancy. You're found on the web at bhconsultants.co. You're up in Seattle. I was just up there with my wife. You and I were talking about this beforehand. I went up there for an anniversary trip and just had such a great time up there. Great people. But hey, listen, Bobby, it's great to have you on the show. Glad to be here, Josh. Thanks for having me. Before we get going talking about the work that you do in the world, I always love just hearing what leaders do when they're passionately not at work.

1:23What have you been geeking out on lately? Yeah, what I've been geeking out on this season, Josh, is youth basketball. So I coach a team of first and second grade boys at my son's school. And it is very humbling because they are all at the same time passionate about playing together, but also as passionate about not listening or doing anything that I tell them to do to be effective at the game of basketball. But it's really fun. It's very humbling. Do you think, is it just because they're so excited to play or? Yeah, I think, I think that, you know, basketball has like some intended outcomes. And, you know, seven, seven and eight year olds aren't really interested in set outcomes.

2:10Like they want to be dragons, right? Like if I want to be a dragon right now, I'm going to do that on the basketball court. No matter what coach Bobby is saying, I want to be seven. And so it's just getting them to translate some of that open energy into the game of basketball. It's always that challenge. Wow. Well, I think that talk about the easiest segue in the world here, because I think that that actually has application to how we might be showing up on the court of business or with our team members. You know, I know, and I'll just, you know, kind of think of, you know, I'll just kind of speak for myself as a founder, you know, when, especially our founders who are visionaries, right?

2:53And how easy it is, like, you know, we always want to, I think I maybe ideally, let other people shine. um i i know that because sometimes my ideas come pretty fast and furious sometimes i get caught in that trap of wanting to be the dragon and i'm like oh i could get this whole thing done faster if i just do it i don't want to do it forever uh but i'm so excited to get this to market or make this available for my clients or get this message out to my audience or whatever and so uh sometimes it can be very tempting to do things that we know we should not be doing, but there are consequences of that.

3:33Do you mind maybe just kind of addressing the basketball analogy to how this might be playing out in business? Absolutely. So I think much like business, we as CEOs, as entrepreneurs, we're trying to do something and we have an idea of how it's supposed to look. We want it to look a certain way. And, you know, the reality of it is, I can't Benjamin Button myself and be a seven or eight year old, I can't jump into the game and start playing. By the way, there's a story out there about a basketball coach in high school who actually put on a uniform and played in a game. Super inappropriate, right?

4:11Like we can't we can't be in that space. And we also set ourselves up long-term to not be able to do, to have a team who can do that thing that we're trying to do. It's going to make a lot more sense for us to, you know, allow someone else to be the dragon a little bit. And if we can take that, that energy, that creativity and say, you know what, actually in basketball, the best dragons are the one who dribble down the court and score. So let's work on that. And you can roar the whole way down court, but I need you to move in this really thoughtful way because that's the game that we're playing.

4:45Yeah. Wow. Wow. So Bobby, tell me about the work that you do. Yeah. Coach Bobby, what is, what is coach Bobby doing with his, with his people? Yeah, I'm, I'm blessed in this season to support leaders, teams, and organizations play their game. Right. So part of my business is working with, I call them emerging and established leaders, those leaders who, you know, a lot of us were technicians who were called up to be leaders and no one really taught us how to do the day-to-day leadership. And so I help leaders cross over from technical expertise into people expertise and really hone their emotional intelligence and, you know, open the aperture a bit about the type of leader that they want to be.

5:33For our experienced leaders, I help them shift. Sometimes that's into or out of a career field or a career opportunity or help them scale their business. And for organizations, I do all manner of things from HR consultation to trainings and development, strategic planning. I'm a nerd for all things, people and systems. That's sort of where I live on that edge of people and systems. Well, and there's a lot of disruption in some sectors because of the lot of technical advancements, notably AI and AI software or tools that now have more AI components. And I think, you know, as leaders, we're always trying to find more efficient ways to produce better outcomes for our clients.

6:26I'm sure that this has been coming up for some of the clients that you work with. Yeah, not as much for me. What I'm seeing right now is happening is leaders getting clear about the talent that's leading and the talent that's coming into the organization. And so they're just a little behind that curve of thinking critically about nuanced change from a technical standpoint like AI and more thinking, hey, this person who's been doing this thing for 20 years is leaving. What am I going to do about that? And do I have the leaders in my organization to come and fill that spot? And in a lot of cases, they don't.

7:04And so they find themselves. It's almost like for me and my clients going back to 2021 into the great resignation and seeing a lot of opportunities with, you know, replacing key talent and not having the, you know, sustainability kind of built in, you know, desk manuals, things like that, that are going to help people be successful, hitting the ground running straight out. So, you know, I kind of get worried for folks because they haven't figured out today, they can't lean into tomorrow, which was where your AIs live, where all these opportunities are. Well, so what, aside from that, Coach Bobby, are you seeing regarding the biggest trends now that we're well into 2026?

7:52Are there systems or technology that you're excited about that you think can really assist us in better running our systems and onboarding people and retaining them and creating more esprit de corps? Yeah. I really like this idea of wellness platforms, giving people things other than their benefits that they can interact with, ways for them to, if they want to explore mindfulness, how do they do that? If they want to maybe have some type of physical fitness contest within the organization that creates some esprit de corps and creates some energy, what platforms enable them to do that? So sort of coming alongside staff and giving them some other tools that help them take control of their well-being in a really nuanced way.

8:52And then you mentioned AI. I would love to see more organizations think about not AI as a replacement tool, like how can I get rid of staff, but more how can I make the time that staff have better? We have a rule on our team. If you're spending longer than five minutes drafting an email, it's time to use AI. It's time to, let's put ourselves in, let's create some templates. Let's let AI create some templates for us. modernize and streamline our search engine. So our search engines have the chat GPT extension already built in. So if you and I are on a work party digitally and we're having some back and forth, let's say in a Slack channel, we can push a button and AI will create some next steps for us, some workflows for us, some reports for us.

9:50And now we've saved that time where we can really be face-to-face with clients and not stagnant doing that deeper work, which really doesn't really add that ultimate value for the folks that we work with. So imagine now we're speaking to a room of a lot of SMB, a lot of B2B founders, folks that have been at the helm five, 10 more years. They've got themselves a small team. What are you a big fan of? If you had just a couple of minutes to share a message with that audience about things that you would encourage them to be very thoughtful about. I noticed that was your word of the year. I just commented on your LinkedIn, like, well, how appropriate that we just have you on the thoughtful entrepreneur.

10:39But if we're trying to encourage thoughtful leadership, what would be a good prescription for that? Not that we could just agree that we want that in principle, but that we can actually execute on that. Absolutely. You know, it's this whole idea is not, this is not a new thing, right? What, what got you here won't get you there. And, you know, it's really thinking about vision. I think that there is a, a thirst for organizations and institutions to think beyond this current moment. And there's a lot going on in the world. It's a lot that's shaping the narrative of business. And as the leader, you get to be a part of that.

11:22Like you don't have to let the external environment dictate that for you. So based on what, based on what you see, where do you want to go? What's it going to take for you to get there? And how do you bring your people along? I think as you start, as we start to answer these questions and get curious about these things, this is where we get to embrace new technology. This is where we get to develop new skills and listen differently to our staff about what they believe is necessary for us to get to some of these new places and opportunities. It might look like new client services. It might look like new partnerships.

11:59It might look like hedging what is currently working to see if there's some opportunity to scale or, right, it's just getting beyond the day-to-day and thinking, okay, where do we want to be in five to 10 years? You know, I was working at the city of Seattle and we were working on this five-year plan to transform the HR function for the city. And then this weird thing happened called COVID. And what it did was it blew up our five-year plan. And so I'm a real big fan of future thinking in two-year time chunks. That way you can pivot. But I would really lean into that group of folks who are listening and saying, hey, that's me.

12:44I'm the person that Josh is teeing up. I would encourage you, don't rest. Look for your new opportunities and figure out how you can lean in and take your team with you. Yeah. Bobby, how are you working with your clients? Like, what does that look like? What are the, first off, what are the major pain points that you generally hear where you go, yeah, you should have been talking to Coach Bobby some time ago? And what does that engagement look like? And what are the outcomes that you create? You can condense that down. I just realized I probably gave you like a 15-minute answer question. Try to condense that down in just like two minutes if you could.

13:25I'll do my best. Two minutes. The biggest thing I'm hearing and the thing I think is so cool is exactly kind of what I was talking about in that last response and that strategy. thinking about, you know, how to do more with less, you know, how to scale what is, you know, what's working and how to play more. And I know sometimes I use the word play and fun and people go, you know, they don't think I'm serious. I'm very serious that play is akin to innovation. And so how do we create cultures where people can play with new ideas and concepts? And And so the way that I do that with my clients is I love a good whiteboard session.

14:09I love to ask big, bold questions, getting them thinking about some of the nuances of what's happening in their business or services and really mirroring back their language to them. Right. So I'm hearing you say this, Josh. Is that right? Yeah. Okay, so what might we do next? And getting them into formulating a plan that they can then take these wonderings, these nuanced possibilities and creating some action steps that they can take back to their staff and move forward. Yeah. All right. Well, your website, bhconsultants.co, to our friend that's listening and they want more Coach Bobby in their life, what would you recommend they do?

14:53Where do they go from here? Check out the website. There's a place for you to schedule a discovery chat. And it's just a place for us to get to know each other. And for me to ask you some questions about what you're up to, you know, what's important to you. And then based on how you respond, I might offer some suggestions. It might be, hey, let's have a whiteboard session. Let's just talk about what you're up to a little bit more to see if there's a way that we can partner. And if there's not a way that we can partner, I'm cool with that. How can I leverage my network to support you in getting to where you want to be?

15:28And so that discovery calls that is the great first step into identifying if I'm the right coach or consultant or strategist to help you reach your goals. Yeah. Yeah. I like your blog too. Your, your design is pretty great. It's called consider this. You can click on that as well. So, but wonderful. Well, Bobby Humes, again, your website, bhconsultants.co of which you are the founder on Coach Bobby, it's been great having you on the show. Thank you for joining us. Josh, my esteemed pleasure, friend. Thank you.

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17:10Thanks again for spending your time with us. I'll see you next time.