Coming up on the Leadership Growth Podcast. Your business is like a body, and it's got all of its bespoke, critical path important parts that all need to be coordinated, and organized collectively for efficiency. And so if you're the head, then you must realize that you need a right arm and a left arm, and those arms need their right hands and their left hands working well. That's kind of the direction I like to go. And then I like to have conversations around, in a gasoline engine, when it comes to high performance, it only takes a spark plug to break and your engine stops working. So I like to point these, how everything is interdependent in the business. Your value chain is not just sales silo or marketing silo. They all need each other, and you want to be optimized in a way that all of those functions are designed to work interdependently to get 10x strength, speed, accuracy, and output.- Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Leadership Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Stewart, joined by my brother, Peter Stewart. And today we are honored to have a fantastic guest with us, Garrett Delph. Garrett, welcome to the Leadership Growth Podcast.- Hey, thanks, Daniel. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me on the show.- Absolutely. So let me more formally introduce Garrett. I'm gonna read briefly his little bio here. Tremendous experience. We're gonna have a fantastic conversation today. Garrett Delph, founder and CEO of Clarity Ops LLC, a serial entrepreneur and results-driven leader. He has founded three successful businesses, collectively generating over 40 million in revenue. And today, Garrett is an operating partner to business executive leadership in need of transformative solutions that extend business lifetime value, increase company profits and improve employee well-being. And it's ideal to have you here with us, Garrett, to talk about this topic itself. And the topic today is all about how to achieve operational success as a leader. And this operational success, yes, people's success and yes, others, but specifically, operational success, getting stuff done and getting the results. So I want to start off with this opening question to you, Garrett, what led you to focus on this as a topic for so much of your life's work, including today? Where did that passion, experience come from helping leaders have operational success? Great question, Daniel. You know, honestly, it came from a bunch of pain and failure. Are we going to dive deep into all of those? As I wipe the tears and the PTSD froth is up. No, you know, building the businesses that I have, you know, to date, I didn't have a roadmap and I had some great mentors along the way, but those mentors were not, you know, operationally savvy. They were strategic, which is great. I needed it. But, you know, they often, these really smart people that I hired would give me a ton of really great what, strategic what, but nobody ever gave me the how. And that, in my opinion, is where the magic lives. And so trying to figure out how to deploy go-to-market strategy was not for, still is not for the faint of heart in general, I believe. And so going through that, trial and error. I just found it to be excruciatingly painful and difficult, and, you know, often it felt insurmountable, and I couldn't find tools to do these things. And so you just—you know, we've heard it—we all have heard this along the way, like it takes grit, and you've got to keep on putting on grit every day. But over time, by God's grace, I architected tools that empowered my businesses to actually do it, but not only do it sort of once or twice, but do it in perpetuity repeatedly. And, and it was about five years ago that I thought, oh my gosh, like, this is a secret weapon. This is a secret weapon. And I really think the world of business needs something that they can lift and shift into their org, drop it in in a fast and easy way, use tools that are pre-built for operational efficiency and sturdiness and durability, and not have to slow down their business. Because I think that is the thing that most business owners, business leaders fret and resist and that is having to stop and build. As a matter of fact, most can't even afford it. And so, right, and so that led to this, you know, growing passion of mine, like, maybe I could put a dent in this statistic of nine in 10 businesses fail within, you know, over the course of 10 years, nine of them are dead, they're gone. What if I actually could could put a dent in that and change the lives of business owners, business leaders, and their teams that they depend on to succeed. And that's the why behind the passion, Daniel. Oh, it's great to hear that as you're sharing that, Garrett. And as you started off talking about that distinction, the distinction between strategy and operation, you know, the what you're trying to to accomplish versus the how. And start elaborating on that a little bit more. But I think that's just to kind of pull back to that point a little bit more,'cause I think oftentimes we get so caught up in just the day-to-day, just the fires that are going on and to pull up out of the weeds and really just think about that more distinctly, is there more that you would say in terms of advice or suggestions to help a business leader know I'm thinking strategically now versus I'm thinking operationally? Because there you can't be completely lopsided on one or the other. No. But how do you help find that that balance and what are those indications that all right we're doing a good job here? Yeah, yeah great question Peter. You know a lot of times businesses use kind of a North Star metric. A lot of times it's revenue and And they go, if we're hitting our revenue targets, and our customer churn in general is in a sweet spot, or we're happy with it, then we say we're doing good. In the meanwhile, and this is more probably personal to me, I think mileage will vary depending on what leader you talk to, but in the meanwhile, underneath these North Star success metrics is a tremendous amount of fret, pain, unhappiness, high employment churn, you know, bloated cogs, waste, you know, inefficiency, all these sorts of things, which I would contend over time will degradate the business and suddenly crash the plane or cause a lot of harm. And so, that would be my answer to your question there, Peter. Happy to dig more if you'd like. And so building on that, Garrett, what I'm hearing from you is you're describing inefficiencies, waste. And what is so bad about inefficiencies? I know that sounds like kind of a dumb question, but what's so bad about them? Why do they emerge? How do you tackle them? Because the inefficiencies as humans, I mean, it just happens all the time. And sometimes we're aware of them. Sometimes we aren't. And even if we are, sometimes we struggle knowing what the heck to do with these inefficient, these things that just take a lot of time and effort and energy and resources. Talk to us in terms of how do inefficiencies get created? What do you do with them to become more operationally successful? Yeah. Again, fantastic question, Daniel. So I always, you know, I think it's good to define inefficiency, you know, which is essentially resources, the businesses, the businesses are paying for, um, uh, which are misused, poorly used or unused. And those inefficiencies ultimately equal waste and loss. You know, it's like what is wasted? Money is wasted. Speed to deliver to customers is wasted. Imagine by the way, imagine if Amazon was inefficient in their logistic output, in their logistic architecture. The very thing that allowed them to disrupt the marketplace in terms of delivering products with Prime would not exist and they could not reign in that area. But instead, imagine if they were constantly emailing their customers and saying, "Sorry, we know you paid for Prime and we promised to deliver in two business days, but it's going to be seven business days because we're struggling with inefficiency." They wouldn't win. And so, you know, these things like waste, speed to market, speed to innovate. You had mentioned, Daniel, this idea of a kryptonite to the business. It's the law of entropy. It bogs down the business and it prevents it from achieving its ultimate goals, whatever that output is, to be competitive and serve their customers with excellence. That's how inefficiency cripples the business. You lose speed, you lose customers, you lose opportunity, you lose productivity, you lose scale. And then there's a whole host of negative cultural consequences that come with being inefficient as well. And so, and as a side note, this is pretty common in business. Come back to the stat, you know, and most businesses failing. I would contend, although, you know, probably there's some product market fit stuff in there, and you know, finances are a big thing. But I think in general, I would contend it's the kryptonite in the operation that really harms them the most, you know. And if there's time today, I definitely have opinions about how to solve that and how to solve that in perpetuity for sure, for sure. You mean, we don't want to just sit here worshiping a problem? We want to actually give some advice on what to do?. I love that. You know, this is just the pragmatic nature of what we want to do, because, man, we could sit here talking about all of the reasons and how do you become aware of these inefficiencies and all that, but ultimately, It's like, what can you do about it? And I like your simple definition of inefficiency. It's a misused resource. Yeah. Yeah. There's something wasted, something wasteful about what's being allocated. So with that, I'm sure you've talked to hundreds and thousands of leaders who find themselves in this, the sea of chaos, you know, all these inefficiencies around them. Where do you start? Where do you begin to tackle this? Because man, it can feel daunting. It sure can. It is. It is daunting, by the way, you know, especially Daniel, Peter, you know, most businesses don't have the luxury of this sort of venture capital runway, you know, they don't they don't have the luxury to kind of have this, you know, monthly spend that's going to, you know, this daunting monthly spend that they get to just allocate capital to and make things work. And they have a three to five year run to figure it out. Most businesses all over the world, but you know, especially here in our backyard in the United States, they're bootstrapped and they depend on their monthly revenue and whatever bit of profit is left to reinvest back in the business. And so they're, they're pinching. This is the reality of most businesses. And so where do you start? I would say, I think any business owner needs to start with actually valuing efficiency, valuing order. Because if you actually don't value it, if it's not important to you, then you will never do anything about it. I think that's the nature of values. And I think then the other thing is if you do value it, and you want to do something about it, then you have to figure out how to architect it. And for those businesses that ultimately come to the place where they're like, "Inefficiency and the waste and the loss"that comes with it is so painful to me."I want to do something." Then I have a couple, a few recommendations. One is when it comes to your management and leadership, get them unified. Because they're the ones that you've paid to be at the helm to ultimately drive toward your strategic goals and get the outputs that you want. And they need to be unified cross-functionally and vertically. I always recommend an acronym I like to use called PIE, as simple as PIE. Your leaders need to be professional and then define the criteria of what professional means. They need to have integrity. I mean, just good old fashioned, do what they say they're gonna do, be honest, don't lie. These, those three things alone, man, they work magic in a business if all of the managing leaders are on board for that. And then the E stands for EQ or empathy, where you have, you know, leaders that are aware, you know, that they're working with humans and they are understanding, but also holding people accountable. So I think unified leadership agreements are critical. I think the other thing--- Jared, I'm gonna pause you a second, just 'cause that little, what do you call it? It's not an acronym, an acronism, whatever, the PIE--- Yeah, acronym, yeah.- Yeah, acronym, that's fabulous. So PIE stands for professional, integrity, empathy. Those are just the foundational attributes. you're suggesting that really helps set the table for leadership.- I do. Not only do I suggest it, I've seen it work. Great story out of the book, "The Airbnb Story." Those guys have a really great chapter on hiring, and they talk about hire for great. And they really get into it. And they talk about like, The only way you can hire for great is to define for great. And so, you know, business leaders, C-suite, founder, CEO, you know, whoever's making these decisions at the top, they have the luxury, but also the privilege, and I would contend the responsibility, to set the stage here, you know, to say that when we form our leadership teams, or our, you know, our leadership, these are the requirements, period. This is the bar. I think that's a really special thing. But, you know, Peter, we were talking earlier about how, you know, we just go fast because we're trying to build, and a lot of time these foundational pillars get left out. And then, you know, as a result, chaos ensues. Yeah. What I'm loving is this idea of architecting order. And there is so much around this notion, because it presumes that maybe order doesn't necessarily happen on its own. Because sometimes leaders, either out of being overwhelmed or not knowing what to do or whatever, they just let things continue. And I find when problems continue, they don't necessarily go away. They often become larger and/or create other dysfunctions that are then surprises, and it becomes more complicated and more complex, and it's challenging. And this notion of architecting order as a proactive, as a intentional activity, is a fascinating concept. So riff on that, play with this a little bit. If you're talking right now to, say, a president of a small business, or a director of a large area of a company, whatever it is, or even a person who's working a five or six person team, what are ways that that person, that leader, can begin to try to architect order within their operations? What would you say? Yeah, well, first of all, Daniel, I just want to say I love that phrase, architecting order. I just, I, it kind of makes me giddy because I know the, I know, I know the power behind it, you know? So I wanted to thank you for that. I actually have, I have not heard that said before, and I think it's really powerful. Well, it's sort of like a mentor of mine said years ago, "You can only build as high as you dig deep." And so this idea of architecting order is about getting your foundation right. There's a reason that skyscrapers dig 20 stories deep, so they can build 200 stories high. And so going back to it's all about that foundation thing, I'd say some foundational components is what I would recommend. And they would go something like, number one, distribute and load balance your leadership focus. And so one mistake I made many times and learned from them, but what I see many C-suites or even founders, CEOs make this mistake, is they go find great people and set them free. I think it's the biggest lie that has hit our current business culture. The biggest lie. It's not true. It doesn't work. Even leaders need leaders and need rails. And so what I like to do is break that into four categories. Find your strategic leaders, find your maintain and support leaders, find your process leaders, and find your project leaders. And distribute those focus areas into bespoke roles that all work together. Don't cram strategy, maintenance, process, and project management into one leader. You're in for a world of hurt and in for a world of waste, loss, and inefficiency. Garrett, for our listeners, can you run through those four types of leaders again? Because I think that's a very helpful lens through which to view and leverage the talents that your team members bring. Because finding someone who's good at all of those, all four of those, that's a unicorn. That is rare. You're right. That's exactly right. It's unicorn, but that's what we do. We treat our managers like they're unicorns. And you know, we're not. Anyways, yeah, it's, I kind of came up on this concept. It's called the quad core management framework, Daniel. And I kind of just robbed from how computers are architected. And you know, computer companies, when they make computers, they, we see it year after year, they're constantly focusing on efficient output and load balancing of data and power. And so that's where these four came from. The first is strategy. The second is maintain and support, kind of a classic manager that's focused on performance and output. And their job is to make sure that benchmarks are stated, they're managed, and the output is guaranteed. Then you have process. Any growing business is constantly in the state of, you know, continuously improving and/or building new processes to stay efficient and hit their goals. And then you have your project managers. And those are the people that work collectively, cross-functionally, across the org to make sure that new initiatives, new innovations, even, you know, continuous improvement efforts, all stay on track with milestones, deadlines, tasks, and ownership, so that, you know, all of those move together forward. So those are the four. This is tremendously insightful. So let's take this one more step. I'm sure you've, with all the different companies you've consulted with, and I'm thinking so many clients that Peter and I have worked with as well, You can get sometimes a leader who is really good on the visionary stuff, can see the big picture, is excited, they can inspire others. They're not necessarily the same person who is then able to make a project plan. And they don't have the patience, they don't have the energy, they don't have the passion, and they big picture and thus sometimes they can do what you just said is one of the biggest myths,"Hire great people and say, just go do whatever the heck you need to do and tell me and I'll just keep thinking great ideas." And that is somehow this mythos, this ideal that we have that, oh yeah, that works. What do you say to that visionary strategy ideas person to help them recognize operational success is more than simply just hiring good people and sitting back and saying, "Yep, did my job." How do you balance that? Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's a big question. I would go, you know where I would start, Daniel? I think I would go back to that thing we talked about earlier in the podcast is, do you recognize that this is a problem? Or do you think you are the smartest person in the room and you are a unicorn. Because what I've seen, you know, consistently is if the person at the top, you know, let's say the visionary often is the founder or has that baton has been passed to a CEO. And if they think they're the smartest person in the room, and they think they can do it all, then there's really, let's not have that conversation until you realize, you know, the, the, the error. in your thinking. (laughs) But once they're there, hopefully the very next step is to say, to acknowledge and realize, you know, your business is like a body. And it's got all of its bespoke critical path important parts that all need to be coordinated and organized collectively for efficiency. And so if you're the head, then you must realize that you need a right arm and a left arm, and those arms need their right hands and their left hands working well. That's kind of the direction I like to go. And then I like to have conversations around, in a gasoline engine, when it comes to high performance, it only takes a spark plug to break and your engine stops working. So I like to point these, you know, how everything is interdependent in the business. Your value chain is not just sales silo or marketing silo. They all need each other and you want to be optimized in a way that all of those functions are designed to work interdependently to get 10X strength, speed, accuracy and output, you know. Daniel, those are the conversations I like to have. Side note —great, there's a really great. I don't know if you guys have seen it documentary on Netflix, it's the Formula One documentary and there's one episode where the Italians both of their cars are leading the race and both of them come in behind each other into the pit stop and they do that, you know, nine second change out first car takes off, hits the first corner, spins out of control, loses a wheel, out of the race. Done. They lose that car. Why? One of the guys forgot to put on one lug nut. One lug nut and that was enough to rip that that that tire off the car. Second car came in I kid you not same thing happened Italians are devastated and I just think it's such a great analogy for business like you know a visionary leader, and typically it's the founder CEO, it is their job to be mindful of all of the moving parts in their engine of success and to optimize for it if their goal is to win. Those are great, great analogies and comparisons and helping really to remind, It's hard to run, manage, lead, and sustain a successful business and organization. It doesn't just happen by accident. To have that last in perpetuity, to continue to be vibrant, to continue to be salient and relevant in your market, it takes a lot of work. To go back to Daniel's term, how do you architect that order intentionally? So throughout this episode, we've pulled on a few analogies. Digging deep like a skyscraper so you can go tall. I love that. You know, the formula one, one you're talking about. And thinking even about how a computer is structured or a body. Now, I want to dive in personally for you, Garrett, a little bit. I know some of your past. You've run a photography business. I know that's a skill and a talent that you have. What are some analogies or parallels that you've learned from being a photographer that can apply to how do you operationalize and improve an organization? You know, my first large business, sorry, it was a small business, but for me, the first business that had, you know, 15 people and a ton of moving parts was my photography business. And going into it, I did not realize how many moving parts there would be. And and so I say from for for that business, I think that the analogies for me were were less about the art of photography, but more about how fascinated and how much I did not appreciate and I misunderstood that the business requirements below the surface of taking pictures were literally 200x that of taking pictures. And that was the big, I think that the biggest learning opportunity for me that, you know, it's the iceberg analogy, you know, at the very tip, taking photos, but underneath that 200 moving parts that I had no idea were going to be a requirement to make a living and provide for my family, you know. And for that, I'm very appreciative and thankful that I was able to, you know, see and learn about and figure out how to connect all of those moving parts in a way that delivers excellence to the customer, but also creates success for the business. That's fantastic. Okay, so Lightning Round question for you, Garrett. Okay, so with all your experience that you have, what is the one tool, what is the one place, approach that you would recommend for a leader to be able to help build an operationally successful organization? What's the one tool that you'd recommend? Okay, this is an agnostic answer. I think the best tool any leader in any business can use is a job description. I think it is the most underutilized, unappreciated tool in business, the job description. Why? In my opinion, it is the DNA in the seed of the apple. It is all of the meta, all of the instructions, all of the things, if you get it right, that lead to the intended outcome that the business wants. Because when you begin to assemble all of the job descriptions into the foundation of the org chart, and then vertically and horizontally as it grows out, these all are connected, and they map. If a business owner or leader would just invest in the job description, it will map and get it right. It will map its own way to success. It will provide instruction, guideline, it will manage expectations, it will point to output, it will produce profit. That's it, Daniel. The clarifying of expectations, that is powerful. That's fantastic. Well, as we wrap up here, Garrett, thank you so much for being a guest here. As people, as our listeners are listening here, and they want to reach out and chat with you in any way, how can they get a hold of you? Well, thank you, Daniel. By the way, Daniel, Peter, thank you for having me on your show. This has really been great. Like I said, it's talking about the stuff's like going to Disneyland for me. So thank you very much. I can be found on LinkedIn. Garrett Delph is my handle. And also they can check out our site, clarityops.co. And lots of content there and stuff about, you know, in what we do and where we focus.- That's awesome.- It's been a pleasure, Garrett. Thanks for all the insights. And I hope people can look you up and learn more. As listeners, as we're wrapping up this episode, I hope you're also thinking about what is the one thing? What's the one takeaway for you that you are going to commit to, to be a better operational leader?- It's a great challenge, especially to turn all of this great insight into action and to help your organization and your team, which is really, of course, the whole purpose here for our Leadership Growth Podcast, helping share the tools and ideas to be able to help elevate your ability to lead others. Thank you everyone for joining. Again, thank you, Garrett, great seeing you, Peter, as always, and all of our listeners. 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