Bill Flynn is the author of Further, Faster: The Vital Few Steps that take the Guesswork out of Growth and we had a really interesting conversation about building a business and what the characteristics are of somebody who builds a business that endures.

Obviously, there’s a lot going on that we need to endure through right now. Even if you don’t have a business yourself and you’re listening as a leader who wants to have influence, there’s a lot in this episode for you.

In this conversation, Bill and I discussed his book, how to go from being sucked into those moments where you’re constantly putting out fires to being able to relax and plan for the future, how leading as a human being creates trust, how your response as a leader right now can impact your future success, and more!

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Catalyst Growth Advisors’ Website
• Catalyst Growth Advisors’ Offerings
• Bill Flynn’s Book | Further, Faster: The Vital Few Steps That Take the Guesswork out of Growth
• Amy Edmondson’s TED Talk | How to turn a group of strangers into a team
• David Rock’s Book | Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

 

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Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and that they can make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

 

Today, I have with me Bill Flynn, who is the author of Further, Faster: The Vital Few Steps That Take the Guesswork Out of Growth.  We have a really, really interesting conversation for you, in particular about building a business and what the characteristics are of somebody who builds a business that endures.

And obviously, there’s a lot going on that we need to endure through right now.  So, we’re going to talk not only about the business aspect of it, but the leadership aspects.  So, if you don’t have a business yourself but you’re listening as a leader who wants to have influence, there’s a lot here for you.  We have a very, very introspective and interesting conversation.

In this conversation, we talk about his book, particularly about building a healthy, thriving business.  We talked about how to go from being sucked into the tyranny of the moment – those moments where you’re sort of putting out fires that feel like crisis all the time inside the business – to being able to relax, step outside of the business, to be able to think about it, and really plan for the future.

He also talks about leading as a human being to create trust and what that really looks like, and then how leaders respond to pain – particularly right now – really can impact their future success.  I think that you’re going to get a lot out of this conversation with Bill Flynn.

Andrea:  Bill Flynn, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Bill Flynn:  Thank you for having me on, Andrea.

Andrea:  So, Bill, tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.

Bill Flynn:  Yeah.  So, I’ll start back a little before my business because I think it’s relevant.  So, for about twenty-five years, I was an entrepreneur.  I did ten startups over that time frame.  At one point there, I was five for six, but I’ve always been a student of business.  I’ve always learned… you know, or tried to learn about how to get better and how to improve.

And what I found out along the way, actually after the fact, was that my style is really a coach style and that’s now what I do.  I am a leadership or a business coach.  So, I work with leadership teams, and I help them think about how to run their businesses well as they can.  I ask a lot of questions.  I teach them a framework that is mostly based on some certifications that I have, but I also add some of my own stuff in there.

So, I do that until recently.  I did that full-time and now I’m helping my clients.  Most of them, actually, can’t afford to pay me right now, but I’m doing it for free because this is a calling for me, so I want to help people as much as I can.  So that’s what I do at a high level.  I’m certainly happy to go into more details if you wish.

Andrea:  Well, it probably would be wise to go ahead and explain why free, why now?

Bill Flynn:  Well, so we’re recording this just at the beginning of April and COVID or the coronavirus situation is really coming to a head, if you will.  So, many of my clients are struggling.  One of them just laid off 60% of their workforce on Wednesday.  So, it’s been sort of really difficult for them.  Others are doing okay.  Actually, some of them are doing well, but there’s concern for the future and they want to make sure they preserve as much cash as possible.

So, I’m, you know, an expense they would rather not have to have.  So, I’m forgiving them that for now because, you know, their employees are more important.  So that’s sort of why things are going the way they are, unfortunately.  It’s too bad because my business was doubling every year and had been for about three or four years in a row.  But what are you going to do?

Andrea:  Yeah, yeah.  It’s very strange.  It’s a strange time when things just aren’t the way that that they’re supposed to be, it seems.

Bill Flynn:  Yeah, right.  Exactly, and who knows if they’ll ever get back that way.

Andrea:  Right.  You know, since we’re here already at this point, one of the things that we’re here to talk about is your book Further, Faster.  So, obviously, that is something that’s going to be really important for people, for businesses in particular.  But it also might change a little bit depending on how things shake out.  And maybe could you start by telling us just a little bit about your book and what people can really get out of it?

Bill Flynn:  Sure, yeah.  So, I never intended to ever write a book.  I actually don’t like writing.  I don’t consider myself a very good one, but I’ve been doing this for about four or five years.  I speak all over the country, and I help whoever I can, and I’ve got a lot of feedback from people saying the way I look at things is really different than they’ve heard from others.  So they said, “Hey, you should write some of this stuff down.”  And so I did.

I actually hired a company called Scribe Media to help me with it because of my lack of interest in writing.  And I went through a really great process where, basically, they interview you like you would be doing, but they do it over about ten or twelve hours.  And then someone who is a much better writer than I am tries to find my voice, and then writes it all down, and we sort of work through that.  So that was a process.

But, basically, the book was just released.  And the reason we decided to release it was because it’s a book that applies to this situation.  What I teach my clients is to build a really healthy and thriving business – one of those things is to make sure that you have enough cash to weather inevitable situations like this.  You know, we’re twenty years into the century, and we’ve already had three.  You know, we’ve had 9/11 we’ve had 2008, and we’ve had now that this thing, which are really impactful crises.

And one of the things I tell folks is you should have a set of capital that’s set aside for this happening, and you can decide how long you need it for.  You know, I usually recommend six months – there are some people who want to do it for a year.  There are some people who are smaller and struggling, and they’re happy to just get three months.  You know, whatever it is to just sort of get started.  But the bulk of the book is actually thinking about how do I actually build a business that endures, which we typically don’t have a lot of time to do because we’re too busy running the business.

And one of the first things I teach the leader – or the head of company, as I like to call them – is you need to figure out how to fire yourself from the day-to-day as quickly as possible, because your job isn’t to run the company anymore – it’s to predict the future.  And predicting the future takes brain cells and insight and innovation and creativity, which is stunted or really stopped if you’re thinking about the day-to-day crisis.  I like to call it the tyranny of the moment.  We’re sucked into that tyranny of the moment too often, which doesn’t allow our brain to think.

I ask a question which I love, which is, you know, “When do you get your best ideas,” and it’s usually when I’m running or in the shower or whatever, when you’re not actually thinking.  When you’re trying to think or trying to solve a problem, you let your brain relax.  And that’s the kind of thing you need to do to grow.  That’s what the book is about.

So, we released it because… I don’t think it can help anyone right this moment.  But if you start reading it and think for the future, once you get out of this crisis and the hunkering down part is sort of… you’ve done as much as you can, you’ve survived at least for a period of time, and you can start thinking about the future.  This book is great for that.

I’m an 80/20 guy; it’s written into the title of which is Further, Faster.  It’s the vital few steps, and the law of the vital few is really the 80/20 rule, and that’s what the book is.  It’s really the few things that you should do first and focus on those and get a hold on those which will move you furthest fastest; then you can work on the other stuff.  I like to sort of think of it as this is the book for the big knobs that you can turn, and then there are other great books for the smaller knobs that you can turn to truly tweak and improve.

Andrea:  So, getting everybody together and onboard is part of what is crucial to moving forward and to moving quickly.  That’s something that we have particular interest in here at Voice of Influence is, you know, how do you have that influence and make sure that you’re actually influencing others in a very ethical way.  And one of the things that you bring up in your book is trust.

Bill Flynn:  Yeah.

Andrea:  On page 75, you say, “Game-changing ideas can come from anywhere in your organization.  The odds of them filtering up to you increase considerably when you hire the right people, and let them know that they can talk freely about their ideas without fear of judgment or ridicule.”  Would you tell us a little bit more about how to create that kind of environment where people are able to share their ideas freely?

Bill Flynn:  Yeah, sure.  So important, really great question, and thank you for referencing a page in the book.  That’s great.  So, I’m a bit of a neuroscience geek, which you may have noticed from some of the stuff in the book and creating this sort of psychological safety – which Amy Edmondson has really coined the term – is really important.  So, that starts with you as the leader.

The best way to create that environment is to show that you’re a human being.  You’re flawed.  You’re irrational.  You make mistakes.  You’re okay saying, “I’m sorry and I screwed up.”  That goes a long way, you know.  We are tribal in nature, and we’re also very forgiving in nature.  And if you are seen as that and you let yourself be vulnerable in that kind of way, then people will start to say, “Oh, well, if the boss can be screwing up left and right and whatever, and admit it then, boy, it might probably be okay for me to do that as well.”

And, you know, that people will be a lot more comfortable with being themselves and speaking up, questioning things.  You know, Amy Edmondson has this great quote that she talks about in one of her TED Talks, which says, “It turns out that no one wakes up in the morning and jumps out of bed and says, ‘I can’t wait to go to work today to look ignorant, incompetent, intrusive or negative.’  We prefer to look smart, helpful, and positive.”

But what happens in the workplace is, unfortunately – we don’t always do it deliberately, sometimes we do it inadvertently – we create this environment where people don’t feel comfortable doing that.   So, they don’t want to look ignorant, so they don’t ask any questions.  They don’t want to look incompetent, so they don’t admit a weakness or mistake.  And they don’t want to look intrusive, so they don’t offer ideas; and they don’t want to look negative, so they don’t criticize the status quo or certainly don’t criticize the leader.

You have to be open as a leader to be criticized and to be challenged, and be okay with that and be curious and say, “Wow, we have completely different way of looking at this thing. I’d be really great to understand your perspective.  I hired you.  You know, I hired you because you’re smart, and you’re a good fit, and you have skills and all these things.  So, it’s in my best interest to at least hear what you have to say, and then figure out if maybe that’ll modify my way of thinking or change my way of thinking.  

“Or have you understand, ‘I’ve thought that through and here’s why I didn’t do it that way.’”  And they understand that, right?  So, they’ve been acknowledged, and they’ve understood, and you’ve explained to them why maybe that isn’t the way to go.  That’s what you have to do.  It really all starts with you and you with your team.

Andrea:  Totally agree.  Have you noticed any particular characteristics of leaders who kind of allow themselves to be open to criticism and change their way of thinking?  Or any particular characteristics of leaders who kind of just don’t know how to go there and refuse to go there?

Bill Flynn:  Yeah.  So, definitely the first part; the second part is a lot longer answer, unfortunately.  So, I actually pick my clients, and I look for three things.  I look for someone who’s humble, I look for someone who’s a lifelong learner, and someone who is comfortable challenging the status quo.  And I have a process I work through; I talk to them a few times, I ask them a bunch of questions, I ask them about their team.

I actually offer ninety minutes of my time for free in front of their team and walk them through an exercise so I can see how they interact with their team, because behavior really tells everything.  We can say we are a certain way, but you really don’t prove it until you behave that way and you’re put in that situation.  So, I try to create that environment so I can see them.

And I’ve turned down some clients where I didn’t really like the way they interacted – they thought they were the answer man.  It’s usually the man, by the way, too often.  They felt like they had all the answers, and they would look weak if they didn’t.  I can’t really help them, because I’m going to come in and ask a lot of really basic questions that they probably don’t know the answers too.  And if they’re not comfortable saying, “You know, wow, that’s really good.  I’m glad you made me think that way,” then I can’t help them.  So, those are the three characteristics that I look for.

There are too many other explanations of the other person, right?  I sort of make a half joke and I say 95 to 99% of all leaders should hire someone like me and 95 to 99% of those people never will.  They don’t want to be seen as not being the answer man, right?  Jim Collins calls it the “Genius with a Thousand Helpers.”  I can’t help that person.  And at some point, they’re going to run out of time and energy, and that’s usually what happens.

It’s usually when growth stalls is when that dynamic, you know… an intelligent and really dedicated founder just runs out of time and energy, and hasn’t built that culture – they almost always hit a wall.  It might take a year.  It may take five years.  It might take ten years, but you will hit the wall.  And it’s unfortunate because you probably built something really great, but just haven’t created that environment to take it to the next step.

Andrea:  You know, as I think about the situation that we’re in currently and what you just said, something else that comes to mind for me is people’s experience with pain.  I’ve noticed that people who have experienced pain and have almost a brokenness… not necessarily in the idea that they were completely broken as a person, but to the point where they felt like they needed help, to the point where they accepted that they were not able to be everything for everybody, that sort of thing.

There is something really powerful with the person who has gone there and their ability to do the things that you just mentioned – those characteristics that you talked about when you’re picking your clients – being humble, and learner, and wanting more than the status quo.  When you add to that also just this experience of pain and how one responds to that, there’s something incredibly powerful with that.  Would you want to comment on that?

Bill Flynn:  Yeah, sure.  I’ll take it from two perspectives.  One is what I found is, especially, working with all the founders… because I was never a founder of a company.  I was usually brought in to help scale it, you know, sales, marketing service, that kind of thing, kind of a CEO kind of level.  And what I’ve found was the founders that had the most trouble with in working with, and getting them to the next level or helping them get to the next level were those who are really successful.  Either in some other part of their life, or maybe they had a previous success or two in founding companies.  They just assumed, it seemed, that the next one would be right so everything that they thought was perfect.

And it was only, I think, those that I worked with that had had difficulty before, or struggled in some way, or were in a position where they didn’t know something and they had to figure it out and didn’t just do it themselves… you know, lean on other people and ask lots of questions were the ones that were much more likely to succeed.  And those are the kind of folks that I kind of work with, you know.  They’ve… either through one way or another, they had some level of pain as you described it, or lack of success, or some something that humbled them in some way.  I think that’s really important.

My daughter is a college-level swimmer, and I’m an athlete as well and I played college hockey and tennis.  I played soccer in high school.  So, I’ve been on lots of teams and my daughter has been on teams since she was five – swim team, which really isn’t a team.  It’s a bunch of individuals that happen to get together and do their own thing, but they’re the best kind of team I’ve ever met.  They’re so supportive of each other.  And, you know, even though it’s really an individual sport, they act like a team that I’ve never seen before.  And I sort of asked myself, “Why is that?”  And the only thing I come up with was similar to your question on pain, which is shared misery because swimming is really, really hard.

You know, I’m a college-level hockey player.  I played against guys who played in the NHL, but I got to tell you, I don’t like swimming.  It’s super hard.  It’s difficult.  So, I think that’s the shared misery of, you know, swimming six, seven miles a day and burning seven to eight thousand calories in a few hours, and having to work through that.  I think that’s what makes a good leader and also makes a good team.  I think that’s an indicator; when you can share those burdens and you know that you’re all in this together and it’s going to be difficult, I think that helps you.

Andrea:  So, when we’re looking at the time frame that we’re in right now, we’re looking at the situation that we’re in right now, those people who are listening who are leading teams and going through hardship, what would you say to them about how their response to this all matters in terms of their future success?

Bill Flynn:  Oh, as a leader, it matters tremendously because people are going to judge you by how you act right now.  You’ll see the best and the worst in people when you’re in situations like this.  The leaders that take it on as a way to really take charge and help people and support them and sacrifice on their own versus those who sort of, you know, go into protective mode and safe mode and think more about themselves… you’re going to sort of see how that transpires over the next several months. 

And I think, you know, one of the things that you can do first is to understand that – when you said people are in pain right now – there’s a lot of stress.  The brain does not like uncertainty, and it forces itself into this protective mode – you know, this sort of fight-flight-freeze kind of thing we talk about in the popular culture.  And your first job is to help them get some control over their lives as much as you possibly can.  And what I tell folks all the time is just give them meaningful work, right?  Have them focus on the work.  They can control the work.

There’s other things you can do, of course.  You have to be concerned about health and safety of your employees.  We’re seeing that a lot with Amazon and some other strikes that are happening right now where people are saying, “Look, they’re making me go to work, and you’re not giving me any protective clothing.”  “You’re making me stand next to people.”  “You’re not telling me who’s sick.”  You know, I don’t think Jeff Bezos is going to come out of this very well unless he starts to make some changes because he says, “I’m hiring 100,000 workers,” which is great, but these people that work for him are saying, “Look, I’m uncomfortable being here because I could get sick at any moment.”  So, it’s going to be a huge thing.

So, health and safety, first, of your employees and customers, and then get them… the ones that you’re able to keep and keep going forward with, get them to focus on the work.  Keep them with things they can control, and then keep them in touch with each other.  You know, I recommend four things that you can do in virtual ways; have a daily huddle.  Every day, quick daily huddle; you know, what’s most important, what’s some good news going on?  Where are you stuck?  You can have a weekly meeting with your team to do more difficult things.  And then, you know what, have a virtual happy hour once in a while.  Just let people hang out with each other in a social setting, even though it’s sort of weird because you’re just kind of hanging out on your laptop and whatever, but it feels good.

And then lastly is just set up an hour or so a day where you and your team just hang out.  Meaning you all get on Zoom; you don’t have a meeting, but you’re just on Zoom together.  And, you know, if something pops up, just, you know, raise your hand or ping somebody.  It helps us, you know, at least have some semblance of connectivity.  I think those are some great things that leaders can do, and people will remember that.  They’ll remember that you carried them and their families.  They’ll remember that you tried to keep them connected and tried to give them some sense of control.

Andrea:  I like those.  I like those a lot.  Okay, so for yourself and your own sense of… you know, leading yourself through this kind of situation or anytime when you have really experienced hardship, is there any book or person or principle that you cling to, to help you get through it that really influences your ability to get through and keep going?

Bill Flynn:  So, I’m a big fan of David Rock, who is the head of the NeuroLeadership Institute.  He’s written a bunch of books, Your Brain at Work and a couple others.  So, I’ve taken those principles and applied them to myself.  And also my dad was an alcoholic, so there’s sort of A Principles – you know, first things first, that kind of stuff – and I think they really apply… which is what I just mentioned, I try to figure out what are the things that I have direct control over and indirect control over and what are the things I have no control over.

And the stuff I have no control over, I just don’t worry about them.  There’s nothing I can do, right?  I practice stoicism, you know, from Cato and Epictetus and all those guys.  You know, you focus on the stuff that you can control and realize that what you have is a gift.  The likelihood of us being here is next to zero, so remember that, you know, which is hard to do.  So, I sort of fall back on those things, which is the stuff I can control, I will try to put my heart and soul into it; the stuff I have indirect control on, I’ll try to influence.  You know, as you say, I can have some influence to my clients and to others.  So that’s what I do.

You know, my job is to protect my family as a parent and myself, but you know, I also can’t do that and ignore other people.  We’re tribal in nature and our inclination is to help others and so I’m trying also do that, which gives me some control right?  I lost 93% of my revenue because of this.  So, what I did first was I extended my home equity line of credit.  I applied for an EIDL.

I’m going to apply for the PPP from the CARES Act just so I have buffer because I don’t know how long this is going to last.  I do have some money in the bank to hold me for a little while, but now that I’ve done that, I can spend more time on, “Okay, how can I help people?”  And so I offer one hour a day to any leader that wants to chat, you know, whether they work with me or not.  I’m giving free, you know… any of my clients can set up any meetings with me that they want, and I’ll help them any way I can because that’s stuff I can control.

Andrea:  Hmm.  All right, so in closing this out, I’m going to ask you also to give us information about yourself and how people can get a hold of you or access to you.  But first, what advice would you give to somebody who really would like to have a Voice of Influence?

Bill Flynn:  So, if you want to influence others, the way that you influence someone is to have some level of trust first, because people are only influenced really… they allow themselves to be influenced.  It’s not something you can make them do.  And that trust is the first thing that they want.  So, the way to trust you is to feel like that you’re sincerely on their side, and you’re not doing it with an agenda in mind.  You’re doing it to sincerely help them.

So, I was a thirty-year sales guy.  I’m not a built-in sales guy.  I don’t have great technique.  I’m not an extrovert – I actually skew introvert – but I do have a sense of service and I always brought that to my sales job.  And the first question I would always ask when I was meeting with a potential prospect or their team was, “Hey, we’re gonna meet for like an hour or so.  If each of you could describe for me what would be a really good meeting, like when you talk to each other afterwards, how would you describe this meeting to each other as a success?”  And then I would write them down.

I wrote everything down they said, and I made sure that everyone had a chance to share.  And then before the meeting was over, I made sure I went over the list and said, “You know, this is what you asked for, and did I give this?”  And in an hour, I had great influence over these people.  And I had a very good close rate, you know, because also, if I said at the end of the hour a half, “Look, I can’t help you.  What you’re asking for is not what my product does.  It partly does what you want, but I wouldn’t want you to be unhappy, so here’s the name or two that I recommend people who would do what you want.”

And I’ve had people refer people to me.  They turned out not to be my clients, but they referred others who they said, “Oh, you know, Bill’s a great guy, and I think what you want is what he does.”  So, to me, that’s influence.  I definitely influenced them in some way, but they allowed me to do that.  They gave me permission because they saw that I was sincere in service.

Andrea:  Hmm, I love that.  All right, Bill, where can people find your book Further, Faster, and any other resources that you’d like to highlight?

Bill Flynn:  Yeah, sure.  So, I have a website, it’s a catalystgrowthadvisors.com.  All my contact information is on there, my email and phone number are on there.  But if you want to reach me without having to go there, it’s just bill@catalystgrowthadvisors.com.  And then of course, I have the book out.  It’s on Amazon and other places; there’s a Kindle version, a paperback.  There will be an audible version, but it actually got interrupted because the narrator is in New York, and he was told he couldn’t come to the studio anymore.  So, that’s been put on hold for a little while until they’re able to finish it.  So, I’m looking forward to that because that’ll be kind of fun.  So that’s it.

Andrea:  Awesome!  Thank you so much for being a Voice of Influence for our listeners today too, Bill.

Bill Flynn:  Thank you for having me on, Andrea.  I really appreciate it.