TRP 181: Prepare for Impact with Ryan Estis

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Rain Making Podcast, hosted by High Stinks Headhunter, author and

[00:00:19] professional speaker, Scott Love.

[00:00:24] You're listening to the Rain Making Podcast, and my name is Scott Love.

[00:00:27] Thank you for joining me on the show. subscription program, which also is a free membership to join called the placement club. Visit the placement club.com. Check it out if you're a recruiter. This will help you bridge the gap between where you are today and you reaching your full potential. Thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ryan Estes. Hey, this is Scott Love with the Rain Making Podcast.

[00:01:41] We've got a special guest today.

[00:01:43] We've got Ryan Estes.

[00:01:45] He's probably someone you've heard of before. that gave us an opportunity to put some thinking together. And as things started to change, we're in the middle of a project and we changed with it. And yeah, it was fun to work out. And I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. That's great. Now, one thing you mentioned, you talked about the world is changing fast. How do you think those who are leading organizations, even if it's a team of two or three people, brainmakers, and a big firm leading a small group of people, how do you think the change is

[00:03:04] impacting them, even if they've got a small team?

[00:04:04] attention as it relates to growing a team, growing a business. Yeah, interesting.

[00:04:05] So do you think there is a potential for any sort of breaking point?

[00:04:08] Have you seen organizations where they're starting to see some major stress cracks from

[00:04:12] these things that you're talking about?

[00:04:13] Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

[00:04:14] I see it all around.

[00:04:15] What is it?

[00:04:16] 70% of managers and leaders today are classified as overwhelmed or burned out.

[00:04:20] Yeah.

[00:04:21] Those are quitting at a record pace.

[00:04:23] A cycles of disruption or accelerating organizations are in the middle of complete transformation, and how they lead their teams. What should be things that are top of mind with them as they're leading their team that today are important that maybe a few years ago weren't as important. Yeah, I think adaptability, flexibility, vision, decisiveness, vulnerability, psychological safety. I mean, ultimately the ability to grow a team or a business comes down to the relationships

[00:05:40] we have with people.

[00:05:41] So I'm the big fan of Microsoft and I followed their CEO

[00:05:45] and I recently came, and work, we have to lead differently. And so those are some of the keys, I think, to moving in this more human-centered direction. So tell me about that then. And I appreciate what you said. And I know

[00:07:03] one thing that you're known for, just in hearing and I'm in professional services, and I've been my entire 30-year career. The way we've done it historically is done. What's the paradigm shift? What's the new set of competencies, skills, model framework that we are going to adopt to gain a competitive advantage or capture share of market? I believe my thesis is,

[00:08:23] and we unpack this in great detail in the leader, what it means is prioritizing people. Yeah. Values, ideas, expression, and experiences as most important to the long-term success of the enterprise. And so you would balance this across three dimensions as an executive or a leader.

[00:09:40] There would be self-leadership, right? The things if you're a leader that's going to drive growth, you own those outcomes. You take full responsibility for ownership and owning or driving the results. The very best sort of rainmakers or growth engineers that I've spent time around, they are obsessed with the outcome and the results.

[00:11:00] And I think what's changing is just the path to getting there.

[00:11:04] And that's sort of what people is the best path forward to accomplishing the mission. Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah. And when were those things are disconnected, I think you have some real due diligence and

[00:12:22] discovery and analysis and responsibility. I have the pushback that I would get as we get into the details is, well, who has the time to do that? And, you know, part of my response to that is, that's the job. If you don't have time to invest in developing relationships and developing the skill and competency or team, you're not oriented to create sustainable

[00:13:44] success. And so I think that's, I think that a bunch of examples, but one of my favorite examples is the case study that we leverage in the book, which is my brother. And the Dallas Cowboys are a wonderful example of an organization that I think has continued to innovate great people and taking really good care of those people on the way. So, you know, culture values, mission, investing back into your talent. That's an example. I mentioned Microsoft would be another one.

[00:16:21] IBM is on a transformation journey.

[00:16:23] And you know, they're a company your one-on-one encounters. And part of the messaging around that is, and this is something the Cowboys do in my brothers implemented, is that anybody in the organization can request a coffee meeting with him at any time. You don't have to go to your boss or your boss's boss's boss. It's no, you can get out on his calendar for 15 minutes or 30 minutes to have a cup of

[00:17:41] coffee.

[00:17:42] He's going to build relationships, invest in you, develop your team, develop your talent,

[00:17:46] and really nurture those relationships. talk about because these are big organizations that just haven't done anything like this before. Where do you think people like that should start if they wanted to really start to be more intentional about changing their culture that way? You know, I've got a great example from law. So I am, I had an opportunity to work over the course of a couple of years with Proskauer and Steve Ellis is the Proskauer chairman and he really is a

[00:19:04] human-centered leader. And you know, he said something to me that was similar to your reflection but the onset of that and I got to work with them over the course of two years and had a ton of conversations with him and something that impressed me so much. But here's the chairman of Proscow who funds this and invests in it, puts a workshop together to start at the partner level. So we're gonna require every partner of Proscow or go through this leadership development curriculum,

[00:20:21] which I was a part of.

[00:20:22] I didn't do the whole thing.

[00:20:23] I had a piece of that.

[00:20:24] And I delivered, I think, over the course of,

[00:20:27] I don't know, partner after eight years of some big prestigious thing on their career journey. They're interested in other things. And so figuring that out and how we're going to manage the snatch generation of legal talent. And I know you see this in recruiting because you're in those conversations, but that's

[00:21:40] real.

[00:21:41] Yeah, it absolutely is.

[00:21:43] And that affects everything.

[00:21:44] That's a really interesting story, Ryan. we do in my business, we get really clear on what's the vision? What's the strategic plan to get there? What are the barriers that are standing in our way? So those are a couple, there might be more than three here. But the final thing is, I think right alongside that in parallel, as an individual leader, you have to be honest with yourself. We do something when we're coaching called establishing a personal leadership vision.

[00:23:03] Okay, that's great.

[00:23:05] I've never heard of that before.

[00:23:06] A personal leadership vision. It's about helping other people become the best they're capable of being. When you do that, and you're scaling across an enterprise, the enterprise is better positioned to deliver results and grow. Having that vision of who you're going to be and how you're going to serve, I think helps. It gives leaders a true north to actually show up in service of others and drive

[00:24:21] a result. It's a really meaningful exercise to the then, what's your vision then in terms of the value that you have that you'd like other people to know? How can you benefit them? What are some of the offerings that you have, the things that you do, things that you want people to know about, how you can help them? Yeah, I say so that, you know, the first thing is obviously we've got the book coming out,

[00:25:40] which was I think the catalyst for the conversation.

[00:25:42] So, you know, prepare for impact book.com,

[00:25:45] we're excited about it.

[00:25:46] It unpacks, you know, our nine principles in front of their team, when they're at a conference, when they're delivering a message, in order to get everybody aligned and drive growth. And to me, it's one of the most underdeveloped leadership competencies in the world today. And so my company Impact, 11 is gonna bring that to the world and I can't wait because I think we're gonna help people become better leaders. And ultimately, that's what makes the world of work

[00:27:00] a better place.

[00:27:01] Absolutely right, Ryan.

[00:27:02] Thank you for being here.

[00:27:03] Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us.

[00:27:05] We're gonna put the links for you

[00:27:06] and also the book on the show notes