MGMT’s Dave Kline on Unlocking Potential: Dispelling Myths in Management Training

00:00:01:06 - 00:00:23:23

Ben Hillman

In the world of American football, beneath the roar of the crowd and the glare of the floodlights, the coach stands as the unsung hero. It's not just about teaching players to kick a ball or make a tackle. It's about understanding each player's strengths, their fears, their ambitions. A coach turns a group of individuals into a singular, cohesive force, priming them not just to play, but to win.

00:00:24:01 - 00:00:50:15

Ben Hillman

This mastermind molds raw talent into strategy, fostering trust and camaraderie, ensuring that every play, every move on that field is in sync. Just as a football team depends on its coach, businesses, especially in the realm of B2B, SAS, lean heavily on their managers. These managers, like experienced coaches, have the challenging task of recognizing the unique potential within each member of their team.

00:00:50:17 - 00:01:18:01

Ben Hillman

They draft strategies, making sure that each individual's prowess is positioned in a way that collectively drives the company forward. They don't just manage. They inspire. They lead. And they ensure that the entire team moves as a unified entity poised for success. Enter Dave Kline of MGMT Accelerator. With the tactical prowess of a top tier football coach and the insightful vision of a seasoned manager.

00:01:18:02 - 00:01:40:23

Ben Hillman

Dave understands the nuances of building a winning team, recognizing that the principles that apply on the football field also apply in the bustling corridors of business. He's perfected the art of transforming raw talent into a cohesive, formidable force. He knows that every individual, no matter their role, can be the star player, provided they have the right guidance.

00:01:41:01 - 00:02:05:22

Ben Hillman

In today's episode, prepare to delve into the strategic world of team management and discover how to harness individual strengths for collective success. With insights from Dave Kline, you'll understand why the role of Manager, much like a football coach, is pivotal in steering your team to victory. From panel is Protect the Hustle, where we explore the truth behind the strategy and tactics of B2B SAS growth to make you an outstanding operator.

00:02:06:00 - 00:02:38:16

Ben Hillman

I'm Ben Hillman, and on today's episode, Dave Kline speaks with panels Andrew DAVIES about managing great teams. They talk about embracing limitations, the power of and codifying culture, language, precision with values and advice for entrepreneurs. After you finish the episode, check out the show notes for a field guide from today's episode. Then, while you're leaving your five star review of the podcast, tell us what resonated most about our guests Advice.

00:02:38:18 - 00:02:57:13

Dave Kline

I'd say the quick intro on me would be the The Accidental Leadership Trainer. You know, I did 20 years of corporate. Ten of those at Moody's. Ten of those are Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, and left believing two things would be true. One, we were going to buy a business, and two, I was just going to teach at one of the universities nearby.

00:02:57:13 - 00:03:17:17

Dave Kline

Being in Connecticut now Yale's One Direction, NYU, where I went to business schools in the other direction. Those two things kind of collided. So we bought an online education business. Google changed the algorithm about six weeks after we bought it, I freaked out and decided I need to diversify and get the social media. That led to me taking a class with a guy named Sawhill Bloom, who's pretty big on Twitter.

00:03:17:18 - 00:03:36:04

Dave Kline

He convinced me that I'd have to write under my own name and not under the brand name. I wanted to actually grow and get engagement and save my company. The one thing that started to really work was talking about leadership and management, and that then led me to meeting the MAVEN folks and instead of going to one of the universities, they thought, Why don't you just teach that on our platform?

00:03:36:04 - 00:03:52:04

Dave Kline

And we I put out a tweet one night, went to bed thinking I'd have maybe ten people take this class, woke up to a wait list of 150 people. Yeah, I talked to a bunch of them and we taught our first one last March and we taught maybe one of our cohorts almost monthly since I had the rough sketch of what I thought I'd be doing.

00:03:52:04 - 00:03:56:02

Dave Kline

But it sort of collided into a an amalgamation I wasn't anticipating.

00:03:56:07 - 00:04:14:14

Andrew Davies

And we've got you listening to this call, mostly software founders who deal with tech debt. I know some people have coined the phrase people debt. I'm sure that's a challenge. You're often helping people go through as they as they scale their businesses. So before we dive into some of the lessons that you've learned, the frameworks you have, what are the commonalities that you see people come to?

00:04:14:15 - 00:04:17:19

Andrew Davies

What's the presenting issue they come to you with when they join one of your programs?

00:04:18:01 - 00:04:33:00

Dave Kline

There's usually two or three. I would say the probably the most common one we had this thesis when we first built it. It was going to be brand new managers that like the part of the market that wasn't being addressed was people just making that transition. And a lot of those people who applied initially were five or ten years ago.

00:04:33:00 - 00:04:51:15

Dave Kline

So it didn't make any sense to us because it was literally called the New Manager Accelerator. We talked to a bunch of them and they all said almost to a T the same thing, which is like, I've been making it up. I'm overwhelmed. I've never had a good example. But the common theme was like they were just barely staying above water, like they were they were just making up for what they didn't have in systems or didn't have an experience.

00:04:51:15 - 00:05:06:08

Dave Kline

They're just like effort and hours. And so I would say probably the most common thing people show up with is they're just overwhelmed and are trying to find a better way to, like, claw back an hour a day, be more impactful with their people, give them feedback more effectively, things like that. But I get all it all sort of rolls up to that.

00:05:06:10 - 00:05:20:22

Andrew Davies

If we then broaden that to think about that concept of people debt being the accumulation of friction that happens when you're scaling fast, what are the other things? And a feeling of overwhelmed ness, you know, is one. What are the other things that you see as accumulated people debt in fast growing, growing companies?

00:05:21:00 - 00:05:41:09

Dave Kline

Well, I think of the most common diagnosis of the people that it's something we'll talk about as secret expectations. There's this, and we do it all the time. It's like it should be obvious that that you would do X and more often than not, it's not obvious. They don't have your background, your experience, your contacts, your understanding. And so it might be totally obvious to you and not at all obvious to them.

00:05:41:09 - 00:05:57:17

Dave Kline

And so I think those secret expectations, if you don't, then remedy them. Then they build up and they become more complicated. Right now, it's not only I didn't know what you wanted for me then you held this opinion of me and didn't tell me about it. So now I've got this logical problem and an emotional problem, and I've twisted it all into a big not.

00:05:57:17 - 00:06:14:15

Dave Kline

You know, when I were coaching people, one of the places we start is like, can you set really clear expectations if is your sales team and you want ten new clients, like is that clear over what time frame, what type of client are they, what size is the account? And then the thing the people a lot of people overlook in that too, is they'll overlook the how.

00:06:14:15 - 00:06:27:23

Dave Kline

You know, like we when we were building the program, we I knew this big debate because my wife has a sales background and she's like, I don't know. You know, I was at Google. They just told me like it's a $25 million target for the quarter. Get it done. And I'm like, what if, you know, did those people have to be good clients?

00:06:27:23 - 00:06:40:12

Dave Kline

Like, were you supposed to like, stay within the Google culture where you sort of follow the wall? Were you And like, these might seem obvious, but like every company has these unspoken truths of how they want you to do it as well. And so I think that becomes a big part of it, too.

00:06:40:12 - 00:06:46:08

Andrew Davies

I've heard you say that setting expectations is your only job as a manager. Dive into. Unpack that a little bit for me.

00:06:46:10 - 00:06:59:03

Dave Kline

I pretty sure I say you're only the you have your only job. I have to do everything they say. One of them is setting expectations and the other is saying no more than yes. But to some degree they're the same thing. You have to sort of decide like, where are we going to go? I've brought together this team.

00:06:59:03 - 00:07:21:13

Dave Kline

We have a certain mission. We need to go accomplish it to some degree. If you're able to go get really good people and select the right mission and motivate them to do it like that is really your only job. And then the re where the yes and no comes in is like no matter what mission you're on, there's constantly going to be stimuli and interesting paths and detours to take another game where that judgment is going to come in, where you're gonna say, Do or do we take the detour?

00:07:21:13 - 00:07:36:21

Dave Kline

Do we stay on the course? And that's just another version of you resetting the expectation. I think people skip that part and then wonder down the road why they have to solve problems, why they have the course correct while they're giving feedback, but it's not getting through. And mostly they weren't clear enough upfront about like, what do you want?

00:07:36:22 - 00:08:04:18

Andrew Davies

So I find it interesting when we talk about people debt to the first places you go are maybe that accumulated overwhelmed nurse and the mis setting or or not setting of expectations and the mismanagement of expectations. I know one of the things you talk about is the extraordinary leaders, extraordinary managers. They have synthesis selling and systems. And that third piece systems is about making sure you'll be able to spot what matters and how you compel other people the synthesis and the selling they're able to endure.

00:08:04:19 - 00:08:12:18

Andrew Davies

Talk to me about how your work with with founders you work with executive teams helped build those three skills. And which do you see lacking most?

00:08:12:19 - 00:08:28:14

Dave Kline

I get asked little lacking most question a lot. And it it really comes down to each individual person, you know what I mean? Like sometimes we'll work with founders, they might be software developers by background, so they might be more introverted, but they're very good at like identifying what matters, right? Like, how do you get code to compile efficiently?

00:08:28:19 - 00:08:45:11

Dave Kline

And they might be very good at systems, but they don't like telling their own story, you know, And so that might be that archetype. You might have the, you know, the gregarious founder who's extremely good at selling and seeing what matters. And then just kind of hope there's an implementer who's going to put the systems in place to make a run behind and so forth.

00:08:45:11 - 00:09:02:21

Dave Kline

I don't know that there's any single one. And I think it's one of the reasons that, like having co-founders often really helps, right? You might have that one like big picture person and the one, you know, you're the visionary and the integrator in that same realm. So I don't know if there's one that's more than the other versus like, what's the mix that you're dealing with?

00:09:02:21 - 00:09:19:12

Dave Kline

And then in terms of the systems themselves, you know, I think it's the place where the guidance we try to give people, especially for like scaling early stage companies, is like minimum viable. I was just on a coaching call a few minutes ago and we were talking about I've run a whole teams giving my folks a development plan that was just three bullet points.

00:09:19:12 - 00:09:40:16

Dave Kline

What's the gap? What resources do you need for me and what training do you need? And if that's sufficient to accomplish it, like why invest any more in a more complicated system that just becomes administrative and bureaucratic? When you're a small scaling startup, it's like, yeah, you want to go from the wild, wild west of like four people in a garage, but you don't want to become so overbuilt that you sort of lose why you're actually doing what you're doing.

00:09:40:16 - 00:09:59:00

Andrew Davies

So when I read this post about synthesis, can you spot what matters? Selling could you compel others and systems? Can you engineer it to ensure? I feel like they're a go to frameworks and I could think of for selling and for systems? How do you think about teaching people to be better synthesizers to spot what really matters? The art of strategy.

00:09:59:00 - 00:10:16:01

Dave Kline

I would agree with you that that is one of the hardest ones. One way that I would try to do it very often sort of get people to sort of empty their brains and look for themes. And so a lot of times I find like folks on my team would be very expert. They have like lots of details and they but they would struggle to sort of get up to like, yeah, but the point is on track or off track, right?

00:10:16:01 - 00:10:32:03

Dave Kline

That's what we're trying to get to for those bottom up thinkers. Well, what we do is have them like, empty everything onto the page, right? Like give me all the details that are like creating that fog and then it's okay. Now look at those 25 things. Can you group them in any way? Any way that seems intuitive? Oh, these are all about sales growth.

00:10:32:03 - 00:10:48:16

Dave Kline

Oh, these are all about talent. Oh, these are all. Okay, great. Which one of those five buckets you've now created seems most pressing or burning? Oh, Bucket B Okay, great. All of the five things in bucket B, What is the one that if you could change it, would turn it from red to green? And they're like, Oh, number two.

00:10:48:20 - 00:11:03:04

Dave Kline

So sort of going through that exercise of like building up grouping thematically, all of a sudden you've now emptied that fog and so like, oh, this thing is not working because of this and we're going to make this one change and that's it. I'll pocket. And all of a sudden we went from this big pile to the answer.

00:11:03:04 - 00:11:23:01

Andrew Davies

Some of the challenges I've often found there, either in my own journey of leading up or in managing others, is around the concepts of materiality. People who can give lots of ideas but don't understand which carry greater weight or the concept of hierarchy, like which things can nest under others. And so I find this, this topic of of synthesis as as part of strategy really, really interesting.

00:11:23:01 - 00:11:43:20

Dave Kline

Another interesting dimension that sometimes we'll use with people is this idea of forcing them to give a confidence rating and ends up doing two things. There's one, which is if you get a low quality, you're like, Oh, I think it's this, but like I'm only 20% confident that's a trigger. They're like, okay, well, what would I need to know to move that to 50 or 70 or 80% and sort of reveals to you maybe gaps in your own understanding of the thing it does?

00:11:43:20 - 00:12:01:19

Dave Kline

Is it actually in term? Because one of the things we're trying to communicate, right. We're trying to the reason I want to synthesize is because I want to compel, right? I want to get people to do something differently. So by bringing down my confidence rating, maybe they're going to engage me more collaboratively. If I move my confidence rating out, they're going to be like, Oh, this person is really serious and like believes this thing and they poke harder holes in it.

00:12:01:19 - 00:12:06:10

Dave Kline

And so you can sort of adjust the interaction of the counterparty by where you set that confidence rating.

00:12:06:12 - 00:12:24:15

Andrew Davies

So maybe we can just change tack slightly here and think about one of the most commonly used decision frameworks, which is the Eisenhower matrix. And I've seen this rolled out in massive company environments. I've seen to try to tidy company environments. And I know you've got a slightly updated or slightly revised version of it. I've got it up in front of me, you'll probably know of by heart.

00:12:24:15 - 00:12:33:10

Andrew Davies

We'll have it tattooed on your left arm. Talk me through kind of these two by two matrix and how you see people use it and we'll make sure it's shared in the show notes. People for people to refer to.

00:12:33:14 - 00:12:53:06

Dave Kline

Talk me through why you so arrogantly overruled a sitting president to update his matrix. Yeah I'm on it at the heart actually think I probably agree with it more than I disagree with it, but it's this idea that you can map urgency against importance, right? And that you in the old model, you would want to be delegating these things that are important but not urgent.

00:12:53:07 - 00:13:10:23

Dave Kline

It's always this idea that I think was premised very much on old school hierarchy where like stuff rolls downhill, right? Where you're like, Oh, this is like this work is beneath me. Let me give it to the people beneath me. And I think that that is probably was probably made a lot of sense, especially in like an industrial factory, a factory driven commodity guys world.

00:13:10:23 - 00:13:33:23

Dave Kline

But the majority of people in your audience, the majority of people I work with, like that's not who works in our companies anymore. Like, these are highly educated people who want to grow and develop and collect experiences and have impact and do the most important work. And the best leaders are hiring people better than them. And so if you're delegating to them only the work that like is beneath you, you're sort of under utilizing all that investment you made in bringing in the best people.

00:13:34:00 - 00:13:49:18

Dave Kline

My revision is very much okay if something is urgent and important. That was as it was a failure on my like, there shouldn't be that many surprises in business if I'm operating systematically. I keep that work, but I'm keeping that work to then figure out how do I make it not urgent? Like how do I learn to anticipated?

00:13:49:18 - 00:14:04:12

Dave Kline

How do I design my system to deal with that? So I sit in that position until I can reduce the urgency, and then I want to delegated to my team who is uniquely equipped to deal with that for the things that are not urgent, but they're important. You know, there is this idea of like, you know, that would be sort of the stuff you would give away.

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:18:19

Dave Kline

And the one that tweak for me is like, I want to if I'm going to give that work to somebody, I want to give it to them with the mandate to automate it. But a lot of times I'm delegating the people who are maybe more junior and experience in one dimension, but typically more savvy technically or may have a different set of skills.

00:14:18:19 - 00:14:31:14

Dave Kline

And I'm like, Please don't do it the terrible way I was doing it. Make it go away. Like if you can automate it, if you can make it great, please do that. So that's subtle. Tweak to empower them. To do that I think is very helpful. And then that last corner of like, it's not important and it's not urgent.

00:14:31:14 - 00:14:41:06

Dave Kline

It's a little bit like that part is still a tried and true like, why are you doing it? Believe that that and because the most powerful way you can delegate to anybody is to not delegate to anyone. If you just make it go away for good. It's not one of.

00:14:41:06 - 00:14:59:00

Andrew Davies

The seminal moments in a first time manager or new managers. Life is where they have to go through those really difficult conversations of letting someone go, whether it's performance, whether it's company related. I know that's a moment what I to do that for the first time, I still remember which room I was in, who it was, although what it felt like.

00:14:59:00 - 00:15:14:00

Andrew Davies

Yeah, I'm sure it's something you've coached many, many founders and execs through managers through. How do you think about that process of self-reflection and also the communicate notion of how of working through that difficult conversation as well as how do you even make that judgment call in the first place? It's interesting.

00:15:14:00 - 00:15:34:00

Dave Kline

As I was just talking to someone I was coaching this morning about this and how they've never been through this process. They're on the precipice of maybe being on this process. And I was saying that one of the things you can only learn with the benefit of 20 plus years and having gone through it many times, is that usually by the time that you're usually the last person to be ready, if you're a reasonably thoughtful leader and manager, you're usually the last one to the party.

00:15:34:00 - 00:15:48:00

Dave Kline

We work with the CEO. He's been running the company for 40 years. He said he had to fire his number one producer four different times over those 40 years and every time he would like labor and eventually do it, he's like every single time, six, eight, ten people would come up to me within a day and be like, What took you so damn?

00:15:48:02 - 00:16:10:11

Dave Kline

And so it's like, Hey, you're just like, you're the last one because you're trying to do the right thing. You're trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. You're trying to be thoughtful. The sort of way that I have found most effectively to get through it, which again, is sort of raising my confidence and bringing them along and like a compassionate way and a fair way, because obviously I want to solve for them when working, you know, like it is so much cheaper for me to have them be a great employee than it is for me to have to go through the process of replacing them.

00:16:10:12 - 00:16:24:19

Dave Kline

I just sort of work left to right on the left. I would have the things that I control. Do they have the right training, the right resources, the right access, the right permissions, the right support, whatever, all the things that when things start to go wrong, people start to point to the environment. I basically want to make sure that that is true.

00:16:24:19 - 00:16:39:21

Dave Kline

And my judgment of like how much is too much is like if I just went into the world and got a person who was reasonably qualified, would that set them up to succeed? And if I do that, then I've sort of removed all of these environmental what could be excuses? And I've gotten it down to one of two possibilities skill and will.

00:16:39:22 - 00:16:54:03

Dave Kline

They either aren't capable of doing it or they don't really want to do it. And I usually will attack it in reverse order, which is the will one first. Like if they don't want to do the job, then we can we can stop having the conversation because I would rather have someone in that role who wants to do it and their life is too short.

00:16:54:03 - 00:17:07:10

Dave Kline

Like go do a job where you can like be your best and you want to be there. So before we waste either of our time investing a bunch more like us sort of agree on that. And then if they do want it and they're willing to put in the effort to close the gap, now you're just into the skill part.

00:17:07:10 - 00:17:25:14

Dave Kline

You know, that's where I think managers get paid, right? They get paid to motivate and coach and develop. They get paid to make the hard judgments of like fast enough or not fast enough. But I think if a lot of people skip those early steps, they don't handle the environment stuff, They don't sort of look at the will piece and the alignment and a rush right into putting everything in that last bucket.

00:17:25:14 - 00:17:33:22

Dave Kline

It becomes a very messy conversation. So that's that. Both I think, helps bring those people along on the other side of the table and it sort of helps you have more confidence that you've done everything you can.

00:17:33:23 - 00:17:58:05

Andrew Davies

A lot of what we've talked about here is to managers, leaders within organizations, but everybody has a boss. And I love thinking about and working on how I and my teammates and lead up and you've talked a bunch about leading up. So let me just to explain that concept for everyone on this call, regardless of even if they're the founder CEO, but after a lead up to a board, whether they're somewhere else in the organization and then have a formal direct line report, what is leading up and what does it really matter?

00:17:58:06 - 00:18:12:01

Dave Kline

It's funny, I'm actually writing we do at our weekly management playbook, and I'm writing the play, my playbook for managing up today. So it's top of mind. So I think I just like to test a few of the ideas here. The three that first came to me when I started writing it. One is this idea of like their goals or your goals.

00:18:12:02 - 00:18:24:10

Dave Kline

Like it's very easy for us to get focused and be like, Tell me what you want me to do, Tell me what my goals should be. But I think the stars who operate the best level and that could be true of a CEO with a board. What is their goal Like What? What outcome do they want to achieve?

00:18:24:12 - 00:18:47:12

Dave Kline

I can achieve my work while materially altering and improving their ability to to achieve their goal, I become invaluable. Right? I'm sort of embedding myself into the goal about me in a way that makes me probably going to have a higher trajectory, be more valuable, get more attention, get to get the cool work, etc. So that's one. The second one, which it's cliché, but it's just if you've got a bunch of people I've met a bunch people, it's is true.

00:18:47:12 - 00:19:02:13

Dave Kline

Which is like bring me solutions, not problems. Now, that doesn't mean never raise a problem. That doesn't mean I always expect you to have the answer, but it's just so much easier as a leader to have someone come and say, Dave, we have this problem, we're going to lose this platinum client. Like that is a problem. Here's what I'm going to do about it.

00:19:02:13 - 00:19:21:22

Dave Kline

See, some of you have a better way. Are I mean, or like I thought about these three possibilities and I'm going to go down path. See, unless you see a better way, I'm going to go past see, and I need you to support me in these two specific ways. It's just a totally different level of ownership and signaling and it like allows me to sort of be an editor versus be the recipient of your problem.

00:19:21:23 - 00:19:35:17

Dave Kline

So that was a that was a second one that I think and people had to pick a couple of you do those two. I for number three would be no surprises I don't like there's this idea that I think people create this vague expectation for themselves that they have to be perfect. But if I want to manage up really well, like what?

00:19:35:17 - 00:19:50:10

Dave Kline

I want that as a leader looking down like what I want is to know that my people are in command, that they are in. They understand their whole area. Yeah, I guess I would go basically take control of my one on one with my manager instead of the other way around. Like this is my meeting with you here.

00:19:50:11 - 00:20:04:16

Dave Kline

The goals we agreed on. Here's the metrics I have to show you how the goals are going so you don't to take my word for it. You can see the data. Here are the biggest problems. Here's how I'm dealing with them. Oh, by the way, here's the whole team. Here's how everyone's performing. Here's who's happy and unhappy, here's who's developing and not developing.

00:20:04:16 - 00:20:27:02

Dave Kline

Here's what I'm doing about it. Holes, you're being like, Where else do you need me to help? Because I've got I've got command of my area. And so that idea of like the rumors I'm doing that is I just never want them to be surprised. I want if there's bad news, they should hear from me. If it's good news, they should hear from me, because that's usually a way to erode trust with a leader is to like, have them get caught off guard with their boss or with their peer on something that you could have kept them in the loop on.

00:20:27:02 - 00:20:28:08

Dave Kline

So those are my three.

00:20:28:10 - 00:20:52:17

Andrew Davies

You you put up a post, I think it was yesterday I'm going to read out and then ask you to react to, which is it says your boss plays favorites and their favorites do excellent work, bring attitude to the team, make their lives easier daily, amplify everyone around them, and the rest Complain about the boss playing favorites. I love that because that might as a personal challenge to myself and also to all of the people who I'm working with or I'm serving as a leader.

00:20:52:17 - 00:21:15:07

Andrew Davies

I think that's a really interesting way of framing it because we all have come across people who, you know, perhaps complain they're not being seen or that there's there's a favoritism at play. And I know you're probably not digging into it in quite the way I'm entering this conversation, but what you're doing there is articulating some of the things that win favor and the cause leaders to gravitate and give responsibility to people who are stepping up and bringing energy and bringing bringing outcomes.

00:21:15:07 - 00:21:38:02

Dave Kline

I mean, maybe some of the comments of all the ones that ones seem to catch a lot of people's attention because a few people kind of clapped back and we're like, no people nepotism and people playing favorites with these other reasons and like, of course, but I think there's this there's I'm trying to like a new part of my mission is sort of trying to push back against what seems to be this like rising rush to mediocrity, like this idea of quiet quitting.

00:21:38:02 - 00:21:53:19

Dave Kline

And I'm like, Who are you beating when you quiet quit? Like you have this one short precious life. I am reminded of it every day as a what you're going to do is like, go in and do the bare minimum somewhere. Like, I guess if if you have another passion and that is how you want to orchestrate your life, I'm all for it.

00:21:53:19 - 00:22:17:02

Dave Kline

If you're doing that to, like, stick it to somebody or you think you're winning some sort of long term crusade, like I think it's a terrible strategy because there there's somebody else who is going to put in the extra effort. They're going to get the next promotion, they're going to get the cooler job, and you're going to wake up in 20 years having quietly quit and not probably achieved the goal that you could have had you been brave enough to take chances and go across boundaries and put yourself out there.

00:22:17:02 - 00:22:29:08

Dave Kline

I know that was sort of the spirit of I'm like, they might be playing favorites. In fact, they probably are. Most of the favorites earned it. So just go earn it. It'll just like you could pretend they're not playing like you could wish they didn't play favorites. You could pretend they don't, or you could just go be the favorite.

00:22:29:08 - 00:22:39:23

Dave Kline

It's not that complicated. They do great work, bring huge energy. They will prefer you. Or if they don't think you should go find someone who does because that is so. Those things are so rare these days that like people hang on and.

00:22:39:23 - 00:22:59:10

Andrew Davies

It's a frame that I'm trying to teach my kids on a daily basis. That challenge of externalizing versus internalizing when they see things is unfair. We'll see something happening that feels like it's it's causing them to lose. It's asking themselves what they're going to do about it rather than blaming the circumstance of what's around them. So I love I love that our internalization call to action.

00:22:59:10 - 00:23:04:13

Dave Kline

I agree that you can we can control what's happening, but we can we can control how we respond 100%.

00:23:04:15 - 00:23:26:21

Andrew Davies

Let's end this out with the power of and I love that some of what you're doing with coaching, coaching founders and coaching managers is around mindset. And I love working with people who, you know, perhaps they have a bit of a reality distortion field. As people said about Steve Jobs, they demand something that seems unexpectedly illogical because it's too, too big and too great.

00:23:26:21 - 00:23:43:07

Andrew Davies

And you've used a bunch of examples, I know, in terms of, you know, yes, Steve Jobs rejecting the quality cost, time trade off and demanding all three, or perhaps Elon Musk with Tesla, knowing he had to make a call that was sexy and electric. Talk to me a bit about how you challenge leaders with the power of the word.

00:23:43:07 - 00:23:58:00

Dave Kline

And I tell a story from last week, but I'll take you back. So we went to this we did this event with one of our partners, this company, True Networks, that is a band called Oasis, where they bring together all these leaders right before the busy season. And the host really just tries to inspire people to think differently.

00:23:58:00 - 00:24:18:01

Dave Kline

It's like there's one moment to sort of step back. And so, you know, different musicians and artists and there was this artist and he told the story, sort of shows his early artwork and he was a pointillist like, you know, the dots, right? They sort of like reveal a picture. And he got so obsessed with it that he just kept doing it and doing it and doing it to the point that he started developing a tremor in his arm and went to the doctor.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:31:10

Dave Kline

And the doctor. I was like, Well, you've actually now taken this so far that you have permanent nerve damage, like you'll never be able to hold your hand steady again. He sort of like had this devastation of like, I'm an artist, I'm living my life is over. You know what I mean? Like, you move through this, like very depressive period.

00:24:31:10 - 00:24:48:00

Dave Kline

As he was walking out from one of the appointments, the doctor was said like something in passing. And he's like, Why don't you embrace the shake? You know, like, you know, how to like this would go away, like, sat with them and sort of like started play within his subconscious. And he was like, What if I'm confusing the limit with the self-limiting belief, the limitation in this case is my handshakes.

00:24:48:05 - 00:25:09:14

Dave Kline

The self-limiting belief is, and therefore I can be an artist. And so he started to play with, well, what if I could do pointillism and things that weren't quite so precise? And so he started all the he did this huge portrait of Snoop Dogg made out of exclusively colored gin and juice. And he made another one that was a huge picture of a fireman that he blow torch on to all these, like stacked two by fours.

00:25:09:14 - 00:25:31:07

Dave Kline

What he realized was like the limitation actually was forcing creativity and the creativity was turning him into a better artist. And so this this idea of pulling apart the limit from the limiting belief. And so to some degree, I think that's like the spirit was behind that idea of power of and right that we sort of will look at things and be like, well, it must be true, it has to be this or this somehow these, these visionaries and we can all do it.

00:25:31:07 - 00:25:53:21

Dave Kline

You can sort of pull it apart like I know my wife and I will joke about it like we there are certain phrases were hesitant to use them at our business. We obviously train managers. We very rarely use the phrase management training. So I was telling the story about the artists and then, you know, so this idea with and, and these entrepreneurs being able to see past and separate those things in a similar way, you're like, my wife and I wrestle with this with our business.

00:25:53:21 - 00:26:16:13

Dave Kline

We train managers, we train leaders, but we rarely use the phrase management training because in our minds, that typically invokes people sitting in like a boring conference room, learning from someone who's never managed some sort of like 20 year outdated framework. And it took us a long time to be like, But what if we could be management training and engaging or management training and entertaining or management training and helpful?

00:26:16:13 - 00:26:33:07

Dave Kline

And I do the same thing with Coach, a guy who was very hesitant for a long time of like most of the executive coaches I know, and there are some great ones out there, but a lot of them like the ones who were constantly hitting me in my LinkedIn feed, are like, I just took this course and I need 200 hours of like teaching new things and then I'll be a coach and I'm like, Good on you.

00:26:33:07 - 00:26:52:08

Dave Kline

But like, that's not who I want to learn from. And so I'm like, I do coach executives, but I want to be an executive coach and build it. But what it could be and. Right. What if we could be? Yeah, I'm not going to going to answer your questions with questions. I will give you the best counsel I have, having been in your shoes, having led big businesses, having had to make $100 million decisions like, yeah, I'll do, you know, we could do both.

00:26:52:08 - 00:27:08:19

Dave Kline

And as I think you can you can be at the Ellen level and the Sara Blakely level answering those ends or you can do it in your day to day business. And just a great exercise to say like, we're just like that artist, right? Like, where am I settling for the limitation? And really it's just my belief. And if I give away that belief for a minute, it might open up a new door.

00:27:08:19 - 00:27:19:21

Andrew Davies

I really, really appreciate the conversation. Any final thoughts? We don't have to use this if you don't have any, but any final thoughts or wisdom for the of the people out there hustling, building their software businesses from the ground up.

00:27:19:21 - 00:27:39:14

Dave Kline

If I was going to go whisper in their ear like one thing that they will think is not important but ultimately becomes very important because I get to work with the people a year or two down the road from them. It would be like, Take the time to codify your culture. You will grow. There's something intrinsic in like the first five or ten people and those behaviors that have made you uniquely suited to win the game that you're playing.

00:27:39:14 - 00:27:55:16

Dave Kline

But as you grow, that will do it. And so it's actually worth the time for you to write that down and try to write it down in like meaningfully sharp language. And by sharp I mean like it should be magnetic, magnetic in that it should attract the very small subset of people who will be wanting to operate on your mission in that way.

00:27:55:16 - 00:28:25:21

Dave Kline

And it should strongly repel most of the other people. If it doesn't do both things, you're taking a far too safe approach. There was a company we worked with as a relatively new health care company, and they talked about integrity. Like she's like, Oh, all of our values is integrity. And I'm like, Yeah, you and everybody else. And as she described, integrity to me, it was, oh, I had actually made a bad deal with a co-founder, but it was so vital to me that I, like maintained being on the far side of fair that I kept the deal even though my lawyers and counselors and advisors were all telling me to back out.

00:28:25:21 - 00:28:47:10

Dave Kline

And I'm like, Oh, far side affair, that's your value. And all of a sudden like it clicked. Do you I mean, and it's just so different that like integrity is a very vague term far side affair You're like, Oh, I know what that means. I know that. And that will attract people who are willing to go way beyond the boundary and it will repel people who like want to be at the boundary and constantly calling like across a line, not across a line.

00:28:47:10 - 00:29:04:03

Dave Kline

And that's perfect for them because they need people given the they're in the mental health space. They they need people who are going way beyond the boundary. So I just use that as an example. But I'd say like, take the hour, write it down, make it sharp, bounce it off your people and start to like hunt for the stories that reinforce it for all the new people coming in.

00:29:04:05 - 00:29:19:04

Ben Hillman

Shout out to Dave for being on the show. Make sure to give Protect the Hustle a five star review and tell us what lesson from today's episode was your favorite. Thanks for listening. Subscribe to and tell your friends about Protect the Hustle, a podcast from Paddle Studios dedicated to helping you build better SAS.