Unbound with Chris DuBois

hiring, delegation, building awareness and more with today's guests. Are you a leader trying to get more from your business in life? Me too. So join me as I document conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois. Minnesota native Clint rush answered the calling and join the army after September 11 served both enlisted and as an officer to point to right rack where he honed his leadership skills on the battlefield. He's now lead teams across geographies, industries, and companies scale and has consistently delivered growth oriented, culturally rooted and process driven outcomes for employees, stakeholders and clients alike. Clint, welcome to on map. Thank you, thank you for having me, Chris, really appreciate it. This is gonna be a fun episode, we're gonna dive in, there's probably going to be some military jokes that people are gonna have to look up at some point to fully grasp what's going on. But uh, like all episodes here, the best place to start is with your origin story. And so yeah, take it away. Sure. So, grew up in Minnesota, went to college at Wisconsin, dropped out of school and joined the army the day after September 11, which was a unique experience showed up at the recruiters office. And this was kind of before the swell of recruits. And, you know, he didn't really know that that was coming. And so I walked in and said, Let's, let's do this. And he said, Well, let's, let's sit down. And you know, let me tell you about what the Army has to offer for you. And I said, Let me tell you how to recognize buying signs, like I'm here to do the deal, let's let's make that happen. But no, it was it was a great experience, spent eight years in the military. And then, you know, like you said, was was enlisted for a while officer for a while. When, when I got back, got out and went to work and transportation. And I didn't know anything about trucking at the time, but it was 2009. And they agreed to pay me every other week, which was really appealing in 2009. And so, you know, I ended up actually really cottoned on to supply chain. It wasn't anything I had done in the military. And so it was new for me. But it was it was really this interesting nexus of kind of all different parts of a business. And so I spent time in supply chain, worked in, worked in finance for a while, worked in consulting for a while, and then kind of found my way back to supply chain after some time in healthcare. And then recently, you know, for the last last three years, led a global logistics firm based here in Kansas City. That's what brought me to Kansas City. And I stepped down from that that role, actually, very recently, so you know, we've finally completed the transition. The process started a little while ago. But yeah, taking the summer for myself, and then, you know, on to the next next thing starting this fall. So that's that's kind of me in a nutshell. Yeah, we'll talk more about the next thing at the end too. But right now, so you have a very different perspective than most people, especially coming from from the army where you have enlisted time and Officer time. I don't know that a lot of people appreciate the difference in how you show up for those different positions. There is very dramatic difference. Yeah. And then now taking that experience and also coming into the leadership world in in like corporate America, I'm able to apply those skills. So you have probably seen the organization's from so many different perspectives now. Right, like, what are those kind of things you should be looking for when you show up to know that? It's going right, or it's going wrong? As Yeah, man? Yeah. To your point of kind of the difference between the officer and the enlisted thing I think I had the last year I was with the unit deployed to Iraq with we picked up a soldier maybe six months before we deployed and somebody brought him back to the office. And I had another soldier who was you know, real problem guy, you don't want this problem children right, can't can't get rights. And every so often, you know, Lieutenant rush would take the bar off, and Sergeant rush would kind of show back up and, and so this, this new guy shows up and he says to one of the other guys, man, it's kind of rush seems to yell a lot. Like that's, it's kind of weird. So you've seen nothing like you have no idea what's coming so but no, I think you're right like it is it's a very different experience. It's a different it's a different lens, I think having those two different those student experiences in the military and then coming out into the into the business world. And then especially you know, spending time in consulting gave me this incredible view of all these different organizations I think when you talk to when you talk to organizations or when you talk to people in organizations when you step into an organization you know, the the aphorism right attitude was flex leadership, like it's so true, it's so true. You get a sense of leadership capability and the way that a leader is in the areas, leaders, strong areas of leaders, you know, going to get to stub their toe, you get it by talking to their people, you know, when you when you talk to people within an organization, you can get a sense of the culture real quickly. And I think that one of the things that's really top of mind there really kind of jumps to the to the top of the list is, is openness. Right? When when you talk to people who are, you know, I, whenever I would interview somebody, I would always ask them questions that, that they weren't expecting to hear, right, the goal of the interview was not to give the, I don't want the question, you know, tell me about a time that you disagreed with your supervisor and found a way to blah, blah, blah, everybody's got that answer in the back. They already know how to how to answer that question. I wanted to give them a chance to, like really think and get a chance to see who they really were. And then the people who asked me those questions when I was interviewing them, you know, and at the end of the interview, you know, what questions do you have, and they give you the ones that are that are so off the wall and you go, man, but I've never thought about that before. I had such a respect for that person and said, like, that person is going to fit in our culture. Because our culture was all about transparency, right? It was all about this idea of like, just candor and transparency and openness. And like, if those things are there, then you're gonna get a much better communication. Right? So to really directly answer your question, like if you if you really want to get a sense of what an organization looks like, talk to half a dozen people that are that are not in the leadership group. Right? They're gonna tell you what's important. They're gonna tell you what's, you know what the truth is, right? It's, you know, the military, it's the same thing, right? The privates will always complain about stuff. And that's the stuff that needs to get fixed. Right. Like, that's the real issue. Right? Yes, they will. But, yeah, no, I like that. And like, it is pretty crazy how just in an interview, how you can just ask a single question, and it completely changes the tone of, of the interview and allows you to actually see this person totally agree on something that was like, just fun that I used to do was, I would just tell him teach me something. Yes. And it was one of my favorites. What are you? What do you want to know? Yeah. And I like the people who jumped right into teaching me something. I'm like, I like you. Yes. It's going well, yeah. Versus like, oh, I don't know. It's, or like, What book are you reading right now? Yeah. I don't care if it's fiction, nonfiction. I just want to know what you're reading, I guess curious. I so I used to use teach me something you think I don't know? which I loved because it gave me an insight into like, what they think I do know. Right? I was interviewing a guy once. And I said, Teach me something that you'd think I don't know. And he started teaching me about, about how to brew beer. And I said, man, like you've seen my resume, like you. I went to University of Wisconsin, do you think I don't know that? I think that's a minor. We all write like, no, like, don't write, research, man. But like, I think that's it did teach me something is such a wonderful question. It's such a it's such a great, insightful question. I like to ask people to tell me a joke. Because I think that when people show up in a job interview mindset, like they're never thinking, they're never thinking like, Oh, I'm gonna be funny today. Right? They're, they're thinking about, you know, all their numbers that they've had in their past and all that stuff. And you can kind of knock them a little bit off their off their pedestal and kind of comfortably give you makes the interviewer a little bit more comfortable. Right, so I'm being hired hinges on whether you left Exactly, yes. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't expecting to talk the hiring stuff. But yeah, but like, two of the big questions that I'm constantly asking when I look at a team or look at individuals is, Am I safe? And do I matter? Right, those are the two big questions that are going through everybody's head. Yeah. So even in an interview, how can I make them feel safe? And like they matter? So they do open up? Because when you see them, someone sweating? Yeah, like their hands shaking, or they're stuttering over words. It's like, just let's take a breath. Yeah, we got this? Well, I think I think that's true, whether you're, whether you're hiring somebody, or whether you're coming in to look at an organization, if you're looking to purchase the organization, or if you're coming in to, to, you know, just to get a sense of like, your new team, or whatever it is, right? That ability to get people to be comfortable in the room and say, like, listen, let's just have an honest conversation. Like this is, this is a place where we can we can disagree, and it's okay. Right. And I want to learn from you, you want to learn from me, that to me, that's a really big indicator of, of how to understand what that organization is like. Similarly, if you get people, you know, when you when you talk to somebody, and they work at it at, you know, XYZ Corp. And you go, how is it there and there's that like? Okay, well, now, I know, I know, everything I need to know about working at XYZ Corp. Right? Like, the fact that they couldn't answer that question in a really, you know, articulate and immediate way, I think is problematic. And so you know, when it comes to when it comes to looking at leaders when it comes to looking at, at your team, somebody else's team, whatever it is, I think that the candor of that conversation that you can have right away answers so many questions about. Right. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. Let's get into talking about the importance of self awareness for leaders. Yeah. I should just go. I think I mean, open ended. Yeah, I think it's the look. I don't think I've ever met a good leader who's not self aware. I think I've met a lot of bad leaders who are self aware, like, so it's not a guaranteed, right. It's not the it's not the magic bullet. But if you don't have strong self awareness, as a leader, you're going to fail. It's just that simple, you're going to fail. And I think a lot of that self awareness comes from it comes from being really introspective and being willing to devote some time to thinking about, like to thinking about yourself, not in an arrogant way, but in a very critical way. What are the things I'm screwing up? What am I bad at? What do I Where do I need help? And you have to be really intentional about that. Because if it's the stuff that, you know, I think as leaders, it's very easy to conflate the things we don't enjoy what the things were bad at. And those aren't the same thing. Right? They are not the same thing, right? Sometimes they are. But they're not inherently the same thing. There are a lot of things that we're good at that we're really that we don't enjoy. And there are a lot of things that we enjoy that we're not good at. I think, you know, a cursory examination of my golf scorecards would tell you that that second part is absolutely true, right. But no, like, in truth, I think good leaders are, it requires that understanding of what we're good at what we're not good at what we enjoy what we don't enjoy. And they're not those, that's not the same question. You have to cultivate an environment with your team where they can tell you, Hey, listen, you really enjoy this, but you kind of suck at it. Like this, this really isn't your it's not your wheelhouse, right, it's, it's, somebody else can do it better. Like we can come up with 100 euphemisms of how to say, Listen, you're bad at this. But like, you have to have that that candor with your team. And I think, you know, it's it's the military to bring it back to what we were talking about earlier, I think actually really cultivated that in me, right. The the AR process, the after action review process, that candor that you have in those moments, really makes it easy for people to be self aware. And for people to be able to say, yeah, I really did a bad job. They're like, that's really something I screwed up. And that's okay. Right, we're gonna get better tomorrow. I think that in the in the business world, in the civilian sector, like, I think we too, often conflate our, our performance with our intrinsic value, right. And there's this idea that if I say I did a bad job, I'm saying I'm a bad person. Right. And I just think that's a flawed, it's just a flawed way to think there's, there's something that we're all good at, there's something that we're all bad at, like, each of us has strengths and weaknesses. And, and, you know, personally, it's something that has led me to changes. And I mean, my, my most recent, you know, career shift, right, the decision to step away from really a thriving company, and a company that I'm so proud of the things we did, you know, came as a recognition that look, I'm not good at the things that the company needs next. Like, I'm not the right fit for that. I was the right person to get us here. But I'm definitely not the right person to get us there. And that's, it requires candor with yourself and candor with yourself, I think requires a lot of confidence. So yeah, sorry, that's just me kind of off the top of your your opening. Oh, yeah, that was great. Hey, if I can just send open ended questions like that, and get those types of answers do more often. But no, that's a I think a lot of startup founders get stuck in a place where they use titles very early to bring people in, get them excited, like, Oh, you're gonna be the CMO. So they're like, oh, let's do this. And they get the company to 1 million. Yeah, maybe five 10 million. And then that cmo isn't the right person for that. And so like, you have to fire someone else, just because you gave them a title because they're not going to, most people aren't going to admit, hey, I'm not the right person to help you grow this at this point. And so like, Yeah, I mean, I agree entirely. That I think that like, it's interesting. You mentioned that point of like, kind of people outgrowing the title, right. And I think I think over titling is something that that you're It is a huge problem in startups. And it's a huge problem. And I think a lot of businesses because look, as people are trying to get, you know, more and more competitive with with hiring and with, you know, with with staffing, for title doesn't cost anything, right, I can give somebody more money or I can give them a fancier title and I can get them with a fancier title. The problem with the title it with the over titling is that you end up in jobs that, like, either the person's not capable of evolving, or, you know, they aren't the right fit for what that job requires. And I think, you know, I got a friend who's whose his his title structure early on in organizations, as always, head of, or, you know, something along that line, he doesn't give actual titles. And the reason is that you can very easily say, Well, you were the head of something, now you're the director, right? And we're gonna hire a VP. Right. And, and I think he's, he's really trying to, like, proactively avoid the conversation that you just mentioned, which is, you know, you're the chief, you're the CMO, but like, you're not cmo anymore. But at the same time, like, it's great, you, you muted like, 10% of the difficulty of that conversation, right? The hard part of that conversation, is the part where you have to say, Listen, you were really good to get us to a million in revenue, but you're not the guy who's gonna get us to 10 million, or you got us to 100 million, but you're not going to be the guy who gets us to a billion, like, you're just not the right person for that seat. And I think a lot of that comes from a lot of the conversation, the challenge of that conversation comes from the idea of saying, You're not rather than you are. Right, and like, that's, I think the really big unlock for me is being able to say, I know what I'm good at, I know what I'm not good at, right? And so when I find myself, in a situation where I'm not good at something, I'm just going to default to saying, hey, look, I need to seek the thing I'm good at. But again, it comes back to like, you have to be willing to be honest with yourself. So, yeah, cuz there's a couple different ways to look at that, right? You could, you could say, Hey, this is my, my gap, I need to fix it, I need to take it. But you're not necessarily going to have the time to put in the number of reps needed at this level, in order to make that happen. But something that I've seen pretty often with titles is like, I'll be interviewing someone who says I was the CMO here, and I want to be the CMO there. But then when I look at the results of what they've actually done, like, I know someone just gave you a title, because you haven't done what I would expect a CMO does. And that's like hurting people in the longer machines. And now you're not actually taking care of people, you're almost using it just as a leverage point to get more further. And so, yeah, I think your point about your point about it being a leverage point, I think is an interesting one. I also think it's a case where, you know, the, look it the problem with titles inherently is they are, they're shorthand for jobs, right? At the end of the day, they're just shorthand for what the job is. But like look, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, and the CEO of like, Jim, Bob's tune efficient tire Emporium on the corner. Like, those aren't the same job, same title, not the same job. And so, like, and that's, that's not to denigrate either of those two guys. Right. Like, when you're the CEO of a startup, you do everything. Right, I you know, and again, I'm gonna bring it back to the army. I had a, you know, there was a, there was a company commander that was adjacent to us who, very early on in my career, he said, he said, Clang, and other thing about the army is like, we do everything half assed. I thought, okay, he goes, but we do do everything. And I thought, okay, that's actually like a really good point. Right. And, and I think there's a part of that, like, when you're when you're the CMO of a small company, right? When you're the CEO of a small company, when you're that person versus when you're that person a big company, just markedly different skill sets. And, and trying to trying to put one into the other. You know, it's very square peg round hole. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's similar to working b2b and then jumping b2c. Like the environment is different. Yes. Right. And if you Yeah, if you're not able to acknowledge those those differences, like do you think oh, I've sold stuff before. Did you sell shoes or $2 million dollar software packages because those are different those are different. Yeah, right. Yeah, but uh, well yeah. Let's talk about so again it back now a couple different directions ago. Talking about the stuff you enjoy the stuff you don't enjoy. Right and keeping these on a chart with the the stuff you're good at and the stuff you're not good at. We talked for right about how the stuff you don't enjoy super easy to delegate like I don't like doing this, I'm gonna find someone else to do the work. The stuff you're good at and you enjoy, obviously, we've just talked easy, you're gonna keep that stuff. It's your sweet spot. Now the stuff that you enjoy, but you're not good at. Right? This is where I think you've said before like this where people fail the most. How do you go about actually identifying these these spots? Right? Because you're probably coming in blind at some point, if you enjoy it, you're not necessarily knowing that you suck at it. How do you go about identifying those for people, so you can actually figure out you know, how to handle it? Yeah, I think I think that's the, I really do think that's the dangerous box is the stuff you enjoy, and it's the stuff you enjoy and are bad at, and the stuff that you don't enjoy, but are good at, like, those two boxes are the hard ones, right? The don't enjoy suck at easy, the enjoy good at easy. It's the other two, and I think the the, the enjoy, but bad at the, the real challenge of it is, there's not like a good, there's not a good feedback loop to it. There's not a you know, you don't get poked with a stick. Because if you do a bad job at it, you just have to do it again. Right. And that's okay. Because you like doing it. And, you know, for me. So I'm a, I'm a systems thinker, I'm a creative person, I like to try to problem solve, I like to try to come up with things that, you know, try to try to build systems to solve problems within the business. And when I say systems, you know, as people that's process, that's tools all put together, right? Okay. So I really enjoy like that creative outlet. Right? That is that that's where that kind of creative outlet shows up for me. All right, that exact same muscle shows up in marketing. Right? It's a creative outlet. Here's the thing. I'm really good at the first one. And I'm really, really bad at the second one, right. But I enjoy it. It's something that's fun for me, because I get to scratch that creative itch. And I know I'm really bad at it. Because when I do it, it doesn't work. Right? But it doesn't bother me, right? Because I go like, Oh, cool. Now I get to do it again. Right? Hey, we just need we just need more like, we had, you know, 30 slug lines for something, screw it, let's make 80 slug lines or something like that's fun, right? I get to do more of it. And like that part is enjoyable to me. So it's, it's a, it's a really seductive thing. That's really dangerous because you enjoy it. And there's not a good feedback loop to say, like, you're doing it, you're doing the thing you like to do more. Because you're so bad. Right? I think the way to avoid that is you gotta have somebody tell you, you got you got to have people around you who can tell you early on. Look, you're good at this, this is where you're at your best. Okay? This is where you're not, like, stay over there, don't come over here. That's the first part is have somebody tell you. The second part, once you get enough reps, like once you get enough enough game tape on it, you can start to look at it and say, here are the things where I can point to having had a ton of fun. Having really enjoyed what I did, and then seeing long lasting impacts of the decisions I made. Right. So yeah, I mentioned systems thinker, like very, you know, process oriented, right. So the company that that I was with in the past, we redesigned our, our clinics, right, and the clinics had been these larger geographically, they were located close to health care centers, we wanted to we ended up putting them closer to communities. They were large, we ended up making them small. And it was this insane day where myself and my my my boss, rain is pouring, you know, against the window in his office. And we were just there scribbling like crazy people on the whiteboard wall that he had, right? Trying to design like, Well, no, you can't you can't do it this way. And you got to do it this way. And you get, and like it was just this it was this Mad Cat bring brainstorming session. Right? And it was tons of fun. It was so much fun. Like it was an incredibly enjoyable day. That that the output of that day is the design that we've used since that or they've been since then. Right? So like, tremendous impact from that thing. And I can point to that and say, Okay, that's the kind of thing that I'm really good at. And I really enjoy. Right? Great, easy now I just seek those experiences. Now I just say what's the environment in which that shows up? Well, I know that there's a size component, because like the guys at Google, right, the CEO and COO at Google, they don't have conversations like that. Right? Tim Cook's not designing devices for Apple. He's not right he's not having that conversation. There's a team of people that are dragging you so divorced from it. Right? Okay, well, that that tells me that I need to be that's on the smaller end, because I enjoy having my hands dirty. Right? It needs to be something that is that is physical in nature, it needs to be something that impacts people, it needs to be something that affects the way in which we do our work. Right. Right. That's an operational role. Right? It's it's it's definitely not the marketing and sales side. Right? Because that's, that's more esoteric. That's more you know about the field, right. Now, the way that we manage the way that we set up CRM, hell yeah. Like, bring that up, bring that over to my side, right? That's my world. Okay. The way we get stuff to put into the CRM, I don't know, go talk to the sales guy over here. Like he that's his world, right? And so, like being able to have those reps to be able to say, I'm seeking this rather than trying to avoid that, right, you start to you start to get enough I'm seeking and then you kind of draw a fence around it, you go, okay, they all have this stuff in common. But then there's this other group of things that I really enjoy, right? Why didn't I put them in the bucket? Because I do those things, right. And I enjoy them. But why didn't they end up over here? And the reason is, they didn't end up over here because they don't have lasting impact. And they don't have lasting impact, because I'm bad at them. And that's okay. Right. But it's not okay to just keep doing them. And I think that's how we think about, right. That's how we think about finding that bucket of I enjoy, but I'm bad at, right? Conversely, the I don't enjoy but I'm good at bucket also shows up in the same way. Right? Where's all the things that I did this stuff, and it was really effective, but I hated it. Right? I didn't put them in the bucket because I didn't enjoy it. Okay, too bad. So sad, man. Like, that's what you're good at, you need to do it. Right. Like that's, that's how you're adding value to your team. And, and you got to do this stuff, you can't give it away, because otherwise the team is going to suffer. Right? So having having enough reps to be able to say, these are the things that really box out that I love it and I'm good at a box, it will leave those other two things on the sidelines. Right? So I want to keep following this. But I also want to go back and ask one question around. So you have looked at the gameplay footage, right to identify these, these areas of concern for yourself. But you can also find people to tell you when you're just not doing well. How do you go into an organization? Find those people? How do you go into an organization and find them? I think you don't go in with the intention of finding them on day one, right? Like you, you have to get that you have to be able to build that connection to be able to say like this person is right about a lot of stuff. Right? Like I think that their judgment becomes incredibly important. You know, I talked about the difference between precision and accuracy and like the balance between precision and accuracy. And I think that that people are really to weighted toward the precision side. Right? If somebody tells me that it's, you know, it's 53 degrees out and somebody else tells me it's 53 and a half degrees out. I don't care about the 53 and a half, right. Now the thing is right now it's 89 degrees. So neither of those people did a good job of telling me what's what, right? The person instead who goes man is hot out, like it is hot. Right? Okay. It's hot, doesn't even have a number. But I trust that person more than the 53 and a half person. And I'm going to seek that person's advice much more often. Because they're directionally accurate, even if they're imprecise, right. That honesty, I think shows up in in areas that are really unexpected. You know, they'll they'll call their own fouls, like when they're when there's an issue, right? When you're, when you're in a project meeting, they're the ones who raised their hand and go, Hey, I screwed this up. Right, the one who says like, well, you know, it was on time, and then Chris got involved in it, like it didn't work. Okay, that person, they'll never tell you the truth about you. Right? Because they're perpetually looking for like, how do I, how do I play the politics? Right. So I think that's part of it. I think. The other way you do it is you look at the people who are affected, right? Like the guy who runs it, he's gonna give you good insight about whether you're, whether you're helping in it, right? Your CFO is going to tell you if you can speak finance or not. And and, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the end all be all right because everybody wants to kind of protect their own their own territory, unfortunately. But I think that that's a good place to start. is looking at those types of things. The last thing I think that is that is valuable in in being able to, to find those people is doing something like that. personality testing on yourself. And recognizing things that are different about you like things that are unique about you, right? Whether they're whether they're, they're favorable or unfavorable. So like if you take the big five test, right, or the Big Five personality traits, so I scored really high on the extraversion. Okay? What that means is, I really want to find somebody who's very introverted, to tell me what they think. And I want to find somebody who's very extroverted, and tell me what they think. Right? Because I can take the information of one person and say, look, you see the world the same way I see the world. Right? Now I have the ability to see the world through basically my eyes shifted. Right? The introvert, totally different. Right? Totally different. Now, I'm balancing my perspective. And so like, Yes, you got to talk to both, right, and you're gonna have to talk to both in both cases, but it's what you do with the information after you get that that becomes so impactful when you know where you're standing. So that's awesome. I don't know if it's the right answer. It's worked out for me, though. Yeah, I don't know that I've ever deliberately look toward them. I've just moved towards those people. Because it's like, I feel you being honest with me a lot. I like that. And so and even when they're calling you out for something you did wrong, still, like, I like to think of you if you can, if you can seek those people in areas where you know, you have, you know, you have a blind spot, there's so much value in that. Right, and it really does become very self perpetuating, which is great, right? That's, that's the flywheel of like development that we're all looking for. So let's, let's talk, you just went through like a string of different roles and how they can help you kind of know your role better. Let's just talk about owning your role, and the ability to kind of know what what impact you need to be making specifically. How do you how do you help your team just stay aligned on the stuff that they can do? Yeah, to make sure that all all of the wheels, you know, the first thing that that really derails teams in that situation, I think, is a lack of clarity. Right? I think it there's a you know, what, Chris Rock's got the joke, you know, like, it's okay to be married to a crackhead if you're a crackhead. Right. Like and it's a good joke, right. But, but I think there's actually some business application to it as well. Right, which is like, you just gotta be clear with each other about expectations, there's got to be like, clarity of who owns what. And once you have that, you've got to be transparent about it. Right? And those are, those are different, like one is about specificity. And one is about communication. And so, you know, if you and I are going to do things, right, the the ability of both of us to understand what lives in your world, and what lives in my world, that you got to have both of those things, right. There's a, there's a thing that I saw that says that every time of business triples in size, it goes through a significantly complexity epidemic, right? So you think about it intuitively, it makes a lot of sense, when it's just when it's just the two of us that are running something, if I'm not doing it, I know you're doing it, right. And if you're not doing it, you know, I'm doing it. And then we introduce this third person, right? And now all of a sudden, it's like, well, I'm not doing it, which one of them's doing it. And that becomes important. So I think thinking about things through that kind of size component, right, that idea of, of, you know, tripling creating problems. But I think the other big piece of it is when it comes to aligning and coalescing around a particular initiative, a particular project of something that's going on, right? Even if that's an ongoing thing, it doesn't have to be a one time it can be an ongoing, having that, that collaborative conversation and that ability to say, like, I know that, you know, what I said? Right? Again, let's go back to the army, right? It's the back room. Right? It's the, okay, I gave you an instruction, tell me what I just told you. Right, which seems a bit pedantic but like, there's a way you can do that, you know, in a very normal way. I use the 1080 10 approach, which is, you know, I own the first 10% and we're in the middle 80%. And then together, we're going to do the last 10%. And so if I say that, then I know that you have the like, you have the the drive to make sure that before we break, you know exactly the first 10% Right, if I haven't defined it effectively, like that's, it's on you to make sure like to hold me accountable for for defining it effectively. I think that's been really effective. Right. And then once you have a you know, and you mentioned EOS when we were chatting earlier, like I think that that accountability chart plays a huge role. All right, you got it defined. You've got to publish, everybody understands what's what everybody understands how we're how we're measured against it. And now it's just about how do we have honest candid conversations to say, this is what you're good at, this is what you're good at, go execute. The visionary integrator base, I think is is fun to look at, when you're talking about owning roles, because many startup founders, right, or they're generally going to be the visionary. And now they're going to come in, and they're going to want to do everything. Because they have, they started the company for a reason, right? Because they do something different. And they want to bring that to market. And I have seen, the hard part is for them to be willing to pull in an integrator, someone who can just shut up, right, I'm gonna get the job done. Yeah. Right. This is what this is your vision. I got it. And they just go do it. And so yeah, just looking at that, that perspective. Right. I think it's really interesting. I think that some people are, I don't want to say late, but they're late in their development on bringing in an integrator, right. Like, they, they hold on to that stuff too long. And I think that other people are early, you know, they they try to bring in an integrator, you know, before, you know, when the company is too small, right? When they're, when they're just trying to get rid of things that they don't want to do. Right? They go that's hard. It's not fun. You know, it's never it's never a fun conversation to tell people that they don't have a job anymore, like firing people is not fun. It's not going to be fun, right? There's not a part where like it after you do your 106, like, all of a sudden, that's fun. Like it just doesn't exist. Yeah, right? Exactly. Like it just doesn't exist. But there are so many people who go like, well, we're gonna bring somebody in who's gonna do it, because I don't like doing it. Okay, I get it, you don't like doing it. But like, that's your job. There's like part of the job that that's, that's the thing that comes with the job is you have to do it. And I think that like that, that in that that's for an HR example. But like when you think about the integrator component, I think it's a question of complexity, I think it's a question of when that when the thing becomes big enough that you need somebody who has a different skill set to get their arms around it. And, and you're right, it's, it's that, you know, they want to do it, like the visionary who founded that company and wants to do everything. It's hard to let go of stuff. But you're gonna lose, if you don't, you know, you're you can't, you simply can't scale yourself. Right? Well, after a certain point. I mean, if you if you can, and you figured out how to have like, a 25 hour day, like, you're gonna be a trillionaire. Right like that. You have truly solved like the the great, you know, space time issue of humanity. You're probably in the wrong business, if that's how you figured out, right, like, you haven't figured that out, go, go hire somebody who can, who can help you with the things that are, that are the, you know, to your point, like, just shut up and call her. Right, there's an element of that, which is, which is there I think the other thing, though, is when you have like, where I've worked really well with a great visionary is when we've both been at the table to be able to, like, it's not, it's not his idea to come up, it's not his job to come up with the idea, and then my job to execute, right? Like, that's not that's not the right to me, that's not the right thing. The right thing is to say we both see the world differently. Now, let's sit at the table and figure out the idea together. And then let's figure out the execution plan together. Right. Like, it's, it's not to people that don't talk. And I think that's the other thing that that people really stubbed their toe on is they go, Okay, well, I'm the visionary. I've got an integrator now, like, that person is just going to make it work. And all I have to do is pie in the sky ideas. Right? That doesn't work either. Right? So I think it it's a tough it's a tough pairing. There's a great Harvard Business Review article about, like the seven types of CEOs, or six types of CEOs. That's like a really, really interesting, but I think that job is by definition, it's a very unique role. Because you're, you're kind of responsible for a nebulous thing. And so good communication with that with that integrator is so important. Yeah, awesome. Colin, this has been a fascinating conversation. could go on for a long time. We'll just have you. We'll have you back for another episode. Sounds great. But uh, right now, what, uh, what book would you recommend? Everyone read? I think hard thing about hard things is the best. It's the best business book ever written. I asked everybody on every team I've ever worked on to read it. I think it's it's tremendous. I try to read it once a month. I think it's it's incredible. You got to be comfortable with profanity. But but it's it's a great business book and I think it it touches on learning from failure, which I think is something that most most business books don't do they they become very, you know, self congratulatory, like here's, here's the great company I built, I do what I did. And I think it's far, far more effective to look at it the other way. So I love I love hard thing about hard things. Yeah, awesome. What is next for you professionally? Yeah, so what's next for me professionally. So I mentioned, you know, having left, having left the the logistics company that I lead, we went, you know, we grew from about 18 million to about 125 million. And during the time I was there, and one of the things that I recognized was that I'm better at the smaller end, right, I'm better when the when the business is in that small stage, and that rapid growth, and that's where I'm strong. So I've actually just joined flow therapy, which is the company that I was actually with prior to my last role, I've gone back to flow. And when I was there, they were there were legacy heartcare. Today, their flow therapy is a really cool company that does unbelievably innovative and really cool. non invasive cardiovascular therapy for chronic ischemic patients. And so folks who have have chronic heart issues, you know, often their their choices are basically surgery or lifestyle pills. Neither of those is great. And, and what flow offers is a non invasive therapeutic approach to managing that heart disease. And it is an unbelievable company. The story is incredible. The founder founded the company to like save his grandfather's life, which is the coolest story imaginable. And we're great friends, and they are, we are set up for incredible success and incredible growth and to our conversation about you know, you need that that integrator at the right time. They're about to tip over into a stage where one person can't wrap his arms around the whole business. And so I'm going to be joining them as they're joined them as their as their CEO. Well, nice. Awesome, so very excited. Yeah, know that it's exciting. It's one of those things where it's like, Oh, check it out more, but I don't want to be a patient. So yeah, it's an amazing therapy. Hate where can everyone find you? Everyone can find me at at Clint rush.com. That's the that's the best place. I've got some stuff on there. My, you know, my, my guiding principles as a leader. There's a contact me section there. So yeah, check me out on there. And that's got links and all kinds of stuff. Awesome. Well, Clint, thank you for joining me. It's been fun conversations really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. And for more information on how to build effective and efficient teams through your leadership visit leading for effect.com and as always deserve it