Four Fails, Four Focuses
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Audio Transcript:
I gotta tell you, I'm beginning to wonder if this podcast isn't a podcast to watch how Alex Reneman fails. Because here we are again. I've made some missteps or some...
I've come up short. And I want to share my learnings on that for hopefully it might be of value to you in your walk. But also I have a couple of questions I'll answer from y'all from the last episode as well.
So let's get to it. Let's start with my situation, where I failed. No need to go into all the details of it, but basically I've fallen short as a CEO.
I mean, I fall short as a CEO, as a dad, as a husband, as a community member, as a son, a brother, whatever. That's just life. I get it.
But in this case, I think I want to talk to you guys from those of you that are leading teams or companies for that matter, any organization, this is some one-on-one stuff. It's crazy.
But I've found myself where I'm behind in areas and have not dereliction of duty, but I certainly didn't come through like I'd like to. And so I'm revisiting some focus.
And you know, it's funny, I normally, I guess, naturally, and maybe just historically, and there's probably something I read somewhere or something. I don't know. I usually try to look at like the rule of three.
So I've got three things, maybe five. If it's longer, you get seven or you get too many. It's like, so you three, five.
I ended up before here and I could not get anything off there. So we'll talk about that in a minute. But here we are.
So right off the bat, the first thing that I want to talk about that I have fallen short on is this whole notion of pivot points in our organization and setting benchmarks, metrics, right? So it's not just overall metrics.
How are we doing from a revenue or profitability or those things? But many of the initiatives that we start or that I'm a part of initiating or whatever, they can sometimes hang in the air and keep going, right?
So you see this at companies all the time where there's this, oh, we really think it's a great idea, let's do this. And you know what? Maybe it was a great idea for six months.
Maybe it was a great idea for six years, but whatever. Like all of a sudden, you might look around and go, oh my gosh, we're still doing that thing. What's the outcomes on it?
And I think it's so easy. You know, when you start out, of course, of course, you have, of course, you'd have metrics, performance metrics, all that.
But as you get going and maybe you get a few wins and things kind of take care of themselves and whatever, you, I at least, can get lax on the follow up and the follow through. And that's not my forte to a certain degree.
And so it'll happen, you get some wins and you just kind of keep throwing out new ideas and new initiatives and they pile up sometimes. And or they maybe aren't all that effective because there were tweaks that needed made.
Well, but there wasn't this periodic review set in. And so for me, what, you know, clear targets, clear time frames and a clear signal to pivot if needed. Right.
So that's really important. So for me, it's like, OK, we're going to do this thing. All right.
Well, what can we expect by X date? And you know what? I don't care if it's unrealistic, the expectation by the date.
I really don't. And I know that's a loose way to run a business and you all have your own, you know, your own methods. That's fine.
But what I need is I need something, something we're measuring to and a date. And when we get to that date, not too far out, not too far out, but not too far close up or you can't see actual results coming.
But it can even be leading indicators, you know? So let's use a simple thing. It can be, let's use a weight loss kind of model, right?
You want to get in shape. Well, you could say, well, I think by week three or week six or whatever, I'll lose X number of pounds. Okay, that's fine.
Or you could say by week six, I want to make sure I've, you know, inches or even leading indicators that I've went to the gym X number of times or I went walking or whatever it is, right?
Or I've had this many days of a certain calorie input, whatever you want. But having those there, so when you get there, you can be like, you know, I may have said, I want to lose 30 pounds in the next three weeks.
Well, I get three weeks in and I'm three pounds down. It's like, oh, well, 30 was asinine. I shouldn't have chose that, but three pounds, that's good.
And then you adjust or you get there and you've lost nothing. You say, okay, well, what have I done differently? What should I be doing differently?
It gives you a touch point to adjust a pivot point, if you will. So again, don't follow the weight stuff I'm doing there. I'm just kind of throwing it out there.
All right, so that's clear targets, clear timeframes and a clear signal to pivot if needed. That's important. So I'm on that.
My second thing is what I, I traditionally have done a pretty good job at this and that's communicating the why and the priorities and what are we doing? What are we about, our strategy?
And my job isn't just to lead, whatever that really means ultimately, it's to align. And that means there's touch points, there's clear vision sharing.
And as we have scaled, and I don't know if any of you have been in this situation, as we've scaled, it's gotten tougher. When we were smaller, it was so much easier.
And you just have a quick conversation, and maybe you talk to the few folks you have, and everybody gets it, and you're rocking and rolling. And the more you do that, the more everybody is kind of aligned and you're rolling together.
As the company gets larger, and there's more things going on, more disparate things, different focuses, different job roles, those kind of things, it's easier for folks to drift away from what is priority here? What is our goal? What is our vision?
And while I've spent a really good time, I think culturally, as an organization, we're super aligned. And we're doing great. Don't get me wrong.
I'm beating on myself. But this is what leaders do, right? There's a portion of that where you've got to self-assess.
I'm in that stage. But it is getting harder to make sure I'm communicating the vision. So I've got to upgrade my ability to communicate vision.
And I don't know. You may be in that situation as well. So that's the second one.
And I don't have it solved exactly how. I've had lots of fits and starts here, and I've got some things I think that work. But I'm going to kind of double down there and make sure prioritization is easy for folks when they look at it at a high level.
The third one, I think, for me, is really important and one that I struggle with. I have high levels of trust. That's not my issue.
I struggle with delegation. I try to empower folks, and I trust them, but I don't delegate super well. So it's not letting go necessarily.
And again, it's not about a trust thing. It's about being in the trenches and having been there, especially when you've grown a company from the founder on through. You've done every job role, right?
Everything you think of that happens in the company today, I've done at one point or another. And so maybe it's an ego thing. I don't think it is.
But I brought value at those times. But obviously, I've hired folks to come in who are better, smarter, faster, whatever, than me to do those roles. But I still stay attached to things that maybe I shouldn't.
And even if I don't stay attached from a work situation where I'm actually contributing, I stay mentally, cognitively attached, emotionally attached.
And so that's where I think the other two that we just mentioned, the setting, the pivot points, the targets, as well as the prioritization, that delegation can happen easier because you know you've communicated clearly the priorities and we're
aligned. And then you know you've got a touch point coming up with metrics you can review. And so those two things I think help support this for me. And I'll become a better delegator, hopefully.
It's not, again, it's not been my strength in the past.
But if I can nail this, I think that'd be really powerful because there are fantastic people on my team, probably on your team, that aren't fully realized because maybe you're filling error, you're filling gaps where they need to fill those gaps.
And they want to fill those gaps, but they may not ever roll you because you're in a leadership role, and they might see you that way. Even as much as you try to might have your culture be different.
So again, I think it's targets and pivot points, it's the communicating of the priorities and the vision, and then ultimately delegating to others and not just delegating everything onto one, but delegating onto someone else that creates a system
where they can delegate to others. Delegation is probably even the wrong word, it's more empowering through. But anyway, that's I think important.
And the last one, and I have talked about this on podcast a good bit, and here we are again, is this whole notion of the time I spend.
And this kind of ties in with the delegation, they're all related, but this is me deliberately looking at where should my focus be in my role today.
And it changes, and it ebbs and flows, and it's just one of those things where periodically, it's a good time almost every time you ever think about it. Maybe it's a good time to review this, but it's periodic.
Maybe it's quarterly, maybe it's monthly, maybe it's every six months. I don't know, maybe it's yearly for you. I don't know.
Depending on the pace of your business. But how do I, where do I spend my time? Where's the place to put my time?
And I find that I'm spending my time in some cases in areas that aren't super valuable. And so I look at it this way.
If I were to show what every minute of my day that I use at Mountain Leverage to our employees, to everybody at Mountain Leverage, and they look at it, would they say, hey, that's a good use of the CEO's time?
That's what he or she, in this case he, he should be doing. And if I can't answer that with a yes, then I gotta make some adjustments. And so right now I can't answer that yes.
I mean, I'm spending way too much time in my inbox. That's asinine. Nobody wants a CEO to be spending a ton of time in email.
And I get it. We can talk about all the easy tactics. How do they get it?
It's hard, because communication is an important piece of what we do. And just shifting email into Slack or something else, it's about the attention grabbing of those things. And I need to be deeper.
I need to be able to be more thoughtful, and not solitude and go on the hill and pray and meditate and all that, which again, there's value in that. But I just need to find those ways. That's just one example.
So this flourishing at Mountain Leverage starts with me. And if I'm not flourishing, what's the deal? And it's not that I'm not flourishing, but in this regard, as a CEO, if my time is being spent, it will always waste some.
I get it. It will always be in places. Maybe it didn't.
We thought a meeting needed us to be there, and you're sitting there, you're like, oh, this really isn't needed. Well, roll, man. Roll.
You don't have to be pretentious about it, but go do whatever else you need to do. At least that's, I'm talking to myself, by the way. So I need to recommit to the habits that keep me grounded and keep me focused in the role where I need to be.
And that, you can extrapolate that out to, you know, Alex the father and husband, Alex the community member, Alex the CEO, right? And so put in your name in there and throw it wherever you are in your roles.
If I'm going to lead us to what's next, I got to show up whole. I've got to be there. And that kind of plays into even the time I spend in my own health, which we've talked about on this podcast, I think that's important.
So those are really the four areas that I'm focusing on.
It's the targeted pivot points, it's communicating the vision and the prioritization, it's delegating, really empowering, empowering folks with trust, and it's where I'm spending my time, my focus.
You know, it's funny, though, I got to four and I kept fighting to get to three or to five, and ultimately, I just really embraced it, right?
So there's four elements, there's four cardinal directions, the four seasons, you know, even in spiritual context across Buddhism, Christianity, indigenous wisdom, there's this kind of four completeness, or the four truths, there's all those things
like that. So hey, I'm all in on four today, and for a while. So four feels balanced, it feels complete. And that's how I want this next season of my life to be.
And how long that season is, well, that will be determined. But at that point, it's four. So those are my four today.
Hopefully, again, another Alex Reneman fail is helpful to you. And I'll do a separate Q&A episode. We'll get that together, and we'll share that as well.
So thanks, everyone. I hope you're getting value out of what we're doing here. And if you are, please review us, give us the stars, some comments, whatever.
And also, and maybe even more importantly, share this with someone who you think it might be helpful with, too. You know, that they might enjoy it. This hillbilly talking about his scrapes and cuts and bruises and whatnot.
Hopefully, somebody out there could use this and get some value.
And, you know, as I've said a million times, I hope wherever you are, whatever it is you're doing and whatever reset or seasonal adjustment you're looking at for your life, I hope you're flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
