Evolving Industry:

A no BS podcast about business leaders who are successfully weaving technology into their company DNA to forge a better path forward

Organizational Transformation: How to Rebuild What Success Broke

George Jagodzinski (00:00):

Today, we learned that maintaining a position as a market leader isn't that different from maintaining a healthy marriage. I'm joined by Wayne Powers, a turnaround executive. He's worked as a leader in Fortune 50 organizations and closely with private equity firms to breathe new life into their portfolio of companies.

(00:15):

Amongst many other things, we dig into why great companies fall behind, what it really takes to reimagine them, and the power dynamics behind the scenes that either align everyone or blow the whole thing up. If you've ever wondered what it takes to fix what's broken at the highest level, this one's for you. Please welcome Wayne.

(00:30):

Welcome to Evolving Industry, a no BS podcast about business leaders who are successfully weaving technology into their company's DNA to forge a better path forward. If you're looking to actually move the ball forward rather than spinning around in a tornado of buzzwords, you're in the right place. I'm your host, George Jagodzinski. Wayne, thanks so much for being here.

Wayne Powers (01:08):

Oh, George, great to be here and thanks for having me.

George Jagodzinski (01:12):

So last time we were talking, Wayne, we were getting into what it means to reimagine an organization and you had so many interesting stories and real life examples of where you've gone in and helped reimagine an organization and I figured maybe a good first place to start is how to market leaders lose their way. Everyone's talked about Blockbuster and those traditional examples, but I'd love to hear your first-person examples and ideas on what happens to those market leaders to lose their way.

Wayne Powers (01:41):

Yeah, having... Again, to your point, having been in both Fortune 50 companies and also being in privately held equity, big back companies where at one point in their journey they were all industry leaders, and I think what I've seen pretty consistently in those companies where they were industry market leaders is that they get sometimes complacent.

(02:05):

They really kind of shut out all the competition around them because they always considered themselves the leader and that everybody else is trying to play catch up, which traditionally is it happens is that it starts with kind of the small things, where product innovation, consumer habits changing, the companies who are the industry market leaders really only continue to play to their strengths, which is what really got them to their leadership position, instead of really understanding how the consumer has changing and involving their habits and their interests.

(02:38):

And so when they do typically traditionally wake up to see what's happened around them, the market has shifted and competitive landscape has changed. And now, all of a sudden, where they were the industry leaders, they're now trying to play catch-up. And then there's a set of skills that requires them to really go back and start to reimagine and reinvent their portfolio and their consumer experience. And those companies that can course correct in real time are very uncharacteristically strong leadership-driven companies.

(03:14):

But more importantly, what I've seen is that you start making reactionary decisions, and that creates a whole set of circumstances where it could be acquisitions that they buy, products that they try to launch that don't necessarily align with the core base of business. And they typically then sit outside of those companies, and it creates a lot of internal friction, which doesn't allow them to really leverage the strength and the product portfolio that got them to the leadership role.

(03:41):

And then, it just changes there. Internally, there becomes a lot of struggle, misalignment on goals, even down to the point where there's incentives misaligned, and it just creates all kinds of challenges for companies. So that's what I've seen happen in companies who have gone from the market-dominant leading position to now finding themselves trying to play catch-up. The companies where I've seen have made that transition, the first thing that happened, and having gone through this myself, is that getting alignment.

(04:10):

And a lot of that just starts with culture, making sure that everybody understands what is it that we're trying to get to. Where's the ultimate goal in starting with the vision and then putting in this mission? How do you make sure that there's cultural alignment on the transformation that you're driving to? And then starts setting some very clear benchmarks as to how you're going to measure progress and how you're going to measure your success, and how you're going to celebrate. Because what I've also seen is that nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "Gosh, I want to do a bad job."

(04:44):

Everybody wakes up and says, "How can I do better today than I did yesterday to forward... to move the company forward?" But if there isn't the alignment and the clear vision or mission or what the company's trying to get to, you've got a bunch of people who are out trying to do things they feel are moving the business forward, and in some places could be misaligned to the goals of the company.

George Jagodzinski (05:05):

Yeah. And then you don't feel safe while you're misaligned. And it's funny, all those things that you were talking about, I like to call that death of a thousand band-aids, as you just start putting Band-Aid on the Band-Aid but...

Wayne Powers (05:15):

Exactly.

George Jagodzinski (05:16):

But even weirder, as you were talking about that whole... all of those concepts, I just kept thinking that it sounded like the things needed to make a marriage successful, relationship. It's like you can't get-

Wayne Powers (05:28):

Yeah.

George Jagodzinski (05:28):

... complacent. You're going to go through different seasons of your relationship, you're each going to change, you need to make sure you're aligned, and how it all figures out. So maybe if you could be a great leader in an organization, you could be a great spouse, great partner.

Wayne Powers (05:42):

Yeah. No, there's a lot of [inaudible 00:05:46] to do that. And I think if you're not constantly challenging yourself as leaders to continue to reimagine the company and the business, and I think if you go back and look at companies in time, one that I always just had a lot of admiration for was a company like Apple.

(06:03):

When Steve Jobs came back and re-imagined the business, his tenacity around product innovation was always so keen and so forefront of the company that that constant drive to innovate and to be first really just it sets a culture and it sets a really clear set of strategic initiatives that you're going... as a company you're going to follow. Failure is not going to be tolerated, and we're going to find a way to become number one in whatever place or business we're going to compete in.

George Jagodzinski (06:36):

Yeah. I know one that I'll be transparent and own up to that I've been guilty of, and I've seen it elsewhere, is not inspecting what's working and not working even when you're winning. So you're winning, you're winning, and you're just kind of... you're not looking underneath the covers because the numbers look good. So why bother looking under the covers? And that's bit me in the rear quite badly in the past, and I've learned a hard lesson from that one.

Wayne Powers (07:00):

Yeah. And again, I think we all do. There are certain places in time, and what I used to always try to do is when there was a new, either an acquisition we were making or a new product launch, is what does success look like and how do you define success? And if you're going down a path, when you begin to start to miss certain benchmarks that are validating the progress success of the product for the integration, is are you doing. I mean, it's important to understand when those are, but as importantly, what do you do if it gets kind of off track?

(07:33):

And there's so many companies, and I think we're all guilty of this at some point, is that you don't... you drive to success, and you don't want to stop. But there are certain times when you just got to realize maybe the product that you're trying to bring to market or the integration you're trying to drive, you got a course correct, you've got to realign the strategy, you got to realign the product portfolio, you got to change the go-to market. But so many times I've seen where you sat on a course of the path, and nobody's willing to make the adjustments as you go along. So you keep going until you hit a wall, and when you hit a wall, sometimes it's too late.

George Jagodzinski (08:11):

Yeah. Absolutely. So let's ground this a little bit. You've been in there, you've rolled up your sleeves, you've been in the rooms with people. What's a good example where a company kind of started to lose traction, you stepped in, and you've re-imagined?

Wayne Powers (08:26):

Yeah, I'll try not to give names of those companies [inaudible 00:08:31]-

George Jagodzinski (08:30):

Protect the names of the innocent.

Wayne Powers (08:31):

But look, most people can actually look at my LinkedIn, and you'll get a sense as to it. But there have been companies who, again, within their respective industries who have all been not only leaders but, in most cases, have been dominant over the years. What's happened in all three of these companies, there's consistent patterns here. Is that the consumer experience started to change, and the journey started to change for the consumers.

(08:58):

And there was a disruption that occurred, whether it be industry, whether it be climate, whether it be with COVID that also had a major impact is that if you don't have the ability to be nimble and to be able to kind of adjust as you go through it, you get kind of in a succinct where you're just keep driving and you're trying to drive for the goal, but again, you're not delivering in the goal and you're not listening to the consumer. And then you wake up and not only are you behind, but now all of a sudden you're considered old media or old platform or old product, and that label completely changes the way that you get invited to other strategic conversations or other partnerships.

(09:44):

So what I've always tried to do is start with the culture, as I said earlier, making sure that there is consistent alignment across the companies, set a clear path for what we're trying to achieve and then go out and make sure that there's clarity around that vision and mission with our customers that we're working and supporting and making sure, again, we're doing a lot of reality testing and checking.

(10:06):

And the last company that I was involved in where we really tracking the consumer journey and there was a lot of disruptions that were happening specifically with the way that these companies were interacting with the consumer and making sure that we were actually positioning the product or service to be an enabler, not a disruptor, to the point where it was negatively impacting their experience.

(10:28):

So finding ways along that consumer journey that was enabling to drive greater efficiencies, transparency, and even ease of use, I always find that those are the times where you get the most support from your customer base, but the consumer will validate and used... start to be used and transition the use of your product that will ultimately will transform the business and the company.

(10:52):

And I've seen that really the last three turnarounds that I've done. When you start to change the consumer experience and really giving them what they're indicating that they want based on their pattern of usage of that product or service, more times than not, if we just listen to the consumer, we know what we need to do. It's just not always easy to come to the realization you've got a course-correct or change your strategy.

George Jagodzinski (11:16):

Yeah. Easier said than done, that's for sure. Evolving Industry is brought to you by Intevity, we bring order to chaos, whoever people, process, and technology converge. Our culture drives our solutions, and we are solution-obsessed. See every challenge as an opportunity, every partner as a collaborator, and every project has a chance to share our values and commitment to excellence. Give us a shout. We'd love to hear your challenges and turn them into opportunities. Find out more at intevity.com.

(11:44):

Now, back to the show. So let's talk people dynamics here a little bit. I think a lot of people that haven't involved in a PE-owned company, they have... might have misconceptions about what happens. They're coming in, they're slicing and dicing, they're evil. I think, from my experience, there's many different flavors and personalities of private equity, and when they come in, they can have a lot of great benefit if it's the right fit and the right type of a fund, and the team. Tell me a little bit about the people dynamics and the team, and the culture.

Wayne Powers (12:16):

Yeah, I think your perception in which was initially I think the perception of most people when they hear that the company has been taking private with either a private equity or you're an outside investor who has a propensity to be a disruptor, their first initial reactions are always, "Well, what does this mean from you? What does this mean for my job? Are there going to be cost cuts or are there going to be product portfolio changes?"

(12:42):

And I think what I've seen from my experience is that typically in those situations, all they... all the private equity and all the venture capitalists really want is to have a clear strategic plan as to how you're going to get the business and the company back to a pattern of growth into success. Some of that may, at times, be reallocating resources, and some of it is going to be an impacted to people and their jobs.

(13:07):

But I don't think that I've ever gone into the three turnarounds that I've been in where the private equity or the venture capital, whoever's been the investor, has said, "The first thing you got to do is go in, you got to slash and cut expenses." That... I've never been into that situation. It's always, "How do we redeploy the resources? How do we make sure that there's clarity around our vision and our mission to this business to get it back on a trajectory of growth?"

(13:31):

So I think the perception to your point is one that, in many cases, is probably not well-grounded, but I certainly can get where that may have come from because, typically, you think of private equity, you think of they want to turn and burn. They want to come in and invest in this business to get it to a certain point where they want to transact the business for some kind of a monetary fiscal gain.

(13:57):

But my experience has been they just want to have... first of all, they believe in the opportunity to get this business back to some level of growth, or they wouldn't have put their own financial money back into the business. And I think getting clarity and alignment on how you're going to do that is really critically important. And that was for me, in each of the turnarounds that I went into, was getting that agreed to in the lineup first.

(14:22):

You build out a business plan, then you take it down to building on a financial plan, and then get alignment there, and then sharing that out. And a lot of that, when you're able to be very transparent with the companies on what the goals are, it takes a lot of that anxiety out of the air. And then when they realize that, "Look, if we don't dramatically change the course of this business, there isn't going to be a business in 12 months, 18 months, 24 months."

(14:50):

And I will tell you, I'd say a majority of the people inside of those companies know that the business is in a bad place and there's going to be a need for really a readjusted strategic vision for this business. So I'd say a majority of the company they're really welcoming it. They're looking for a path forward that can get them back to some level of growth.

(15:14):

And I would say even [inaudible 00:15:15] recognize that in the near term, that could mean that there's a change in a portfolio. It could mean that there's a change in staffing could mean that just that you got to reallocate the resources from one particular group to another, so that you're working on the right things to get the business growing again. Dispelling that belief is really important. And I think that comes with having really clear alignment with the investors on the plan.

George Jagodzinski (15:40):

I totally agree. And we work rather closely with these private equity companies that are portfolio companies. There's kind of two flavors that I love that are my favorites, and the one is it's the public company that has grown a lot and maybe lost their way a little bit.

(15:56):

And to me, what I always tell the employees there, "Let's get excited about this because what's happened here is since we're a public company, we've got all this bureaucracy. We can't make big changes to the organization. That would be fun. So we can get excited about those things now that we're public or now we're private and owned by private equity, we can make some interesting changes [inaudible 00:16:16]-"

Wayne Powers (16:15):

Exactly.

George Jagodzinski (16:15):

"... that could be fun." And this could be a once-in-a-career opportunity [inaudible 00:16:19].

Wayne Powers (16:19):

Right.

George Jagodzinski (16:19):

Yeah. And then, on the other side, the one I love is perhaps they're a company that they've maybe flatlined. They haven't invested in technology or digital. Laggard manufacturer is an example, and that's hard to do on your own. But if you get an influx of capital and the support of private equity, now you can inject some digital fuel into the organization and unlock a whole new different way of doing business.

Wayne Powers (16:43):

Absolutely. And I think that's where disruption meets innovation, meets alignment with the employees who are really committed to being there, is when they see that there's going to be the investment. Because, to your point, a lot of times, especially if you're coming to a situation where there's been a lot of financial stress, they haven't had the access to resourcing to invest into doing the things that need to be done.

(17:09):

So when you have that kind of clarity and that kind of investment energy into the business, I'll tell you it does change the culture pretty fast. And I think you also get a sense as to who really is committed to being a part of the transformation that's under place. And for those that aren't, I mean, for the most part, they either self-select out or they find their way out of the company. And that's also in some ways very healthy, natural transition to take place. So you really need to have people who are committed and aligned and really excited about where the company's going.

George Jagodzinski (17:46):

Totally agree. In that laggard example, I'm curious, any experiences you might've had adding digital to non-digital organizations?

Wayne Powers (17:55):

Yeah. And again, a lot of it comes to a place where in the days where I would say traditional business models were high-margin business models, and digital takes a certain amount of investment, as we all know. And those investments early days can put a lot of strain and stress on margins because of the investment in capital and resources you need to really continue to build out the platform.

(18:21):

But what I've seen, and in many of the examples, especially when you have consumers involved, the adoption, once you get them to have a true, really great positive experience in that digital transformation, the sheer volume starts to really rise the tides on the margins of those digital initiatives and investments.

(18:41):

And then, all of a sudden, before it, you've got a really good balance between the traditional line businesses and the digital line businesses. And then you just want to give the consumers the choice is that use the product or service that best meets the need for you at that point in time in your day or your week or your month.

(18:59):

So then you start giving the consumers the options and the choice that makes the most sense for them. And then, all of a sudden, now you build a product portfolio that's balance, that's thoughtful, that's innovative, and driving the right kinds of behaviors for the customer who are ultimately going to make the decision anyways, whether it's with you or without you as a product or a service.

(19:18):

So it's always best to think to find the customer along their journey and build products and services that meet their needs, versus trying to push something that just because it's a high-margin product or service for you that it's in a declining space. That just doesn't end well.

George Jagodzinski (19:35):

Yeah, we've got all these high margin things sitting on a shelf, let's-

Wayne Powers (19:38):

Yeah.

George Jagodzinski (19:38):

... clearly shove them down people's throats.

Wayne Powers (19:40):

It's the old adage. You're leading, you're the market leader in a declining market. Not a good place to be.

George Jagodzinski (19:47):

It's a little bit fun on the way, a little bit like sledding it down a steep hill, right. It'll be fun for a little bit, and then might hit a wall at the bottom.

Wayne Powers (19:55):

Exactly.

George Jagodzinski (19:56):

So everything you're talking about makes sense. I think sometimes the challenge can be where do you start? And I love these stories of when people are walking into an organization, and you might not want to share too much of your playbook, but I'm curious the philosophy with which you're going in there, you're going in there as a coach. Are you kind of hands-off for a while?

(20:15):

I will say I forget when it was in my career, but I used to always hear this mantra of stepping in as a new C-level, you kind of... you want to sit back and observe for nine to 12 months. And that sounds crazy to me at this point of my career and this point of how the world works, because I don't know who can wait for nine to 12 months at this point.

Wayne Powers (20:34):

No, I think, again, my past experiences coming into where, again, the one before [inaudible 00:20:40] company or these turnaround situations, to me, the first thing I want to do is talk to the customers and look at what kind of experience they're having, whether it be consumers or people who actually are buying the product and services on behalf of their customers or... and their clients.

(20:58):

And then you get a clearer sense as to where there are needs in terms of and gaps on your portfolio of products and services, and with the marketplace and the demand. And then I think you spend a little bit of time understanding kind of the culture that you're inheriting or you're going to build these products services around, and do you have the right competencies to really derive the kind of transformation or the new products and services that you need?

(21:25):

And I will tell you from my past experiences, that's not six to nine to 12 months. Those are... I'd say I always built kind of a 30, 60, 90-day plan. The first 30 days is talking to the customers, 60 days of looking at what the infrastructure looks like. And then, the next 30 days is making some pretty difficult decisions around how you start to realign the organization to meet up with the needs of the market. And sometimes, that's reorganizing groups and teams. Sometimes, it's changing out leadership, but I think you need to do those things pretty fast.

(21:58):

To me, the faster you can move, the better it is for the organization because I think uncertainty just drives a lot of anxiety. In times of anxiety and no clarity, you lose your good people. It's not the people that you are hoping that maybe you'll leave. It's the good people that leave because that kind of uncertainty will drive them out of the organization pretty fast. And those people are typically always in demand. So to me, transparency, clarity, and speed are really critically important.

George Jagodzinski (22:28):

That makes sense. But yet, I would imagine... Well, I have experienced this is even with people aligned the transparency and all of that, you're still doing a lot of change fast, right.

Wayne Powers (22:39):

Yeah. [inaudible 00:22:39]-

George Jagodzinski (22:39):

And that could be stressful for people. So, how do you manage that pressure and that stress that might seep in there?

Wayne Powers (22:47):

Yeah, so what I would do typically, and especially I would say in my first six months is that we would do weekly standups with my leadership team and I do every two weeks kind of company-wide, what we call all hands, just so that you can just make sure that as you kind of share initially the vision and the mission that you can read out some of the progress. With that, sometimes the first... I'd say first 30, 60 days, there's a lot of change that's happening across the organization.

(23:16):

And to make sure everybody is aligned and has a clear understanding of what's taken place and the reasoning behind it, I think you start again... you start taking a lot of that anxiety out of the company. And then, once they start to see the transition that's taking place and then the work that's being done to build to the ultimate vision of the company in terms of whether the product or the service and how that's starting to really perform, and you try to make sure there's clarity around goals and sharing that progress around those goals around that transition to me has always been really, really important.

(23:51):

And again, I think by being able to kind of show the change in transition that you're making at the leadership and the cultural side of the company and then how that's starting to morph itself out in terms of being able to deliver against the financial goals or the resource goals, it starts to give people the level of confidence that the things you're doing that you said you were going to do are actually happening. And because they're happening, you're starting to see some of the positive impacts.

(24:16):

There was once... one time where there was a lot of things that we kind of set up front, and for one reason or another, things happened within a particular customer client, and we weren't able to get to that goal as fast as we wanted to. Even being able to kind of share what are some of the roadblocks and some of the challenges that you're going through when you're making that transition, being very transparent with that, to me, you build a lot of credibility with your team even when you can acknowledge the challenges and also recognize and reward the successes.

(24:48):

So I think you've got to be really balanced at the first, probably 30, 60, 90, 120 days on the work that's being done, and can't just, all of a sudden, be, "Hey, we've made the changes now, everything is great." Well, I have not seen a lot of companies in that space that you can make a complete turnaround in 60, 90, 120 days. So I think the transparency and the consistency of message to me was always something I really was committed to.

George Jagodzinski (25:15):

That makes a lot of sense. And I'll admit another one I'm guilty of here, which is I think there's a couple different types of changes that happen, right. One are the very clear ones, "Hey, we're making this change." Then there's another one that kind of sneaks up on you as you're moving fast and testing and learning, and it kind of... a change kind of just gives birth throughout the process.

(25:35):

And something that I've been guilty of in the past is I don't maybe identify that early enough, and kind of grab the whole team and do a little mini pause and say, "Hey, I just want to acknowledge that this change happened." Because I feel a lot of people, if they feel like something's been changed on them without acknowledgment, it creates a lot of trust issues and maybe other issues that I'm not thinking about. Have you seen that [inaudible 00:25:58]-

Wayne Powers (25:57):

Yeah. No. So that's another really good point. And one of the things, especially in the companies that I've come out of, a lot of it was around product portfolio, and there was a lot of need to invest into a certain either digital product, digital platform. And so what we would do is once we got aligned on the product portfolio that we were going to drive to, we would create these daily, they call them standups and it'd be 15 minutes where the product teams, the marketing teams, and sometimes the sales teams would get together early on, could be daily every other day, maybe twice a week where they would do readouts.

(26:33):

And then, to your point, to be able to say, "Okay, what's happening this week?" And if there is a challenge or an issue that wasn't either identified earlier, sometimes those things kind of can be hidden until they're really problems that are really challenging to put you in a path of greater challenge in the future, if you know how to deal with it. But sometimes bringing those teams together to have a little bit that I always call conflict that can be trusted conflict so that they can do that within a group confinement where they can have that debate and they can make some decisions that sometimes can be difficult to do in a much more bigger, broader public forum.

(27:14):

That sometimes just helps starts to ease. And it also starts to build some credibility with the team, and they can sit and scream and yell at each other within the group in the room, but once they leave the room, they go out as a team. That to me is a cultural change. And couple of the companies I go into, the first few weeks, you come out of your leadership meetings, and everybody's nodding their heads in alignment. And then, something I just always hate was meetings after the meetings.

George Jagodzinski (27:41):

Oh, the hallway-

Wayne Powers (27:42):

And then you're just...

George Jagodzinski (27:43):

... conversation's the worst.

Wayne Powers (27:43):

Oh my gosh. And you find yourself thinking that, "Okay, they're all nodding, but I don't see that convicted commitment in their eyes." So you can typically find out who these people are pretty quick through some of the self-awareness and self-assessment, but a lot of times, it comes back to you pretty fast from other places in the company. So I'd say faster you can get rid of the meetings after the meetings, the better off the company and you're going to be as a leadership team.

George Jagodzinski (28:12):

Oh man, I can't agree more. Those are a pet peeve of mine. I'm going to shift things to you, put you on a spot a little bit. Personally, you've been in these roles, you carry a lot on your shoulders in these roles that I know.

(28:24):

I think some people think that some people are just naturally calm under pressure or that they don't feel the pressure, but I think what I've learned over time is that you have to purposefully do things or have certain mindsets and work on it. And I'm curious, how do you manage pressure in these situations [inaudible 00:28:41]-

Wayne Powers (28:40):

Yeah. And I mean your... It's so interesting because everybody deals with pressure in a little bit different way. And my way to deal with it, I'm a runner, so I typically would always commit to first thing in the morning and crazy enough, sometimes it's really, really early in the morning, but I'm up and get my run in and get myself mentally thinking about the day while I'm running.

(29:06):

And then by the time I get to the office, I have some level clarity and some level of just frequency of what I want to do throughout the course of the day. And then I think finding a way to spend time within the groups and I would purposely try to set my day where I'd spend time working with the leadership team and then try to spend the other time either out with customers or inside other groups within the company just so that you get a sense as to how's everybody kind of adjusting to the pace of change because you said it sometimes when change at such an accelerated pace, that can be overwhelming to people.

(29:45):

I think, most of us as leaders, we run at such a fast pace that if you're not careful, you're going to be so far ahead of the rest of the company that they're not going to be able to catch up, and they're not going to feel the alignment. So making sure that you're going back and doing the course check-in with the groups and making sure that they're... that, first of all, they're still on... still believing in the vision and mission, and that they're in a space where they can feel like they're contributing. And if they get to a point where they feel like they're out of sync, how to make sure they get them back up on the pace and the speed is really, really important.

(30:21):

And again, it goes back to the strength and character and the culture that you can create. And to me, it's just always been so important for me to have my leadership team to feel very open and transparent and I don't want anybody to walk out of the meetings and they have an issue or something they want to bring up to be comfortable enough to bring it up because if they're not bringing it up in meetings and they're bringing it up outside the company, that's a problem.

(30:45):

But if they're not bringing it up and they don't say anything to anybody, that's another problem because maybe their idea or their concern is a valid one. It should be brought up. So building that level of trust and transparency is so important. And again, I think you prove that as a leader when you can share both the success and also the challenges of the changes that you're driving.

George Jagodzinski (31:07):

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And pulling us back to the marriage comparison, especially in a remote world, I just find that you start to also, if you're not just spending enough time together, maybe even not talking about work, you start to see this friction start to develop between people who had otherwise great relationships.

Wayne Powers (31:27):

Yeah.

George Jagodzinski (31:28):

It's like I think we need to be comfortable with coworkers to say, "Hey, it's like we kind of need to do the equivalent of getting a babysitter and having a date night, right. Let's do that." You probably can't call it date night within the confines of work, but I think everyone gets the concept there.

Wayne Powers (31:43):

We used to do something on kind of a monthly basis, and it would be like a fireside chat and especially in the days when the leadership teams were all either in the same office or were remotely enough that you were getting together, the intent would be just to have a very casual, open conversation around how things are going. It doesn't have to be specific about a particular issue or how we're doing against the plan, could just be, "How are you doing?

(32:11):

How is your team doing? How do they feel about the work that's being done?" We always try to typically have a little bit of wine or a little bit of bourbon, and typically after a round or two, you go round the room and have everybody make a comment or so, and it takes a meeting or two for people to get really comfortable to be very open. And then you start to get people comfortable that they start to share issues or concerns or challenges that maybe they wouldn't have said before in a comfortable setting where they're okay being able to Sally challenging John or John's challenging Ellen. So you have that kind of respectful conflict.

(32:54):

And I will tell you, when you get to the point where you go to those meetings and there's one or two things that get brought up and there's a solve coming out of it or at least there's an alignment on what to do out of those meetings, that's when culture really gets defined and built and that just permeates down through the rest of the organization. So I always find that those fireside chats, to me, were so welcomed and so appreciated, and I think always typically work for me.

George Jagodzinski (33:20):

Totally. And even if the solves are little things, I think everyone, they hold back because they think that you only need to solve big problem, but it's all those little things that add up, right. Wayne, I could talk with you forever about this. I have one more question, but before I do that, is there anything that I should have asked you that I haven't?

Wayne Powers (33:37):

First of all, I appreciate this kind of dialogue, and I think you started out with the interesting way to think about whether it be private equity or private investor. I would just say that anybody who is coming in and experiencing for the first time the misnomer about the relationship really is just that.

(33:54):

And I think my experience has been I think when you go into a company, especially with an outside investor or private equity, getting the alignment because these people are investing in this business because they obviously believed in what's possible. So I think taking it from the aspect of they're investing, they're giving you the resources, clarity around the vision and mission, it's been a very positive experience for me in each of the three private equity situations I've been involved in.

George Jagodzinski (34:22):

I love it. I love it. So my last question is, in life, in your career, what's the best advice you've ever received?

Wayne Powers (34:29):

I think, at times, you got to be able to kind of slow down to really understand the speed and the pace. I would say early on in my career, what probably helped me in my career was just that I was a driver and pretty driven to achieving goals. And as you move up into the organization and you continue to take on larger leadership responsibilities, making sure that your team is able to kind of work at the pace and there is true alignment as you're going through that kind of transformation is so really important.

(35:00):

And that was a piece of advice I got early on in my career is that, "Look, your team... you're only going to be as successful as your team and is the company around you, and if they're not fully aligned and don't have the transparency of the goal that you're trying to drive and that kind of committed vision, it doesn't matter how hard you work and how smart you are as a leader, it's just not going to work." So, making sure that there's alignment on the vision, mission, and making sure that there's alignment in terms of the pace at which you're driving change.

George Jagodzinski (35:29):

That's so well said, Wayne, and I just love it. Also, knowing that you're a runner, that all the speed and the pace it's slowing down to be able to maintain, it's just perfect. Nice. I wonder if I [inaudible 00:35:39] predicted you're a runner just based off of that, but it was great. Really enjoyed this, Wayne. Again, thanks so much for being here.

Wayne Powers (35:44):

Thank you. Thank you, George. See you.

George Jagodzinski (35:48):

Thanks for listening to Evolving Industry. For more, subscribe and follow us on your favorite podcast platform, and pretty please drop us a review. We'd really appreciate it. If you're watching or listening on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and smash the bell button for notifications.

(36:02):

If you know someone who's pushing the limits to evolve their business, reach out to the show at evolvingindustry@intevity.com or reach out to me, George Jagodzinski, on LinkedIn. I love speaking with people, getting the hard work done. The business environment's always changing, and you're either keeping up or going extinct. We'll catch you next time, and until then, keep evolving.