In this clarifying episode, Lee Benson, CEO of Execute to Win, takes aim at two enormous problems founders face (especially when they hire coaches or consultants).

You will discover:

- Why traditional strategic planning never works sustainably (leading to Treadmill)

- Why your operating system, no matter what it's called or how much you love it, will grow your business (and what will)

- A clear definition of success for every CEO

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 4,5 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Lee Benson is a value creation expert and CEO of Execute to Win, a firm that helps organizations of all sizes to accelerate the value they create. He founded and led seven companies, including Able Aerospace, which grew from 2 to 500 employees and a 9-figure exit in 2016. He is also a 2x Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Your Most Important Number and Value Creation Kid, which helps parents teach their kids about money and value-creation tactics.

Want to learn more about Lee Benson's work at Execute to Win? Check out his website at https://etw.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Take the Founder's Evolution Quiz Today

If you’re a Founder, business owner, or CEO who feels overworked by the business you lead and underwhelmed by the results, you’re doing it wrong. Succeeding as a founder all comes down to doing the right one or two things right now. Take the quiz today at foundersquiz.com, and in just ten questions, you can figure out what stage you are in, so you can focus on what is going to work and say goodbye to everything else.

Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once

again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And

here with us today is yet another high demand coach in

the one and only Lee Benton, who's a value creation expert

and CEO of execute to win a firm that helps organizations

of all sizes to accelerate the value they create. He has

founded and led seven companies, including able

aerospace, which he grew from two to 500 employees and a

nine figure exit in 2016 He's also the author of the book

your most important number. He's here with us today. Lee,

welcome to the show. So excited to have you here. And

I have to admit you had me from the title. What is my

most important number?

Yeah, well, good to be here, Scott, thanks for

having me and your most important number. It really

kind of changes throughout the organization, at the top of

the organization, what's the one number that's reflective

of the value of the business and will drive the majority

the right behaviors with the senior leadership team? So I

believe every CEO's job, every founder's job, is to

continually and responsibly increase the value of their

business. Now, as you cascade out from that, you've got

marketing and sales and operations and finance, HR,

whatever that is, they have a most important number that's

reflective of the value that that function was designed to

create, or should have been designed to create, and will

drive the majority the right behavior. So this can be one

number in a small team. It can be 10 different teams with

different most important numbers all the way to 1000s

of teams and and when one improves, it accretes up all

the way to the top of the organization, thereby

increasing the value of the business.

Yeah, yeah. I love that. So you've used

the word value several times, and I'm actually surprised at

how infrequently this idea of value comes up. And there's a

couple key ways there's, you know, there's value to all

different stakeholders, but when it comes to the most

important number, are you referring to value that the

business creates, namely, on behalf of it, or on behalf of

or for its customers, or are you talking about the

business, the value of the business itself?

Well, if you increase the value of the

business, you have to be increasing the value for your

customers, right? And so what do the customers really say

about the quality or value or the experience they have when

they buy your products and services, and it's not just

your product and service, it's also the team and your team

and how they interact with your customers. So all of that

actually goes into it. So I would say, if you're

continually, and I love, you know, thinking about this way,

responsibly, increasing the value of your business over

time, just consistently, year after year you have to be

doing those other things as well.

Yeah, I love that, that idea of

responsibility, it can rub folks a little the wrong way

sometimes, but I think it is the link if you don't do it

responsible, because lots of folks can, like, flip stuff. I

remember, I think it was horse Schultz talking about, anyone

can go in and make a hotel more profitable, but can you

make it better? Right? It's just a great saying and and so

I love that idea of continual and responsible, and then

those two values come together in time. So another thing

jumped out in me the book. Jumped out at me in the book

was this idea of a leadership Audit Checklist, and just what

it did for you guys. So I'm wondering if you could just

just kind of enlighten us what was in the leadership

checklist, or, sorry, leadership Audit Checklist,

and why did it make such a big difference for you?

Yeah, well, I think for all of us, and I've

actually started from scratch eight companies, ranging from,

you know, 10 team members to over 500 team members in each

and in the bigger ones. It's interesting looking at the

leaders, going, Gosh, some of those leaders are getting

amazing results consistently, and others not so much, like

you have the whole spectrum there. So what's different in

their approach and so well, how they show up as a leader

matters. Their management operating system, where I

would say rituals they consistently do to cause great

results to happen, matters. That's the second category.

And then third, I called it foundational readiness, which

is essentially, are you ready to grow at any point in time?

And every business is different, but in my in the

aerospace example that's coming from the book, 20% was

what I had put out there. At any point in time, it'd be

ready to grow 20% right? Oh, how you show up? What are the

things you do to consistently get really great results? You

know, meetings, KPIs, you know, all those things that

you do. And then are you ready to grow? And lo and behold,

once I put that in place, I went from, you know, when you

look at the checklist, there's three categories, and then

there's subcategories in each one of those. And I would just

say red, green or yellow for every leader. Once I posted

it, initially, there were a few leaders that were green,

almost across the board. There were a few that read across

the board, some that were, you know, yellow and green. Within

90 days, almost everybody was mostly green. Across the

board, because we were running about what we wanted leaders

to do, and lo and behold, we just kept growing faster. No,

no surprise whatsoever, right?

Yeah, it's so good. It's so good. So that

folks know kind of what we're dealing with here. This isn't

like just some novel thing that you thought of one time.

This is real world stuff. So Jack Welch told you that that

yours was one of the best business management operating

systems he'd ever seen. And had he used it one running GE,

their results would have been exponentially better. That's

remarkable. My question for you, kind of stemming off of

this, is, what makes one operating system better than

another?

So I would that's a great question. So there's,

there's two parts of it. There's the operating system

and your approach, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, around how

you apply it. So on the on the first part of that question

for an operating system, I think simple is better. So how

can you distill it down? Make it so easy to understand, get

everybody aligned around, you know, creating value that way.

And there are a whole bunch of operating systems that are

pretty complex and and then the the approaches to applying

it, they make the process what's most important, not

creating value, right? So that's why I came up with your

most important number. I call it the mind management system.

And in there you've got the most important number, the top

of the organization. Every team that feeds up into it,

all the way to the front lines, they have their most

important number, and then they they call out the best

work they can do to continually improve that that

is so simple, so easy. Included in the mind

management system is everything else, strategy,

compensation, just everything is in there, but the simple

structure of it, wildly, wildly easy. Now, when you

know, kind of, getting back to the how you apply it, how you

think about it, right, we would all be shooting towards,

you know, having a culture that's all about creating

value. Connect culture to value creation. So everything

we do is done with the intent of making the organization

measurably better, more valuable over time. That's

where most trip up with operating systems. Yes, I

think, I think any operating system out there, if you're

doing something to intentionally improve or

increase the value of the business, you can't help but

get a little better. Be careful what you choose,

because if it's overly complex, it's really hard to

keep that going over the long run. And and what I believe,

and I've seen this over and over again, working with lots

of companies, 1000s of leaders, traditional goal

setting I've never seen stand the test of time ever. And

Well, when I when I go in and audit a business, and I'm just

looking, show me all the goals, what you're setting,

show me your strategy, how it trickles out, and I look at

the goals, less than 10% of them are thoughtful goals that

would really move the needle, and in the process, just feels

terrible for most of our team members, because, hey, set

three goals every quarter, for example, get it approved by

your manager, rinse and repeat every quarter. It feels

terrible how and then you switch over to the my

management system as an example, here's the most

important number for the team. This is where we started. This

is where we're going. But any point in time we can see if

we're on track, and I was like playing a baseball game, we

know whether we're winning or losing. This is my position,

and this is the best work I've been called to do to help

contribute to improving that. Yeah, now it's super easy, and

you can cascade it, but it what you asked is such a big

question that impacts everybody, whether using OKRs,

40x Eos, scaling up, there's so many systems out there, I

am super biased towards what I've created over decades and

working with hundreds of companies, because it's simple

and you don't have to change your language inside the

business like you have to with all the others.

Yeah, I could get myself in a lot of

trouble if we go down that road. I couldn't agree more. I

you know, one of the things that that really gets me about

a lot of those systems, particularly for the

practitioners of those systems, is that the system

becomes more important than whatever the system's there

for in the first place, and, and, and so the systems are

all great. There's nothing inherently wrong with them.

We're like, fundamentally flawed. There's something

wrong with all of them. I forget who it was. It said,

all models are wrong. Some are useful, but so they're not

fundamentally flawed, but when we drink the Kool Aid for

them, that's when we get in trouble. And actually leads me

to a similar point. Because one of the reasons why that

happens, and I this is a temptation for me, with the

model that we use is the when I used the model to create

value in my business, the one we use now, the predictable

success model, it had a massive transformative impact

on our business. And it's like I want so badly for folks to

have that. And one of the challenges with that is not

every situation is the same. Right? And a lot of times on

the the client side of the coaching equation, they're

going out and looking for someone who's done what they

want to do right in some way, shape or form, and they think

that's what will make them an expert at helping me out. And

then on the coach side, we kind of think, well, I've done

this before. I can tell everybody how to do it, you

know, they just need to do it like me. But you, you came to

a different revelate revelation that the initial

kind of systems that you used were too complex or too

rigorous, I would say, not too complex, but too rigorous for

a lot of folks to execute on. Well, and you really dug in

over the years to find one that actually everybody can

use. Why is that so important?

100% and to your point, businesses are

different, you know, small, nuanced difference to

significantly different. One size does not fit all, except

with what the, you know, the direction that we went. What's

the value of your business? I can look at every for profit

business, and there's going to be a value. Your job is to

continually grow. It great. Let's figure out what that is.

That's the senior leadership team's most important number.

Yeah, cascade that out and go. That's why I did it. And I was

the kind of leader when I had the aerospace company 500

employees. Now, there were lots of ups and downs in the

early years. I mean, all the uphill in the snow, both ways.

Stories I can, I can give you, but, but in running that I

early on, I was able up to a couple 100 employees to make

traditional goal setting work. It was a Herculean effort, but

backed off for a second. It went away. They would start

backing off, yeah, so on. It to come up with something that

worked really across the board, and I think really

importantly, we didn't have to change the language, whatever

we called it, we would just do it and and then I read a book,

because we were in the aviation aftermarket business.

We repaired, overhaul, manufactured aircraft parts.

We had 2000 customers in 60 countries, incredible

operations. We did 95% of everything. And I was just

incredibly complex. This book was called Lean MRO,

maintenance, repair and overhaul. And there was this.

There was a line in there. It said, the most elegant

solution is on the other side of complexity. It's simplicity

on the other side of complexity. Yeah. So when you

cookie cutter, apply an operating system, whatever it

is, to what you have, you're probably going to fail or

definitely not get the results you want. But if you really

understand, as you're applying this thing to all the

complexity of your organization, you come up with

a really simple, elegant solution on the other side of

that, that's where you win, literally 95 plus percent of

the time. Does that makes sense?

It does? It really, really does. And and

again, I like that language of simplicity versus elegance.

And I forget who it was actually from the Aviation

space. It's just driving me crazy. But they talked about

elegance and design as being the point at which you can

take nothing else away, right? Which is so different than the

way that we think about it, right? We think about, what do

I have to add? What can we do more? And it's plus, plus plus

multiple, multiple, multiple, instead of that taking away,

that refining and that focusing, that I think you

guys have been able to achieve so effectively through, well,

through your operating system.

And think about it this way, most would say we

want to improve quality is going to cost a whole bunch

more, and you have to do all these things. Well, how can we

improve quality while we're reducing costs? Yeah, and that

is it. I mean that that's that's directionally, where we

should go, lower it, you know, improve quality of product and

service experience for all team members, all

stakeholders, at a lowering relative cost over time.

That's how we know we're doing the right work.

Yeah, one of the other challenges with what

you've called traditional goal setting, and I see this a lot,

particularly in established leadership teams, there's just

so many things fighting for your attention. There's so

many strengths, there's so many weaknesses,

opportunities, threats, or whatever tool you're using,

right? Like, there's just so many things, and it can almost

be debilitating. Like, what do we actually need to do next.

How do you help teams answer that question?

Yeah, well, one of my maxims is, do less better.

And every company that I've worked with, whether it's a

startup all the way to $60 billion plus market cap

organizations, I've never found one that has more than

about four things that create 80 to 90% of the value for the

organization. So I always want to look at that and say, Well,

how well are we doing those four things? And on a scale

from one to 10, if it's not an eight, nine or 10 in each one

of them, why are we doing anything else? And so I always

ask the question, Well, why don't we improve those things?

Well, because it's hard, like we've got it to this place,

and if you want to keep moving the needle there, pushing the

bar, it's actually hard work to do, but it should be fun.

So focus there. Do you know, do less better, and it's

amazing how much faster organizations go. There's no

magic pill, there's no silver bullet. We actually have to do

something, even though we're kind of. A culture in United

States right now where people just want it without having to

do anything. Sorry, you have to do something. And you know

what? It can be fun. And what I found, when you get the team

right, you get the culture right, you're doing the right

work. The harder it gets, the harder we laugh. That's how we

know we're doing the right work.

That's so good. Why is it that doing

less better is so much less appealing than adding more

like not that it isn't. But why does it feel that way?

Well, I think there's a couple of things

going on. I believe you have to be passionate about

strategy and equally passionate about executing and

and you can be out of balance, really, on both of them. And

most business leaders that I run into, they want to

intellectualize about all these things that you could do

on paper and write it all down. And how amazing is this?

And they walk away from a strategy session that was so

great now we've solved all the problems. And like I say in

the book, you have a strategy. Congratulations. You're 3% of

the way there. 97% is going to be actually doing it. And the

better you get at actually doing it, the better you'll

get a strategy, because you come up with things that will

really accelerate the value that your organization

creates. So yeah, I think that's one piece of it, and

it's just hard. They're not. A lot of folks just aren't

leaning in to really improve. And a lot of times they don't

even, they don't even know where to improve. They're

doing stuff, and they can all be great things, your leaders

in an organization, but they're not in alignment. And

you know, one of the most valuable things that I think I

could probably communicate here to all the listeners is

something I call value creation nudging. And in

chapter eight, I just updated the book with a chapter eight.

It's titled, you know why sometimes CEOs fail? And the

subtitle is, does your team really understand? I find very

few organizations where all the leaders understand the

business model, like, can you can explain it to me? And

there's, there's a number of founders and CEOs that can't

do a very good job explaining it. So when you're in meetings

and people are talking about doing things that just don't

make sense and frustrate you, a lot of times, you know, they

want to win, like very few want the company to

intentionally fail. A lot of times, they don't really

understand the business model. So how can they make decisions

in alignment with it? Or they don't understand the strategic

initiatives, or they don't really understand what

customers say and feel about our products and services, and

they don't understand the intentional culture around

beliefs, behaviors, traits, other things that cause

extraordinary value to be created if they understood

those four things in their bones, the business model,

your strategy, the value of your stuff as seen by

customers, and your value creating culture, all of a

sudden they'll start making better decisions, and you'll

get less frustrated. So yeah, I my nugget here is, I call it

value creation, nudging. And every time you're in a meeting

and something isn't in alignment with what you know

it should be. It probably has something to do with those

four areas. I've never seen it. I'd have something to do

with it. Does that make sense, Scott?

It's so so good. And I love the

simplicity of that, the business model, your strategy,

how you create value for your customers, and a culture that

delivers on that so true. So I'm wondering, I don't know

how you top that. Lee, so your job's a lot harder than mine

right now. But what would you say as a question I ask all my

guests, I'm interested to see what you have to say to it. So

in addition to what you've shared with us so far, what

would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn't a

secret at all? What's that one thing you wish everybody

watching or listening today knew?

Yeah, so I gave you one of my maxims around,

do less better. I have another t shirt. I can get you one if

you want. It says, struggle better. And so the value of

struggle, you know, we as parents, you know, a lot of

parents with great intentions have taken so much struggle

away from kids. They're not even close to ready to being

an adult, oh my gosh. So we really messed up in developing

for that and that. Now I see adults in the workplace and

leaders. Something doesn't lay out perfectly, and they act

like victims, like, oh my gosh, there's so much value

and struggle. Like, every time it gets really hard, I'm

finally at a point at 63 where I get this warm feeling

inside. This is going to be amazing when I come out the

other side. So the understanding there's so much

value and struggle, lean into it every single day, get

comfortable with it and increase your tolerance for

it, and you'll create so much more value.

Yeah, I have found that for the vast

majority of folks, the future is much better than they

really believe, but the path to get there is going to be a

lot harder than they would like to know, you know, and

it's that same thing, it's going to be so much better on

the other side, and when we can recognize that what we

have to do to get there, yeah, you have to do it, but it's

not that big a deal. Pales in comparison to the joy that's.

In front of us. So I love that idea. Struggle better. So Lee,

there's there's folks listening to this and like

we've just ticked the we've nicked the surface. We've not

even begun to dug in. How can they find more out about the

operating system that you've put together? Where can they

get a copy of their book or find more out about you?

Yeah, please go to our website, which is etw.com

you can get the book there, or you can find it on Amazon or

40,000 other channels out there. There's the written

version of it, there's an audio version of it. And on

the website, if you want, you can actually DIY the last

section of the book is a do it yourself section, and you can

get on, and it's like 12 bucks a seat, if you had one person

in a company, 12 bucks. And you can have the software to

do this, the courses in there, all the resources, everything

included with us. We make it super easy. If you want to

implement the mind management system, and we have the

leadership value lab, you can sign up for that, and it's

just ongoing leadership lessons that come out daily,

weekly, monthly.

Fantastic. Lee, excellent, excellent

wisdom. I love the maxims, the T shirts, the whole nine

yards. There's just so much good stuff in there. Thank you

for being on the show. I really appreciate you sharing

with us here today. And for those of you watching and

listening, you know your time and attention mean the world

to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I

know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.