In this episode, Michael Burcham, Chief of Strategy, Research, and Talent Development, joins Anderson Williams, Principal of Talent Development at Shore Capital, to explore why investing in people has been core to Shore since the beginning. Michael shares how the firm’s founders valued learning as a strategic advantage and how that mindset led to the creation of Shore University, the talent development function supporting both the firm and its portfolio companies. They discuss the challenges of scaling teams, the shift from individual contributor to manager, and the importance of trust, communication, and consistency in leadership. Through stories and examples, they show how ShoreU ensures that as companies grow, their people are prepared to grow with them.

Key Takeaways:

• Shore University was built on the belief that learning is a strategic advantage.
• Developing people is essential to scaling teams and sustaining performance.
• First-time managers need support to grow from doing the work to leading others.
• Companies are strongest when their people grow alongside the business.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 06:09 The ROI of Talent Development
• 10:12 From Contributor to Leader
• 20:24 Navigating Change
• 23:59 Growing with Your People

Listen to our podcasts at:

https://www.shorecp.university/podcasts

You’ll also find other Bigger. Stronger. Faster. episodes, alongside our Microcap Moments and Everyday Heroes series—highlighting the people and stories that make the microcap space unique.

Other ways to connect:

Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog

Shore Capital University: https://www.shorecp.university/

Shore Capital Partners: https://www.shorecp.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shore-university

This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, or a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the “Terms of Use” page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:17

Welcome to Bigger.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:19

Stronger.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:19

Faster.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:20

the podcast exploring how Shore Capital Partners brings billion-dollar resources to the lower middle market space.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:26

In this episode, I talk with Michael Burcham, Chief of Strategy, Research, and Talent Development at Shore Capital Partners.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:32

We talk about why Shore Capital invests so much time, energy, and effort in talent development, both internally and across the portfolio.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:39

Michael shares the foundations of learning at Shore Capital that go directly back to our founders and how their commitment to learning continues to drive a culture of learning and growth today.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:48

We discuss how important it is in a rapidly growing company to ensure the company doesn't outgrow its people among other talent development trends and patterns.

Anderson Williams: 00:00:57

We talk about the transition from individual contributor to manager, growing from an investment professional to a strategic and operational leader, and navigating, managing and leading change in the context of rapid company growth.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:09

Michael, thanks for joining me.

Michael Burcham: 00:01:11

My pleasure, Anderson.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:12

So Michael, you've been around Shore Capital and investing and supporting the team from its earliest days.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:18

How would you describe Shore's focus on learning?

Anderson Williams: 00:01:21

Even when you go all the way back to when you met the guys, how would you just describe their approach in thinking about learning?

Michael Burcham: 00:01:27

I think there's a hunger and a desire to really understand businesses at the very beginning.

Michael Burcham: 00:01:33

Jim Forest and I had the opportunity to work with the four founders early on, each of them had come out of either legal or investment services and had not had the opportunity to really run their own businesses but were extremely curious about our learnings and how they could apply some of that learning to what they were finding in due diligence and looking at new companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:01:51

And I think that desire just continued to grow as we began to have success and recognized the need not only for themselves to learn, but the people coming after them that would join us at Shore and also the people within the companies we acquired for their additional learning.

Michael Burcham: 00:02:06

So I think it was there, Anderson, since the very beginning.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:08

And when you first heard that or recognized that, how did that make you think or feel or consider them from an investor perspective?

Michael Burcham: 00:02:16

I was very attracted to the model because I had worked with a number of private equity firms in my prior life of building my own companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:02:24

Most of them were financial engineering kind of firms, and not terribly interested in learning and growing, particularly in an operating sphere of knowing how companies work.

Michael Burcham: 00:02:34

What are the market conditions within companies thrive?

Michael Burcham: 00:02:36

So seeing a group of investors interested in that really drew me to them to wanna learn more, and ultimately to join them in the journey to help create Shore Capital.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:45

And we're 15 years down the line, about four years into formally investing in Shore University.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:51

How would you just describe what that looks like today from those early days of recognizing you had founders who were really interested in learning and growth to now a large portfolio of companies, a large team, and a continued emphasis on growth.

Anderson Williams: 00:03:06

Just describe a little bit of today from your perspective as well.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:10

So Anderson, to do that justice, I think I need to talk about it from two perspectives.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:15

One within Shore.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:16

And the other within our portfolio companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:19

Let me start within Shore.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:21

I think today we really have come to recognize that we are more than investors.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:26

We are company builders in the microcap space.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:29

We will acquire many smaller companies in a single category and build a platform around them to create one larger company within Shore the knowledge of doing that to be a company builder is something that we want to translate down beyond our original four to six partners into the rest of Shore.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:48

Our principals and vice presidents and associates, most of those folks have also not worked in any operating capacity of a company.

Michael Burcham: 00:03:58

So understanding what it means to be a company builder, understanding the logic behind what we're seeing in companies, how to fix issues and true operating problems, how to grow organically are all things.

Michael Burcham: 00:04:12

That we aspire to teach and learn and master inside Shore and Shore University has a big part of that in helping all of those individuals not just be really great at a spreadsheet and modeling something, but systemically understanding what it takes for that model that we've created to become a reality by understanding the operations and knowing what to do once we've acquired a younger company to help it become best in class.

Michael Burcham: 00:04:40

In the second case of our portco companies, we acquire many smaller companies that have wonderful people who've been trained on the job.

Michael Burcham: 00:04:49

Many of them started quite young with those companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:04:51

Some of them have been there 15 or 20 years without formal education on their own, nor any formal training in leading and managing teams.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:00

Each of these companies will grow likely eight or 10 X from where they're originally acquired.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:06

In order not to lose that talent, we must invest in them so that they can also personally and professionally grow and oversee larger issues, oversee larger revenue, larger groups of people, and that just doesn't come naturally.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:21

It takes some specific training to do that.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:24

You know, I point out that to our partners frequently that.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:27

If we aren't investing in our talent, the company will outgrow them and we'll just simply need to replace them.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:33

And that's a negative because when we have to replace talent that has been there quite some time, part of that legacy knowledge of the company walks out the door.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:41

We'd much rather invest in someone and upgrade them so they can oversee and manage something larger than to lose them because they weren't able to grow or we did not invest in them.

Michael Burcham: 00:05:52

So that's our second big area of investment for Shore University is to make absolutely certain that across all of our portfolio companies, from frontline managers all the way to the C-Suite, individuals have opportunity for professional development and growth.

Michael Burcham: 00:06:05

So the company does not outgrow them as it grows with Shore.

Anderson Williams: 00:06:09

And when you think about this, Michael, you mentioned earlier that this was not something you necessarily had experienced in your private equity experience in the past.

Anderson Williams: 00:06:17

How did Shore make the case for this kind of investment?

Anderson Williams: 00:06:21

They've invested in an entire team and put learning tools and leaders throughout the organization to support both internal learning as well as portfolio company learning and yet there's always this question about the return on investment as it relates to investing in people.

Anderson Williams: 00:06:36

How do you think about that from an investor perspective?

Anderson Williams: 00:06:39

You started to hit on it before, but in terms of not just talent retention, but the value we're able to create with our partners over time and with their teams.

Anderson Williams: 00:06:48

Can you give some context for that?

Michael Burcham: 00:06:50

Sure.

Michael Burcham: 00:06:50

I'd be happy to.

Michael Burcham: 00:06:52

Let's talk about Shore first.

Michael Burcham: 00:06:54

The return on investment really is derived in understanding what are the strategic growth drivers of a business and what will ultimately drive enterprise value for each of our businesses.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:06

Now, let me translate that to everyday terms.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:08

What that means is that we can't just simply say we want to see 10% organic growth.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:14

We need to know what kind of organic growth and is it coming from outbound initiative, inbound initiatives, channel partners through marketing initiatives.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:23

Each of those have a different approach and some of them work well in one category that sure may invest in and not so well in other categories.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:31

Understanding when we acquire a young company what it will take for that young acquisition company to be prepared to grow and to have the infrastructure under it also requires investment.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:42

And the ROI on that is phenomenal because if we do not invest properly in infrastructure, we build a house of cards that won't last.

Michael Burcham: 00:07:50

So quite often you see in Shore, even with people, our first few acquisitions, fuel, getting the right talent in place, getting them trained so that as we begin to add to that company, it will grow in scale and have a really strong platform underneath it.

Michael Burcham: 00:08:04

I think across our portfolio companies, the ROI can be seen in being able to translate their strategic vision and to execution and those tools to be able to do that require professional development and training to be able to do.

Michael Burcham: 00:08:19

Many of the individuals who are part of the firms we have acquired, they've done one or two or three things for a very long time.

Michael Burcham: 00:08:27

We're wanting to expand to adjacent spaces.

Michael Burcham: 00:08:29

We wanna focus on customer retention, which is also a massive driver of ROI.

Michael Burcham: 00:08:34

So whether it's retaining more customers or larger share wallet of those customers in the portco company, those are also key ROI initiatives and drivers.

Michael Burcham: 00:08:44

I think the ultimate measure of a return on investment is when we go to exit and when those organizations, whether they be financial or strategic, who want to buy a Shore company, begin to speak about the value they see inside the company.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:00

I. The platform we have built, how prepared it is for growth, the growth we've delivered over the first five years, and a belief that will continue for the next five to 10.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:09

That ROI is also measured in the multiples we are paid for our companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:13

So I think we see it all along the way from the beginning on how we invest in the right talent, helping them being prepared to lead, how we do organic growth, acquisition and operations expertise.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:24

And then finally, what we see ultimately in the multiples we're paid at exit.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:27

And I have to believe that the companies interested in buying a Shore portfolio company at exit are looking not just at the numbers, but at the people that can scale once they buy our company as well.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:41

That this is not just a matter of saying, Hey, this is a great market, it looks like this is a good company, but they're buying the team too.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:47

Absolutely Anderson.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:49

The numbers are nothing more than the footprints in the sand of behaviors.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:53

Behaviors are driven by habits and know-how and that know-how only comes with development of people.

Michael Burcham: 00:09:58

So if you only look at numbers, you're looking at an outcome with no knowledge of a process.

Michael Burcham: 00:10:03

When you look at how people perform their job, how they're trained, the processes they use, then you can really understand how the outcome is derived.

Anderson Williams: 00:10:12

You know, as I listened to you talk, I can't help but think we've done just as an example of one of our program offerings, a Leadership Academy at this point for about four years and for close to 700 people at this point, and.

Anderson Williams: 00:10:24

As you were describing, people who joined Shore through an acquisition, they've been really good at their job in that founding company, in that company that chose to partner with us.

Anderson Williams: 00:10:34

But they don't always know why they were good.

Anderson Williams: 00:10:36

They've worked for a founder seller, they've done their job really well, but because they've never had to scale it or they've never grown to the degree that they had to teach somebody, they didn't even know how good they were in many cases.

Anderson Williams: 00:10:46

And part of this development is enabling us to capitalize and expand on that knowledge we acquire as well.

Michael Burcham: 00:10:54

So many of them were great individual contributors.

Michael Burcham: 00:10:57

They'd never had a team to train.

Michael Burcham: 00:10:59

They never had a team to oversee.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:01

And I think probably something even harder is how to teach someone you have onboarded how to do your job so you can do the next level job.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:10

All of those require some very specific investment in people, because I think human nature is to hold on to your expertise, to not share it for fear that you're not valuable anymore.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:20

Shore's model is quite different.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:22

We actually need you to teach the people around you to do your job because we desperately need you to move up and do the next job.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:29

This isn't about becoming obsolete.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:31

Actually, the fastest way to be obsolete at Shore is not being able to teach someone how to do the work.

Michael Burcham: 00:11:35

Not what you happen to know.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:37

Yeah, well I had a great ongoing coaching relationship with someone at one of our portfolio companies who was involved in the leadership academy.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:45

And as part of that, you get coaching from me and from our team for participating in Leadership Academy.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:50

And she had been with the company about 10 years.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:52

The company had obviously joined a Shore platform.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:55

She was an outstanding individual contributor and had naturally been promoted into a management role, and she was really struggling and couldn't figure out why, and she was working more hours and doing more work, but it was largely because she had never had to make that transition that you were describing.

Michael Burcham: 00:12:12

So, let's be really honest here.

Michael Burcham: 00:12:15

In many cases, the only example of leadership they ever had was that founder entrepreneur who really didn't know how to train and develop people themselves.

Michael Burcham: 00:12:24

So they've never had an example of what it looks like to really train and develop others.

Michael Burcham: 00:12:29

So it sounds like she was just working harder, not smarter, trying to develop people around her.

Michael Burcham: 00:12:34

And my guess is largely through a to-do list or over micromanaging or standing over their shoulder rather than true, legitimate teaching and then getting outta the way and leading through others, which is one of the best courses I think you teach.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:46

Well, and that's one direction.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:48

In this person's specific direction, she just wasn't giving anything away.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:51

She thought, how do I, how do I get Michael to do that?

Anderson Williams: 00:12:54

I know how to do that.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:55

I can knock that out in 20 minutes.

Anderson Williams: 00:12:56

And she had run herself 20 minutes by 20 minutes into working seven days a week and had a three or four person team for the first time who was looking around going, well, what do we do?

Michael Burcham: 00:13:05

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:06

And while she was running herself ragged.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:07

No one can do it as good as me.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:09

That's right.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:09

Yeah, that's right.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:10

But it was with the best of intentions, but without being able to reframe, and I shared with her my simple math equation I wanted to plant in her mind was, listen, think about it this way:

Anderson Williams: 00:13:20

when you do it you get one point.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:22

As an effective manager, if you get somebody else to do it and it's done equally well, you get two points.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:27

Mm-hmm.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:27

Or maybe 10.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:28

Or maybe 10.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:28

Right.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:29

But it's not the same thing.

Anderson Williams: 00:13:30

It's not just about getting it done, it's about knowing who needs to get it done and what's in the best interest of the team to get it done.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:37

There's another dimension of this I think we should bring up at this point.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:40

It seems perfectly fitting right here, and that is in our service and data economy.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:46

Everyone is in sales.

Michael Burcham: 00:13:47

Almost everyone in the organization has some touchpoint with a customer or vendor partner or channel partner, and it's important that everyone understand what that means, that they're carrying the brand of the organization, that they are helping form first and meaningful impressions of our work.

Michael Burcham: 00:14:05

You know, I am lead director at our orthodontics business, and from our folks on the phone to the people at the front desk, to the assistant who is helping the orthodontist, to the people who follow up on appointment schedules.

Michael Burcham: 00:14:17

Everyone has a role in a customer engagement.

Michael Burcham: 00:14:20

If we really want the individual patient and their family to feel like what they experienced was absolutely extraordinary.

Michael Burcham: 00:14:27

That bleeds over into our business services vertical with the folks who are putting water purification systems in individuals homes.

Michael Burcham: 00:14:34

In our food and beverage industry where we're creating baked goods and spices and blends for restaurants and even into our industrials where we're doing HVAC systems and roofing and plumbing and electrical.

Michael Burcham: 00:14:45

Many of those people are technicians, yes, but they're also our most important customer experience advocates, and they're quite good at being a technician, but often need some additional training to be the kind of customer experience advocate that we would all hope for.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:00

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:01

Well, and I think that's one of the patterns that I've recognized through this process is that people are complicated.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:07

Most of the problems that we're facing in our businesses are actually not that complicated.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:11

It's the people behind them that are complicated.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:14

So as we think about developing people, our approach is very much getting down to the core of what is driving people and how are people making decisions.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:22

And one of the things that's really clear, when we have high performers, they know their goals.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:27

When we have high performers, they know how they contribute and that their work matters.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:32

When we have high performers, they understand the customer and they understand how our business drives value.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:38

All of those things, if any of those are absent, right?

Anderson Williams: 00:15:41

We have teams that are struggling and it's because we've lacked the communication of context and the understanding that how I enter data matters.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:48

How I answer the phone matters because this is how we create value for our customers, and I think that once.

Anderson Williams: 00:15:54

People understand that and start to make their own decisions as motivated humans who want to do well and do right by the people around them, it transforms performance.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:05

Absolutely.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:05

Anderson excellence is driven by the hundreds of little touch points that happen between the names on the org chart.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:12

I tell folks all the real work happens in the white space between the names.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:16

Very little real work happens directly in the org chart.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:19

It all happens in the interconnected spaces among the names.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:23

So Anderson, I'm particularly interested in hearing your take on the skill development of a first time manager.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:29

It's a key target customer group for us at Shore University because we know that if they fail, they are often the glue that holds things together.

Michael Burcham: 00:16:39

Talk to me a little bit about what you have observed or learned in teaching first time managers how to really think inside a Shore company.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:46

I think the first thing to really recognize for anybody listening is that by the nature of where and how Shore invests in the market, the companies we acquire very rarely have built what you would codify as a management layer.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:59

And so when we are building companies, we are building that management layer in a sense, organizationally from scratch.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:06

Now, as you've described, we are building on the talent that we've acquired that have worked in these companies individually for years and decades in many cases.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:14

But they have not been in what you would call a management layer.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:17

So for example, somebody may have run a particular practice or a particular plant, and now we have three plants or three practices, and we want them to become a regional.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:26

And in that case, you move from the culture you helped build and help define, and that you know, with a team that you know well and leading in that context or managing in that context.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:37

To now managing people who have no idea who you are.

Michael Burcham: 00:17:40

And that you did not hire.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:41

And that you did not hire, and whose culture you don't yet understand.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:44

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:45

And now you have three of those instead of the one that's like in your backyard where you grew up working.

Anderson Williams: 00:17:49

So that transition to management isn't just about the mechanics of management, knowing how to delegate, knowing decision making, those are important, but building those relationships is step number one.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:02

And without that.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:04

You are not gonna delegate anything anyway 'cause nobody's bought into you yet.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:08

So we always step back and talk about the foundation of everything that we do as trust.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:14

And some people will say, oh, trust that's basic.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:17

Trust is absolutely fundamental and foundational to every relationship and every working relationship.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:23

Whether you're in the C-suite or you're on the front line talking to a customer or delivering on an assembly line, it doesn't matter.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:30

The team has to trust you.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:32

You have to trust the team, that you're safe, that you're cared for, that you're looked out for, all of those kinds of things.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:37

So what we have to do often, especially when we're moving someone from a single location type of management role into a multi is help them diagnose what they've experienced.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:47

One of the real joys of teaching and developing adults is adults show up with a world of experience, and rarely have they had time to reflect on or discern the wisdom that they're walking in the room with.

Anderson Williams: 00:18:59

And so the place we start is what do you know?

Anderson Williams: 00:19:02

What's worked well for you?

Anderson Williams: 00:19:04

How has that worked well?

Anderson Williams: 00:19:05

Why has it worked well?

Anderson Williams: 00:19:06

What hasn't?

Anderson Williams: 00:19:06

And then start to think about what parts of those stories and those narratives we can control.

Anderson Williams: 00:19:11

And what parts we need to go cultivate from the ground up in a new environment, or go into that environment and learn about that environment itself and figure out how you fit into it.

Anderson Williams: 00:19:21

So it's this, it's really just this human process that's rooted in building trust, establishing communication, and then figuring out the purpose of why you're all together and how you're gonna work to achieve that.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:34

So I have a thought for you on that, on particularly on trust.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:37

I think as humans.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:39

We individually are slow to trust.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:42

As managers, we assume everyone should implicitly trust us.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:46

There's a bit of irony in all of that because the fact that all humans are slow to trust, we must earn it.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:52

And as a manager, we actually earn it through consistency of both communication and our work.

Michael Burcham: 00:19:57

And quite often that manager who goes from one location to managing three, is so hurried and busy.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:04

They fail to create a consistent pattern of how they show up.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:07

When they show up, how they communicate.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:09

They may commit, we're gonna have a weekly meeting and they have one every other week.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:13

Or they may go two months without one.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:14

'cause they say, oh, I just been so busy never realizing that an undelivered promise has just destroyed any foundational trust they had attempted to build early on.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:24

And the other important part about this that's specific to our context is everybody I work with across the portfolio is experiencing massive change.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:33

Oh yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:34

And so if your company has just been acquired and you work on that team, they probably didn't ask you your opinion about whether or not they should sell the company.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:42

Probably not.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:43

And yet it's probably changed your work.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:45

It's probably changed a lot of things about the technology you use, your sense of who you're connected with.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:50

It's a time of vulnerability.

Michael Burcham: 00:20:52

Sure.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:53

And so we also do a ton of work at all levels about navigating change and managing change and leading change because that is our context.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:01

And if we don't recognize that you as a new manager are not just stepping into a team, you're stepping to support a team that's wondering what in the world has happened to them over the last 12 months.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:12

You know, I think we found that true in the partner founders we acquire.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:17

The challenge of leading change is even more complex if this was your company and you've become part of a Shore platform because certain things are just going to change and uh, what you had historically seemed to work pretty good for you, and it probably did when you were a small company.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:33

It just doesn't work at scale.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:35

So I think even our founder partners.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:38

Are challenged sometimes to let go of the past and to embrace anything new.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:42

And when they feel that it comes through in all kinds of body language and conversation.

Michael Burcham: 00:21:48

And if you've got a frontline underneath you that already feels vulnerable, and they see that from a founder partner, it only amplifies their feeling of insecurity and uncertainty.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:58

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:21:59

I always give the example because I've seen it so many times, but it's the example of someone who has spent years managing and building a spreadsheet for their company.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:08

or their QuickBooks for their company, and they are the expert in that spreadsheet or in that QuickBooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:13

But now we gotta move to grow and scale beyond a spreadsheet.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:17

We often, from a business perspective, think, oh, it's just, of course we're moving from Excel into some proper technology.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:24

But what we don't recognize is, Michael, if that's your spreadsheet, I've taken your expertise.

Michael Burcham: 00:22:28

Right.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:28

And you're feeling really vulnerable by not being the go-to person, and now I've put you in a position to have to learn something new when you are really happy with the process you used to use.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:39

And if we don't recognize that thing that can be so easily marginalized as an insignificant change is transforming how one sees their contribution to their work, then we're gonna miss the opportunity to really bring people into fold to help us build and we're gonna have people resisting change and we're never gonna know why.

Michael Burcham: 00:22:57

That spreadsheet is where they felt they added value.

Anderson Williams: 00:23:00

For sure.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:01

So even more than their expertise, this is my value to a company.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:04

And when we change all that, they feel almost in free fall of what will be my new value.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:08

If my old value is no longer here.

Anderson Williams: 00:23:10

For sure.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:11

And the odd thing is we need them more than ever.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:14

We want them engaged.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:15

There's so much work to be done.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:17

Inherently, their value is no longer this spreadsheet.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:19

It's a higher order.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:21

Only through engagement with peers across our platform, meeting other people like them who are a year or so ahead in the journey and have kind of crossed that chasm from what was to what now is will they ever find the confidence to let go of the past and take hold of that future because they can meet peers across other even Shore portfolio companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:41

It says, I know how you feel.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:42

I went through that journey myself.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:44

The other side is pretty darn good.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:46

I'm in a better spot.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:47

I'm a higher contributor in my company.

Michael Burcham: 00:23:49

I feel higher value in my work, and I'm making a difference in ways I wasn't making before but until they get to experience that, the fear of letting go is very hard.

Anderson Williams: 00:23:59

Michael, just to wrap us up, if someone's listening and they're thinking about partnering with Shore or private equity, what key messages do you have to share with them about investing in their people and the opportunities that are ahead, particularly with a Shore Capital?

Anderson Williams: 00:24:12

That may be hard to know or to see because they haven't lived it and because given so much other change as we've discussed, it's just hard to discern what happens to my people.

Michael Burcham: 00:24:22

I think if I were gonna leave listeners with a single message, it is that your financial partner, if you are going to take your 20 years of work as a founder, entrepreneur, and partner with private equity, as a founder partner, you wanna make absolutely certain that financial sponsor not only believes in professional development, they put their money where their mouth is and they're doing professional development, not even for just themselves, but for their portfolio companies.

Michael Burcham: 00:24:49

I think when people dig into what we're doing at Shore Capital through Shore University, our leadership academies, ELA, CXO, and all the other programs we will talk about later.

Michael Burcham: 00:24:59

You will realize that this isn't just lip service.

Michael Burcham: 00:25:02

It's a massive investment we're making in people because we know living through the change of the 21st century and all the things we are dealing with to create ultimate value in any company, we must make sure people have the right resources and tools and training to do higher order jobs, and we are deeply committed to ensuring they have those skills.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:29

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure and check out our other Bigger.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:32

Stronger.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:33

Faster.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:33

episodes, as well as our Microcap Moments and Everyday Heroes series at www.shorecp.university/podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:43

This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners and recorded in the Andrew Malone podcast Studio with story and narration by Anderson Williams.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:51

Recording and editing by Austin Johnson.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:53

Editing by Reel Audiobooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:25:55

Sound Design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:26:00

Special thanks to Michael Burham.

Anderson Williams: 00:26:02

This podcast is The Property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC.

Anderson Williams: 00:26:05

None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security.

Anderson Williams: 00:26:13

See the terms of use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.