In this powerful episode, Chip Scholz, Founder and Owner of Scholz and Associates Inc., shares how stage 5 CEOs must lead transformation or risk managing decline. If you feel worn out, stuck maintaining success, or tempted to coast in your current comfort zone, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why staying in neutral as CEO inevitably leads to stagnation or demise

- How to shift from doing everything yourself to building a people-first, performance-driven culture

- What small intentional decisions create the clarity and energy needed for the next level

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 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

Today’s guest is Chip Scholz — executive coach, storyteller, and author. His fourth book, Small Decisions, Big Shifts: Navigating Life On Your Terms, was released on October 2. His next book, Every Dog Has Its Day, will be released in March 2026, and he is currently working on Handoffs, due out in early 2027. For decades, Chip has helped leaders cut through complexity, find real clarity, and make the small, intentional choices that create massive change. He’s known for turning big ideas into practical moves you can use right away—and for reminding us that the life we want is built one small decision at a time.

Want to learn more about Chip Scholz's work at Scholz and Associates Inc? Check out his website at https://scholzandassociates.com/

Connect with Chip through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chipscholz/

Get his book Every Dog has Its Day on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Every-Dog-Has-Its-Day/dp/1612063993/ and on BN at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/every-dog-has-its-day-chip-scholz/1149675072

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 Start scale and succeed podcast. It's the only podcast

that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As

a founder, I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and one of the

hardest parts about being a CEO is that your organization is not

going to stay still. As our guest today, Chip Scholz will

share you will either lead a transformation or find yourself

managing a demise. But for those of you who are leaders in that

stage five, CEO stage, there might be a third option, and

Chip's going to help us figure all this out. Who is chip? He is

an executive coach, a storyteller and an author. His

fourth book, small decisions, big shifts, navigating life on

your terms, was released in October of last year. His next

book, Every dog has its day, just came out in March, and he's

currently working on handoffs, which is due to be out in early

2027 for decades, chip has helped leaders cut through

complexity, find real clarity and make the small, intentional

choices that create massive change. He's known for turning

big ideas into practical moves that you can use right away, and

for reminding us that life, that the life that we want, is built

one small decision at a time. Here with us today. Chip,

welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.

Scott, thank you very much for having me.

I've been admiring, jealously your

handiwork behind you. That's probably another conversation

for another time, but it's beautiful. You made most or all

of that. Is that right?

Probably 98% of it, yes,

Wow, wow. Fantastic, fantastic. It's woven

through the book that just came out. I highly recommend it.

We're gonna talk about something a little bit different today,

and I wanna dive right into this, because it's a big topic,

and we try and keep these episodes nice and short and

sweet. And so let's start with this first big idea out of the

gate, and that is that you really stand by this principle

that you're either leading a transformation or managing a

demise. There's no neutral gear. Why does that happen inside of

the organizations that we lead?

Well, I had heard a long time ago that you're either

growing or you're dying, and this is kind of a way of talking

about it, even even more. And I find, especially when you're

talking about that fifth stage, that there's, there's a big

difference between leadership and management. And leadership,

to me, is about people. Management is about things. You

manage budgets, you manage projects, you manage all kinds

of things, time and attendance and that kind of thing. But if

you're a CEO in that in that stage where you know the

business is growing. Things are moving. It's more about leading,

and that goes to the point where you get to the point where

you've got to get away from thinking in terms of what you do

as a founder to who you are as a founder. You have to think about

the culture.

Yeah, yeah, it's a fascinating thing. And I

think it's something that, especially early on as a

founder, there's kind of not an option, like, it's just constant

transformation and change and growth, and it's pretty obvious

that you you have to go, but at this stage five, I think that

becomes less obvious. Like, there are a lot of things that

are really comfortable about this stage and this level of

success, and there's also way more that needs continuous

management and being propped up and moved along and kept moving.

I think, is it Ed Catmull, who talks about feeding the monster

and this idea that, like, there's just so much to manage,

and what I've seen happen for folks at this stage, and maybe

you've seen it too, is we just kind of get tired. We just kind

of get tired of hanging on to all of this and and so what

would you say to a leader who's there? They're in Stage Five.

They're very successful, but they're just kind of worn out.

Get good people and start trusting good people

instead of trying to do everything yourself, because you

can't do everything yourself. And I don't care whether it's

100 person firm or a 200 or a 500 or 1000 person firm, you

can't do it all yourself, and trying to do it all yourself is,

you know, going to put you in an early grave and going to burn

you out. And so, you know, it's, it's again, leadership is about

people. It's about and I find the best cultures, especially in

in entrepreneurial companies, the best cultures are people

first, or people oriented and performance driven. So you can't

forget about performance. You got to make sure that you're

you're paying the bills, but it's got to be around people.

And if you're, if you're taking the time to develop your people,

if you're taking the time to to let go. One famous example of

this is I work with a. Company called Haskell in Florida, and a

great company, best culture I have ever been around. Company's

been around for 60 plus years, and it was founded by a guy

named Preston Haskell. And Preston was really bright. He

was a Harvard and a Yale guy, and he moved south and started a

business completely from scratch, and really created the

whole design, build, construction industry. At about

60 years old, he decided to step back, and he actually hired a

CEO. So he still stayed very active and involved in the

business, and still is marginally involved. He's in his

his late 80s at this point, but he had, he had the insight, the

wisdom to be able to let go and and you know, you've heard many

examples of people that are really good at entrepreneurial

really good at startups, but not so good at running a company.

And you know, if you can't make that transition, you got to find

other ways of doing it.

Yeah, one of the things that's neat about

this stage is is stepping out of your role as founder and CEO.

You never really step out as founder, but as CEO in

particular, oftentimes in earlier stages that that feels

like you've fallen short or you've not, kind of you made it,

but at this stage, it's exactly what you need to do to get to

the next stage. Stepping out of the way and letting someone else

take the reins is exactly what you need to do to get to stage

six, that owner stage and and so how can we how can we use this

idea of you're either leading or transformation or managing a

decline to help inform the timing of when it's the right

time to take that step back?

I think that's more art than science. You know,

because is it when you top 100 million in revenue, or is it

when you top 50 million? Or is it, is it with them, when you

have 1000 employees, you know, it's got to feel right. It's got

to I'll tell you, the best way to know is to to see your

decision making flow. And if your decision making flow is

slowing down, then it's time because, because that means that

everything's settling on your desk. I worked with a company

several years ago that had new CEO come in, and he replaced a

guy that had been there for 30 years as a CEO, and he was an

old Scotsman, and he ran the company with a completely

controlling hand. You couldn't spend 100 bucks, his senior

staff could not spend 100 bucks without asking him first, wow,

so the new guy comes in, and he didn't know any of this and and

so he he found that the people that were on a senior staff

couldn't make a decision, and the company was hamstringed at a

certain revenue level and a certain growth because nobody

could make a decision. And, you know, he started to work with

them. Started bringing in people like me and other people to to

help them with learning to make the decision. About half of them

couldn't make it and and so he had to replace half of them.

About half of them did. But it was, it was that whole

spreading, the decision making being more nimble. Because as

you grow, you become less nimble. And you know, a lot of

that, that less nimble resides in you.

Yeah, it really does. It's an interesting

point, because I think there's, there's kind of two primary

criteria for whether you you as the founder, should stay on as

CEO and and I think it has a lot less to do with skills. Most of

the founders I know can learn the skills if they want to,

right? But what I've found is really, really important, is one

that they have a compelling vision for the future, right?

Sometimes you can take a couple of, you know, just hard seasons,

and they can really set you back, or or you start dreaming

about something else, beyond work, and you start to just lose

sight of that vision. So you have to have a vision,

compelling vision, for the future. And then I think you

have to have the energy to pursue it, right? It to use your

language. You're going to lead a transformation to get there. And

sometimes we look at that and it's like, wow, that's just one

transformation too many. Like, I can see it. I'd love to get

there, but I don't think I have the energy to do that. Have you

seen that show up in your world?

Yeah. So, you know, most of my clients are family

businesses and and several of them are second or third or even

fourth generation. In fact, in one case, it's fifth generation

and yeah, yeah, which is really rare to get along with that. But

you know what happens, especially as as the leaders of

these organizations age, is they get old and scary. You know?

They they lose their edge and. They lose their appetite for

wanting to scale. They lose their their appetite for wanting

to invest in the business. And you know, it's, it's, it's sad

to see that's part of the reason I wrote handoffs is, is because

I've watched it so many times. I've seen so many examples. And

the funny story is that I've shared some snippets of the

story with a couple of my owners and founders, and they all go,

did you write that about us? Yeah, well, no, I just wrote it

about a whole bunch of different but you know, that's that's also

part of the thing that you have to watch out for, is, is okay,

when is it time to make the handoff?

Yeah. It also brings me to another question

that I was thinking really as I was, I was thinking through this

kind of mindset that you present, but how does this help

us choose the next person as well. Because what I've found is

there's a temptation to kind of get somebody who will not screw

it up, but doesn't that set us up to most of the time land on

managing a decline.

I'll go back to Preston for a second. Preston

was brilliant about this. He still had a great deal to do

with the business, but he he pretty much gave the next person

in the CEO spot, and that person was there for 17 years. So, you

know, he gave him the full trust and confidence and and that's a

big part of it, you know, it just really depends. Do you have

the homespun talent to be able to do that, or do you need to go

outside? And you know, if you're going outside, then you're going

to want people that aren't like you. You know, I there was a

company I worked with a long time ago that that had the

hiring system. It was called plus, and plus was people like

us, and it's like, wait a minute, do you really want

people like us? I mean, you know, yeah, okay, some of the

fire in the belly and things like that, but, but do you want

everybody to be the same? Do you want, you know, do you want a

mini me and and, no, you don't want a mini me. You want

somebody that can, that can compliment and, by the way, you

know, you're not planning on stepping back, and it depends

on, on when that happens, but, but even if you are planning on

stepping back, then you even want somebody that is, you know,

that's going to take it in a new direction, that's going to take

and grow the company.

Yeah, yeah, it's so good, so good chip.

There's a question that I have for you, and then I want to make

sure folks know how they can get in touch with you. But first the

question, and that is, what is the biggest secret you wish

wasn't a secret at all. What's that one thing you wish

everybody watching or listening today knew?

You know, I don't know exactly how to say it, but,

but I will say that my observation is when people start

believing their own bad things happen. And, and the the term is

hubris and, and I've seen that so many times, where people

thinks that they know all the answers, and they they have all

the answers, and they have to have all the answers. And, and I

don't know, you know, it's, it's like, it's like Adele. I mean,

is it Adele put any good music out since she got happy, you

know? And so and so you get, you get fat and happy, and you get

complacent, and you start to believe your own you start to

believe your own press. You start to believe your own PR

department and and bad things happen there. And so I, I wish

people would would recognize when that is is on its way, and

be able to back up and and recenter. So I'll talk about

Haspel again. There's a current CEO, guy named Jim O'Leary, and

he's, he's an incredible leader, just an incredible leader. And

he's the third CEO, so he came after the founder and the first

CEO. He still goes by every morning before he goes to the

office and plays with his grandkids. Think about that.

Whenever he's in town, he stops by and plays with his grandkids.

Isn't that grounding, you know? Yeah, and he leads that way. He

leads with a lot of heart. So, you know, I've gotten some great

examples, and I love working with a company

That's fantastic, fantastic chip. I

know that there's some founders and owners and leaders listening

today who'd love to hear more. Maybe get a copy of one of your

books, or even find out about what it's like to work with you.

Where can they find out more?

The books are on Amazon. Amazon and the audio

books are on several different platforms, Spotify, it's not an

Amazon, but on Spotify, on Barnes and noble.com Kobo and a

number of other ones. You can get in touch with me through my

website, at Scholes and associates.com, all spelled out,

and I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and so yeah, I'm

Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Chip, thank you

so much for being on and sharing with us today. I really, really

appreciate it. It was an honor having you here. 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.