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Leadership, Mentorship, and Building Winning Teams with Lori Beth Irvin of LBIngenuity 12-8-25
00:25:25
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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a tremendous leader. We're joined today by Lori Beth Ervin. Laurie's going to talk to us about her journey, about building teams, about consulting and about what she does. Laurie, we are so thrilled to have you with us today. Can you take a moment and introduce yourself and then we'll talk about leadership and a lot more.
- [00:55]
C
Oh, thank you, Scott. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about business and leadership. I always appreciate the opportunity to talk about something other than just daily work and daily grind. So thank you for the opportunity. But yeah, for your listeners that may not be familiar with who I am, my name is Lori Beth Urban and I own a marketing consulting business called LB Ingenuity and we've been in business for going on four years now. And I've had a great opportunity to work with a lot of different teams over my 30 years of of being in a corporate organization. So you're really excited and enthused to talk about leadership with you and your audience.
- [01:37]
B
Well, thank you so much. And take a moment when you look back at your career, were there a couple turning points, inflection points that helped to shape you as the leader that you are today?
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C
So one of the biggest turning points, I guess for me was about 12 to 13 years ago when I had an aha moment that I recognized that I had a lot of leaders and managers that I reported with and to, but I didn't really have a mentor that I desperately needed and desperately wanted at that time, not only to advance my career goals from like some salary perspective or rising in the ranks, but also just someone who could teach me something other than tasks, that wasn't afraid to help me think more strategically and outside of the box and outside of my defined role and someone who actually just challenged me to be a more strategic thinker. And I think when I had the aha moment that I didn't really have leaders or managers that really fit a mentor capacity. I had taskmasters and micromanagers that the absence of that kind of became its own teacher for me. So it really pushed me to then dive in and do it myself and trust my instincts earlier, take more initiative sooner to develop a leadership style and be really independent without waiting to be told what to do or for validation, and take initiative into learning more about how a business operates and not just how my one role within the business operates. And so I think that initially shaped the way that I lead today because I show up differently for people because I know what it feels like to look around the room and not see someone, a mentor or a guide who actually sees or understands your full potential. So that was the first turning point. Another turning point came a little bit later when I was able to get into more advanced roles within my career. And I used to just think, wow, you know, my department that I'm leading or managing, you know, is very siloed. And you know, we're not really, we're driving results for our department, but we're not really driving overall growth results. And then I started to realize as the further I dug down into some of those, that guess what, it's not just my marketing department, it's the whole organization was very siloed and fragmented and you know, marketing was not talking to sales, sales was not talking to operations. And independently they were, they were meeting their own goals. But it created a lot of fragmentation with the organizations. And I think, think what I was seeing was that fragmentation when people don't understand what the overarching organizational goals are and can't work toward common goals, then businesses can't reach their maximum growth potential. And leadership carried a lot of pressures that the organization never really understood or saw. You know, we, we were kind of taught to be tight lipped about things that were going on behind the scene, not being 100% transparent. And while everybody was working hard, they really weren't working together, if that makes sense. And it just didn't work for the overall growth goals for organizations 100%.
- [05:15]
B
So you talk about sort of both aligning goals within an organization and talk again about leadership and mentoring. So many leaders end up really being somewhat self taught versus mentored. Talk about that for a second.
- [05:30]
C
Yeah, and I, I think too like with our generation, there was a whole lot of talk, at least my 20s or early 30s about mentoring. It was, you go in, you do the work, you hopefully get into an organization and they'll see your potential at some point and then you can, if you aspire to be, you know, kind of like a leader or Manager in the organization, you hopefully get promoted. And I think mentorship, now we're talking more about it, which is a good thing. And I think the younger generations are demanding it because they see the potential that meant of having a mentor really can add value and help advance not only I think your professional career goals, which is really important, but also it can help advance your personal goals too. They kind of go hand in hand. So, you know, being that I was sort of like self taught myself because I didn't have this ideal mentor, it's really important for me now to show up for other generations, not just for people that I manage today or people that work for me today, but I also take an active role in getting into mentorship with the American Marketing association or SEMA out of Chicago. It's just, I think it really benefits someone not only professionally, but personally. And I think that that is something that with technology and things like that that are supposedly bringing us together more, sometimes there's a disconnect with the mentorship. And I think a lot of it too is fear based from leadership. They feel like if I teach you all the trade secrets and then you're going to take my job and that is just not necessarily true. You know, everybody has their own value and the own benefits that they bring an organization. And I feel like a lot of times we get paralyzed by fear as to, well, if I teach this guy, this guy that I brought on, that I'm managing everything that I know, then he's going to outperform me in the future. And in essence, don't we so many years down the road want that to happen? Because we can't work forever. Like at some point won't you want to be able to retire? So. So I think it's flipping the script a little bit on how you think about mentorship and, and how you're, you're leaving sort of like a professional legacy for people. Every people, every person that you touch has a ripple effect of how they treat somebody else in an organization. And I think that that's something valuable we can leave behind as leaders today.
- [08:02]
B
Thank you so much. And take a second. Laurie, you've done a lot on building teams over the years or Beth. And talk about what do you think about when you talk about building teams and getting people to rely on each other? Are there principles that you think about in building teams?
- [08:21]
C
You know, for me, I feel like it's all about integrity and how people show up. And that's one of the biggest things I look for when I'm putting or hiring people or putting people in certain roles. If people can show up consistently and with tenacity, we can teach them any skill. And there's, there's tons of things out there now. Like back in the day, we had to go to the Encyclopedia Britannica to learn how to do something. And today we have all the YouTubes out there. Anyone can learn how to do a role. But I think top performing teams have team members that are individually tenacious and still have a work ethic of ownership and wanting to do a good job and wanting to consistently show up and aren't afraid to show up even when it's very stressful conditions or even when the update isn't perfect and to stay engaged even through the hard days, not just the days that you have a lot of success and not just highlights, you know, showing up each day with purpose, not permission. And people that want to show up and not just feel like, oh, I'm just showing up to clock in, clock out and get a paycheck. So I think building teams that win a lot of the team members or the majority of the team members would are more tenacious and have each other's back and actually enjoy their work in a certain sense of the word, and enjoy the ability to work with their team members. So that's a big thing. I think these days. Sometimes I think it's easy now I'm seeing from a younger generation to give up really easily on things if they can't figure it out or if they think it's going to be a hard conversation. But that's life and that's how we grow and expand as leaders and grow and expand personally too. So, yeah, I think that that's basically what it boils down to is skills can be taught, but the root core passion and tenacity, you know, that's an instinct that you just have to discern if that's a person that's right for your team.
- [10:35]
B
No, I think, I think that's fantastic. And Lori, Beth, talk a little bit about complex environments. The world is so complex today and so many things you're talking about people that show up, people that are aligned, people that communicate, that relate tenacious about greatness, talk about some of the leadership qualities that you think are most important right now in this very complex, changing world.
- [10:57]
C
Oh, wow. Well, there's so many things going on with AI and technology moving so fast, which is a great, great thing. Also can be a scary thing. It's a fast thing. And historically with organizations, that's what you wanted, you wanted to be fast, make decisions fast, get things very efficient fast and move very quickly. But I think one of the things that we may have lost touch with a little bit is I think the leaders who stand out today are the ones that are really steady and who can stay grounded even when there's a lot of shifting dynamics or a lot of high pressure stakes and can take a pause before reacting, not take a long pause that you lose an opportunity obviously, but be able to take a pause, not be as reactive, take a more proactive approach and assess situations without totally inflating them or making them even a bigger crisis than you already anticipate that they might and make decisions that support. If we're talking about proactive versus reactive, which that's happening a lot in discussions today, make decisions that support long term outcomes of the business and not just a short term fix. Is this long term outcome going to actually help the greater good of the organization? And sometimes I'll put a time frame around it and ask leaders, will this have a long term effect on after it's implemented within 12 to 14 months? And after 14 months, if it's not going to have a lasting impact, is it really a decision you should be making right now? And then I think along with staying grounded and steady in sort of like a chaotic or complex environment with a lot of different personalities in the mix, I think emotional intelligence is a big thing. We've been hearing more about that with people coming out writing a lot of business books about EQ now and how it's more of a superpower in leadership than we initially expected. But you know, leaders who have some intuitiveness about them and can not only walk into a room, read the room, understand the individual pressure points of each individual in that room, but be able to respond without fueling more chaos, I think are more effective in their leadership styles.
- [13:16]
B
Thank you. And talk a little bit about creating culture intentionally. Do you create culture intentionally in organizations and what does that look like? How do you go about that?
- [13:27]
C
Yeah, and you know, I like to say it kind of goes hand in hand with kind of what we do. I think culture is shaped even in the smallest moments. You know, a lot of people think, you know, company culture is taking everybody on a retreat and, and doing team building exercises and putting as much as we can into a employee benefit package, which all of those things are great and work toward culture. But it doesn't have to be the big things. It can be like the smallest moments and a lot of it has to do with communication. Skills. It's the tone of an email that you send out. It's how leaders can handle tough news and how certain decisions from an organization is communicated to the whole organization. And a lot of times it used to be that the whole organization were left out of any decision making correspondence at all. You didn't even know it until it hit the press. And that's been a shift and I think a challenge too for leaders to be like how much information do we want to share and how transparent do we want. You need to be. But you know, people won't per. They don't. People don't necessarily. Or workers don't necessarily want perfection from leaders. They want consistency, they want your transparency and they want fairness and that's how you gain their respect. So when you're. Again, I'll go back to sort of the. A lot of fear based scenarios is, is how we used to operate and I think luckily we're moving out of those and creating culture with intention. I think is. Is evolving even today and I think in about 10 more years we'll have, we'll have the sort of super recipe for it. But you know, the culture shaping or intentions, you know, to me it's kind of simple. It's just communicate directly and communicate often respect people's time and contribution because that's what they really want to hear. If they're doing a great job and how they're contributing to organizational mission and vision and treat professionalism as a baseline, not a bonus. You know, when people feel respected, they respect you back as a leader and they perform at a higher level.
- [15:48]
B
Thank you and take a second. Don, two different questions. Making decisions under stress. Any thoughts about making decisions under stress? Then the second question is any setbacks you faced and any advice for people that are facing, that have faced setbacks or will face setbacks?
- [16:06]
C
Oh yeah. Well, I think decision making under pressure is a practice because I used to not be very good at it. But as I practice and move forward it gets easier and better again. It's all about kind of staying grounded in those conflicts and stressful situations. But if I have the ability and the luxury of some time, it doesn't have to be a long period of time, but I can slow down the moment and urgency, especially just internally. Your sense of urgency in your own mind has a way of making big decisions feel even bigger than they really are probably. And that's I think when bad decisions or mistakes happen. So you know, I kind of start with the real question is what is the outcome or the result that we really need from this and not what people are afraid of or not really the emotion around the issue. Kind of let's take the emotionality out of it. But what is the real outcome that the business is trying to achieve? And then once I can answer that, I look for three things. One's timing. Is now the right moment or will it matter if I make the decision now or later? What's the impact? How will the impact of this decision reshape expectations, the team's workload or the team in general? And then does it move the business forward for a long term perspective? Or is this, are we just doing this to make us feel productive or take on a rising trend or have a short term fix to a longer term problem? So you know, I think good decision making isn't necessarily about speed, even though sometimes we don't have the luxury of time, but even just slowing down the pace just for a matter of minutes can make the most best outcome for a decision that you may have made in haste without putting much thought into it.
- [18:06]
B
Thank you very, very much and take a second. Laurie. Beth, you've had this remarkable career. Such a self starter. Really incredible. Any advice you would give to emerging leaders?
- [18:18]
C
Yes. So I love this question because again, I didn't have a mentor as I went along. So I love giving, I love giving advice to people whether or not they want to hear it, especially those navigating their own career choices or, you know, very demanding industries. But the first three things, I think the first thing I would say is understand, have a good understanding of the business beyond your role. And leaders who rise more quickly are the ones that understand overall business goals, not just how their one task contributes to the whole outcome of the business. Two very important protect your own bandwidth. Burnout's not a great thing. It's a sign that something in the organization needs adjusting if you're allocating several hours a week to things that aren't really moving the needle both internally and externally. So learn how to pace. Pace is not a bad word. And protect your own bandwidth or you'll never be able to produce to your maximum potential. And third, be selective of what you say yes to. Don't be afraid to say no. No, not every opportunity that shows up at your door is the right opportunity for you. You need to kind of weigh a lot of things. And I look at it as is this opportunity going to expand your expertise, expand your network? Is it going to help shape your reputation? Do you feel like you have a mentor within the company? Do you really Buy into the mission and vision of the company. A lot of those things in our either red flags or green flags as to where you should, whether or not you should proceed with an opportunity. Sometimes we'll see things on paper and it looks really good. And you. I'll talk to emerging leaders today and they'll get on calls with some of the leadership team or they're interviewing for roles and they realize that the vibe's not the right fit. So be confident enough in yourself to say no if the opportunity that lands at your door is not the right one. And don't be afraid to take risks. I wish I had learned that a little bit earlier on.
- [20:31]
B
Talk about that a little bit more. There's two things that I'd love to touch on a little bit more. First, the following. Your intuition, your instinct to take something on, not take something on, hitting this right balance. Talk about that for a second and then talk a little bit about taking risks and where it's appropriate to take risks and how you measure those risks.
- [20:48]
C
Oh yeah. Well, I think taking risks is very intentional and it's, it's maybe very individual and not everyone is hypervigilant or very type A personality like me. A lot of people do moderation much better than I do and I'm working on it now later in life. Otherwise we get to the point where I was saying earlier that you don't have any bandwidth left to do anybody any good, much less yourself. So I think taking risks, I think if you really drill down to the core essence of something or core essence of a cause or an opportunity and you're at a point of a role or you're at a point of time where you feel like you're stagnated or you're, you've plateaued, then it's time to take a risk, to try something else. That's the only way I can really describe it. It's very individualized, it's very personal. I know there's been several times, you know, as I was building my career that I didn't feel like I had the luxury of taking a risk due to, you know, fear or afraid I wasn't going to make it if I didn't just where I was. And those are real things, but those are things that we have to work on because if I had never taken a risk to start my own business, I would never be where I was today. And that was, that was a huge thing for me because I was very risk averse up until that point of my life.
- [22:06]
B
Talk about that For a second, talk about the anxiety in starting your own business. So many listeners are founders themselves, are trying to be founders. Talk about that anxiety. And was that like jumping off a cliff or was that sort of, you sort of knew where you're going. You had a couple clients. How did that, how did that, what did that look like in the anxiety and stress or excitement of that?
- [22:23]
C
Yeah, it was, it was, at first, it was a little anxiety. Well, at first I really didn't know. It was actually a very quick decision, which was probably good because it didn't give me time to ruminate. And no, I didn't have anybody waiting to sign up for me when I took the risk unnecessarily. But they came shortly thereafter. There was some intuition in me and I had been in corporate environments for so long that I felt like, I can't breathe right now. I can't breathe. If I continue on these, these roles that are very high, high demanding roles, I'm going to burn out. And people that do know me and know my longer term story is I have faced a lot of chronic, chronic illness throughout my years that I've kind of coped with. One thing I was really good at is being hypervigilant at work. Whether or not sometimes my physical fatigue and things gave me a few limitations to do other things. So there was fear there that, you know, what if I, I stepped off the ledge and then I crashed because here I am and you know, really didn't have a whole lot of backing, so to speak. It's just me, myself and I. But as soon as I did have a, the faith to step over the ledge, then everything met me where I was at and it was, it was scary to take the step. But then after I took the step, everything fell into place. And it fell into place so much more easily than what I had been doing years before and feeling like I was clawing my way up or, or trying to roll a boulder uphill. But again, it was a lot of intuition and personal work and just having the faith to do it. I always tried to tell myself, because I was really risk averse up to this point, like, what's the worst that can happen? Well, what if I become homeless? You know, maybe I can get on government assistance. Like that's probably the worst I can have. I could probably move in with family members. Not that I want to have to ask them, but you know, what's the really the worst that could happen? And then when I was able to kind of itemize what I thought the actual worst was it really wasn't as bad as what, what you had in your mind in the back of your mind. And luckily the worst didn't happen. It's the best that actually happened. So sort of just having, taking a leap of faith, so to speak, is what I'll, I'll say and I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that because it seems like a big risk at the time that you're doing it, but a lot of business owners that I've met over the years have felt that way. It's, it's not exclusive to, to me being a risk averse personality. And a lot of them, we've all survived it and we've a, have thrived in those dynamics. And then the, the worst thing that can happen is failing and be like, oh, I don't really like being a business owner. So then what? So well then you just go out and find your next opportunity. It's not as devastating sometimes as we make it out to be in our minds.
- [25:25]
B
No 100%. But I love that concept of writing down here's the worst things that could happen because in some ways that really gives you an ability to, you know, to think through. Okay, I can live with this or I can't live with this. And then thankfully you moved forward and been crazily successful. Lori Beth, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you joining us today on the Becker Business, the Becker Private equity podcast. Again, we're joined today by Lori Beth Irvin, just a brilliant leader. I can't tell you much. We appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us and quite frankly so inspiring that kind of startup story and, and how you managed it and everything else. Lori, thank you so much for joining us.
- [26:02]
C
Thank you, Scott, all my pleasure.