← Confessions of an Implementer
Confessions of an Implementer
Lead By Listening: Clear Communication Makes Stronger Teams with Bobby Rouse
00:58:50
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- [00:00]
Bobby Rouse
There's a gigantic disconnect in most businesses, whether they're small or they're big, where most people just don't even know what the priorities are, and therefore most people don't care. And then we complain as leaders on occasion that, well, they're just in it for the paycheck. Well, have you given them any other reason?
- [00:24]
Ryan Hogan
Welcome to Confessions of an Implementer. I'm your host, Ryan Hogan. We share unique stories of EOS implementers and the companies they've transformed to give you a rare glimpse into the successes and challenges of the system in action. Let's jump in. Bobby, thank you so much for joining us today. I realize that we are officially the day before Thanksgiving, so you carving out some time right before the family. Really appreciate that?
- [00:48]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, you bet. It's great to be here. Glad to talk to you.
- [00:51]
Ryan Hogan
I remember our first conversation just a couple of weeks ago. We touched on, like, cherry farming. We touched on scuba diving, and I was telling you that scuba diving has always been, like, on my bucket list to get qualification. And. And then I had these ear problems and you were like, no, but that's. It's a. It's a muscle. You can train that muscle, and you just have to do it gradually. Your story at Adobe, there's so many topics that we can cover today. I think the first is like, how did you. How did you get. How did you go from cherry farming to. To Adobe, working your way up Adobe and now an EOS implementer?
- [01:26]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, well, I mean, everybody's probably got some sort of a story like this. It's like, how in the world did you wind up where you're at? And, you know, a lot of people could ask the same of you, same of me, same of a lot of other people, but, you know, it's really interesting. All the things that I've ever done has been tightly integrated with people, and it's just a matter of how you want to have an impact on people and where that really is. I mean, between cherry farming and college, I actually spent a couple of years in Honduras and I learned, you know, the Spanish language and the culture and, you know, kind of serve those people. And so that's another one of those things that it was just, you know, life is a journey, and the people who really, I think, try to try to steer that, like, really aggressively probably don't get as much out of life as they maybe could. So. But. But it's. It's always been that for me, and I'm super grateful to have started several businesses in the past, and that's kind of my entrepreneurial itch that I've scratched over the years. And then I've also spent some time in corporate, and most entrepreneurs kind of shun at the idea of, you know, doing anything corporate wise. But as you and I both know, there's a lot of lessons to be learned there as well. You know, you've talked to a lot of implementers, and they probably have experience in both, and so I think that's really good. And frankly, at my age, several years ago, about three years ago, that's when I actually read the book Traction, because I was helping a friend of mine who had a business, and he said, hey, we're getting implemented on eos. And I'm like, well, I'm not really sure what that is, but so I read Traction, and that was probably about five years ago, and when I read it, I was just like, oh, my gosh, all the businesses I've started, you know, this is kind of a combination of all the things that I felt like I'd done, but it required all of those years of experience to actually have that come to fruition. And then it's like, okay, this is what I need to do is I need to go out and teach this. And I love to teach. I'm a teacher at heart and I've got a lot of experience to, to hopefully help people that I work with. So that's kind of how that transition happened. In the, you know, short story wise, there's.
- [03:42]
Ryan Hogan
There's so much there that resonated with me. The, the first thing is when you talk about kind of international or foreign travel and immersing yourself into a culture that, that reminds me of. Of my military deployments and we would make port visits and, and the exposure and almost like this enlightenment that you would get from. From understanding how other people across the world operate and taking those experiences and translating them. Like, what are, what are some things? As you were immersing yourself, you said Honduras, right?
- [04:12]
Bobby Rouse
Yep, yep.
- [04:13]
Ryan Hogan
What were some things that. That you kind of gleaned from that experience that you've now kind of carried throughout your journey?
- [04:19]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, when I first got there, like most people, you know, I really struggled. It's like, this is. This is a big slap in the face and, and so new culture, new language that I knew very little, and I was in an area that nobody else really spoke English. So it's like, you know, you either figure it out quickly or you suffer. But one of the biggest Lessons I think I took from that is, in your, in your business, in your life, you really have to be all in. And, you know, we. We talk about burning the boats, and there's a big story behind that. Your listeners can go out and kind of do some, some googling around that. But my life did not become fulfilled in that, you know, that journey of a couple of years being in Honduras until I mentally made the decision that I was going to be all in. I was going to immerse myself in the culture. I was going to go and wash my clothes in the same creek that everybody else did, and I was going to sort of make it a competition and see if I could get the good spots before anybody else did. So when you immerse yourself in something and you go all in on it, your chances of success are much higher. And frankly, your chances of just really sort of getting through that mentally is much easier. Like, we make it super hard on ourselves. So as soon as I did that, the language came easier, the culture came much easier, and I fell in love with it, you know, very quickly after I did that, because it was now my culture, it wasn't somebody else's. And so to me, that was kind of the big lesson learned is like, just if you're going to do it, just be all in on it, you know, just mentally be all in on it. And life gets a lot easier.
- [06:14]
Ryan Hogan
When you say all in, I love that, and I'm guilty of not doing that at times. So when I was in the military, I was also running startups and had, you know, people approach that you have to pick one thing if you want to be successful. It doesn't matter. You can be successful in anything you want, but you really have to focus on one thing at a time. When, when you think about all in, is that, is that about blocking other things out? So the language, for instance, when, like, did you just stop, like, speaking in English and. And just like, struggled your way through learning the local language and things like that. Is. Is it putting on blockers?
- [06:52]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, I think it's a really good way to put it. And, and I think that relates to lots of things in life. But again, it wasn't until I put on those blockers to say, you know, number one, English language isn't going to do you much good here. So why do you keep fighting that? Like, if you literally want to communicate, maybe now's the time to sort of make that decision. Right. And my, my goal, or I, I guess when I knew that the blockers were effective, is when I started dreaming in Spanish, I'm like, okay, there it is. And so that was an interesting indicator of making a transition from here's all the things I miss about back home, including the farm, which by the way, when you're on the farm, you don't, you know, it's kind of like, I can't wait to get out of here. Then you go to another place and it's like, whew, well, I didn't want to get out of there that bad, you know, but those are all decisions that you make and you do, you put on those blinders and you say, I'm not going to let these things impede, you know, my, my current success and my current satisfaction with where I'm at. And to me it's interesting. I was just actually reading some stuff on this this morning. But we, you know, we, we hear the words living in abundance, right? And to me, living in abundance is only possible when you're all in. And it doesn't have anything to do with money per se. It doesn't have anything to do with things that we can't control. But what I could control specifically in Honduras is I could be all in. And immediately, as soon as I started doing that, I started to feel like, okay, now I'm living in abundance. Not financially, but everything was better, my spirits were better, the language came quicker, I got a lot of respect from people in the town, you know, I mean, those sorts of things. And frankly, if you look at me, it's like, dude, you don't look like a Honduran at all, right? So it's not like I didn't stick out. I was not a blender. And you know, so people recognize that and they appreciated that, they appreciated the effort and they want, you know, people want you to be all in with, you know, where you're at. So that was, that was, that was good. That's kind of a long answer to your question. But I do think that blinders and sort of pushing out the things that don't help you achieve your objectives. I think that's the thing that really makes a difference.
- [09:16]
Ryan Hogan
Yeah, and it sounds like, like one of the things that, that was kind of implicit in that is, is like the uncomfortableness. Like I'm sure it was very uncomfortable for you to, to bail on, on speaking English and like force yourself to, to start to understand Spanish and not to take us on a side quest. But I am, I have a 39 day streak right now in Duolingo where I'm trying to, to Very quickly learn Spanish. And like, it's. It's definitely better than that. When I remember taking like, Spanish 1, Spanish 2, and in high school, like, I'm learning faster, but. But I feel like there's. There's something else that's missing. Like, I don't. I feel like there's going to be a time where I hit peak and it's like, it's exactly what you're talking about, where immersing, maybe it's watching, you know, Spanish television and being able to, like, forcing yourself to put together the words and start to understand. I don't know if you have any tips on learning Spanish, but. But 39 days in the Duolingo right now.
- [10:14]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah. Well, number one, congratulations. That's awesome. Anytime you can be disciplined to do anything for 39 days in a row, it's like, that's good. Interestingly enough, I mean, I had on the farm a lot of opportunities to speak Spanish. And you would think that in, you know, I'd be pretty good going into it, but I really wasn't because, you know, I mean, I. I wasn't all in. I was 80% English and 20% Spanish when I was on the farm, and those words were pretty limited, you know, as it were. And it's interesting because what I mean by all in another way to say that is if you really, really want to learn something, then you have to immerse yourself. And that gets you speed and it gets you quality, because what is in Duolingo, for example, is really good. But then you have all these different dialects, and the language in Mexico means something different than it does in Honduras, so on and so forth, right. And even within country, you have a lot of these different dialects. So it's really kind of an interesting dynamic. But I would say the same thing with people in business. Like, if you really want to get good at business, then go immerse yourself around people who are really competent in that. Right? Just like people are really competent in Spanish. As soon as I was there and as soon as I surrounded myself and I said, yep, I'm all in, let's do it. That's when things started to change. So I would say your next step is to do your very best to immerse yourself and be around people that. That is their language. And. And, you know, maybe it's with your spouse, she could get completely annoyed with you, but still say it in Spanish first and then English and translate it back and forth, right? So you're always speaking it, and when you speak it, it Comes quick when you hear it, that's slower. It's good, but it's slower. So all those things are good, but you got to speak it, you got to practice it. It's 10,000 reps to get great at anything, and languages are no different.
- [12:21]
Ryan Hogan
Love it. And how did you talked a little bit about the. The cherry farm? Was that. Was that a family business?
- [12:27]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, that was a family business. And it was really interesting because, you know, we had several hundred acres, and we had cherries and apples and lots of other things, but one of our main things was we processed cherries for maraschinos, which most people are familiar with maraschinos. And, you know, there's no such thing as a maraschino cherry tree. It's any variety. There is a pie cherry tree, so that's a thing. But other than that, it can be any variety, and it's just how we processed it. But the. The. The way that I actually got on the family farm was that my dad passed away of a heart attack. He was 40, and I was 10. And so my mom remarried a farmer. So I went from a city kid to. To a farmer, which is a really harsh transition if you think about it in those regards. But what. What an unbelievable opportunity for me to actually do all the jobs to work on the farm. And then, you know, about the age of 17, I was, you know, then running operations for our 24 by 7 cherry processing plant. So we would take cherries, and we'd take the stems off, we would pit them, just whatever a customer wanted. And we went through that whole process. So we had to import lots of cherries because we couldn't grow £10 million a season. So we did that from the Northwest. And, you know, it was a great opportunity. But it's interesting. It's the same sort of a thing. Like, I could have fought the farm experience. And you do when you first get into something, because it's hard, but as soon as you sort of be like, okay, I'm going to learn something here, and I got to be all in. Like, you just sort of submit yourself, yourself to what it is that you're trying to accomplish, and as soon as you do that, life just becomes easier. And it's still hard, but it's easier in the regard from a mental perspective, it's like, yep, I'm here and I'm doing it, and let's go. And it was the same thing with the language. So I was really glad I had that preparation before, before I actually made the trek to Honduras that was really good. Then you get into college and it's the same thing like are you going to submit yourself to actually learning or are you going to fight it every step of the way? And that one concept has proven really well, Give me lots of success over the years.
- [14:50]
Ryan Hogan
So did you think a leader or manager was supposed to be a certain way? Because no doubt as you were working inside of this family business for what sounds like almost a decade and you were running operations, there were, there were people that, that you were leading or managing. And when I was first put into a position to lead a manage and this was in the entrepreneurial track, like I had this, this preconceived notion of like what a leader should be. They should, they should wear suits and they should walk around and they should separate family from business. And, and for like three years, four years, like I really struggled and struggled to a degree in which that company failed. And that's, that's for beers one day and we'll, we'll talk all about that. Did you, did you have kind of a clean slate approach as you were coming in and, and kind of figuring it out on your own, or did you think that like you had to be a certain person therefore, and then you had to reverse engineer or like build or break yourself down to like the base and then rebuild of, of what it actually means to be a great boss?
- [15:50]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. I'll tell you from my experience on the farm when I first started leading or managing, you know, three different shifts of people of about 40 people each, that was really a manager job more than it was a leader job. And that's okay. Like, I think there's a good distinction between the two. When you're in highly professional leadership team sort of roles, you need to be a leader and you need to know how to do that. When you're really trying to achieve some objectives, you know, you're probably more on the managerial side because that's just the demographic of folks that you're working with and the objectives that they have. And so there's two big differences there in my, in my opinion. And so when I was running these crews, a lot of it was management and, and that's good. But man, is it ever true that 90 some odd percent of any leaders or any managers have never had any formal training on performing those, those sorts of things. But what I did have is I had a love and a respect for the people that worked for us because they're the ones that ultimately helped us achieve what we wanted to achieve in that business. And so just as an example, you know, we would, we would have these big lines, these belts of cherries that would go by all the time, right. And so they were picking out the bad ones or the ones that didn't quite make grade A. And so as a leader, what I could do, even as somebody who is 17, is if there were eight people on that belt doing sorting, if I saw that there was something that was less effective, then I could stand on the belt with them for 30 minutes and they could just watch like that's a leader. Because I could show them, you know, this is what we're really looking for. And you're probably working too hard and don't do that. Like, let me show you that. Then the other part was the management, which was, you know, are they showing up on time? And if they're not, then how do we deal with that, those sorts of things. Right. But anybody can be a leader as long as you really love and appreciate the people. And, and you can't like, you cannot be a great boss. This is literally like rule number one. If you don't love the people that you're a boss of and, and I use that word boss very loosely, but if you don't love those people, there's, there's no way that, that you can be effective because you're just not going to have it. You're going to, you're going to rule with, you know, with, with methods that are pretty arcane, you know, so there's a big difference and people can see that. So I don't know if that really answers your question, but there's definitely two sides of it and you just have to figure out which one that you need to, you know, you need to be more than the other. It's not equal all the time, just depends on who, who it is that you're managing or leading.
- [18:49]
Ryan Hogan
That was really like one of my follow up questions there was, was going to be like, is there a similar quality or attribute that you need to be great in both of them. And it sounds like you kind of, you kind of answered that. It's, it's like love and empathy and these other things that, that are needed for both, but they're two different things. Like one is accomplishing a certain, a certain objective and the other is to me like planting a flag and making sure that everybody is aligned around that common vision and solving kind of the same problems inside of the organization. So I love that response.
- [19:22]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah. And I Think that's right. And I think, you know, people are pretty easy to lead, assuming that, you know, you've got the right people in there and they're pretty easy to lead when everybody is bought into the vision, whatever that is. And for us, it might have been, you know, 30 bins of, you know, £2,000 worth of cherries in each bin, 30 of those produced a day. I mean, that could be the vision. And you could put it on a leaderboard and you can figure that out and you can compete with the other shifts and have sort of that healthy competition that's. That's good leadership. And I. But it's all around exactly like you said, is, you know, what is that vision? And then there's nuances to all of that. I know you've talked with my good friend Jonathan Smith, and so it really good friend. And I spent some time with him last week, actually face to face, which was great. But when you look at his communication style and the things that I've learned through him and through Black Swan and some of these other things, this tactical empathy, like you say, those are the things. Those are the sorts of things that make people better leaders because it opens up conversations and it, you know, it just helps people to get on the same page. And so he's exceptional at that. And I learned from him all the time. And those are some of the skills I should say, that I've employed. And it's been really great personally and professionally. So there's lots of those little nuances.
- [20:47]
Ryan Hogan
When I think of Jonathan or JBS amongst the.
- [20:51]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, JBS amongst us that know him. Yeah.
- [20:55]
Ryan Hogan
Like, what's been really interesting is how he's able to kind of slow conversations down and this, like, idea of listening, because people talk about listening all the time. Like, you need to listen. And when he was on the show, he talked about the five different types of listening. And it's been incredible to kind of like, go down that rabbit hole and understand that just because sometimes we say we're listening, like we're not, and the other person knows that. And I don't know, like, I've gone down that rabbit hole and have learned a whole bunch from him.
- [21:27]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, it's been great. And I think. I think one of the biggest. If you ask anybody who's had a really great leader and somebody who's had a less than a great leader, I think the gap that exists there is their communication style, which, by the way, I mean, if we go right back into Spanish, I'm not going to be Effective. If I can't speak the language, I'm not going to be able to get what I want. I'm not going to be able to help anybody else. And even if you're speaking the same fundamental language, you then have to take it to the next step, which is now, how do I employ some really good skills? So any, any people who suffer from, or what they feel like they're suffering from, you know, leadership chops, it's like, go get really, really skilled on communication. And what I mean by that is listen. Like, listen 80% and talk 20. Like, those are some of the magic numbers. I have a lot of my clients that they ask me about hiring and. And I say, well, you know, your role is to ask a question and then listen. Just like you do, Ryan. I mean, you ask questions and then you listen. And those are things that will tell you more about any individual than any other directed questions that you could ask. Like, just listen and let them talk, you know? Well, one of our core values at Company X is we do the right thing. So what does that mean to you? And then you have this dynamic silence, and you just let them talk and you'll get what you want. But that's what makes a good leader. People need to feel like they're heard, and people need to feel like their leader is about them more than it is about themselves.
- [23:15]
Ryan Hogan
Yeah. And what's interesting, two things on that question. The first is we had a. One of our core values. I think it was, it was my last company, was we do the right thing. And with this, with my new company, Talent harbor, we are, um, we are very passionate about not just aligning for experience and expertise. Like, that stuff is easy. You look at a resume, you can ask a few questions. You can call some references, like understanding if someone has the skills to be able to accomplish the job, like, it's very easy to evaluate. What's hard is, are they going to put those skills to use? Do their values, their personal values, align with the core values of the organization? And the question you just asked there is like one of our go to questions as we go through the core values interview. Because you just let them talk and you can see it, you can feel it like, yes, there is some intuition. But as they're talking about, like, hey, what does. What does we do the right thing mean to you? As they start to talk, if they're getting excited and they're lighting up and they're giving you examples and all these different things, you can really get a sense for who they are. And you can also get a sense that they're just bullshitting. And so, like, I loved what you just said there because it's like, I think that's fundamental to, to the hiring process just as much as it is to leadership and other things out there.
- [24:31]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, I agree. And I usually follow that up with, you know, so they get, they give you a good answer or whatever and what that means, they get energized by, you know, we do the right thing or whatever the core value is. And then I'm like, so, you know, can you give me an example of when you had to do the right thing? And, you know, they'll either come up with something or they won't. And if they don't, then you're like, oh, okay. Well, you're just a really good interviewer. And that only lasts for so long, as you and I both know. Right?
- [24:57]
Ryan Hogan
Yeah, it's very true. You talked about something earlier that, that really hit home with me as well. And this, this had to do with Adobe. And so for me, my Adobe has been the United States Navy. So I've been in now for 22 years. The first 15 were active, the last seven have been in the reserves. And it doesn't get more bureaucratic than, than a government institution the size of, of the Navy. And you went through some of that at Adobe, and, and there's, like, there's different takes on that, like, in the entrepreneur world. Like, some people look down upon that type of experience. They're like, you're not a real entrepreneur if you're just not all in on entrepreneurship 100%. But when I look back at the things that, that, like, I learned that I discovered, like, my experiences throughout the Navy, like, I can draw a line to where I am today, and I don't think I would be where I am today without those experiences. And so, like, what was that journey like for you? Because you spent quite a bit of time at Adobe, and what was that like, and how did that help you continue to go on this journey?
- [26:02]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, well, that's a really good question. And I like you, I've started several businesses in my career, and then I spent some time in corporate America. And so what did I really glean from that? And I would say whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're in corporate, you can, number one, still be an entrepreneur with inside of a corporate job. So, you know, the creativity's there. It may not be adopted as quick as you would like, and that could be frustrating. I get that. But the Thing that makes you great is when you understand how a corporation works. So if you, for example, were going to supply people to the Navy, like, you need to know how that operates because that's going to make you more effective. And so entrepreneurs whose customers could be in bigger businesses that aren't truly entrepreneurial, it's really fantastic experience to allow you to be more successful as an entrepreneur because you're integrating with, selling to communicating with some of these bigger, more bureaucratic organizations. You need to know how those things run. For starters, every entrepreneur who's successful also has a really fine tuned set of chops when it comes to communication. There is no better place to learn that when you're in corporate. We understand what politicking can be, we understand what priorities look like. We understand when things aren't simple and they're super complex and it's not right and it's not wrong. But I think it's important to have both of those sides. And for me, the experiences at Adobe number one, it's fantastic company and I recommend lots of people to them if I feel like they're the right fit. So I love, love, love that company and it's really, really great. Probably better than most and all the people that are there, but there was still those things that you have to learn and you have to understand and that will make you better at whatever it is that you want to do. So some people just can't do that though. Some people just like, I'm not wired to go to work for a 20 billion dollar company that has 20,000 employees. That's okay too. Like know thyself and know that that's one of the things. But if you're in there and you're thinking, oh, I just want to get out and be an entrepreneur, I'm like, write down a bulleted list of the things that these experiences can teach you to become a better entrepreneur because you're really wired for that. And I've been wired for that as well for, you know, since, since working in the family farm. It's like that's, this is the thing that I want to do, but how incredibly grateful I am for those, you know, bigger bureaucratic opportunities because they taught me so much.
- [28:57]
Ryan Hogan
All right, quick break, friends. Do you find it impossible to hire and retain top sales talent or worse, are you paying insane recruiter fees who are all using outdated hiring processes? Yeah, I was too at Hunt a Killer. We were spending hundreds of thousands on recruiter agency fees. And after I sold that company in 2025, I started Talent harbor and the whole vision here was to make sales recruiting accessible to small and medium sized businesses. Because the organizations that can hire and retain world class people are the ones that ultimately win. Most organizations rely on things like ZipRecruiter or LinkedIn and they get hundreds if not thousands of resumes. But we find that the best salespeople are already perfectly placed somewhere else. And that's why our approach is to go after them. And we do that through a business model called recruiting. As a service, we do not, do not charge commissions, we do not have success fees, we don't have contracts, we don't have long term engagements and we become an extension of your team as expert sales recruiters. If you're tired of the same old recruiters and want to actually grow your sales team, check us out@talent harbor.com that's Talent Harbor. T A L E N T H A R b o r.com let's get your next sales superstar hobby. Did you notice along this journey as you were, as you were doing the farm stuff and then the stuff in Honduras and the company stuff and the entrepreneurship stuff and then moving into Adobe, did you change and not change as far as improving? Because I think we're always, as leaders and managers, we're always kind of improving and honing and the good ones anyhow are always trying to do better. Were there different aspects that you actually had to change in your style between like how you had done it before you entered corporate? Like were there nuances or is it. No, a great leader is a great leader. It's empathy, it's love, it's all of these things and you keep people focused or it's like. And in corporate we gotta change some of those things.
- [31:05]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah. So I would say that soft skill wise, nothing really changed. So soft skills stay the same, which is good. And I would not recommend that people change soft skills depending on where they go. You can use them differently. But like be yourself, right? I mean people want you for you, they don't want you for somebody who's, you know, not going to be truthful. The thing that was probably the most astonishing was the speed at which we could get things done. Like you can't. If you're an entrepreneur and you have 10 or 20 people in your company, you can make changes pretty quickly and you have that opportunity and that's not always good, but you can do it. Whereas in bigger companies it's like, you know, it's just slower. It's just a lot slower. And so how that was adaptable to me is I was like, so let's find the happy medium. I don't want to move too fast, and I definitely want to get things done, so I don't want to move too slow. So I always go by the mantra, and I think that this actually came from the military. At some point, you would know. But slow is smooth and smooth is fast. And, you know, one of the things I love to do is I love to ride dirt bikes on little, teeny, tiny single track trails, right? And the people who get hurt are the ones that try to go super duper fast. What I can do is I can put my bike in third gear and just. Just give it a little bit of throttle, but I have really, really great momentum and I'm safer and I'm just as fast as they are. It just doesn't sound like I am. So it's a really interesting dynamic when you take the approach of slow is smooth and smooth as fast. Like when you're smooth and you're operating smoothly and you're not twitching and making these decisions super quick without data and these sorts of things, then that's the thing that I learned the most between corporate and between entrepreneurship, and there's a really nice, happy medium in between them. And so that's kind of what we teach people, is like, you want to go quick, but you want to be intentional, and you want to make sure that you have enough data. And if you don't, then you should find people on your team that can help keep you safe that way.
- [33:26]
Ryan Hogan
You're right. Like when. When you're thinking about corporate change and. And when organizations are huge, change becomes challenging and difficult. There's more stakeholders. This brings back. I. I just got back from Naval War College, So I spent 10 months in Newport, Rhode island, and I got put into this program called the Stockdale Leadership Development Concentration. And we had to do a thesis. We had to pick one thing that we really wanted to dive deep on to do this thing called get real, get better. And I'll spare you all the details on it, but one of the things that I was looking at was the fitness report, which is what naval officers get on a yearly basis. That is basically your evaluation. And the Navy's trying to figure out, like, how to better align change and innovation. And, like, my whole idea there is. Well, then start evaluating them on it. Like, not one bullet in this evaluation says anything about, like, change agent or ability to innovate or think big, think different, anything like that. And the reason that I didn't pick that, from my actual thesis is because after I did the research, there's been somebody that has been working that for 15 years. And they started it when they were like, lieutenant commander. They wound up retiring as a senior captain, and they never got the change through. And I was like, well, if that person can't do it, then there's no way that through my 10 months here that I'm going to be able to make any sort of impact. When you think about change and accelerating change, are there different things that you can do, even at bigger organizations, to ensure that things are happening and they're happening? Yes, smooth and slow and fast and all those different things. But you're actually ensuring done, done, done is happening.
- [35:13]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, well, I think the key to acceleration on any of these sorts of changes in these bigger organizations is, you know, are you crystal clear on the priorities of the department or the business unit that you run or whatever that is? And anytime that I would propose any sort of a change, you know, I was smart enough to say, and this is how it's going to affect the business, and this is how it's in complete alignment. Because then it just shows that you're doing things for the greater good, and it's not just for yourself, which is what we should all strive to do. Right. But those are the things that really sort of move that needle a bit quicker is knowing what that is. You know, I've. I have always. My whole career in whatever I've done. I'm like, how do I help make my boss successful so that he can help make, you know, or she can help make their boss successful? And when you start to propose changes that are in alignment with what their priorities are, it's pretty magical. And you got to be. You can't just be off the cuff and just do it. Right. You have to say, this is what this looks like. This is what. This is how I feel like this is going to help. Maybe we need to do some tweaking, but at least you're in alignment. It's when people get outside of alignment with priorities that it gets a little bit weird and things get stifled pretty quickly. Right. And entrepreneurs, for example, are very emotional. Like, we're a very emotional people. We make a lot of decisions based on emotion. And, you know, I'm not great. I would say even Mike Colby says that I'm not great at, you know, fact finding and those sorts of things. I do enough, but I don't go overboard. But when you have data, it really does take the emotion out of it. And so changes that you want to make, and it's supported, substantiated by data and how that can help, I think is really, really helpful for entrepreneurs are people in a corporate space as well. And people will feel that if you're genuine or not, you know, they really want to see me succeed. And so therefore they're making this proposed change. And you know, things just tend to move a little bit quicker that way.
- [37:27]
Ryan Hogan
I love that. And that got my brain flowing almost immediately on how I could have better position that that significant change. Funny enough, I was just talking to somebody else about this a couple days ago and one of my last fitness reports, or every time you change a command you get an outgoing fitness report, even if it's not within that, that pretty 12 month window. And I remember I was leaving my first ship and I got a great evaluation, which was great. But he pulled me aside, my captain at the time and he said, he was like, you know, you can accomplish a lot, but don't forget about bringing other people along with you. And there were a couple instances where like I knew because I was prior enlisted and before I became an ensign, I'd already been in the Navy for 12 years. Like I understood like how the Navy work worked and how to navigate qualifications and things like that. And so like what I spent a lot of time was getting qualified so, you know, putting in extra hours and sitting next to people that already had that. But his feedback to me was like, I didn't bring anybody with me on that journey. And that, that was like really for me, impactful feedback. When you think about change, you're absolutely right. Like this, this notion of crystal clear on the priorities and making sure that, that this is the greatest impact to the business and it's aligned holistically, objectives that are trying to get accomplished. So now, now that you've got whatever that is and, and you can hit go because you've got the, the green check mark to, of approval. How do you bring other people with you? Because generally like change, change is more than just like, you know, a policy or a principle or something like that. It's like you got to bring in and get a whole bunch of people that are just as excited as you about this. Like what are some tactics or strategies that you've used in the past that helps bring people along with you to get them just as excited as you are about that change?
- [39:16]
Bobby Rouse
Well, that's a great question. I'm a really big proponent of succession planning, as everyone should be. And so when I think about bringing people along. So if Ryan's got a big initiative and he's trying to get this initiative through and you don't bring somebody along with you, then you're a single point for that. And so what that ultimately does is it prevents you from moving up and forward, which is probably what the business or the organization needs, because you don't have a successor. So I think about all the big initiatives that I do and bringing people along with me. I want to pick one, maybe two people, you know, whatever the number is. But I want to have others understand what I'm doing, because if I don't, it really, number one, hurts the business. Because I would expect that anybody who's got skills and capabilities is going to move up in an organization like we need them to. We can't just have people be stagnant most of the time. Sometimes we do, but most of the time we don't. So you're really hurting yourself if you don't do that. So when I'm working with my teams, you know, I asked them the question, it's like, so what is your succession plan? Because what if you need to move into a different seat because of your skills, capabilities, maybe even your desires? I don't want you to not be in the organization because you don't have a succession plan. Like, what is that? Everyone should have one, and your next hire should be based on how would they fit into a succession plan? This is my opinion, and not everybody would subscribe to that. But that's, to me, how you bring people along the other way that you bring people along if they can't directly impact, or maybe they're not even part of a succession plan. But what you can do is you can say, let me communicate to you what the priorities of the business are and how this thing that I'm doing fits into that. That's how you get everybody on the same page. There's a gigantic disconnect in most businesses, whether they're small or they're big. Where. And there's a Harris poll that shows this. Most people just don't even know what the priorities are, and therefore, most people don't care. And then we complain as leaders on occasion that, well, they're just in it for the paycheck. Well, have you given them any other reason? Like, that's how you bring people along. So it feeds into succession, but it also feeds into just everybody being on the same page and rowing in the same direction, which is really, really important. You got a lot of great human energy, and you got to get it all rolling in the same direction. So when you don't bring people along, there's a really high probability that they're going to be rolling in different directions, which is not great. Boys on the Boat is a really good movie that sort of demonstrates that. Right. And it doesn't take much. It takes just someone on the team that's just not, you know, in alignment and it really, really hurts. Any forward moving progress? Yeah.
- [42:26]
Ryan Hogan
And like one of the things that, that I had, that I had forgotten throughout that journey is like when, when I had thought about somebody not rowing in the right direction or somebody, you know, maybe, maybe doesn't have the, the same priorities. Like all too often I would discount that and just say, well, like their contributions or, or like, you know, that's, that's not going in the right direction. But, but I would never take into account the impact of the entire organization. No, everybody's in the same boat and so everybody's exerting the same amount of energy to, to put us in a certain direction. But you've got one person that's going against. So it's not like we're in separate boats and their boats going. It's like, oh, there's, you know, they're impacting themselves, but they're impact. No, like they're holding the organization, they're holding the team back, which has like very high cost and impacts to the greater, the greater good.
- [43:14]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, that's such a, that's a really, really good point. And sometimes they don't even know it. Like people don't do it maliciously, they just don't know it. And to me that's a leadership issue. It's like if somebody's not on the same page, you know, go look in the mirror and figure out why they're not. Because it's your issue, not theirs. And that's where we start.
- [43:32]
Ryan Hogan
You had, you had so many. When we were talking earlier or last week or week before last, we were talking about the Cherry Farm, we were talking about scuba. You had like all of these incredible analogies. Um, I, I don't know if you remember or not, but when, when you thought about scuba diving, like what, what was your correlation to scuba diving with business? And there was like different things. Do you remember what, what you were talking about then?
- [43:54]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of them. I think, interestingly enough, something that people don't realize is, you know, so you're in LA right now and you know, I'm in Idaho. So there's about a 3,000 foot. I'm about 3,000ft elevation. And you're right at about sea level, right? Plus or minus, probably a few feet. But interestingly enough, where you're at, you have this entire atmosphere of pressure on top of you, right? You have one atmosphere of pressure. And pressure is really, really important when it comes to diving, because that's the thing that we just have to watch out for. Every dive computer and what I like to call our scorecard, that's on my wrist to keep track of these sorts of things. All of that stuff really matters. So I do diving differently when I'm at elevation, which is anything above 1,000ft versus if I go to the Caribbean, because the pressures are just different. They're just different. So every 33ft of salt water that somebody goes down is an entirely another atmosphere of pressure on top of you. So where you're at now, you have one. But if you were to go diving and you were to go 33 under, that's 2.2 atmospheres of pressure on top of you. If you go down to 66ft, that's 3 atmospheres of pressure. And on and on and on we go. But the interesting thing is that you don't really feel it. Like, your body acclimates really well. The only places that you do feel it are in your ears, which we talked about, right? You feel that because you have to equalize up here in your sinuses. You have pressures, too, little air channels. And so if those. If those aren't cleared out or equalized, if you will, then you can have some pain and experience, you know, some discomfort there. But you don't feel it as you're going down. As far as pressure on your body. Your body's just this. This miracle thing that just kind of takes it in. And so when I'm teaching students, as an instructor, what I do is I say, so feel your wetsuit. It was 5 millimeters or 3 millimeters. Now feel it. When you're down at 33ft, it's like half the size in thickness. You don't know it until you actually feel it. And then when you get down to 66, it's super thin. It almost feels paper thin because the pressure is making you smaller, right? And you don't really realize that. So, you know, the way that I use this in business, as I say, you actually don't feel all the pressures that are coming in on you unless you stop and unless you really think about it. Like, it's just like when you're diving, you just don't feel it. Right. But it's there and it's dangerous. So we have to be careful and we have to watch it, and we have to make sure that we know what our depth is and the time that we're at that depth and so on and so forth. And so. So with you and your ears, in order to adjust to the pressure, you know, my Recommendation is every 6 inches that you go down, you continue to try to equalize your ears, and if it doesn't work, then you come back up a little and you try again. It literally takes that much of a pressure change to make it work for you or not work for you. And so with businesses, I'm like, you have to really understand that every week you have to meet with your teams for 90 minutes because you're equalizing. You're constantly equalizing with all the pressures that are coming. And people that fail to do that are the ones that get hurt, business wise speaking. Right. So it's just an interesting dynamic of what that looks like. But yeah, that's one of the things that I like to tell people about. And sometimes they don't know they're in really big trouble until they're in really big trouble. You know, you can't hold your breath when you're diving less. Like, the number one rule is like, always breathe, because if you breathe in, Compress air at 66ft as you start to come back up, that air expands, expands, expands, expands, and you can, you can harm your lungs. So it's like, but if you just always breathe, it's not a big deal. Yeah, so it's, it's. There's a lot of really relational and, and relative, you know, sort of parallels between diving and business.
- [48:32]
Ryan Hogan
I love that. And, and the, it's, it's like stop and feel your wetsuit and see what the, the thickness is. It's to, to understand where the pressures are at. And like, for, for me, most of the businesses that I've been a part of, not, not Talent Harbor, Talent harbor is Town Harbor. Kind of makes me think about some of the things you were talking about in the earlier in the conversation of like, of like all of your experience and all of your journeys kind of prepare you for the next things. And like, Town harbor is going incredibly well. Not because, you know, we're brilliant in a very short period of time. It's because there's decades and decades and decades of experiences that we're now bringing to bear in a very kind of specific vertical or niche. But all of my other Companies have been increasing incredibly stressful, especially in the consumer product space. So one thing you're constantly dealing with is shifting trends and shifting appetites for where consumers want to spend their time and their money and things like that. Especially if you're in a discretionary spend. And then specifically in consumer product, you're constantly battling cash. Because every time you want to grow a consumer product company, in order to grow, you need to either spend money on inventory or you need to spend money on marketing. And so there's these constant balances. And I don't think I fully appreciated the level of stress, because when we were talking last time you gave me that, I was like, holy crap. Like, you know, one year in, and I would tell people about what's going on. They're like, how are you thinking? How are you still functioning? I was like, this is every day. Like, this is nothing. But to your point, it's because I had become accustomed to it, not because the pressure wasn't real or wasn't there.
- [50:09]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah. But the cool thing is, you know, once you get through that pressure, then you get down. You know, if we relate this back to diving, once you get through those pressures and you equalize your ears and everything's going well and you get down there and you're in this state just like you would be in space. Right. I mean, I say scuba diving is the closest thing that you're ever going to experience from a gravity perspective, like space would be. But once you get down there, oh, my gosh, the things that you see and the things that you experience are incredibly great. Like, 71% of the world is water. And there's very few people who get to see what's down there. And there's very few companies who succeed because they can push through some of those stresses. And they have tools and techniques and things that they frankly have control over that will help them get down to a level where they can then see sharks or they can then, you know, the colorful fish or whatever that is for them. Right. But you want people to get down there and see that. You just. Sometimes it takes a little pain to get down there. Sometimes it takes a little bit of equalizing the ears, those sorts of things. But eventually when they're there, it's fantastic and it's life changing, just like it would be in business. Right.
- [51:25]
Ryan Hogan
And like, it almost. We talk about in the military a lot this idea of resiliency. And for some reason, people think, like, resiliency just happens. You just. Resiliency is just a mindset and and like I would say resiliency is, is developed over many, many scars. And it's like experiencing and going deeper and like, like proving to yourself and building that confidence level that you can operate in those environments makes you more confident naturally. So it, I, I don't know, like all, all of your, your par, like everything's kind of interconnected in there.
- [52:01]
Bobby Rouse
Love it.
- [52:01]
Ryan Hogan
Tell me what you look for in, in a client and, and when we get towards this part in the episode, what I want to make sure that's happening. It's like listeners that are hearing this and they're like, gosh, I loved everything Bobby just said and I want to figure out like how to get more of Bobby in my life or inside of my organization. Like what do you look for in clients?
- [52:22]
Bobby Rouse
You know, one of the things that I look for specifically is their psychography. Like they have to have the mindset of an entrepreneur, which is they're growth minded. They don't know what they don't know. And so they're really, you know, teachable. I think we're all teachable. Every good coach has more coaches because good coaches are teachable. And so we want to learn those skills to help others. I want them to see there's some things that you have complete control over and there's some things that you don't. Right. But internally, you know, specifically with eos, they have control over their vision, they have control over their data, they have control over getting right people in the right seats. Although, you know, there's even with supply and demand of people, which that's your business. So you know this really well. They still exist, but sometimes you just, you just have to spend a little more time to get the right ones. They're there, but it's not a speed thing. And so I want people to grow, but I want them to grow intentionally, methodically, safely. I don't want them just diving down as quick as they possibly can and letting their ears, you know, give them problems. I want them to go slowly, but I want them to continue to progress. Right. Those are the things that I look for and it's somebody who's been coached before. Scott Resnack is, you know, another great implementer and you know, Scott's like, you know, with my client, I want to know if they've been coached before because that's a different thing. It's a different thing and some people just haven't and so they don't know what that feels like. People who are self accountable. I love people that embrace and are all in with eos, because if it's not, then it takes them twice as long. They still may get there. But, you know, people who just really want to be better, and they want to be better for their people and their company, because that's what a good leader does, and they exist. And, you know, my clients, fortunately, they're. They're all like that, and that's good. And that's by design, and it's intentional. And, you know, EOS and just coaching in general isn't for everybody, and that's okay, too. Diving isn't for everybody. I've had to have a lot of hard conversations with potential divers, and you get them in the pool, and, you know, it's just like, you know what? I just don't think this is for you. Like, I don't think that you're going to be safe if you do this. And so that's okay, you know, And. But everybody, at some point, you know, we all need help with something that we don't have. And so that's where we, as EOS coaches, we. We fill that niche for them.
- [55:19]
Ryan Hogan
Yeah. When you were talking about Scott and this idea of coaching, it reminded me of my first conversation ever with him. And it was like, we were, like, two minutes into the conversation, and I forget how we were introduced, but he was like, let me stop you right there. This is a. This is a coaching moment. And, like, I didn't even know Scott. I was like, oh, that was. That was some brutal. And I forget what it was, but it was, like, it was brutal, truth in the moment. But there was so much value to that in that moment. It's something that, like, stuck with me. And I agree, like, if you're not. If you're not ready to hear, like, where you can improve and maybe some things that you should clean up, like personal or leadership or whatever the case may be, then coaching is going to be a pretty. A pretty rough journey for that individual.
- [56:04]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And a lot of times the teams are like, yeah, we need coaching. We need coaching. But maybe there's, you know, the business owner who's like, I'm a little leery this, because I'm. You know, that's a vulnerability thing. Right. Everybody feels vulnerable when they get coached unless you really embrace it. And Scott does. He gets coached all the time. You know, if you look at his bicycle, his cycling story, I mean, he gets coached all the time. But.
- [56:29]
Ryan Hogan
Last question. So someone just heard all of that now. Now, you explained what you look for in an ideal client and they're like, well, that's me. How would they get a hold of you, Bobby?
- [56:38]
Bobby Rouse
Yeah, they can go to eosworldwide.com Bobby Rouse, and I think that you've got some of that contact information from there, but just go schedule some time. And, you know, one of the things that's so great about the EOS implementer community is, you know, one of our core values is help first. And the way that we help people first is, you know, we give them 90 minutes of our time to really kind of explain what EOS and, you know, what that looks like, and they get to figure out if it's for them. It's not a sales job, it's a help first, which is. Let me give you a couple tools that will really get you on the right track. Let me explain some things. Let me give you some of my experience shares from other clients that I've worked with. And it's really, really valuable to people. And if they're not ready to jump in with an implementer and go through, you know, that's, that's, that's their decision. So that's what we do. And, you know, anybody can do that. And it's really important for every potential client to be the right fit for the implementer. And so, you know, if I'm not the right guy or Scott's not the right guy or JBS or whomever, we figure out who that is for people. And, you know, it's important for us that people have a good experience with that because that's what their key to success is.
- [58:01]
Ryan Hogan
Love it. Awesome. Well, Bobby, thank you so much for, for spending an hour the, on Thanksgiving Eve with me. And this was just so, so valuable. And like, your stories, it was all about the stories, right? Like, there were so many lessons in there, but, like, being able to share your experiences and how those things impacted, I think just took it to a whole nother level. So thank you so much for coming on the, the show and, and yeah, this is the last recording with a mustache because we're almost out of November, so you are, you're the last one to have to look at this hideous thing.
- [58:33]
Bobby Rouse
Well, at least you can grow one. I'm, you know, I applaud you for I can't grow one. So it's just one of those things.
- [58:39]
Ryan Hogan
It's a new one. Awesome. Thanks so much, Bobby. Appreciate it.
- [58:42]
Bobby Rouse
All right, thanks, Ryan. It's good to talk to.