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Confessions of an Implementer
S2E27 | Military Style Leadership: Trust And Clear Communication In Business with Chris Hallberg
00:51:00
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- [00:00]
A
Go to, like, Pat Lencioni's the Five Dysfunctions of the Team, right? Trust, being vulnerable, being able to say it, being able to get into healthy conflict. And when people can have healthy conflict, then they can be committed. Those bottom two are the hardest ones, the trust. And then to have healthy conflict. Most people are taught, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So, like, if we can have that healthy conflict and we can get that level of military, like, commitment in the civilian business world, well, accountability is right after that.
- [00:36]
B
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. Hey, Chris. Welcome to Confessions of an Implementer.
- [00:52]
A
It's great to be on Ryan. I've been watching the episodes. Good stuff.
- [00:55]
B
Thanks. Thanks. This one is very special. So I've been really excited about this conversation since you and I first spoke, because I'd like to think that I do due diligence, but it's obviously when we, when we connected on the call, I was like, wait a minute, you're in the military? And so this is really interesting also. What one of the things I love to say is like, when someone's like, oh, you've been in the military, how to come together, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Well, I was 17. My mind, my mom signed my permission slip. And that's basically your story as well, is had the permission slip sign. So today you are an expert implementer. Like, how do you, how did you go from, you know, the guard and law enforcement and make your way to EOS implementation?
- [01:37]
A
Yeah, that's an interesting journey for sure. Right? An uncommon background. Well, just to give you like, some context, like, I was always, you know, verbally gifted, I guess, like, like talking too much. I spent a lot of my school experience in the hallway or the principal's office. My teacher said, hey, Chris, no one's ever going to like, pay you to talk all day, so just be quiet. And like, now I get to be, you know, an EOS implementer and a leadership team coach. And. And basically we talk all day. You know, it's. So if we were in like, say, a sticky situation and we need to negotiate, I would be called from a different part of the building, like in corrections at a super maximum security prison five stories underground where I started when I was 20. And it'd be like hey, get Hallberg down here. And for whatever reason I could, like it's, it's 10:30 and we all have dates or we're going to go out and have fun. And the last thing we need is an incident with reports and, and covered in stuff and stuff until 1 or 2 in the morning. So it's like, instead of having to do this cell entry, let's see if we can negotiate. So like, call Chris down here. And I had a way of getting out of some sticky situations. So a lot of people are kind of like, wow, you know, you ever think about doing something else? I'm pretty sure you can do other things. So I almost had some senior officers kind of pull me aside and said, hey, you know, we like having you around here, but like, this is not, we don't want to see you do 20 years here and get a gold watch. You know, this is a great experience, but at some point you need to go do some other things. And, and I listen to those people and they were right. I was capable of doing a lot of things. But when you're 17, getting permission slips to join the Army National Guard, military police, because that sounds fun and exciting and you know, that's a part time citizen soldier military experience. I had it for nine years and it was a great experience because everyone in the unit was, you know, FBI agents or state troopers or county sheriffs or you know, Minneapolis police officers, that kind of stuff. So, you know, instead of going to the full time for 4 years to kind of going to get one of those jobs, you could just do that and get like all that experience and connection. So that's what I did. But you know, full time job at 20 was with the Department of Corrections and then some counties as a deputy sheriff and then getting out of all the uniforms in 1999 and basically finding my way into a sales position and using that gift of the gab for commercial purposes, not just to get people to do what we want them to do. So then it was, you know, making six figures your first year in sales after, you know, getting things, getting punched in the nose and making 35 grand a year, it was kind of like, yep, I'm definitely going to take this wonderful, wonderful years of experience and leverage them. So like a tough day at the office or a contentious conversation that might be a little difficult to navigate in the session room, no big deal, we're fine. You know what I mean? Snow, blood on the floor, everyone's going to be okay, you know. You know, sometimes, you know, we get it to contentious or difficult high conflict conversations. But what people think is oh my God, I can't believe we're having this conversation. Like this is like a 1 on the 10 scale to oh boy. So like I just having that previous life experience I think just brings a level of calm or normalcy to conflict where most people, any kind of conflict is highly avoided. So like what I like to do is like lean into this. This is really healthy, let's keep it healthy. Or ooh, Dave, that wasn't healthy. Come back to the healthy zone. Not good. And just coaching people that it's okay. Because the conflict, those edges, that's where the greatness lives in people and companies and conversations.
- [05:22]
B
Yeah. And what like did you when you joined both the corrections and also the National Guard, like were you searching for something? Like did you go in with intent and purpose? Or most people have a reason. What was your reason for going in? We'll start with that. Then I've got some follow ups.
- [05:43]
A
Well, I mean I had a fork in the road. I'm going to be a criminal or I'm going to be a cop. What am I going to do with all this energy? Forces of evil, forces of good obviously good one and needed a higher purpose. Like most young men, you know, add learning disabilities, like very social, you know, that experience, all those rules. Strangely, the structure of the military is something that I didn't have at home or in the environment. Kind of a wild, do your own thing kind of person. Hard to contain personality. Whereas I don't care how big your personality is, the military will fix that pretty quick. You realize that you're nothing special. When you meet other really special people and not so special people, you, you understand kind of like what you thought to be real. When you're 17, 18 years old, you're going to test that theory. Most people do it at university or you know, in the Peace Corps or in the military or, or the gap year just joining the workforce and and I think that structure I also think like Boy Scouts for instance was great. The uniforms earning like 20 some merit badges in one six month period and looking like patent with all these, you know, 70 merit badges. Like there was something very real with the military, you know, you know there's my shadow box over here and no really great medals. But that's like I didn't, I wore boots for three years in a row. I didn't get in trouble for four years. Good conduct. Like a lot of these things the military does when you do something, they give you a plaque, they Give you a board, they give you a ribbon, you might get a medal for something. The civilian business world is horrible at recognizing effort. And what I really liked about the military is if I put in the extra work and was an honor graduate of a sergeant's academy, something where I finished in the top 1% or something like that, that was important, you were recognized and to get that little badge or to gain rank quickly. Right. And to rise, it was tangible. If I do this, I get this. It was very linear and my brain worked that way. So it was just like accumulating certifications or courses or badges or courses, and to not have to pay for those, to be paid to go get all this leadership training. It was awesome. So it was like, for somebody that was hungry for whatever, didn't really even know what that was, it was a beautiful environment to really do some stuff that not everybody gets to do, experience another side of humanity. And that perspective, I think is, you know, I think military service should be compulsatory for all, you know, 17 and 19 year olds, even if it's just a year or so in the Guard or, you know, doing something. Because I think that selfless service, the. The unit's mission comes before your individual needs. I think ex military people have a leg up in, in civilian business leadership, and that's because they've probably been the benefactor of some really great leadership examples, but more likely some really bad leadership examples, I would argue. I don't know about you, Ryan, your military experience, but it's probably three to one from bad bosses to good bosses in the military. But you get so much from those really talented leaders, and you learn what not to do from the really bad leaders. So that combination, I think, is what allows you to kind of set your leadership direction, and it's quite helpful.
- [09:24]
B
Yeah, there's so many things you said there where I'm like, holy crap, I'm talking to myself here, because. And when I say this out loud, there's a lot of people that disagree with me, but I hold to it where I'm like, there's more bad leadership than great leadership. And one of the things that I started probably when I was like 18 or 19 years old is I started keeping a list. And every time I would see a terrible example of leadership, I would write it down. And I wasn't doing to knock on that human. Some people don't know they can't help themselves, whatever. But. But I wanted to remember that, like, as an E1 and E2, if I ever get into a position with some sort of influence and authority. Like don't do these things because this is how you know an E1 or E2 is looking at it. So that, what did you say about. You said something about the. When you joined. Oh, in trouble. So like add almost failed high school and then I was doing some not so great things when I just got out of high school where it was like I'm either going to be in jail or we're going to have to figure this whole thing out. So a lot of interesting parallels there. What, what do you think you're.
- [10:38]
A
Like.
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B
Kind of like your biggest takeaway like the, like what's that one or maybe two. But like that one thing that after nine years in the military you're like nailed it. Like, like I needed this and like now I have X because. Because of this investment.
- [10:53]
A
Yeah, it's. The world's bigger than your view of it, I think is the thing that I took away what I thought to be true when I entered my service. It wasn't what I thought when I exited. Like just the perspective. And, and when you're put, when you're that young and you're given a half a million dollar budget and nine humans to go do stuff with the just incredible amount of responsibility given to young people after they've shown, you know, I can go to these courses and the army says I should know how to do this because I passed a test. And then when you actually get the stripes and you go out there and you're managing people that are in my case, five or 10 years older, you know, I've been a young leader my whole life, you know, and when I became an executive, you know, in my late 20s or early 30s. And you're managing people now my age and their mid-50s, like the boy sergeant. So to corrections, the full time job, super maximum security. Just after about three years of service, I had enough seniority and military time and had done well enough that I was promoted to sergeant in the Department of Corrections. So you know, the boy sergeant, I think it was 25 or 26 years old when that, when that happened. So you know, basically this fresh face kid is in charge of a cell block with, you know, 200 felons and you know, five or six officers almost all double my age. And I'm in charge. People are coming to me, inmates, officers. It kind of blows my mind today when I think about, you know, when I meet a 25 year old and the stuff they're dealing with. I just look at my young adult children that are 20 and 18 and I think about like kids these days and you know, being a wooden spoon. Survivor Gen X. Things are different now, but they're not necessarily better, they're not necessarily worse. They're just different. So that's a long answer. But, but I think it's understanding that the world really doesn't give a. About what you think. And, and you have to understand it's like my feelings are secondary to the health and welfare to my troops. And the mission itself is in many cases the most important thing next to, you know, keeping your team safe and those kinds of things. So I think it's just understanding priorities, also understanding in the military, you know, you don't get to pick your privates. They issue soldiers to your squad. So you have to take some really out of round people and, and get them into a cohesive team. And in the civilian business world, you get to pick your dear team, but you can't wake them up at 5am with a garbage can and have them, you know, cut the grass with scissors or stand in lines for half the day.
- [13:44]
B
So like just there, there might be some consequences.
- [13:48]
A
Yeah, yeah. I don't think the Department of Labor would, would, you know, would, would appreciate any of the military things that, you know, really aren't even in the military for the most part anymore.
- [13:57]
B
I think about that all the time as well, which is like the military, because this whole idea of like getting the right people on the bus and right people off the bus and like, I'm a deep believer, especially if they're not. If they don't fit the core values. Like if, if folks don't, don't align with the, or do align with the core values. Like maybe there's opportunity inside Enterprise to like move them laterally or, or upper. What, whatever. There's, there's actually options there when there's not a, a core values alignment, there's zero options. And I reflect on this a lot, which is like you just said, in the Navy, we're issued sailors. There we go, man. But we're issued sailors, and it's like we have no choice and we make it work. Somehow we make it work. Whereas in the civilian world it's like not working. Cup bait, move on, find the person. Like, what's your philosophy behind that? It's like the military has figured out how to make it work without firing people generally unless they did something egregious. And in the NAT or in the civilian world, it's like, hey, this person, boom, gone, replaced. And bring someone else in. How do you reconcile those two things?
- [15:00]
A
Yeah, so the common theme there is commitment. So when you join the military, you're signing for three, seven. If you're a pilot, like 10 years of your life, you're writing a blank check to the US Government, who always makes the right decision and goes to the right places for the right reasons, of course. Right. So. So my point is you have people that really want to be there and they're, they've committed to a number of years and they kind of know, they've kind of read the brochure. So I don't think people are surprised when they enter a four or five year military contract. What that looks like. It looks like four or five years of military service. Or Leavenworth. Right. As an mp, we used to go grab people that decided they didn't want to be in the military anymore. And turns out that you can't just quit the army, National Guard or the active duty, anything. So back to the civilian business world. And the correlation there is go to like Pat Lencioni's triangle trust, the five dysfunctions of a team. Right. Trust, being vulnerable, being able to say it, being able to get into healthy conflict. And when people can have healthy conflict, then they can be committed. So like in the civilian world, you have to create a place where it's safe. There aren't a lot of safe places in the business world, quite frankly, because in the corporate world, you call it the boss. You'll be transferred to the Nome, Alaska field office for, you know, dissenting with the regional vice president, Michael Scott of the Dunder Mifflin Paper company. That's something that he would do. Right? So, so like, my point is those bottom two are the hardest ones, the trust. And then to have healthy conflict. Most people are, are taught if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So like, if we can have that healthy conflict and we can get that level of military like commitment in the civilian business world, well, accountability is right after that. Right. So if someone isn't committed, I don't give a. How do you hold me accountable to something I don't really care for? Like, I'll get another job. This one's not even all that great. So sorry you failed and lost money. Sucks to be you, Gus. Right, that's that, that's the mercenary not committed. I'm just kind of here doing my thing, doing the minimum necessary not to get fired. You know, I'm not saying that's the average worker, but that's A pretty prevalent mindset to, to many people who aren't in the let's be awesome business. So then we have that accountability. People that want to be here and I want to be a good teammate and you don't have to worry about me or my numbers and I'm not going to have to worry about you and yours. Those are the elite business teams that run circles. They won these, you know, best place to work awards. They're 95% engaged. Like if someone sends you an engagement survey, it's anonymous and they ask you how this company treats you if they don't treat you like gold. This is an opportunity. So to win those awards, we have to basically identify the people that aren't committed. Don't, don't care. Can't hold me accountable because I don't care. So, you know, part of eos, right, is identifying who's the right people in the right seat and who's not and doing something about it, not just letting it spin. So every implementer has their own style. You know, admittedly I'm a little, little more, don't think that one's going to make it. We, this name keeps coming up and we're making excuses around this. So I will generally bring the people conversations real hot and heavy right up front and accelerate those liberations of the wrong people. Like in the first year of Eos, I want the by at the end of that first year, I want a team of all stars to complete the second year of the program. And that's how we can get well over 80% strong and in many cases into the, the 90s, you know, with their organizational checkup score. So it's just that simple. If we have, if we have activists inside the organization that are always fighting for the greater good, fine. If we have terrorists inside your organization actively looking like they're activists, but secretly doing things to break down those things that we're building culture wise, that's a problem. So I just bring it all. Commitment is the big thing for me. If you're committed to live these core values and you're committed to get one and have the capacity to do your role, all your roles and your function, then that's it. That's why EOS is so, is so wonderful, is we empower people to basically have almost a militaristic like, do you want to be a part of this unit? Does this matter? It doesn't. That's unfair to all the people that do fit that description. So, you know, if you have an operating system, you have A tool to visualize where people are. And then you actually have leaders who fully understand if, if I have lma, lead, manage, and hold accountable in my seat, and I have five people, they are my world. I should be pinching myself every day that these five people work here for me. And it's a pleasure and honor for me to serve them. If three of them meet that description and two don't, that's on me to, you know, to continually try to coach them up or coach them out and like, hey, that guy's a, a 6 out of 10. Like, like, why would I want to get rid of that? Well, because there's an eight that's suffering at another business and there's no opportunity for the come here and, and, and realize their nine or tenness with this team. And that's why when we hang on to the wrong people, the person that's not the right person. I don't like to see anyone fail. And if they're failing, they know they're failing, but they're not failing hard enough to do something about it. Or they're just waiting for someone to be merciful and come and end it because they don't have the courage or the confidence to go do something else. But when we hang on to the wrong person, they lose the team, the company loses, and again, that person we haven't met yet, who's going to come here and take us to the next level, break through the next ceiling with their experience or aura, there's no opportunity for to come and help them. So everybody loses. But when we remove the. Either the wrong people in the wrong seats or both, now they, that person, after they get liberated, right, they have an opportunity to actually find their people and find some happiness and get their stuff on track. And then the team that was suffering with them, oftentimes when we remove the wrong person in the wrong seat, the team doesn't even backfill. They don't rehire because the team is no longer reworking their work. So the boat now, even with an empty oar, goes faster because we don't have £200 in the boat. The boat slider. And without the OR, it evens out. I've seen it a million times. Or we know exactly what we're looking for. And when we put that person in, they win. The person that left wins, and then the team in the company wins. So you can choose to have all three parties lose or all three parties win. And people don't look at it that way. I look at it that way. And when I, you know, share that with people and say, if you don't do something about this, this losing is going to continue and you're basically, that's your L that you're signing up for. And let me see your core values real quick. Oh yeah, you're not living those. This one and this one says you can't do that. So are we going to change the core values to like we do the right thing most of the time or are we going to do the right thing? Because that's what it says right there. What do you guys want to, what do you think? And ultimately, you know, when you pose the decision that way and you've told people these are our core values and this is how we operate. And I as the implementer point up 14 things I saw today that are not that way. What are you going to do about it? Lower the value or raise your lma, your leadership, management accountability to meet the core values would be what I would coach that team to do. And that's, that's probably a little in your face more than, than most coaches or implementers would be comfortable with. But that's how I operate. And I think people know what they're getting when they hire me to help them with eos.
- [22:57]
B
I think it was you that actually said it. This idea of like full contact eos. And one thing you just talked about there was this idea of like, speed is, speed is something that you're trying to achieve. So to get a team to where it needs to be, it doesn't necessarily have to be like fully implemented, but to get like the, even the SLT right within the first year, like that's a, that's a pretty impressive accomplishment. How, how do you do that? Like, how do you take a, how do you take a team that probably is not being candid with each other and they're like not working on the right things and people are rowing in different directions and get them to build that trust, operate more openly and do it with that speed. What's your secret?
- [23:41]
A
Well, I think that starts in the initial conversation, even before the 90 minute meeting. Just to be clear, how bad do you want this kind of or you want this more than anything. And we're going to look for that level of commitment. And if I don't see that level of commitment, I might not be the right implementer for you because I take all these assignments super, super seriously and I'm very proud of the results, which are over 100 best place to work awards, which are not easy. These Are not write a check and get a plaque. These are these full in surveys that can't be faked. So I think the way I pitch it is like, hey, we're going to go all in or we're not going to do it at all. So I forget it was a Kim Scott. Radical candor. One of these authors. We got the Venn diagrams. Hell yeah. Hell no. And then the middle circle's hell with the flame. So I bring that out real early. Like I'm in the black and white business. Gray is the middle part, right? The hell you can't scale complexity. The gray matter, the gray stuff is complex. The black and white stuff is just all the color, none of the color. So, like, my, my coaching style is we're going to push to one side or the other. And, and I understand sometimes some things get missed in the middle, but it's very simple to say it's this, not that. Well, it's kind of this. I'm sorry, you can't scale that. I don't have a decoder ring. Not everybody. I need to put. I need to put golden arrows on things and say, point this way. Like, it shouldn't require a lot of effort to figure out what we're doing. So this is good and this is bad. That's correct. Is this good or bad? That's bad. Thank you. Like just putting a label on it and saying, these are good things. Let's measure how many of these good things we can do this week. Hey, these are bad things. We keep. We keep making these mistakes. Why don't we measure how many times we do the bad things? We want that number to go down as the good things go up. And once we're no longer practicing the things that aren't serving us, then we can really lean in and refine the process that actually serves us. So it's very binary. Yes. No good, bad. But I find that, that simplicity is what the line employees need and certainly the mid managers, every leadership team, you have your coach, you're like, all right, how did I call them? The sergeants. Right? You guys are the brass. How my sergeants doing? Corporals, junior sergeants coming up. How am I? So I talk to them every time, like, oh, they got it. Then I meet the sergeants and I ask them a question like, huh? So every officer thinks that, that all their troops have everything. But the truth is, you know, I find that this whole business sergeant thing, my personal branding is I want to empower the leaders, the middle managers. So a lot of times there Isn't a management team. There isn't a place where they meet monthly or quarterly. Here's a great example, Ryan. So I asked the leadership team. I said, well, when you share new information or make announcements or make big moves, do you get your managers and other leaders on the leadership team together and have a little session with them at least if it's a day heads up before you tell them? No, we just tell everybody at the same time. I said, just imagine being a mid level manager here. You're sitting next to your team and they're all looking at you like, did you know about this? And you're like, I'm just finding out now. Are you really their leader? Is that how we respect our middle managers? Middle managers often take broken, you know, what the officers, the brass think is really clear and like, go do that. And I'm like, well like, why did this fail? Let's kind of go through the stuff. And then you talk to that sergeant. They're like, none of that was discussed. I was given some very vague parameters and license to do what I thought was best. And whatever that was, it wasn't the right thing versus, you know, task condition, standards situation, mission execution, command and control, like service support, you know, like, like an actual operations level of communication. So like, I think they have the toughest job they have to manage up. So when I meet the sergeants and I do a lot of mid manager days, I do a lot of that. I work with larger organizations and I coach the leadership team. But I asked to meet the sergeants because I take these two big extension cords, leadership team and the management team. And once all those are plugged in, EOs at larger organization goes swimmingly. When the middle managers and the senior leaders are in lockstep, then there is one option and it's the thing we want you to do or the thing you're going to go to do somewhere else if you don't want to do it here. Respectfully.
- [28:14]
B
Yep. That's like in the Navy we've got, I'm sure every branch has it, but for us it's the chief's mess. And like chiefs are the backbone of the Navy. And we preach this and we talk about it. They're great at training junior officers. They're great at communicating and they're great at leading down. Um, they're not actually doing the work because they're finally in, you know, the, the mid level or not mid level. They're at the highest position from an enlisted standpoint. But it's, it's exactly that. Like, if you, like we were taught very own, like, you never jump your chief. Like, so I would never go into like quarters one morning with a whole bunch of brilliant stuff. Never brilliant, but a whole bunch of stuff to say without my chief at least knowing, like, is there changes? Is is something different than like what we've already discussed because it just wrecks it. Like every time you leg sweep your person that's supposed to be in the know, trust just degrades.
- [29:03]
A
Yeah. I find, I find oftentimes that middle managers, people with LMA on the accountability chart, aren't really fully empowered to hire fire reward recognized. They can make suggestions like, I don't like this one for eight quarters in a row and, you know, whatever. So, like, I just tell people, if you're going to put lma, that's their team. You can't judge someone on curating a team if you're curating it and they're trying to deal with what you think. So, like, I think empowerment is the missing ingredient. That's why I like to meet with the sergeants, because I explained to them your job is to push back. If it's unclear you don't think the unit can accomplish this mission, don't say, well, we'll do our best. Because millions of dollars, you know, the fortunes of all the employees, the futures, all that security is, is at risk. Like in business, we're generally not dealing with life and death unless you're in, you know, aviation, healthcare, things of that nature. We just won't close a deal. The client will get delivered late. Right. It's not life and death like it is in the military. But my whole business sergeant mentality is to just, hey, like, if you're going to spend a third of your life somewhere with these people, it takes just as much time away from your loved ones, whatever your number one is to be awesome as it does to be sad and sorry. So the time away, if you're going to take that time away from your people, let's make the biggest impact for them and their future is humanly possible. And that's just about anything worth doing is worth doing well. So let's go.
- [30:33]
B
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 charge commissions, we do not have success fees, we don't have contracts, we don't have long term engagement 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 dot com. Let's get your next sales superstar hired. I'm fascinated by the speed portion and like one thing and we, Margaret Dixon did this and I hear a lot of implementers that do this, which is like they kind of become the founders, confidant, like kind of private advisors. And so it's, it's great because when a business hires an EOS implementer, you get someone to help like put a framework into the business and help with all the components. But the founder actually gets like a little, a little, you know, consult or advice behind the scenes. If you see something you, as in Chris, if you're sitting in, in the first year or whatnot and like you see something going south, do you just call it out right there in front of the senior leadership team so that they know or do you wait till the end, you're like, hey, hey Dan. Like you know, you know we have a problem. I know you have a problem. Nobody's talking about the problem. So we need the horse. Correct?
- [32:45]
A
Yeah, I would say 80% of the time I'm going to take the shot right when I see it and 20%, it's just not the right move. I'm going to do more damage than good and I'm not going to do that. But like, does he say that all the time? Is that how he talks to you all the time? Like if, if, if someone is not behaving well, you know, I've certainly been fired by 10am more than once because we've got a narcissistic visionary who's stifling people and not letting me do my thing. And yeah, I've definitely had some floating in my pool by 11 sessions. In my career, and I'm very proud of that. Like, I'm not gonna watch someone abuse people or, you know, be a corporate douchebag or something to these humans. So, like, yeah, I, I basically call out that behavior, but at the same time, you know, I make an agreement with my clients. Like, okay, so do you realize that, you know, you might be at the root cause of half of my issues that I'm going to solve? Is your ego going to like me working on them in front of your teammates or are you humble enough to say, listen, like, no judgment. You guys are got to this $20 million company, $80 million company, you've done an amazing job. But what got you to where you're at now isn't going to get you to 150 or 200 million. So we just have to decide, do we want to just kind of keep things where they're at? Do we want to create some systems to create a healthier, more stable, consistent level of profitable growth? And usually it's like, well, that's important because the bigger we get, the bigger my line gets, the more dangerous this is for me. Like, the bigger the company, the harder they fall. Right? And I don't remember who said this, but somebody said this at a QC eons ago. You know, every team is one leadership team away from failure. So those are the stakes every day. It's, you have the company you deserve, you have the leadership team you deserve, you have the employees, the customers, the margins. This is, none of this stuff is on accident. You're putting this out and you're getting this back. Don't like what you're getting, let's put some different stuff out and iterate till we get the stuff back we're looking for.
- [34:55]
B
There's some other things that you're working on right now. And last time we talked, it was still in the works. And then I think we, we pushed a little bit on this interview because you were, you were like getting it, getting it out to market. Can, can you talk about it here?
- [35:08]
A
Yeah, I can talk about it here. This is a place I can talk about it. It's go Expand. Go expand dot com. I've helped complete an existing technology platform and make it compatible with the entrepreneurial operating system, making sure it's peer and does what it does. But what I found basically is a tool that's dynamic, it's AI powered, so you can ask it questions. We don't have to disturb a bunch of people. So it's a nice way to get people introduced to AI because it's agentic, it only knows what you tell it versus agentive, which is the creative outside chat GTP stuff. But also the larger teams that I coach or teams that want to grow quickly generally will have one of the business operating system platforms. And they're all wonderful. You know, everyone's got their Ford, Chevy, you know, whatever. You know, I thought, you know, maybe let's, let's do something a little bit more horsepower, a little bit more connected. But what I also noticed Ryan, is my top performing those best place to work cultures is they all had four or five other apps but they were only using 20 or 30% of these disparate apps. So I basically joke, I took a melon baller and just took 20 to 30% out of some other platforms and put it into go expand. So you have all the business operating system stuff, plus you have visualizations, you have dashboards. It's fully dynamic, it's entirely searchable, it's AI powered. You can, it listens to your issues and when someone takes a to do, it automatically gives you a to do in your to do in your app. So you just got to polish off the detail and the dates and all that. But it's just leveraging the most modern technology in a much larger enterprise level platform. So a thousand, two thousand employees, not a problem. There are school districts and oil and gas companies and healthcare companies that run on the back end. So I just basically customized all the front end of an existing platform. And quite frankly the operating stuff is fairly simple compared to some of the other performance reviews and scatter plots and all that other stuff. Personality assessments, pulse surveys, the dashboards, the performance review software, these are all the other apps that everybody uses. The problem is they're only using 20 or 30% so they have five logins, five layers of complexity. So the thought was why not complete one app, everyone could be 80, 90, 100% engaged in and cancel all those other subscriptions. So I've basically curated what the tools that my very best teams I've been noticed that have been using for over a decade and package that together for anybody to use. So all that does is creates more objectivity. So when we say is that the right person in the right seat? Right. We've got a people analyzer for that conversation and core values. So all the data that the app does is just to give you context to give it a yes or a no or a plus or a plus minus or a minus. So we're still doing eos. We just have some more Data a little more meat on the bone for people that are new at leadership. And then when you look at a visualization of there's the red, there's the green, the green is up and to the right. You know, basically alignment is the y axis, performance is the x axis. So you could say right people, right seed, if you're going to quote Jim Collins. But my point is you want to be up, high quality teammate, living those core values. And to the right and the app goes 0 to 100 and 0 to 200. I have it set on 200 because oftentimes high performing teams have a few unicorns that are, you know, 142% of their goal. I want to know exactly where they're at so you can compensate them and not make them a flight risk. So if you're, if you're lucky to have a unicorn on your team, I want to build a high fence and put all the skittles they can eat in there and keep them happy. And we do that by making sure they're compensated at the level of their performance. And it's a great contextual reminder to everybody else that that's actually possible. So this is something that with this training, with this time and grade, you can be there too. So it's just taking the subjectivity out of all of these conversations and making them very objective and doing in a visualization. So lots of charts, lots of graphs, lots of, you know, scatter plots. Stuff that it's really hard to explain. Well, you know, Derek hall is the guy. If you go to go expand.com, we have a sandbox environment and I made a sandbox because a free trial for 30 days in a barren environment is not a great experience unless the, unless the company really loads everybody in there and gives it an honest try. It's not a great experience. So, you know, I think attention spans are shrinking. So I just created this environment and the story is Derek hall is failing. He's in the warehouse and you can see this gal right here, Casey. She's brand new. She's already almost into the green and she's been here 35 days. Derek's been here for years. And who's going to do something about. He's not even close to the green box. Like he can't even see it from where he's at. And then we look in the history and we can see the trend line is just quarter after quarter after quarter. So like what I wanted to do is empower those brand new sergeants to get the Metrics from the brass, the leadership team, and make an agreement. And the other thing is, we have an expectation, but we don't have an agreement. When you make an agreement that said, it's 10 units a week, if it's nine and a half units a week, guess who you're going to see? This guy. Right? And my point is the app has that visualization. So make the agreement. And once people agree, you can hold them accountable. Because I have a handshake saying, this is how I high five you for being at 142%. And when you're at 72%, this is how I roll up on you. So how can I help you get closer to 100? You know, we have context. And you also agreed, oh, by the way, we also pay you to do this. So I have this thing called the speed of payroll, Ryan. It's somewhere between the speed of sound and the speed of light. So if the speed of sound's like roughly 750 miles an hour and the speed of light's like, I don't know, 13, 14,000 miles an hour, the speed of payroll is if you're a business owner or work in finance, you make a mistake on the payroll, you hit send to ADP or paychecks, whoever you use. About 13 minutes later, there could be three calls saying, My paycheck is off by $17.61. It's fast. It's a very quick, oh, that's wrong. But what about the return loop? Or an employee could just not do their metrics for three or four weeks and no one notices, but they would expect 100% of that paycheck. So I think a scorecard or, you know, a set of metrics, measurables, you know, says, hey, you're actually doing more than we paid you for. It's time for a raise. Or, you know, it's not a good return on human capital. It's just not working. So here is the three strike rule, here's the performance improvement plan. And if you're not in the green by this date, well, we gave it a good try, wish you the luck, write you a nice letter and, and send you on your way. So it doesn't have to be a scary firing thing. When people know where they sit, they'll come to you and say, I don't think I'm ever going to get there. And you say, okay, great, good luck in your next thing. And then you don't have to fire people. They just understand what's required. And once they're convinced that they can't do it, they'll let you know. And that's the healthiest thing you could do versus having the quarter after quarter after quarter. And that wounded animal smell that people put off when they're in a role failing, like, that's not a pheromone, that, that's good for the rest of the team. So that's why the leader's job is to help people, empower them. But as soon as you realize they're not going to make it, then you have to have the difficult conversation because that's why you're a leader. And if you don't do it, no one else will.
- [43:10]
B
It sounds amazing and I'm going to check it out today. Just to be clear, this is like houses and accountability chart. It can run an LTEM meeting. It's rocks. It's all those different things, plus a lot of the things that you've seen where people are using 30% of a system. That's. Is that correct?
- [43:29]
A
Yeah. Plus the AI. So, so, so basically we have two of an essential version and an elite version. The essential version has just the, basically the, the five foundational tools. Just, just the basic stuff you need. Keep it simple, get good at that, and then make the upgrade. When you want an AI agent, you want dashboards, you want all that performance review stuff. So if you, you have five apps and you want one that's easy, just start with the elite and you got everything you want. Whether you use it or not, it's there for you. But if a team just wants to keep it simple, then I wanted to create a product that gives them just what they wanted and nothing else. And for those that have commented, like, it'd be really nice if we could, you know, combine some other stuff with this because they're, they're so connected. So that was the opportunity that I saw in the market, and that's what I built.
- [44:19]
B
Nice. All right. I'm really excited about this. Now. It says, I saw on your profile it says president. And in like EOS world, like, usually president's the integrator. Are you. Are you an integrator? Because you seem like a visionary to me.
- [44:30]
A
No, a president and founder. A CEO of a very small company. I'm not ready to be the CEO. I think you're a CEO and you don't have 50 employees. I think you're not tied. That's just a personal opinion. Like, people can. You can call yourself whatever you want, but president and founder is the title I've always taken for all my Companies. And an integrator would be a chief operating officer, managing director or general manager or something like that. But the president title does get used in larger companies that use EOs. And I think it's a good play because that president really talks about running the day to day, which is an integrator title. So it can mean whatever I wanted to, Ryan.
- [45:10]
B
It can, it can. It certainly can. For some reason I always say it's either president or COO is usually like the integrator.
- [45:19]
A
Yeah, it's very common. But yeah, at the end of the day, I also think I could hire a CEO to run the business and they could be the integrator and I could be the president, founder, chairperson, whatever that is. So that's one of those things where everyone's got a little bit of license to do it their own way. And that's just how I've made the decision.
- [45:41]
B
Love it. Okay, so Chris, someone's been listening to his podcast and they're like, I need some Chris in my life. I need him to come through and do some EOS implementation. Or maybe they're like, gosh, I just want to learn everything I can about this new platform because it's great, because I think there, I'm trying to be careful on this one, but I think there needs to be some competition in that space right now. And so I'm super excited to check this out. Um, but if somebody's like, I want to learn more about that, how can they get ahold of you?
- [46:11]
A
Yeah, you can check out the app at goxpand. Com, you can go to usrowide.com, just Chris Hallberg, EOS keyword, and I'll pop right up there at the top. And then my Business Sergeant website where I do speaking. I have an online course for leadership, getting that military mindset into leaders. It's a very, very generic, very high level, great for first time leaders to kind of get the whole context of this. That's bizsgt.com. that's the short for Business Sergeant. So those are the three places people can find me and what I'm up to.
- [46:45]
B
Awesome. And one final question. What do you look for in clients? Like, what's, what's. Like, do you look. And that could be like geographic, it could be industry, it could be size, it could be whatever. But like, what's a great client to you?
- [46:57]
A
Somebody that's committed to being great and needs help to get there and is willing to do the work to make it happen and doesn't matter how Ugly it looks up front. In fact, the more broken it is, the more challenging it is, the more I like it. So I like to take really, really rough things and make them smooth or. And many times when a team comes to me and they're already beautifully curated, they just lack that central context, discipline, accountability and focus. And you know, EOS is a great tool. Anyone can teach you EOS and it's. And you're going to get a bunch from it. But I think kind of the mindset is the big thing. And if we're going to spend eight hours in the room, I use a ton of humor, don't pull a lot of punches. Like, I got to get my people laughing pretty hard because humor is a great way to disarm conflict. So you got to be self effacing and make fun of myself. I'm like, hey, you want to hear a story where I screwed it up way bad, way worse than you just did. And I'll tell them a story and they'll be like, whoa. And I'm like, see this grew up is small compared to that. But now that you have yours and mine, do you want to find the middle? No, we're good. All right, let's go this way. So I, I think the most important thing isn't to come in there as some sort of expert or know it all because, you know, I don't know. I, I still can't believe they let me do this for a living. But, but at the end of the day, I think you just have to show them your scars and explain what you've learned. And the last thing I would say is after working with well over a hundred teams, just the context, like, oh, this is issue number 47. Oh, here's 182 coming up. Here's number five. One of the, one of the, like, it's the same issues. And a lot of times if it's a common thing you say, you know, I've seen this issue at least a dozen times. Would be, would you be interested just in the go fast version of how it ended? Ten out of those, you know, nine out of those ten times or some, some fact, factual number. And then you can just kind of tell the story. And they were asking the same questions you were. And what they actually found was the root issue was actually over here is any of that going on? And then you see the uneasy eyeballs. You're like, oh, there it is. And then we'll, we'll crack it open and like solve the root issue. Because no one's everyone's putting up a symptom because it's safe. And I'm going to go right after the root issue and I'm going to facilitate some, some healthy conflict and that's going to be uncomfortable. But once they realize that was a 15 minute conversation we've been holding off for five years, that wasn't that hard. Well, I've got some other conversations I'm going to start having too. So usually it's just breaking the log jam and getting those conflict conversations happening. And that's usually like a turning point for the business where they're solving the root issues, not the pretend ones to be polite.
- [49:41]
B
Nice. I had promised to wrap this up and now I'm just stomping all over your calendar. One more question, Noah, because I'm just curious, on the software side, do you have some sort of easy integration if somebody's with some of the other platforms out there to.
- [49:54]
A
Of course, yeah. We can migrate people over. It's super easy. Mass downloads, uploads, like just give us contact, let us know who you're with. And it's a small list and we've already been porting people over. That's just part of the game and we're certainly willing to help with that. That is a no charge. Just help you get set up a half hour with, with one of my customer service specialists. It's, it's very intuitive, it's easy to do, it's not scary. And again, we have the essential version and then the elite version. So something for everybody was important to me.
- [50:29]
B
Love it. All right, you've got like, spoiler, you've got a new, a new customer over here. So I'm excited to check this thing out this week. Sweet. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and share your history and your past and your experience. I think, like, the story is incredible and you and I, I think, went through a lot of similar, similar things. So this was a lot of fun. But appreciate you taking the time to come out.
- [50:52]
A
My pleasure. Ryan, thank you so much.