← Confessions of an Implementer
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- [00:00]
A
We were driven by this time card culture, which is like, if you're not putting the time in, then you're not giving the value. But I think what we see now, especially within the last few decades, is that it's not necessarily the time you put in that's driving the value. It's the amount of return on whatever investment that you're looking at that's driving that value. What value are you creating despite that?
- [00:24]
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.
- [00:37]
A
Let's jump in.
- [00:40]
C
First and foremost, Adam, thank you for taking some time out of your day today to jump on Confessions of an Implementer. This I think is going to be a really interesting conversation because of your, like, navigation through family run businesses and that generally seems to be the topic of a lot of EOS implementers because maybe that was the ICP of EOS when it first came out. But welcome and happy to have you.
- [01:07]
A
Thank you. Thanks Ryan. I appreciate you being here. I'm honored to be on your show, man.
- [01:11]
C
Yeah. All right, so let's start. So where does your story start? I was looking at your LinkedIn and looking at your background, looking at some of your amazing videos. I love your content, by the way. Super, super vulnerable and I think like, that's a quick way to build trust with an audience or with your community. You have a lot of time at the same company and so like, where did this start and how did you move all the way into the CEO role?
- [01:39]
A
Yeah, it's, you know, it's an interesting story. Not a lot of companies make it as long as Hill Brothers has, which is our company. And you know, by the time I was born in 1979, it was already well over a 50 year old company. So at that point it was already a legacy business. It was a company that was started by my great grandfather and his brother back in 1923 in the, in the middle of Los Angeles. Probably not from far from where you are right now, actually just a few blocks away from two other brothers who about six months later started another family business called Disney. And yeah, so Roy and Walt Disney were just a few blocks up the street about six months after we are. So we kind of show them the ropes of business. Not to brag or anything, I love it.
- [02:25]
C
You know, first came Hill, then came the Disney's.
- [02:28]
A
But no, we actually had our 100th anniversary celebration in, at the Disneyland hotel recently and a couple of years ago, same time that Disney was celebrating theirs. They've obviously gone a little bit further than we have for sure. But, but yeah, so when I was born, I was literally born into family business that had, you know, multiple dynamics, had four different factions of family working in, in the business, going to company picnics that were also family reunions and all of that good stuff. So the idea of family and business was always kind of integrated in my life and so I went to, when I was, when I was growing up, I grew up not really thinking about getting into the family business. I of course wanted to do all the things that kids want to do, you know, changing my mind constantly, going to school for something completely different. But after getting out of college, I, you know, with a psychology degree and just, you know, an idea of like not really knowing where I wanted to go. I came in and worked for, for the company. Started out in the research and development, ended up just working in a variety of roles throughout the company. Falling in love with the, with the, over time with the idea of the, the legacy and the, and, and, and, and the business we were building together and the aspect of just, you know, working with the community of 150 employees that felt really connected together and, and yeah, I wanted to keep being a part of it. And so that continued on well into, you know, for the next two decades. I, I worked in that, in the business. Eventually landed in the CEO role not, not too long ago. And so I'll just kind of pause there if, if there's any other follow up questions or anything before I get into the story of the tumultuous time of becoming the president of a family business.
- [04:17]
C
When you think about moving up the ranks in a family business, like sometimes there's this notion or maybe like people from the outside looking in are like, oh well that was going to happen the whole time. Like you know, he's, his last name is Hill, therefore like Hill was going.
- [04:30]
A
To be at the top.
- [04:31]
C
But it doesn't sound like your journey was like that because when you talk about some of the roles that you held inside of the company, like you, you acquired a deep understanding of the business of probably the issues and everything else that were going on. And like any other person in the company, you, you worked your way up.
- [04:50]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think absolutely. It's, it's especially when you get into the, you know, four generations down the line, which is where I'm at. We're talking about the second cousins generation, there's a lot of different family involved, you know, and, and so the idea of this kind of escalator to the top, so to speak, for family members isn't quite the realistic story for most family businesses out there. You know, most family businesses out there are there to support the family in, in certain ways. Many of them are really struggling. And I mean family businesses account for more than 60% of the US GDP and something, something even more in, in the, in the global space because most European countries are a lot older than the United States are. So we have, you know, they have a lot, lot older family businesses. But you know, to that end it's, it's a lot of them are, you know, it's a lot of times it may be grooming the next generation in certain ways, finding who's got the aptitude to do it and maybe bringing in an outside CEO or. And, and we all, and our leadership team considered all of that. And so the kind of the genesis of our company was great grandfather started the company with his brother. My great grandfather had four sons. So those four sons basically took over as co presidents for the next few decades after he passed away. And ultimately they each had their own specific skill set that they could bring know one, one of them was a, was a great finance person, one of them was a great operations person, one of them was the salesperson. So they had basically all of the key functions in there that, that they needed to be sustainable and, and so they were able to work effectively together. And not only that, but the type of generation or time period that they grew up in, you know, that was, was useful to that kind of dynamic where they could work together. They were part of the World War II greatest generation. They spent, you know, they spent all of their youth learning how to work well together and drive community. So that worked effectively for them in the next generation. It passed on to, you know, my, my father who, who took over as the president. The ownership kind of passed on to a lot more of the third generation, so into the cousins generation. And, and you know, when my dad took over as the CEO of the company, it was now it was just a sole leader who built a team around him. He built a team, they scaled it and they saw the greatest amount of growth over the course of the two decades between the 90s and the mid 2010s and, and so it was really becoming more of a professionalized company at that point where they were looking for, you know, more professional leadership. And that's really what we built was a team of professionals at the leadership team that could help us scale. So I think ultimately when it, when it came time, you know, for my, my dad to retire and to replace him, it was more of a consideration of who would be the right person to fill the seat. And at the time, it was, you know, looking for kind of that. That visionary role that would be. Be able to keep that vision and also manage this team around them and keep the dynamics of maintaining a family business. And I think they looked at those qualities and they came to me and realized that maybe I might be the best person to fit that role. And that's what happened in 2018 when I was brought in to run the company.
- [08:17]
C
And touching real quick because when you talked about all the core functions of a business and then it just so happened that the four brothers who had taken over as kind of these co presidents, you may not know the answer to this. Was there any sense or do you have any sense of what that dynamic was? Like, what did they naturally fall into those core functions and like there was no fighting and everybody just. Just heads down on, on their area or, you know, do you have, do you know what that dynamic was like?
- [08:45]
A
Yeah, I mean, I, I was so young at the time that I didn't. I didn't really get to see it firsthand, but it was, it. It was definitely this, this feeling and, and a lot of, you know, especially in a legacy business, you know, it. It's a lot like. It's a lot like a little. A tiny nation. You know, the longer it lasts, the more mythology starts to come up about it. You know, you start to. You look at like the founder is this, is this individual that only cared about, you know, just taking care of this and wanting this founder vision, when in reality he was a struggling entrepreneur just like everyone else, just like the rest of us who was completely imperfect and doing a lot of things wrong and just building it as he went. And the same was true for the second generation. I believe that they probably did, you know, have their. Have their moments of fighting and, and challenging, but ultimately, I think on mass, they. They did fall into those categories. You know, the one, the finance guy just loved math. He loved working with the numbers, and he wasn't a very personable person. So he wasn't really frontline in front of people. The sales, you know, the sales leader, he just loved going out and talking to people, building these relationships. My grandfather, who's the operations guy, he was the tinkerer. He loved to work, know, build systems and, and all of that. Stuff. And so they really did just fall into place. And, and, and just by sheer luck, that was the dynamic that worked for them. So they worked well together, even if they may have had their moments of disagreement.
- [10:09]
C
Yeah. And then, and it sounds like your dad came in and, and there was more like a, like a, almost like a professionalization, like today we would call it eos. But he, he created a team, put the right team in place, and it sounds like had some of the most successful kind of scaling in that. Where did, where did he acquire that knowledge from?
- [10:30]
A
He, I mean, I heard once from another entrepreneur that's in a family business as well, second generation. For him, he put it really well, that, like, each generation, even if they're four or five, six generations down the line, they're always starting at generation one, which is really a really important concept, because once you start taking over, taking over that business, you have to build it to the next level. You have to take it from here to there. And I think, you know, for, for him, it was, it was one of those things where he was already running a lot of the operations at that point. He was, he was part of the operations. The, the four brothers were mentoring him in terms of how to, how to run the business. And he kind of very quickly realized when he started in the business that he was wearing a lot of that, those hats when he took over as president, he was wearing the sales hat, which he wasn't great at. He was wearing the operations hat. He was, you know, and so he was wearing all these hats. So that's kind of where he just got the indication of, I need to bring some people here beside me. And just as, as Fortune would have it, around that time, you know, he brought in a really great marketing and salesperson, another, another chemical company that was a competitor and, and a partner of ours went out of business at that point. So a lot of talent freed up and he was able to, to bring on those, those folks that could help him. So I think he realized right away one of the greatest things he realized was to hire his weaknesses so that he could operate in that visionary role even before us existed. I think he recognized that he was more of the visionary, the face of the organization, the culture driver, and he did really well at that.
- [12:07]
C
Got it. And what are you. Where, where, where do you kind of.
- [12:11]
B
Fall into those spectrums?
- [12:13]
A
Yeah, so it took me a long time to realize this because I didn't, I didn't know about EOS either when I, when I came into that role. And, and I can share a little bit about that story as well. But I, I, to, you know, to paraphrase I, I fall more into the visionary role. I, I'm not really a great driver of accountability, not, not great at like really doing that day to day, but I do bring the 20 ideas and, and a lot of, a lot of the visionary attributes. So that's kind of where, that's kind of where I landed. But when I came into that CEO role, I, there were a lot of things that I really wasn't prepared for. You know, after that initial excitement of, you know, everybody or you get a sense that anybody that's working in the core corporate world wants to climb the ladder and get to the very top. And I made it to the top and I was just, you know, ecstatic for about a day. And then like the workload came in and I realized very quickly that a lot of the relationships that I had immediately just, just like with the flip of a switch shifted from being like, you know, more of like I, I, I thought I had a relationship with these people, but it became more transactional. You know, now I was kind of giving them a paycheck. Now I was, you know, kind of. And, and additionally I, I came into that role, you know, leading a team that previously had kind of led me. And, and, and it was, it was still that team that, and so there was a lot of trying to manage the dynamics of, of, of taking over a team that was already well established. In short, I really struggled to just really find my identity as a leader and really just kind of managing the day to day, putting out the daily fires and also building a vision that, that people could get behind. And so that took a while. And, and also in that time, you know, between in the last few years of, of when my dad was in that, in that role, he'd been in that role for about 25 years. And I said it experienced that greatest period of, you know, we hit a ceiling a few years before he started to retire and we just hit a ceiling in the company and we never really broke through it. And so when we took over, that ceiling was just starting to be on that. You know, there's three ways we, you say you break through a ceiling, you break through, you could, you could keep going up, you could flatline or you could start to decline. And we were on the decline. And, and for the first time in our 90 something year history, we were showing signs of mortality and we were talking about things like layoffs and it was scary and this was, and for Me as a new CEO with all of these sacred cows in my mind of what we couldn't do. We never laid people off, we've never changed our core values, we've never kind of transitioned, we've never done all these things. It became like a shifting point of I have to make all of these major decisions. And it weighed really heavily on me to the point where it really affected like just how I showed up in that role. And so I really struggled and it took a few years, but a couple of years into the CEO role, I was introduced to Gino's book Traction and it was through another mastermind group that I was a part of and ended up reading it in a weekend and just fell in love with the concepts and the idea that, well, maybe if this is working for other businesses, maybe it could work for ours. And I was really hesitant at that point. I think my only hesitancy with Eos was that there's this, there's this feeling in some legacy businesses like ours that this unwillingness to change, that there's this terminal uniqueness that we feel that is like, hey, we're different than the others. Even though it's working for these other companies, we're different because we've been around for so long, we've already figured everything out. There's nothing we haven't figured out yet. We've nothing we haven't tried. And so it's that real like closed off scarcity mindset that, that left us a little bit trapped. But I, leap of faith, hired an implementer, his name was Richard Price, and he came in to help us implement. And while it wasn't an overnight success for us at all, over the next two years our revenues grew by 50%. We became a nine figure business for the first time and, and we became sustainably profitable. We started to make that profitability again and we broke through that ceiling. It, I mean, it just delivered on all its promises over the time as we did the work and our leadership team aligned around that vision. I felt more free to be the visionary and I felt clear on that role so that I could, so that I can embrace it. And it just felt. And so things did start to gain traction at that point. And that's really what made me drink the Kool Aid for Eos and really fall in love with it and feel like it was really made for family businesses. And it really was. It had its origins in family business, but I, I just, I was full on, on board. I realized, yeah, this is the type of thing that more Family businesses need is the systems that can help them succeed, break through ceilings and, and, and start that entrepreneurial journey at generation one again.
- [17:15]
C
And when you think about this, like that's an incredible story that's also like an, an amazing feat to, to take the hell. There's so many different questions that I have with that because I, I would actually like to understand a little bit of those dynamics. We'll come back to that because one of the things that, that you said is like once you implemented eos, like you broke through the ceiling and hit nine figure business back to profitability, like amazing, incredible things. If you were to look at it through the lens of like an 80, 20, meaning like EOS has several different components. Yes. And we put process in place, we hold people accountable, we set a vision, we've got our vto, all those things. We've got the accountability chart. Like if. Do you believe that there's kind of like an 80%, like 80% of our success came from this component right here? Based upon the changes that I made.
- [18:06]
A
Yeah, it's a great question. And I mean I'm a firm believer now that we've implemented it that, that in order to be a strong company, like in order to be one of the great companies that's like that 1 in 20 business, you have to strengthen all six key components. You have to strengthen the vision, the people, the data, the issues, the process and the traction. But if there's, if there's any, I mean that, that I think that were most valuable to helping us, helping us to, to, to really to really start breaking through that ceiling. I would, I would say it was the vision component because it was a first component, you know, really, really focusing on, I mean, yes, focusing on the execution. And, and I may be actually second guessing myself here because, because again, they're all so important. But, but you know, when you start out in, in the EOS journey, you really flip the script. The script. You're, you're. Usually we want to start with a vision and we want to drive vision and then we want to execute on that vision. Of course, that's what we want to do in eos. We want to take that vision at the ground level and execute on it. But when you start an eos, if you take that journey with an implementer or self implement, the journey starts really with the foundational tools of EOS that help you to drive traction. And so I think it was just the combination of those two things that we implemented a pulse where we were getting together on a weekly Basis, having these really organized meetings, driving for a level 10 on those level 10 meetings, and then also implementing that vision, getting the eight questions on the VTO answered and making sure that we were getting clarity on that so that we could share that across the organization. That like those two first steps I think were the key to really driving most of the results that started to do that, that started to make the difference. With that said, everything else kind of came along to support it, but it made the decision to really start implementing the tools of data, you know, right people, right seats, process and really digging deep on the issues list that those two things just helped to remove the obstacles to doing that effectively. Because we had the vision, we had the discipline now we had that discipline of executing. And I think those two things were really important.
- [20:15]
C
I love that because it's like if we don't know where we're going and we don't know why we exist, then how do we put any of these other components together or pieces together? How do you know who you need or what you're measuring in a family run? This is fascinating because my experience has always been startups and other areas and so very little knowledge and zero experience in the family dynamics of this. When you went out and you're like, hey, we're going to implement eos and maybe you didn't know at the time. Looking back on and reflecting, it's like the VTO and the vision, understanding where we were going was the biggest unlock. Did you create that on your own or did you have to like run it by the family first? How does, how does that work?
- [21:02]
A
Yeah, it's a, it's a good question. So when you, especially in a legacy business like ours where we have a very diverse array of owners, some that are involved in the business, some that aren't, you know, there's a real dependency on, on, on driving towards the decision making of the board of directors. And so, so the directive that I had as CEO was to really drive results in the company to bring us back to a point of sustainability. EOS was the path I was going to take to do that. So really the task of creating the vision for the organization in the business and really executing on that was tasked with me and my team. And so we work together as a leadership team in the business, you know, the top leaders, to really drive building that vision, getting that vision shared by everybody in the organization and then, and then driving it towards execution on a, on a, you know, on, on that effective basis. So that's, that's really how we drove it.
- [22:05]
C
Got it. Okay. And then you said something that I really, I wanted to come back to. So I've been in the Navy now for but a couple of decades and what's interesting, what you talked about there was this idea of like the people that used to lead you, like you were now put in a position where you were leading them. And so in the military, at least in the Navy, if you put on, let's say you put on Chief, you go from E6 to E7, like they will remove you from the command that you're at because like, you need, you need kind of a fresh start. You, you need a new set of sailors. Like, you can't have the biases and all these other things. And very, very, very, very, very rarely does anybody skip to where like the person that was leading them, they're now leading. So I can't imagine what those types of dynamics were. Like, like, how did, how did you navigate that effectively of like, well, I'm the boss now and this is what we're going to do. And it sounds like you also had to make some really tough decisions as a part of that.
- [23:05]
A
Yeah, I mean, I mean they really were. And there was a lot of anxiety, especially early, early on because, you know, it's just you have relationships with, with people that, that, that for decades are a certain way. There are a certain dynamic where you look up to them and they literally maybe even see you in diapers if you're in a family business, you know, and it's, I don't think it's a one size fits all where everybody can effectively do this. It's really any organization, any family business has to decide this on their own how they're going to go about that. But it's just kind of entrenching, imprinting the courage to be able to make those decisions and the self awareness to know that it's not really me that's making this decision. It's the position, it's the chain of command, it's the nature of the accountability chart, to use the EOS term. And not to sound like everything's a nail and EOS is the hammer, but you know, implementing the right system for the business takes a lot of the weight of those decisions off of the leader as, and, and that's why one of the reasons, one of the most important reasons why I think EOS was made for family businesses, multi generational family businesses, because the relationship dynamics within family can be great. There's love, there's, there's, you know, that you love your family. But it can also create unhealthy dynamics when it comes to like the chain of command or, or trying to drive accountability. So having a system in place that takes the weight of that. As long as everyone is agree, in agreement that we're going to approach this system and we're going to use it in a disciplined fashion and we're going to use it purely, well, then it takes the weight of the decision off. Because, you know, it's like, well, we've decided to use this system. I'm the person who's making this decision. And this decision is for the greater good of the organization. Not because of how I feel about you or how this is the case, but the greater good. And if everybody's driving towards the greater good, it shouldn't matter really, you know, whether they've seen you in diapers before or what age you are or who, who accounted for who. But if, if on the accountability chart, everybody agrees that this integrator, this, this, this leader is, is accountable for this team, they have to be decisive on that front. They have to, they have to live up to it. It's again, it's not easy, it takes a lot of courage. But, but it was also something that, I think I'll add that the right set of coaches, therapists and kind of experience with regard to just overcoming challenges in my own life drove me more to help me to become better equipped to manage those challenges later on too.
- [25:47]
B
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- [27:10]
C
What you talked about this, this two year period. So when, when you took over, was there a two year period before you implemented EOS?
- [27:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. So I took over in 2018 and 2018 was, was tough, you know, just kind of getting 21, 19 was even worse. It was harder. It was our first year in the red in profitability in, in a couple decades. And, and then obviously we know what happened in 2020. So it was just like, you know, just gale force winds, like in our face, that hurricane force just pounding us. And, and yeah, it was about that time, 2020, between 2020 and 2021 that we implemented EOS. And, and yeah, then things started to change.
- [27:56]
C
I can't imagine the stress in that. So having I ran a consumer product company, it was called Hunt a Killer. It seemed like my job in that company for seven years was trying to figure out where the cash was coming from because it was just constantly like it was a cash game and we were always out of it. There was never enough and we were just trying to figure out how to stay alive. We did that for seven years and that was like incredibly stressful. What's interesting is you walk into this company, you were selected on day one. It sounded like you were, you were proud, you were confident. And then for two years, like it was probably heading in that direction anyhow. But just the optics of like that two year period hitting the glass ceiling at the same time as you took over, like, how did you, like, I'm sure that built a lot of resiliency. Like what, what did you do to, to break through and, and not, not EOs, because that was the ultimate solution. But like, what were you doing for that two year periods, both from like a mental health standpoint and also from a, like hey, it's not me. We're going to figure this out. Bear with me and believe in what we're doing.
- [29:03]
A
Right? Yeah. So from a personal development standpoint, I'll say that I was very fortunate. I can look back 13 years ago now and say that I'm very fortunate to have gone through what I went through with alcoholism and sobriety. I. So I spent later part of my teens and throughout my 20s and early 30s as an active alcoholic, drinking heavily and, and, and really doing that to help. I mean it, it started out as more of a social lubricant I was very socially awkward. I didn't really. And then it just got the positive rein of like, oh, I can be a social creature now that I have this, this thing. And, and it, it very quickly turned into a very problem thing and a coping mechanism for really difficult anxiety that I had a lot of panic attacks and things like that. And then a coping mechanism to just not really knowing what I wanted from life in my 20s and 30s and just, you know, kind of going through the motions. But I was fortunate to get that, to get sober in my early 30s and, and to go through the process of finding a community that helped me to get sober. Alcoholics Anonymous. And before that, I didn't really lean into community. I was kind of this, this lone wolf kind of guys because of that social awkwardness or just not. And so I never leaned into it, but that was really the first community that, that helped me. And then I leaned into, leaned into a community of, of, of athletes and triathletes that, that helped me with, you know, growing through triathlon. And then, you know, as I was kind of growing through my career, I leaned into another community of entrepreneurs and business leaders that I discovered, like community is the best source of, like, building mental health when it's the right community. And I think the right communities have a couple of very important elements. The first thing that they have is mentorship. Mentorship, meaning that these are people that have already been through what you've gone through. They've carved a path, they know a path, and they can work with you to help you get to where they're at, somebody who has what you want. And then it's also got a cohort, a group of people that's working through the same kind of issue as you are, and, and that you're willing to work with them and grind through them and, and, and make that happen. I found that time and time again that in communities that, that really work to help people grow are, are, have those two things. And they're also very specific to an individual thing. Whether it's sobriety, whether it's, whether it's building a business system like eos, whether it's helping to navigate challenges in a family business, those very specific communities help. So that was one area, Another area that I, that helped with personal development too, is just therapy. I, I, I still have the same therapist I've been with for about, for about 15 years now. She knows me, she knows my BS and, and, and so it's, it's helpful to have that, that source to help with, with mental health and just have somebody like that, you know, and the other person is just having a really, really great spouse. Like, like my, my spouse is part of the community. I mean she's, she is, she is my support driver and somebody who really supports me with crazy ideas. And even through all the challenges, she's been there. So those, those few things help me kind of just at least break through my individual ceiling. And you know, in eos they do talk about that. They talk about the idea of breaking through. There's three ways you can hit the ceiling. You can hit the ceiling either as an organization, you can hit it as a department, or you can hit it as an individual. And I certainly hit it as an individual really, really soon into my, my role as the CEO and I know as an organization we were already hitting the ceiling. So I think it was those combination of things of just, of, of just discovering the community that I could, I could work with. Discovering traction in EOS helped me individually break the ceiling, helped our leadership team to break through their ceiling. And then you know, from there it was just a combination of little things, things that we were solving in our weekly issues list of well, what kind of, what kind of are we maximizing the amount of revenue that we're generating from our, from our customers? Things we just never cared to really look at because we thought, well, things are working so we'll just, we'll just cruise and, and so just a simple low hanging fruit that helped us to get, to get to break through that ceiling as an organization. And then gradually that low hanging fruit became, you know, higher fruit that we could, we could go grasp onto to the point where we are today solving bigger needle moving decisions. I think a lot of it also came down to the fact that in a legacy organization like ours, there's, there's things that, there's things that are, are deemed untouchable in a lot, in a lot of ways. The longer a business is in business, the more sacred cows develop. You know, it could be a founder vision that we just never question. It could be a product line that is always served us well and now it's just starting to be a dog. You know, it could be any number of things, but, but until we question those things, they're going to remain sacred cows and they're going to continue to be obstacles to our growth. So also building in the courage within the leadership team to question those sacred cows and make the changes we need to make to the organization and how we were functioning helped us to, helped us to Foundationally change things and target where we were going. So there's a lot more that goes into it. But that's a very simple answer of like how we broke through the ceiling.
- [34:26]
C
On like almost every single one of those topics. I can relate. I had a company that went bankrupt in 2013 and when, when people hear about bankruptcy or they see bankruptcy, the thing that most folks don't realize is that bankruptcy, all the stress actually stops. And what folks don't see is that there was probably 12, 18, maybe even longer than that, months, maybe years leading up to that of the highest stressed environment as you're trying to save or salvage. And so what was interesting is when it happened, people were like, are you okay? And I'm like, never been better now, but for the last year, like panic attacks and anxiety and everything else. So anyhow, long winded. I feel you on that as you're thinking about implementing eos. And so like, you guys have done this, you figured out kind of how to persevere. Personally, you're building resilience. You already have the resilience. It sounds like some of that resiliency was built 13 years prior to, prior to this moment. So like, maybe this is your moment. How did you convince them that like, this was it? So like, you've been in the role a couple years, things are, you know, you hit the glass ceiling, things are not going in the right direction. Is this, was this a matter of like, hey guys, last ditch effort here, eos, it's going to save the world and we're all experiencing so much pain, like this is going to be it, or did it actually take some convincing that like, we need to do this?
- [35:56]
A
It definitely took some convincing, but I will honestly say that it was a bit forced down the throats of the leadership team too. I mean, in terms of just saying, hey, I've read into this, this is where we're at. We need to make a dramatic change. We need to adopt a system. And it's just simply pointing out where we're lacking in all of these things and then pointing them in the direction of what, what heaven looks like or what success looks like in terms of our organization. What if it, what if, you know, within these six key components, you know, we could strengthen them and then wouldn't. Would we feel better if we had all the right people in the right seats? Would we feel better if we were collecting the right set of data? Where we, Would we feel better if we, we, we were getting the most important things in our business done the right way? I mean, I think the answer all that is. Yeah, so why don't we give it a try? There's, there's no real risk here when we're hiring an implementer. It's not, it wasn't like it was a, a long term, six figure contract. You know, we're hiring them on a session by session basis. So we gave, we gave it a try. And, and I think very quickly what we found, like within a session or two was that what the team appreciated was to be able to be candid and to debate and discuss and get into the healthy conflict. You know, we notoriously, as an organization, you know, we, we struggled with Artificial Harmony. We didn't go there, you know, we didn't go into the dark forest. And, and I'll be honest, it was more of a discomfort for me to do that, to go into that dark forest, to not be the people pleaser, to not, you know, to protect that artificial harmony. And so it was a lot of anxiety for me to see the conflict start to erupt, but then it was a lot relieving to see that, oh, it's okay, this is okay because it's healthy and we're debating and we're getting the root cause, we're walking out of here aligned. So I think it didn't take long for the team to kind of operate in that environment and say, oh yeah, this is working for us and it's a good tool for us to keep growing.
- [37:59]
C
What was the. So one of the things that you hear and you sit on both sides of the table now, which is really interesting because like, you know, you're CEO and you went through this implementation and now you're doing implementation as an eosi. One of the things that I constantly hear from the implementer community is like, not everybody on the leadership team last 12 months, the first 12 months, like the whole thing is like, some of you will not be here. It's in the book the five Dysfunctions of a Team and it's something that's constantly talked about. Did that happen at your company as well?
- [38:35]
A
It did, yeah. We did end up with a couple of different people on our, on our leadership team. And ultimately I was, when I, when I took over, when we started to talk about EOs, we lost our director of operations pretty quickly, our executive, our leadership team in operations. And so I took that over and so I was now visionary integrator and operations and then, and then eventually we finally found the right person for operations and then our sales and marketing guy left 12 months later. And, and so we did, we did lose a couple of. And I took over the sales and marketing side of it. So it took some time for me to kind of stop wearing all the hats and stop feeling like I had to and, and just focus on, on, on, on my core, core part. But we finally landed on the right team, you know, within about, you know, about a year and a half ago in terms of just like now we have a team that's fully aligned on it and, and all driving in the same direction. Aligned on eos.
- [39:34]
C
Nice. And do you have an integrator?
- [39:36]
A
I am still the integrator. So I'm visionary and integrator currently and never could quite get out of that role yet. But, but I'm working in that direction and, and think that ultimately it would be in an ideal scenario for, for our company. It would be a visionary integrator relationship. Yeah. Separate people.
- [39:56]
C
Is that a. The company wasn't ready or is that a. Like, like you're a good integrator. You having both kind of feed in there, like makes sense at this point. So is it like a you thing or is it, is it a company thing?
- [40:08]
A
You know, it's a, it's a little, I think it's a little of both. I think, I think it's, it's, it's a little me thing. I have not driven it home, you know, fully yet on that. It is also a company thing. I mean, as a company, we're especially a company that is a family business that's like legacy that, that has this legacy, I mean, for many decades within, you know, the Industrial revolution and, and, and for, for most companies out there that started back in the 20s, 30s and 40s, we were driven by this time card culture, which is like, if, if you're not putting the time in, then you're not giving the value. But I think what we see now, especially within the last few decades, is, is that it's not necessarily the time you put in that that's driving the value. It's the amount of return on whatever investment that you're looking at that's, that's driving that value. What value are you creating despite that? And I think if I'm looking at where I'm contributing the most value for time is, is in the visionary seat. Because everything else is kind of just, it's, it's inefficient for me. It's, it's a lot of mental energy for me to have to drive accountability. It's not, it's not my sweet spot it's, it's not, it's not something that I get that well, but, and, and so I think that it's just that trying to evolve out of the time card culture of like you have to put in this many hours and you just have to, you have to essentially earn the seat by the time that you put into it. That's, I think that's what has prevented us from driving and getting a true integrator in there.
- [41:39]
C
Got it. And when you think about it like when I think about visionaries, like generally like they don't like rules, they're trailblazers. They, if anything they break the rules inside of an organization. Can a company go out and hire a visionary? Like, let's say I'm trying to think of a good example here. It's just, it's one of those things where when I think about, when I think about like we talk about hiring for core functions and we think about hiring for integrators, how do you find a rule breaker to kind of help fit all of those molds?
- [42:15]
A
Yeah, it's, you know, for our specific situation. I don't know the answer to that, but I think for, I think that there's, there's millions of different companies out there that this could apply to and millions of different ways that they could do it. And I could see, I could see a way, I could see, I could envision that there's a, that there's a company out there or many companies that, that are really great at executing or they have the integrator kind of role that, that just doesn't, that doesn't necessarily get the visionary seat of like, of, of what that is and, and they need that aspect of it. And maybe it's for a specific situation where they're facing a specific type of, of market challenge or, or environmental challenge that they just don't know how to get beyond that. They need somebody who has a greater vision for it to be able to conceptualize how to go beyond that and bring some of the ideas to the table and let the integrator who knows the business in that business, you know, drive the, drive the real solution from the, from that set of ideas. I could see that as being like a driver to bringing in a new or outside visionary to an organization. And I think it's, it's, it's good and it's healthy for organizations to be open minded to, to bringing those types of people in.
- [43:34]
C
Okay. And so, and today you also are an EOS implementer, so you are helping other companies Implement which sounds like you've got a great background not just in like family businesses and amazing like ways and sounds like like chemicals and manufacturing and those sorts of things, but also rolling it out yourself. What, what do you look for in clients?
- [43:58]
A
Yeah, it's a good question. I look for clients and you know, owners that are super open minded, you know that, that are open to open and willing to, to grow. And, and that may seem, seem like it's, it's like well a duh, you know, you're, you're, it's like of course you're willing to grow if you're a company. But, but there are a lot of companies out there that especially legacy in the family business world that are just like no, we want to, we just want to bring, you know, we just want to just want to be this and, and, and that's it and, and not see any growth or we don't want to change in any way and that's fine that if that works for them then great. But EOS is not going to work for them. And so I'm really looking for those kinds of, of, of owners that are really open minded. Ideally. I think you know, there's, there's a lot of next gen leaders that experience what I think I, I experienced which is they're getting into these roles. They're finding that they just don't really haven't discovered that identity yet. They don't have that vision but they really, really do want to make a place for the next generation that company. They want to build this, you know, next result and they want to see this company that they've taken over, that they've bought as a, as a, as a, as a first generation growth company. And so I think that's really what I'm looking for is those next gen leaders. There's also you know, out of the, the many family businesses out there that are contributing to more than 60% of the US GDP, many of those companies that are, you know, where, where the owner or the founder are looking to retire right now. A lot of them sadly are facing that period and they realize they don't have the value in their business. And I have like a first person view into this from the perspective of seeing family businesses that are around us that we're where the, where the patriarch or the matriarch of the business is looking to retire. And they didn't, they don't, they have a number in their mind of what it's going to take and they can't do it because they didn't put the value into their business. And it's heartbreaking. But I also see that there's a path three to five years from there where you implement a system like EOS and you create an exit strategy and you create a succession plan or you build that in that you can create a successful transition, whether it's a sale or it's a transition to the next generation, however you want to do that. But it all starts with building value into your company. And EOS is a great way to build value into your company. So those are the kinds of companies that I would, I would look for in a client.
- [46:28]
C
Yeah. And it feels like you could like jump right in on day one and be like, I, I live this, like I breathe this. I know exactly kind of where the landmines are are coming from. As you've like ventured more into the implementer role, have you started to see like a consistency of, of, I won't say challenges because, or I don't want to like they're not deal breakers. There's always going to be challenges with any sort of implementation, with any sort of change. But is there like an 8020 rule for that as well where you like walk into an organization, you've got decent buy in but you just know that like this is going to be probably the biggest kind of obstacle that you're going to face?
- [47:07]
A
Yeah, I mean I think that, I feel like that happens in almost every company too. Like that we come in that there's, there's always, there's always something that's holding them back that is, you know, I have the, I have the little animals that in the U.S. and if you're, if you're implementing in the U.S. you know, the animals that sit around the, around the office, it's pretty, usually pretty clear within the first day that there's, that there's an elephant in the room, that, that we're just not going there, that there's a, that there's a sacred cow or there's something that they need to, that they need to, that they need to go into that would really open up a lot of, of, of, of freedom for them. It does take time because I think ultimately those companies, they need to, they need to bring that out themselves. You know, it needs to come from, from, from them and they need to work to it. And I can call it out as a facilitator. They say are you ready to go there yet? You know, are we ready to go in the dark forest? And they could subtly say no, we're going to stay on the fringes of the forest for now, poking at it. Okay, we'll poke at it for a while, but eventually they need to walk into that dark forest if they want to remove that obstacle.
- [48:10]
C
And do you, when you're looking for a new client, like, do you take clients all over the U.S. or, or do you focus on Colorado and L. A? How do you think through kind of the geography of it?
- [48:20]
A
Yeah, I like to take in, in person clients. So, so clients that I'll be working with in person in session rooms in the Denver area, Colorado area, and the, and the surrounding Denver area and Southern California, Orange county, and so I'm in between those two places. I also take on clients virtually if, if, if anybody wants to work on a virtual basis and, and, and has this specific issue with family or anything like that, and they, they would find value there. Virtual is also a way to go.
- [48:51]
C
Love it. And then, so if someone just listened to this, they heard your story, they're like, gotta have every single one of those pain points. And now they just realize that you're an implementer. How would they, how would they find you?
- [49:01]
A
Yeah, they could go to my website, eosworldwide.com adam-hill or you can email me at Adam hillosworldwide.com and yeah, I'm happy to, happy to get in touch and see how I can help.
- [49:17]
C
Awesome. All right, Adam, thank you so much. I've realized, like, you have a podcast as well, and so it's a little bit, it's a little like, oh, gosh, like he, he, he knows what he's doing. But thank you so much for coming on, sharing your story, sharing your experience, and really also like getting vulnerable. That, that doesn't happen very often, especially in this type of environment. So I appreciate that.
- [49:36]
A
Yeah, it was my pleasure, Ryan, and I appreciate the opportunity. I've been listening to your show when I was getting into the implementer journey myself, and, and yeah, it was, it was really pivotal for me to listen to you and your guests when I was, I was making that decision for myself. So I appreciate it.
- [49:50]
C
That's awesome.
- [49:51]
A
Love it.
- [49:51]
C
All right, thanks so much. Appreciate you.