Chris Cody (2:04)

Yeah.

Perry Holly (2:05)

But we, we still want to have him on. So, Don, thanks for joining us again, brother. I'm so glad to have you back.

Don Jaeger (2:09)

Oh, I love you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Perry Holly (2:12)

Absolutely.

Chris Cody (2:13)

So I mentioned on last week's podcast that you had actually put a model in place on how momentum works. And I thought for business leaders, we Talk about it in sports, pretty easy sometime times. But translating it to business, a lot of people get stumbled up in that. And so I love the model and I like to just describe it and then let Chris and I pummel you with questions around it because. Did you say pummel? I did.

Perry Holly (2:38)

You know, that's why he's virtual. I wonder why he didn't want to come to the studio.

Chris Cody (2:41)

That's it.

Don Jaeger (2:41)

I was worried about, like, next thing you know, be you and me. Like Nolan Ryan, man. I mean, come on. I can't, like, I don't want, I

Chris Cody (2:48)

don't want to chase the mail, man. Don't, don't rush the mound.

Perry Holly (2:50)

Yeah.

Chris Cody (2:51)

So I'm just going to. The way I've took it out of the book, by the way. Everybody should get this book, the New Science of Momentum. And you mentioned some of this last week about hiring, so I didn't. I never occurred to me that it starts there. But leaders recruit. Leaders shape culture. Leaders drive the preparation and the ability for the team members to recognize both the various forms and shapes of the spark. So we mentioned that last week, but I want to go back there then. Leaders communicate with teams to take action when it happens. Leaders set the tone for team climate. Leaders foster belief and mindsets. So that's kind of the front end of the model. And finally, leaders provide and accept feedback from major and passing outcomes, processing these inputs and using them to inform the next actions. So you've got two sides of this model. Kind of starts with the hiring and the culture and kind of the in house stuff. The spark is in the middle, that something happens and then what happens after the spark. So I love it. It started the more I printed it out, started making myself familiar with it. It just made more and more sense to me. And I think if we can go through some of these questions that we generated, how can we help these leaders that are listening to us today to recognize it in their own business to do that?

Perry Holly (4:04)

Love that. Hey, before we do that though, Don, talk a little bit about what it took for you to, to come up with the model. How did you begin, you know, and architect it? And versions of it give us a little bit of context behind, behind the model.

Don Jaeger (4:19)

So to your point, if we were going to pass this on to a business leader, we knew there needed to be some level of kind of tactical instruction. Right. They had to be able to see something that they could work on. And Jim Collins sat down with us at the very beginning and kind of said, by the way, this is going to be really important. Like, you know, he said the flywheel became my thing because. And by design, like I could have talked about all day long, but by making it visual, it became important. But one key, and I'm glad you both have, you've referred to this as a model. A model. Because one key, one thing we want to make sure people are clear of, it's a model, not a formula, right? A lot of people think because a formula is very plug and play, right? I do these things, boom, I'm going to get this outcome. A model says this gives you your greatest chance at becoming successful, because a series of other people that we've had a chance to work with have showed, have shown us how living through this model allows them to be successful. So, yeah, the idea was, though, to your question, Chris, we wanted to build something. But yes, this is probably version seven, which, you know, because you start and the original one just was one big thing. And then we came to realize that most of us believe that momentum starts with a spark, right? Most of us think it starts with an action or an opportunity or a moment or something that happens that gives you the chance to now build upon it. And so spark was where everything started for us for the first time. Two or three iterations of this. And then we started realizing, no, the very best, the reason the best are the best is they're doing the work before the spark, right? They are ready for the spark. Where most of us are waiting on the spark, they are ready for the spark. And so this concept of actually having a model that has the spark in the middle, right? But it has two, two wheels on either side has leadership across the top because everything rises and falls, right? Oh, yeah, I'm stealing stuff from you now.

Perry Holly (6:37)

I love it.

Don Jaeger (6:37)

But everything rises and falls. So leadership is across the top. It starts. This starts with leadership. But once you've created that, you're working on that first wheel, and that's where you set out to design the culture of your organization. A culture that will be open to a spark, right? A culture where we are, we're engaged, we're happy for each other. We are, you know, we, we celebrate each other, we are encouraging of each other. Then you go out to recruit people who can help you continue to build on that culture. And that's hard to do, by the way. That was the one thing the more leaders we talked to. That idea of recruiting a dogs who, who can cheer for other people was the one question that kept coming up. Man, how do you do that? Because I want that Dog, Right. I want that dog. I want that person to just like they, they, they want it to be theirs. And it's that important to them. That's what drives them. But now we're telling them that you want a dog, but you want a dog who could celebrate other people. Right? Who could celebrate other dogs. And that was the. But the evidence is pretty clear that if you can recruit the right people, it helps your culture stay intact. And then we teach that preparation part that we talked about in last week's session around this idea of, like, how are you hosting a monthly lunch, a what if lunch. What if this were to happen? You know, what if a hurricane were to come and knock out our production facilities? What would we do to be able to, you know, what if our hurricane came and we're in the pro. We're in the business of building new homes. Right. How do we enter that market afterward without looking too overly opportunistic, but at the same time actually being opportunistic? Right.

Perry Holly (8:31)

Love that.

Don Jaeger (8:32)

So just how do you ask yourself the questions about what might happen when a spark comes to. Comes to play?

Perry Holly (8:40)

I'm going to jump in and I want to get you to unpack a little bit for us around this belief in mindset that you talk about and how they're complementary concepts. But when it comes to maybe manipulating momentum, the model suggests that both are, are essential. You got to have both. So can you talk a little bit more about that and, and the work and the research you've done on those two things?

Don Jaeger (9:05)

So what happens is now we, we talked about the first wheel. Now there's the spark, right? Then comes the second wheel. And at the top of the second wheel, leader, communication. So what you want to do, this is where the leader amplifies. It's where the leader says, hey, remember all that work we did, all that work we did to be ready for the moment? This is the moment, right. Remember all that where all that sweat and toil and, you know, let's use a sports team, right. You've practiced to be ready, to be able to take advantage of being ahead by six points with a minute left to play or being down by nine with a minute and a half. You practice that. So this is not a. Is some. It's not foreign to you. You've been ready. This is our moment. We're ready. Right. Leaders begin that process of fueling belief and mindset by reminding them that they've done the work. The work in advance of the spark has already been done. And so the great Leaders are there to communicate. You know, one of our, one of my most enjoyable interviews in the book was with the CEO of Bose, right? The headphone speaker company.

Perry Holly (10:17)

Yeah.

Don Jaeger (10:18)

She was brought in to take over the leadership role. The company had 20 consecutive months losing year over year revenue. Right. They were, they were in a decline for that was 20 months long. And she knew her job was to obviously turn it around. So she goes to work on it and she has everybody kind of hyper focused on. We're going to pay attention to the numbers. Like that's, that's how we're going to, we're going to know when we have actually turned a corner. But the moment that, that, that they had, I mean, she said their first month, which was her fourth month, that they actually broke into profitability. She said we were profitable by probably about the number of coins you could find in your couch, right. As a large organization, we were just profitable by that. She said. But we celebrated like crazy. Like, we went up and down the aisles and everybody was high fiving because you know what, we, we weren't in the red. We were turning a corner. And suddenly that celebration played into the belief in mindset. Like, you know what, we are moving in the right direction. We are doing the right thing. We are in momentum now, right? Momentum is our friend, where the wind is at our back. You start like now, people start believing, right? The belief and the mindset work together. And if you've done the right things and your team chemistry is right. So it's interesting. Everybody asks, why do you have team chemistry and culture and how do you have them in different wheels, right? Team climate, team chemistry. And the reason is that culture is a forever product. Right. Culture is something that abides and lasts. Climate changes like the climate outside, right. It can be awesome one minute and raining the next. And so you as a leader have to have your finger on the pulse of the climate. You can't assume that everybody's happy. You have to know because there are some people when, as momentum begins to take hold and things are starting to grow, there are some people you probably employ who are immediately thinking, you know what this means? I got to do more work. Like, we're more successful now. I got to do more work. That stinks. So how do you, you have to know what the climate of your team is. And a part of that is you have to have people who are within the organization who can report up to you. Like, honestly, not pointing fingers, not asking for discipline, not. But here's what the team like, yes, the team's excited, but they realize this is more a metric for you than it is for us. Right. The board wants this from you. Does this really matter to us? Well, how do you make sure it matters to us? That, again, plays into your job as a leader, to communicate why it matters to them, and then by doing so, you build and actually offer support to their belief system and their mindset.

Perry Holly (13:24)

And their mindset. Real quick, before I throw it to you, the model is actually going to be in the show notes.

Chris Cody (13:32)

Yes.

Perry Holly (13:32)

So I want to encourage everybody as we're talking through it right now, you're going, hey, I lost you on the wheel. I totally get. That's why we put it in there for you. And so it's@maxwellleadership.com executive podcast. And then you'll be able to download that model. So make sure you get that, follow along.

Chris Cody (13:48)

And just to reiterate, in the middle of that model is the spark. But there's something before the flywheel, before the spark, and the flywheel after the spark. So before the spark. Well, first of all, I love the climate. I hadn't thought about, had that constantly changing, but I noticed you have it. It's on the right side of the spark. So after the spark, we have the team climate. And. But the other part of that was leadership communication and that you have. They have arrows going from leadership communication really has got the finger on the pulse of that climate. So that made a lot of sense. When you. For that side, go back to the before the spark, the three words there are recruitment, which we've touched on briefly, culture, which you were just talking about. The other word there is preparation. And I think this makes a lot of sense when I'm thinking about it in sports terms. Practice, practice, be prepared, be prepared. All that in the business world. The question I had written was, how did we prepare? When you talk about seizing a moment, the spark I want you to seize, I want you to see it and seize the moment of a spark. How do we prepare for that?

Don Jaeger (14:47)

So this is some of the discussion we had in the last session, right? But it's this concept of creating a culture within your organization, of thinking about the fact that momentum could be ours if we're ready for it when it happens. And so some of that is just as simple as we talked about in the last session and as maybe hosting a monthly lunch in which you throw, have everybody around the table and you say, hey, each one of you brings some crazy idea, something that could happen that could affect our business. Right? And as crazy as Your idea is once you've said, this just happened, we as a team around the table are going to talk about, and here's how we'll react. So what begins to occur is intellectually, you are beginning the process of believing, yes, external events are going to affect us. What's my eye on the external event? We go back to the story I shared with the basketball coach, Buzz Williams. How do you make sure you're ready and you know what the time, score and momentum is in the moment when it occurs so that you can be most ready to do something with it. So preparation is often this idea of just building, building a mind, you know, a mindset among people that we can create momentum. Sometimes it'll happen. Sometimes we'll design a new product that will just give us unbelievable mo but, but sometimes our opponent will design a new product and it'll flop like crazy, right. They'll go out, try to sell new Coke to people. Right. And so, you know, are. You got to think about it in both ways. What can we do to create momentum and what would we do if momentum, if an opportunity were created for us? So this idea of preparation is. It's a mental exercise carried out often. You're storyboarding, right. You're actually taking a story and you're creating. Well, what would happen to that? Right? And so the ability to do that is really important. Can I jump forward real quick? Because, Chris, one place I failed to answer your question about.

Perry Holly (16:58)

Absolutely.

Don Jaeger (16:59)

And mindset is that in the model, one of the things that happens so momentum doesn't go on forever. Right? Right. You know, just like the flywheel and in Jim Collins exercise, momentum doesn't go on forever. So there is an outcome that may, that may be created as a result of all of this good effort. And then it may be time for you to go back and get ready to get into, get into the pre momentum. So if you'll see out of outcome, it actually flows up and down. Right now an outcome has occurred. What's our feedback loop that we're giving ourselves? What did we learn from the moment and now? How do we get back into being ready for the next moment? How do we get back to being ready for the next spark? This is not that we're not creating for anyone a belief system that this is an evergreen experience. You're going to have this and once you get in momentum, you'll never have to stop. The truth is it, it does. Right? And when it does, you have to be ready, study what you did, learn from it, get back into the feedback loop on the front end. Be ready for the next spark.

Chris Cody (18:10)

Did you run into any best practices on that feedback loop? Because is it a. Ongoing in the, in the midst of the challenge, Is it a formal sit down afterwards, an after action review type of a thing? Is it all above? What do you.

Don Jaeger (18:23)

It's an after action review that occurs during action, right?

Chris Cody (18:27)

During, during action review.

Don Jaeger (18:29)

Probably the best example for me came from my work. I've gotten a chance to work with the Blue Angels over the last few years and to be part of their internal workings process, right? As you may or may not know, Blue Angels, you know, a practice has ended, a show has ended, good or bad, right? Whatever it is. And they, they, they walk into a room, limited, limited capacity room, just enough room for the pilots at the table and a few external people on the outside. Rank comes off the sleeve because now it no longer matters whether you're senior vice president like Chris, who likes to throw his weight around by throwing that title around, or whether you just.

Chris Cody (19:14)

Or nobody like me, or you're a

Don Jaeger (19:16)

slacker like you and me, Barry, right? So rank comes off and now it's an open discussion, right? Everybody, you're not going to offend me because I'm your superior officer. And we want feedback as the breakfast of champions, right? And so, and champions eat breakfast. So let's go to work on feedback. And so in that moment, it could be, it literally could be while everything is in process, hey, let's take a second and let's look at what we've done, what's worked, what's not, why not and how can we. And if it's worked, how can we amplify it, right? You don't wait for the whole thing to end, to go, oh, man, that was so cool.

Perry Holly (19:56)

What a fun run.

Don Jaeger (19:58)

All right, let's go back. This lasted three months that we've been in this really amazing streak. Let's go back. And you need to seek feedback throughout. And so it plays its role in understanding the outcomes that you've experienced.

Perry Holly (20:15)

I think continually through feedback through all of the different parts of this model. I keep thinking back to what we talked about last week about this transference of energy from me as the leader, anybody saying to the team, to the situation. It could be your family, it could be a volunteer group, it could be a community group, it could be. Right. I keep going back to this and Don, here's a question for you around. That is transference of energy. Do you see that as a leadership competency, meaning that is essential to A leader to be able to. They see the spark, prepare for the spark, lead them through the spark.

Don Jaeger (20:57)

Like, you know, belief in mindset, right? If.

Perry Holly (20:59)

Well, so that's the other thing.

Don Jaeger (21:01)

If the leader goes, oh, my God, this is the worst day ever, right? What does everybody else go, oh, my God, this is the worst day ever. And so, you know, you notice that, like, the best leaders in are those who understand how to project what they calm in the. In. In great moments. Like, you watch that Kurt Signetti guy from the university. From Indiana University, right? The coach.

Perry Holly (21:28)

Amazing.

Don Jaeger (21:28)

I mean, you can't tell if. If he's winning or he's going through a colonoscopy, right?

Perry Holly (21:35)

You cannot tell even when it's the national championship.

Don Jaeger (21:39)

He looks like he's going through a colonoscopy all the time, actually. But that's the deal, right? He has understood and he learned that at the best, right? He was with Nick Saban for years, and he studied what Saban did. His father was a coach and a great one, and so he understood that they feed off of his energy. Like, they can be excited, and he can be a little excited, but if he's a little excited, he's also going to have to maybe show a little disappointment in moments when things go poorly. And instead of throwing his arms up or slamming his, you know, his headphones down, as Steve Spurrier used to do. Sorry, I got to throw a little gator at you right now, Gody. Because your son is now a coach there. But, you know, in that idea, he understands that as a leader, they're going to feed off of what I do. And so, yes, it is a complete competency. I agree with you. And the best leaders. No, you are being watched and, and, and your simple actions, right? I mean, if, if you walk into the bathroom to scream, everybody's gonna, oh, my God, he just walked. I mean, you know, that's right. You be careful. Be careful.

Chris Cody (22:53)

Calm is contagious, and everybody's watching for sure. So I'm fascinated. You've already mentioned this, but I, I wrote the quote down out of the book because it was so direct about the A players, the people on the team and how they handle each other. You said for a team to seize momentum, it requires. So this is very, very direct. For a team to seize momentum. It requires that nearly all team members are willing to do what's best for the team. Team success is a much higher priority than individual success. And you've talked about that, about, if you're celebrating the junior person, what's the senior person doing, are they patting them on the back? Are they in the corner going, why not me? So this is part of the. It's culture. It's also recruitment. It's everything on the before the spark about having the right mix of people. I just wondered, is there again, is it a best practice in hiring? Is it best practice in team leader communication, getting the right people on the team in the right seats type of thing? I wonder, what did you find? Because this can be a problem if you got people that are wanting the best for themselves and the spark is happening. But everybody's worried about the drama, not the spark.

Don Jaeger (24:01)

No, they're worried that the spark is not going to be good for me. Right. Because this spark, what's going to happen is our second largest client has just made a massive decision to do something big with us. But by the way, I'm not the sales guy on our second largest client. It's good for the us. Doesn't do me any good. Right. So where am I in that moment? And as we said, if you're not recruiting the right people, I mean, we want people that want to win, but you have to want to win and enjoy that others do too. And most. And there are a lot of a dogs out there who, you know, will go out and slash your tires because you just. Because you just got the deal they wanted. Right. And, and, and, and we've all been around those folks, right?

Perry Holly (24:48)

Yes.

Don Jaeger (24:49)

We've witnessed a few of them in our careers. And so we have to be careful because yes, we want dogs, yes, we want people that want to win. But if, if it's a win above all mentality, then what you ultimately find is that there's a. There's that opportunity for them to work against the greater good of the organization, the greater good of the moment, the greater good of the opportunity for us to capture the spark and do something special.

Perry Holly (25:18)

Yeah, right.

Chris Cody (25:18)

Yeah. I think the Pippin story really solidified it for me. Is there something you can really remember thinking, I don't want to. I don't want to pull a pippin.

Perry Holly (25:24)

You don't pull a pippin. Don't pull a pippin.

Chris Cody (25:27)

Yeah, do that.

Perry Holly (25:28)

I want to encourage our listeners if you think this content's good. I think one of Don's greatest gifts is telling stories.

Chris Cody (25:35)

He is a story.

Perry Holly (25:36)

And, and he's got a book coming out September 15th. The the business of Storytelling. I get that. Right, Don.

Don Jaeger (25:43)

That's it.

Perry Holly (25:43)

And Perry kind of called him out. He's like, man, you're producing Books like John Maxwell over here. Well, we got to put you to work.

Chris Cody (25:49)

Yeah, I think John.

Perry Holly (25:50)

Let's talk about that.

Chris Cody (25:50)

John called, he said, what's going on over here?

Perry Holly (25:52)

That's right. So the very cool thing is Don told us that they're going to do a pre release book club and that's going to be called the. The Circle of Storytellers. And so if you're interested in that, I want you or anybody on your team, I want you to go to donjaeger Circle and you'll be able to sign up for there and you'll get more information about that. Again, pass this along, have a conversation with your team about momentum. Tell them about the storytelling, because the content you're going to get from Don, while it has great stories and principles, it's so applicable to what we're doing in leadership. So, Don, thanks for joining us, buddy, and just sharing some of your wisdom and your research and your study. For me. I look at this and I go, man, it is my responsibility as a leader to create momentum, to prepare for it, to create it, to sustain it, and then let it die, which is very key. We talked about this. But get ready to go up because you're either going to have spurts of it or you're going to be explaining why you don't have it. And that may be on the exit row. Exit interview on your way out.

Don Jaeger (26:57)

Exactly. And the bottom line is momentum is going to exist in your industry. It just. And if it's not yours at this moment, there are things you should do and we talk, we can talk about those, but there are also an understanding that if you have it, and I think it's really important if you have it, understand this doesn't last forever. So don't be disappointed when suddenly, you know, that really amazing run comes to a close. Just be ready to go start the next one.

Perry Holly (27:25)

That's right.

Don Jaeger (27:26)

And that's where you know, it's that. Play off the experience, play off the enthusiasm, get ready to go, to go do this time after time, because that's how you win.

Chris Cody (27:38)

Fantastic. Well, Don, it's been just a pleasure, as always, to be with you and to hear your wisdom. And just a reminder to our listeners that if you'd like to learn more about what Don's doing, learn more about our offerings, learn about Don's podcast. You can do all that@maxwellleadership.com executive podcast. You can also leave us a comment or a question there. We love hearing from you. Very grateful you spend this time with us. That's all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.