← Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 544 - ForAfrika COO Jim Lutzweiler - Game-Changing Habits Every Top COO Uses Now
01:00:07
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- [00:00]
A
It's the people that don't say a word that are missing opportunities left and right. One to promote yourself if nothing else. Hey, did I tell you about this great thing? Because it works both ways. I mean, we started this with kind of the negative side of issues and how you capture that. But at the same time, no one's going to promote you better than you, particularly if you want people to know about what's going on within your business unit.
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B
Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold. In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now here's your co host, former COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer. Today's guest is Jim Lutzweiler, Group Chief Operating Officer at For Africa, an organization dedicated to unlocking Africa's abundant resources to help its people thrive. Jim brings over 25 years of global experience across more than 100 countries, having worked with governments, NGOs, Fortune 500 companies and foundations to drive large scale impact. In this conversation, Jim, Jim shares the hard truths about change management and how he tackles operational silos, aligns a globally distributed executive team and leads through complexity with what he calls a no surprise policy. If you're looking to sharpen your leadership across cultures or wondering how to lead a mission driven organization with precision and heart, this one is for you. Let's dive in. We are live with Jim. Welcome to the show.
- [01:57]
A
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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B
Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to this. I was sharing a little bit about my personal interest with the work that you guys do. So I think this one's going to be full of impact and your experience is really broad. Even though you've been with this company for two years, you've done a lot. So why don't you start us off there, give us a little bit of background on yourself and how did you find yourself at For Africa?
- [02:21]
A
How did I get here? It's a good question. Yeah. To summarize or be succinct, my international development career started in the Peace Corps, so I finished my undergrad work with dual degrees in political science and philosophy and decided I didn't know much. So I figured that might as well go out into the world and see what contributions I can make and or learn. And it certainly ended up that I learned a heck of a lot more than I contributed. Right. At least at that point in my life. So that was a great experience. Went out there in. I was in the northwest region of Ghana in the Upper West. And for those who grew up in America, whatever you're envisioning Africa was is exactly what it was, right? Guinea, savannah, mud hut, you know, no running water, hole in the ground, the whole thing. So I lived that experience and it really changed my life, to be honest. And it did set me on the course for my career. So that's why I spend so much time talking about that in my experience. Then I came back and I needed to process what just happened to me. I'm a process guy. So I experienced all of this culture and understanding really how the world worked in terms of why were people poor and why were systems broken and what was the issue and all those things that quite frankly, in America we don't really think about unless you're in certain quadrants of society. So I came back, I got a fellowship at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh at the Graduate center for Social and Public Policy. So I got a policy master's and then went right back to Africa. And then that started a 10 or 11 year career in Africa, living in different countries. Nigeria, Cameroon, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, some time in South Sudan, and just went from one story to the next in large international NGOs. And that's how I built my career. And then one way or another came back to the United States. I married my wife in Nigeria along the way and so she wanted to come to the U.S. i think I was, I was happy to keep going, but we had to make a decision. And so we came back to be based in the us but my career has always remained in international development, pretty much in one way or another throughout my career. And primarily focused on Africa. There were a few deviations. I took a turn at PepsiCo for a while. I was at AARP. I headed up the hunger programs at the AARP foundation and yeah, a few other small stints elsewhere where CEOs had asked me to come in and solve some problems, some of which we'll probably get into. But yeah, for the most part it's been Africa focused and international development focused.
- [05:08]
B
Career really cool. What was the piece that inspired you to spend so much time in Africa and really your whole career to kind of center around that? What was that? Because some, there's a lot of people that go to Africa and see what's going on or any part of the world, but they don't actually make their whole life about that. So what was that for You.
- [05:29]
A
That's true. I think a couple things. The. For the people, Africa is a continent of 54 countries, right? But there are some common themes that run through throughout the cultures. But there definitely. There's distinctions between eastern and southern and central and west. And my teeth were cut in West Africa, which is spicy food and a lot of lab music, which is really. It resonated with me, right? So I really got on with understanding the culture and just the vibrancy of, I'll say, Africans writ large, but particularly in West Africa, the life, the lifestyle, the energy and just the passion with which they live life in the conditions that are there was amazing to me. And I was most intrigued with how people are wired that way, right? I'm like, but we have all this and you don't have that. And it was looking, I was looking at the wrong things, right? So it's understanding the value of family, understanding the value of tradition, understanding the value of culture and all these things. And it just gave me different appreciation for really my own, to be honest. And that that's probably primarily what attracted me. But the second thing is I'm a chronic serial problem solver, right? And I saw, I saw problems and challenges everywhere. And I'm like, why is that? Like that? Why is, why does that happen? And then you start peeling that onion and you realize just how complex these societies are and even in our own, again, taking those lessons and applying them here and saying, well, why is this and that like that? Well, you have to trace it back to here. So, you know, understanding how to make progress, you actually have to look backward and understand how you got to this point and then be able to, you know, one, if you think you're smart enough, recommend things that you think might work. But that's only after, you know, listening for quite some time. So I think it's a combination of those two things between the passion of the people and sort of wanting to solve complex problems.
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B
When I was 19, I went to Mexico for the first time on a house build project. And they took us this one afternoon to go. This one area is basically like horse stalls, like these 10 by 10 cement structures with this really rough looking roof over it. And they're telling me that these are these families homes and there's nothing in there. Like, I mean there's no bed. It's just like there might be some pots and stuff on the floor. And at that same time, like 10 minutes later, the kids come running out because we had brought all of these foods and gifts and toys and all the kids come running out from all of the cells, basically. And I have a picture. Well, it was a video that I got it screenshotted as a picture. I have a video of these two little girls that me and my friend were playing with. And they were laughing. It makes me emotional. They were laughing and smiling, like, just so full of joy while I'm looking at their hair. And they have lice just completely infested on them. And I have it printed out on a canvas in my house. It's just a constant reminder of gratitude because if. If people can find joy in environments like that. Ooh. Like my. My problems are, you know, it's just a different perspective. So I really resonated with what you said in that sense. And I think it's really beautiful, your heart in that. With the decision to join for Africa, what was it about them specifically? I mean, what do they do? Who are you specifically serving and why was that your next career path?
- [09:18]
A
Yeah, sure. In truth or confession, this is my second time with this organization. So the first time around, we went through a rebranding before I came the second time in 2021 or 22. We used to be joint aid management jam and then converted to for Africa when the current CEO took control of the organization, which his parents founded. So he's the son of the co founders, Peter and Ann Pretorius. So I worked for the first time from 2008 to 2013 with his name is. We were based here in Washington and our job was to penetrate the US Government and figure out how to get resources from USAID or USDA or wherever they might the U.S. government agencies. And so we spent six years together building a pretty good USDA portfolio of food aid distribution. So Food for Progress McGovernall. In fact, some of the programs that you see now visibly with the recent cuts to USAID and cuts to foreign aid, these programs were historic in feeding hundreds of millions of people literally over the last 60 years. So we were part of that primarily in Angola and Mozambique. So we distributed commodities for at least five years in those countries for USDA and for the governments of those countries. So that's what we did the first time around, building those pipelines. So the second time around, when Isak became CEO, he asked me to come on and help look at their revenue and development and figure out how we're going to be able to identify new and diverse funding streams. And this was before USAID was eliminated. Right. So we. Luckily we were already on a path to diversification, but since we didn't have historically, apart from those grants and funding that we had in 08 to 13 since that time for Africa hadn't developed a large pipeline of USAID funding. So it was more European focused European governments. World Food Program. I think our largest donor by far is World Food Program, particularly in South Sudan. We did a stint in Uganda, but I think some of those programs got cut. UNICEF is another big partner and in Mozambique as well. So yeah, so it was to figure out how we're going to diversify those, those revenue streams and then a year and a half into it, yeah, USAID went away in the stroke of a pen. And so it's not just USAID though, it's the ripple effects within the, we'll call it an international development ecosystem. Right. And so the tentacles of U. S funding goes very deep and wide. And I think that was part of the administration's goal was to dry up all those tentacles. Right. Because you're, you're funding agencies that you have never heard of. You know, you're funding programs through UN agencies that, you know, the US Government has no oversight of. You know, there's any number of reasons that can, you know, justify that. But the net impact was governments are taking their cue from the US now, although I think the UK Was really the, the first major donor to go through this transition because they used to have DFID and then it went to the fcdo. So they folded their version of USAID into their Ministry of Foreign affairs, which is our State Department. Right. So the model is not inconsistent with precedent. It's just that the level and impact that the changes had within the US Government were globally felt. It was magnanimous. So yeah, figuring out how we're going to exist in that environment was a challenge. It still is a challenge. But in, in the midst of that part of my job that I was brought in to do was to fill key positions and figure out, you know, leadership succession planning and things like that. So I found a great individual and hopefully we'll come to this. Hiring is one of the key master strokes of any successful executive, let alone coo. And we've been very fortunate to be able to attract and retain some really high caliber folks. And so the woman who we brought in replaced me as Chief Revenue Officer and that's how I became Chief Operating Officer. So I moved into this role after having started as the Chief Revenue Officer. Yeah.
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B
Okay. How big is your guys team?
- [14:20]
A
That's a good question. So I think the immediate executive team, we are six plus the CEO seven. I think that's correct. Yeah, I think that's there. And then there's the wider senior management team. That's basically if you're a director or above. And I think that I will say is probably 30 folks and that's spread out over eight countries. And what we call GSO, the Global Support Office is like a centralized remote HQ. We don't have an HQ anymore because everybody lives in a different country. Our HQ is on Teams. Right. So you know, that's about, that's about as close as we get centrally, but between. Yeah, the, the physical locations that we have in countries where we operate and, and gso. So that's, that's how we're stratified.
- [15:18]
B
Nice. Well, let's talk about the hiring. I'd be so curious. Are you the one that runs all of the hiring for all the different departments and countries or what is your specific role entail and what part of the hiring process are you involved in?
- [15:33]
A
Sure. Now I, I wish I was because that actually asked me a question before. Passionate about. It's finding good people, right. Really passionate about building good teams and figuring out ways to optimize their contributions and their potential. Because everyone is different. Every composition is different. No matter what a title is kind of. It whitewashes some things. Right. Because everybody has a different skill set. Even though they might have a common title, they definitely have one or two attributes that other people don't have. So there's always going to be a different chemistry that you need to pull together. And that's why it's like reading the room is so important. Right. Being able to figure out not only personalities and how people operate, but getting to know people and realizing that, not that you would ever figure out that that person took. They're a CPA or they're an accountant, yet they're, you know, they're dealing with program stuff and. Right. So it's like, wow, that's interesting. So people have different skill sets that they bring to the team. So specifically where I am, I'm in, I'm involved for those positions that are within my vertical. Right. So right now, the way we run an EOS management system. So the entrepreneurial operating system. Yeah, yeah. So I'm the integrator within that system. So all the executive roles report to me and then I report to the CEO. But each of the business units, each of the business functions is responsible for whatever's in their vertical. So if it's programs, you know, our Chief Program Officer is responsible for programs. If it's finance, it's the cfo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So when I was the CRO, I was responsible for building out the business development team and the revenue related positions. But as I am now, they took all my toys away. So now I don't get to, I don't get to play with, you know, hiring people. Now I just get an opinion, right? Which is okay because, you know, I have faith and trust in the people that are there, right? But nonetheless, to say I find looking for an identifying talent is the key to success. You can have a map, you can have a strategy, you got to have a great idea and a vision that there's no doubt about that you have to have some product that's worthy no matter what it is. But if you don't have people that can execute it and understand how to be a team player within that environment, it's not going to work. It's just, you know, because ultimately you can't be one person doing anything or two people, right? Particularly if you want your business or your organization to scale at impact, right? So now I'm down to offering advice on positions. But for a long time and in previous roles, I was like a serial monogamist there for a while because CEOs were bringing me in for first stints of basically solving either management issues or strategy issues or whatever the case was. And normally I ended up staying about two, two and a half years and then moving on to the next because once the problems are solved, I get bored and then I gotta find the next challenge. So within that environment, I've had the opportunity to interview dozens and dozens of people on different roles and levels. But the common trait through all of that is it really is how you're going to fit on the team. And the way I describe my sort of team building is it's like a BMW engine. Every role, every part has its function that it plays. And you need the other parts to play their function in order for that thing to work, right? It's optimizing people's contributions within a system that makes sense, that people can understand, right? Because it's all about visibility and accountability and communication. That's the engine part, right? And if those parts don't fit properly, it doesn't matter how well your carburetor operates if it's not connected to, you know, to the engine in a proper way, right? So all of those things need to operate in a way that's going to maximize everybody's potential and contribution, because that's the only thing that's going to scale the organization and they're going to have to want to do it because every day there's going to be a reason why you question yourself about why, why am I doing this? Right? Because it's, you know, at this level, it's, it's all about problem solving, right? And you're, and you're tending to solve problems other people can't solve. That's why you're solving them. Right? So you're getting the complex, most complex of the complex problems. So if you don't have a machine that's set up to be able to adapt and handle that type of stress and pressure in an optimal way, there's no way you're going to scale. So when I think about teams and hiring, I already have that blueprint in my mind. So it's really, it's about knowing what you want and how to fill that role. I think a lot of times people fall victim to filling a title, right? And it's not about that. Titles are, you know, they serve a function and a purpose. And we need a management hierarchy, particularly for people outside of your organization. Right. They need to know, well, where do you sit? Because everybody wants to know, where are you in the system? Well, that helps for that, but it doesn't really help for how you actually run your management team. Right. You have to know the reason why they're there. What job are they actually performing, what gap are they filling in the overall business function of either your executive team or your senior management team. And that's how you can tell whether people need to stay or go. Right. It shouldn't be a mystery because something in the engine isn't operating properly. Right? And that's where performance management comes in. And then you can document stuff and say, well, we've got to operate at this level and this is our standard and this is how we quantify that. And if you're not at that, then you have to have a conversation. So anyway, that's a long way of answering.
- [21:34]
B
That's great. Yeah, thank you. No, it's perfect. I mean, what I'm hearing is it sounds like kind of zoomed out, you've got this. I was wondering, I was like, this guy seems like he's got like an engineering degree. Just like the way that your brain works with like the systems and the process. I'm thinking, zooming out, like seeing where all of the pieces lead. And then you kind of go from there with your KPIs and your hiring and making sure people are in the right, right places. And one of the things that stood out to me is wondering when you're having everyone reporting to you, and maybe you're. You don't have the skills or experience in what they're doing per se, like yourself. You weren't in that role. How do you find when those breakdowns are happening? Like you said, when something's not working, how do you figure out where that's coming from and actually picking the right place? Because sometimes it can feel confusing. Especially I think this is something that we might talk about. You had mentioned in your preform. Around silos and teams are disconnected. One team is saying it's this, and another team is saying it's this. What's your strategy for finding what the actual problem is, like, where that's coming from?
- [22:38]
A
I like that. It's a good question. Some are pleasant, some are unpleasant. And I think the way to again start to unpack an answer before I give the answer. But I'm a straight shooter, truth teller. I want to know the facts, right? Don't spin me up anything about X, Y and Z. Just, I just want the facts, you know, just like Dragnet. Just the facts, man. So we can just get at, okay, what's the situation without any color around it, right? And the way that you find out about things are. There are several ways. One, the most unpopular and unpleasant way is something exploded, right? Something went sideways, either visibly, publicly or otherwise, internally. And I have a management principle that I think is helpful because ever since I have been implementing it, it's sort of worked. I have a no surprises policy. Like, I don't want to be surprised.
- [23:37]
B
By anything like that.
- [23:38]
A
Right, yeah, no surprises, please. To the extent that you can control them, obviously there's always, you know, not always, but there are going to be times when, oh, okay, now we got to deal with it, right? But to the extent possible, what it does is it forces your managers and your executives to think more broadly than their narrow little world, right? They're like, you have to think about impact, right? Oh, how is this going to impact that? And you know, okay, maybe I got to think about that. Is it a person? Is it a product that didn't work out? Is it a program that didn't work? Is there something that's going to end up on the front of the newspaper? Which is, you know, that. That's another thing that you think about. And so that leads to the second way which you find out, which is hopefully whether it's just by sharing information or FYI or whatever, you know, the, the executive or the senior manager is sharing information and they're like, hey, this thing's going on over here. We had it under control, but now, you know, the person went and fired four other people and now we gotta, you know, bring in, you know, the fixer to go see what's going on over in Uganda. Right. For example. So, you know, that's the other way. But having systems in place like reporting and sort of that thing, that's everyday stuff. And you're hoping because you've got business as usual, right. So you've got to report out on X, Y and Z. Like you were saying, the indicators and whatever the business. Like the gears, I call that the gears. Like the gears are moving. How are the gears doing? Do they need grease? Did one pot fall off? Or what's the case? But what you're talking about here are sort of higher, higher order issues that need to be forecasted and captured and dealt with. Because sometimes you can mitigate and you can, you know, you mitigate that risk or the potential impact of whatever that issue might be. Some you can't, you just gotta, you know, well, the person went off the handle and, you know, they quit and they decided to go on Twitter about it. Right. And about X, Y and Z. Right. So there's just stuff that you've all, you've always got to be in damage control mode thinking, even if you never need to deploy it. Right. It's always about risk mitigation. So, you know, hopefully if the managers are sharing information the way they should. Which gets to your silo question. I think what a lot of senior folks that I've come across, some of which I'm dealing with now, I don't think they see the value in sharing what they're doing. Like because in their world they got it under control. I got no problems over here. I'm good. Yeah, well, no one else knows that. I don't particularly, I don't know that. And your colleague over here doesn't know that. And I know that she doesn't know that because she's reliant on X, Y and Z. So it's having that understanding of really the value of information and communication. And if people, and I'll tell you what, the people that are smart know how to use that to their advantage. It's the people that don't say a word that are missing opportunities left and right. One to promote yourself, if nothing else. Hey, did I tell you about this great thing? Because it works both ways. I mean, we started this with kind of the negative side of issues and how you capture that. But at the same time, no one's going to promote you better than you. Particularly if you want people to know about what's going on within your business unit. You can be your best advocate. So yeah, so I think tying together those pieces in that way makes a lot of sense. Hey, it's Cameron Herald, your high energy leadership guru, here to pump you up on the Second in Command podcast. If you get frustrated because your managers aren't leading like you want them to be, check out my game changing leadership course@investinyourleaders.com that's investinyourleaders.com for just 347 per leader you get 30 years. My proven experience straight from taking 1-800-got junk from 2 million to 106 million as COO and it's packed with 12 easy modules. Learn situational leadership coaching, delegation, conflict management and more all in under six hours@investinyourleaders.com with straight to the point videos, worksheets and real life scenarios, your team will master time management, be able to hire a players and get aligned with your vision. It's all backed by a 30 day money back guarantee and raved about by hundreds of CEOs and thousands of managers already learning from the content. Grab this now and watch your business soar.
- [28:12]
B
Why do you think people stay quiet even if things are going really well?
- [28:17]
A
That's a good question. I don't know. I'm not one of those people, right? I mean, I guess I end up to be in my role because I'm, I'm always probing questions about X, Y and Z, whether it's good or bad. I mean, some of it can be personality driven. Some people are just quiet, you know, they're just don't have much to say or you know, they're, they're more thinker than, than promoter. But it's not even about that. It's about being a good communicator, right? You don't have to be verbose or go on a podcast like talk for 45 minutes to be a good communicator. It could be five minutes of very insightful wisdom that makes a difference in a decision or you know, somebody's career or whatever. And that's the way I think about when I interject or speak. It's like, okay, what is the value of what I'm about to say? Because everybody has an opinion, right? It's just that you happen to ask me about my opinions about this stuff. So now I get to share that, but everybody has an opinion about X, Y and Z. And I think it's about being precise with that. And maybe it's a lack of confidence. Right. Maybe someone doesn't want to say something even though they have tremendous amount of experience and potential to contribute. I'm not quite sure, but yeah, so everybody's different in that regard. But I think the lesson there though is to, you know, I heard once from one of my mentors, God gave us two ears and one mouth and we should use it in that proportion. So that's always stuck with me.
- [29:51]
B
On the flip side of that, this would be just kind of putting myself out there in this spotlight. I'm the person that probably shares too much information and I sometimes like, I think people need to know all the things that I'm working on. And that's something I've worked on over, you know, some time. What is the way that you communicate to your team about what is important to you? What are the pieces that you're wanting to be filtered up and what are those like reporting systems or the channels that you have daily for that?
- [30:22]
A
Yeah, it's a good question. We held 10 meetings. So we have the integrator meeting that I lead as COO and so all the senior executives there. So we run a standard EOS agenda in the meeting. So you know, you've got your scorecard and your racks, which are basically your, you know, your key objectives, your top line objectives. You've got your to do list, which are things that maybe came out of the previous meeting that other people or yourself came away with. Oh, I got to do that. And then you work through that and then you've got the IDS session, which is basically ideas. They can be challenges or topics or issues or whatever. But the question is, to your point, how do you get on the agenda, the things that need to be on the agenda. So I will either ask, right, because we have a reporting framework and for us we're in the midst of a. I'm going to take another minute to unpack this to give you a longer answer. We're in the midst of a change management process and really changing the revenue model of the organization. The DNA and the roots of the organization are philanthropic. So you go and you raise money and then you leverage that money against UN contracts and you're able to carry out programs in remote rural places. Right. So it's a philanthropy driven model. You need unrestricted funds in order to match funding and basically pay for your overheads. Right. So that's. And then you're able to execute really wherever you want and kind of in whatever domain you want, which is, that's the benefit of that. Being able to identify opportunities to have multi year, multimillion dollar contracts is a whole nother thing. And the reporting within that is very different. Right? So the reporting system and structure within institutional donors primarily. Right. Are much more rigorous. So there's going to be a lot more data that needs to be collected and systems set up. And so the again, understanding how those gears are turning, right? Are they raw, are they rusty, are they slow, are they smooth in any degrees, what do you need? Blah, blah, blah. And being able to get more precise about the execution of the programs is important, right? So there's going to be more data that's coming out. So as we're making this transition, we're less about measuring what happened in the past and are worried about what's happening in the next 60 days, what's happening in the next 90 days. And that's honestly, no matter what organization you're in, you're either measuring what you did or you're being able to forecast where you're going. Right? And so data is useful and you need it and you need a retrospective look, what did we hit, what did we do, where did we miss? Whatever. And that can inform the future, but it doesn't forecast the roadblocks or the challenges or those critical success factors that need to be hit as you're going 60 miles an hour down the road, right? It doesn't pay to look in the rear view mirror at that point. So it's, how do you get people to think forward? And this is not, this does come natural to people. People want to solve the problems that are in front of them today because they're like, I gotta do this, this, this and this. But getting senior executives out of the gears and into the cabin of the ship where you got to be looking out and like that's your job. And then you message down to your people, this is, you know, this is where, that's what leadership's about, right? So being able to get in that transition is where we are now to, to where we, in fact, in this quarter we're making the transition from basically kind of doing reviews of data of what happened, to developing a new reporting system for how we're going to be able to, to think about the future, the near term. I'm not talking about strategy, right, Like, I'm talking about what's happening in the next execution term, quarter that we need to look at and Then you start, you know, measuring those things, progress against that. So it's, it's setting up the concept again and it's about really codifying a way to think about those critical issues that are coming up and being able to one, mitigate risk. If you're going to hit the iceberg, you're going to hit it. But let's have lifeboats, right. Or is there an opportunity to turn and miss it altogether? Which is ideal, I would imagine. Right. So yeah, that's, I'll tell you how it goes. If you have a follow up, if you're not quite there yet.
- [34:52]
B
Awesome.
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A
So that's the, that's the plan. Yeah.
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B
Do you guys have any structure in place for your leadership teams to be in future mode, like getting out of the weeds? Like do you guys have a day where everyone comes together and it's like, hey, we're talking about the next 90 days, only the things that are going to come up and the roadblocks we see. Or is it more just an expectation that they do this during their day?
- [35:17]
A
There are, there's always two sides, three sides to this. Because yes, it has to happen at different levels, right. It has to happen at the executive level for alignment. Right. You have to make sure ship, you all agree that that's where we're going, right. And then it's your perspective on the ship. Someone's looking at this window, someone's looking out that window, someone's looking down. I'm doing whatever. Because that's where their teams are situated. Right. And, and you've got operations folks, finance folks, program folks, business development folks. Everybody's got a different lens that needs to be dealt with within their own team. Right. So it's got to be at this, at the senior level together. Then it's got to be disaggregated and then it's gotta be disseminated and absorbed into the organization. And absorption is your true litmus test of success.
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B
Right.
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A
And it's not about having a great idea or a great vision. There's a lot of great visions out there. Those that are successful and can scale are those who have figured out mechanisms to get adoption and absorption in their own organization. Then that's gonna probably have the resulting impact that you want, right. In, in terms of the external execution of what you're doing. So to answer your question, the, the executive team gets together once a quarter in person. So we've, wherever we are in the world, we get together in one location. So quarterly in person meetings, game changer critical has to Be in person. Right. No teams or zoom or whatever.
- [36:48]
B
Why do you think it's important in person?
- [36:50]
A
Because when, you know, once you turn the zoom off, I'm not saying that people are going to revisit the meeting, but ultimately you're going to pick up on one or two themes with the colleagues that you're sitting with, and you're going to want to unpack that a little bit. Right. And inevitably there may be an adult beverage close by, cold and. Or dark and some sort of bourbon that helps facilitate honest conversation. Right. Hopefully it's not too. More honest than what you were already saying, but there's a social dimension and interaction to solving problems or having discussions that you can't get through the flat screen. Like, I wish we were sitting together. Right. Like, I wish that we were in a place where we could actually.
- [37:33]
B
Yeah.
- [37:33]
A
And I guarantee you, I'm not saying the conversation would be different, but when this thing is over, we would have another conversation about who knows what. Right. So it's sort of layering on the personal with the professional and being able to. Because that's where the fabric comes. Right. That's where this comes from. And that's where trust is built, to be honest. And so, you know, the more personal interaction you can get, the better. And it'll do one of two things. It'll either reinforce the trust or it will erode it. Right. And then you've got then. But then at least you know what issues, you know, you're dealing with. But two hours on a zoom on a flat screen is. It's not a real litmus test of that. Right.
- [38:13]
B
Yeah.
- [38:13]
A
Anyway, that's. That's my perspective of it.
- [38:16]
B
Well, I, I have, my personal experience with this is very similar to you that in person. Once we switched some of our executive. Some. All of our executive quarterly meetings to in person, it was a game changer. And actually our first one, we ended up firing someone the day after who was instrumental in our leadership team. It's actually how I ended up finding myself in the COO role was because we hired someone to replace her. He did not hit the mark. And they were like svada. We think you should just take over this whole department. And that's how my role kind of grew up. But, you know, there was one person that broke trust and there was other people who were building trust in that. And the same with team off sites, like your whole team. We found that for us, the cost of doing that, it seemed really expensive. It was really expensive. And the retention, that happens when you get people together in person and the bonds that are formed. And you know, it's just one thing to like meet for an hour on Zoom every day and you're talking about business versus, you know, playing ping pong and hearing about people's families and their hobbies. It makes, it makes a big difference, 100%.
- [39:22]
A
We're social creatures, I mean, by our DNA, right. So we're meant to be together. And then to your point, it will either reinforce that or it will expose something that you're not quite picking up over, you know, sort of a. I don't want to say a canned environment, but it is. Right. It's like you're creating a sort of a, a two dimensional way of communicating for a period of time. It's controlled. Right. And just seeing how people react. How do people check into the hotel, how do they treat the waitstaff, how do you know all that stuff that you're seeing, how someone interacts, that is all a definition of your character. And it's just, it's hard to get it if you're not in person with people.
- [40:08]
B
Yeah, I think I saw. Maybe this was on Shark Tank. I don't know. It was some like, investor show I watched years ago where he said that he, one of his, like, tactics for deciding who he would invest in was he would actually like hire someone to pick this person up and act like they were the driver and he would report back to him how the person he picked up treated him. Were they asking questions, were they curious, were they engaged, were they present? Or were they just like back on their phone, like on calls and disrespectful? And I just thought that was to your point. Seeing people in the kind of every day picking up on those little things can make a big impact on what you see that you don't see on a Zoom meeting. When it comes to the change management types of. You said you've done that multiple times. You come in and you fix some things and you solve all the problems and you go on to the next thing. What are some of like the most common problems that you encounter?
- [41:07]
A
Let me clarify. I don't solve problems right, but I don't walk into situations that are not right. But I think what the, how I would classify it is again, having an approach to solving problems. And again, the solution is the right people. Right. It's that right combination of people that are actually going to solve problems. So if, if I take credit for anything, it would be that I hired the right people and then that engagement or that Combination of folks was the right solution, right? And look, every time it didn't work, there were one or two pieces that didn't fit for whatever reason or another. Because again, no matter how intuitive, I'm a highly intuitive person and I think having operated on the continent for a long time, you sort of develop senses of. Of folks, right? Africans writ large are fairly intuitive folks. So I think I picked up some of that skill set having spent so much time there. But sometimes you get it wrong, right? And that's okay. Nobody's perfect, right? But to your point about the common themes, what are they? Wrong people, wrong seats. Almost inevitably I was brought in to. I don't want to say, you know, not chainsaw Al. Like we weren't getting rid of like, you know, 50,000 people, but there were some people in key positions that were the problem, right? So there was a personnel issue, right. That had to be. Had to be switched out. Some cases where the CEO and the board had made a decision that the organization was going to take a departure from the direction they were going historically and what the culture of the organization was. And there's a little bit of this where we are now, but historically the organization was doing X, Y and Z. Well, the board said X, Y and Z. Well, there's going to be some passive and active resistance at the senior management or executive level to those changes. That was another type of experience that I've had in the past and having to deal with that. And then the third commonality is really around strategy and planning. It's like people were saying, if you don't have the right people that are there, people in leadership positions who are not able to produce a plan are the wrong people. No matter what, you need a plan. I'm not saying it's got to be the best thing. And I think that's another part of the problem is I'm an 80% guy. I'm just being honest. The time it takes to get that last 20% of precision is not worth it. Almost nine times out of 10, the ROI you're going to squeeze out of that is not going to be worth it. Right? Unless you're in like manufacturing, where you've got to be precise, or you're producing the next widget out of Apple or whatever. That's different. I'm talking about in my world. So you've got to be broad stroke, directionally correct. You got to be able to understand the forces that are at play in governments and politics and fundamentals, funding and fundraising and all those things. All Sort of very qualitative type things. Right. So you've got to be able to navigate in there and leave a little bit of flexibility to be honest. Right. You can't be so rigid that you're boxed into some strategy that you're like, we have to move from here to here. Now, you're going to encounter three things during the quarter that you didn't see coming. Nobody saw USAID going away. I tell you that. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. So there's always. There's something always that you're going to have to adapt to. So being able to have a solid strategy that answers all the core questions and as long as it brings clarity. Right. Like leadership teams, they need clarity. What's my role? What am I responsible for? What am I going to be held accountable for? And that's the other thing that I have come. And this probably, I'll round up this on your. On your question was people who were in positions before I got there didn't know how to hold other people accountable. It was like they wanted to be their friend, like, oh, I can't do that. You know, I'm compassionate and, you know, they've got this issue and this blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. Like, I get all that. And there are times to be compassionate and we should. Right. As a leadership team and take all those things into account. But those should be instances and not the norm.
- [45:40]
B
Right.
- [45:41]
A
And so you have to hold people accountable and know how to do it. I'm not talking about raking them over to Kohl's. There's got to be a way to just hold people accountable. And other than that, you've got an undisciplined, running, roughshod leadership team that is doing what they want and it's not necessarily what's best for the organization. And I think that's ultimately, at least my North Star. And comes down to ultimately, what's the best decision to be made for the organization and how am I going to enforce that?
- [46:12]
B
Do you think that's harder in a company like this where people are. And maybe this is kind of tied into the hiring question, too. But I would imagine people who are working with For Africa, they have a huge heart, they're aligned with the mission, they want to make an impact. And so then when they're not hitting the mark, there's probably there could be, I could imagine even deeper feeling of, man, I'm just not good enough. And also from a management perspective, like, you know, people's hearts and why they want to be there so bad that maybe you let them stay a little bit longer. Do you think that that's a part of that?
- [46:52]
A
Yes, because you're. Yes. Within the NGO or nonprofit or the community, international development, professional development organizations, whatever you want to call this constellation of organizations that try to do good. Right. But we also try to do good business at the same time. Right. That's a transition that needs to happen. Right. So you will get some people that have signed up for a mission. Right. But that's not to be confused with the passion why somebody will join an organization because that's like super key to anybody really performing. They gotta be passionate about what they're doing. So it's not to conflate those things. You don't want it to remove anybody's passion. You don't want, you don't want to like sanitize them down or put them in through some indoctrination program. Because you got to exist like this type of organization. The magic is to be able to keep them passionate about the ultimate mission of the organization. But how we're going to achieve that outcome is going to change. Right. You got to sign up to the how. Because some people just want to, you know, extreme cases in other places I've worked. Some people just want to get up in the morning and pray for their people, right? Yes, that's a good thing. Somebody should be doing that. But then there's the individual that wants to go out there and actually talk to government officials and talk to donors and figure out, I want to share with you our mission and with a passion. And so it sort of takes a different perspective of how to achieve the mission and the passion that you have about why you joined that organization. And that's the challenge that organizations that go through shifts in either growing because they want to scale. Right? And that's sort of where we are, right. We have a vision and a mission to, you know, reach 20 million people to be self sufficient and 6 million on a platform to thrive. So in order to do that, you can't do that as a charity. Right. That's not going to work. Right. You need to, you need a large constellation of donors. You need to be able to invest and find investments and get into that end of the spectrum of the development model and be able to think about sustainability. Right. And how do you plug communities into being economically viable and commercially viable? That's a whole different set of disciplines than saying, I'm going to dig a well. Right. But you need the fundamental elements in order to be Able to reach the highest order of your development model. Right. And so being able to expand people's vision, if you're good at digging wells, and that's why you joined the organization, we're still going to do that. We still need people to do all that stuff. But it's as you move up in the management system and be able to have a purview over saving lives, sustaining lives and transforming lives, you need to have a different vision of the organization, right? So if you're in the saving lives end, you're in that end of the boat. If you're in the sustaining lives, you're in that part of the boat. If you're in the transforming lives, you're there. But if you are in management, you have to understand how all the pieces come together back to the engine model, Right. So it sort of does tie that, that all together. And then some make the journey and some don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. Because my feeling is if someone is more mission driven and they have to wake up every day and think about how the thing they do that day is going to tactically or practically impact someone, meaning what bowl of food am I going to feed somebody today? Or what cup of water am I going to give them? The world needs as many of those people as we can get. Right. And we want you to be happy doing that. If it's not with us, then it's with someone else. But as you think about growing in our organization and thinking about, like we said before, looking out the windshield, the challenges and the types of problems that you're going to have to address, and that type of organization is very different than the type of problems and challenges than if you're providing someone a cup of water. So they need to be commensurate with each other. Right. And so, but yeah, that, that's hopefully what, as you expand your model, that's the type of person that you're attracting, right. And that's the type of environment that we're in now, which is we're trying to attract those people into the types of complex challenges we want to solve and get them to jump in the room and grab a pencil or a notebook or whatever it is and help us figure this out. Right. Because we don't have it figured out. I don't want to leave here thinking that, right? Like, oh, yeah, I got the solution. We don't have the solution. My solution is still the same, which is I got to build great teams. That's what it comes down to in.
- [51:35]
B
Kind of a little bit of a off track here and we're going to wrap up here in a few minutes. But I'm curious, speaking of challenges, like one of the things that I brought up in my mind earlier when you were talking about your ability to risk mitigate and teaching that in your team, I was thinking back to one of the CEO alliance events that I went to when we broke out into groups and we were talking about challenges. And one of the common, like the core challenges of my group was that the CEO super big visionaries and have a lot of ideas. I know this is something that you mentioned resonates with the CEO that you're working with and I watched the video on your guys's website. Amazing. And yeah, just seeing what he is kind of leading the vision of and all of you guys are bought into and what the challenges with a lot of COOs is not shooting down the CEO's vision or their energy or their excitement while also being in kind of the risk mitigation role where you're thinking of worst case scenario and like, how do we actually do that? And here's all the other things our team is focused on. So I'm curious if you would just real quickly touch on what is your way of working with the CEO who is such a big visionary while also having your job of protecting the mission and the team.
- [52:51]
A
Well, I'm not going to tell you the real answer because he's probably going to watch this.
- [52:54]
B
No, we want the real answer. Tell us.
- [52:57]
A
So I'm going to make something up. No, I'm kidding. No, we've got, look, the benefit of working. I'm lucky. And I told him I'm lucky one to be with an organization that's focusing on the issues that we're focusing on and then to be able to work with him again. I've known him for 20 years. Right. So to, to be able to work with someone you've known that long, the trust bridge, as they call it, like it was inherent from day one. Right. So it's not a normal situation where you had to come in and, you know, go through the trials and unfortunately you really know who your friends are. When you're in the trough, not at the peak. Everybody's with you when you're on the mountaintop. Nobody's with you when you're in the valley. So unfortunately you got to go through that. We already went through that 10 times. Right. So our level of truthfulness to each other is about as high as it can be. And he knows this about me, and I know this about him. I'm not going to shape a response to something that I think would not be beneficial for us. Like, I'm not gonna hold that back. Right. And I don't think any COO should, no matter who the boss is. Right. But being able to have that level of trust is. Is key. Right. I mean, it also matters how you say it. You can't be like, what'd you drink last night? Because that doesn't make any sense. You know, not. Not like that, but, you know, principally to addressing the. Whatever the thing is, dissect it for a minute. But then you've got to justify, you know, the other thing about me. And like I said, starting this is about the facts. If I'm going to position something either for or against, I'm going to have a case for it. Right. There needs to be a reason, and not just, you know, because I woke up on that side of the bed. It's got to be a principled reason about, well, you know, if you want to bring that system in here, we've already got this system in this system, and we've invested X, Y and Z in that. And that would kind of duplicate what we're doing here, even though it might have this added benefit. Right. So there's some logical argument to be made about whatever the case may be. Right. But to your point, also, more broadly, the visionaries tend to not ever meet an idea they don't like. Right. It's like, yes, it would be great if we could do X, Y and Z. And it's great to go on that journey and that vision for a minute. Right. And that's what I really love about being in this role, is because you get to go on that journey with visionaries. And I'm born number two. I'm like, I have no desire ever to be a CEO, ever. I don't. That's not what is in my makeup. And I think he also likes that about me. Right. Like, I have no desire at all. Yeah. I want to help. And this has always been the case with me for. I did the math before I came here. The last five jobs I've had, and I've had about 13, if that gives you any indication about how I'm a serial monogamist for CEOs and solving problems for them were I wanted to be there to help that person achieve their vision and their mission, and that's what motivated me. And it's the same here. ESOC has a vision of Africa that he and I shared many years ago, and we're able now to actually execute against a lot of that. And so being able to have access to the current 2025 version of what's available. And then we got AI and then we've got all these other things and what if we can do what if, what if, what if? I love that because that's where the strategy comes in. But then what I love is I get to have input on that. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Right. But at the end of the day, it's a commitment and I got to figure out how to execute whatever that plan is. And so that's, that's what I love about my job.
- [56:48]
B
Beautiful. I mean, your passion is. What's the word? Contagious. I'm like over here, the whole, the whole podcast I'm getting just inspired and motivated myself. So thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and the work that you guys are doing is really, really incredible. Speaking of yourself, though, I would be curious to hear what are you most excited about? Personally, in the next six months, we're.
- [57:13]
A
Coming out of the planning process of the change management within all the, within the business units and divisions within the organization. Then it's about execution. So I'm really excited to move from what's on paper. And again, everything's not uniform. Right. There's a couple of business units that are a little further ahead and they've already done some processes and then we got the other ones. But I'm excited to see it all come together at the end because I want to see if the engine hangs together. I want to see if what we've put down, how far off were we, you know, and it doesn't. See, the other thing about this is that it kind of doesn't matter. Right. You know, we're not a for profit company that we have to report on minute changes in, in, you know, expected revenue per quarter. Right. Like, people who live on that are, you know, this isn't their podcast. Right. So this is more about, did we have a plan? Did we have the basic assumptions? Right? And are we getting traction with the direction we thought we were moving? And then of course, you're going to dial it up and down. Right. That's exciting for me. I find a lot of pleasure in seeing that happen. And then if we have to pivot, we do. You know, it is what it is. But I have pure faith in the folks that pulled together the plans and it was really a tremendous amount of work and I want to see it come to life.
- [58:35]
B
Awesome. Well, I'm excited to hear about it and see it come to life. Also, if anyone's listening and they want to reach out to you or there might be some way that they can contribute or connect with what you guys are doing, where would they do that?
- [58:48]
A
Good question. I can be reached at J. Lutzweiler at 4Africa with a K.org We're South African based. That's why the K is in there. Would be happy to chat with anybody or figure out how people get plugged into what we're doing. We're always looking to share our mission and vision of what we're doing to find a strong donor support base as well as people that want to partner with us and expand the reach of what we do. So yeah, we're always looking to have conversations with folks anytime.
- [59:24]
B
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Jim.
- [59:26]
A
Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity.
- [59:31]
B
You'Ve been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO Alliance Founder Cameron Herald. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like like share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs, visit COOAlliance.com.