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- [00:03]
Lindsay Anderson
Are you ready for next level growth in your business? Welcome to the Lindsay Anderson show where we pull back the curtain on the exact strategies, tools and mindsets that build million dollar empires. If you're hungry for more time, more freedom, and a whole lot more impact, you've come to the right place. Buckle up because we're about to ignite your business journey. Now here's Lindsay.
- [00:34]
Hey everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. I am so excited for today's guest. I'm interviewing Mr. Glenn Gat. Now. Glenn is the CEO success coach, a Harvard MBA and an AI expert. With 25 years as a CEO and five years as a venture capitalist. Trained by a CEO coach for 17 years, he is dedicated to his clients success. Glenn has spoken at major events like the Wall Street Journal, AI Conference, Harvard Business School and nacd, and writes an AI column for Forbes. He has been published in the top outlets and has advised leading tech giants including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Microsoft on strategy. I'm so excited to have such an accomplished individual here on the show. Welcome to the show, Glenn. So happy to have you on.
- [01:24]
Glenn Gat
Thank you very much. I'm very excited for our conversation today.
- [01:27]
Lindsay Anderson
Let's get started. What would you say? That's a lot of. You've done a lot in your life. If you had to pick one thing that you were known for, what would you say that is, I feel very.
- [01:37]
Glenn Gat
Fortunate that the combination of the things I've done in the past give me information that is I find extraordinarily helpful to my clients. So because I was a CEO for so long, because I was in venture capital and I sat on the other side of the table from CEOs who wanted to raise money and because I had a coach for 17 years who was teaching me how to be a CEO coach. I love interacting with my clients regardless of the problems they bring to the table. I've seen them before and so I'm super passionate about trying with any of that.
- [02:14]
Lindsay Anderson
Very nice, very nice. Now. Yeah, you bring up a like, so tell me about being a CEO coach. Like, I wouldn't say most people are like, yeah, I need myself a coach to be a CEO. Tell me about that.
- [02:25]
Glenn Gat
Think about it this way. Every great athlete has a coach. In fact, many great athletes at the very top of their game have multiple coaches. And you ask yourself, if you're already the best in the world, why do you need a coach? It's because those athletes recognize a coach, helps them become even better. So it's all about a mindset. Are you the type of person that wants to become even better regardless of how good you are. That's the role of a coach. That's why I had a CEO coach for 17 years. I called it compound interest. Every time I met with my coach, I just got a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better. Eventually, I would look over my shoulder and I'd say, ha. Those kind of problems. I can handle those kind of problems any day of the week. Bring on bigger problems for me to handle. My favorite clients are the ones who are hungry to grow and improve every time we meet. And that's what we do.
- [03:21]
Lindsay Anderson
I love that. And there's something also to be said, like, you can't judge and critique yourself to a certain extent. Like, you do need an outsider's perspective, because we all get stuck in our own head. Can you speak to that?
- [03:33]
Glenn Gat
My CEOs have described it to me this way. They say, glenn, I wake up every morning and I'm staring at the bark of a tree, trying to figure out how to move the bark around on the tree. And I don't even recognize there's a forest around me. I don't even know if I'm looking at the right tree. I need somebody who isn't me to help me have perspective on whether or not I'm doing the right things. Many of my CEOs have said, Glenn, I don't even know what I don't know. So I need somebody to ask me the hard questions, to question my fundamental assumptions, to change the way I approach. And that's the role of a great coach.
- [04:08]
Lindsay Anderson
Was there a pivotal moment in your life, Glenn, where you realized, hey, I need to be a CEO coach.
- [04:14]
Glenn Gat
Yes. So when I went into venture capital, I started working with our various portfolio companies, and I started to get to know the CEOs of those portfolio companies. And they started asking me questions. And I realized that I had this deep well of information, having had been a CEO for 25 years where I could address and answer almost every question they had. And I fell in love with that work because my commitment to myself is that in every single interaction I have with a CEO, I'm going to add value. I never know how I'm going to add value, but that's my commitment. And so I'm intently working during our sessions to ensure that. That I'm adding value in. In one way or another. There's another factor related to this, which is because I had a CEO coach while I was a CEO, that coach of mine actually didn't know that much about business. What she understood, though, is what I called the mind of the CEO. How is that person at the top of the pyramid thinking and how are they going about operating in the world and is that serving them or is that hampering them? And in every case, we as CEOs have certain ways of working that work. That's why we're the CEO until they don't work. And when they don't work, we get stuck, we get frustrated. We're not growing the way we want to grow. Our family life might fall apart because we're relying on our old patterns of success that are no longer working in a new environment. My job is to help break those patterns and help a CEO say, wow, I can approach this in a completely different way. I can think about the world differently, I can communicate differently, I can be different myself. And that's where the real growth happens. And that's why on average, I work with CEOs about three years. So that's why I have long term relationships. Because my CEOs are continually growing and they get great satisfaction out of that growth.
- [06:16]
Lindsay Anderson
I love that. Glenn, can you break this down into a story for us? Give us a story around that so we can really understand what you're saying there.
- [06:23]
Glenn Gat
One of my CEOs was installed into a company. He co founded it, but he became the CEO. So he wasn't the CEO initially and it was time to raise money. He wanted to go out and raise $50 million in a series C round. However, because he was fairly new in the role, he was extremely intimidated by the board. And the board had some heavy hitters on it, known people you might recognize. And he felt that he didn't have the ability to go raise that 50 million. He didn't have the ability to get the board behind him. And he was actually worried he was going to get fired. So what we worked on is shifting his point of view on his relationship with the board and how he should interact with with the board. Instead of going to the board and saying, this is what I think we should do, what do you think? We changed his approach to this is what I'm going to do. I'd love if you have any feedback for me. So the first one was asking for permission. The second one was declaring, this is what I'm going to do and I'm willing to get feedback to change things, but I'm not asking for permission anymore. Now here's what happened. That shift changed his relationship with the board members. So now they had faith in him. And they helped him go out and raise not $50 million in a Series C, but $150 million in a Series C. And that was the huge breakthrough for that CEO to change how he approached his relationship with people that he felt were more powerful in the folks fundraising world than he was.
- [08:02]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah, it's a really good example of the tree example you gave. It's I got these big people and I'm nervous and this is how I'm approaching it. And so an outsider's perspective of complex relationships like that, helping them see in a different perspective was super powerful, obviously by a hundred million dollars or so. Yeah, yeah, I love that. How do you help people? So being a CEO, you got all these new problems being thrown at you. What does coaching with you, like, look like? How do you get results for your CEO?
- [08:30]
Glenn Gat
One of the things I learned is that issue that's most important is going to come up in the conversation. And so I open up my sessions. I usually work with a CEO for an hour a week on average. And I will say, tell me what's going on. And it's amazing. What is most important usually bubbles up to the surface and we start taking that apart and working on it. So a very common issue might be one of my direct reports is not performing the way I want them to, and they're struggling with that issue. So I will, with the CEO, develop a plan on how to address that particular issue. Or they might say, we have serious cash flow management issues. Okay, great, let's go to work on that. So whatever it is they bring up, we're going to go to work on. Right. Then it's a working session. And I'm told that I'm different from other CEO coaches in the following way. I'm not going to say, lindsay, what do you think you should do? I'm going to say, lindsay, you should fire that person. And the reason I operate that way is this is what I have found. CEOs want to hear. They already know they should fire that person, but they're dragging their feet, they're worried about confrontation and what will other people say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so they don't fire the person. They know the answer is to fire them. And you need someone to just nudge them enough so that they can take that action.
- [09:54]
Lindsay Anderson
Give them enough confidence to know that what they're about to do is the right move.
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Glenn Gat
Exactly.
- [10:00]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. I love that. Tell me the difference for you between a coach and a consultant then based on what you just said.
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Glenn Gat
So a Consultant will come in and help you. I look at it this way. I come in only for an hour. I. I come in almost always from Zoom. And I'm not going to roll up my sleeves and do the work. I'm going to give you my advice on what to do. I'm like a football coach on the sideline, maybe helping you call the plays, but I'm not throwing the ball. I'm not deciding how quickly should I step back in the pocket. I'm not doing any of those things. A consultant is on the field. Consultant might be there actually blocking for you. Right. They might be protecting you. They might be talking to the other players. I'm not at that level. I'm back here helping build the game plan.
- [10:50]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. And most coaches will, as you said, like a lot of coaches, they always make you reflect back on yourself. But you are really so deep in your knowledge base that you're like, I've seen this before. Let me also share my expertise with you.
- [11:06]
Glenn Gat
It's not just my expertise, Lindsey. I learn from all of my CEOs, and so I will. Now, I never talk about who they are. That's all confidential, but I'll say, Lindsay, looks like you're dealing with an issue about employee turnover. Let me tell you what one of my other CEOs is doing, because this is an amazing best practice they created. And I'll give it to you because I view it this way. I have a tool belt, but I never know what tool I need to pull out because I don't know what issue you have yet. But when you do have an issue, I'm adding to my tool belt all the time because I learn from my CEOs.
- [11:43]
Lindsay Anderson
I love that. Share with me, Glenn, a couple of common obstacles CEOs are facing right now and how they're overcoming them.
- [11:51]
Glenn Gat
One is what I call overwhelm. So the CEO feels they are fully responsible for everything, which is accurate, but they also feel like they have to do too much. And once they build their to do list, a whole bunch of things get added to that to do list, and they feel like they're never going to get everything done. This is very common. So what I help them go through is a prioritization process. Now, they can choose. I call it a management framework, and they can choose any management framework they want. EOS is a common one. Okrs is my favorite one. And most of my CEOs use objectives and key results. This is a system that helps the entire company choose what's most important to work on for the next 90 days. And it gives the CEO the ability and the people inside the company who are working on developing their objectives and key results, the ability to say, no, we're not going to do that. That's a good idea, but we're going to put it over here and we'll go Revisit it in 90 days to see if it's become important enough to focus on. And this reduces overwhelm. This helps the CEO to narrow the number of things they're going to work on, and it helps everybody else reporting to them to do the same thing. It creates tremendous clarity and it moves companies forward in a very way. I've had several CEOs say to me it was the most impactful change they've made in managing the company.
- [13:18]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay, I love that. So overwhelm, which you have a management system that will solve. What's another obstacle CEOs are facing right now?
- [13:25]
Glenn Gat
We already alluded to one of them. So on average, a CEO has six to eight people reporting to them, and two of those people are not working out. And every. You're shaking your head. And so every CEO says, yep, and they know who the two are, and they're not putting a lot of time and effort into addressing that. Why? Because we typically are worried about confrontation. We're worried about what's going to happen if we actually address the issues. And so I spend a fair amount of time with CEOs addressing those issues. The answer isn't always you have to fire them, not at all. But you need to manage them differently. You need to lead them differently. And so we talk about the individual, we talk about what that person needs, what their capabilities are, whether or not they can step up to do the work, and how do we get them there. So it becomes people development. So one of the things I say related to this is the number one job of the CEO is to build a great leadership team. Now, notice I said leadership team, not management team. But what I mean by that is not only do you want to have people reporting to you that are better than you at their function, they're better at sales, they're better at engineering, they're better at manufacturing, whatever the case may be, but they know how to build a team. So you're hiring leaders. And so as a company evolves, the CEO needs to evolve, and their job becomes more and more building and nurturing that leadership team. And so in the context of when some people aren't working out as well, we have to figure out Is it time for them to move on or can we bring them up a level or can we find another place for them in the company? But we have to address it. The worst thing we can do is let the people who are not performing at the highest level stay not performing at the highest level.
- [15:08]
Lindsay Anderson
Yes. And in terms of obstacles, you've covered two really great obstacles here, overwhelm and team building. What about AI? So here we are in 2024. You're an AI expert. What are CEOs struggling with when it comes to AI and how are you helping them?
- [15:23]
Glenn Gat
Sometimes AI is scary for people. So that's something I've seen as a theme. Sometimes they've tried it or had their employees try it and they discover, hey, it makes mistakes. So who would possibly want to use a tool that makes mistakes? I don't want my employees making mistakes. And then that's just going to compound itself. So we're not going to handle that. Or there are security issues around it. Maybe data privacy is something we're concerned about and we know AI is bad and data privacy, all of these things are somewhat accurate, but they're solvable. So the best way to think about AI, and I'm going to talk about Gen AI in particular here, because that's what most people are focused on right now, think we want to think of it as intern who we hired. So what does that mean? We know they're pretty smart and they can get a lot of work done, but they can make mistakes and we have to assume they're going to make mistakes. So if we operate from that standpoint, we can give a college intern to every single employee. We can potentially double the productivity of people in this company if they understand how to use the talent of this intern and understand how to check their work because they're imperfect, just like human beings. One of my CEOs did something I thought was brilliant. He said, got up at an all hands meeting and said, for the next three weeks, every single person in the company has to use AI. I don't care how you use it, I don't care what tool you choose, but you have to use AI. And at the end of three weeks, I want you to report up to your manager, what did you learn? What did you learn about where it works? Where did you learn about where it doesn't work? What did you learn about how it could transform your job positively? And then you need to come back to an all hands meeting and share with everybody what you learned. What are the best practices? What are the best Tools. And that company is transforming itself because we're now at a place right, right now where every single piece of software that we use, and most companies use dozens and dozens of software packages have it, has in it. We just have to become an expert in the tools available to us to leverage AI. And I encourage every person and every CEO to lean in to the changes that are happening here, because the transformation and productivity can be through the roof. And if you don't do it, your competitors are going to do it, and you should be worried about that.
- [17:55]
Lindsay Anderson
And it's moving so fast. So, like, the time is now. And I agree with you, Glenn. I call the va. You never have to pay. That's what it is.
- [18:04]
Glenn Gat
I love it. I love it. That's. That's a good phrase. I'm going to stick.
- [18:08]
Lindsay Anderson
Feel free. Feel free. Now, tell me, you mentioned the CEO mindset. You talk a little bit about the CEO mindset. Can you expand on that a little bit more? What is that all about?
- [18:17]
Glenn Gat
Let's talk about it from a founder's perspective. A CEO founds a company and they're passionate about their project and they're good at something. It could be. They're good at selling, it could. They're good at engineering. Those are the two primary starting places. Let's just use those as an example. Let's say engineering. So they, they know how to build the product, they know how to hire engineers, and they're really good at this function. And investors might put money in because they're so good at this. And then as soon as investors put money in, all of a sudden their job has changed. No, you're no longer going to be writing code, even though you're brilliant at that. You have to start figuring out marketing, and you have to be involved in sales, and you have to think about HR and finance. And all of a sudden, a founder CEO might say, I don't really want to do all of that. That's not what I'm good at. Nor sometimes I don't even know how to do it. And yet, for the CEO to succeed, they have to learn all of those other functions. So What I tell CEOs is you don't have to be great in every function, but you have to be competent enough to manage the people who are reporting to you. Now, eventually we can get to a place where, if you build a great leadership team, that's when you can start to go back to the things you think you're really good at and carve out time to work on those things. So we can move away from you having to spend too much time on finance and HR and manufacturing or whatever and go back to what got you here in the first place. So there's an evolution and a growth that has to happen every time there's a fundamental change in the company. Whether the market has changed or a competitor has entered the market or they raised money. This is a learning journey for the CEO. And sometimes it's really uncomfortable because we have to take on things that we don't want to take on, we don't know how to take on. That's what I'm here to help that CEO with, is to take on that learning journey so that they stay as the CEO. Because over a five year period, 60% of CEOs get fired. And they get fired because they're not evolving themselves quickly enough.
- [20:19]
Lindsay Anderson
What is One thing that CEOs out there can do daily to have this CEO mindset that you're speaking as?
- [20:27]
Glenn Gat
So there's something called the Stephen Covey four quadrants. And I can't describe it perfectly on a podcast, but essentially it boils down to, are you controlling your time to spend it where and when you should be spending it and not living in a reactive mode? Most CEOs live in a reactive mode and they're there all day long and that leads to burnout. And that's not healthy for anybody. It's not healthy for the company, for the investors, and certainly not for the CEO. One of the things Stephen Covey talks about is carving out time and protecting your calendar to say, I'm going to go work on something that isn't urgent, but it's important. It might be my hiring plan, it could be my fundraising plan, it could be figuring out what we're going to do in 2025, it could be talking to a potential partner of the company. But unless they carve out that time to protect their day and ensure they're working on things that are super important but are not urgent, they're going to be caught in this maelstrom of just answering emails and Slack messages and texts and not getting real important work done.
- [21:37]
Lindsay Anderson
I'm a big fan of that as well. And that makes sure that you're also doing things that your company will benefit from in the long term versus just fighting the fires that are showing up today. And that's really the only way to get out of the chaos mode.
- [21:50]
Glenn Gat
There's one other way.
- [21:51]
Lindsay Anderson
What is that?
- [21:52]
Glenn Gat
Which is becoming what I call a master delegator.
- [21:56]
Lindsay Anderson
Okay.
- [21:57]
Glenn Gat
And so I spend a lot of time with my CEOs on becoming better and better at delegating. One of my CEOs sent me a text the other day. He said, glenn, this is really working. I just sat in a meeting for two hours and I said nothing. My team did all the work. And he was super excited because he's delegated authority to them. He's given them the information they need. They understand through objectives and key results what they're trying to do. Normally he would be plugging in and doing a lot of work, but he delegated this to the team, actually to an individual who then had a team and they got the work done without the CEO, which is a dream for a CEO to not have to be involved in all the details.
- [22:38]
Lindsay Anderson
Glenn, what is the future of CEO coaching, do you think? Tell me what you think the future is.
- [22:43]
Glenn Gat
I think there's a room for large language models to help some CEOs. Okay. So I use various AI tools all day long and I ask them questions. And so look, if you are a brand new CEO and you don't have any money, I would rely on or I would. I wouldn't rely. Rely is not the right word. I was used as a tool the chatgpts or clods or perplexities of the world to help you. So I think there's a room for AI in coaching. CEOs who really want to grow are going to find a coach that resonates with them. This is all about a very deep and personal relationship. Many times, Lindsay, the first time I meet with a CEO, they will tell me something they've never told anyone before in their entire life. And when that happens, I know we're going to move the needle in a really big way because we're dealing with the core issues. We're not dealing with the surface level issues. We're dealing with the issues. Like I've had CEOs say to me, glenn, I'm not even sure I want to do this job. This is not what I signed up for. It's not fun. I have to spend all this time doing things I don't want to do and deal with people that I'm not happy dealing with. And I feel enormous pressure. I'm not spending any time at home. It's a real challenge. So we're going to go work on that. The future has to do with building those deep. Even in the world of AI, we have to have someone you can build a deep and trusting relationship with because there's no one else to talk to.
- [24:09]
Lindsay Anderson
Yeah. And in the world of AI and AI coaching and go ask ChatGPT. Those tools cannot replace what you've explained here.
- [24:18]
Glenn Gat
They can't. They're a great addition, but they can't replace that deep personal connection.
- [24:23]
Lindsay Anderson
I agree. All right, Glenn, what is one thing you've done a lot of things in your life. What is one thing you wish you would have known before you got started?
- [24:32]
Glenn Gat
That it's okay to make mistakes and you will survive your mistakes. It doesn't matter what they are. And so the lesson is, don't worry about it so much. We're going to fail. We're going to have bad things happen. Don't worry about it so much. There's a whole life in front of you to create whole new things, even if what you're working on doesn't pan out. Enjoy the journey.
- [24:56]
Lindsay Anderson
I love that. Glenn, thank you so much for sharing your expertise on the show today. Before I let you go, I'm going to turn the time over to you. Let everybody know how to find you and anything else you want the audience to know.
- [25:06]
Glenn Gat
I'm pretty easy to find. My website is my name, so it's glengao. Com, that's Glenn with two n's. And if you're ever interested, I offer a complimentary coaching session for qualified CEOs. And that's@glengow.com coach apply. So feel free if you think it could be useful to you. There's no selling in this session. It's a real working session. You bring whatever problem you have to the table and we'll go to work on it and get work done. And then at the end you get to decide whether or not you want to continue with a relationship or not. Either way is okay with me.
- [25:43]
Lindsay Anderson
I love it. Glenn, thank you so much for being a guest on the show.
- [25:45]
Glenn Gat
Thank you. I enjoyed it.
- [25:48]
Lindsay Anderson
There you have it, folks. Another episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. As a reminder, if you are looking for how to generate high quality leads on social media, you want to know my custom four step system for generating those high quality leads. Make sure you're signed up for my upcoming live workshop by going to Lindsay a.com workshop. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Lindsay Anderson show and cheers to you and your success.
- [26:20]
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Lindsay Anderson Show. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share how you're leveling up your business. Want more? Connect with Lindsay Anderson and get the tools you need to crush your goals@lindsaya.com until next time, keep pushing, keep growing, and turn those business dreams into reality.