Leaders vs Managers: and the SIX mistakes to focus on

Summary

To The Point - Home Services Podcast
Episode: Leaders vs Managers: and the SIX mistakes to focus on
Host: RYNO Strategic Solutions
Guest: Michael Cato, CEO of MAP Consulting
Release Date: April 15, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of To The Point - Home Services Podcast, host Chris engages in a deep conversation with Michael Cato, the CEO of MAP Consulting (Management Action Program). The discussion revolves around the critical distinctions between leaders and managers and highlights six fundamental mistakes that service-based businesses often make.

Guest Background and MAP Overview

Michael Cato brings a wealth of entrepreneurial experience to the table. He shares his journey from co-founding Restaurants on the Run, a pioneering food delivery service pre-dating platforms like UberEats and DoorDash, to acquiring MAP Consulting in 2017. Michael emphasizes the significance of MAP as a disciplined management system that fosters routine and structure within businesses.

Michael Cato [06:33]: "MAP stands for Management Action Program. We like to say MAP stands for meat and potatoes. My style is like MAP style. My style is the same. We're not about fluff. Let's execute the business. What are the things we need to do?"

Leadership vs Management

A central theme of the episode is the distinction between leadership and management. Michael asserts that while every manager must possess leadership qualities, not all leaders are adept managers. Effective leadership involves vision, inspiration, and team empowerment, whereas management focuses on execution, organization, and maintaining structure.

Michael Cato [25:26]: "Every manager has to have leadership ability. Every leader has to have management ability. Great leaders have a vision and the ability to inspire people, while managers focus on execution and maintaining structures."

The Six Fundamental Mistakes

Michael outlines six fundamental mistakes that businesses, particularly in the home services sector, commonly encounter. Addressing these can significantly enhance a company's growth and operational efficiency.

1. Leadership

Effective leadership is about more than just vision; it's about inspiring and empowering teams. Great leaders prioritize their team's growth and align their actions with the company's core values.

Michael Cato [27:40]: "Great leaders realize, let's maximize the potential of the people we see, especially those A-plus players. If they leave, they leave good for them. We did our job."

2. Communication

Clear and purposeful communication is crucial. Managers must ensure that their messages are understood by asking team members to reiterate key points.

Michael Cato [40:55]: "Communication is about clarity. We need to communicate for understanding a clear message that we make sure is understood."

3. Staffing

Hiring the right people goes beyond the "sniff test." It involves having a structured process, including job scorecards, thorough interviewing, and effective onboarding plans with clear 30, 60, 90-day goals.

Michael Cato [39:15]: "Do you have a process to interview people? Do you have a real process that's not just the sniff test?"

4. Planning

Strategic planning ensures that the organization is structured to support its vision. This involves setting clear goals and aligning organizational structures to achieve them.

Michael Cato [45:09]: "Let's build the right plan for this organization. Are we structured in a way that we can achieve the goals? Does everybody know where they sit?"

5. Organizing

Proper organization means that every team member understands their role and how it contributes to the company's objectives. Utilizing job scorecards helps in measuring performance accurately.

Michael Cato [45:46]: "You can't organize your company without making sure every person knows the two or three things they're being measured on."

6. Controlling (Performance Management)

Regular performance reviews and goal-setting sessions create accountability and ensure that everyone is aligned with the company's direction.

Michael Cato [48:59]: "When you're managing performance, as we call controlling, you're an unstoppable machine."

Importance of Reinforcement and Discipline

Reinforcement is highlighted as a pivotal component in ensuring that training and strategies are effectively implemented. Establishing disciplined routines and monthly meetings helps solidify the habits necessary for sustained business growth.

Michael Cato [19:57]: "MAP is a disciplined process you run. I like to say it's the most important habit you can put in your business."

Practical Insights and Advice

Michael and Chris delve into practical strategies for business owners to implement MAP's principles. Emphasizing the importance of accountability, structured hiring processes, and continuous learning, they provide actionable advice for improving both leadership and management within organizations.

Chris [56:58]: "You don't have to do everything, but you have to do something. No zero days."

Conclusion and Contact Information

As the episode wraps up, Michael encourages listeners to integrate disciplined management routines and seek out coaching to enhance their leadership and management skills. He provides contact information for MAP Consulting for those interested in implementing these strategies in their own businesses.

Michael Cato [53:58]: "Our website is MAPconsulting.com. I can be reached at [e-mail]. I'm also on LinkedIn."

Chris closes by reiterating the value of focusing on the six fundamental areas to avoid common mistakes and drive business success.

Chris [56:58]: "You gotta pick 5% of what you heard today and say this is what I'm gonna do and if you need help, let me know."

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Key Takeaways:

1. Differentiate Roles: Understand the distinct roles of leaders and managers, ensuring that both leadership and management skills are cultivated within your team.
2. Six Fundamentals: Focus on leadership, communication, staffing, planning, organizing, and controlling to avoid common business mistakes.
3. Reinforcement: Establish disciplined routines and regular check-ins to reinforce strategies and maintain accountability.
4. Structured Processes: Implement structured hiring and onboarding processes to ensure the right talent is in place and aligned with company goals.
5. Continuous Improvement: Embrace ongoing learning and adaptation to enhance both personal and organizational growth.

For more information or to connect with Michael Cato and MAP Consulting, visit mapconsulting.com or reach out via email at [e-mail].

Transcript

[Michael Cato]

People need routine. People need structure. MAP is a disciplined process you run. I like to say it's the most important habit you can put in your business. We all have. We understand the power of habits. You know, we learn it when we're a child. When we're a baby. As a parent, you're like, let me get this kid to sleep. Let me get him to bed at the same time. Get him up at the same time. Let me beat him at the same time. Let me do that. You want to get them on schedule. Routine, routine, routine, routine, routine. And then we open businesses and we're like, where's the routine? And it doesn't. People need routine. People need structure. So what I say is maps. The most important happen. This is to the Point a Rhino experience voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the and getting to the point.

[Chris]

Hey, what's up to the Point, listeners? It's your boy, Chris. And it's just me today because even though my co hosts, Mr. Chad Peterman, said he will not miss an episode in the year of 2025, well, guess what? He's not here. So what that mean? It means he missed this episode. I text him this morning and he's sitting on the beach down in Florida having probably a Shirley Temple, and. And he is not going to make this episode. So I wanted to take this opportunity just to bust his chops a little bit. Because you know what? He lied, Michael. He lied straight to my face. He's not here. We gave him adequate, adequate warning that this thing was going to happen, and he chose his family and free time on spring break over this podcast with us. What a dick.

[Michael Cato]

He's kind of missing out. I mean, it is kind of. I'm kind of a little pissed right now, to be honest with you. I'm giving up, like a lot of this morning thinking I was talking to both you guys.

[Chris]

That's right. How disrespectful can you be? Like Chad, Geez.

[Michael Cato]

Well, you know what? Listen, if I have a chance, in fact, if you give me the name of his hotel he's staying at right now, believe me, he'll have a big surprise over there later today.

[Chris]

This is great. I have no idea where the hell he's staying. Oh, gee. Well, I know that he goes down there. Our spring breaks are like a week off every year, so. Mine was last week. I went to Maui with my family, did the same thing. So I'll cut him a little slack. But not in the ball busting category.

[Michael Cato]

Because I got you. I got you.

[Chris]

Let's jump into this because I have our. My friend Michael Cato on the show today, CEO of map, which stands for Management Action Program. Does it sound familiar? Probably because you've heard Ken Goodrich talk about it almost every time he's on this podcast talking about how he's participated for so years and has leadership team and participated in SO for so many years. And, Michael, I think you bought. You actually bought. Well, you were a part of map. You use map, you know, in your business experience, which you'll share, I'll tell you, with our listeners. But you bought it in 2017. Is that what it was?

[Michael Cato]

End of 17? Yeah, end of 17. January 1, 2018. Y.

[Chris]

And now. So. And I was listening to. So we also have a mutual friend. And I was listening when I was prepping for this podcast because we have a little bit of crossover. We never met until the podcast, but we've had some crossover. You know, I've. I've also sent, you know, or we've also had one of my leaders, you know, who's our chief experience officer at Rhino, has been with me 13 years, also went. Participated in the MAP program. And he came back and, like, he was on one, right? And that's Mike Vanitas. A lot of the listeners have seen him speak all over the place, but he was on one. But I was asking him, I was like, hey, man, I'm interviewing Michael. Like, what did you learn from the whole MAP program and what have you implemented and what'd you take away? And because he does a bunch of different trainings and. And so it was cool just to hear his perspective on, like, what all he's taken and implemented. And then when he told me, I was like, oh, yeah, I recognize that you do X, Y and Z. Yeah. So some of the things he's regurgitating are things that he learned from the program, dude, which is.

[Michael Cato]

That's great. I mean, let's go there.

[Chris]

So. So what I want our listeners to hear is like, you know, we have a lot of, you know, we have a lot of different guests on here. Usually it's a lot of different owners, you know, from different size companies. So that way we can work through, you know, their challenges, what they've been through, where they're at today. Like, because we all experience. We don't always. We don't like to talk about the good shit. We want to talk about the bad shit, too. No, and, like, be super vulnerable and have those conversations live on air for everybody to hear in Hopes that we find something that maybe they, they could do a little bit differently to, to move the business forward.

[Michael Cato]

So I guarantee you, I guarantee you there will be things today that will help them move their business.

[Chris]

I have no doubt that's why we're doing this. No doubt. So I'm a big believer in this style of training. And what, you know, one thing that Mike said to me, Venice on my team said the training is around self awareness and shifting from transactional leadership to transformational leadership was one thing he stood out to him. Like there's some leadership styles, communication tactics, you know, and there's a, there's a bunch of different things. He told me that, that he, he kind of like puked out to me. So I can't talk about all of them. But, but leadership training is. I feel like you could never get enough. I'm, I still constantly look for different ways to learn different styles. Like I'm always trying to, to adapt. How do I get better? How do I understand someone's personality and how they receive information better? How do I receive information better? Like, what am I bad at? What do I need to work on? You know, and so I want to talk through some of these things today with you and I actually, and I want to tee you up for a listener just to hear a little bit of your background because, you know, Michael didn't come from the home services industry, but like he and I were talking about pre podcast like these, these tactics are industry agnostic. Like it's, it's human, it's human behavior. Right. That and that you can apply to any business. Right. And so the hope that you get from this podcast listeners is you might find some things that you're not doing or that maybe you started to do and then quit on it or you've heard others doing. And this is a nice reminder, like, oh yeah, I was going to try this or maybe it's just some self reflection, like you need to get your shit together.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So, so my hope is from this episode that you can take away some of the things that Michael has done. And, and you know, I think that you. Well, I'm not even gonna, I'm gonna let you do a little bit, let our listeners know a little bit of your background and worry listeners. I told them we want the, we want the Cliff Notes version of the background, but I wouldn't have him on here if he didn't have credibility. Keep this in mind. But you know, last, you know, I think the last exit you made was in 2015. It was 12x. Yeah. And 600 people. I can't remember what it was. Something like some big. I don't know. I don't. I want. I'm not going to do it. Do it justice. Yeah. Michael, go ahead and jump in a little bit of the background, and then I'm going to dig into some of the tactical things from Map that you've been using to help these business owners and grow, both professionally and personally. So let it rip, buddy.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, bro. Listen, great to be here. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Love what you're doing. You look great. Love the background. You know, you might say, what's that shirt say?

[Chris]

Oh, come on, tell me you know who this is.

[Michael Cato]

I can't see it. Looks good.

[Chris]

Smokey in the Bandit.

[Michael Cato]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Not Burt Reynolds right there, dude. Yeah, yeah. So. So listen, I own, you know, we bought MAP, but I was a client for 20, you know, for 20, 15 years at MAP. I like to say MAP stands for meat and potatoes. All right? My style is like Map style. My style the same. That's why. That's why, you know, we bought the company and we're linked up. It's like, no bullshit. Let's get to the point. We're not about fluff. I'm not about fluff. I'm like, let's execute the business. What are the things we need to do? I'll get to my story. But when we sold that, our last company, we had 500 drivers on the road delivering food across different cities in the country. So I understand what happens on the front line of people that sometimes are shifting, turning over and so on and so forth. I mean, it's not technicians, drivers, anything. That's. That's a difficult business, man, and you've got to button your shit up to handle it. But we started, you know, I did something in, like, when I was like, 24 years old, that's the first time I figured out I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I wrote down founding. I find an idea for a business. Next thing you know it, my brother and I and his best friend are starting a company called Restaurants on the Run, which is food delivery before online and mobile. So think pre Ubereats, pre doordash, you know, pre. Postmates, all that. And we started that in college. Dropped out of college because business started getting going. And about year five, as we were getting a lot of traction on the business, we had a small investor. And he looked at me one day and he goes, michael, his name was Roland. He was like a. He was he was an attorney, but more of a tech investor. And it was 2001. Nice exits. And he looks at me one day and he sits me down after. I can't answer the questions. He's an. He's asking me questions. And every answer I have is, we're growing. Our people are great. We're doing this, we're doing that. But anything important around enterprise value and profitability and are we building a business that we can sell? I didn't have good answers. And he looked at me and he said, michael, if this was a publicly traded company, we would fire your ass as the CEO. Okay, so picture that being said to you. Like, now I look back, very motivated. But, yeah, so I'm like, I. Back then, I look back and now and I'm like, I understand. I'm like, entrepreneurs create CEO scale. And he was telling me that you need to figure, you need to bridge that gap. And I could have done a few different things at that point, obviously, but what I chose in my mind, I said, well, listen, Roland, I want to be an entrepreneurial CEO, which, coincidentally, we just started a podcast with that name. And who knows, it could be the name. It could be the name of the book I'm writing right now. But. So I go to my forum, I was an entrepreneur's organization, and I go to my EO group, and I'm like, I talked to all these other CEOs, I'm like, I tell my story. They look at me, they're like, yeah, we're kind of in the same place. Like, we're growing, but we don't know how to, like, you know, go to the next level. But there was one guy in there, a cpa. You know, they always tell you, talk to your CPA if you need to raise money. And I think it's all kind of bullshitty, but it actually works. And he has this company map call me. And I go to this two and a half day workshop 22 years ago, the same one that Michael went to. And I walk in there and I was like, holy crap. You mean, this is what it means to be a CEO? This is what it means to be a manager. This is what it means to be a leader. I walked out of there with a toolkit across these six critical things you got to get done in business. We'll talk about that in a second. And I was like, this is what we need to do. And I started sending all my managers. We brought a coach in. For 15 years, we had our coach Lee, that worked with our executive team Implementing the process half a day every single month. And we just got buttoned up. And when you. And when you take that management system, which is what we put in our business, you know, basically a system of developing our managers and holding them accountable. When we put that together with some of the other great things that we were doing in sales, marketing, technology, we were able to then start buying small companies. You know, we realized that we were in an industry where there was an aging demographic of entrepreneurs. You know, it's classic. We see it so many times in home services. And they had no exit at the time. So we started consolidating and bought companies around the country. And as you said about 10 years ago, as we were still, we were out in the market raising capital for the next round of. I think we had 25 to 30 million in acquisitions teed up and that we were raising capital and grubhub found out about us. And they had just started competing with DoorDash. Grubhub was public. Okay. Big money, printing money. At that point, DoorDash came in out of Stanford with venture capital, tons of money, and they were just going on a collision course in grubhub. I'll never forget it. They're like, we want to make a splash on Wall street. And they made us an offer we couldn't refuse. And they took our entire team, 600 people, and some of them are still there. And my team helped them kind of build out their footprint that they currently have now. Things didn't go so well 10 years later for Grubhub, but it was great for us when we sold it to them.

[Chris]

Yeah. Which matters.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah.

[Chris]

It's like, you know, to your story. Okay.

[Michael Cato]

To your story. It's good for me. Yeah. So it was great. And I, like, I said I had two amazing business partners. I'm a. That's another conversation I'm a big believer in. If you get the right partner, you know, you can really do some great things.

[Chris]

It's actually really cool that you were a. A, like a customer of MAP before you even bought it, because you. I mean, that. That if. That clearly you're a believer, otherwise you won't buy the business, bro.

[Michael Cato]

It's like my. My wife, after I sold the business, she's like, go, you got to leave the house. And I'm like. And I was doing stuff, exercising, doing all these things, and I'm like. I'm like, what am I going to do? I'm like, I don't want to start another business. I'm not qualified to be employed. And I go, maybe. And as I started sniffing around and she's like, go get a job at Home Depot. You like to talk. Be the doorman. I'm like, I can't be. Be serious. So I end up talking to Matt, because everything that I live for and breathe for and do every day, besides being a dad to three crazy teenagers, three boys is about. Is about entrepreneur. Three boys, entrepreneurs. Everything's about entrepreneurship. How do you. How do we build business? How do we scale businesses? Because I believe entrepreneurs change the world. We change the world because when we build companies, we create jobs, and that's how you raise the standard of living. I'm moving fast, but that's what I believe, and that's what Map does. And so it was a perfect link. So I bought him and I said, let's go.

[Chris]

Yeah, you know what's cool is that you and I are talking about this, but you. One of our mutual friends is Skyler Lewis, and Skyler, who listen to the podcast with him and Jeremy Williams on it from Rise Up Kings. You know, I participate in that program, and his whole training is really around these four pillars. Is. Four pillars is like. Or you have your faith, family, fitness, and your finances, which is essentially your business. And I live by those four pillars to this day. Like, every morning. Like, I still get up and I journal based on those four pillars, and. And I don't win all four pillars every day, you know, but I still am holding myself accountable to those four pillars every day. So. So I've just adopted some of those processes. And you guys had a great podcast, you know, together, that I listened to, and I was preparing for that. And so, again, I think what's cool about all this is you can take bits and pieces from your different, you know, trainings. Like, it's not meant to be like, hey, Rise Up Kings is. This is how I'm gonna do it. Like, maybe you don't want to go and do all the physical activity, whatever, like, tweets their own, but, you know, when you got to do something. And part of my job is to bring these listeners different, you know, points of view or different tactics from companies like that. I mean, listen, Goodrich is such. You ask them. You ask him who to send leadership to. He'll say, a half a second after you ask the question, Matt, a hundred percent. That's where he sends his leadership. He sends his leadership to. Still loves to participate on it, is still a huge fan of it. So amazing. So.

[Michael Cato]

And he does it because it's not it's leadership is only a component of it. Like, it's really about how do you become a great manager. And manager sometimes is like a dirty word. I'm like, you're out of your mind. If you're a CEO, you need to be able to manage. Do you think Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, they don't know how to manage, like, and leadership is one of the six things you got to get right as a CEO. And so that's why he loves it. It's like, it's not an. It's not bullshit. He sends people, they get trained, we have reinforcement of the training, and it's like, things start to happen. I'll stop talking. You go, I'm sorry, I didn't interrupt you.

[Chris]

But no, no, no, it's a good segue because, you know, Goodrich is a big systems and processes guy, right? Like, he is. He, he's the systems and processes. Systems, processes. You manage to these things like that. That's what you do. But he's sending his leadership team on how to best manage those systems and processes in addition to themselves as human beings. So, so what I want to do is, you know, there's a lot of these different opportunities out there. And by the way, this isn't like. And to our listeners, this isn't a pitch, right? Because, no, I, I've, I've not done it. I'm just saying, once you hear enough about good trainings, it's my responsibility to bring it to you guys to hear some of the good things that Michael's going to give to you, regardless of whether you use not. And then, and then hope you pick something up and then you. And then if you want to explore off, like explore more or I'll share his information towards the end, we'll talk about it. But I want to get into some of these, you know, let's just talk about, you know, apples to apples. There's a lot of different leadership trains, a lot of different management trainings that are out there. Maybe just kind of hit me with the high level one. I love your intensity and your energy. It's like next level, which is already infectious. But not everybody has that. Michael. Right.

[Michael Cato]

Like, yeah, true.

[Chris]

It is a, it is a gift to have this kind of energy, I believe, you know, and, and it's helpful, but, you know, you have to have trainings for all different personality types. So. But what are some of the notable trainings or things that set MAP apart from maybe some of these others that you kind of hear out, out in the Market.

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[Michael Cato]

Yeah, yeah, and I probably got a little ahead of myself because really what we're about are the fundamentals of business. We like to say the blocking and tackling like you can have, you know, every business has, hopefully they have a sales system, you know, and hopefully they have a, you know, if they're working with you, they have probably a great, you know, marketing, you know, system or structure. But a lot of companies have operations within operations, are tight on call center. They understand how to handle the flow as they come through, they understand what's going on on the field. But a lot of times where we miss is we don't have a management system like how do we actually run the business so that we actually can create systems in the business that help us to scale the business. And that's really what MAP is, the fundamentals, the meat and potatoes, the blocking and tackling of what we need to do as managers and leaders in a business. So, but we don't stop there. I think a lot of times training gets a bad and I never like to say, I would never buy a training company. Okay. We combine the training with the reinforcement, implementation and, and so that's, that's the big difference right there. A lot of times you do do a training, you know how it's like you come in hot, you got a book, you put it down, you're like, I'll fire it. Like how many times before I put MAP in my company, my employees would wait me out, I'd be at a conference, I'd be like, let's do this, let's do that. And it's like they're like, they're behind the scenes. They're like, let's give it a little time. Cato's gonna probably move on to something different. It's the shiny object and that's who I was. And. But what we do with MAP is you take those fundamentals and when you combine them with reinforcements and implementation with like a CEO coach and that's kind of what the differentiator is for us. We take a. The fundamentals of training or the fundamental principles we have to get right in business, which I'll talk about. You combine it with the implementation of it all so that you're doing it the right way with a CEO coach that is actually doing the implementation helping you. And then you layer in the technology platform to support it and you're like, you're off and running and you can push it up and down the organization. But. So that's the way I talk about it. But that's a little bit of the difference is it's, you know, to wrap it up. The difference is it's all about fundamentals.

[Chris]

Yeah. I think one thing that a word that you use that I think is really important and is there's reinforcement piece because. And anybody who's listened to me present anywhere I've presented, I probably, I don't even know how many hundreds of keynotes or breakouts and that I've done over the years. And I would usually always kick it off with this rule I would call the 95.5rule. And, and it is around really, it's all about this reinforcement piece. Like, hey, you, come here. You took the time, you listened to the podcast, you took the notes, you had all the ambition in the world, but then at the end of the day you didn't, you know, you did nothing with it because you went back normal routine. And because there's no follow up, somebody to hold them accountable, you know, or somebody to hold them accountable for what they learned because they're trying. They're the owner. They're holding themselves accountable. Well, it falls flat because you didn't do anything with it. And so I love the fact there's reinforcement. And what, what made the. My, my time with Skyler so good is the volume of follow up is insane. And the volume of technology to use to follow up is, is insane. And, and even to the point to where like the journaling I do in the morning comes from that. So it's a constant reminder now there's some self accountable, like I still have to wake up early and do the things. Like I could not do things and they would be useless. But the key word that you use is reinforcement. And that's critical. Right? To. To. This is. Sometimes you don't have that discipline to keep doing the things you need to do. When, if. When the event is over and the shiny object is passed. Now you're looking for the next one. And these are like, you know, you gotta. You gotta. The discipline, I think is. Is a. Is one of my favorite words because it's.

[Michael Cato]

It's. That's the word for map. Map is a disciplined process you run. I like to say it's the most important habit you can put in your business. We all have. We understand the power of habits. You know, we learn it when we're a child. When we're a baby. As a parent, you're like, let me get this kid to sleep. Let me get him to bed at the same time. Get him up at the same time. Let me feed him at the same time. Let me. Do you want to get them on schedule? Routine, routine, routine, routine, routine. And then we open businesses and we're like, where's the routine? And it doesn't. People need routine. People need structure. So what I say maps the most important habit because it's that monthly meeting that happens to reinforce everything that you learned. Every single. And it happens at every level, which we can talk about. But listen, this stuff isn't sexy, okay? Your stuff that you do. Sexy. Okay, that's hot. Like, that's cool what we do, bro. It's just. It's the fundamentals that like you're like, yeah, that. Yeah, that's not a shiny object we're chasing right there. That's not a cool picture like in your background. This is like, this is the shit we need to do to make sure that the stuff that we do with you works that we can actually. Because you would drive the hell out of a business. And our job is to make sure that the company's capable of managing that.

[Chris]

Yeah. I mean, we did a whole episode on blocking and tackling and. And how like the. Some of the best businesses focus on the unsexiest part of the business. As was. Which is exactly what you're talking about.

[Michael Cato]

Yes.

[Chris]

Because that is where you can make the most movement. Both top line and bottom line, by the way, is in the unsexy. I can't remember what episode that was, but it was a great one.

[Michael Cato]

There's so many of them. I was trying to like look through them all. So you have some great guests though. I love it.

[Chris]

Thanks, man. I, so I'm gonna make a little bit of, of a pivot here too. And, and when I talk about leader, when I talk about leadership, I, I, or leaders in general, I don't believe that leaders and managers are the same. So I think they can, I think they can be. But I want you to talk about, because you talk about there being, you know, management, like some of this management curriculum that you, that you go through to help with. So, so take it from a leadership and a manager perspective. So as in business structure, right? We got our leaders and managers. So you guys, I mean, I know you said map is 60 some odd years old, you've been a part of it for I can't remember how long, but you bought it at the end of 17. So really since 18, you've still been, you've been at the helm of this thing and, and working with plenty of incredibly successful business. I mean, you were what, the global chairman of eo, you know, and you're part of ypo. Chad, who's my co host, is a big part of ypo and he gives a lot of credits in that organization for a lot of his success. But you were, excuse me, you worked with a lot of different, you know, business leaders. MAP has worked with a lot of different business leaders, very successful business leaders, and also new business people who are just trying to become great leaders. Yeah, or managers, by the way, because not everybody is the actual CEO of the company. There's a lot of people who are in that leadership role, but not the leader. So, so just from your perspective, what separates, like what separates these good leaders? And maybe this is a two parter. Michael, what separates these good leaders from, from great ones. Right? Or, or good managers from great ones? Because sometimes like in my world, I'm in, I'm in marketing, right? So my job is to create opportunities. So if I can create, if I can create opportunity for sales to go and sell and the company can keep growing, great. But guess what? They can't do it without leaders and managers. They got to have them in the business. Like visionaries like me can come up with, hey, this is what we're going to do next. But I would be no good if I didn't have solid leadership and management. So it's always like to me, the most critical roles in these businesses is having those two roles. But what in your opinion sets apart the good ones from the great ones? Is it some characteristic? Is it, you know, I don't know. I got it. What's your opinion on that? What, what's the separator there?

[Michael Cato]

Listen, there's a lot of places we can go with this, but I'm going to start here and say every, every manager has to have leadership ability. Every leader has to have management ability. There's a little bit, there's a big crossover. Great leaders, okay, have a vision. They have the ability to inspire people. They can paint that envisioned future that people want to be a part of, okay? And that's where you get a lot of entrepreneurship. And they understand the power of asking the why question versus the how question. They understand the power of empowering their people. They understand that it is about the team that they build. I like to say, you know, people are the most important, you know, are the only sustainable competitive advantage in a business. So a great leader is going to be able to take that next level. The best of the great leaders make it about something other than themselves. As Jim Collins would talk. Jim Collins speaks about in level five leadership. He'll say, when there's a problem, I look in the mirror. Or the best CEOs. Best leaders look in the mirror when something's going good. They're, they're pushing, they're, they're giving credit, looking out the window. So it's versus like problem. I'm looking at myself, you know, good things happening. I'm looking at the other people and giving them. It's not about me as the leader. That's how the best leaders think. And so only a small percentage of those leaders and can actually probably get to the point or only a small percentage of leaders get to the point where they're running a company, okay? But you can still be a great leader like that and be running a department. And that's like when we as leaders can identify talent like that and then pour fuel on it to get that to make them the best that they can be and not be afraid that, that they're gonna leave us because we're making them so great. We can't, we can't think like that. Great leaders realize, let's maximize the potential of the people we see, especially those A plus players. And if they leave, they leave good for them. We did our job. If they stayed, even better for us. So to me, that's what a great leader looks like, you know, and as you get through an organization, you, you know, the seniors, I'll leave it at that because to me, that's, that's the picture I think we want to, that I wanted to paint for that person.

[Chris]

Okay, so that's great because I do think like when you, when, whenever you talk about looking in a mirror, basically you're talking about self reflection. Like, what could I have done differently as the leader of this business that made XYZ happen? And then there's the part where you taught me being inspirational is I think for someone like you or for like myself, it probably comes pretty, like pretty easy because I naturally am one. I'm, I'm naturally grateful. I'm also, you know, I have a ton of, I mean, drive to just do great things for so many people. So my, my purpose is much bigger than just making a dollar. And so it just naturally comes out of me. That's a gift I've been given is like these things are easy for me to do. I don't have to fake that. But I had, I've, I have had to look over the years and, and work on myself on like, hey, what, what was my responsibility in whatever just happened? You know, if it was, even if it wasn't directly me, if, if it all rolls uphill, then I've got responsibility in there somewhere. So I have to look in the mirror and, you know, take a look at myself. But I love giving, you know, praise to people too. And, and because you want, you want them to feel good about what they've done. And you've heard the term people don't leave businesses, they leave their leadership. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think they're, there's instances where people can leave the company regardless of leadership, but more often than not, I think you would agree people leave their leaders. Not this company.

[Michael Cato]

I agree. 100. There's a book sitting right there that I'm not going to grab on my shelf. And it's called, it's the Manager and it's written by Gallup, okay, The big survey company. And literally it says it's the manager. And then the sentence underneath there basically says the single greatest, the singles greatest impact. You know, the manager is the single greatest impact point of any business on engagement, productivity and retention of your best players. And so it's like there's a reason why this is an important topic, but like I said, it's boring. Okay? But great leaders, like we just talked about, okay, by the way, all that, when they inspire, it's, it's very purpose driven. Like, my guess is that you talk about a bigger purpose than yourself and your business when you talk about how you want to grow this company. I do the same way. And that's a gift that we have. But there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that, and you got to take the good and the bad because it's not always easy. And there's a lot of hard times. There's a lot of difficult conversations. There's a lot of things that you got to do that, like, aren't comfortable decisions you have to make that, you know are going to affect other people. Not everybody. You can be a great leader, but not everybody wants that responsibility. And so, you know, that's where this thing gets really interesting when you talk about that level. So, hey, real quick, real quick.

[Chris]

This. I'm gonna take this thing sideways for just a second because I want to forget it. What is. What is your take on the difference between a leader and a manager? Like, we've actually. I've had this conversation multiple times on this podcast, but what's your take? Like, what is like, hey, a leader is responsible for this. A manager is this. Because I. I telling you, like, I've said this to all my employees that have ever had the misfortune of having to report to me is I am a poor manager of people. And it's not because I don't care about them, Michael. It's just that, you know, I've got adhd. I've got this thing over here. I can bounce from this to this over here. And I want them to have the best opportunity to be the best that they can with the right accountability and the right support. And I'm not the guy to give that, because it's not because I don't want it. It's just that I know that I'm not gonna be able to give them the focus that they need when I'm trying to do what I'm doing as well. And so I recognize that as a, you know, something I have to get better at, and I've gotten better at it. So it's like coming from a place. Like, it's coming from the right place. Right? Like, I want them to be so. I want them to be so good that I should not be their manager. I need to stay up here in my little. In my little zone and do my thing up here, because the best thing I can do for them is focus on this. Up.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, but they still need something from you. And I think about MAP and the team that we just built and a great executive team. All former clients, you know, all former. All of them have had exits using The MAP process. And then we were able to recruit them into MAP as a leadership team. And so you would think you would. Hey, you would think, my job's easy. I don't have to do anything. No, they hold my ass accountable. They say, you got to make this choice. What about this? What about, we need this? We need this. You need to make these decisions. And I know I'm a little off track, but CEOs, there's four to five things CEOs have to. Have to own, okay? And you have to make sure we, as CEOs have to make sure that we own those things. And if for those CEOs that are listening, we own. We own vision, or I should say, we own strategy. Okay, that's a diff. That's a great topic. I love talking about that. Probably one of time today. Strategy. We own people. We got to assemble the best team. Okay? We own cash. We need fuel for our business. We need to make sure that our economic engine works. We own creating a culture of execution and learning, continuous learning. And we own making. Sure. And I made this mistake in my last company. We own making sure that we are very, very active in the ecosystem that we play in, like you are with your podcast. So that when the time might come for an exit, people know who we are. When the time comes to hire the next level of talent, people might know who we are. And we have a story that we tell. That's what we have to do as a CEO. But you asked me a specific question, the difference between a manager and a leader. The easy answer is leaders ask why. Managers ask how. I think that's a little shitty, to be honest with you. I think that's a little too simple. I believe every manager needs to have some leadership ability or they will not be an effective leader or they will not be an effective manager. Every single manager needs to be great at a few things, and they need to understand how to lead people. It doesn't have to be this big vision that we talked about for the CEO, but they need to know how to inspire their team. They need to know how to coach their team. They need to understand how to ask the right questions to their team. You know, And I'd say the most important question they have to ask is, what's the goal? Any interaction, what's the goal? And prepare for that communication. So to recap, I believe every manager has to be. They have to be able to lead. But I understand what you're saying about yourself and what you're saying about me. Like, I'M not a great manager. The reason I put MAP in place was because I wasn't a great manager. So here's the difference. Great leaders know that they're not a great manager, and they surround themselves with the process and the people to make sure that their leadership can be effective because they understand. I understood. I brought MAP in because I knew I was a hot mess as a manager. I could lead, but I, but I still had to have the discipline to put everything in place that I know I needed to do as a entrepreneurial CEO. But I needed help. That's why I brought in a coach. That's why we hired the right people. So I don't know if that answers your question, but I can say that's my experience on how it works.

[Chris]

Yeah. And I think that actually just the two explanations on you know, why and how you know are good explanations. It's simple, but it is true. Right. You have, you, you know, a vision is only good as its execution. Right? You. You have to. If you. What is they. What's that? The, the phrase I've heard is if.

[Michael Cato]

You hope is not a strategy. That's one.

[Chris]

Yeah. If you, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris]

But somebody's got to execute on all these things. I do agree with you. I think that I'm not a fan of. You take the best person in that role and you immediately, you immediately get to give them a, you know, you, you'll promote them into, Into a management role.

[Michael Cato]

No, that's the biggest mistake we make.

[Chris]

Well, what. I hear that happening often. And, and it's, it's, it's. It sets you up for failure. But, but the, but you could help that person become a manager by doing different trainings, things like that. Because sometimes they just don't know they're capable. They just don't have the, you know, the, they don't have the training. Right. Or they don't have the system processes or the. Anything like that.

[Michael Cato]

And that's why MAP exists.

[Chris]

Exactly.

[Michael Cato]

The origin story of MAP was our founder went in and he had a great background. He went. He would go into companies and he would say, let's put a management system in place. And a management system is just a way to measure performance in your organization. How are we doing as a company? How are we doing as individual teams? How are we doing as individual players? Are we all moving in the right direction? Is everybody setting goals every single month and it's just like magic? Well, he was doing that in companies and he realized that These companies, it wasn't working things, they were failing. They kept making the same mistakes. And he really. And he literally stopped and he goes, I'm not going to consult with these companies anymore. And he went back to the drawing board and built the other side of the business, which is the training. He said every mistake that these companies are making are one of six mistakes. Those six fundamentals that I can talk about in a second.

[Chris]

Like.

[Michael Cato]

And that's what the training is. And so that's what Matt built. So that's why we exist is for just what you said. We. The big. One of the biggest mistakes we make as leaders is we think an individual contributor will make a great manager. And then we promote him. Okay. And he might succeed or he might fail, but here's the gap. He probably doesn't get the training. And the training isn't just go to a workshop for three days and have someone throw up on you. No, the training is, there's pre work. And when you walk in there, like with Matt, the workshop was personalized to me. When I walked in there, like on the, on the wall were like my strengths and opportunities based on feedback from the people that knew me the best.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Michael Cato]

And then we look. You did that?

[Chris]

Yeah, I did that for, for Mike.

[Michael Cato]

Oh yeah. See? And then that combined with my behavioral style, which is a disc D and I was like, okay, wait a second. So I'm not good at accountability and I'm not great at follow up, but oh, I can see why. Because I'm a high D and a high I, which means I'm a driver. And I love talking to people. I'm like, I'm not a systems guy. So I brought in as a leader in my transition from entrepreneur to entrepreneurial CEO, I said, well, now I need to bring something in to help me and my team evolve because I won't be able to do it. So that's. That gets back to how you go from being a good leader to a great leader.

[Chris]

Hey, let's talk about this because you brought it up and it like piqued my interest. And I bet you are listeners as well. You talked about these six mistakes and I think that, that that's something that's worth, that's worth hitting on and it's something that's easier people to remember because we all make mistakes no matter how good we think we are. But. And you. So you talked about the, you know, the one, I'm assuming that was one of them where we, we promote people who aren't ready to be Promoted. And so, so maybe let's just, let's hit on those real quick and.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, well, you know, we've already been hitting on the one, the first one. I always, that I start with when I talk, especially when I'm talking to CEOs and leaders, I always talk about leadership as a manager. The six, there's six things, fundamentals you have to get right. First was leadership. And for the CEO that means what we said. Vision, where are we going? Purpose, driven organization, core values. Okay, but for the, but for the, the. But for the manager in the business, that's not the CEO that's leading a team. It means similar things in that version, but it also means a lot of, like I said, it's like it's one to one coaching. You know, are you developing your people? Are you setting the tone? Are you living the core values? It's, it's. Are they someone. Do you put them first and help get them to where they need to get in order to be successful in their personal life and in the business? So that, and we talked a lot about that one already.

[Chris]

What else do. So let's keep going down the path.

[Michael Cato]

The second one, the second was communication. And that's the second fundamental we need to get right in the business. At the CEO level, we're probably, by the way, everything I say for the manager applies to the CEO. But for the CEO, we're like, we got to be. It's like we got to be. We have to have our brand story locked up because as we're sitting there saying, okay, we've got this great vision and, and we're talking about that to people and you have energy, I have energy. And we've got to be in the, in the, I said in the ecosystem, you got to be telling that brand story because that's going to allow you to attract clients, attract customers, attract investors. So we have to be able to do that. But at the manager level, you know, communication, the fundamental. And in fact, I don't even know if I want to keep talking about the CEO stuff because it's really important we focus on what the manager does because even the CEO has to do it. Communication is about communicate. We have to be able to communicate with clarity. Okay? We need to be able to communicate for understanding a clear message that we make sure is understood. Because when we're in. So, so for example, I said, what's the goal when I. Any, any communication that we walk into as a manager, we need to ask ourselves or as a leader is like, what's the goal of this communication. What am I trying to accomplish here? And then when you have the communication, it's very important to ask this specific question. Can you play that back for me? Or some version of that so that when that person leaves the room, everybody's super clear and has clarity on what we just talked about. How many times do we sit in meetings and we leave and not only does nothing get done, just people don't understand what the hell the interaction was for. So that's the second fundamental. Are we able to communicate with clarity?

[Chris]

Yeah, that's actually a really good point you bring up too, because sometimes people hear what you say differently than the way you mean it. So at that. That, you know, that. That habit of, of asking the question, you know, repeat it back to me, will help bring some clarity to that communication.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, that's. And you can do that in any kind of situation. We could be on stage and, you know, you've probably done it on stage where you go to the audience and ask them a question or, you know, or I'll, I'll end a lot of meetings. Like every meeting that we run with our map process, we always ask, what's your key takeaway? What'd you learn? But so that's, that's, that's the second found, you know, fundamental thing, which is communication. So anyway, so you got leadership, and these are all fundamentals of a business and a manager. It's the third one. The third one, we call it staffing. Do you understand what it means to have the proper process around staffing your business? And I know it doesn't sound sexy, but it can be, it can be very good. Like, do you have a, a job? Do you. Okay, you can start with recruiting, but I'm not even going to do it. Ken will talk a lot about this. Do you have a job scorecard for that person? Number one, first thing, some people call it a job description. That's boring. Job scorecard. Way more sexy. Sounds way cool way. All right. Do you have a process to interview people? You know, some people use top grading. Somebody use. Some people use different behavior always. But do you have like a, A real process that's not just the sniff test? Like, is there breath? And I know it's really hard, like coming from a restaurant delivery business, looking at home services like, man, there's never a day that we're not like, we need people, we need people, we need people. So. But do we do more than the sniff test? Okay, then here's, here's the next piece, which is probably the most important piece, I'd say, because this is where you can fix all your previous mistakes. Do you have an onboarding plan with clear 30, 60, 90 day goals for that person? Okay, that to me is number one. Because if you have that, you can screw up the first part. But if you're measuring their. If you have an onboarding plan and you're clear about what success looks like, you can fix your mistake after 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. Okay. And then if they make it through that onboarding plan, what are you doing to retain your best players? So I look at it as four steps. You know, do you have the right. Do you have the right job scorecard? Do you have a process to interview? Do you onboard them properly? Properly? And do you. Do you. What are you doing to retain your best players? So that's the staffing function that we all have to get right as managers.

[C]

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[Chris]

Rilla. That's R I L L a Rilla.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That's how you're setting the tone for their career. Right. Like you are setting the tone by saying, hey, here's what the expectation is within the 90 days, and you have an obligation as the employer to meet that expectation as well.

[Michael Cato]

Right.

[Chris]

So. So go back to.

[Michael Cato]

You'll bet. I'm sorry.

[Chris]

Yeah, I was gonna say just to maintain the trust of the person who, you know, who came on board with you. So. Because we do get in the habit too, and a lot of people do of, oh, my God, I need somebody now. They do the sniff test. Classic. Classic mistake that's been made.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah.

[Chris]

By the way, I don't do any interviews anymore at all unless it's like on the executive team and somebody asks me to, but I'm certainly not the guy for it. Even though I feel like I recognize really great talent, it might not be the talent for the seat we're trying to fill on the bus. So I stay out of it. I stay out of that. I'm just. But I recognize it. I don't have that skill set.

[Michael Cato]

Well, that's. That's probably the most important skill set. Is that you can recognize it and then you can put them through a process.

[Chris]

There you go.

[Michael Cato]

And because I like, we're hiring right now and I'm like, listen, I love this person over here, but I'm like, I don't know if I. I trust my instincts, but like, let's. We should still run them through the process.

[Chris]

Yeah, 100. Yeah, 100. Yes. Okay, so we got we. Leadership communication. We got staffing.

[Michael Cato]

Okay, so you. So, so the next one. So, you know, I just want to touch on that staffing thing. The important thing there is that, you know, we talked a lot about leaders and managers. As the leader, I like to say you have to inspect what you expect. So we ran through a scenario recently where we hired somebody. Or I. Not recently at Matt, but like at the. At my other company where we hire somebody. And I just trusted everybody's got it right and it was an important position and I didn't expect what I expect. And I didn't say, tell me what this person, what the winning code is after 30 days, 60 days and 90 days. So that's the leader asking the right question to the manager. And it's a combination of accountability and coaching. But you're also inspecting. So anyway, so we started with leading. So. So we're coaching our people. We've got core values. We're talking about them. You know, we're make. We're developing our people, we're inspiring them. We've got the right way to communicate with them so that we have clarity. Now we're hiring the right people. Okay, but if we're doing those first two things, hiring people make, it's a lot easier because now we're getting. We know when they come on board, we're going to be able to communicate properly. So what do you do now that you got the next. You got the right team. Now the next step is plan. What's the. How are we planning as an organization at the top level and how we change. How are we planning at the department level so that they're integrated? You know, it's hard to do that before you get the right people. Okay, we start with this vision, okay? And everybody's fired up. So our leaders are happening. We're communicating. We're coaching our people. Now we got. We're getting better people and we know how to treat them. Now let's build the right plan for this organization. That's the fourth, next 1/5. So we've got the people. We've got a plan. How are we structured? Are we structured to Support where we're trying to go. We have a vision, we have a strategy, we have a plan. But is the organization structured in a way that we can achieve the goals? And most importantly, does everybody know where they sit? So I set a job scorecard. I used that word earlier specifically for this reason. You can't organize your company, and I mean org chart and other things, your departments, without making sure every person knows the two or three things they're being measured on, because that's what they're going to be held accountable to every single month. The job is once they know this is where everything comes together. They all blend together. If we get them in, they know exactly what they're being measured on. Now we can hold them accountable. That's how you grow a business. So that's the fifth one. Are we organized properly? And does everybody know their job? What did Bill Belichick say? You know everybody. You got to. You got it. You got to know your job and do your job well. He would say, just do your job. I don't like the Belichick. I'm a Buffalo Bills fan, so I'd like to butcher anything he says. So anyways, and then the sixth one. So we've gone from we're leading our people, we've got good communication, we've hired some great people. We're onboarding them. We've got a plan. Everybody knows what they're being measured on. The last step is what we call controlling. That's performance management. That's where you have this most important habit we spoke about earlier. That's where we have a rhythm, a discipline, a habit every single month, where every person in the company is telling their story of the goals that they set last month. These were my goals last month. Here's how I did. Here are my goals for the coming month and all. And that's layering up from frontline to team to CEO like, that's the conversation. And when you're having that conversation, it becomes obvious, are we going in the right direction? Is everybody aligned? Are we on track for our plan? So those are the six leading. Communicating, for clarity. Let's get the right people. Let's have a good plan that supports our vision and strategy. Let's make sure we're structured right. With internal resources, external resources, we're able to measure everybody. And then most, most, most importantly, we are not stopping there. Because if we stop there, we're dead. If you keep going to the last step, which is managing performance, as we call controlling, you're an unstoppable machine.

[Chris]

Yeah. This seems, like, so simple when you explain it that way.

[Michael Cato]

It seems. What.

[Chris]

When you say it, like, that way, like when you just talk about it in that cadence and whatever other listeners are probably, you know, like, it just. It does sound simple, but there's layers underneath those layers that you could probably go on each one as its own episode and probably go over a bunch of.

[Michael Cato]

Well, I mean, you know, and, And. But my consultants could really do it because they're even. They're. They're better. They're better than me. I just ran into my company and it worked. And so I bought the company and said, let's grow this thing.

[Chris]

So, yeah, you had managers manage those.

[Michael Cato]

Processes, and we had a coach and my. And everybody got trained. Like, you know, it's like. And I never miss a meeting and. But again, it's like, you got to be careful. Like, we get caught up. Like, a lot of times. Like, I think this is where I like, like, like, I think a lot of times smaller businesses, they get to a point and they're like, okay, I'm going to kind of step away now, and I'm going to have this, you know, I don't know. They're called implementers, operations, whatever you want to call. Okay. But if you're the CEO, there's certain things we have to do in a business. I named the five things we own, so we have to make sure we're doing those things. And our people need to know that there's a CEO engaged in the company, and our direct reports need to know that. And so, listen, we don't have to be in the weeds on everything. All right? But, like, you know, I've got four direct reports. Like, technically, you know, we have our weekly meeting there. Maybe it should be two weekly meetings, and maybe I should have one to one with them for, you know, 30 minutes once a week, just so everybody's moving in the right direction. I like to move fast, like you do, and like our listeners do. So we just. We just can't be a figurehead, is my point. As the leader, as the CEO.

[Chris]

Yeah, I think this is all. These are all really good points. And because a lot of our listeners are. We have a lot of listeners that are still small and wearing many hats, like, many hats. I think a lot of entrepreneurs do exactly like you and I do, Michael. We move fast. We don't think about all the things, you know, and. And even though you have good intent, you know, sometimes if you don't focus on all the things, it might make Someone think differently about you, regardless of your intent, because you don't have some of the structure in place. Certainly been something I've done before is, you know, if you don't say it, you don't have the plan. You know, you don't have the org to support the plan and you don't have the management, you know, based on what has to be done to execute on the plan. Well, then how do you continue to coach the person to, you know, be better if you don't know where it's falling short or they don't know where it's falling short? You know what I mean? Like, it's like a moving target that nobody wants a moving target. That sucks.

[Michael Cato]

You're totally right, dude. It's so. And listen, my guess is, like, most of the listeners are like, I am like, sometimes we're just like, ready, fire, aim, type of thing. We're like, we're moving fast. And like, I find myself saying things and like, if I don't ask that question at the end of it, like, play back what you think I'm saying here, like. Or, you know, and by the way, you. When you're delegating, you use the same technique when. If you're delegating somebody to some. Something to somebody, you got to play it back so that, you know that there's a deadline and so on and so forth. But I move so fast. I don't stop and ask, man. Like, they could be working on completely the wrong thing of what I thought my intent, what my intent was, but what came out of my mouth. Because things move fast, too fast from my brain to my mouth with a lot, not a lot of, like, filters.

[C]

Yep.

[Michael Cato]

And it's like, you know, bro, it's like I gotta pause and put a little extra step in there to make sure.

[Chris]

Yeah, listen, like, in a lot of ways, I'm still. I'm still the same where I'm like, jump and build the parachute on the way down. It's just that I've learned how to do that and know how to, you know, and know how it needs to work on the. I know how to build the parachute quickly.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You know, but sometimes, you know, you can, you know, we can get in our own way of, you know, not jumping at all, which is another mistake. Right. Like, it's. There's supposed to be progress over perfection.

[Michael Cato]

But that, by the way, that that happens still. I still do that. I still wait too long on decisions. I was counseled by my executive team in the last four months. It's like you need to make decisions faster. I'm like, okay, got it.

[Chris]

Yeah. Analysis paralysis is real, by the way. Like, and sometimes us as visionaries think about all those things that we can't do that we have to rely on the people to do. And we're like, but so like, so us being like, hey, we learned some things is us being not making decisions, which is total. So it almost like clogs us up from, from doing the things. So it's like this little balance. But listen, we're already at the top of the hour. I promise you we get off here anytime an episode, anytime an episode is going really good, Michael. It flies by like this. Like I love these conversations and this.

[Michael Cato]

Can't believe it's been this long so already. Wow.

[Chris]

So. So we'll definitely have to do a, a follow up on some of this stuff. We'll kind of pluck out what the listeners feedback is on what they liked from it and then we'll take one of those and turn into another episode. Real quick though, before we go, I want you to make sure you give to our listeners a. If they want to, you know, connect with map.

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, you.

[Chris]

Even if you're open to it, like what's the best way for them to connect and learn more about it. And yes, you can ask Goodrich too, but he, I'm telling you, he's going to take you 3 days to reply to you. So just go. But maybe what's the best way that they can connect with you guys?

[Michael Cato]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, before I say that, I want to say, like, listen, I'm a big believer in companies having a system to run their business, a management system. And I know there's a bunch of them out there. You know, what I would say is, you know, think about your rhythm because some systems are 90 days. I'm a firm believer in 30 days where you're evaluating the business every 30 days with a coach, a former CEO in the room with you. A lot happens over 90 days, lot changes. And so. And it's very difficult to run your own meetings if you don't have a coach in there. So we are differentiators. We do. And this is not a plug. I'm just saying if work with a system, but make sure you evaluate who your coach is, what the rhythm is, all those things, because it's really important to get it right. You can I. Our. My website's Matt or our website's map consulting dot com. I can be reached at MC as in Michael Cato@map consulting dot com. I'm also on LinkedIn. I put a lot of content pretty, you know, every multiple times a week on my LinkedIn handle as well.

[Chris]

Cool, man. We'll make sure to share some of that stuff in the. In the show notes as well, so that way they can connect with you pretty easy. But, man, listen, I. I appreciate hopping on. It was good to meet you, man. I've heard so many good things.

[Michael Cato]

Finally. Finally.

[Chris]

I love it and the program overall, and it's cool that I've even had my own, you know, employees in there running the program, and my friends have been a part of it and, you know, Skyler, like, so I love it whenever there's all these paths that cross over, but I've never actually met the human being, so it's good to meet you, dude. I love your energy. It's great.

[Michael Cato]

Oh, dude, you're awesome. Your energy, I love. I got. Dude, I got to get your set up there. I mean, I'm sitting here in my office, standing here with a whiteboard, and I'm like, what am I doing? Look at what you've got going on.

[Chris]

You're standing up, getting after it, and it makes me want to stand up and get after, but that's just kind of feeding off you a little bit here. But if we could blow past this, I totally would have. But I know you and I both have a meeting, so I just want to say appreciate you giving me the time and coming on here. I know it took a little bit to get it set up, but thanks, dude. And I appreciate you pouring into our listeners.

[Michael Cato]

I love it. It's been my pleasure and great to be here, and anything I can do to help any listeners, I'm always available.

[Chris]

Awesome, man. We'll keep kicking ass over there and helping everybody out. I love it. And to all of our listeners, you know, he gave, you know, those six mistakes, you know, and we'll run through them again, too. Hell, I might even name this one, you know, something like the topic of this one around those six mistakes. So. But, you know, he shared a lot of different things. And again, not all this stuff works for everybody, but I guarantee you part of it does. And. And even if that's something is just being aware of what is my hiring process actually look like. Is there even a process for it? Am I the one doing the sniff test? Because I bet you a bunch of listeners do the sniff test test. We've all done it. So this is your notice. Put an actual plan in place for hiring that helps you find the right talent to run your plan and then make sure they have a clear expectation on what those first 30, 60, 90 days look like to set the tone. But make sure that that 30, 60, 90 days is just the beginning running to the plan to execute on that year's strategy.

[Michael Cato]

So are you ready to start consulting?

[Chris]

Let's go. I'm just listening, man. I've had to learn how to be a better listener over all these podcasts.

[Michael Cato]

Great stuff, man. And you can't do it all at once, man. You got you, like you said, the 95.5 pick, your pick that. Pick 5% of what you heard today and say this is what I'm gonna do and if you need help, let me know.

[Chris]

Absolutely. And that actually is the perfect way to segue to my outro, which is you don't have to do everything, but you have to do something. No. Zero days.