John Baines, a remarkable leader who ascended from engineer to president by the age of 29, shares his compelling journey to growth by embracing the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable, and even the panic-inducing aspects of leadership. John offers invaluable insights into leadership evolution.
In our reflective dialogue, we delve into the iceberg metaphor of personal development and leadership, emphasizing the hidden depths where our true selves reside. Navigating beyond the surface requires conscious effort, encouraging self-discovery, questioning, seeking, and being open to both giving and receiving advice.
John Baines, a remarkable leader who ascended from engineer to president by the age of 29, shares his compelling journey to growth by embracing the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable, and even the panic-inducing aspects of leadership. John offers invaluable insights into leadership evolution.
In our reflective dialogue, we delve into the iceberg metaphor of personal development and leadership, emphasizing the hidden depths where our true selves reside. Navigating beyond the surface requires conscious effort, encouraging self-discovery, questioning, seeking, and being open to both giving and receiving advice.
Welcome to the third growth option podcast, where we talk with business leaders and innovators hungry to drive growth that can be faster than internal organic growth and less risky than acquisition. Your moderator is Bernal Duncan-Spuller, chief Sherpa and CEO at Realign, who has led private equity owned distributors through turnarounds and growth. With battle proven leaders from all frontiers, we want to provoke thinking about business growth beyond conventional wisdom and binary choices.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm Beno, your host, talking today with John Baines. I am struggling at AVistage Share, but really my Vistage Share, which is exciting to have my Vistage Share on a podcast. John is also a strategic advisor to C-suite executives, presidents, owners for the last several years and a member of Vistage since 2015, I believe, and for about 14, 15 years before that, john was president of Han Automation, where his team grew a lot like 30, 40% annually from like a dozen people to close to 100 people. John is an engineer by training and pretty passionate about lifelong learning, leadership, team building. John and I both have German family, so we appreciate that more sort of engineering driven culture that asks why, but we're also both Americans that like to ask why not? John, welcome to Third Growth Option podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Beno. Really, this is going to be fun. I'm excited about it.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about growth in three different zones. You know the growth outside the comfort zone, which is a little bit cliche at this point People use that phrase a lot but you introduced two other zones that I found really intriguing the stretch zone and then the panic zone. And it's that stretch and panic zone where really all the growth happens. There's very little, if any, growth that happens inside the comfort zone. Right.
Speaker 3:There's really no. There's no growth in the comfort zone. It's your recovery zone.
Speaker 2:Right. So, john, when you started at a very young age, at age 29, you were asked hey, do you want to be president? Talk a little bit about you know, 29 year old John being asked to take over as the top guy in an organization, and what did that feel like, and you know why did you say yes to that.
Speaker 3:So 29,. I was working for an automotive supplier up in the Detroit area and I had met the folks from Han through that shop. We were a family owned business that I was a part of. I'd previously worked for a German Japanese joint venture. So very different culture, very different experience. And this was a great company but they didn't have much modern let's call it manufacturing processes. It was a rubber injection, rubber molding company and they found Han at a trade show, were amazed by what they could do in the rubber industry and literally bought an equipment piece of equipment off the trade show floor which no one does because they're not designed to run manufacturing process, but then also committed to a long term project to do some, some actual equipment. And it was my part. We were automating, I was in charge of new product launch, like production processes and getting approval from whoever our customer was I think it was Chrysler at the time and I speak fluent German.
Speaker 3:So for the ownership of the company they were like this is a great project for John DeLiet and I was very excited about it and over the course of about a year got to know the team, met with the owner of the company, the founder of the company, the other partners and you know, just to build a relationship, not necessarily always the best one. They were not my favorite supplier, frankly, but got to know them and I remember getting a call. I was in my house in an arbor, the current president then the president of Han US called me and was talking about how he wanted he was retiring and they were looking for a new president and kind of going on and on. And I remember getting off the call, walking back in to talk to my wife and I said I think I just got a job offer, but I really don't know, it wasn't clear like were they looking for help? And it was, it was a job offer. So I ended up talking to the founder later on and you know, I just didn't know.
Speaker 3:Like at the time I was an engineer, I was in charge of projects, I was in charge of the prototyping lab, which had one person in it, so I managed one person and someone's asked me to run a company. I had no experience, so but I was so excited about the opportunity and I said yes, because that's what I do in life. I say yes, and this, this, so this gets into that comfort zone, stretched on panic zone. I was clearly in the in the panic zone. I didn't know what I was saying yes to, but you know that the story goes past that. But really it's a at 29 years sort of you know, you're invincible in everything in life and I figured a lot of stuff out in my life. I thought I could do this too Well and this you know, to ruin the sort of surprise. The answer is that's not really what the case was.
Speaker 2:So you were saying that the plot thickened after the initial enthusiasm of a 29 year old saying, yeah, sure I can do it. Give me an example of where you were, where you veered from stretch zone to panic zone.
Speaker 3:Boy that seems like that happened all the time there. So when I was being asked to be in a sales role, I had never been in a sales role either and selling custom equipment. You know, I made rubber parts before. So I was just really put out in an element that I I couldn't lean on the expertise that I had, I couldn't lean on even the what's called experience of engaging with people. So I was very I don't say very introverted back then, but I'm sort of a natural introvert and it wasn't the most, wasn't always the easiest thing for me to talk to customers. I thought grew over time and maybe that's why Han saw something in me that made them, that convinced him that I was the right person for them. So examples were Honestly, in the very beginning I didn't know how to build a sales team.
Speaker 3:I didn't know how to Build a model out. I didn't know all these things. So I just kind of assumed they have all the answers like a asking for help, and they had Han Germany to run. So I had a really good partner here in the US. But he has sales. Sales was not his forte, engineering was his forte. So he became my technical support. But the rest of the business, you know, running the financials, trying to build efficiency and design the company to be scalable. All those were just things that I could, I could sense were not what they needed to be, and I needed to figure out how to make those changes.
Speaker 3:The most vivid thing, though, I think about is I was talking to. He was my direct boss in Germany, not the founder. So this guy is now currently the CEO of Han Han group and I remember asking him Frank is his name. I was asking Frank, you know what? What do you want me to do here? And he basically just said to me John, I don't know, I don't have the answers and I'm not gonna know any better than you do. And For me that was a light bulb moment that said, oh crap, I guess I really need to do this. But also, this person who has more experience, is running an organization five times the size, six times the size of the time trusted me, so I had given him enough to see that he had confidence that I'd be able to figure this out.
Speaker 3:So I think I was living on that, that edge of what is panic zone, what is stretch zone for most of that early stage of the career and I don't know. I think I was willing to see how things go and Willing to learn from failure. We had a speaker yesterday in our Vistage group and he said the word fails, an acronym for first attempt in learning, and I just kind of smiled at that. I'm like, okay, that's pretty much my attitude about a lot of things. I I fail a lot.
Speaker 3:So I Was definitely an over my head and I try to get as many resources as possible to help me, internal and external, but ultimately no one can get you the answers, like there's no playbook for this stuff and even if there were, you're a different person running the show so you basically muddled your way through, got some Scars, got some bloody noses here and there, went from a dozen people to somehow I mean somehow you succeed it, because you don't go from a dozen people to 20 to 30 to 50 to 80 people by failing all the time.
Speaker 2:you, you, you succeeded more often than you failed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hope that's, though I hope it's an honest assessment. I'm a little too humble sometimes say yep, that's what I did, pat on myself in the back, but I think you're You're correct on that. Is that it? If we were failing more than we were succeeding, you know I wouldn't be talking today.
Speaker 1:That's right, so I Would.
Speaker 3:I would be talking to someone totally different about very different things, but, yeah, I we had a lot of success and we had a really great team. I had a tremendous partner in the US who, you know that was. Really would help me the most, I think, was having someone who was very different than me but was Almost like a dance partner, like he and I could really work together in ways that were very fluid. We compliment each other, we could challenge each other, and we both wanted the best for the business and we did whatever it, whatever it took, to get there. So having that kind of relationship was awesome.
Speaker 3:And the challenge, though, is when you have a partner that's like that and you don't agree on things for your, or you're not getting the feedback you really want or that you feel is helpful, where do you get that? And there's a quality of that relationship that I wasn't getting in, like networking events or even like the executive roundtable I was a part of with the chamber. That was good and helpful to see like talk, to call it. You know quote-unquote adults in the room, how do they run their business and hearing like, oh boy, they have problems too. It's not just me. But at some point that that wasn't enough, so I kept realizing that as fast as we were growing and as much as I needed to grow and Help the organization grow, I had to have a way to learn Around that.
Speaker 2:So is that where the interest in joining Vistage as a member Sort of came to play.
Speaker 3:Ultimately. Yes, I mean, in the beginning it was the roundtable I was a part of for a couple years. It just wasn't very accountable and I felt like we were talking at the same things all the time. I don't mean you're in around, you're in a Vistage group. You probably know the roundtables. It gets pretty exhausting hearing about. You know how hard it is to hire people like it's. Yes, we all have a tough time hiring people. Let's not make that our topic of conversation again. Let's find a different way to look at this problem.
Speaker 3:And then, when that sort of faded away, I went and got my MBA, thinking that's what I needed, like I need to be really smart with finance and other like strategy. So if I get that, because I'm I am sort of a nerd when it comes to being a student and learning. I Thought having this technical and theoretical knowledge would be really powerful for me and that would what would unlock my abilities. Leader, I Don't learn what I went to learn. I learned other things and it was really helpful. But even that that's a two-year program. It's not sustainable.
Speaker 3:So while I was finishing my MBA in Chicago and I was launching Han Mexico, someone knocked on my door and said, would you like to join Vistage? And I said, what is Vistage? So it reminded me that, like, the roundtable was really good, this was a bigger commitment, you know, time and financially. And the leaders in the room Were were people that I'd kind of some of them might sort of know or admit and I thought, okay, this could be really good. But you know, I didn't walk into Vistage embracing the stretch zone. I was definitely. I Went into Vistage with my full suit of armor on and there I'm on armor armor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my CEO, armor, was on Because, again, I'm you know that my my visit trip and told me like you're really, you're really cerebral, you're intimidating to people and I'm trying to solve complex problems, so I'm bringing those complex problems. Well, no one else in there is running an automation company. They don't know the answers to these questions, but there are universal problems that we have as leaders and businesses and it took several, maybe not several years a good year, a year and a half For me to realize that it was okay to take my armor off, which was that was definitely panic zone for me. But when I did that in a place that was safe, with people who cared about me and wanted nothing but my success, it transformed me. It transformed me as a leader, it definitely transformed me as a husband and it's still kind of transformed me as a father too. So, but that was hard. That was really really hard to show vulnerability and get to some really uncomfortable topics that I just didn't want to talk about, and I mean not just work problem, but like relationship problems.
Speaker 3:But then I realized that I, maybe my version of the panic zone had shifted quite a bit, so, alone, it was panic zone In that room. It was stretch zone, so it was really eye-opening and that group served me so well, even to the point when they helped me realize that I was very unhappy running con once we had sold private equity, culture had changed. My partner went back to Germany so I was more alone in the business. A lot of things had changed. It just wasn't the same place for me and I was very unhappy and they said you know, you really should. They could usually quit and I could not imagine quitting. What was my identity? But I did and they gave me the power to do that. So, again, definitely in the panic zone and but I found my way back and eventually you know here we are talking because I'm your business chair I found my path forward in life and I feel like I'm having so much more impact and achieving more by enabling others to achieve more for themselves, for their companies, for the families. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about that first year as a Vistitch member. You mentioned wearing the steel armor. You know untouchable, not vulnerable. I would imagine it was a combination of different factors that made you bust out of the armor and want to be vulnerable, and maybe people were yanking the armor off you. How did the armor come off?
Speaker 3:So it was actually all of those things I'm visualizing my head, the armor and like when did that come off? And I think it was this combination of me being so frustrated that like I wasn't getting the stuff solved I wanted to solve. So I was just kind of pissed that this was not working the way I wanted to work. And then I had others who were really challenging me in ways that I had not been challenged before, and I don't mean aggressively, I just mean holding a mirror up, shining a light.
Speaker 2:That's aggressive yeah.
Speaker 3:It is and you know, sort of using my superpowers against me. Right To say like you're really smart and you know what you're doing. You're not doing that right now, even if something is silly but no, it sounds silly, but it's still real work. My wife and I have twins and when I was in Vistage, they were two, three years old when I started. So at that age, three-year-old twins like you're full-on parent mode at home, like there's nothing else going on but like keeping them alive. And she runs a company as well. So we were just like fully focused on being parents and CEOs. And they said no, no, no, no. You got to grow your relationship. You got to grow love. You guys need date nights and I was like date nights. You know we're in a family.
Speaker 1:How do we find a babysitter?
Speaker 3:What are you talking about? So I remember going, okay, we'll do like one day and a quarter. They're like no, no, no, no, no, no. One every week. I was like oh, no, no, no, no, that's not gonna happen. So eventually they pushed me into one a month, which sounds like, oh, of course, that's easy and it's not easy. It's really hard.
Speaker 3:And to also be fully engaged and present in your relationship with your spouse. I can't imagine ever having that conversation with people in a work environment that's where, like, the armor was beginning to kind of chip away. So having these sort of small bits of coming off and seeing the positive results of that and also recognizing that me wearing this armor was just not working and I was getting mad Like I was. I didn't wanna have to wear, I didn't wanna have to protect everyone, I don't wanna be responsible for all of the growth.
Speaker 3:And it sounds very egoist, it sounds like I have a huge ego. I really don't. I just I was the bottleneck. I mean it was. This is not a you know. Let's sing my praises. This is. I was the source of the problem, because I was trying to be the hero and be the one who could lead us through this. Yeah, it worked to a point. I mean we 10xed, but we weren't gonna do another 10x if I was gonna stay on that. So taking that off was hard with the person I love, but it was hard with my leadership team and it was really uncomfortable to ask them to be different when I had been conditioning them to be a certain way for so long.
Speaker 2:Being more transparent with your leadership team. You were frustrated about a situation with your leadership team and they said you know what? I'm referring to here. Right, Tell me about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's I mean first. I would fix to or I would modify. Two words on what you said. One I was angry. I was angry, so I wasn't frustrated. It's well past that.
Speaker 3:I was just really mad at how little they were responding to some significant issues and my Vistage group wanted me to show my emotions to my team. They asked if I, if my team knew I was angry, and I was like, well, yeah, sure, of course they know that I'm disappointed in the results and like, want them to do something different. Like no, no, john, are you you should let them? Do they know that you're angry? Do you show it to them? I'm like, oh, I would not know, that would be bad, like that would scare them and then they would not be productive. And they said, no, you really need to show them. They don't know how angry you are and therefore they're not going to respond and the way you want them to. So I tried, I came back and unfortunately it was maybe like the next day or something, which is also pretty typical in this, that you come back and you're just sort of knocking things over at work because of the thing you just learned.
Speaker 3:But one of my sales guys. Jonathan, he had taken on a really complex project and I underestimated how much risk we had taken on. I overestimated how much he was aware of those risks. And when it came became really clear in a meeting, I showed him my anger, and I did it in a really poor way. I showed it to him in a group setting. I like the dams burst. When I did it it wasn't my hint of anger, it was bottled up, had been released, you know. The cork was out, the stopper was out, you know, and I didn't know, I didn't warn him, I didn't tell him why I was doing this. So it was really bad actually, and I even remember asking him to meet me outside afterwards because I could tell how much I'd hurt him. I mean, I really I heard him and he meant a lot to me and I apologize to him. But you know you really can't put something back together when you break it. You can try to clean up the mess, but you still, you still cause people harm. So, using the whole stretch zone, panic zone thing, my emotions didn't help me understand, kind of, where I was out of that I was definitely behaving in a panic zone way, like I had no awareness of the way I was being until after the fact, and you know, ultimately it killed our relationship and he he ended up finding a different job. I don't know if it was a year later or more. We have since reconnected and he's doing really well and we had a good conversation.
Speaker 3:I still carry that weight of doing what I, what I needed to do, but being really messy and seeing the impact you can have and if it's not done the right way, what I should have done was come back to say to my team here's what I, here's the feedback I got, here's why they're suggesting this. I'm going to try to do this more. It's not going to go well and I want to get better at it, but I want you to know why I'm doing it and I want you to be aware of me doing it. So that learning happened really quickly after that episode, because then I started to do that, I started to act that way, and so the next thing I wanted was them to be more responsible and take more ownership as a leadership team, and I remember telling them like I'm not going to run this meeting anywhere, you're going to run it. I'm not going to resolve conflict. You're going to resolve conflict. I'm still here, I'm part of this team, I'm going to support you. But you got to stop looking to me as the one with all the answers. I don't have all the answers and I know that's been what you've been conditioned to believe and I have reinforced it, but you need to do that. So I remember sitting at a leadership team meeting and to keep myself from jumping back into my old behaviors, I was literally sitting on my hands Just as a reminder, like you're not supposed to engage.
Speaker 3:And there was this first conflict and someone I think it was like their HR manager who saw a report from who knows, it might have been the assembly manager and what he had presented was just not okay. And she said, hey, what's up, that's not okay, we're just going to move on, or I can talk about that and everyone looks at me and I and I'm sitting on my hands. I just gave him like the look back and total silence and let silence be the motivator to actually take some action. But that was so hard. But no, for me that was so hard because I was like I know what I want to say, I know how I would fix this, but I needed to change. So I don't think I could have ever reached that stage had I not been encouraged to take my armor off and to help and for me to see there's value in being vulnerable as a leader and quite frankly it's it's kind of mind boggling that I ever thought otherwise like that. I ever thought that was that I believe in a different system before.
Speaker 2:And you know, unless you've fisted team members, you know, if they had not challenged you to articulate what you're feeling to your team, you would have stayed stuck the way the, the cork pop was ugly and cause damage. But unless you had gone through that experience you might have never sort of leaped to the next level of self-awareness and different way of being and leading.
Speaker 3:That is entirely correct. I would not be the person I am today had that experience and that group. So I mean that sort of collective experience, the group experience, of course, but I mean the application of the things I was learning and who I was trying to be, and building the self-awareness to embrace a style and an authenticity. Frankly, I was trying to be a leader that I was not built to be. I was only using half my brain in that. Again, you said engineer by degree. I'm amadextrous, so I'm very creative as well, and I was not using some of that emotional intelligence that I have. So I did that and that's what ultimately helped me realize I was in the wrong place, because that's not what as a company, as an organization, that's the way we were heading. I mean, it's a German company. There's not a lot of emotion in German business and I say that lovingly. So it wasn't welcomed, it wasn't seen as the right way, and I'm painting with very broad brush here, so this is a bit more hyperbole than truth, but it's Directionally. That's certainly what I felt and what I thought was the right way to move forward and to get through our challenges. It was not the way. The rest of the board and the rest of the owners saw that. So, and as much as I tried to fix it and work really hard, I could only run so fast on a hamster wheel and eventually you're going to kill yourself. So that was where the group said you need to find a different home. So that was that next panic move of if I don't do this, who am I? It wasn't what do I do, it was who am I? I explore different things, but what I really recognized was Vistage was so powerful for me as a human and my chair suggested I become a chair that I started to do that. I really really enjoy that, and what I think I really enjoy most about that is I continue to learn Like I'm pretty selfish as a Vistage chair that this is obviously for other people.
Speaker 3:But boy, boy, do I get so much out of this and I spend most of my days not in my comfort zone because I don't know what we're going to be talking about and I don't know what we're going to learn about it. I don't know who's going to walk in and drop a bombshell and how do we do, how do we deal with that? And you know what did my agenda said to do these things today. Well, we're not going to talk about any of that stuff.
Speaker 3:So how do I, how do I embrace that? And but how do I also teach it while I'm doing it? Like, how do I let people into what I'm, what I'm going through? And again, that's that vulnerability, like, as the chair, you think, okay, this person's in charge, they know all the stuff. I'm like, no, I don't, but I, I've been there, I get it, I'm still there, I'm human, just like you. So we're going to, we're going to sit in this moment and really embrace that stretch of like that. Let's embrace being out of that comfort zone to understand what are we hearing, what are we not hearing, what are we feeling?
Speaker 2:But interestingly you know, your your transition from president for 14, 15 years to becoming a Vistage Chair strategic advisor doing very different work. Right, because it's more, you know. It's more coaching, collaborative as opposed to directive, with execution responsibility.
Speaker 2:In a way it feels like the Vistage Group helped you. I'm thinking about that saying don't judge a fish by its ability to ride a bicycle, because I think you were beating yourself up over certain presidential behaviors that you maybe you didn't really want to be president of a company, but you wanted to be in a more of an advisory, coaching role.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I mean, I think there's still an itch to be running a company again. It would have to be, though, under very different circumstances. It would not be over the sort of technical, central decision maker, hard driving without, you know, really focusing on culture and building a team that embraces failure and learning. So I, I still have a drive for leadership and it shows up in other things that I do, like I tend to be the chair of the board of nonprofits that I'm involved with like I just gravitate to that stuff because I I don't know, I do like that, but what I think, what?
Speaker 3:What you're highlighting is it showed another way, almost like you know, your third growth option, like there's these two things and now, now there's actually there's another way, and I think that was a really a trigger for me that there was this other way. And I still have some of those voices saying you know, when someone asks, like what do you do, boy? It was really fun and pretty exciting to say I'm the CEO of a German automation company. Now, when I explain what I do, it feels like a word salad of all these different things, like oh, okay, that that seems interesting. I guess. Like okay, and that was, you know, really heightened when I went back for, like my Kellogg MBA, not reunion stuff, but like different courses I can audit and things like that and they're super high powered people. I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm a coach, you know. So I have my own head trash on this, but I but there was this other route for me to impact as a leader, and that's what. It's not measured on the year over year profitability or growth or whatever the KPIs are. It's measured now on the impact I'm having on people.
Speaker 3:I get wonderful feedback from people not very often, but when I get it back it's like it's so moving. We had a Vistage meeting Wednesday with a lot of new members, and current members were sharing what they get out of Vistage, and half of them were things that were very much about my version of vulnerability and getting people uncomfortable. You've honestly even getting people in the panic zone to help them see they can stretch a lot further than they've been there, allowing themselves to go. So I'm going to take you into that panic zone, I've got you, so it's okay, and then we're going to find really where your, where your, your boundary is between the, your own personal stretch gone in your panic zone because they're trying so hard to gravitate back in certain things to their comfort zone. Not in business, I mean more in their emotional side.
Speaker 2:I thought you were leading up to when you said I'm going to push you into your panic zone. I told you at the beginning of this that we have an opportunity to reverse roles here. Instead of me asking you questions, for you to ask me questions or put me into my panic zone. You've you've watched me. We've known each other for what? Three or four years now, I think and are there certain areas that that you think I might want to or need to push myself to grow?
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know if this is an off-limits question, because this is something we started talking about in the confines of a Vistage meeting.
Speaker 2:It's not off-limits if I ask you.
Speaker 3:Okay, no, so what? The issue you were processing in our group meeting this week was, I think, very much about identity and who you are and what you need and who you are in terms of you know how you provide meaningful value to others, and I'm wondering if you were to embrace that boundary of your stretch zone and your panic zone right now, maybe even dipping your toe into the panic zone a little deeper. How do you think about that question?
Speaker 2:The question of how do I provide?
Speaker 3:Who are you? Yeah, I mean who are you in terms of how do you give and but, more importantly, how do you get, how do you receive?
Speaker 2:So the question that I had asked the group was how can I help the group? But then the group kind of turned it around and me and questioned my ability to receive help. Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 3:So you've had a few days to think about that, and if you're willing to embrace your vulnerability here, I'm wondering what is the voice in your head telling you? What is the voice in your gut telling?
Speaker 2:you. You guys definitely made me think about the fact that I mean, I've spent my I'll say my entire life not just my adult life, but my entire life wanting to be viewed by others as somebody reliable, somebody they can count on, somebody that want to be. I'd want to have been on my foxhole kind of person. So with that comes, hey, I just want to be here for you and not really asking others for help. And I will say to you that the evening of our Vistage, our Vistage meeting, was Monday. So Monday evening I had a conversation with my wife about I need help from you. I am.
Speaker 2:We have adult daughters, 19 and 23-year-old daughters that I am still getting used to not being the father of a 5 and 10-year-old, which is a completely different type of parenting style, because they don't question you the way a 23-year-old and 19-year-old do and should question me. And I think the yeah, it's been hard for me to view myself as somebody that needs to ask for a lot of help. It's part, maybe the German culture part as an immigrant, you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, young man kind of ideology. But I appreciate you guys turning around to question on me, right.
Speaker 3:What do you think makes it different asking for help about this particular subject versus when we first met? You were asking for help about your strategy, your, some of your sales pitches.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's much easier to ask. Oh, it's much easier to ask for help. What should my sales process be? What should my delivery process be? Should I hire this person, should I? I mean, those are easy questions to ask in a roundtable, in a Vistage group, that require very little vulnerability, that just require you to say I grew up through this functional area and now I'm trying to learn about this other functional area, right?
Speaker 3:I love the notion that Vistage conversations are like in iceberg. A lot of the things that get discussed are these tips of the iceberg, and they're important and we do need to know. We do need feedback on our strategy. We do need feedback on how to build an effective sales model, and how do we? I'm trying to think of some of the topics like there's a whole lot of things that are of immense value on the tip of the iceberg, things you can visibly see, but the iceberg is so much bigger under the surface and the water is really dark down there and we can't breathe under water. We need help to go down and dive for that water and sometimes we can't stay as long as we need to, so sometimes it takes a couple more dives.
Speaker 3:I just love that metaphor because we just naturally see the thing and want to attack the thing, and even in issue processing, like we were. It wasn't until Ralph turned that question around on you that all of us were actually alongside you, chipping away at the top of the iceberg, trying to address the issue you had brought up, and then Ralph was like no, no, no, it's way down here, man. I loved how all of us started to go under water with you. I appreciate you sharing the difficulty of being vulnerable, even with a group that you've known for years. Because it's not you're right. I'm trying to be as open as I possibly can here. I hope I'm not coming across as though I figured it all out. I am not. This is still super hard for me, but I just appreciate that. This is where the stuff is happening. I don't really want to talk about the tip of the iceberg anymore. There's enough smart people in the world that can do that.
Speaker 2:You could Google the answers to that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the chat sheet PT is going to solve all of that for us Going down and some of my groups get mad at me because I'm trying to go down and there's nothing there. I'm like, hey, man, the problem really is up here. John, let's just fix this. I appreciate that, also your German connection, the things we have in common. I also understand the levels in which this is difficult the conditioning, the DNA, the examples we have, the modeling we've had. I appreciate you. Thank you for being willing to turn the table, in fact for encouraging me. Not that I really wanted to ask the host a question, necessarily like that, but so, A it was fun and B we're back in the good stuff again.
Speaker 2:Thank you, John. Thank you for just being your thoughtful self. I think that's the thing I appreciate the most about you. Thank you for Hopefully both of us have given some food for thought for our listeners around this idea of comfort zone, stretch zone, panic zone. I can tell you that we had anything but a cliche conversation about that, which is what I think is so important, because the cliches we can read in books and we can Google or chat GPT them. This was really great. If folks wanted to reach out to you one-on-one, where might they find you?
Speaker 3:Well, you can certainly find me on LinkedIn. John Maynz is a little unique, but not unique.
Speaker 2:It's less unique than Ben O'Donkowski.
Speaker 3:It's probably easiest if you're looking at me from my company, Insight Partners, so that website's insightpartnersus. I'm wondering if I might ever do a German version of my company, but I have my hands full here right now. That's my website really gets into how to contact me, what I do and why I do it, which I think I hopefully talked enough about today on this podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. This was a special episode and I really appreciate it. Thank you, john. If folks wanted to explore other growth topics, you can find me on our website, realline4resultscom, or just email Ben O B-E-N-N-O at realline4resultscom. Keep growing.
Speaker 1:You can listen to more episodes on Apple, spotify or Google. We would love for you to subscribe, rate and review it. Share it with your friends or colleagues if you enjoyed the content Always growing.