Ep219: Introducing the TrueSuccess Blueprint: The 8 Goals That Guide Humanergy’s Growth

What drives long-term business success that’s both profitable and purposeful? In this series kickoff episode, host Mimi is joined by Humanergy co-founders John Barrett and David Wheatley to introduce the 8 TrueSuccess Goals—a practical, values-based framework that’s powered their boutique leadership firm for over 25 years.

You’ll hear the origin story behind the goals, why they must be pursued as a complete set, and how they’ve shaped decision-making, client impact, and sustainable growth. Whether you’re leading a team or building a business, this series will inspire and equip you with a proven blueprint for success.

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Transcript

Mimi (00:10)
Welcome to the TrueSuccess Blueprint, a special podcast series celebrating Humanergy's 25th anniversary. I'm Mimi, and I'll be your host for this journey. Over the next few episodes, we'll explore the eight TrueSuccess goals that have shaped how we lead, serve, and grow as a company. And we believe they can do the same for you.

Today, I'm joined by John and David, Humanergy's co-founders and the architects behind these goals. Hey John, hey David!

David Wheatley (00:37)
All right.

John Barrett (00:38)
Hey Mimi.

Mimi (00:39)
So let’s start from the beginning. You've been leading Humanergy for 25 years. What made you feel like you needed to define these TrueSuccess goals?

John Barrett (00:50)
Thanks, Dave. Well, Dave and I met in sort of a pre-Humanergy setup—a program called Evergreen. We had a team, but we were part of a larger organization. Then in 2000, we had the chance to strike out on our own and start Humanergy.

We got counsel from a mentor, Ron Owens, to really set up the deep framework for the organization. Initially, we looked at mission, vision, values, strategy—the traditional framework. But we weren’t making a lot of progress. We got tangled up in wordsmithing and creating statements that felt generic. They didn’t have punch or help guide decision-making. So that wasn’t helpful.

We reached back into our own toolkit and created the idea of TrueSuccess—a set of goals that enable long-term and sustained success. We essentially said, "When Humanergy is everything we want it to be, what are its key characteristics?"

That became a productive, fast-moving conversation—bang, bang, bang—and we came out with the initial seven components, which we’ll talk about in a moment. The good news is that framework is still essentially unchanged 25 years later, because of its power and staying power.

That’s my memory. Dave, what would you add?

David Wheatley (03:17)
The piece I’d add is that TrueSuccess is built using a stakeholder map. You can learn more about stakeholder mapping in episode 161 of the Humanergy Leadership Podcast.

Basically, you sit down and identify all the people or groups with a stake in the success of this project—in this case, Humanergy. Then you step into each stakeholder's shoes and ask: What would success look like for them?

Once you’ve done that, it tells you what you need to achieve to truly succeed. That’s where these eight goals came from. Like John said, it’s a set, not a hierarchy. You can’t prioritize one over another. You have to achieve all of them to truly serve all your stakeholders—clients, team members, ourselves, and our families.

Mimi (04:32)
Great. So we’d love to hear each of the TrueSuccess goals—and your definitions of each one. I’ll let you guys take it from here.

John Barrett (04:42)
Tell you what, Dave—let’s go one for one. I’ll pick the first one.

Our first goal really speaks to how we want to be in the world and how we want to impact it: Ensure Greater Good in the World.

We define this as improving the lives of the individuals we work with—and by extension, the people and organizations they touch. And here’s a more recent, but very important addition: improving the systemic reality by standing up, challenging, and proactively fighting to ensure equity, inclusivity, and opportunity for all.

That’s at the heart of what we want to be in the world.

David Wheatley (05:48)
The second one is simpler in name: Financial Security and Freedom. But it’s important.

It’s about making ourselves financially comfortable enough to do what we want to do—and to invest in the future. For us, it means pushing as many of our resources as we can out to the team in ways that give them freedom of choice. And at the same time, making smart investments that sustain the organization as we move forward.

John Barrett (06:32)
Can I add to that? This has been part of our decision-making all along. It’s not about maximizing return for stakeholders. It’s not about chasing “more is better.”

It’s about making sure people feel fundamentally secure. That they can sleep at night without worry—and have the freedom to make their own decisions. Decoupling from a selfish or purely profit-maximizing mindset has helped us optimize results across the board.

That’ll become clearer as we talk about the rest.

David Wheatley (07:41)
You’ve got the third one now, John.

John Barrett (07:43)
Yes, sorry—I jumped in earlier!

So, our third goal: Clients Are Delighted with the Value and Support We Provide.

Obviously, we work with clients—they’re the ones who pay the bills. Within that, we work with individuals, which is already reflected in our first goal. But this one focuses more on organizations and teams.

We don’t want clients to just think, “That was good.” We want them to be delighted. We want them to think, “Wow. These folks are fantastic—and integral to our success.”

David Wheatley (09:01)
The fourth goal is: Healthy Client Base.

We define that as having a depth of long-term partnerships, a full pipeline, and a broad base. Each of those deserves a bit of unpacking.

Long-term partnerships—that's how we approach our work. We don’t want to do a one-off four-hour training and disappear. We want to partner with organizations over time, understand them, and become a trusted resource.

A great example: there’s a credit union we’ve worked with for 17 years. When we started, they had $225 million in assets. Now, they’re at $1.7 billion and nearly 500 employees. Our partnership has evolved with them. As they’ve grown, we’ve supported them in different ways—and at this point, I think they see us as an extension of their team.

The second piece, full pipeline, reflects the nature of our business. Some client relationships naturally time out—maybe due to a merger, or because a larger organization brings its own leadership development team. Or maybe success in one department gets attention, and they want a bigger partner.

So we’re always looking for new opportunities to partner and provide value. Are we actively demonstrating that value to the right people?

The third part—broad base—goes back to our history. In our earlier setup, 40% of our work was with serial manufacturing, and 40% with automotive. Worse, that was just two clients. That’s risky.

One executive came in, said “No more outside consultants,” and—just like that—a huge chunk of our work disappeared. So we learned: we need breadth.

Over time, we set rules like: “No one client more than 50% of our revenue.” Then it became “No three clients.” Now, I think even our top eight clients don’t make up 50% of our revenue. That creates sustainability and stability—internally and for our clients.

John Barrett (12:29)
The next goal is: A Thriving Humanergy Network.

We describe this as a network of curious, talented, diverse professionals who are having fun, continuously developing, renewing, realizing their potential, and enriching each other’s worlds.

It comes from our DNA. In fact, when we named the company, we asked ourselves: “What’s essential to who we are?” That’s how we landed on Humanergy—a combination of “human” and “synergy.”

We want to help people unleash their potential—and we believe we’re stronger when we’re part of a community of growth-minded people who support each other’s success. We want to build that, lead it, and benefit from it.

David Wheatley (14:10)
The sixth goal is: Impactful Intellectual Assets—things that are fundamentally sound, innovative, cutting-edge, effective, and world-class.

This one’s about materials. A lot of organizations like ours buy off-the-shelf material and deliver that. We’ve never done that. We create our own—through our coaching work, internal learning, and collaboration—and then turn those into practical tools.

It’s not like John and I sit in a room and come up with brilliance out of nowhere. It’s based on what we see and experience in real client work. We bring it back, refine it with the team, and make it practical and usable.

One client even told me they canceled their Harvard Business Review subscription because anything truly useful from it, we would bring to them—often with a simpler, more applicable version for their real world. That’s the bar we aim for: simple, adaptable, immediately usable.

And that innovation never stops. If you’ve worked with us for 25 years, you’ve seen our tools evolve. We’re always learning and adapting.

You can see many of those tools on the Humanergy website under the “Tools & Freebies” dropdown.

John Barrett (16:21)
The next goal focuses on our people—our team. Both our core team and our extended network.

Our People Are Living Mindful, Purposeful, and Balanced Lives.

This one came a little later. It was always implicit in how we operated, but we realized over time it needed to be called out explicitly.

At the heart of Humanergy is our belief in the power of people. So we need to treasure, nurture, and protect that power.

We want everyone on the team to live their best lives, because they are the instruments of our impact in the world. And if they’re not at their best, our work won’t be either.

It means constantly paying attention—monitoring, making space, adjusting workloads—so people have time to be their best, both at work and at home.

David Wheatley (18:24)
Yeah, originally, it was just “living balanced lives.” And over 25 years, we added “mindful” and “purposeful.”

The “balance” came from our personal values—work is a part of life, but it’s not all of life. That shaped our policies, like our generous vacation structure, and even caps on delivery work to avoid burnout.

That’s not just about individual well-being. It sustains the organization too.

John Barrett (19:27)
Mm-hmm.

David Wheatley (19:33)
Looked like you were about to add something profound there!

The last one is: Lean, Scalable Performance Infrastructure.
We used to joke that this one didn’t need explanation—but here it is anyway.

It’s about eliminating wasteful activity, maximizing impact, making smart investments, and standardizing processes and systems to support sustainable growth.

A great example: our host today, Mimi. She’s taken over some of our finance and operations and simplified them so well that anyone else can jump in and manage them with ease. That’s what we mean—systems that are lean, but effective and scalable.

Mimi (20:38)
Thanks, Dave. And yes, I can say firsthand—I’ve benefited from all eight TrueSuccess goals. They really work.

Quick reminder to everyone listening: these goals function as a set. That’s important to keep in mind as you listen through this whole series.

Before we wrap up, one quick question. Can either of you think of a moment where one of these goals really made a difference in a decision or a challenge?

David Wheatley (21:09)
As John’s thinking of that—I want to go back to that idea of a set. There’s an “and” between each of these eight. And over the years, John and I have had long road trips where we ask silly questions—usually when we’re not singing Bohemian Rhapsody badly.

One question was, “What’s the most powerful word in leadership?” And often we’d land on the word and. Why? Because it reflects this mindset: these goals aren’t prioritized or ranked. They’re all required.

John Barrett (21:56)
Yeah, exactly. When you optimize a set, it’s not about making trade-offs. It’s not, “Well, if push comes to shove, we’ll do this one and skip that one.” These goals work together.

We use a simple example with clients: How would you prioritize breathing, drinking water, and eating?

David Wheatley (22:46)
Right. In any given moment, maybe air is most urgent—but ultimately, you need all three. Same with these goals: they’re not optional or sequential. They’re a holistic, connected set.

John Barrett (23:24)
Now, to your question, Mimi—can we think of a time when these made a difference?

Mimi (23:41)
Maybe it’s a silly question—I’d argue they make a difference every day. But can you think of a specific example?

David Wheatley (23:44)
Sure. Around 2009 or 2010, the economy tanked. One of our largest clients brought in new leadership and said, “No more consultants.” For one reason or another, about 80% of our business disappeared over 6 to 9 months.

Because transparency is key for us, we brought the team together and said, “Here’s what’s happening. This is TrueSuccess. How do we manage through it?”

It was amazing to see the response. Our business manager at the time said, “I think I can do my work in three days a week, and that gives me more time with my grandkids.” People were living the TrueSuccess goals—especially our focus on mindful, purposeful, balanced lives. And it helped us weather the storm.

Same thing happened again in 2020 when COVID hit. We came back to these goals and asked: how do we keep living them through this?

John Barrett (25:18)
Since Dave took mine, I’ll go with that same goal: Our People Living Mindful, Purposeful, Balanced Lives.

Humanergy’s story has had bumps, but the main theme is growth and success. And with growth comes pressure on capacity. We often have more work than we can comfortably handle.

And we love the work—it’s not about chasing income. We hate turning down work because we love serving clients. But we’ve learned that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t deliver great work or sustain it.

So we’re constantly checking in: are we doing too much? Are we preserving the integrity of the organization? We even measure it—are we doing enough and are we doing too much?

And I really believe that our people are living mindful, purposeful, balanced, flourishing lives. Our clients sense it—and it reinforces all the other goals.

Mimi (27:52)
I’d agree. I mean, we’ve had people stay here for 20 years. Others leave and then come back. It’s definitely working.

And that’s what this series is all about.

We’ve created four episodes, and each one covers two of the TrueSuccess goals. You’ll hear stories, lessons learned, and practical takeaways you can apply to your own leadership journey. So whether you’re leading a team, running a business, or just trying to live and work more intentionally—we hope these conversations inspire and equip you.

Get ready for episode number one!

John Barrett (28:32)
Thanks.

David Wheatley (28:32)
Thanks, Mimi.