From Chaos to Clarity: How Leaders Turn Culture Around

What happens when a business, team, or leader reaches the point where things feel stuck, strained, or maybe even a little broken?

In this episode of the Culture Secrets Podcast, Chellie Phillips talks with Josh Post, an operations executive, business owner, fractional COO, and business turnaround specialist who helps small to mid-sized companies stabilize, strengthen leadership, align teams, and create operational clarity.

Josh shares why culture is often the “canary in the coal mine” before bigger business problems show up. He and Chellie discuss the warning signs leaders often miss, including unclear communication, inconsistent accountability, low trust, too many meetings with too few decisions, and the gap between what leaders know in the boardroom and what employees experience every day.

The conversation also explores how personal loss can shape leadership, why self-awareness may be the most important trait a leader can develop, how leaders unintentionally self-sabotage, and why accountability only works when trust and clarity come first.

You’ll also hear Josh’s practical advice for leaders who want to turn things around in the next 90 days, including how to define the leader your organization needs, build a clear business model, and invite your team into solving the problems that matter most.

If you’ve ever wondered how to move a team from chaos to clarity, this episode will give you practical insight and a fresh perspective on what culture turnaround really requires.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why culture problems often show up before financial or operational problems
• How leaders can recognize early warning signs inside their teams
• Why clarity is essential for vision, values, and accountability
• How to balance coaching and accountability as a leader
• The role self-awareness plays in leadership growth
• Why trust is rebuilt by being honest and inviting the team into the solution
• Three practical moves leaders can make in the next 90 days

Guest Contact Information:
Connect with Josh Post on LinkedIn: Josh Post
Visit his website: josh-post.com
Special page for Culture Secrets listeners: josh-post.com/culturesecretspodcast

Thanks for listening. Grab the book the original podcast is based on at https://mybook.to/culturesecrets . Want more quick leadership tips? Sign up for my FREE bi-weekly newsletter: Coffee, Culture and Common Sense.  

Check out my website www.chelliephillips.com for more great content. Follow me on LinkedIn.  

Transcript

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If workplace culture is your jam, you're in the right place. Check out this episode of Culture Secrets, the podcast dedicated to creating workplaces where both employees and the companies thrive. Welcome back to the Culture Secrets podcast, where we talk about the real things leaders do every day to build cultures where people feel valued, teams stay aligned, and organizations are able to grow with purpose. Today's conversation is one I think leaders at every level are going to find incredibly useful, because we're talking about what happens when a business, a team, or even a leader, reaches that moment when things feel stuck, strained, or maybe even a little broken. My guest today is Josh Post. Josh is an operations executive, business owner, fractional CEO, and business turnaround specialist who works with small to mid-sized companies to help them stabilize, strengthen leadership, align teams, and create the financial discipline and operational clarity needed to move forward, and what I love about this conversation is that while Josh's work often focuses on turnarounds and operations, at the heart of it is something we talk about here all the time, culture, because before a business breaks down on paper, there are usually signs inside the culture, communication gets cloudy, accountability gets inconsistent, leaders begin reacting instead of leading. Then teams loops trust, direction, and momentum that connects so closely with my value culture formula, vision, and values, accountability, leadership, uniqueness, and engagement. When those pieces are healthy, organizations have a much better chance of navigating pressure, but when they're missing or misaligned, even talented teams can start to struggle. So, today, Josh and I are going to talk about what leaders can do when they recognize those warning signs, how to break cycles of leadership sabotage, and what it really takes to move a team from chaos back to clarity. Josh, welcome to the Culture Secrets Podcast. Well, Josh, thanks for joining the Culture Secrets podcast today. For my listeners, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Yeah, thanks, Shellie, really appreciate the invite. Great listening to you, and it's good to get to be on. Yeah, I grew up on a family construction business as a young lad straight out of school, swinging a hammer, and I remember the first time I was promoted, I think I was 21 at the time, and yeah, my brother was one of the owners, and he came up to me and offered me a job as supervisor, and I remember being shocked, and I thought to myself, after, like, if I didn't know I was close to being promoted, then I'm, and certainly my team doesn't know, right, so that question has sort of been nagging at me for many, many years, sort of that gap between where the organization sits and what they're looking for from their team and what the team is looking for from from the organization, right? And how you know they both work together started to work better. So, yeah, by 2324 most of the organization reported to me, and I've always been sort of wired to have systems and people kind of work together and sort of growing organizations through that, so yeah, that sort of sort of got me started in 2020 2021 A couple things happened, one was I became an owner myself in the business, and second thing was just sort of having some personal loss, my wife and I, and it really got me to get really intentional about about people, about business, about who's in my life, and about where we're going, so that really dramatically shifted my leadership style. I would say, and yeah, today I have two real roles. I would say I'm Chief Operating Officer for the group of companies that we own, and I also do some fractional turnaround work, which is sort of my passion. I love, love helping people create a new reality, and, and, yeah, have some fun. Well, I think that's really interesting. Two things specifically that you said, first about dealing with personal loss as a leader. A couple of years ago, I lost both my mom and dad within about seven months of each other, and you know, the world keeps going around you while all that is happening inside you, and what you're dealing with, and you still have to show up for your team. You still have to show up and get things done. And I think I know this isn't kind of what we talked about talking about, but it really does stand out to me, because of personally experiencing it. And then how you know, like, we are human beings, we're not just leaders, it's not just a title on a piece of paper, we all go through those kind of things. So, if you don't mind, maybe share a little bit about just the personal journey, like as a leader, when you have something personal going on that is emotional, or that you're dealing with, in my case, the death of parents, the grief that comes with that, and still trying to show up with what you need to show up for, for your team, and everything. How did you go through that, and how did you deal with that? Yeah, I think it's a real challenge. I'll speak to men, maybe, because I happen to be one, but I think the challenge for me is I didn't see somebody go through grief and do it well, like there was no sort of model for it, I. You sort of just expected just to kind of move on with life, right? So, on one hand, you kind of want to hit pause and just like stop life altogether. On the other hand, you kind of want to just jump in and keep doing life and ignore the nor the loss if it's big enough. Like, for me, I was just forced to have to hit pause, and I took a number of weeks off. I still remember my first day back to work, the first phone call that God, I think I snapped on somebody, and I never snapped on anybody. So I start to realize, okay, this is a this is maybe big enough that I need to take care of myself, right? You can't keep taking care of your organization, your people, your team, everybody around you, and actually trying to figure out, you know, how do you slow down? Yeah, how do you, how do you really lean into sort of where you're at as a human, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and become a better version of yourself, right? And I just found, like, from a leadership perspective, I had a lot of these things I was going to do, I was going to, you know, at home, I was going to buy a trailer and go camping with my kids more, right, and it was never the right time, and it had to be the right trailer and the right deal, and didn't want to waste money, and on the business level I had all these things I wanted to accomplish, and then yeah, when life got real on me, it's like, you know what, now's the time, right? Let's get going. So I just became, you know, more, I would say, radical, or more bold, I guess, caring less what people thought of me or what the cultural norms were, and just said it's time to do it, right? So that's sort of how I approached life back then, it seemed like a long time ago, five years ago, but certainly goes quick. Yes, it does. So, the other thing that you mentioned, I think, really dives us kind of into this conversation, where I thought you'd be a great fit for my audience. Culture is generally the root of whether places are successful, whether people want to stay there and work for you, whether they're, you know, high achievers, whether they, you know, they give it their all, or whether they just show up and go through the motions of the day, and everything. And I look at it as kind of an early warning sign, if a company is going to have trouble, they got bad culture, probably. And you do a lot of turnaround work for companies, which I think is very interesting, and you probably now through what you've done through there's certain things that you kind of identify that maybe where things stalled out or broke down or maybe they got harder than they should have been to begin with. What are some of the early warning signs maybe that people can look for that might apply to the cultures that they're building or what they actually thought maybe they had built, but they actually didn't. That can be a sign that, hey, this is something you need to look at, that you might need to address before it goes too far. Yeah, I think you're right. Like, the culture is often the canary in the gold mine, as it were. What's interesting to me is, I've rarely met a team that actually believes they need to turn around, so with the word turnaround, actually I don't love it, because most people think, you know, they're only these three steps away from from being fixed, and there's two kind of sort of businesses, and you turn around, there's either like sort of the frog in the pot type of business, where it's kind of been going south for a while, and they haven't, no one really notices it inside the water, the water is getting hotter and hotter, or there's sort of I call it affectionately the toilet seat, where it's it's the up and down, right? So after up always comes down, right? So yes, we had this bad job, but we'll have a good job, and then we'll have another bad job, and that's just life until one of the downs kills you, right? So most people don't see it as needing a turnaround in terms of sort of the the say the themes, I would say number one, the temperature inside the boardroom is rarely the same outside the boardroom. In other words, inside the boardroom, there's people are stressing, they're looking at numbers, things aren't well. What do we do? And they go outside the boardroom, you're like, hey, you know, things are going good, they're pumping your team up, they think they're providing really solid leadership. What they're doing is ignoring reality, right? And that what that does is it holds your team back from knowing what's really happening, and then they can't help you fix it, right? So I think that's one of the, one of the challenges. The second one I would say is probably entitlement. I see a lot of entitlement. Entitlement to me is just when you think you're owed something that you don't have to necessarily work for, like, that's one thing with business, it's very sanctifying, like, it doesn't owe you net profit, you have to do things and do them well, right? So, when you have people that expect certain outcomes without putting in the work, it becomes a real challenge to achieve those outcomes, because nobody wants to actually do the hard work that gets gets you there, and then I would say the other one that really pops out to me is, is meetings cultures and companies that aren't doing well have a lot of meetings, and they're the ratio of words to decisions is usually quite low. I would say, like a lot of words, a lot of discussion, and not a lot of like key decisions, not a lot of clarity. People aren't always on the same page, but man, they can talk about it. You mentioned clarity, like making sure that they had an understanding of where they were going. One of the pieces of my value culture that I have is vision and values. You can't have either of those if you don't have a clear picture of where you're going, and you can't expect someone else to know what that is and where you want to go if you yourself can't artic. Cultivate it, and that kind of thing, so knowing where an organization is going and what maybe the done, or when we get there, what it actually looks at. So, what happens inside a business when leaders are not clear? What do you run into the most? Like, what are some of the signs that the leadership is in clear where they're going, and where what that vision is, or what that ultimate done looks like. Yeah, yeah, clarity is so important. I think a lot of leaders struggle to tell their team what winning looks like, almost as if you're not allowed to win, like it's.. it's like we want to be nice and we're a family, and we can't talk about winning, but what does winning look like? And I think they often, a, they, they make it too complicated, it's too complex, like you got to simplify it at the level of your team member, whichever level they're at, right. So, if it's a CFO and a CEO, like you're talking a different language than you are with someone that's, you know, running the CNC machine, and that's that's normal, right? But you know, dumbing it down, making it simple enough for your team, and then repeating it, like people don't, don't repeat sort of their vision enough, so I think those are kind of the two key mistakes people make, and that's why they don't have clarity. I think one of the challenges is a lot of leaders don't - I would say they don't take responsibility for how their message lands, so they take responsibility for sending the message out into the wild, they don't necessarily make sure that the person across them actually receives it the way it was intended. I think when a leader begins to take responsibility for how it's received, then you like just by asking feedback and making sure that we're on the same page, kind of thing, and doing it often enough and cycling back, then you start to really sort of grow that message and make sure people are on the same page with you, and then finally I think you need to help them apply it right, so often you know, as leaders, we throw wonderful things, and you know we have banners, and we throw our bodies on the wall, and all those, those cute things. It's, it's, it's nice, but until you actually help them and say, okay, let me help you apply this in your role, when you can do that, when a person either do it on their own or you help them do it, then it becomes real, right? So I think that goes with sort of the key elements that help you understand and actually get, you know, action or traction out of that. What it done looked like. Yeah, a lot of the conversations that I have, especially like with vision and value, is that they're not just words. So like, if I tell someone I value integrity, there's got to be an action behind it. Like, what does that actually look like in the workplace, and you know, a lot of times I'll tell people, like, well, you can have this great fancy set, these are going to be our five values, or whatever we're going to live by, or whatever the number, magic number is for you and your company, but you have to identify what that looks like and how it shows up in each department, and so I think that really ties into that clarity piece that you're talking about, and then also that responsibility piece that you mentioned, like it's that leader's responsibility to make sure that that hits with each person, make sure that they understand what that role is, so it's almost like the accountability side of that kind of thing, and so from your perspective, what does healthy accountability for that leader or that business that's trying to turn around and try to grow look like? Yeah, accountability is such a key word. I think every business that I run into thinks they have accountability problems, and they probably do, but I've come to believe that accountability is sort of the last link in the chain, I would say the first link to me is trust, and I happen to be a certified five behaviors guy with Pat Lencioni, and one of the things he gets really, really, you know, right with his framework is how it all begins with trust, you know, I just think of trust being like, if I trust you, it's because I believe that you have my best interest at heart, that simple, right. And so, when you have that between team members, then everything gets, you know, has less friction and moves faster, that kind of thing. And I think it starts with clarity. Most accountability is not achieved because there's not clarity, right? Just being very, very clear on action items, very clear on sort of what the decision is and who's doing what by when, very simple stuff. But if you're not clear, you're not kind, right? Settings are up for failure, and I think, as a leader, once you develop clarity, then you're sort of facilitating, like, you know, how can I help? How can I help? What's in your, what's in your way, right? So, assuming that your team is competent and knows what they're doing, they don't need you to micromanage them, they need you to move the big opposite schools that they don't have power over out of their way, right. So, once you kind of have those steps in place, then accountability actually becomes quite easy, I think. And I think a lot of the time, like, for me, I don't love accountability, like I don't get excited about holding someone accountable, so I have to get to schedule it in. So, I schedule one on ones with my team during the six weeks between the two one on ones. I'll make a list of notes, good and bad things that I've observed, and it gives me time to process, so that if maybe a change of mind after the facts, that you know what, it wasn't really a bad thing, that was just my bad day, right? It just forces me to have that conversation. Usually, if I could walk into a one on one, I feel like it's a waste of time, and that's a good sign, like I feel like I had nothing on my agenda, I'm not sure why we're doing this, so. My head, and then when I have the meeting, I give them the agenda. How can I help you? Like, this is for you to succeed in your role, so take it around with it. You got an hour of my time, right? And every time I walk out saying that was a good meeting, that's well worth my time, right? So I think I think just actually being able to bake it into your routine, so it does happen, because if it's, if it's relying on sort of your desire to make accountability happen, it's either happening too much or not enough, really. Wherever it needs to be, I think that's true in a lot of instances, you know, like even when you were talking about get the camper and go camping with the kids, or that kind of thing, is like, you know, a lot of times we judge ourselves by our intentions, not by the actions that actually happen, right, and we're more apt to hold somebody else accountable for the action itself versus the fact that they might have had the intention. Same thing, I think, goes to the accountability side of that. Is have we been very clear on our expectations for them, and what that, you know, what success looks for in that role, or are we just assuming that they're reading our mind and knowing what our actual actions and outcomes that we want for them are, so I agree with you on the fact that I think it's really important that we do those, those check-ins, those one on ones, whatever you call them in your organization, that you're having those conversations for a leader that might not be that comfortable having those conversations, how would you suggest maybe framing it for themselves, so that they've been to look at it as a growth potential for the organization, versus as maybe just a corrective action, or something that is punitive, or something that is, I need to just check a box and make sure this happens every now and then, so HR can say we did what we're supposed to do. Yeah, in terms of the one on ones, I often explain it as it needs to be formally informal, so formal in the sense that it's in your calendar, it will happen, in other words, it doesn't require any further action from you to make sure you show up at the next one, because it's in your calendar, informal in the sense that it's not like, yeah, I've had one on ones, where I've taken people out, you know, to watch my kids play track and field, just because it worked, right. I've done one on ones in coffee shops, like, just wherever, honestly, wherever the other person feels comfortable, usually helpful. As a leader, what you're doing is sort of setting your power aside and saying, okay, and putting my coach hat on, how can I coach you, how can I help you? Right, that's different than me putting the boss hat on, saying, you know, it's meeting minute time. Have you achieved this? Have you achieved that? Have you achieved this? Where you behind in that? Why is that not done? So you're trying to deliberately come alongside them, and sometimes you need to use that in words and say, okay, this is currently acting in my coach role. You okay with that? Or today I'm acting my boss hat. You okay with that? You need to get some stuff done, and I need to just check in on a few actions. Like people are usually okay with that, if you're, if you're clear, but again, it can certainly, to your point, yeah, I feel daunting, I think, at first, but I think it's just two humans figuring out, hey, how do we, how do we get this outcome? Like, don't overthink it, it would be my, my advice, yeah, I think I can, I come from, excuse me, I come from a background in the utility industry, a lot of people have been in a lot of roles for a lot of years, and then they're very mechanical-minded, maybe engineering, accounting, whereas it's very check a box, you do this to get this result, and so one of the things I've seen over the years is is kind of that shift from the boss versus the coach's role and what the expectations are in the workplace, so, and I know you've worked with several companies, and you've got your own businesses that you work with. Also, have you seen a shift from maybe that authoritative style of leadership to one where the expectation is more coaching inside the workplace? Yeah, I mean, in a small business, and by small, I mean, like, under 50 million anywhere from the one, too, like there's so many different types of businesses, and a lot of leaders, and I'll say this carefully, but sometimes people don't realize they have leadership in a business, right, they're just doing the thing that they have to do to keep the lights on, or you know, so they often don't think of themselves as leaders, which makes them not as intentional as they should be right, and so sometimes they come across as grumpy, or those sorts of things, until you tell you, I just ask them, like, hey, like, can you just coach your team instead of barking at them, right? So I think it helps, like, how you see yourself as a really important part of how you sort of express yourself as a leader, and I think I think people are all over the spectrum on how they choose to lead. I would say there's a lot more coaching now than maybe 20 years ago, but, but I think so. Sometimes I would say leaders tend to, tend to probably default one way or the other way too much, where they're always coaching and never holding anybody accountable, or they're always holding people accountable and never coaching, right? So I always say it's like a slinky, right? You want to want to give, you know, when you have more pressure, where you increase pressure, you increase support as well, right? So, otherwise, otherwise you get stretched too thin, and bad things happen. I think it's interesting, because I talk a lot about self-awareness as a leader, like, what are your strengths? What you know, like, it's easy to identify a weakness in someone else, but a lot of times it's harder for us to look internal to ourselves and. Be whatever, and I think that's something to be a good leader, to be able to move people around, build cultures, that kind of thing, is that you yourself have to be very self-aware. It's that's it's kind of a skill that's kind of hard to learn if you're not kind of wired that way. People, you know, I think there's people that are very, that are kind of born that way, they're intrinsic, they, they, they see things, they're they're able to make the connections between them and outcomes and different things like that. Have you seen that in the work that you're doing, especially with leaders, maybe of places that are having culture issues, or maybe that they're needing to do some internal work to be able to be successful? Yeah, totally. I would say self-awareness is the number one trait for a cis leader, like the ability to be to see yourself as others see you is is far and away the number one skill I think, and I think it is a skill I think it can be learned, certainly more natural for some than others. I would say what's interesting me about strengths and weaknesses is that they're the same, the flip side of the same coin, right? So I would say for myself, I've reached myself as an example, you know, my strength is I'm a steady hand of the wheel, I'm pretty hard to rattle, I can navigate change because I'm used to chaos, like, whatever, bring it on, right? The flip side of that, the weakness of that is, sometimes I'm not radical enough, sometimes I'm not like I'm too willing to just roll with the ways rather than say, wait a minute, we need to make a significant change here, and we're not being radical enough, and so I build it into my self-reflection. Say, okay, if I was going to be more radical today, what would the thing like? What's the thing I would do? Or if I imagine failure, right? I go in the future and say, okay, if I look back and say, oh man, this whole thing tanked, this whole project tanked, and I could go back and change it, what would I do differently? And then I just do that now, right? So I'm constantly having double checks in my blind spots, because, because I'm aware they're there, so I think I think a lot of leaders sort of self sabotage because they dive into their what they think is their strengths and they're actually over expressing their weaknesses, right? So they decide to be more stable under pressure and the pressure increases and they get more stable, and it's like, okay, no, but your team doesn't need you more stable right now, they need you to make a change, right? So I think, yeah, being aware of sort of your strengths and your weaknesses is super important, and then sort of really honing your strengths, but also being able to understand the flip side of that coin is really critical. Yeah, I said I'm a big fan of Clifton Strengths, Strength Finders, that kind of thing, and we talk about that every strength or every weakness has its balcony or basement, and so, like, how you view yourself and how someone else sees it can be two totally different things on the same same thing. So, I totally agree with that, and that kind of ties into as I was reading through some of the material that you sent ahead of time, one of the things that we, you talk about is how leaders self sabotage, and if you would just kind of dive into that a little bit for me, like, what are some of the most common ways that you've seen leaders unintentionally get in their own way, maybe, especially if their business is under pressure, or they're having employee issues, or different things like that. Yeah, I think the challenge is from a leadership standpoint, is it's really hard to abandon the stuff that got you where you are, right? It's almost like I don't want to use this carefully, but it's almost like when you deal with, like, addicts or people that have, you know, are searching for dopamine, is that you're, you're used to playing a short, usually it's the short game, so if you're in survival for a long time, you're used to just going after the next sale, and so you're always sort of in crisis, you're always always going after the quick win, which means you don't do the long term stuff, and you really don't do the long term stuff that doesn't give you immediate payback, like doing a one on one is completely useless in terms of your P and L, right, in the short term, like it doesn't achieve you anything today, and so the challenge is sort of for me is like coaching to say, okay, we're going to play the long game together, you know, here's all the, here's the way we're going to act in order to do that, and we can't go back to sort of these, these quick fixes, these sort of habits that got you there. Some of the simple habits, like some people throw, throw people at problems, right. So, okay, you're really busy, well, hiring assistant, oh, like, you know that sort of thing, and then your overhead creeps, your business is inefficient, you're not, you know, your delivery starts to drop, and then, so, what do you do? You keep throwing humans at it, right? It's throw consultants at you. The challenge is stepping back and say, no, no, we're going to fix this the long way. What's the long way? We're going to figure out what's wrong and identify reality, and we're going to own it, and make this make this work, right? So, being able to sort of to navigate that as a leader, I mean, it's tough, because it forces you to sort of come to face to face with your own weaknesses is vulnerable to admitting, hey, my way hasn't been working under stress. It's hard because we just, we just default to survival mode and getting that, you know, quick win, right? So, yeah, that's always a challenge. Let's kind of stay on that line for just a little bit, and say, like, if a business is going through chaos, conflict, turnover, financial upheaval, whatever. So, I know in my world, working with teams and culture building, the first thing that goes is trust with your team. You mentioned trust being one of the most important things that you can have as a leader with your team a few minutes ago. How can leaders go about building trust and engage? And while their employees are still kind of decide, am I here protecting myself or what am I doing, and like, how can they set the right course for people to take, and have been moving that, moving it from maybe the chaos and all the struggle that's going on into let's get, let's get this righted and back on the path that we need to go, yeah, yeah, exactly, that's that's a real challenge. Is how do you get the team to come alongside you? Right. Let's do a podcast once from, I think, it was Craig Groeschel, and he talks about, he said the best way to gain trust is to give it, and I thought at the time was like, hmm, that's an interesting concept, but it's true, and I realized, like, the best thing you can do is go all in on your team, trust them, like just be honest, like this is where we're at, this is, you know, what I often say is like, okay, like define what is reality, which is today, how do we get here, understand the patterns that got us here, and the next question is, okay, what does that look like, where do you want to be, and then you invite your team from a to b, right, so this is where we're at today, this is where we want to go. Would you like to come along with me? This is how we're going to do it. Not everyone will go with that. That's the unfortunate reality, but chances are the people that don't come with, for whatever reason, personal, professional, don't have the capacity, don't have the bandwidth. It's too stressful for them. Like, ultimately, that's that's you'd rather find out ahead of time, find it after the fact, we're not getting there, right? So it's just inviting people along with you. Yeah, it can be surprised. Most people generally aren't surprised when they find out the truth, right? When you tell you, well, actually, you know, financially we're not doing so well. Like, no kidding. Vendors are calling us for money, right? Like, credit cards are bouncing. Like, people are aware, generally speaking, more aware than they realize it. So just lean into it, be honest with them, invite them into it, and I can be surprised. I always say, most, most time, more often than not, people will help you, they'll join in with you. It's a lot more fun when you're not doing it on your own, right? So, I think that's half the battle, is just being straight up as your team. So, keeping, giving kind of that line that says some of the things that you shared ahead of us during this interview, and everything. Talk us through a little bit about how you work with people to, to get back on the straight narrative, to identify these issues and everything that that might be going on, and really set them on the right path to be able to turn around that business that they have. Well, one of the challenges I have is that it's not as too cutter as I would like it to be, but I have a couple of sort of main staples. The first thing I do with every engagement is a deep dive. I sit down with humans, sort of my goal to sit down with other humans. I just ask them questions, and quite often they're not even pointing at questions, just like, hey, you know, what do you do if you had a magic wand, what would you change tomorrow? Yeah, how long you've been here? How do you experience leadership if they're long-tenured employees? How does today's leadership compare to five years ago, right? And then they'll wax on about how it used to be, the good old days, and that I start to see how the how the organization has shifted over time. I get to sense their culture. How's your last employee review? Did you have one, right? And people often talk about, you know, I just take what they, what they throw at me, so if they talk about an AI report, say, you know, that AI report you sent, you talked about, you always look at, flip it to me. Organizations in trouble can never flip me the thing they said they always do. They can never respond specifically to anything. It's always like, oh, well, it's 85% done, it's just not accurate. I gotta adjust this, gotta throw it to the worksheet, right? But kind of just take what the threads they give me, and pull on them, and see where it goes. A deep dive report, for me, is more about just sort of assessing the culture, really the culture of the organization, what the underlying patterns are, is holding it back. And every time I present it to the team, on one hand, they're blown away, on the other hand, they're like, yeah, we only do that, just we didn't think that was not normal, thought that was normal, right? So the first thing, yes, the first thing to do is deep dive. The second thing I do is I do a personality and sort of a profile on each leader, which, which to me helps with, helps them just from a self-awareness perspective. When I see their gaps, usually is not overly surprising, but also helps me sort of tailor, yeah, my advice, my support with them. People are different personalities, and that's that's that's part of the deal. And then it's about sort of mapping out a plan, like a tangible plan. What does it take to get them here to here? Often the biggest challenges I would say are are not surprises. So, if they're, if I come out and listen, you have a sales problem, you're like, yeah, we know, we've only tried six things, and it hasn't worked right. So then it's about, okay, how do we, how do we narrow down, and sort of, if we could take sort of the attention of the entire organization and put it on the two key problems rather than us, everyone's trying to do different things in departments. How can we get together and leverage the sort of like emotional human capital of the business and throw it at that one problem more times than not, we can actually fix it, right? So, I often, I kind of joke, I don't do anything, I just facilitate. There's enough, usually there's enough, you know, wisdom in the room to kind of help them through that, but the challenge is sort of like once it's actually getting a plan and then sticking to it, right, which is sort of once they have a plan, then I've just come alongside them and coach them through it, keep them on the straight and narrow there for the businesses that you've worked with, and then even perhaps. You've seen managing your own businesses, and anything, what's probably the most common - I don't want to say mistake - the most common decision that people make that start them down a wrong path. That's a tough one. There's a lot of commonalities. One is people underestimate the quality, like how much importance quality bookkeeping and accounting is on a business, and how much work it takes to do it right. So, I feel like almost all the time I'm cleaning up books, trying to figure out what is the real story, and so there's sort of this like people spend a lot of time trying to find what the problem is, unless I'm actually trying to fix it, right? So, when you're not always fighting with each other to figure out what the problem is, and you know what is it, where does the problem lie? Then you're just, you're all just focused on fixing it. I would say a lot of people default to either blaming systems or they blame people for their problems. So, if it's not, you don't get the outcome you want, either system problem, therefore we absolve humans of all all responsibility, or it's a people problem, you know what's wrong with that person? Fire them, start over. And the challenge, when you're stuck with either of those spectrums, is that you never, it never stops, right? You're constantly redoing systems, you're making SOPs, and nothing changes, or you're cycling through humans like crazy to get the same results, right. So, what you want to do is kind of blend those two and start to look at your team and say, okay, like, talk to the person and understand, like, okay, where did this break down? What is the system you're using? Is it the right system, because the person owns the system, right? And then sort of work with them to up the game of both of them. So, having a more, I would say, well-rounded view of people that I always see, there's just so much more potential in the human capital organization than what is usually being employed, and it's because people are giving, giving you what they ask, but they're not always giving you their extra energy, their extra attention, because you haven't asked for it, you haven't inspired them, you haven't invited them in, you're too busy telling them that everything's fine. Yeah, just invite them in, like it's not that hard. So I know a lot of leaders are kind of solitary creatures, like if you're dealing with stress, if you're dealing with all of this turnover at work, if you're dealing with financial issues, How would you go about encouraging them that, hey, it's okay to talk about this, it's okay to find someone and have a conversation with them, like you don't have to do this on your own, you don't have to figure it out. A lot of people also don't want to admit that I'm in either I'm in deeper than I can figure it out on my own, or maybe it's the maybe I've done something I don't want to, I don't want to own up to the fact that I've made these decisions that's put us in these kind of roles, but if I want to turn it around, I'm going to have to have some outside help to do that, maybe what's your advice on being able to set the ego aside, or and be willing to accept help, and ask for help, and be willing to look at that kind of thing. How do you see that falling out? Yeah, that's a tough one. One of the questions I ask prospects is, you know, have you decided you need help, and a lot of people haven't, right? They're just, well, just gonna try this one more thing yet, and we're getting there, and we'll be in touch. Right, so it's hard again. I'm just, I'm a man, so I'll speak on behalf of men, but some men have a real tough time asking for help, and I think for myself, like one of the things we did when I bought my brothers out back in 2019 is we put an advisory board in place, and and we hired someone that was smarter than us with a different perspective, and through them on our advisory board, and you just said, like, we just want to make sure, like, we're my brother Herman and I are, I've been partners and departments for a very long time, and so we're just like, you know what, we think logged along the same lines, and we just really want someone that's going to call us out on our, on our BS, as it were, if we, if we need it, right, so you have full permission, like, challenge us, and that was a very, very healthy arrangement. And so I've seen it done really well. So now I have a picture of what that looks like, and now I'm that guy, right? So, but yeah, I spent a lot of my time, like, a lot of my engagements. I often sit down with the husband and the wife. If it's a leader, I think it's just really important to see the fuller picture. I usually find out about other stuff that's involved, that's, you know, just pain or stress, or, you know, the way people see the business going, and it's just, it's helpful to have the full picture. And often, you know, we're going home and telling her husband or wife all of our fears and stresses, and they're internalizing it all for us, which is like, it's helpful for us, but at some point, that that's not healthy as a couple, either, right? So, yeah, it can be lonely. It can be lonely running a business, especially if you don't have a partner, and, and, yeah, I think you need different buckets, right? So, you know, you can't go tiger team everything, having a fellow business owner friend that's walked the walk, that can be kind of in the mentor space, or at least in a similar space where you can both just kind of unload and double check your blind spots is like really really helpful and I think the value is is you know I I've walked a lot of turn around so if I can help you avoid mistakes I have personally done right if I can make the road shorter for you like you know that's well worth my time well worth yours right. So you know, why wouldn't you pick my brain, and why wouldn't I pick somebody else's brain on something they've done that I haven't done yet, right? So it's just, hey, we're all different experiences, we're all humans, we're all walking this path together, so why not just help each other out? Yeah, in our business, we have a thing that's called admire and acquire. Why should I have to re-admit the will when I can just acquire the knowledge that you already have to be able to do it and put it in place, so that I don't have to start from scratch and make all the mistakes, too. I think that's very similar to what you're talking about. Let's just say I have a leader that's listening, and what would be the first three moves that you think would be ideal for them to make in the next 90 days if they, if they thought they had a company that was on the verge of being in trouble, I would say number one, tend your hiring the leader for your organization and put together a job description for the person you want to hire to lead your organization, and then go be that person. It sounds sounds weird when I tell people this, but if you take that job description and you match it with your calendar and say, am I doing those things? Chances are you're not right. And I think quite often as leaders, yeah, we're just trying to plug whatever hole kind of comes up, right? We're just keeping busy, we're doing things as value, and so just being really intentional about where is my high value, am I spending enough time in there? And then go ask your team, like, you know, you know, am I doing these things right? So, I think the challenge is, we often think that, as leaders, we follow the business, right? So, I'm running a $20 million business, or $30 million business, I want to be 50, so if I do these things technically to grow sales, and I become a $50 million business, I will leave that thing there, right? That's not true, like, it is kind of, but what's what I need to do is, I need to act like a $50 million CEO, and the business will naturally follow me, right? So, I need to think differently. The CEO of a $50 million business is different than a $10 million business, is a completely different person. So, I need to grow faster than my business. So, that's number one. And I always spend time there when I join an engagement. It's the first thing I do is assess the leadership and say, can they get this thing from A to B with my help, and usually it's about, do they have enough technical skill and respecting the organization, that kind of thing, but also will they take advice, will they take feedback, do they want to grow multi level limit, they say yes, I want to change until they say they don't, right. So number one, I think, yeah, you define, do you have the right leadership in place, and that's usually yourself. And then, and then there's the downstream impact of that, which is like, okay, I have too much on my plate, I'm covering for this guy over here all the time, I need to replace that manager. Like, we need to do those hard things to allow myself to be the leader that this business needs. Number two, I think you need a business model, like, yeah, what does your business look like? I think what it's done look like to use your framework. I think that is helpful, like so. If I'm starting a business now, it's okay. How does your business look like, you know, June 2027 Like, show me the numbers for July, right? And then build a model out. So, what is your revenue going to be? What's your cost of goods? What's your, you know, your margin on it? And then you can't just change numbers, you can't just change the 20, you know, 1000 to a 50,000 like you get to tell me, like, okay, well, you can only change the levers that leave you there, right? So you know how many leads do you get in, what's your close rate, how much per lead, that kind of thing. When you can sort of have a very simple one page P and L for a month, a month, a year out, so like, you know, February, sorry, June 2027 for example, once you have that very clear picture of what that month looks like, then you can say, okay, how do I get from here to there, right? And break it down 90 days, what am I doing next 90 days? And just be as radical as possible. Just ask yourself, okay, this sort of Benjamin Hardy concept, he's got a book about scaling, which is awesome, but one of the questions he kind of poses to the to the reader is like, okay, like, how could you be more radical here, right? And thinking about what's holding me back from being radical, and then is it really holding me back, right? So, once you have sort of a plan in place, then it's time to invite your team in, pull your team in now to speak at their level, which is like, you know, I had one team, the manufacturing facility, and they're busy working on KPS, the owners, you know, bless their hearts, going through KPIs and how to handle all these systems and processes. So, guys, how about a conversation? We'll have time for that. We're too busy. So, we invited them in and said,"Listen, guys, we're producing widgets here right now. We're doing 40 a day. We want to do 70 a day. How are we gonna do that? At first, they start sweating. 20 minutes later, they had a plan in place within two weeks. They doubled the capacity, right? So it's just because you invited the team in. Now it's very, you know, it's not perfect. There's KPS, you'll still need to be put in place, and all those sorts of things. But, like, when you just invite your team into it, suddenly everyone's like, "Hey, here's some ideas, like, you know, here's inefficiency here, and how do we get this to arrive earlier? And I really hate doing this twice, and can we order that, you know, earlier? So I'm just inviting your team in. Once, once you, once you understand the business, you have a model, then you need to teach your team how the business operates at their level, which don't over complicate it. It's just like, hey, here's the one number that that you guys can really affect, so how you guys can affect that, right? So. Those are sort of the three pieces I would do. I think it's really interesting about the invite your team in, because they really are the people that are doing those things day in and day out. And I, on my side of thing, with culture building and everything, when people feel that you value their input, when they feel like you acknowledge the fact that this works better with you doing this piece. I also think they get excited about being able to share their ideas on how they can improve things, and it also makes that makes them want to be there more. It makes them, you know, feel like I'm actually part of the success of what's happening here. And so I think that's really a key piece to it, is that you can't just be successful in a corner office or wherever you at, you really do need that whole piece of it, the team that's that's doing the work, the team that's in the middle, and then of course your leadership team as well. I think that's a lot of interesting conversation. What's the one thing that you wished I'd asked you today that I hadn't asked? Oh dear, that's a good question. I used to be on your side of the mic. Yeah, I think we covered a lot. I would, if I, if I was going to ask me a question, I would ask, what's sort of the one toxic trait? What's the one thing that seems harmless and is not? And we did cover it a little bit. I would say it's entitlement. It doesn't, it doesn't look bad, like it doesn't ever look as bad as it sounds. I tell them it sounds like a scary word. It's like, oh, everybody's entitled. I just don't think people realize how much work needs to happen, right? So I use the example of going to the gym, right? Like everybody wants a six pack, no one's at the gym, right? The author of Atomic Habits, what's his name, James Clear, says the heaviest way to the gym is the front door, right. So I think, I think the challenge is, we think, well, I've been in the gym for six months, why am I not, you know, not reaching my goals? It's like, well, but you have nothing weights, right? So you actually got to get a program, you got to follow it every day. And then the real question is, are you going to follow it when life sucks, right? When you're tired, when you're exhausted, when you don't want to be there, that's the question, and it comes at a cost, right? So we make choices, a yes in one direction, in one area, is a no somewhere else, right? So I think, I think when you lose the entitlement, then a, I think you gain gratitude, because now you realize that not everything is owed to you, you're more thankful, right? You live life with less of a burden on your shoulders. It's an awful lot more fun. It's a lot happier. You appreciate each day a little bit more, and you work harder to get the next day, because you know it's nothing owed to you tomorrow, right? So I think I think entitlement shows up in a seat a lot, but I think it's one of those things that nobody sees in themselves, right. So, I think I don't think it's a matter of, you know, are you entitled, are you not entitled? I think we all have areas of our life where we're entitled, and I think it bodes us well to look at that, self-reflect, and say, yeah, am I entitled here, and what work am I avoiding while I'm waiting for the outcome, you know. I can appreciate that. We'll wrap it up for this episode of Culture Secrets. But Josh, tell me, how folks can connect with you, how they can reach out, how they can learn more about what you're doing. Yeah, I'm not a big social media guy, but I am on LinkedIn. That's probably the primary place to watch me hammer on. It's just Josh Post, and then my website is Josh dash post.com and if you want to connect with me, actually for listeners, I have a website page Josh dash post.com backslash culture secrets podcast, and yeah, you can go on there if you want to book a 30 minute call with me and just talk culture for free, then yeah, I'd love to, love to do that. I love meeting people, I love making connections, and love solving people's problems, especially people problems. I think those are, yeah, those are the most fun, the most challenging, but the most rewarding when you can do it. Yeah, those are probably the probably the best way to get hold of me. All right, great. Well, we'll make sure we put those in the show notes for everybody as well, too. And it's been a true pleasure talking to you, and I have to agree. I think people are the key to everything. I think I think they make what we do fun. I think they make it challenging, and I think they make it a different day every day, depending on what's going on. Thanks for spending a little of your time with me and my listeners. And for the rest of you, make sure you check out the show notes and connect with Josh until our next episode. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of Culture Secrets. If today's conversation resonated with you, we'd love for you to share it with a colleague or friend. And don't forget to subscribe, so you never miss an episode to learn more about building strong people-first workplace cultures, visit Celie phillips.com where you'll find resources, speaking information, and more insights from Chellie. You can also pick up a copy of Culture Secrets at your favorite online or in-person bookseller. Thanks again for listening, and remember, culture isn't something you talk about once. It's something you live every day, you.