Leveraging Leadership
Leadership is messy. Most advice isn't built for the reality of competing priorities, difficult stakeholders, limited time, and imperfect information.
Leveraging Leadership is a practical leadership podcast for Chiefs of Staff, executives, founders, and senior operators who want to lead more effectively and navigate complexity with confidence.
Hosted by Emily Sander, former Chief of Staff and executive advisor, each episode delivers real-world lessons, practical frameworks, and candid conversations with leaders across business and beyond.
Topics include executive communication, leadership presence, decision-making, delegation, organizational influence, operating rhythms, team effectiveness, and the often-unspoken challenges leaders face behind the scenes.
If you're looking for thoughtful conversations, practical takeaways, and leadership advice you can actually use on Monday morning, you're in the right place.
Leveraging Leadership
Beyond IQ and EQ: Exploring PQ for Competitive Advantage in Business Leadership
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Rohit Bassi shares how his transition from consulting at McKinsey led him into a Chief of Staff role at a major PE-backed company, exposing him to real-world operations, M&A, and industry-changing deals. He explains his concept of "people quotient" (PQ) as a framework for evaluating leadership, organizational structure, and talent operations, and discusses how Chiefs of Staff can use PQ tools to make quick, impactful decisions about teams and company growth. The episode includes practical tips for applying PQ in both private equity due diligence and daily business operations.
Interested in private equity? Be sure to check out Emily's other podcast, Private Equity Experience.
Link Mentioned:
Rohit Bassi’s Website
Get in touch with Emily:
Want to chat with Emily? Book a quick clarity call here.
Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.
Time Stamps:
00:52 Rohit Chief of Staff Journey
02:38 Inside the CEO Seat
05:08 From Operator to Investor
08:07 PE Basics and Due Diligence
09:28 What Is People Quotient
11:41 PQ Pillars and No Scores
16:28 Why PE Misses People
25:17 Using PQ as Chief of Staff
28:23 Tools, Next Steps, Wrap Up
Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you. My guest today is Rohit Bassi, and he is going to talk to us about, one, his time as chief of staff. He is a fellow chief of staff. And most of us know about IQ, and some of us know about EQ, but I doubt you've heard about PQ, and so Rohit will tell us all about that. But first of all, Rohit, welcome to the show. Thank you, Lily. Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it as well.
Rohit Chief of Staff Journey
You are a fellow chief of staff. Can you give folks the background and your experience as chief of staff? Yeah, of course. Um, so I, um, became a chief of staff after several years at McKinsey, and when I was leaving consulting, um, you know, one of the things that kept coming up was, how do I get more exposure into operations? How do I learn how to do stuff in real life? 'Cause consulting is still a little, you know, formulaic and framework-piece. Not real life. Just kidding. Not real life, no. Yeah, and so, um, when I did my due diligence, um, in talking to former McKinsey colleagues who had graduated and gone on to do bigger things, you know, the chief of staff role kept coming up as something to explore. And, um, lo and behold, I happened to find an opportunity in a private equity-backed business that was based in LA. I used to live in LA, so I wanted to stick around, and, um, that's when I got into that role and, and it sort of spurred me on into other things beyond that, which we'll talk about. But that's was, that was my entry point into being a chief of staff, and I had no idea that role even existed, uh, until I started doing my due diligence, and I found that to be a really, really amazing entry point for those who are, um, looking to ha- apply some of the skills they learn in consulting or banking or any of the backgrounds, but really an entry point into operations and, and being close to leaders who are running things and learning from them. But that's where I started. That was a long time ago, but that actually was my first step into running anything in real life. Did it meet its objective of, now I do have a better sense of the operations and how things work in real life?
Inside the CEO Seat
100%. I think one of the things about chief of staff, and I was, just to give more context, I was chief of staff to the CEO of the company, uh, and the company had been around for a very long time. It was actually a 75-year-old business, um, started by a gentleman named, by Burt Sperper, who started this company called Valley Crest Landscape. Uh, and so it had huge legacy and national operations. It's thousands of employees. And so when you go into a company like that, you get to see everything. But what does the CEO think about? What keeps the CEO up at night? What is top of mind for a CEO? That exposure is, was almost immediate for me. And, um, you get thrown into a lot of different places and different projects. You didn't even know those projects exist when you're a consultant, and you realize that you're a right-hand person of this individual who is supposed to be thinking about the future of the business. And so 100%, it exposed me not only to strategy- But operations, it exposed me to cross-functional teams. I actually got to learn not just from the CEO, but actually everyone else that I got exposure to. It's almost like, um, I was this fly on the wall every time a CEO walked in the room, and I got to hear and observe and learn and gradually practice, uh, some of what I had learned previously. And so, yeah, it was a perfect training ground for what would become my next 15 years of operating and investing career. So, yeah, I'd highly recommend anyone who's even thinking about it to, like, really... It's a perfect place to get yourself, um, the exposure that very few people get an opportunity to do so. Yes, and I remember I was talking to someone who w- was from the investment side of things, worked for a PE firm, had, like, the Oxford and Cambridge and Ivy League credentials, and the PE firm said, "We need you to do an 18-month tour of duty as the chief of staff in some of our portcos, because we need you to have, like, boots on the ground experience, operations real life." Yeah. And so he was doing that. That's how he and I got connected. And then he was gonna go back to the firm level, but they were like, "You know this in theory, but you have to go- Yeah and learn it on the ground." So sounds similar to what you did. 100%. 100%. And you and I have both come from the PE world, um- Yeah in different, different, slightly different angles, but I've worked for a number of PE-backed organizations on the leadership team, and I have worked in parts of the due diligence process.
From Operator to Investor
Would you just share a little bit about your 15-year investment career? Yeah, 100%. Um, I, um... So just taking a step back, at McKinsey, I was in McKinsey's PE practice, so I had done a lot of commercial due diligences, a lot of operating due diligences, so I knew what that felt like. I knew the pain. I'd, I'd felt- the pain. I'd lived the pain. But when I got into, uh, this chief of staff role, um, this was a PE-backed business, and that's when I started to learn about what does it mean to actually be in a PE-backed business. So in addition to being a chief of staff, and what does that mean, and what, what does real-life operations mean, um, there is a lens to PE-backed businesses that, um, I know you know as to how they operate, and so that was my first exposure to it. And in that business, the first thing we did was we did a lot of M&A. So in addition to organic growth, there was a lot of inorganic roll-up type activity, and so my exposure to the M&A side of PE also came in at that point. And that was really cool to see because not only was I buying assets, I had to live with them and integrate them, and actually help those people succeed post-integration. And so there was a lot of change management element to that part that I, I picked up. I did that for five years. We... The, the asset was owned by MSD Capital. We sold it to KKR. It was an industry-changing, um, deal. Um, it was a $2.3 billion merger with our only other national, uh, competitor. So we went from being fierce competitors to, uh, you know, being in the same family. It was... Uh, we can talk about that as to what that, uh, entails, but it was definitely a pretty massive journey, not just for us, but it shaped the industry, uh, completely, 'cause the landscape business is highly fragmented. And so in that case, when, when two big players, the biggest players, come together, um, you know, it still is highly fragmented. I think even after our merger we're only 2% of the market share, so- Wow that would give you a sense of how, how fragmented it is. Um, and then I went to buy-side PE. So on the buy-side PE, uh, which is where I was now able to look at companies and help them scale, this is when we... I looked across 12 different platforms. That's what I oversaw across multiple funds, and that's where I applied my toolkit as an operator, and now helped founders who were selling into PE, saying, "Hey, how do you take it to the next level? What are some of the things that I have been in your shoes, I can help you implement?" And so I got to see both sides of the equation, and that was the really fun part too. Having lived the operator life- Mm-hmm Being on the investor side saying, "I know how this movie's gonna play for you. Let me help you be successful with lesser pain than I went through." And that, that was my, that was my at least, uh, mindset at the time. Let me help you avoid pain. Do not make the- mistakes that I made, please. Uh, thank you
PE Basics and Due Diligence
for that, Rohit. Yes. And, uh, I just wanna, um, I know what you're saying, but for the folks who just ha- don't happen to be familiar with PE, so basically- Yeah you know a company, and then a PE firm- Mm-hmm will come make an investment in the company. Let's just say they add, uh, a couple million dollars to enhance a tech stack, and the PE firm is saying, "We're betting that the improved tech stack in three, four, five, seven years will increase the valuation of that company, and then we'll sell it for a profit." Yeah. And so that's in a very simple way. Super simple. That's- Yeah, but perfect. Yeah, so that's what we're talking about. Now, and Rohit is saying he's been on both sides of, of the table in those negotiations- Yeah uh, in those partnerships. And a big piece of the first part of that partnership is due diligence. Yeah. So that is where the PE firm is basically sniffing around. It's like, "Am I interested in this company?" And there's phases to this thing, and there's data rooms, and there's interviews, and there's LOIs, and all these different phases. But basically, like, do I actually wanna buy this company? Do I actually wanna- Yeah invest millions of dollars in this company? That whole process for them to find that out is called due diligence. Yeah. The leadership team, namely the founder of the company itself, is also kind of vetting, do I wanna- Correct be in partnership with this PE firm? So just to set the table for listeners who aren't as familiar.
What Is People Quotient
One of the interesting things that you do, Rohit, is you bring this concept of PQ, which is related to IQ and EQ, but not quite the same. And- Yes you and I were talking about earlier using this concept of PQ in the due diligence process for PE firms. So with that backdrop, can you introduce us to what PQ is? Of course. So I, um, everyone, as you sort of started that conversation, uh, understands IQ, and, uh, people have heard of EQ. Um, what PQ is, I say individuals have IQ and EQ, but companies have PQ, and PQ stands for people quotient. And so y- you have intelle- intelligence quotient and emotional quotient, now people quotient. The difference is what I... what PQ is something you can actually invest in and grow, whereas IQ, you're born with. IQ and EQ are almost innate abilities and you can either improve, become aware of, but PQ you actually can build. And so what is PQ? Before I explain what PQ is, I still say how I got there. I actually looked... I'm a student of data and math and analytics, and so um, I, uh, as I reflected on my 20 years of operating, investing, advising across lots of different companies, I looked back on data of what made companies that were super successful stand out from those who did okay or those who struggled, and I've had all of them. I've, I've, I've been part of all of them. And so I, I've lived through that life. And so as I look through that lens, um, I say, of course there is the strategy and there is the product, but what really it came down to was people. And, and I know as an operator and investor, it's always about the people. You know, you get the right people in the right seats at the right time, get out of their way, and magic happens, right? And, and the one thing I learned also as an operator was when you take care of your people and you take care of your customers, magic happens. So it always came down to people, but then I studied what specifically about people is it that, you know, makes that company really flourish, and that's when PQ came about.
PQ Pillars and No Scores
What I found was there are three things that matter. One is getting the right leadership team. So if you have the right leadership team, you have the right culture, you have the right process, you know, the company hums. When you have one or many leaders that are not in the right place, we've all s- seen that, we've all experienced that, you know, it's a lot of pain, sometimes enormous amount of pain. But who struggles the most in addition to the people is the business. And so getting the right leadership team is number one. Number two- Structure. Do we have the enabling structures, which includes not just reporting lines and titles, they're part of it, but also incentives and headroom to grow, and what things do we not have today but we're likely to have in the future as we scale in so we're not reacting constantly? Mm. That organizational structure and system is the second piece. So having the right leadership team, but also having structures to enable them to actually grow is a key part of it. So whenever I saw companies that had enablers within the system, that allowed these people, who are great talented leaders, to actually do their job really well. And the third piece was the talent engine, which is talent operations. So it's great to have leaders, it's great to have structure, but you need actually people to do the work. Yeah. And what I found was companies that had a consistent systematic process to fuel the engine, that's what, that's what made that PQ. So the PQ is three things, having the right leadership team, number one. Number two, organizational structure, and three, talent operations. And so, you know, I sort of say leaders drive, you know, organizations enable, and talent fuels. And so for me that- that's the, uh, sum total of PQ. And I realize, the last thing I would say is that every company has PQ, they just don't know it yet. Mm. Now, you, you have leaders, you have organization, you have some sort of hiring process. The problem is that it's always dealt with on an individual basis. The power of PQ is not just having these ingredients, it's actually having a recipe that you keep refining over time, but consciously and consistently think about it. So what I found was like we've all got PQ as a company, how do we actually talk about it? How do we bring it together? And how do we actually make it part of our conversation? That's what differentiates, um, every organization that accelerates and beats their goals versus those who sort of chug along. And engagement with PQ is one of the hallmarks of it. So awareness of it, first of all, and then- Yep engagement and ongoing discussion. 'Cause a lot of people, Rohit, they, they go, "Okay, what's my PQ score?" And you're coming at this from a different perspective. Yes. Yes. We all love scores. We love numbers. I love numbers. I just said, admitted I love a data guy, right? And, and the, the reality is that that's false precision when it comes to people. Mm. Right? That's false precision when it comes to PQ. So yes, I would love to, and believe me, I've, I've also thought about how do I quantify this. And, and the fact is that every time I go down that path, 'cause I can't help myself, I realize I'm actually, that's, that's the wrong way to look at it. Because PQ depends on the context of the business, and what are you solving for. Every business has unique characteristics and a unique set of dynamics with the industry, with the competition, with their product. And so to say that you have a PQ score of 20 and someone has 25, what does that mean, right? And, and so rather than obsessing over the quantified number, what I tell people is think of this as an amplifier, you know? You, you don't have to have everything up, 'cause that way it'll sound like... At any given point in time, depending on how the music's playing, you've got to adjust. And so most important is what you said, which is having consciously thought about PQ is the best way to actually enhance your PQ. And so a simple example, and to make it practical for our listeners, is when you're doing quarterly meetings, at the end of a board meeting, have a PQ meeting and talk about these three pieces systematically, rather than, oh, who's leaving, do we need to do promotions, performance review is coming up, oh my God, we need to hire some people. Yes, you can do that, but doing it consistently and consciously is one practical way of enhancing the PQ of your business. But stay away from scoring, because I, I, I think that leads to, um, false precision, but also leads to wrong decision-making, 'cause then you sort of obsess about getting one score up, whereas you may have realized that in the amplifier you might have to adjust something else in the system.
Why PE Misses People
And in terms of the, the PE due diligence we were talking about, just for folks to have context- PE firms will spend millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars on due diligence, and it'll almost always be financial and legal. So they will vet this company soup to nuts, up, down, diagonal on those two vectors, but they do very little, if anything, on the people side, which always is, like, mind-blowing to me. But is that- Yeah similar to what you've seen in your experience? 100%. I think that's part of the motivation for me having been on the private equity side, both... Actually, all three sides, operating, investing, and advising. You have just literally articulated the, the catalyst for why I think this is so important. Um, and of course, I'm biased, but I- but having looked at data, I think when, when I look at a smaller investment, let's say that a company, um, is buying a $5 million EBITDA business, right? And so it's not a huge deal. You n- when you describe it at a larger scale, the same problem exists, but just to quantify things, going back to numbers, they Average deal will have an investor spend somewhere about half a million dollars on legal due diligence, right? And so making sure the lead company is right, the contracts are there, and so on and so forth. They'll spend about $250,000 on accounting diligence. Do you wanna guess how much they spend on human capital diligence in that deal? Ooh, if anything, I mean, uh- Yeah. 15 to $20,000 at best. Oh, come on. That's all they do. Really? You know what they're doing? Yeah. And what they're doing in that is effectively doing a background check, making sure the seller's not a criminal, which is good. It's important. Yeah. It's very important to do. Check that box, please. There are no lawsuits, uh, please. Yeah. Uh, however, on, on a scale, when you know that ultimately business is what's fueling, you know, you're underwriting. When we're buying an, an asset, yes, we're buying the company, but really we're betting on the people, right? We're betting on the management team. They're the ones who are going to be really taking the company forward. They're the ones who are going to hire the next generation of leaders in that company. And so we know that. Investors know that. But yet we somehow over many, many years have not done the right thing of actually diligencing the people. And often it is the case of, um... I'll tell you why. It's the case of spooking the, the seller. You know, the, the, the management, the investors, they find a really good deal. They find the company's got great potential, like, "Oh my God, we can, we can do this, this, and this with the company. We can really grow it in three to five years and, like, three, four exit." But what they want is the seller to sell the company so that they can do what they're thinking about doing. And so what they don't want to do, and I'm telling the, the dark secrets of the private equity world- but, like, they don't want to spook the seller because you said this very, very nicely earlier on, that a seller has choice, too. They have, they have people wanting to invest in their business. So when they have that opportunity, you know, they can go with firm A, B, or C. So when you're one of those firms and you're in the contention, the last thing you wanna do is be the bad guy, right? And so they'll not upset the seller by saying, "Hey, look, we wanna actually think about how good you are, how good your team is." And my view is the seller already knows that. They're already coming to you knowing that they need to upgrade. If they could have done it, they would've done it before coming to you- Yeah so they could get better returns. So in that process, private equity funds and investors in general have a sense. They know it. They don't actually do anything about it. Sometimes they do. Most times they don't. And they'll say, "We'll deal with it after we buy the company." Mm. And so often they don't do the due diligence, and then when they buy the company, two things happen. Either newer deals come up, so they f- they forget about this idea of like reshaping to like rupture, or two, they let, let it play out for some time, and at that point the person who sold the company thinks, "Oh, I'm amazing. This is great marriage. You know, we were great partners." And then in three quarters when numbers are not coming out the same way and things are slipping, the private equity comes, firm comes in pretty hard and they go, "Well, hang on. I thought you loved me. What happened?" Mm-hmm. They're like, "Yeah, we did, but you know, not that much." And, and then the marriage starts to f- unravel. And then ev- you know what's, who suffers? Is the people. Mm-hmm. You know, the, the seller and the private equity funds can battle it out, but the rest of the organization starts to suffer, and there's, you know, things stall. People are like frustrated. They're like, "Hang on. Things are not moving." And that's when private equity gets the bad name. So I've just revealed a lot of dirty secrets in PE- but, but I, I thought our listeners would probably benefit from the truth and what actually happens. It's so surprising to me that they wouldn't look at the people. I mean, I've been on leadership teams where I'm part of the due diligence, and they will meet with the senior leadership team. They'll spend a lot of time with the CEO founder, with the CFO, and they might take them out to dinner and do all these things. But, um, the, I don't, I mean, a- an hour meeting, like one dinner? Yeah. You don't know someone, you don't know someone over time. You don't know how the team is structured. Um, and I think you and I were talking earlier about the, if a PE person speaks with a leadership team and they go back to do their internal conversation with their PE colleagues, if they've got a bias toward one thing or the other, they might just go with that bias regardless of their interactions with the leadership team. So- Yeah w- what, I mean, you've kind of described the gap that PEQ is filling in terms of PE due diligence. Uh, what do you think people would gain from adding that to their process? Yeah, two things. One is, um, as I said earlier, people are everything. You know, it always comes down to people. So the first thing you gain is you gain awareness of what is it that you-- when you're investing in a company. So I'll sort of answer this question from two sides. From the lens of a private equity fund, what you gain from adding PQ to the process is you gain awareness and clarity and prioritization of what, what is it that you need to put into the system, or who rather, to actually increase the valuation of the company really quickly. It's the right thing to do for the business, and it's also the right thing to do for the people who are already in the business. So PQ doesn't always say that who are you missing? PQ actually tells you what do you have first, who do you have, what are they capable of? So then you can decide, well, can I, can I actually help them be more successful? So rather than adding something, can we improve the capability set of people who are already in the system? That's really good for everybody. Number two, you may actually decide, well, hang on, the time it takes to help somebody develop Actually is a lot longer, depending on the situation. And so what might help is that they have this role, what if we bring someone in? So it actually prioritizes your human capital investment very, very quickly. Now, from a operator perspective, who's really been bought out by PE, what PQ does is it gives you a language, it gives you structure to really look at your people, look at your organization, look at your operations, say, "Hang on. Knowing what I know now, what would I do?" So forget the PE fund, right? What is it that I want to do? So, and what is it that I want... 'Cause at the end of the day, the PE fund comes in and goes, you know, you have monthly calls and quarterly calls. It's the CEO and the executive team that are actually, you know, doing the day-to-day. Day-to-day. Yeah. And you and I both know that the day-to-day is a grind, the day-to-day, every day is different, and it's not a good thing. You wake up, you think everything's nice, and then things change. And so having a lens to that, having structure to that, having a language to that that you can actually then build on, gives you a almost like a power to reshape the business very quickly. So it's good for both sides. PQ is not just a benefit for the private equity side. It's actually a benefit for any operating entity, private equity or not, because it allows the CEOs and the executive team to really dial in the human capital element, which is, I think, ultimately the source of growth for all of us. I'm trying to think of an analogy of, of how weird and odd it is not to do something like this. I would... The closest thing I can come up with is like a checkup at the doctor where they're like, "Oh, they're fine." Uh-huh. "But you didn't, you didn't check my heart. Like, my, I might have a heart con-" "Oh, no. It looks, everything else looks great. Your heart's probably fine." Like, whatever. It's equivalent to that where it's like, huh? Like, no, no,
Using PQ as Chief of Staff
no. Yeah. So- Yeah even if you're not entertaining private equity and you're just a founder, CEO, or chief of staff, PQ is something that you can and should be thinking about. Um, if you're a chief of staff, Rohit, how, how would you advise, or what are some options of how a chief of staff could use PQ? Oh, uh, I think chief of staff, uh, they're absolutely in a prime position to help a CEO or whoever they're, you know, chief of staff to, um, to really think about PQ. They can actually take PQ on as their project, as one of the, the initiatives that they run through with the business. So I think that could be a really... Because as chief of staff, you're already exposed to a lot of different people in the business. You get to see, you get to hear, observe, and see a lot of conversations and a lot of behaviors that many people won't. Mm. And as chief of staff, you actually get the opportunity to have the ear of the executive and be able to share some insights that m- most people probably are afraid to talk about. So I think chief of staff is a perfect, uh, you know, role to actually own PQ in a business. Now, what I would suggest is when a chief of staff takes PQ on, you know, PQ as... I've got a playbook, and you've got different levels of PQ. You can go very deep, 360. But at the very foundational level, which I call level one or phase one, you know, it's, it's very, um, uh, innocuous in that, you know, you don't actually have to disrupt the applecart. You can sit down with the CEO and really think through all of these three pillars and come up with like, "Okay, knowing what we know now, you know, where is it that we need to spend more time?" And then as a chief of staff, you can actually build a project. Like, "Hey, look, we need to revamp our organizational structure. Within that, we need to actually look at our incentives." And that's becomes a really... Most chief of staffs already are doing projects like this. Yes. So the good news is you're already doing the work. What this does, it actually puts it into a framing that becomes part of a system that can actually propel the business, and it continues to add value, which at the end of the day, all of us who are chief of staffs, who have been chief of staffs, we wanna do cool projects. We wanna do projects that add value. We wanna actually ultimately get to see the whole business, and PQ exposes you to the entire business and the entire business operations from a human capital perspective. And so I think this is a great project. I never thought of it, so I appreciate you bringing that. I'm actually gonna use that- Please do a- as I talk to people. Like, hey, if you, if you have a chief of staff, you don't, get one, and then give them, you know, PQ mandate. Now, if I'm, if I'm in, uh, a CEO seat, and I have a chief of staff coming to me like, "Hey, I have this great i- idea for an initiative. It's this PQ thing." I'm like, "Cool. What is it? A- okay, people quotient. Cool. Um, but, like, what do I get? Like, how do I know if we're doing good at PQ? There's no score. Okay, so we just have conversations through these three lenses?" Like, how... If I'm a CEO, like, how do, how do I know that's working well? How do I know that's something I wanna spend time and energy and resources towards?
Tools, Next Steps, Wrap Up
Yeah, great question. So each of the three services actually has a specific tool. Uh-huh. So, uh, uh, so leaderships, uh, what I did was, um, I actually went back, again, going back to me and my obsession with data. I went back and looked at when I did... I've done over 500 due diligences at this point, may- maybe even more. And so- My question every time was, is there was set of, certain set of questions I was asking the management team as, as trying to evaluate their capability, and there was both at the dinner that you, you referenced before, but also outside of that during operational due diligence. And so I reversed engineered those questions into what I call a PQ five app, which actually gives you an executive operating profile. It takes fifteen to twenty minutes per person. And so that's one example where what it does is it's not just a conversation, it's actually what I'm trying to do if I'm a chief of staff talking to CEOs, like, "Hey, for person A, B, and C, why don't you fill out this, uh, assessment?" And takes fifteen, twenty minutes, and what it gives you is an EOP that then you can say, "Well, hang on. This tells me something about how they are showing up to work every day." And given the context of what I'm trying to build, are they the right person? Where are their strengths? Where are the gaps? But not only at the individual level, Emily, it actually gives you a profile at the cohort level. Mm. So when I've done this with CEOs, you know, there are some blind spots because you tend to hire people that are similar unintentionally at times. And so you find that you may hire people-- Also, sometimes you hire people that are like you- Oh, yes more than they're not like you. And so these things over time you forget, but then create an imbalance in the system, and then you sort of sit there and as a CEO, you go, "Hang on, why am I not driving in a certain direction? What's missing?" And often what's missing is that you've hired great talent, but they're leaning one way, and it's creating a lot of gaps in the other direction. So what EOP does, it gives you that awareness, and then you can take action. So from information to analysis to insights to action, we're talking about hours, not weeks, not months, hours. And so for me as a time-poor CEO who had a lot of, uh, PE pressure on me and other, other times when I was an op-- an investor, we don't have the luxury of time, and so that's why I built this system. So when a chief of staff is having this conversation, it's not abstract anecdotal stuff, it's actually, let's take what we know, put it into a piece of tech, let it tell us individually and cohort-wise what it is. And so similarly for organizational design and talent operations. In talent operations, as you know, I've written a book that came out a few months ago. I have now been able to take that and put it into a piece of technology so companies can actually implement, uh, uh, some of that work. And so all of these are data-driven. All of these are quantifiable in the sense that it-- they tell you something. They may not give you a number, but they give you direction, and I think that's more important than a number. So that's how they can have this conversation. Great. And, and just to clarify, the, the chief of staff is inputting the information or are you asking people to go fill out, you know, a questionnaire or something in the app? Yeah. The level one is between the chief of staff and the CEO. So the CEO Is actually filling out the information. Okay. And, or they may just have the chief of staff do it and they can review it, right? So- But it's one person, not the whole team needs to be- Correct disrupted and- No Okay. At the, at the very minimum level, one person can do it, and the person most knowledgeable can do it, and, and that's the beauty of it. Because often when you do these assessments, when you get the whole team involved, it scares people naturally. I, I've gone through it myself as an employee. I'm like, "Oh, what, what are you thinking about? Like, what's happening?" And so I designed this so that people can... CEOs can actually figure out their PQ, the amplifier, where they're up, where they're down, where they need to dial in a bit more by themselves, and this allows them to do that. So it's very, um, safe, for lack of a better word. Uh, you, you don't have to deal with the... Now, you can choose to go down. I've had CEOs who say, "You know what? It doesn't matter. I wanna do the full 360. My team's on board. We've talked about this. We need this." So there are varying levels, and you can go deeper, but if you're saying, "Hey, look, I don't... You know what? I just, I just wanna do this for myself," absolutely you can. And your chief of staff can either fill the data for you, or they can go collect data for you. But I have a feeling, having worked with many CEOs in my lifetime, most CEOs know the answers pretty quickly, and they'll get through it very quickly. So you may, you may be very surprised at how quickly you can figure out where your PQ needs to be dialed in. And if a CEO or a chief of staff is listening, and they're going, "Okay, I, I understand the benefit of this thing. This sounds really compelling, but I still have all these other initiatives that are running, and I still have revenue targets, and I've still got, you know, quarterly earnings or kind of quarterly board meetings," where do you see this fitting into the rest of what they have? Is it an additional piece? Is it a layer throughout them? How do you look at, how do you look at that? Great question. Every single initiative that anyone's owning is going to be delivered by people. Mm. So I actually think that this is a step before any other thing that you do because when you're evaluating, you know, if, if I'm running a cost initiative or if I'm running a tech initiative in the business or a pricing initiative, whatever you, whichever it is, it's being led by a leader and a person. And so wouldn't you want to know that, how that person's going to be able to do that job? And even if you've allocated that project already, I think having the knowledge of what their EOP is in minutes can give you the awareness and the ability to help them actually accelerate. So if, so this, I think, sits on top of those. So if anything- There is no... Every time is a good time to do a PQ assessment, is what I'm saying, because it empowers you as a leader to empower your leaders to be successful. And the last thing I would add, add to that piece is that, you know, if you're thinking about, um, "Hey, look, here, here we go, another thing to do," you know, that's why it- I designed it so you can do it in minutes and hours. This is not multi-week. You can do that if you wish to, but even in level one, there's a lot of value to be gained in a lot less time. And so your IRR for this project, for those who are finance driven, is pretty high. And so I would say that, um, h- g- I would almost do this even if you're midstream on initiatives, because it'll validate some of the things you're observing, and it may actually highlight things that you haven't really seen yet And the way I was thinking about it when you were speaking is it's almost like the underlying grid that everything else goes on, so you have to have the grid for everything else to work. And so maybe if you have things in flight, you're installing the grid in iterations as you go, but it's still giving you so many data points and perspectives and vectors of data that you aren't seeing without it. Um, so that's kind of how I was, I was thinking about it, maybe like a foundation piece. Yeah. I think that's a, that's a good way to look at it. And that's why I sort of say that if CEOs and executive teams are talking about their PQ on a quarterly basis that's consistent, it allows for that foundation to be stronger over time. Because what you can do is you can actually evaluate somebody now or evaluate your operations now, and in six months time, 12 months... A lot of CEOs that I'm working with have now started to use it as a performance review tool. Mm-hmm. Not necessarily to actually review the performance, but to actually inform the types of things that an executive needs to do differently to progress. Because as we both know, and everyone listening knows, that your executive journey allows you to evolve and requires you to evolve over time, right? And so the EOP a person has today may be different from the EOP they have 6 to 12 months from now because they've now evolved. But if it hasn't changed but their requirements have changed- Mm and their... Then you can actually calibrate. So to your point, it is a foundation that allows people to say, "Okay, how am I progressing relative to what I'm solving for?" And I think that, that's a powerful calibration, at least from where I sit. I was just talking to someone, and they were concerned that their boss knows they have this one issue with their temper, and this individual has done so much work on that, and there was one incident where if you looked at it just on surface level, you'd be like, "Oh, so and so had another temper tantrum." And he was like, "No, no, no, like, I want my boss to understand that it wasn't because of that. This incident transpired, but I've done so much work and I've grown so much as a person, I would never slide back into that in that way." So when you just said that, that example, recent example popped- Sure popped in my head. So I don't know if it works for things like that, but, um, the concept, I think, is, uh, is well, well-placed. Yeah, no, um, uh, so it's a great thing that you highlighted because one thing I wanna highlight for our listeners, this is not a psychology tool. So when we, specifically on the leadership assessment or leadership evaluations, the EOP is not about who the person is, it's about what they're doing. Ah. And so, and, and so for example, I can be a very nice person at home in real life, but if I'm not a nice person at work and nobody wants to work with me, as my, my CEO is dealing with me at work, they, they couldn't care less how nice I am at home. They're like, "How you show up to work is what I'm dealing with." And so what the information that they have at hand, and the information they need to input into this data set is about what I'm doing now, not who I am. And so as a result, I think to your point, temper tantrum would show up in a different language in the EOP. It might be unable to work with people, not a very Socratic leader- in those ways. And so it will show up in this, what I, one of the variables without going into too much detail is attunement. Mm-hmm. You know, can you, is the person tuned in to other people's needs, and are they listening? Are they aware? And so maybe that's where this probably in th- in your example will show up, that maybe their attunement's not quite high. But the, the fact is that it's definitely not going to psychoanalyze anybody. I think there are a lot of psychologists who are really good at their job. They can be perfect for that. But I think this tool is hyper designed to be an operating tool, and so to give you based on what you are seeing in a person, what they're, what they're likely to do, and therefore is that going to help or hinder your progress in the company? And I know so many chiefs of staff who they're observing people, they're having conversations, they're communicating things, they're getting input and all these different factors. But at the end of the day, they're one person, so if, if someone said, "I can give you a tool that within- hours or by end of week, I can give you some really meaningful, actionable data on here's where, like, the process is breaking down. You keep seeing this issue, and here's where the process is breaking down, or here's where you think the org is strong, but actually if you did it like this, it might be a little bit better. I mean, if I just had those, "Look in this area, go in this direction, ask more questions here," that would just be such a useful tool, um, as a chief of staff. And, uh, I also don't want people to be discouraged by, oh, it's an app and you can do it in, like, 15 minutes. Think of that as an advantage of- Yeah all this power and all this knowledge is an app that you can get level one, it sounds like, in a very short amount of time. 100%, and you know, uh, when you were talking about it, like, Instagram is an app, and you can do things in microseconds, and the whole world knows about it, and the value is that you become Insta-famous, right? That's, I think that's the word. I'm, I'm obviously dating myself- with the lack of cool, cool lingo. But the point is that technology enables you to move faster. That's the whole point of it, right? And so if, if my 20 years of experience baked into, uh, a set of questions that delivers an app and y- and helps you accelerate, man, if I had this when I was a chief of staff and, and all the years after that- man, I would be doing my d- due diligence, and I'd be making quicker choices and decisions on the people around me, not only to figure out what I need to do differently, but also to, like, figure out what can I do for them to be successful. I think, man, things would be so much nicer. And, and I... And that's why I think the macro theme, Emily, for, for where I started all of this was I wanna help, you know? And I think, uh, if you're a chief of staff, that's what a great... All the great chiefs of staff that I've talked to and interviewed while I was t- looking at the job and since, they're always trying to help. They're there. They're like, like, "How can I help you" is probably one of the first sentences chief of staffs make. And, um, and that's my mindset, that how can I help with what I know at a high speed for people with- who are time poor but taking on really big initiatives that impact the lives of a lot of employees, and these are the tools, and that's where PQ comes in. And so I, I'm glad that you clarified that because yeah, usually they're thinking, "Oh, how can I in 15 minutes know something?" You know what? I'll give people one last example. When you talk to somebody for two minutes, you already have made a decision on them. It's two minutes. 30 seconds, right? The elevator pitch. Mm-hmm. So 15 minutes is way longer than that. And, and the questions that I'm asking, um- are questions that have, that have actually gotten time over 20 years. So the good news is that they've been vetted and refined and refined, and so this is 20 years baked into 15 minutes- is probably a better way to look at it. Beautiful. Rohit, if someone wants to know more about PQ, know more about the app, know more about the book, or contact you, what is the best place for them to go? The easiest place to go is my personal website, which is rohit-passi.com, and, uh, and through there they can navigate in every direction, whether they wanna work with me, with my company and implement PQ or, as you said, buy the book or read the book. Everything's on that one single website. So that landing website will take you in any direction you wanna go, and I love to hear from people. Perfect. We'll have that in the show notes. Rohit, thank you so much. I've learned a lot in this conversation. I think you have a tool that is very helpful for the marketplace and certain PE functions, but also just for leaders and people. So I appreciate you spending time to condense all of your wonderful information gained out of your 20 years, uh, into something that can be helpful to people. So thank you. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation. I really appreciate it. Please give this episode some love by liking and sharing. It's like sprinkling digital fairy dust on the algorithms and it is scientifically proven to make unicorn smile.