Ep. 77: TL;DL - Operations That Put People First with Sam Aarons

Summary:

This episode features a "Too Long, Didn't Listen" (TL;DL) summary of my conversation with Sam Aarons, fractional COO and founder of Zoo House Media Group. Sam learned resilience through five separate natural disasters and brings over 18 years of experience turning organizational chaos into competitive advantage. Her Dumpster Phoenix concept perfectly captures her philosophy of transformation, and her belief that relationships drive everything makes her approach to operations truly unique.

Show Notes:

01:19 Takeaway: Win or Learn Mindset

02:38 Takeaway: Breaking the Key Person Crisis

04:15 Takeaway: The Empty Bucket Methodology

06:00 Final Thoughts

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:32 Meet Sam Aarons
• 1:19 Takeaway: Win or Learn Mindset
• 2:38 Takeaway: Breaking the Key Person Crisis
• 4:15 Takeaway: The Empty Bucket Methodology
• 6:00 Final Thoughts
• 6:51 Outro

Transcript

Intro

Scott Raven: Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we explore what it takes to succeed professionally and truly enhance all parts of your life. I'm Scott Raven, Fractional COO and your host. Each episode we go behind the scenes with leaders who've mastered the delicate harmony of growing their professional endeavors while protecting what matters most. Ready to transform from Chief Everything Officer to achieving integration in all facets of your life? Let's soar!

Meet Sam Aarons

Scott Raven: Hello everyone, this is Scott. Welcome back to The Corvus Effect and this TL;DL - Too Long, Didn't Listen - from my conversation with Sam Aarons, founder of Zoo House Media Group and fractional COO, who learned resilience the hard way through five separate natural disasters. With over 18 years turning organizational chaos into competitive advantage, she understands what it takes to turn dumpster fires into dumpster phoenixes and the belief that relationships are the key to everything. It was a powerful episode. I encourage you to listen to the full episode when you get a chance. But for this TL;DL, let's dive into key takeaways.

Takeaway: Win or Learn Mindset

First, Sam's powerful win-or-learn mindset really emerged from surviving extraordinary hardships along the way. She explained, "If you look at things as win and lose, in my opinion, you've already lost. Everything is an opportunity to level up." And she experienced everything - blizzards, forest fires, floods, unfortunately a mass shooting, health challenges. But through it all, she discovered that everything that happens to us is all about taking us to where we're supposed to be, and you just gotta pay attention to who shows up and learn the lessons from the environment and the experiences around them.

She explained we are some of the people that we surround ourselves with. That is not by accident. That is by the universe placing people in our path at the appropriate time, if we are wise enough to be cognizant of it. It's very much in line with the Corvus principle that obstacles really do become opportunities when we choose the right perspective, but more importantly, choose the right people to have within that tribe within our tribes.

Takeaway: Breaking the Key Person Crisis

Secondly, her brilliant framework for breaking free from what she calls the Key Person Crisis - we here at Corvus call it the Chief Everything Officer Trap. One in five founders work 80-hour weeks or more, and many of them, almost three quarters, experience burnout in some capacity. But only one in five actually ask for help. This is, as Sam explains, the fact that you have gone from building something on your own and feeling like you had to do everything to getting to a point where you still have to do it, but you can't scale it, and you become the bottleneck cliff to your organization.

Her solution is an elongated transition plan. If you had siblings when you were a kid and you were dividing up snacks, in the beginning one for you, one for me, one for you, three for me, et cetera, right? Ultimately, you're trying to take what you no longer need on your plate because you're looking at other things, and then be able to delegate it out to your staff and have them be the ones to be able to carry the ball for you. And in a lot of respects, maybe make it better - maybe make it better than you could.

She uses an OKR framework. We love OKR frameworks within the Corvus methodology. And with that focused 90-day initial OKR, you build the momentum for what you are going to achieve in the longer term. So brilliant framework that she brings to the table.

Takeaway: The Empty Bucket Methodology

Finally, her revolutionary Empty Bucket Methodology prioritizes people along with processes. Early in her career in manufacturing, she discovered that processes are really important, but if you didn't pay attention to the people, the process really didn't matter. And that gets to: do you have the right people in the right seats on the right bus? In order to do things properly, you need to be able to create that environment that leverages the strengths of people. What do they do well? How do they naturally interact with people? And then be able to put the processes and change management in place in order to help people do the things that you want them to do.

Now, the other part of this is knowing that change management comes with grief. You're telling people that the way that they've done things is not the way that they are supposed to do things going forward. And dealing with the grief process for people is profoundly important to being successful because you have to be able to aid them through that emotional transition of "what you did was good, it's just not the way we're gonna do things going forward, but you are still valued and we're going to try to do this in order to help make you better and make this company better." And ultimately that's when, as she describes, you see the moment that the light bulb comes on and the person becomes the biggest advocate for the transformation because they know that there is a "what's in it for me" at the end of the day.

Final Thoughts

Scott Raven: What I found awesome about Sam's commitment is that she really works hard to be the type of leader that she may not have had in the past, but she knows that others crave. And that's what made her so successful in having such a plethora of testimonials from the clients that she's worked with in terms of just how much - not just output, but impact - that she has created in their lives. So again, I encourage you to go back and listen to the full episode. Please feel free to subscribe and leave us comments. We always want to make these as great as possible. If you know people within your inner circle who could use this wisdom, please share. Until next time, I'm Scott. See you on The Corvus Effect. Take care.

Outro

Scott Raven: Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. If today's conversation sparked ideas about how to free yourself from overwhelm, visit TheCorvusEffect.com for show notes, resources, and our free Sixth Dimensions Assessment, showing you exactly where you're trapped and how to architect your freedom. While you're there, check out the Corvus Learning Platform, where we turn insights into implementation. If this episode helped you see a new path forward, please subscribe and share it with others who are ready to pursue their definition of professional freedom. Join me next time as we continue exploring how to enhance your life through what you do professionally. It's time to make that your reality!