The Scalability Code
Get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business. A few times each month, you’ll hear stories and commentary from visionary entrepreneurs, EOS implementers, and fractional COOs on how you can get your business out of the shit show and into growth mode.
Hosted by Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures: Fractional COO & Leadership Coaching services that free you up to focus on what’s next.
The Scalability Code
Level 10 Leadership: Helping Companies Implement EOS for Profitable Growth, with Byron Attridge
In this episode of The Scalability Code, host Matt Haney talks with Byron Attridge about the importance of core values, effective leadership, and the use of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) to turn around business challenges. They discuss poignant lessons from their experiences, including:
- How to handle reducing the size of large leadership teams
- How generalists can thrive in a highly specialized industry
- How and when to adjust scorecards if they're too red or too green
- The significance of patience and humility in managing people
- What Byron does outside of work
Feeling stuck in your business?
It’s ok. We’ve all been there… You simply don’t have time for vision and growth. You feel frustrated, anxious, and stuck because goals aren’t being met, processes aren’t followed, and your team isn’t on the same page. Time after time, you’re putting out fires only fast enough for the next one to pop up.
Let’s build your team and guide them to the next level.
Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business. A few times each month, you'll hear stories and commentary from visionary entrepreneurs, EOS implementers, and fractional COOs about how they've taken businesses to Level 10. And now for your host, Matt Haney.
Matt Haney:Here we are today. Welcome to the Scalability Code. I'm your host, Matt Haney. Joined with a friend of mine, Byron Attridge. Byron and I have known each other for a little bit now, but I've enjoyed really getting to know him. Byron, tell us about you and how the hell we know each other.
Byron Attridge:Oh man. You know, man, I don't even remember how we got introduced. But, um, you, you, as I recall, you came to me and said, Hey, look, you're doing this EOS thing, and I'm, I'm, uh, I'm trying to help some companies out by, by coming in and filling in as an integrator. And I thought that was like the neatest concept ever. And so I
Matt Haney:I definitely came banging on your door. I'll be perfectly clear, I was the one approaching you. I was courting Byron. Yes, that happened.
Byron Attridge:And so when, when, uh, when we started talking there, obviously was a really, really poignant values alignment that, you know, you and I really sort of meshed up immediately. You have pretty, fun and playful. And, you know, at times raw kind of style, which is along the lines of, you
Matt Haney:you definitely, you. I would definitely characterize you with all of those compliments as well.
Byron Attridge:And so I think we hit it off and, and we're fast friends, you know? Right. Right off the bat. And so that being the case, I immediately wanted to learn.'cause,'cause when you approached me, I was. I was only a couple years into the practice and I was trying to figure out how I could bring as many resources to my clients as, as I possibly could in order to nurture their benefit. And one of the things that, that I do as a general proposition is I surround myself with kind of a tool belt of, of resources that when somebody asks for something that I don't necessarily, I can't necessarily help them really well with. I. I won't go down that rabbit hole with them. I'll look to one of my experts to say, one of my trusted advisors to say, Hey, can you know client, Mr. Client, Mrs. Client? Would you like some help with that? And you know, when they say yes, then I introduce'em to, to you and, and, you know, let you guys suss it out and try to figure out, you know, if that's a good fit to try to help their business.
Matt Haney:That's, that's such a great, comment. And when you said that it triggered something for me, which is like good leaders I know aren't good at everything and the best leaders I know will be the, will be the ones that run to the front of the line and tell you, that's not my strong suit. That's, that's not me. I can read a balance sheet. I can read a profit and loss statement, but if you want me to do, you know, cashflow mod modeling and financial analysis for high growth, I mean, I can figure it out, but I, you know, it's kinda like going to the doctor for your, your shoulder. I want the guy that knows how to do it. Not the person that's learning, and unfortunately someone has to teach. But at this point, I want to, I wanna surround myself like you with, with experts in their field. So I love that you, uh, referenced that. It's funny, I, I remember the first time we had lunch. You remember where that was? I do. It was at Honest Mary's in the arboretum. It was just
Byron Attridge:oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Haney:And I remember I was like, oh, I'm gonna take this guy to lunch. I'm gonna learn something. And I was like, I wanna go to this place. Honest marriage. And we, we sat up there and had had lunch and, and that was cool. and then since then, You and I have what?
Byron Attridge:What was interesting about that was that they, they were a client of mine and, actually a, a client that I asked that question to. I said, Hey, do you, do you wanna take a look at maybe bringing in an integrator? And, you know, not that that Nelson wasn't a, a, a great integrator himself, but I, he, he over time, I think is envisioning himself to move into that visionary seat. So I still think there's something there to talk to him about, because eventually he's gonna want somebody in that integrator
Matt Haney:guys have a great product. I love it. I love
Byron Attridge:Oh, they do.
Matt Haney:I've got a couple questions I want to ask you. and the agenda here is just that we wanna share wisdom and knowledge and, and, and try to give the folks listening something that, uh, they didn't have before they jumped in. So, we'll keep going. Ask some questions that's real loose. It's you and me having a chat. So one of the questions, I'd love to know as an implementer. Give me, and, and I want, I want hard ones and, and obscure ones. And don't feel like you can't jump from one story to the next because the value is you telling us this. And, and the uniqueness. Tell me what, like one of the biggest or most unique challenges you've navigated in a session. and, and, that can be all over the place.
Byron Attridge:one, one of the most unique, A large software team, and when I say large, their entire size is not large, but their leadership team was really large and disproportionately large for the size company that were there. Were 50 person company, have a 12 person leadership team, and, um, a lot of bodies in the room. And, uh, to add. The difficulties there. every single person in that room probably could have qualified for Mensa, like insanely smart,
Matt Haney:Incredible talent.
Byron Attridge:incredible talent, incredible intelligence, all the way across the board and whatever else. And I love that team and I've been working with them for two years now. And we've, we've grown to have a great relationship and they have come an amazingly long way. So I'm gonna go ahead and front that. And then back into what I saw when I first started, when I first met with them, was this huge leadership team for a tiny company and incredible intelligence, which usually comes along with a lot of ego.
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Byron Attridge:And I told him, I said, I am worried. I'm worried about taking you on as a client. I just said it straight up front. First meeting I had with, and the reason I'm worried about taking you on as a client is because I think you guys may be too smart for your own good.
Matt Haney:Can't get outta your own way.
Byron Attridge:yeah, they, they literally, I mean, you could hear the collective, you know, breath. It was like, oh. They all looked at me like this, and then they started laughing and I was like, did I touch a nerve? And they were like, you nailed us. And I was like, okay, well maybe we got a little bit of self-awareness and everything. And so it was kind of one of those things where we had to talk through that and I, I made them commit to me. I said, look, I'll do this with you. Under one condition. If you commit to me that you're gonna check that ego to the best of your ability at the door when you come in here and we're working together because that is going to be your main impediment. And they said, absolutely dead to rights. We're gonna do it. And they've done a phenomenal job. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But they have done a phenomenal job at checking their egos and
Matt Haney:Well, wait, I have a question. Does the
Byron Attridge:showing up to learn.
Matt Haney:of 12 people?
Byron Attridge:No, they have pared it down. not a ton, but they definitely have, they've shrunk it down
Matt Haney:Well, tell me how did you guys get that done? Because I've been there as well, and I want to know I. Because the, the, the secret sauce, the magic is not upsetting or dejecting or dismissing those people that are no longer part of the leadership team. But that's freaking hard. Byron, you just told somebody you sat at the big table and now you gotta go sit at the kids' table. I,
Byron Attridge:I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna try to put lipstick on the pig. It was not fun. Okay. And in their annual, last summer is when it first came up. And to say it was an explosive topic is an understatement.
Matt Haney:Yeah, because you gotta surface it with everybody, right? You mean you can't just, I mean, maybe you circulated the idea behind the, behind the table with some C, some of the, the seasoned folks or the CEO, but like at some point.
Byron Attridge:talked to the whole team about it. The whole team knew it was, it was there and on the table and it was sitting at the top of their issues list. And I, and when I, we got to, we got to issue solving, we got to IDS in, in the annual, which is, you know, at the end of two days of a lot of stuff, a lot of emotional rollercoaster and everything else. We've done all the planning, whatever, alright, it's time for IDS. What, you know, what do you guys want to tackle? And one of'em goes, Hey, top of the list, top of the list is, you know, leadership, team size. And I was like, okay, you y'all want to tackle that? Let's dive in. And uh, so to kind of truncate it a little bit,'cause it, it can be a long story, but to basically it got volatile. It got very volatile. Emotions were running really, really, really high.
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Byron Attridge:And I said, hang on guys. I want y'all to remember what you're trying to do. You're trying to make it so that you can go faster. You guys said that was the big objective. You needed to move faster. You cannot move faster with 12 people running a 50 person company.'cause it's, it's, it's, you know, like. Decision by committee on every single thing that you're doing and it doesn't work. Now you've got the structure in order to facilitate the communication up and down the line. All we have to do is just kind of retool that structure so that everybody has plenty of voice and they're gonna get heard and their ideas are going to make it up to the top. And if you can do that, then it's not gonna feel. You know, terrible or bad or anything else, it's just gonna feel great when everybody is able to settle into that and you guys are able to go faster. And they, they did it eventually they got it done and
Matt Haney:How many quarters? How many quarters ago do you think that was? Like if you were to guess? I'm trying to figure out where they are today
Byron Attridge:we're three quarters into that
Matt Haney:and, and what are the takeaways like,
Byron Attridge:oh, they're doing phenomenally well. They're doing phenomenally well. Um, so the biggest thing from a game perspective that they, they got to is instead of doing a bunch of run around and break fix and whatever else, they really, really got their, uh, software roadmap under control with the smaller leadership team. It wasn't, it wasn't so chaotic in trying to say, well, what about this and what about this and what about this and what about this and everything? And so they, they got together a structure and they socialized that with the rest of the company. Even the people that used to be on the leadership team and said, Hey, I need you to tell me what am I not seeing here? And so those people got heard. They got heard totally. They made some adjustments after that and then they lived into it and then all of a sudden they started paying off in a figurative sense. They started paying off all this technical debt that they had, uh, built up by strapping a bunch of stuff together just to make it work. And now they have a solid platform and they are trucking. They're absolutely trucking and their profitability. In fact, that's like one of the, one of the examples. Of the greatest gains of any of my clients, they, they had a 312% increase in revenue and a 687% increase in profitability over the, over, over those three, uh, quarters.
Matt Haney:That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, I'm so glad to hear that making those big changes is not something that I know you nor I genuinely look forward to. But I will say it, and I'm speaking for you and myself when I say this, there's nothing more rewarding than working with a team to make hard decisions and coming through the other side and saying, we just did all that shit. Then now this is the fun part. I know we had to make those big changes, but let's go crush it now because we get the right people.
Byron Attridge:Absolutely. So a real funny add on to that is. They, I have a, I have a joke with them that literally almost every session I'm like, let's see if I can say at least two or three things that should get me fired today.
Matt Haney:Yeah,
Byron Attridge:they're, they all, they all laugh and whatever else, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, I, I, if, if I'm earning my salt, I'm kicking over the rocks.
Matt Haney:That's right. No, that's exactly
Byron Attridge:I'm kicking over the rocks to say, Hey guys, I'm sorry. I know this doesn't feel good. That's a steaming call of shit and you're gonna have to deal with
Matt Haney:And so before we all step in it together, and as I always say, like, listen, you're not paying me to sit here and nod and agree with you on everything you want outside perspective, and I'm gonna give it to you. Don't take it if it's not good, but I'm at least gonna tell you, you know what color the board is before it hits you in the face. Right. Uh, okay, let's keep moving. I got a couple other questions. So a co uh, well first of all, I want to get into, uh, two things. First of all, industries that you work with or have worked with first. And then second, I wanna talk about scorecard.'cause I'm gonna forget to talk about scorecard. but first tell me about industries. Give me an example.'cause here's what everyone says to me. Oh, well what you're doing is different. My business is different, da, da, da. I'm like, listen, pal. This, all businesses operate in the same five pillars of, of, of business, process and units. But anyway, tell me the industries or, or if you have any specialties that you've worked with or any commonalities.
Byron Attridge:Well, so. The short answer is no.
Matt Haney:All right. Knows the short
Byron Attridge:I don't, I don't specialize in industries and I don't believe in doing it for me. Okay. It is okay to do that. And there, there are plenty of implementers that do, like, you know, I have colleagues that will specialize in family businesses or they'll specialize in, contracting and construction. Um, the, I have ones that specialize with architects. I have ones that specialize with car dealerships, so on and so forth. I, I find that for me, I glean so many more insights that are relevant to my clients that are from outside of their industries that I can impart to them, that provide genuinely different perspective on the problems that they're having. And I think that that to me is a lot more valuable than, you know, staying in the lane. And, and a testament to that is, you know, as well as anybody else, I've introduced you into, companies that you haven't had. Any industry expertise in particularly, because I don't think that's a requirement for an integrator, a fractional
Matt Haney:Totally agree. Totally
Byron Attridge:a great integrator for an industry you've never been in, and sometimes an even better one
Matt Haney:Exactly. I'm gonna tell
Byron Attridge:you are not seeing, you're not seeing the weeds like everybody else is. You are seeing the
Matt Haney:I'm seeing the forest, not the trees. So one of my favorite books to read, if you haven't read it, is called Range, R-A-N-G-E. And the subtitle is, the subtitle is How a Generalist Succeeds in a World of Specialization.
Byron Attridge:Okay.
Matt Haney:how a generalist succeeds in a world of specialization. The first chapter is called Range, RENG. The first chapter is called Roger versus Tiger, and it's referring to Roger Federer and Tiger Woods, both arguably the greatest in their, in their craft. Now, tiger Woods played one sport his whole life. He was on Johnny Carson at the age of three, swinging a golf club. Roger Federer. Played every sport under the sun until he was a teenager and then specialized in tennis. Both of them, two different backgrounds, two different unique skills, and, and, and both of them got to their mastery in different ways. But I look at Federer, who is an incredible athlete, and when you talk to a lot of high level coaches, they talk about the kids that can do other things because they're not so singular focused on being the best at what they do. Yeah, they are.'cause you're either wired that way or you're not. But they have the skill to be all the different things that you can, that, that you can see. So, um, I tell you that because it makes me think about what you said. Oftentimes people are asking me, well, you don't know my business. And I'm like, no, no, no. That, that's the beauty. Well. Um, that, that's, that's just the beauty of what I do, is that, that, that I get to see all these different things, but it's hard to overcome that, Byron. I mean, people ask us like, you're, you know, you know, you're just, you're, you're, you don't know my business. It's like, oh, I know. So anyway, I'm, I'm gonna get some more from you on that, because I'm sure you have that conversation too.
Byron Attridge:yeah, Let me add something to that and, and here, here's, here's an analog for it. How do you think that most people hire? They go and they look at somebody's resume and they look at their skills and experience, and they talk about their skills and experience and the interview and this and that and the other. And at best. They talk about core values in an afterthought,
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Byron Attridge:okay? And the reality is the core values are actually more important
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Byron Attridge:than the skills and experience because the, your core values, you're gonna have a hell of a hard time teaching because you know, people, people have gotten set in their core values. And if those align, that's great. If they don't, then you can't do a whole lot about'em. And, and so when you do it all the way around and you say, Hey, no, you, you gotta have the fundamentals, which is that core values piece in an analog. And then if you got the skills and experience on top of that, great, we got something to go on. And so, you know, I liken it to that in the sense that understanding fundamentals and understanding what the job entails from a fundamental standpoint. Is way more important than understanding whether they make widgets or widgets or, or how those widgets are made or any of that kind of stuff, because as an integrator, you are a quarterback, you're not making sausage.
Matt Haney:That's exactly
Byron Attridge:You're, you're a quarterback and so you're not making widgets. You're not down in there turning the crank and everything. You're, you're trying to figure out how to make all these people play well together and how to make'em successful and get'em the resources they need nor to be successful.
Matt Haney:No, that's exactly right. And that's hard because it's, it's, um, you know, I, and I'm dealing with this, it's interesting. I'll tell a quick segue. Um, I'm dealing with that very same issue with a client now who, you know, most people don't have experience working with a fractional COO or fractional integrator, and that's great. So a lot of. My time is spent educating them on what we do and what we don't do. It's very hard to say to a visionary leader, who's by the way, hired you to help them with their business. Hey. You don't want me documenting process. That's not my best skill, and I'm gonna screw it up because they're like, well wait, I hired you to do all this and this is like, no, what, what we do is bring the team together and, and make sure that we're aligned on all the different things that we need to do, and then I get to help you hold yourself accountable and others. So I had to go through that process recently, but most importantly, talk about vulnerability, this visionary this week. He just rolled out his core values, and is just now doing his quarterly conversations and, his, people analyzer and he said, I wanna roll this out. I want you to do the people analyzer on me in front of 55 people on a virtual meeting. He's like, I want everybody on the call. And he is like, and I want to do it genuinely with you, and I want you to tell me. Plus, plus minus or minus. And he said, and I want you to be really incredibly honest. And I said, hell yeah, I'm your guy. Let's party. So we went through it together and I gave him my feedback and he owned it. And it was incredibly awesome to have somebody I. Be so vulnerable about the things that they're struggling with and show it to his entire team. It's so rare. So rare. So shout out to, uh, to that visionary who hopefully, uh, watches this and, and gets it.
matt-haney_2_02-06-2025_192447:You are listening to the Scalability Code. I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business. We offer fractional COO and leadership coaching services that free up that brain of yours to focus on what's next. Learn more about us at SinclairVentures. com. Now back to it.
Matt Haney:Okay. Before I get us off track, because my job is to keep us on track, talk to me about scorecard. One of the things I struggle with being vulnerable is is adapting, changing, measuring scorecard. I wanna know your views on. How often it should be looked at, red versus green. Take it away. Gimme your gimme. Your take on the scorecard.
Byron Attridge:so let's start with the most basic part of that question, which is how. Often should you be looking at it. And it's every quarter. I mean, when I, when I say looking at it, looking at tuning it up,
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Byron Attridge:you're, you're supposed to be looking at it every
Matt Haney:Oh, we do. We look at it. We always look at it every
Byron Attridge:and so, so that's the, I mean, you know, in that L 10 format, that's the thing that's one of the center pieces of that L 10 format is, is making sure that you're going through your measures. On your scorecard, but in terms of tuning it up and changing your measures, I would not be trying to do that more than once a quarter
Matt Haney:I find people going the other way, Byron, I gotta beg'em to get out and look at it and, and change it. We look at it every week, but how often are we changing it? We're like, well, we don't want to change it. I'm like, guys, you don't want, I say, we don't want it to be all red or all green.
Byron Attridge:Totally.
Matt Haney:It should
Byron Attridge:If you're, if you're all red or all green, you're not doing something right. And, and basically what it comes down to is, is that the question that I ask every quarter when I'm facilitating a quarterly planning session is, okay, it's scorecard. Let's take a look at it. All right, you got it up there now. Is this telling you what you need to know about whether your company's healthy or not healthy? If I, if I go through every one of these, are they all telling you something meaningful about whether your company's healthy or not healthy? And I take'em all the way back to focus day. And I say, all right, put your cell on an island. You got no comms. You, you can't get in touch with anybody. There's no texting, there's no email, there's no nothing, no phone. You got no communications with your company. You get these numbers to tell you what is happening inside your company and whether your company is doing great or the wheels are off the wagon. Is that gonna tell you that? And that usually kind of sparks a good discussion about, well, this one doesn't really tell us anything because we don't have good data for it. You're like, okay, well, you know, if you're not, yeah, if you're, you're putting garbage into it, you, you're not getting anything out of it. So either get rid of that or make it an issue that you're gonna solve this quarter to get that data and make it readily available
Matt Haney:All. right, so we're looking at it every quarter. We're making changes. How many, uh, and again, I know this is a relative question, but I want your opinion. How many metrics are you seeing on a scorecard? More than, or less than? It doesn't matter. Like what? What would you tell people? You know, Hey, you need to five to 15.
Byron Attridge:Yeah, five to 15 if you're getting any more than 15. Um, it's, it's too much usually. And, and the, the only, yeah, the only exception that I would, I would say to that is sometimes when you have a multi-store configuration, like you have a multi-site configuration that, that you gotta have multiple nu or like a number from each of the stores. And so that might increase the number a bit,
Matt Haney:Right. but
Byron Attridge:you gotta be.
Matt Haney:for each store, the same common metric. And in that case, if you have four metrics for each store and there's four stores, you're gonna have 16 lines in the card. But you're really measuring the four metrics for each store. Interesting. Well, I don't know why I get so hung up on that. I feel like sometimes that I either overthink that or, or don't encourage people enough to, to kill a metric that's not serving them. and teams a lot of times get really sensitive around reporting negative number red numbers. I. And I'm like, listen, just because you're reporting a red number doesn't mean you're gonna get fired. This is a, this is an indicator in the business and it's maybe not necessarily an indicator of you or your team or whatnot, but don't, don't fear the scorecard. It's, it's,
Byron Attridge:You may have the wrong goal in there.
Matt Haney:may have the wrong
Byron Attridge:may have the wrong goal in there. You may be measuring, you know, whatever you're measuring wrong, uh, or, you know, and, and usually, usually it manifests like this. Uh, you, you got, you got somebody in there that's sales oriented,
Matt Haney:Yep.
Byron Attridge:and, and so what they do is they, they go, they put the stretch goal in,
Matt Haney:Yep.
Byron Attridge:and so they ride in the red,
Matt Haney:Yeah,
Byron Attridge:that is totally uncool, and I will definitely call them out on that. I, I'll call that out every day of the week and twice on Sundays because it is super, super detrimental to the team. Now you can do that. You can play that game with your sales team and whatever else. As long as they know what healthy looks like, their only number can't be that stretch goal. They have to have numbers that are actually achievable.
Matt Haney:I am gonna take that. I'm gonna take that and go with it somewhere.'cause I was on a call earlier today about this very topic. I've got a sales team owned and managed by two incredible sales executives, high level visionary medical sales client, and part of their team is not interested or doesn't necessarily understand the value of measuring activity. An activity. That word can be, you can use it how you want. You could say measuring phone calls, you can measure visits, you can measure this, you can measure that. But I'm dealing with a leadership team that's like, we're not gonna measure, we're not gonna ask the sales team to report on activity. And I'm like, would you bake a fucking cake without a recipe? No. You've gotta know what the ingredients are, and that's what we are measuring.
Byron Attridge:Well, you measure the activity in order to the activities that you think are going to get you the outcomes that you want, so you're gonna measure a little bit of outcome. And probably more activity
Matt Haney:Yes.
Byron Attridge:and the, but here's the trick. Don't think that just because you start measuring an activity, it makes it important.
Matt Haney:Ah.
Byron Attridge:You may, you may start measuring that activity and realize that's not getting us the outcomes that we want.
Matt Haney:that's not
Byron Attridge:And so that means.
Matt Haney:at.
Byron Attridge:That means you need to change the activity that you're measuring and that you're driving and that you're asking them to do because you're not getting the outcomes that you want. And so you need to change the activity that you're doing
Matt Haney:yeah. No, you're right. and
Byron Attridge:metric along with
Matt Haney:having a measurable is that if you keep measuring that activity in C, no change. Then obviously we're not doing, we're not something, we're not focused on the right outcome. So
Byron Attridge:know who's good at it, you know who's good at it, The marketing people
Matt Haney:really? Oh yeah.'cause they're
Byron Attridge:better than because they're experimental.
Matt Haney:Yeah, the
Byron Attridge:well, so, so they do a little experiment and so they, they don't assume that a particular activity is going to elicit the right kind of outcome. They're gonna go try it. They're gonna go, okay, we're gonna try this and we're gonna try this, and, and then we're gonna see what the outcomes are. And when we measure all that, then we may come back and say, you know what, we're going to do something
Matt Haney:Yeah. They're not fearful of that change. They're not fearful of it.'cause a lot of their work is, is just that, they call it AB testing. They're testing one thing to get a result, testing another thing to get a result. Interesting. Alright, I'm gonna keep us running. So, big, big question. Big question. And I, I genuinely want to know your thoughts. What do you think the, the hardest thing about managing people is. I'm not gonna say more'cause you can take that wherever you want.
Byron Attridge:The hardest thing about managing people is patience in a word, patience. So, human beings, contrary to popular belief, almost never internalize something that you said to them once. Yet. We expect if we tell somebody once for them to get it and internalize it and, and have it nailed dead.
Matt Haney:Right.
Byron Attridge:the reality is it's gonna be seven or maybe more times that you have to come back and iterate with them and ride alongside of'em and mentor and coach and all that kind of stuff until all of a sudden that external teaching is internalized and, and they go, oh, now, now I know exactly what I need to do
Matt Haney:So I am gonna repeat this back to you. You're telling me you've gotta tell the same person the same thing several times in order them to understand
Byron Attridge:No, not several. Seven.
Matt Haney:Seven, several, seven times several fi. I get it. So you're telling me. To be patient and realize that I've, I've said it once, I've gotta say it six more times, most likely in six different ways. In order for that person to grasp it,
Byron Attridge:Yeah, there's another piece of that.
Matt Haney:go.
Byron Attridge:You, cannot say it. You cannot do it with frustration.
Matt Haney:Yeah. Yeah,
Byron Attridge:So this comes from, this comes from PET. So this comes directly from parenting effectiveness training.
Matt Haney:yeah.
Byron Attridge:And, and believe it or not, leadership training and parenting effectiveness training. There, there's, they're like crazy similar. And if you're interested in content about that, uh, Sinek has a
Matt Haney:Oh, Simon Sinek's great. I oftentimes find myself talking to the visionary who's signing my check, like he's a 4-year-old. Like, gotta talk, gotta be patient. Gotta
Byron Attridge:Well, it's true. And the, and the, and the, and the part about that, that, you really have to lean into is that when you've said it three times, typically that's when the frustration sets in and that's when you've got to take a deep breath and you gotta go, okay. How am I going to help this person be successful? It's not by being upset with'em, it's by pulling up next to'em and saying, Hey, look, I, I want you to be successful. I care about you, and so I want, I wanna make sure you get this and you gotta do it with, I, I, there's no better word than love. You gotta do it with love.
Matt Haney:and
Byron Attridge:You gotta do it with
Matt Haney:also will throw humility in there. You've gotta understand where that person's coming from, and you've gotta realize that just because it's commonplace to me or you, I. Doesn't mean that it's the first thing that comes to their mind every time, obviously, or we wouldn't be talking about it seven times in a row. We've gotta come with humility and empathy and realize that even if we're frustrated, um, first of all, call your frustration. Let them know you're you, you are aware, you got frustrated. I did it today. I had a call, wrote back to one of the people I was with, and I just said, Hey, I want you to know, I'm sorry. I got wound up, and she said, the fact that you're reaching out to me and letting me know that you are self-aware enough to know that you got excited or fired up. makes me trust you more. And I was like, all right. So if you feel it, say it and uh, to, to put a bow on it. I think the hardest part about being, uh, I love your patience in one word. That's, that's awesome. alright, I'm gonna keep us going,'cause we got a couple more minutes here. But I want to know, what you do for fun outside of work.'cause I know you spend a lot of time at the whiteboard doing this.
Byron Attridge:Yeah,
Matt Haney:Tell me what you do.
Byron Attridge:well, you know, top of the list is, is going hunting and fishing with my son, uh, which I just got back from last night. Uh, we went, we went up to Lake Fork and, um,
Matt Haney:One of the best vast lakes in the country.
Byron Attridge:Yeah. Big bass country and, man, it was windy, I mean, but 25 to 40 mile an hour winds.
Matt Haney:Mm,
Byron Attridge:So we were looking for anything, any kind of protection from the wind in these coves and stuff like that. But we had a massive blast. We had a ton of fun. We were fishing, on beds where, you know, the bass were betting up and, and that's a whole different ball game and all that kind of stuff.
Matt Haney:What were you throwing? Like glide baits or, or what were you throwing out there?
Byron Attridge:No, we were throwing in, in the, beds, you're throwing a CRT ad because you want'em to think that something's coming after their eggs. And so, that was when we were bed fishing, but we came across some schools of spot spotted baths and we, we got this one school and it just became comical. My son and I, we caught 50 fish in an hour.
Matt Haney:Unbelievable.
Byron Attridge:was so much fun. It was just laughing, and every cast is like, wham, wham, wham, wham. And they were just frenzy. It was just crazy.
Matt Haney:Were those top water or how far down were you guys?
Byron Attridge:We, I did a few top water, but the ones that we were catching, the 50 that we caught, we were caught doing on drop shot.
Matt Haney:Okay.
Byron Attridge:had a worm, a worm about, about yay high off of a drop
Matt Haney:pulling it down. There you go.
Byron Attridge:And, and just drag that drop shot across the, the area. It was a drop off where there were some rocks and things like that, and they were just hanging out there and we just drag it through there and they just destroy it.
Matt Haney:Love it. Love it. All right, one more thing. I do think there's a rumor that you like RC cars and planes, which I'm the, I mean, you want to see a full size adult male, act like a 4-year-old, just put a remote control anything in their hands.
Byron Attridge:Absolutely.
Matt Haney:me, how did you, how did you stay involved in that? Was that you get back into it with your son when you were, when he was growing up, or,
Byron Attridge:Yeah. So I gave him, I gave him an, an electric RC car that was kind of this off-road little truck. Uh, it, it, it was, you know, kinda like a Tahoe.
Matt Haney:yeah.
Byron Attridge:Um, it was made by tracks and you know, they got good reviews and all that kinda stuff and he had a blast with it and he was like, Hey dad, I, you know, I wonder if there are any tracks or anything where we can go race it. And so I found him a track out, kind of near hu in Thornhill, and we went out there and he went and raised and got his clock cleaned the first time. And then in the, so he was in the first heat and then the next heat they were running nitromethane. These little two, yeah, these little two stroke, two stroke nitromethane engines. And they are loud. I mean, they're so loud and they fired him up and it was so loud and his eyes just went like this. And he goes, dad,
Matt Haney:Now this is
Byron Attridge:gotta, I gotta have one of those. Yeah. I said, well start, start mowing buddy. And he mowed lawns all summer
Matt Haney:Oh,
Byron Attridge:buy a Nitromethane rig. He bought his own nitromethane rig and then next thing you know, he was on the podium.
Matt Haney:That is so badass.
Byron Attridge:So six months later he, after he got his, his, uh, nitromethane, six months later he was on the podium
Matt Haney:That's so great. And is he still
Byron Attridge:and it was. Yeah. And now we do, we do airplanes as well, so we're flying airplanes as well.
Matt Haney:Do you know who Tyler Perry is?
Byron Attridge:yeah.
Matt Haney:Have you seen his collection?
Byron Attridge:No, I didn't know he was into the
Matt Haney:and Google. You know, he's a, he's a producer. He's produced a lot of, um, uh, movies that you'll know and television shows that you know, and he's incredibly successful. Go YouTube, his RC plane collection. I think he has a, an incredible RC plane collection and he lives outside of Nashville and he's got this strip in his backyard and he's either got a 7 3 7 or a BBJ or something that's scaled down, but. Literally like four engines. Anyway. It's crazy. So I love that.
Byron Attridge:That is so
Matt Haney:I love fun hobbies. I love unique hobbies. And, it's, what makes us different. So. Well, hey, I
Byron Attridge:Well, in the,
Matt Haney:man, but I really really appreciate you. I appreciate you on many levels. First of all, thank you for being, a friend to me and trusting in me to, to talk to your clients and engage with your clients. And also thanks for just not taking yourself too seriously and be willing to, to take a joke and, and be, uh, be be a good friend.
Byron Attridge:Absolutely. Well, the, the feeling is mutual, my friend. And, you know, that's the, the most beautiful thing in, in our world, in, in my estimation, is the ability to, to see a problem that a client's having and then have the confidence to be able to say. Is that something you want help with? And if they say yes, then being able to have that confidence to say, let me introduce you to somebody, and knowing that that person is going to be able to help'em. And that's, that's what you and I have. And, and that's, that's worth gold.
Matt Haney:Well listen brother, I really appreciate you. I'll talk to you very soon and again, thanks for all you do. Thanks for joining us in the scalability code. Take care. Bye.
Byron Attridge:Take care.
Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code. If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get out of the sh*t show together. We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.