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
Purpose Horizon: Crafting a Meaningful Business Life With Mark Henderson Leary
In this episode of The Scalability Code, host Matt Haney welcomes Mark Henderson Leary from Houston, Texas. Mark shares his entrepreneurial journey, from his early days experimenting with beer brewing in high school to becoming an experienced EOS implementer. They discuss the importance of gratitude, the value of core values, and the struggles of hiring and onboarding in scaling businesses. Mark also underlines the significance of staying true to one's purpose and maintaining integrity. Tune in for an insightful conversation packed with valuable lessons for visionary entrepreneurs
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:33 Welcome
01:06 Background
12:10 The Journey Before EOS
17:57 Getting Started in EOS
23:05 Commonalities in EOS Sessions
30:54 The Role Of The Visionary
34:09 How To Learn Priorities
35:15 VTO
40:19 What Is The Hardest thing About Managing People?
42:26 Hobbies Outside Of EOS
45:37 Final Words Of Wisdom
46:22 The Purpose Horizon
48:07 Conclusion
Connnect with Mark at: https://www.markhendersonleary.com/
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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:All right. Here we are on another episode of the Scalability Code. Today we have joining us from the great city of Houston, Texas, Mark Henderson Leary. Mark, thanks for joining us today on the Scalability Code. Really appreciate you joining us.
Mark Henderson Leary:Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm, I'm excited. I always enjoy these opportunities and, uh, it's a real privilege.
Matt Haney:Yeah, it is fun. I love, the opportunity to get to talk to folks that are senior business leaders, have been through the shit show, as I say, and come out on the other side and, I'm guessing, fit that build, but we'll jump into it So Mark, we start these conversations the same way every time. first, I'd love to know what you're grateful for and what, something that comes to mind that you can pull out that, that brings gratitude. And then we'll go back to your history of how you got to where you're today.
Mark Henderson Leary:Well, uh, an unbelievable amount to be, to be grateful for. Um, it's hard to even pick, you know, having, being able to to have the privilege of being an ES implementer for the better part of a decade and have so many great experiences and have the opportunity to learn so much. I mean, that's certainly how Im. Describing it these days that I'm supposed to be a teacher, facilitator and coach. And, and I do that, I suppose, but it's really about all the things I've learned and, and every year it's more of that, you know, I've been through a lot as I'm an entrepreneur, right. So I,
Matt Haney:Well, let's unpack that.
Mark Henderson Leary:Okay. I was, I was gonna say that I'll, I'll, I'll put a heading on it and you can dig into it. People like me, find ourselves. In situations we have to figure out, and I've been there multiple times and had, uh, a good entrepreneurial group to help me through the first times of my business struggles and my family struggles and working through that, and I've had it again. the thing I'm most grateful for in all that is having an unbelievably. loving, trusting, well connected friend, group support, group family to, to be there with me through those things to help me be, stay grounded in who I am and, and what I can, you know, and my value.'cause it's, it's been, it's been a rough a couple decades and
Matt Haney:I hear you. There's a lot of, uh, a lot of scars, a lot of gray hair that we've all developed from it. So let's go back. One of my favorite things to do is to go back and, you know, normally Mark, you and I introduce and meet people, uh, all day, every day and probably have our whole career, and everyone's like, oh, what do you do? And it's like, oh shit, I gotta save that. The 18 second elevator pitch as quick as I can to get out what I do. But I wanna do the opposite here. I wanna go back to, kind of your entrepreneurial journey at its onset. So as I'm framing this up, start thinking about somebody who, um, impressioned upon you, what entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurialism looked like as a young man, and go back as far as you want to go, because I think the story is very impactful as to how we got where we are. So, wind back and, uh, you know, 40 something, 50 something years into your first experience or dose of entrepreneurship as you see it, who was that person and what was
Mark Henderson Leary:well, yeah, so there's a couple ways I could take this. Uh, and I would, I don't, I don't, I didn't have that entrepreneurial, clear leader. I didn't see it that way anyway. Although my dad is one of the two influences. In that regard, uh, he had entrepreneurial elements. more than anything, he was a searcher, a learner, uh, and I lost him a long, long time ago, and he, I mean, over 20 years ago and 25 ish years ago in a plane crash. And so, a large portion of my life, half my life, I didn't have my father to, to. To guide me. Uh, and he, he wasn't even that great a guide, because he was learning so much on his own. He didn't have great role models. And so, I learned a lot of things about humility and the, the search for knowledge and the search for better, just implicitly, like, I couldn't have even told you that that's what I'd learned until somewhat recently. And I also learned from him, accept. And I did not know that I had learned that, and again, until very recently. and so my parents got divorced at age, uh, when I, they weren't six. I was six. And, and so, uh, early age kind of started grappling with that, and I didn't have as much exposure and time with him as, as any child would've wanted. And again, not really realizing how that could have been different until much later in life, accepting it as it was at the time. And, um, yeah, I just, I didn't know that I was learning. What it was to be truly accepted. But I just knew that those few times I had with him were really meaningful and, uh, didn't require a lot of explanation. And so I didn't, I can't say this enough. He really, so much of my story is around the loss of my father and what I thought that could have been, but only recently that I realized how many gifts he gave me that didn't have words attached to them in terms of acceptance and unconditional love and exploration on learning and seeking. and so those, I had to figure out later. That's the number one thing. And, and. And I wanna go certainly give you opportunity to go back into that. That really polarizes with the fact that I was, I was a daydreamer in, in early school and so I was,
Matt Haney:Guilty, guilty.
Mark Henderson Leary:you know, I've, I've self-diagnosis is a DH ADHD in those days, and I've talked to psychologists since then who's like, they're not, I'm not so sure that you're a DHD. There was other things that work here. But to suffice it to say, I was being told I was smart by my mom. And being sort of, praised for the things I knew and getting this real mixed message about, oh, but you suck in school and Cs and Ds are your grades and, and you're kind of messing up here. And I, I didn't know what to make of that. And I think that cocktail. Was like, I don't know what your system is. It doesn't make any sense to me, and the only safe place for me is in my system because I can figure that like, at least, at least if it's, if it doesn't work, I know it was me. And so I think that created, that, that desire to be in some type of independent system at a very young age, I was like, I'm gonna be working for myself. And, and it wasn't like I had some
Matt Haney:What made you, realize that? Like there was some, some moment.
Mark Henderson Leary:well, I, didn't realize it. I just, I, just knew
Matt Haney:have a, a, a lawn mowing route. You didn't have a, uh, you know, a summer job that you're like. You know, that's something that was like, man, this is that. You look, you maybe at the moment you didn't realize it, but man, that was my first taste of entrepreneurship. Or you are related to someone. And I think there's always these parallel stories where I think people go back and realize that they had more entrepreneurial, uh, opportunities or acquaintances or brushes with entrepreneurship through someone that, that transitioned them into, you know, where they are today.
Mark Henderson Leary:I don't think a lot of entrepreneurial stories are about ambition. They've, they've, they've wanted to figure out a way to crack the nut on, um, power money or something. And I, I wasn't motivated by that, at least not, not at that level. To me, I was motivated by creating a sense of safety. I just wanted to be emotionally safe. And it wasn't quantity driven. It was, it was some agency and power. Like I had a, I had a job from the moment I could get a job. Uh, and so I always wanted and needed that buy the things, to have agency, to, orchestrate my life. But I wasn't always, I wasn't looking for, for, for my first million. I was never motivated by
Matt Haney:Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree. I, I too wasn't incredibly motivated by money. I grew up my, my dad was a, uh. And hey dad, if you're listening, he, uh, uh, community banker for, for 30 years or so, and very well connected in the community. And my mom was an educator for 30 plus years and grew up in a great town, great upbringing, all the stuff, right? Got to go all the baseball games and all the practices and it was great. But you know, they weren't entrepreneurs. Um, and I didn't know, I knew at an early age I wanted to do. I would be in business. That's what I knew. I I didn't know it then, but you know, my dad will be like, Hey, in the summer you're either, you gotta go do something, you gotta get your ass outta the house and go do it. It's my brother and I mowed yards and, um, we'd carried a snapper lawn mower around in the back of the truck and, and mowed lawns. And he said, I'll pay for the truck. You pay for the gas and the insurance. And that was it. He was like, you better go get your shit together and go start cutting grass. I mean, that was my first taste of entrepreneurship. But it wasn't until I got outta college that I realized that, like, to your point, the safety of controlling my destiny was a lot more interesting than going to, you know, swipe my, my badge access at the cubicle and go work, work nine to five at the, at the desk job. So, you know, it's just always interesting to go back and see how people found entrepreneurship
Mark Henderson Leary:tell you, I'll tell you my first real entrepreneurial experience and it tells you and everything, everything to know about,
Matt Haney:let's go. Let's
Mark Henderson Leary:a bad, like I was such a bad business guy as a result of this. So it was, 80, 19, 87, sophomore year of high school. Did I get that right? and a buddy of mine walks up and shows me this book. It's Charlie Ian's, home Brewer's Guide and How to, how to Make Beer and, uh.
Matt Haney:go make beer
Mark Henderson Leary:He says it's pretty cool, but, but I don't think we can do this, you know, whatever. And I, I, I don't total quick start on the Colby. I, I, I don't think I read it, but I just was like. Absolutely we could do this. Like, I don't know how I came to the conclusion that we could do that, but it was very quick. It was like, of course we can do this.
Matt Haney:Naively dumb. I love it.
Mark Henderson Leary:and so, within 24 hours we're at the local home brew shop. 17-year-old. 16, yeah. 15, 15, 16, 17-year-old. I, I don't know exactly. nobody with a facial hair amongst us. And we were in the home brew shop and we're like. This is legal, right? it's not right, but it is legal, right? And we just wandered through there and we were just looking around waiting for this to get kicked out and they didn't kick us out. And we just asked these questions and they were just so helpful and telling, explaining and I think they were thrilled. Like, you love, you wanna know how make beer, Yeah. Lemme show you how this
Matt Haney:Did at that point, did they have like those barrel kits? You know, it was
Mark Henderson Leary:Oh yeah, yeah.
Matt Haney:plastic barrel that you've
Mark Henderson Leary:Yes, absolutely. At all that stuff. And so, you know, within, within a month we're brewing beer, you know, and I'm, and I'm, I'm. I'm learning about it, and I don't really like beer at this point. I just am fascinated by it. But somewhere in the process, I became fascinated by what it was, what were the ingredients. And I started to get this craving for what the description of these recipes was supposed to be producing. But in the process of learning how the chemistry of it, by the time we were done, it, became kind of this fascination. And so. The entrepreneurial endeavor was like, this is a business. Let's, we can sell this beer. It's in our possession. We don't have to, we don't have to ask anybody to buy it for us. It's right here. We, we possess the whole machinery, the whole supply chain. So we sold the first six pack in 87 for$6. and from then on, I never sold another one'cause I was just fascinated with making beer.
Matt Haney:So did you keep doing that through high school? Like, you know, under the, under the cover of Darkness?
Mark Henderson Leary:We, yeah, well, yeah. In, in, in closets and, and we were all pretty good about, you know, managing, although a very close friend did get busted with a, with an over, uh, over spill, a boil over with, with malt in a, in a, and it made a massive smell set off all the smoke detectors and that, that got him busted with the parents. So,
Matt Haney:That's hilarious. So you went from Home Brew Master at 16, that's your first taste of entrepreneurship, slinging the first six pack, and you're like, now I'm gonna keep this shit. Now I'm
Mark Henderson Leary:But it really did tell the story of like, I, you know, my subsequent businesses, I was fascinated by the art, fascinated by the purpose. And it was very bad at stewarding the money. And
Matt Haney:Was the product any good? Was the beer any good? At that time
Mark Henderson Leary:uh, you know, I, I, at times some of it was good. We were learn a lot of experimentation. it was yeah, it was good. It was not great. It was not
Matt Haney:was, hey, it was good enough and it was accessible.
Mark Henderson Leary:It was for sure. I'll tell you the very best batch I ever brewed though. That was when my daughter was 16. I said to her, you know, when I was your age. I was brewing beer. And she said, dad, that's what we're doing today.
Matt Haney:Oh no, you did it with her.
Mark Henderson Leary:and so we went down to the home brew shop, which has since closed. And uh, and we got a kit and we picked it out based on the, her desire and what, what she was gonna make. And she's not a beer drinker either. And we brewed that beer and I, it easily, the best beer I'd made in, out of all the batches. And
Matt Haney:Oh, that's so awesome. what a great story. So, okay, so tell me how that got you. What, what was your early, you know, been an EOS implementer for the last nine years, full-time, what have you done, what'd you do before that? Sort of what was your journey to getting to EOS as an implementer? Did.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, so it was, you'll see some of the subtext in the story. So I got into it, backwards in, uh, via, I wanted to be a chef, wanted to be a brew pub owner, all those sort of things. Very entrepreneurial, visionary, entrepreneurial, ended up in the IT world. And, um. And, and as an independent IT operator decided I wanted to scale this thing. Was able to scale it. Some well begin to scale. It went from just me to more than just me.
Matt Haney:What services? Just general techs or IT
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, ma it was managed at the, well, I was doing it it was an MSP ultimately, and we, we were managed that transition. So before what we were doing, it was just hours for dollars and people were starting to get this idea of what an MSP was. And so we, we were investing in the technology to become a, a monthly, retainer based, you know, fixed, fixed fee, monthly service type of thing. That is not what the standard of the industry is. But with, you know, I was 27 and so I was going into these places and people were saying, man, it's your age, man. Look what you're doing. You got this business. It's great. And so I was felt on top of the world for about a year. Maybe two. And then somewhere around year three, I was just looking at, we gotta grow this thing. We're gonna, we're gonna build this. We look, all the stuff we've done over the last two years, we went from nothing to, you know, almost a million in revenue. This is amazing. And that's when I got stuck and that's like, well hit the ceiling a little bit. We were supposed to be a million and a half to a million, but like we're 900,000. And it started this repetitive cycle. Then I would, try to get the advice, try to hire the right people, try to get involved, try to do the things that I thought was supposed to happen and it wouldn't work. We would just be back. We would two steps forward, two steps back, three steps forward, four steps back. And it was very frustrating Things were just not what I expected them to be. And it was year after year of falling short of what I said was supposed to happen. And I would have this con conflict. People would still say, you know, look, you got a good business. It's, you're doing so much more. And I'm like, but I'm getting older and I'm not feeling like I'm ahead of the curve anymore. And it, and the biggest frustration for me is that I wasn't doing what I said. I felt massively out of integrity with myself because I would call the shot, we're gonna grow 30%, we're gonna get more clients, we're gonna add the service.
Matt Haney:You were saying this to your team, right? That was the goal. This is, here I am projecting this vision out to the team
Mark Henderson Leary:Well, that's a great question actually, because as a pre eeo, as visionary, who knows what I was telling
Matt Haney:Ah,
Mark Henderson Leary:So. I thought I was crystal clear, but like what I actually said, God only knows.
Matt Haney:My favorite way of relating to that is, not every time, but all the time. You think you're being clear, you're not actually being clear. I mean, the reality is, is that, you can say it one day and it changes the next, not because you're trying to change, but that's just because you think, you're still saying the sky's blue. But in fact, yesterday you told us it's orange. Just like, wait, what color is it? So to your point, laying out that vision, um, consistently and, and you know, clearly is a flaw for all of us. Thank God we have a system to help us. So anyway, sorry. So you're going back, you're stuck at
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. Every year, and this was, this was going? on, this was seven years, and I was beat up and frustrated and embarrassed. Really, truly embarrassed and trying. I show up around my peers and try to act like they felt good about it. I didn't, and I had a, well, a friend, and we'll call him. Steve, uh,'cause his name is Steve. And Steve said, uh, he said, Steve or Steve said, mark, it looks like you're stuck. You know, my business is roughly 10 times the size of yours. I know a couple things. Would you mind if I shared a few? And I was like, hell no. I wouldn't mind if you shared. So he spent a couple days with me, sat down and showed me some of the precursor to EOS tools, some of the Verne Harnish stuff, some of the, uh, Jim Collins things, uh, some Pat Lyon tools. And within a couple days of him facilitating, some conversations with me. We had core values, we had some elements of an accountability chart. I think certainly we're setting rocks or some equivalent for that. And I'm telling you, it was night and day from me frustrated and the team trying to, you know, console me and try to interpret what I was trying to say to like, oh, this is, this makes sense. We now know what you want. And we now know what our role is and we know what to do with that. And, um. Long story short, within a year I had sold the business and was now part of a much larger organization. And my role, even though I wasn't an an owner of that organization, was to help them put the business plan together and run the growth strategy. And within three years, I was with them about three years. We tripled the services revenue and I was like, this is amazing.
Matt Haney:Here we go.
Mark Henderson Leary:I got this feeling and this feedback from people that this was my calling and I had this gift for facilitation and coaching. and so I, people would along the way say, Hey, there's this book called Traction. And I was like, nah, it's got a tire on it.
Matt Haney:Any idea what year that was? More or less?
Mark Henderson Leary:Oh yeah. I could tell you exactly. Uh, 24, no, 2012 is when I. Sold. So it was right around, um, yeah, sold in 2012, so 2015.
Matt Haney:Yeah. you're right, that lines up. That was a decade ago.
Mark Henderson Leary:And so I, friends were like, you should implement EOS. And I was like, I'm not implementing anything with the tire on the, on the cover. I don't even like that. And so two years I was like, I got a system. Maybe I needed some help. And then, so I, I finally, I, I bit the bull. I read the book. I was in the community. I met Gino and where. If I have a talent for facilitation and coaching, man, the gift that Gino has for creating that system, the biggest bang for the buck. So glad I didn't try to do that and that was my thought. I thought my visionary brand was gonna try to do that, so thank God I did
Matt Haney:Mean, meanwhile, you would've, you would've, you know, circle monkeyed that for years it would've would've been challenging. So, uh, 10 years ago you read the book, met Gino. and how did you get started? Like, what was the, you know, obviously you haven't knack for it. You've been doing it for 10 years and haven't, taken a full-time job in the meantime. So you obviously had the first client, and what was that? Do you remember the first client?
Mark Henderson Leary:Oh shoot. Yeah. so I. What happened was I decided it was something I was committed to all the opport. Well, taking a step back, I actually did think that one day I would be some type, some type of advisor coach, and I thought maybe a Vistage chair or something like that. But I sort of saw that as my sunset path and I thought I, I got another CEO running me another startup or something. And so I started looking around for, for something like that. And nothing was really passionate. I didn't have a passion for something to do and I couldn't find an organization that had the passion to run, that had qualifications to run. And so I was like, I gotta do something with my time. And so, and I, I think I'll do this sort of advising coaching thing and I'll use this system and I was gonna be, become a consultant. And that was what that sort of, the idea was, I wanna become this consultant to help people do this stuff. Didn't really know what that meant. And I wanted a way to, To sort of level it up. And so I chose EOS because at the time, the barrier to entry was really low. You could just sign up for like 500 bucks and I was like, great, this will let me figure it out. And very quickly I was like, this is me. and I committed. And the, the whole use two credit cards to, to pay the, to pay the fee to get in was, you know, I, I lived a year of debt to, of my first year getting started, but the, to the launch, it was. And I had the passion. It was the first time in my life I really knew
Matt Haney:you had the w.
Mark Henderson Leary:I had, yeah, had absolutely had the want, had the commitment, the belief that, uh, that if I bet on myself, it was, it was a, a guaranteed thing that I'd never really felt before. In fact, I, like I remember watching hard knocks the, the. The show talking about these teams and they were talking and all the, I was watching in this one particular episode, I was actually the, um, the one for the Houston Texans and all these players were talking about their, their, their commitment to being on the team and their life in the draft and how, and they were just so completely bought in on themselves and I just was in awe of that commitment to knowing they were gonna be successful. Now, obviously not everybody. It has that result. But I just had never felt that. I was like, I had never been in a position where I felt like it's all me a hundred percent. I'll do anything, move anywhere and pay any price to do something. And when I got on the path to be an implementer, it hit me and I was like, now I get it. Now I know that I'm locked in, that this is the path for me. Whatever obstacles I I hit are just obstacles and I'm just gonna move around'em or go under'em or whatever. And as opposed to changing paths, it was amazing feeling. And so the very first client, I was hitting my network, talking to all the people that I knew. And I called a, a friend of mine who I knew from the IT services business and told him what I was up to. And, uh, he said, you know, mark, I just, uh, I just have got a book on my desk. Somebody handed it to me and asked me to read, and it's called Traction. And I think there, there's a, there's a reason that this is happening and I'd like to explore this. And so at the time, uh, their business was struggling financially and I didn't know how to sell the value. So went in with my rate and, um. I, I told'em, I gave him the, did the 90 minute meeting just to get this thing started, and I told'em what my rate was and they were like, man, this sounds great, but there's just no way. We can't, we can't do this. I was like, man, all right. I need a client and I think, and I think you need this, so if you need it, just go figure out what you can pay me. Just what, whatever that amount is, and if it's even zero. I think I said that. And all right. That's a big deal. And he's a very spiritual guy. He said, my partner and I will, we're gonna go pray about this and we'll let you know. And he came back and said, we thought about it and we'd like to move forward and we'd like to pay you a thousand dollars per session. And I was really hoping for two per, because I needed that to pay the bills. And uh uh, but then it was, but I was like, we're. That's, that, that's exactly what I asked for and let's do it. And he's, uh, he was a great friend then. He's an even better friend now and he's since then sold his business. He is doing what he's, his passion is, and, um, it's a tremendous journey. He has subsequently, uh, recommended his daughter become my practice manager, and his, his daughter has been my practice manager for the last two and a half years, something like that. And so it's an unbelievable journey to have, have the privilege of, of people who, who believed in me. We were able to help each other out and, um, yeah, I just, I just beyond grateful you talking about that gratitude. Um, I got, I got, I don't have any kind of words to describe the sequence of events that has happened since then as a result of that.
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:That's awesome. What a cool story. What a cool story. Alright, well let's jump into some of the things you've seen in session. This is always where I think. Some of the interesting things come up. So, um, you know, there's, there's commonalities. I was speaking to a referral partner I have who's got A-A-C-F-O firm on the west coast and we were talking this morning during my kind of check in with them on some of the work I'm doing with their clients. And we were just talking through some, some details around things and, and they were asking me questions around what I see client issues are, and I think. One of the things that came up is, is hiring and onboarding. Um, and I'm going somewhere, but I'm gonna land the plane in a second. In terms of like what challenges you are helping clients navigate, it's always something like, there's commonalities of our 10 years of working with clients. I know you can pull out two or three common themes that you've seen. One of them for me happens to be hiring and onboarding As a fractional integrator, I spend a lot of time. Working with leadership teams. Matter of fact, it's about 90% of what I do is working with leadership teams to level up talent and working with visionaries to hire new talent and hiring new talent and onboarding them in a way different. Then they did the last person that they onboarded. Because as you know, from an, from an entrepreneur yourself, a lot of clients say, here's your email address. Here's your laptop, welcome to the company. You've been onboarded. And the the employee goes out into the business is like, holy shit, what'd I just get into? There's no system, there's no process, there's nothing. So I don't know if you can pull out any, um, any common themes that you've seen in businesses that struggle. Um, and, you know, give us an example of how you navigate those things.
Mark Henderson Leary:Well, yeah, I can boil it down. So the, the guiding principle that everything you're saying is a hundred percent true. First thing's first, and I. Really drive home the point that you'll never out process the wrong person. So let's be clear, we have to get crystal clear on the right person in the right seat first. And so, so much heavy lifting is accountability chart. And if we, and we're never getting, we're not getting outta the gate if we don't have clarity in the accountability chart and the iterations that go with that. And so. Just making sure we've done the precursor work.'cause you get, you get the right person in the right seats and they'll help you write the process and you get the wrong person, you get the right process and they'll skip every single step, every single time. You're like, what happened here? And so, so onboarding is a little different of a process'cause it kind of supports these people. biggest challenge I find is when you don't have a process oriented culture, you say the word process and they nod, but they have no idea what you're talking about.
Matt Haney:No idea.
Mark Henderson Leary:Not a clue. And it, and, and they take the rock and they say, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna do a rock. What's the rock gonna be? We are going to document all of our core processes and have'em followed by all. It's like, all right, that's this gonna go.
Matt Haney:That's it. Yep. That's what we're gonna do.
Mark Henderson Leary:They get the end of the court what happened? Nothing. We don't even know what followed by all means. And so,
Matt Haney:We tried.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, so just getting, it's, to me, it's all about baby steps and I, I love to use the, uh, Brene Brown term, uh, SFD. You familiar with that term?
Matt Haney:I'm familiar with Brene Brown. I don't know that
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. It's a good one. You got, especially for process, you gotta have it. It's the shitty first draft. You, you gotta, you gotta make sure that you get it. Like shitty first draft is a hundred percent better than, than, than no draft.
Matt Haney:you know what's helped me with the SFD. Chat, GPT has gotten that writer's block blank white page. I'm like, just go in and type something and instantly you've got that SFD on its way.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. And so there's two things that make an SFD hard to get out the door. One is blank page, and the second thing is perfection. So both of those go together, so I, I don't, don't expect to get it right. I don't even want it. Right. Give gimme, gimme a crappy one, and then, and then learn what's crappy about it and improve it later. And so we gotta get the, the party started with the first version and we gotta drive into simplicity and get a conversation started. So I'm frequently telling people like, uh, onboarding process. How about. Half a page or to one page onboarding checklist. Like anything, anything, don't worry about training them. At least make sure you tell'em, you know, where the, what websites they need to log into are. And so you can be realizing, oh man, we really need to train that. Oh, I don't get the password. Oh, that is so something basic to get, to get started. The, the number one problem with process is biting off too much and, and as a result of biting off too much, getting literally nothing
Matt Haney:That's exactly right. That's exactly right. No, I hear you. It's, it's, it's so funny, literally having this conversation with one of my clients, and it was around website. She's, she's a awesome visionary. She's got a great service business, three locations, and she's like, website, website, website. She's got developer, the whole thing, the content's not ready. I'm like, can we just publish something? Let's get going. You know, we're not gonna publish perfection. We're gonna publish something that we can edit and change as time goes by. And what'll end up happening is, is instead of just not starting, we'll start with something that's good, not great, and we'll work to great. It's the same thing as that, SFD or that just to get the prompt started.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, because if you're going from a non-pro oriented culture to the worst process in the world, that's such an improvement. It's like you at least know that there's what, what to do, and it's like it's supposed to take three days and it takes three, takes three weeks. It's like, that's amazing. It's amazing that three weeks later they actually have their stuff compared to what it was before.
Matt Haney:Yeah, that's exactly right. alright, what any other common themes, synergies you're seeing, excuse me, in session where, um, you know, visionary leaders are coming against the same kind of headbanging, pounding their head against the wall. Frustrations with running. Uh, businesses that are either scaling or, or stuck. I can prompt you, but I wanted to leave it to you.
Mark Henderson Leary:no, I got something. and it's, it's certainly, it's thematic for me right now. This year I've had some things that have really caused me to do some deep work on the behaviors in my life, things that I've accepted and the consequences of those things. And I'm paying a huge price right now on a personal level for some, for a million mistakes that I made over about a nine year period that, it was kind of overlaps in my EOS journey, but it's unrelated to that. And so, I've come to dive deep into this concept of the greater good. And what that is. That's my phrase. It's a phrase. It's right outta the E-O-S-L-M-A checklist. It's like the second or third question on the leadership, um, practices I act with the greater good in mind. And when I ask my clients about that in session, say, are we reacting with the greater good in mind, my behaviors, my actions, my words, are we, and the greater good is defined by the VTO? Are we doing that? And pretty much everybody says, yeah, yeah, everybody here. Yeah, of course we're doing that. And I say, is that right? So on your team. There's nobody who you're suspecting just doesn't really fit the culture, and there's nobody who has been late a lot and it's really bothering you. And there's nobody on the team who has been in the role for a, a year longer than need to be, than you have not below the bar. And there's nobody, and there's nothing, and there's no product and there's no service. There's no, there's no client situation that you're doing, that you're tolerating that doesn't violate the core values and the core focus. And at that point the room is not looking up.
Matt Haney:They're like, if we don't make eye contact, we can get the hell outta here.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. And so I'm like, so there's something here. And it is these small behaviors, the courageousness to take a stand on these small behaviors that we've mapped out and. This is, I've done so much deep thought on this and I did a talk earlier today for, for a group of, women integrators and actually women integrators who have now become visionaries. And the point of the topic was what's the role and, and what is how to, um, how to be a great visionary if you were an integrator before. And it really just crystallized these lessons that I bring to any visionary. And, uh, if we have more time, well, I dunno, you can had a link to this. The what I prompt. And I've done this in session. I, I, I, I show the video of Steve Jobs played by Ashton Kutcher in, in the movie, I think it's called Jobs. And he's, he's going through the, and I, everybody should watch it and watch it five times, maybe 10 times, because at first it's an appalling video of him losing his mind over something small. And we know that he was terribly. difficult leader to work for very toxic behavior, however, his shit worked.
Matt Haney:it did.
Mark Henderson Leary:And so, so the, the, the real essence of watching that video and, and obviously it's fictional, but watching the video and try to, how filter out what was terrible, what should no one be doing and what, what should every visionary be doing? And the answer is that I came to me when I had a, a visionary client come to me a couple years ago and he said, mark, I'm struggling. I know as a visionary, I'm supposed to let them figure things out, but they're breaking the business. What am I supposed to, where do I show up? And I'd never been asked that question before. And I, and that's what started the process thinking, well, where is it? And the answer is, the answer was at that time. And, and it's become more crystal clear, it's the top half of the VT. Uh, clearly now you, you're gonna let people make mistakes in the, in the issues and the rocks and, and the execution's not gonna turn out exactly as you intended, but nothing anywhere in the organization can violate those core values and that core focus. And I heard that at first, is very much like you're probably hearing it now. Yeah. That's the, that's the territory. But going back to watching that video, he loses his mind over something very simple that is. Guys, we are here to transform the world through our software and our computer, and we are designing a word processor and somehow we designed a word processor without fonts. That can never happen again, and you're gonna fix it now.
Matt Haney:Of course.
Mark Henderson Leary:That is where the visionary needs to stand. we know as visionaries, and I'm a recovering visionary, just like so many people, that a lot of our behavior was counterproductive. We did damage and we tried to not do that. So when we get into the, into EOS. We learned to delegate and bring some people in with skills we don't have. And it's, it's amazing. But what, what I've, we tend to do, and I've seen this a lot more than I care to admit,'cause it only recently has dawned on me what's happened. We kind of neuter the power of the visionary and they just kind of get sheepish. And the integrators of strong ones are kind of sometimes push us around like, I can't do that. And I think we're missing the boat because we, the idea was. We were unclear before, like even in that video, he's like, everything's a priority. It's like,
Matt Haney:Which, yeah, of course. Yeah. That and mutual accountability. Those two things don't, Yeah.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. So everything's not a priority. We know that doesn't work and so, but we now can get clear on what is a priority. We wrote those core values, we wrote that core focus. We have a 10 year target, we have a clear target market. Our marketing strategy is crystal clear and we cannot violate that. And, and if we've gotten into the process of sort of democratizing that vision and it's feeling a little weak and we don't know who we'd fire over for not sharing that vision, then that's a problem. And as a visionary, we gotta say. What would I fire people over? What would I lose my mind over? And what would be fair to do? So because we, we were, we were unclear before, but we are clear now. We have a VTO. The answers are there and you should absolutely go crazy.
Matt Haney:You know what's also really interesting, I'm gonna cut you off for a second.'cause you do have the VTO, but also more impactful. You have core values.
Mark Henderson Leary:Well, that's on the VTO. Yeah, that's in the, that's the first
Matt Haney:You're right. A, you're right. You're right. Fine. You win, you win. But I went specifically into the core, core values piece of the VTO.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, we spent the entire, almost the entire time in that
Matt Haney:It happened yesterday. Um, client I worked with two and a half years ago, family owned, jewelry business, third generation, Peoria, Illinois. Incredible leader son works in the business. Great, great business, great business leader, vulnerable, all this stuff. He has, he, we pulled up the VTO in, um, they, I worked with him two and a half years ago, and then they, he called me this week, was like, Hey. Will you jump back in for a sprint and help us get on track? I was like, absolutely. This is awesome. Picked right back up. First thing I did we're having issues in the first L 10, which was Wednesday of this week. Um, I said, hang on, I got a screen share. Pull up the VTO, and I said, here it is. There are these bullets. If we talk about these things with the person we're having an issue with, they're going to self-select themselves out as being the issue. It's the most unassuming, most non-confrontational way to bring up the fact that you and I both know that you are not meeting these core values because I'm not managing you to them and you're not living up to them.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yes. And there is oftentimes a, a mental problem in core values and how we use them in the tool. I love the tools, but a lot of times we get trapped in the tool if we don't understand its principle intent. And so what I did in the group today, I said, already close your eyes. Imagine all of your employees, if you've got between five employees to 155 employees or a thousand employees, whatever. Imagine walking around the halls of this organization virtually or physically, and seeing every single one of these people as somebody who gets it, understands the vision you love seeing their their. It's a privilege to work in an environment with people you love and respect and who love and respect you. Every single employee is that. All right guys. Open your eyes is how far off are you?
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Mark Henderson Leary:When do you deserve to work in that environment? When, and the room is like, well, now I'm like, yes, now. Right now. And that's what the visionaries need to be doing. And so with that in mind, we go back to the core values and the people analyzer. Do the core values you've written down, do they do that for you? Because sometimes we reverse engineer the wrong way. We put a bunch of stuff we think we're supposed to put there, we democratized it. We, we let, we lowest common denominator. And for God's sake, you don't make an acronym outta your stupid core values because it's, it almost always changes the meaning and waters them down Now. One out of 20 who've done this make it work. So if yours, if yours nail it, then you don't need to change it. But if you're struggling with a culture, get rid of that acronym and just say what you mean. And today it came up in the conversation. She right away said, you know, our organization, what matters is details. We. All have to be detail oriented and see the most minute thing. I said, that's core value. Is it in your core of values? She said, absolutely is part of a, which is accountable, which is implied. I'm like, Nope. Like, nope,
Matt Haney:really clear though. I'm being
Mark Henderson Leary:exactly. I was like, you might wanna take that back. And so I gave all this, I said her exactly what I said to you, to her, and I don't know what she'll do with it, but like, because she could obviously rewrite the story and drive it home and she can make the, a turn into all details matter or whatever. So that, that's the the point there. Make sure this first question serves you emotionally, truthfully, in integrity. It has. You have to love it. It has to be in your heart. The words are just approximations and make Sure. you don't go the wrong way and, and start keeping people around
Matt Haney:gonna flip those core, I'm gonna flip those core values to you. When you're acting out of your, your, you know, we all get lost, right? We all go down a path, we all wander. But those things are gonna come up in a conversation between you and someone else. And sometimes it's not gonna be a fun conversation. You know? It's gonna be you put these on the wall and you're not living to them. And, and the best, the best clients, the best leaders I've ever worked with are the ones that say, thank you. You're right. You're right because
Mark Henderson Leary:Yes,
Matt Haney:we're all guilty of, of, of falling short of those. So that's good. I'm gonna keep us moving unless you got something else you wanna add.
Mark Henderson Leary:on that, just to highlight that, be wary of the, of the, of the visionary. Who doesn't believe? That they could fall short of their core values. That's an e ego egomaniacal approach. It's narcissistic and it's not true. Um, we can value it and we can fall short. Absolutely. That humility and that,
Matt Haney:Vulnerability, candor. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean, and, and like I said, the best leaders I've ever worked for, um, and are the ones that say, uh, you're right. A and b, I was wrong. And C, I'm sorry. And d I'll do better. Like, and I try to say those things out loud as much as I can. I, you and I were talking before we joined a, I did a, a Bad Boss podcast with Beth this week and talking about some of the terrible mistakes I've made and firing people and, and, and affecting their livelihood in a way that I took for granted and have forever made me realize that every. Conversation. I have every review every, this is like, be candid, be honest, be respectful, be be curious, but be humble through all of'em. So anyway, I want to keep jumping. question I ask everybody, little bit loaded, but not the one thing that's you think is hardest about managing people. If you can boil it down to one, take a second to think about it. The hardest single thing about managing people in your mind is what?
Mark Henderson Leary:I mean, for me, it's always been telling the truth. Uh, but That's a telling. The truth is, you know, is this great? No. Um, I mean, it's, I don't wanna hurt people. No one, I say no.
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Mark Henderson Leary:The, the myth, the myth of visionaries is that we're all narcissists. Uh, and that we don't care about anything else, uh, about other than ourselves. The, the, no, the notorious and known narcissistic. Sociopaths. they're out there and they're visible and oftentimes they're very successful. The vast majority of the visionaries that I work with, including myself, are always been terrified of hurting somebody's feelings and, and when we're doing everything in the world, we're doing all the worst ideas, the worst things we could possibly do, enabling bad behavior, avoiding conflict, just to avoid hurting someone's feelings. And so, you know, I've obviously combined.'cause really the hard thing is hurt somebody's feelings, but it manifests is withholding the truth and so,
Matt Haney:It's easier to not say the truth or it's easier to not say everything. That's what I would say. I can get a third of the way there and let the rest be implied, or I can get. All the way there and say, man, this is really hard for me. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is shit work. Like, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry.'cause I should have done a better job of telling you what success looked like.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, and I always took that on myself. It's like realizing, you know, I could have done this, I should have set this up better, and, and not realizing, hey, this isn't working. It's not affordable anymore. You're suffering and I'm suffering too. Um, telling, lying to myself about the potential for fixing this and all the things that go with it.
Matt Haney:Love it. All right, couple more questions then we'll wrap this thing. But, um, let's see. Uh, I always like to do this'cause it's impactful. We talk about living our best life, living our EOS life, I think is a thing. And, and, uh, you know, one part of that comes with. Sharing what you do outside of the, outside of the session room and, and some of your hobbies. And if you can pull'em together, how you and your hobbies or your time outside of work help you be, uh, your best self at work. Any examples of that or thoughts around that?
Mark Henderson Leary:Well, I mean, it's gonna be some, something mundane, I think. But, uh, you know, I think I'm the, the same person, same leader in my family, outside of my family. I try to live in integrity. That's certainly something that I've always, and, and late in life realized is something that really drives my behavior and guilt. Whenever, whenever I feel. Out of integrity, which is a lot because it's very, very difficult to be a hundred percent in integrity with everything at all times, especially as a high discernment, you know, type of individual who sees a lot of nuance. But, you know, I, I'm trying to, trying to be alive, trying to stay alive. My father died when I was relatively young. I was in college and, you know, I. I wanted to continue to deep work, do deep work. I spent a lot of time in yoga, meditation, and, you know, spiritual growth in that, in that capacity. And I, you know, I run and I try to be as, as sharp as I can mentally, physically, to be alive for my kids and to set the right example and be present with my kids. Sleep is one of my number one. The activity VCI really
Matt Haney:How do you measure? Do you use a whoop, do you use a heart rate monitor? Or you're just
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. all that. So I, I. don't have a whoop, I've got the Apple watch and I've always, I've lived and died by that for a long, long time. And, um, certainly some, some things that go into that I've been doing, uh, HRV through the heart, uh, you know, uh, heart rate monitor and I'm considering the oral ring, but, you know, all those things. Yeah,
Matt Haney:They're all very similar. It's the same technology. They're all all operating off of the same light frequency, green sensor that comes from all these things. I have found those things, make me a little crazy. surprised. Go to bed earlier. Don't drink. Eat better. Be nice to people. All of a sudden your results improve, right? but it is the accountability piece. We all need it. So a lot of folks having those, uh, help. I did the whoop band for a while. It was, it was great. and you know, when I have a glass of wine or two before bed, I sleep like shit. So it's nice to know that, that's an impactful, and it has, I will not, I will not joke that that awareness or that visual accountability has helped me make better decisions. We like to go to bed early. I like to get up. I don't like to get up early. I get up and go to a a, I'm accountable by a group fitness class. Um, I go up Monday, Monday through Thursday at 5:30 AM So I'm up and at'em and I know that when I get there, I'm gonna enjoy myself after the class. But, I also know that if I don't show up two days in a row, I'm gonna get shit from the people in that class for not, so that that accountability helps.
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah, the the accountability and the feedback. I wear a continuous glucose monitor, that helps me. Yeah, that makes a big difference. That really changed my, my eating. Uh,
Matt Haney:it. Yeah. I saw someone the other day actually who had one that was not, uh, not diabetic. They had one for the reasons that you're doing, which is to monitor glucose and the immediate response to what the, how that, how what you eat and your body processes it. It's pretty badass. Like to know that, that there's that technology there. Um, that's awesome. Well, any final words of wisdom? Any thoughts? Any questions? Um, I'm all ears.
Mark Henderson Leary:Well, I could obviously take a few more hours if I'm not careful, but I'll, I will sort of work back to how I like my start, my talks with one question, and it ties back to this greater good thing. say, I I, I say, alright guys, what do you want? And then was like, what in the world?
Matt Haney:Yeah.
Mark Henderson Leary:do you want? What's like, what do I want? Like what does he mean? And I say, you're overwhelmed by that que of question, aren't you? It's a very simple question. What do you want? And you don't know what I mean? and then I actually can take him into some tools and I talk about what do you want from your life? What purpose, what drives you? And when we talk about purpose, we talk about what are you gonna get when you're dead? Like, that's a really big question. Uh, but you can, you can use this tool I call the purpose horizon. and it is basically sort of imagining that you are here today and you can, you're the end of your life is, you know. Many decades from now, hopefully, uh, let's just move the horizon of purpose closer to, you know, what do I want outta the next 50 years? Still don't know. What about the next 10 years? What, what about the next, year? What about the next week? What about the next hour? What do I want for lunch? What do I want from this next breath? And the, the tool is designed to get you to, if you're, if you're trying to figure out sense of purpose of something with significance, just move the timeframe. Up until, up until, until something comes in focus for you. And don't worry about this stuff beyond that. And so the, the whole thing is when I ask some somebody what they want, and I, what I do for a living is I help people get what they want from their business. That the, here's the deal, you don't know. You don't know what you want and get comfortable with that. So we're gonna do some, some exercises. We're gonna fill out an ETO, we're gonna ask you what you want in, in eight different ways, over three different days. Uh, and so, and some of this that's gonna be right and some of it's not. That three year picture's gonna make perfect sense that first year, and then the next year's not gonna make sense. So getting comfortable with this idea that you're just trying to get what you want from your life and all, and just be super humble. That you don't know, and you're gonna experiment along the way, but it's gonna be vitally critical to you as a visionary in this organization that those few things that matter, and whether it's in the three year picture or if it's in your purpose or your core values, and it, and thinking about that 10 year target, that's the one that people hard, hard time to answer. Three year picture people can do. Okay, but core values, That's a very near term thing. That's something like, who do you wanna work with today?
Matt Haney:And am I willing to put it in writing and live
Mark Henderson Leary:Yeah. Yeah. So get clear on what you want. Give some compassion to yourself for not knowing it, and then start demanding it?
Matt Haney:Well said, Mark Henderson Leary, it's been a pleasure having you on the scalability code today and I loved our time together and look forward to getting to know you more as we're fellow Texans. I'm two hours west of you and maybe we can find a time to catch up. I won't, I won't go on a run with you'cause I'm not a cardio guy. But I will join you for a home brew or, uh, maybe some yoga. So thanks again, mark, for joining us in scalability code. I look forward to, uh, speaking to you soon.
Mark Henderson Leary:Thanks. Thanks Matt.
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