Commanding 552 Aircrafts & 61,000 People: Scaling Systems Under Pressure | Amy Courter

What happens when you apply military-grade leadership to scaling a $250M enterprise?

 In this episode, Matt Haney sits down with Amy Courter, a Major General, C-suite executive, and EOS Implementer. Amy reveals how she used systemized leadership to command 552 aircrafts and guide a company with 3,000+ employees past $250M. If you want to build team health and align your organization under pressure, tune in. In this episode, you'll learn:

• How a Two-Star General scales complex organizations using simple systems.
• Why vision must move from being "shared ON all" to "shared BY all."
• How the 8 cash flow drivers tool spots leaks and builds accountability.
• How EOS helped a 330-person nonprofit survive a crisis with zero layoffs.
• Why the most successful visionaries stay humble and curious while scaling.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Welcome and Introductions
01:16 Amy’s Career Scavenger Hunt
02:44 Big Company to Startup Leap
04:58 Intrapreneurship and Leadership Lessons
05:52 Civil Air Patrol at Scale
08:14 Discovering Traction and EOS
11:59 Becoming an EOS Implementer
12:32 Top People Management Challenges
17:07 Nonprofits and EOS in Action
22:05 Tiny Team EOS Fears
23:09 Two Person Journey
25:37 Tailoring EOS Sequence
27:11 Meeting Segues to Tools
27:41 Accountability Chart Love
28:57 Eight Cash Flow Drivers
32:34 Life Beyond Work
36:09 Fractional Integrator Niche
37:53 Transitioning Out Well
40:52 Curious Humble Closing

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.

Get OUT of the Sh*t Show 

Let’s build your team and guide them to the next level.

Transcript

Amy Courter 0:00

He said, "Oh my gosh, Amy, that's the thing that got us over the, the $250 million mark. What I didn't tell you when I had you join our company is we'd been stuck." and you came in, and between you and Traction," as he called it "it was, it was awesome. That's exactly what we needed,

Speaker 0:15

Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business. And now for your host, Matt Haney.

Matt Haney 0:24

Here we are today, another episode of The Scalability Code. Today I'm joined by Amy Corder from the great state of Michigan up in Kalamazoo. Amy, thank you so much for joining us today on The Scalability Code.

Amy Courter 0:35

Thank you, Matt. I'm glad to be here

Matt Haney 0:38

We start by giving a little bit of background of yourself. I always say, like, when we're forced to have these introductions or when we walk into a room, it's almost like, "How quickly can we tell what we need to get and get a little look?" That's not the goal for the next few minutes. What I want to do is hear a little bit about your background and if you can keep it to some segments that gives the listeners a background of how you got to where you are. And then two, I want to know about how, you got started with entrepreneurship and more importantly, if there was anybody in your world or your life that impressioned you that said... that got you to say, "Shit, this is entrepreneurship. I'm kind of interested in that." So take those two topics, give us a little background, and then, we'll keep going

Amy Courter 1:16

So, a bit about me. When I'm asked, I often just start with I had a career scavenger hunt so far, not a career path, that I absolutely, have enjoyed learning, doing different work, different sized organizations, et cetera. So, I started out, my dad was an entrepreneur, so I got help with that right off the bat. My dad had his businesses. I loved his passion. he would stop, the vehicle on the way to church on Sunday and, hop out with his camera and take a picture at something, and my sister and I would be sitting in the car saying, "I don't know, Dad must have worked on that building or that, or that house or whatever." I also realized, though, that, being the fourth of five kids, that if I wasn't up at six in the morning and/or at midnight, I didn't get to see him. He was such a hard worker. And I always thought, "Oh my gosh, there's gotta be a, a better way to do that." And of course, now, fast-forward, I know that it's EOS really helps make a difference in that. I wish I'd found that in time while my dad was still around. So he ran his business through being eighty-five years old and kept on going. But, probably did a lot of it the hard way, and so it was inspirational. On the other hand, I looked at it and said, "Well, what else should I or could I know or experience, in my career?" And so, um, I'm a first generation at college, Pell eligible. We didn't have a lot of money, figured it out, and, went to a great institution, Kalamazoo College. Their colors are orange too, so, I never left it. I was just on a trip to France with them, last month actually. But, um, it had-- it really opened my eyes to the world and as well as just different ways of thinking, working, and doing. And so that, had me leap, to, well, I've seen my dad's, smaller businesses, but I grew up in Flint, Michigan, where GM is huge. And I said, "You know, maybe I wanna look at large organizations." So I started out in an organization that had over a hundred and twenty thousand people and, quickly found that, you get a little lost in there. It's hard to steer those ships. It's hard to move it, quickly. So wasn't as agile. I like things to move. I did have a great manager who gave me a lot of, assignments and opportunities. So one of those opportunities was with an entrepreneurial business. And at the time, I think maybe they'd grown to about a hundred, employees, just at that point, two locations. And I was sent there as a consultant, to help them in a couple of ways, and it just kept growing. And so after I was there, instead of, three weeks, I think it was, you know, thirteen months later, I'm still going back for, uh, you know, half a day a week or so. CEO and COO sat me down, very entrepreneurial, especially the COO, very much an entrepreneur, so kind of the second one in my life that, that really had a very different impact. And I realized that his focus was very much about how do we grow? How do we make, great lives for the people- in our organization while, oh, by the way, we're doing really great stuff for our clients. And so, what I loved about it was that he balanced that really well. My dad would do great things, but kind of, you know, on his own back and, and, in this organization it was different. I love that their core values were right on the wall. So for 13 months I'd walk by or been in the elevator where they were. I actually had memorized them, which probably scared them when they sat down. But you've gotta know, two former football players from the University of Michigan came into my cubicle after hours, 'cause I worked in technology, so I was, there after hours to reboot computers and help with things like that. And, I had all the codes to the building and the computers. They trusted me implicitly as an outsider even. And they, came in my cube and brought me dinner and sat down and we were all eating while they were saying, "You know, you need to join our company. We've asked you four times, Amy. You know, what do you need? What do you need to know? We're growing. We're doing great things. Here's our vision." Like They shared the vision with me and I saw it and I was seeing it in action and I thought, "How can I say no?" Plus, they were football players. okay, I'll say no. no, I don't think so. So I, uh, I, so I said yes, joined that organization and, fast-forward while I led technology, we were in marketing services. I ended up being an intrapreneur, so inside of an organization, created in my service line-

Matt Haney 5:10

unit or yeah

Amy Courter 5:11

cr- yeah, I created a-- we helped secure, I should say it that way, the largest customer that that company had. It was crazy. so, epic fail on my part. I didn't ask for a commission, so silly me. But my team and I created this technology that really made a difference. So I really got to explore a lot of things in that organization. Wrote every job description I had and started out leading in my early 20s with everybody being older than I. So really learned leadership and management, which at the college level I had learned a lot also through NCAA sports So I think I've always had a lot of opportunity to kinda learn, grow, and, always been really observant and really tried to follow those great leaders, they were on a field or a court or sitting in an office. from there, I'll blend a little bit into my avocation as well because while it was, something that I had volunteered in since I was a teenager, I ended up taking one of top role, and this is the Civil Air Patrol. It's the official Air Force auxiliary, actually chartered by Congress to do three, main missions, emergency services, which includes disaster relief and homeland security's in there as well. that's one mission. Another, cadet programs. Another, aerospace education. So exactly the kind of thing that we would look at and say, "Are you, are you really focusing on three things at once?" But I'll tell you, I, I can speak to it. I, I, I actually had them create a pin that I wore on my, when I wore a civilian alternate uniform, 'cause we don't change the Air Force uni-style uniform,

Matt Haney 6:36

No, you don't get to make edits there

Amy Courter 6:37

Yeah, that had a three bra- bladed propeller, and people would look at it and say, "What's that for?" And I said, "We have three missions, and we gotta keep 'em balanced. The prop's not gonna fly well and pull us through the air." And so I really got people to recognize, they may have come in to help with one thing, like, "I wanna fly a plane." I had 552 aircraft in my command, which is the largest fleet of single eng- engine aircraft in the world, my senior Air Force advisor told me. I also had 61,000 people, and while I didn't meet 'em all, I think they all emailed me. but that recognition and ability to take what I had done in different levels and just expand it. So talk about scale, right? that's what I love about, this is pre-EOS being around, but I've always led and managed, and it's really why I got to EOS. So as I was a national commander and two-star general, a major general, was in my command from 2007 to 2011. As I finished that, an entrepreneur that I had served on a board with in Detroit, a community board, had started, recognizing like, "Hey, she's doing some, you know, amazing stuff." They were just credited with saving, you know, 400 lives during her tenure. And, increasing the safety, and all these good things are happening, and he, reached out and said, I need to talk to you. You need to be on my team. I don't care what you do." "We need to figure this out." And he said, "Well, you could be the CIO, but this is like a tenth of what you've ever done in that." And so I started out just going in and helping him and, being on his leadership team, and then over time became his CFO, chief financial officer, and helped with that because I was recognizing the mid-level leaders needing, you know,

Matt Haney 8:06

and direction and accountability.

Amy Courter 8:08

and budgets. And just, you know, again, things that I ask questions about of my team. all of that said, I then moved to, the recognition. I was reading the book Traction. It just came out then. oddly, I'll tell you way back when, I was literally a mile away from Gino Wickman's office when Gino was there. I was on the Fortune stages talking about being a CIO and, he's where I wanted to be. You know, I wish I'd met him then. but, you know, not too late, not too late. so yeah, in 2011, as I was CIO, CFO, EI, EIO, I joked, I had the Traction book. My, uh, the owner, CEO, came in and said, "Amy, we need strategy." Like we just need a strategy and You know, I've, I read things. I was a reader. I'd read everything in the very cool office that I was in. and I said, "You know, David, we've got a strategy. You know, I, it's might be 48 pages long. I might be the only person who's read it, but We don't need more vision. We can get that out of you. What we need is, traction." And the book is out, I literally pushed the book across the table. That's what I was reading that day at lunch, just finishing. It was, timely. And so, he called me at midnight, not a good plan, but he called me at midnight and said, "I haven't put the book down. My family hates you." And, uh, and he said, "I, gotta tell you, you're right. We need to do this, so you do it." I was like, "Well, okay, so CFO..." Yeah, so now I am E, you know, E-I, E-I-O. And, so we self-implemented. I did look for some folks at the time. the owner was like, "I trust you. I want you to really jump in, you know, let's see where we go." So, 3,300 people. We were in both the United States and Mexico. I speak French. I went to France during college and in a university there, in fact. But, I needed a translator. But we did what we do best in EOS, which is, follow the process, trust the process, and I worked through the organization. I'll just say this, it, went well. I didn't know this until, I went to become an EOS implementer and I first called David. I hadn't talked to him for, eight years. we had exchanged some emails maybe, but I called him up and he answered the phone and stepped out of a meeting to answer the phone and he said, "What can I do for you? it's so good to hear from you." And I said, "Actually, I just wanted to see, would you support, you know, the work that I did?" We called it Traction, and then I did it in three other organizations since then, David, but you're the one that was the most complex, the, you know, really the, the largest at 3,300 people, right? And, I said, "What... You know, if I were gonna do this..." And he didn't let me finish the question. He said, "Oh my gosh, Amy, that's the thing that got us over the, the $250 million mark. What I didn't tell you when I had you join our company is we'd been stuck." And they're private, so I wasn't seeing it. He said, "We had been stuck, and you came in, and between you and Traction," as he called it "it was, it was awesome. That's exactly what we needed, and then we scaled from there." He went on to, go from Detroit to Chicago to Miami, and is now in Los Angeles doing, entrepreneurial, work. And he said, "I will talk to anybody who wants to talk to me about it. I can sing yours and the EOS' praises all day long." So, nobody's asked me to do that, by the way but that, um, that was a great way for me to look at it. I'm not as smart as I'd like you to believe, yeah, because what happened was three more times I was in my entrepreneurial, scavenger hunt, and so I wanted to have, different experiences and different seats around the leadership table And also in different industries. I've been, a CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, led sales and marketing, wasn't smart enough to get a C title. and then I always joked I wanted to be an EI, EIO, so I think EOSI is it. But, all that said, in the other organizations, there were three more after that that were all of size from, you know, 15 million to, 250. And in each of those, I would go in, work, and figure out whatever we need to do. Increase sales, got it done 37% in 10 months. How did I do that? It was the same people. It was using the concepts of getting right people, right seats. So all of that enabled me really to get to a point where I said... Actually, one of my friends said, "Amy, just go be an EOS implementer. You can help more

Matt Haney 12:07

how long-- when did you join EOS? How many sessions? Give us a little backstory of your journey

Amy Courter 12:12

five years ago roughly, during COVID, uh, not great timing. I've got, over 300 and I think 40 sessions in. I do, quite a few a year all across different industries and all. and yeah, just, love, love, love what I do. I know you can't tell, but I love

Matt Haney 12:26

no, I don't, I don't, get any passion or any, any body language or excitement from you at all. Well, hey, let's jump into some questions. I am the integrator, you are the visionary. It is my job to keep us moving forward. So I'm gonna ask you some questions because I think this is fun to get everyone's perspective about it. And then we'll talk, about your experience in managing people in your career and sort of how that translates over into the US practice you have today. So, big loaded question, but I don't know if you know this, as the integrator, me, in companies, I get to manage people for a living. I've been fortunate to do it for the last nine years across 15 or more engagements. Managing people is what I love doing. But, uh, you also are an incredible manager and have been managed thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people. If you could give me the top three challenges you feel, when it comes to managing people, like where do you think the big gaping challenges come from?

Amy Courter 13:20

Yeah, I would first say a lot of them come from a place between our ears. You know, our challenge is often that we impose our thoughts and our experiences on people that we're working with. And so we, if we understand the vision and where we're going and it just all makes sense, we tend to think everybody else should, and that's just not the case,

Matt Haney 13:38

Because I get it, you should, Amy. If I understand it, why is it not clear?

Amy Courter 13:42

so that's really when, when I think about it, a lot of times people tend to be a leader or a manager, and for my whole career, I've been both. and so I'll share this with you. you know, y- I love it as you say, "You're the visionary, I'm the integrator." I, on the, rocket fuel assessment, I'm actually both. I'm both a visionary and an integrator, have done that. I love, love, love being in the visionary seat though, so Matt, you're awesome. And, uh, and the ability though to be able to lead, so have that vision, but really be, communicating it and sharing it, and, I always say at first it's shared on all. We need it to be shared by all, and that

Matt Haney 14:16

well said. I literally FBA followed by O is one of my favorite acronyms, but shared... Say that again

Amy Courter 14:22

we talk about having the vision shared by all, and what I'd say to teams that I work with, I say, "Remember, it's shared on all at first." We're telling them, but until they're experiencing it and they're seeing where it goes, and we help them. So we share the vision with them from a leadership perspective. We manage them to see what it really means week by week from a management perspective. So if you think about s- vision and, and the key component of vision for EOS, it's then looking at the scorecard, looking at the traction in terms of cadence. So that's how those all fit together. I think, you know, Gino just did a, a, an amazing genius job of putting the pieces together in a way that it's leading and managing, and from that, people want to get there. I led, volunteers. When you're leading volunteers at a point in my career, right, that you don't, ever get to meet, and you're certainly not giving them a paycheck, you have to though still have accountability. and it's things that I've absolutely watched how I've been able to do that by having a good team around me. We're sharing the vision, and then of course, you know, it's a team sport. I would say the lucky part of anything when I'm teaching clients, they're like, "Is there a quiz on this?" And somebody will go, "No, there's not a quiz," 'cause they... And I'll say, "Oh, well, actually there is. You know, the quiz, though, is real life. Thank goodness it's open book and it's a team sport." So

Matt Haney 15:39

What a win. We can all use it together

Amy Courter 15:41

yeah, get back to your leadership team manual and use it. So the one is really getting that vision shared. and another is, that open, honest communication, right? Making sure that, we're not, again, placing our thoughts of what they're thinking or should be thinking, that we're asking. We're really communicating, listening as well as speaking. and I would say that, a big part is getting, that team health. And obviously, if we share a vision and people are aligned to it, if we are communicating and managing well, and, and all of that, then what happens is team health. And as team health increases, so do the other two. So it's really moving everything up

Matt Haney 16:16

how that metric follows so many other ones, right?

Amy Courter 16:19

does. It sure does

Matt Haney 16:20

That's awesome. well, you talked about this, your scavenger hunt, and I love it because I've never heard, that term, and it's definitely gonna be the title of the episode, which is Career Scavenger Hunt, because I feel like that's such a telling term that is, you know, scavenger hunts end in good things, right? you don't always get there the right way, but the end goal is to get the end goal, and sometimes you go different ways to get there, and everyone has a journey. But, I'd love to talk about your experience with some of your clients. You know, you've said you've had, you know, north of 300, sessions and, you know, you're dealing with a lot of different clients. do you see any overlap in industries for yourself based from your geography, based on your interest, based off your experience? Do you find yourself overlapping with folks or industry types? If yes, tell us more. If no, tell me why.

Amy Courter 17:07

So, well, I would say for me it's a no, and it's mostly because I'm a scavenger, right? So, scavenger also means I'm intentional, right? There's intentionality of getting to the end goal. And so for me, I, love the fact that I love to put myself in places that are different from either even the multiple many industries I've worked in. And so, what I've recognized and while certainly EOS works, for, businesses, it also works for nonprofits. So I have a number of nonprofit, clients that have been thriving with EOS, and they're like, you know, "Well, I don't know if we're entrepreneurial." I'm like, "Well, if you're agile, you know, that's... You need agility." that's what we're talking about here is being able to really envision your next and move it forward. So I have a 330-member nonprofit, who just graduated, and during that time, of their four lines of service, 330 people across I think it's a dozen, counties, across those four lines of service, two of the lines of service had major funding challenges. kinda geopolitical things happened, right? So I remember hearing about it and thinking, "Oh my goodness, I've gotta call and place a call to the visionary there and see, you know, what can I do to help." and so I put a note to my assistant who called me before 8:00 in the morning and said, "You know, should I set up a meeting?" I said, "Well, if I don't hear from her, you know, the visionary soon, I w- let's do that." I'm on the phone with my assistant while the visionary calls in. It was barely eight o'clock, and I picked up the phone. Of course, I'm like, "Sorry, gotta, I gotta dump you. Let me pick her up." And I picked up the call, and she starts asking, "Oh, could you like teach our mid-levels? 'Cause we've done it, but you know, you make it look so easy, and we've done well, but we're not gonna be as fast. Like we, we want to really have them get it." The shared on all needed to get to shared by all quickly, right? And so, she said, "Do you do that?" you can imagine I'm rarely speechless, but I was, 'cause I'm thinking, "What is she asking?" I'm like, "Sure." And she said, "Is that a session? Is that like... What's the fee for that?" And so I'm like, "Well, you know, yes, there's usually a fee, You know, I've got workbooks. We can do that." And, but today, yeah, I'm like, "But you know, whatever you need. Well, let's get it on the schedule. We need it, next week. Can we do it next week?" So I'm like transacting this business with somebody that I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, I just need to call and help them," you know? And so we get all done with that transact. "Now, you'll send an invoice?" I'm like, "Okay." You know? and then she's starting to conclude the call, and I'm like, "Well, wait." And she said, "Oh my gosh, wait, Amy. I'm so sorry. I just n- I need to back up." She said, "You probably aren't aware of this, but we had two of our main pillars of services get hit by a funding crisis, today. And so we had an emergency executive team, you know, leadership team meeting-" At 7:00 this morning, and we all determined a couple of things. One, that, you have led us well. You've taught us well. I don't lead, I teach, right? and she said, "Because we knew that we needed to delegate more, and you've, you know, helped us with that, and we recognized what we need to do is delegate everything." So she said, "While I and the marketing person have always done fundraising, we all needed to be ambassadors. And you know, the other thing was, and you really pressed us on this, that we needed to complete our marketing strategy. We all need to know our uniques. We all need to know our proven process." And so the board has it. We have board ambassadors that we identified. and so as a result of, the delegation and having the marketing strategy and knowing who we are and how we share that with the world, it's gonna change everything. So we literally, as of today, all eight of us are executive-level fundraisers, and we are armed with the marketing strategy, and we're gonna move forward. And that's why, Amy, that's why I called, because we need you to make sure that that next level down's moving because we're really delegating as well as we can, but you know, it's a bit of a scramble. so I did go do that, uh, session and they, received it well. And the net-net of it is that was some time ago. it wasn't quite a year, but it's been a while. and they just graduated, so they finished their EOS journey to mastery. They're awesome. I'm not saying everybody should have, like, such a pinch point that it creates that positive pressure to make sure they get everything done, but, it was terrific and, they did not lay off anyone.

Matt Haney 21:18

Wow

Amy Courter 21:19

it was incredible. So when I talk about different industries, I also talk about for-profit and not-for-profit as well. So, I know, because I've maybe led nonprofits and I'm on a lot of different boards and things, I'm able to do that. But across my, career, I've been in many places and, same thing then when, you know, no surprise, I have, And again, I have clients that are in the typical 10 to 250 people range. I have clients with thousands of people.

matt-haney_2_02-06-2025_192447 21:44

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 22:05

I had a referral, to come in as a fractional integrator to a client, and they were really small, not running on EOS. they're retail salons. picture self-tanning or waxing or spray tans or whatnot. Three locations. Each location has three to five employees. And then at the ownership level, there's really the owner, the visionary, and an operations manager. so very limited team. So what is that? 15, maybe 17 employees total, but really only two at that management layer, visionary, integrator, that's it. Really hard to come in, to an organization like that and I was fearful of joining because I thought I was going to fail. and h-how do you-- I mean, do you do implementations that small? Do you generally steer-- I mean, there's really two people to get the work done. So tell me about your experience. Have you gone anything that small and, give me a little backstory.

Amy Courter 22:59

No, that's, that's excellent, Matt. A great example to spring from. I would tell you as, as any great, uh, person who works with other organizations would say, it depends. So, I do have, a team that started out with just two on the leadership team. It was an entrepreneur through acquisition, so it was an entrepreneur who, became one by acquiring something in a field he didn't really... he knew some of, I believe, but was not, particularly skilled in it, experienced in it, I should say. and he, sought me out, found me and said, "I know you've, helped people self-implement early on and, you have a lot of self-implementers that come to you." So that's... If there's anything, maybe that's kind of a, an area where people reach out to me because I've done it. but then, I was asking him about his team and, and it was the sales, director and him. So it was visionary/integrator in one and sales in the other. And I'm like, "So who leads your operations?" And he said, "Well, we, you know, acquired this organization, and it had been around for 70 years and, uh, you know, we, we don't have anybody, but we aspire to that. We aspire to getting somebody there, but I just wanna see what we can learn." I'll tell you, I didn't expect them to go on the journey. I did an overview for them and gave them books and, shared with them, a good, overview and some thoughts and a lot of questions. I'm always about questions. and it was interesting because I get to the end of it, and I'm often so surprised, you know, because I don't think they're gonna want to go on the EOS implementation journey with me. and so I said, "So, you know, let me know how I can help you," blah, blah, blah. And he's like, "Wait-" aren't we good enough for you? And, uh, or something similar. I can't remember exactly, but I just remember being stunned by it, so that's why I don't remember probably. and I said, "Wait, are you interested?" and he said, "Yes. You know, when I acquired this, I wanted to move it forward and get it stabilized. My goal is to go off and do other things, you know, at a point or whatever." But he said, I can't imagine, you know, wanting to do it, you know, slowly." He said, "And I can't imagine doing this on our own as quickly as you could help us through it." So they're almost to graduation as well. And along the way, what happens? We build the accountability chart. we look at what, you know, right people, right seats can look like, and they now have an ops lead on the leadership team. So they've got the three people, and I do believe over time that that visionary/integrator, most of the time I have visionaries suffer from integrators, and if they don't start out that way, it happens pretty quickly. but in that example, it took a while, and I do think over time that you know, an integrator need will emerge, once, you know, the processes are all in place. So, so that's an example of really, you know, small side. I would say this, you know, we talk about, you know, EOS, it's, it's, you know, whether you... I can't remember if you said one size fits all or what it was, but, think it applies to different sizes, to different industries. I haven't run into an industry, for-profit or nonprofit, that it didn't make sense for, and I think because we all have to have a system, right? We all have to have a way that we do things or else we can't scale, Even, you know, when it's a family business, we don't all understand where we're going and, you know, have that cadence. So I mean, without it, you really need to have a communication, you know, mechanism. all of that said, I do think though that, the journey will, while the actual steps in the process, the agendas in the sessions may all look the same, we take it on a different course. If somebody has that need to, run operations while they're also trying to figure out the whole rest of the organization, we might jump early on to developing their process table of contents so they have someplace to hang their processes off from. Another that's having financial difficulty and comes because of profitability issues, we're gonna spend time earlier on talking about their cash flow drivers. So the EOS tools that are chosen, aren't always chosen in the same order. there's some foundational ones that need to be at the beginning. But after that, I'm gonna take a team where they need it to go, and I'm gonna be listening to them and having conversations about it. So that's, I think, of the beautiful parts of EOS is that ability to have a consistent set of tools, but we may have it scheduled inconsistently to, really what an organization best needs.

Matt Haney 27:08

That's awesome. That's such a great, piece. Okay, let's jump into tools, I do believe, and this is my opinion, having sat in many sessions as an integrator, not at the board as an implementer where you folks do your fine work, but us as implementers, I think there are certain implementers that teach tools really well, like specific tools. So, if there's a tool in your mind that you think, "Man, I'm really exceptional at it," or, "I just really like it," I'd love to know what that is. don't answer. I'm gonna go first. You think. I love the accountability chart as the integrator because it makes, my favorite part of it are, I'm looking at it through the lens of Ninety.io 'cause that's my preferred online platform. The five bullet points below the person's name are some of the most impactful five bullet points in the entire company. Because I simply get to refer back to the accountability chart, flash it up on the screen, and everyone immediately zeroes in on their own name and sees those bullet points below. This is what I do. This is what I do. This is what I do. And it just brings what I call visual accountability. It's a term I use a lot, which is like we just visually see through the EOS platform, through Ninety.io visually what I'm accountable for. And if I'm not on it, then I'm not on it. So the accountability chart is near and dear to my heart as an integrator. I would love to know what you love in terms of EOS tools.

Amy Courter 28:35

Well, now that I shouldn't use accountability chart, 'cause that was so cool. 'Cause that's, 'cause it's also my initials,

Matt Haney 28:40

Gotcha. I got it first

Amy Courter 28:43

it, it is im- it's so impactful. so I love what you said. I would talk about the Vision Traction Organizer all day long, and that would be so unfair. 'cause it's awesome, and I think people see that. you know, if they're experiencing it, it allows them to get clarity and all of that. Let me talk about one that I think is kind of m- maybe magical. I won't say I'm... You know, I'm not perfect by any stretch at anything, right? We aren't. But I love the fact that maybe a place where you might be surprised that I have patience, I'm very patient. I ask a question, and I'll wait for a long time. I'll help them, with new questions to help them get there. I love the eight cashflow drivers, and the reason why is that it's so impactful as well, even if an organization's doing well. I mean, earlier in my implementations, I would tell you that that kind of would be... You know, people would kick that down to the later tools, and that was fine with me. And I tend to urge it earlier, especially if we have time for an extra tool, you know, in a session, or, you know, there's nothing that they need right that minute. and the reason why I do this is that, I think it helps so many ways. One, that the finance director or the, the, you know, the finance seat in the room, everything doesn't just fall to them that, that now we start thinking about, you know, everybody's thinking about cash flow, and, you know, how they can impact, you know, positive on the, on the, the, the top end, the top line of, of revenue or, or whatever it might be, donations, et cetera, ancillary revenue. and then also how they can impact the profitability by looking at things where we're leaking, you know, where we could do things differently. And, one of the things I didn't talk about, I'm a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt only because it's fun to

Matt Haney 30:20

didn't know that. That's pretty amazing

Amy Courter 30:22

I don't like that much data anymore, so... But I always kinda have an eye to waste, an eye to, you know, those things that we're waiting on or those things that we just really don't need to do if we're really focused on where we need to go. and it brings it into it without any, you know, I don't introduce any new words or terms or anything. We don't need to. The tool as it's developed and as we teach it, it really does the work. But what's amazing is that I'll have teams who are like, "Yeah, let's see how this one pans out, Amy." And, much like the, you know, doing the process table of contents where they're like, "Oh my gosh, it's so big." But what do we do? We help them simplify, right? And so eight cash flow drivers, we might start out with, 16 things on the board, but what we really dig into is which ones are most important for us? Who can impact it? Not, no, we're not looking at the finance director because he gets these data for us. We need to look at who in the room can make a difference to the end result and the numbers that we're receiving, right? And so it starts placing accountability. So I'll just tie into your accountability chart conversation. I literally this week just, pointed to that and said, "See how this eight cash flow or your, whatever your number's gonna be, your cash flow drivers really start talking about accountability." Now we should check and make sure in the accountability chart we haven't missed anything. If these are the most important, impactful things for us to do good work, because whether it's profitability needs to increase or whether we need a cash reserve to support the business, sustainability of the businesses, there's so many reasons. It's not just about profitability. it's about the long-term longevity of the organization and what we can learn. You know, 1% in one place, can be significant everywhere else. And so once we see that, then we go to, you know, so what are we gonna do about it? And I just find that I've never, taught the eight cash flow drivers working on that and had people not go, "Oh," when we got done, and also not take that and build rocks from it. And so again, Gino's genius and, you know, what we need to do first is, use tool and then get into building our rocks for the quarter, and that's another reason why. That the tool should help us inform what we need to do. We should be learning and seeing something from it. So there you go.

Matt Haney 32:33

I love it. what do you do to keep yourself busy? What hobbies, what interests, what things keep you, uh, firing on all cylinders?

Amy Courter 32:41

Yeah, terrific. Well, for decades it was, you know, I love search and rescue and helping, you know, youth leadership and all those fun things that the Civil Air Patrol gave me a, a place for. I've also served with the Red Cross. I've done a lot of things, but, I would tell you... And now I'm on the Civil Air Patrol Foundation board as a trustee nationally, so still helping there, but I'm not flying around in aircraft anymore. But what I, w-recognize is that I could serve, I have, you know, governance background and certification, so helping with, you know, some of the, local organizations that are needed it. My mom was really big in community education and really making sure that, journalism and news and everything was important. So when there was a local journalism foundation that was, springing up in my local town, I, just asked about it, and the next th- And you gotta be careful, right? 'Cause the next thing I know, they're like, "Hey. Hey, you should be on our board." So I do spend some time doing things like that, that I really think are giving back to my community. The other thing I would tell you is I love, love, love to learn, so I'm always, you know, reading, probably m- not as much as I'd, I'd like to, or listening to, to books, although I do that a little bit less. I tend to read more. But the ability for me to continue moving forward, I'm, in strategic coach myself, so I get coached. So I just came back from a, a conference for a few days, and continuing to, sharpen my tools, and really make sure I'm doing, not only just good work in, EOS and the implementation of it, but also, you know, that I'm a good human and that I'm keeping myself balanced and that I'm focused. I know it's harder than it looks, but you know that. and so, I was a two-sport athlete in high school, played two different sports in college, and recognized a few years ago like, "Hey, I've never learned how to play tennis," when everybody else was playing pickleball, so I'm a little late probably. anyway, I learned how to play tennis, and I'm pretty ambidextrous. When I played softball, I'd hit Grand Slams left-handed and right-handed. Well, it turns out one day when I was getting a blister on my thumb 'cause the ball machine kept, wasn't randomizing very well, I flipped the racket in my other hand and could hear my coach that I've had like maybe six hours of lessons from. S- You know, I'm like, "How did I do that, that top spin this h-hand?" And so I, I haven't figured out how to serve with both handed. I don't even know if I serve well with one. But I've gotta tell you, I've had so much fun, just learning something new like that as well. And I need to get back to coaching Special basketball because I found that when I played in, college, I, wasn't as good of a, um, rebounder as when I'm, I'm keeping the ball from hitting some, you know, kid's head, because they're not, you know, putting their own hands up to protect themselves. So It improves my rebound, ability, greatly. But, I love that across, some sports, helping the community. And then, we have a golden retriever, six-year-old, who is learning to be a therapy dog. and we got him during COVID knowing that he love, love, loves people. He's the ambassador at the bus stop in the morning and things like that. So, um, try to round all that out. Love to travel too. Just came back from France. So,

Matt Haney 35:36

That's very cool. Very cool. Well, I think we-- Any questions for me? Any thoughts, curiosities about what it was like for a fractional integrator or things that jump up? I don't know if you have any experience working with fractional integrators, but I'd love to answer any questions if any of them come to mind

Amy Courter 35:51

Yeah, I do. And, would just love to know, like, you know, if, if you have a sweet spot in that. and maybe, you know, whether it's industry or size. but then also, thinking about, Matt, the... You know, sometimes you know that you're going in to help somebody rise to be an integrator, and sometimes you're going in just to be a- Would you speak to that, please?

Matt Haney 36:09

Yeah, absolutely. So a little background, around specialties. You know, I, I look back through the engagements I've had, and there, there is overlap for me. but I love the scavenger hunt reference 'cause they're all over the place. But there are. I've worked with several construction-related companies, service businesses. Everyone says, "What's your niche?" And I say, "Service-based businesses, business to business." Professional blue collar or white. So any business that's B2B that is in the blue collar or white collar industry. Ah, what does that mean? I tend to work with construction firms, whether it's a mechanical engineering company, which is aluminum manufacturing business, exterior renovations for high-rises, those would all be service-based businesses, B2B. So I did just finish an implementation, or an integration with a company that's was in the high-tech space. They were, building a tech platform that we actually ended up selling to Accenture. So, I'm currently an Accenture employee through transitioning that business over and building a business unit within Accenture. So that's been a ton of fun. and getting to see what seven hundred thousand people looks like in a business is truly fascinating. but that's been a lot of fun. I have a client currently that's in the, real estate investment space. They buy retail centers, improve them, lease them up, and resell them. it's really been all over the place. But the one common theme for me as a fractional integrator is working alongside a visionary that is, humble and curious. You'll hear me say those terms a lot or my clients get sick of it. It's like, "Let's stay humble and let's stay curious." one of my clients sent me over a little picture of Curious George, like an animated GIF being curious, and I'm like, "All right, you earn the nickname Curious George." I tend to align myself successfully with visionaries that are creative-- or sorry, curious and humble. So that's a little bit of that. one of the greatest joys that come to me as a fractional integrator is knowing when and how to transition out of a business. I'm coming in as the now, not forever. I say that very clearly up front because I don't want there to be a misconception that I'm coming in to take roles or I'm coming in to fire and hire. I am coming in to hire, hopefully not fire. But I am coming in to hold teams accountable, and that looks like a lot of things. Accountability gets a really negative rap these days. It's a four-letter word in the world. But, I try to make accountability as practical and, relatable as possible, not a micromanagement. And as I referenced earlier, EOS gives us the ability through the platforms that I use to manage EOS, but also through the VTOs and the tools for that visual accountability piece. It's really special to show something up on a screen and let people know that they're seeing it and holding themselves accountable. I just have the intuition to put it in front of them so that they go get it done. so that's a little bit about what it's like working with a fractional, but transitioning out is fun. I get to bring someone up from within, train them and onboard them, which is awesome. Or I get to bring someone from the outside, hire onboard, train, and I get a unique relationship with everyone now. I've got a relationship with the EOSi implementer who brings me in. I've got a relationship with the visionary who I've been working with for months. Now I have a relationship with the integrator. How cool is that? Because I've trained the integrator outside of the visionary. So the preexisting conditions that the visionary brings to every hire are no longer part of this onboarding because I'm the one responsible for hiring my replacement and ensuring their success. Okay, fast-forward 30, 60, 90. I get to go back to all three of those people, EOSi, integrator, and check in. How's it going? Are you having your one-on-one? Are you having your same page meeting? When's it quarterly? And I just get to be curious with those three people to figure out, how it's going to avoid a false start. So that's a really cool piece of what we get to do as fractional integrators

Amy Courter 39:57

that's fantastic. I love it. And, and you know, it r- it, r- reminds me I've graduated a number of clients, just early this year. I had a whole pack. It was, fun. and, you know, to be able to celebrate their mastery, right? And, and, and without me ever asking, they talk about, like, what's been so different, you know? Well, remember pre-EOS, and it's like it's a whole era now, pre-EOS, and then they talk about where they are. And what's fascinating about it is you know, as you talk about the, like, graduating or, you know, moving out, right? That, going back and checking back in with them, that's some of the, just wonderful work that we do, kind of unpaid, but oh my gosh, but you're paid by the, the energy and the success and/or being able to ask a question or help solve something if, you know, our curiosity leads us to you know, is that going okay? And so I love how that works, and, and it is, something that's just really special. That's fantastic. Yeah, 'cause we

Matt Haney 40:52

I'd love to close this down. If you've got any final thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, we'll wrap up

Amy Courter 40:58

Yeah. I loved how you talked about, staying curious and humble and having, visionaries that start there. And I will tell you, I probably am a tiny bit different in that and can afford to be. When I'm starting the journey, they may or may not have, the integrator in place yet, but I'm always looking for, do I think that they can get to curious and humble? because I can think of a couple of humbling moments when teams who had really, you know, styles are always different, but that, you know, someone who may be curious, but they're not willing to concede any room in the room at first. And when they hit that point where they realize if everything has to go through me, you know, because I'm controlling that then I can't grow. And those moments, whether it's, you know, tears or whether it's, you know, just, you know, wow, I need to share with all of you, and they just start sharing. That's such an amazing, moment that we get to, and that's when they can grow. So I love that you're looking for that 'cause that's when you can really help them. So I look forward to having you work with, somebody that, I get to work too. I think it would be

Matt Haney 42:01

That would be awesome. I would love to, I would love to partner with you on any of your clients that have needs and, have really enjoyed our conversation today. So, thank you very much, Amy, for joining us today on The Scalability Code. I hope we can have another conversation in the future and really look forward to, getting to know you and, maybe I'll come up to Kalamazoo one day, but only in the summer. Only in the summer. I'm not coming in the winter

Amy Courter 42:23

that's fair, and that's when I liked, having a client in LA, so I get it. thanks so much, Matt. This has been, uh, just magical.

Speaker 2 42:29

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. We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.