"When a team knows the mission, they can move mountains" - Liz Harr of Hinge

In this episode of the Land and Lead podcast, Dr. Josh Elmore interviews Liz Harr, managing partner at Hinge, who shares her unconventional journey into leadership and marketing. Liz discusses the unique structure of Hinge, emphasizing the importance of empathy in leadership and the need for effective decision-making. The conversation explores the shift from short-term to long-term goals, the significance of communicating a clear mission, and the experience of navigating AI as a leader. Liz offers valuable advice for leaders in new roles, highlighting the importance of authenticity and collaboration.

Transcript

Dr. Josh Elmore (00:00)

Welcome to the Land and Lead podcast, where we explore the real stories behind leadership transitions, the setbacks, strategies, wins, and moments of growth, all aimed at helping other leaders land well and lead effectively. I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore of Court Street Consulting.

Today we're speaking with Liz Harr managing partner at Hinge. Liz is a growth strategist, entrepreneur, and executive who has more than two decades helping professional service firms accelerate their success. A co-founder of a tech company early in her career, Liz serves as managing partner at Hinge, where she specializes in strategic planning, brand management, and communications.

Recognized as a visible expert in the professional services space, Liz is a frequent author, speaker, and thought leader. She has co-authored several cornerstone publications from the Hinge Research Institute, including The Visible Expert Revolution and Inside the Buyer's Brain, which have shaped how firms across the globe approach growth. 

Her path to marketing was anything but traditional. With a master's in international economics from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in French and East Asian Studies from the University of Missouri, Liz's true through line has always been strategy, uncovering new ways to grow, connect, and lead. 

That passion extends beyond her professional life. Liz is also the author of children's books designed to spark imagination and community-mindedness in young readers. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, three sons, and two dogs, where life is as full of energy and ideas at home as it is at work.

Welcome to the show, Liz.

Liz Harr (01:25)

Thank you so much, Josh. It's great to be here.

Dr. Josh Elmore (01:28)

Sure, yeah, we're excited to have you. So can you tell us, you know, share a little bit about your background and how you landed at Hinge?

Liz Harr (01:34)

Yeah, I mean, like you just said in your opening comments, it's a pretty untraditional path, but I think that's sort of the way of the world now anyway. yeah, I'm managing partner of a marketing and branding agency, but nothing, nothing in my past professional life or in my academic background really has to do directly with marketing. Between undergrad and graduate school, I lived in Japan and worked with Japanese government. 

And then after grad school, I worked at, actually before grad school, I worked at the Japanese embassy in DC. So I was fully expecting to have a career in bilateral relations, communications, bringing two sides together. And now here I am today, managing partner of a marketing agency. But in a way, it makes perfect sense that indirect path. 

I think probably a lot of your listeners can resonate with or you think you're going to do one thing, but if you're open to it, your one door opens and then another and another. And suddenly you see these things that you never really considered before. So that's really what happened with me. I co-founded a tech firm and Lee Frederiksen, who is now retired from Hinge, but he was one of the founding partners. He was my executive coach. 

And as I grew that company,  I grew it and got it through the ⁓ 07, 08 market collapse. And after that, and all those battle scars that came with it, I said, I'm onto my chapter two. So merged that company with a friendly competitor. And I turned to Lee as my coach and I just said, here's, I'm really passionate about growing companies. And he said, well, let me tell you about what we do at Hinge. We are marketing and branding.

But what we really do is teach our clients how to grow. So really, it was just perfect alignment that ⁓ I was coming to the table with a passion for growing firms and helping leaders understand how to do that in a sustainable way. And that's what Hinge does. They teach companies how to use marketing and how to pay attention to their brand so that it ports over to growth.

Dr. Josh Elmore (03:25)

Wonderful, yeah, super powerful in terms of thinking about that idea of your second stage and being so distinct about it. Because it is different, but it sounds like those were the activities you were involved in for growing a company is you got to see it firsthand as an entrepreneur. So can you tell us more about Hinge and the situation when you entered ⁓ the managing partner role?

Liz Harr (04:11)

Sure. So Hinge is very entrepreneurially minded. We were founded by entrepreneurs. We're led by entrepreneurs. And I came in as, well, because we're entrepreneurs, I really have played almost every role at Hinge except the graphic design role. That's not in my wheelhouse and I know my limitations. 

But, I think that's really powerful for me today as a managing partner to have played, to have sat in the seat of so many different roles because I really, not only do I understand the makings of it, but I can approach it empathetically, like truly empathetically. And I cannot think of a more powerful skill for today's leaders than to lead with empathy. 

That's for another conversation, but all to say Hinge ⁓ is a very entrepreneurially minded marketing and branding agencies that helps medium sized professional services firms figure out how are we supposed to grow. When we're sandwiched between, we're competing with the huge behemoth well known companies whose brand names are like household names. 

And then we're competing with the very small specialists who are freelancers and don't have overhead, how do we in the middle compete with that and grow?

Dr. Josh Elmore (05:29)

Yeah, I love it. right, a disclaimer to listeners, I'm a client of Hinge and I love them. So check them out because they're great and ⁓ a visible expert program is fantastic. So when you became, how long have you been a managing partner?

Liz Harr (05:50)

So I've been managing partner for almost two years.

Dr. Josh Elmore (05:54)

Hmm, okay, yeah, so two years and you've been at Hinge for how long? 

Liz Harr (05:57)

about 12.

Dr. Josh Elmore (06:00)

Okay, 12 years. So two years in and managing partner, what's the scope there?

Liz Harr (06:04)

Yeah. So, I should say that, we are a group of five managing partners and that's a kind of a new business model that is out there. It makes sense for organizations who have grown in a relatively flat, sort of structure. And that has served us so well. mean, at hinge, we really, we hire people who are very tenured, very seasoned people. 

And so this kind of structure makes sense for us. as a group of five managing used to be six and then two retired and we brought one in. all to say one of the things that we've been very disciplined around as a group of five is to have our lanes. Have our lanes where we directly contribute to hinges success. 

And the reason I bring that up is because I think a lot of times managing partners or someone in a similar role gets tasked with doing everything. And that can be very overwhelming. way we've structured it since coming in a couple of years ago has really allowed us to be effective where we are very talented. 

So I play a heavy role in client services, for example. That suits me very well because it takes advantage of certain skills that I bring to the table that are just natural to me and I don't have to learn them. Another of the managing partners is more responsible for our research program because he's very oriented that way a that we've made and a distinction that we've made in each of our roles as managing partners. But at the end of the day, we are collectively responsible for Hinge's overall performance. And we just have our unique lanes that contribute to that.

Dr. Josh Elmore (07:56)

Wow. And so was that structure built when you came on as managing partner? Was that kind of when it constituted?

Liz Harr (08:05)

No, this is something that we as some of the younger partners stepped into this role. Those of us who are now managing partners, we've between us, some of us have I've been there for 12. Some have been there for more. Some have been there for less, but we're all relatively you know, kind of the represent the younger generation coming in. And so we saw it as an opportunity to really do two things. 

One is what exists and is also working. New partners are not here to dismantle everything just to put their stamp on it and say, okay, change is here and I'm doing it. That's, pretty disastrous, I think, when you're transitioning. So one is what is already working and leverage that and maintain it. At the same time, what are some opportunities to change? And we saw that within my managing partner group, we really did have some distinct and unique talent sets. 

So we said, let's leverage those. And that's where we came up with this, what's your lane mentality.

Dr. Josh Elmore (09:17)

Hmm. And so it sounds like there's this kind deep collaboration and respect, it sounds like also too, from an expertise perspective on how to structure your team and your leadership roles. And it sounds like there's ⁓ also distribution on kind of how things get managed, right, from an organization perspective.

Did that evolve the way that you manage the organization, maybe not just around the expertise? And if so, how did that evolve?

Liz Harr (09:46)

Yeah, that was a big cultural shift. Prior to me stepping in as managing partner, really almost all decisions were at the partner level and that takes a lot of time and energy, but it also doesn't necessarily tap into up and coming leaders who have some great ideas. And it's not because in our previous model we were reluctant to do that or it's not that at all. 

It's just, it's sort of like the entrepreneur's curse. And you just have to be aware of that. Like as entrepreneurs, you want to take on everything yourself. You can do it better, faster than others is sort of the mentality, even though it's probably not true. But we tended to make all the decisions. 

In this new model, not only have we found our own unique lanes, but we now have taken deliberate steps to empower others in the organization to lead, to make decisions. And, ⁓ we have a pretty defined process for making decisions so that things can get through the decision pipeline quickly and efficiently, or not, you know, sitting there with like paralysis by analysis kind of, pitfall that I think a lot of companies fall into.

Dr. Josh Elmore (10:58)

Yeah, yeah, certainly. you know, kind of, it's a delicate process, certainly, right? As an entrepreneur myself, I know that I got to do everything on my own and to get staff and all of those things are going to be, it's a big shift, certainly. But so thinking about, right, you're in your time and role for two, coming up on two years now, and things are changing. You've sat in a lot of seats.

But now this kind of ⁓ managing partner role where you're co-creating with your team and kind of empowering folks from below to kind of be involved and help develop their leadership. So what strategies have helped you navigate your transition?

Liz Harr (11:33)

That's a great question. One big shift we had to make is in on the And what I mean by that is prior to me stepping into this role, we were really focused on the short term, the here and now. Now, to be fair, many of us ⁓ in leadership roles were focused on the here and now because of the pandemic environment and all the disruption that that created. 

So we had to take a look at week to week to week, month to month to month, what are our KPIs? I'm reminded of this book that came out, I think it was last year or the year before called Business Builders and it's by Dan Adams. He writes regularly on B2B organic growth, specifically for the Fortune 500s of the world, but there's tons of lessons to learn for those of us who don't fall into that large category. 

And this book was based on some research he did, where he was able to use research on habits of leaders to make a distinction between two kinds of leaders, business builders and business climbers. He advocates be a builder not a climber. And one of the habits of the climbers of the world is they are constantly focusing on the short term. He actually called them the decorators of the world because you know, their P &Ls always look really good month to month because they're making sure the shelves are decorated just so. But they lose with that tight focus on the short term, always, always, always.

I mean, any of your listeners, the pitfalls of that are obvious. So at Hinge, we were tightly focused on the short term. Even our employee incentive program was based on month to month performance metrics. So we overhauled that. Everything we do, of course, we don't take our eyes off the short term, but we are continually reporting on the long term, including we've restructured our incentive program so it's based on annual performance. 

And that's a big cultural shift. I think people were uncomfortable with that at first. So it took a lot of socializing, being super transparent about it, talking about it. And when you have a big cultural overhaul like that, it takes transparent and constant communications to make sure your team is riding along with it.

That was a big, That strategy, focusing on the long term and making sure we're continually reporting on it has really helped us Have a couple of wins. ⁓ One is we resurrected our own podcast ⁓ We used to have a podcast a couple years ago, where we, it was called the visible expert podcast and we reimagined that, thinking about the long-term and where we want to sit and how we want to be viewed. 

So we kind of reimagined our podcast with that in mind. Another big win that this long-term help, long-term view helped us do is we resurrected our monthly newsletter. And our monthly newsletter used to just not get that much attention and we let it drop because it didn't seem like a good use of our time.

And now I regularly hear from people, ⁓ I publish every Friday, actually it's weekly. And ⁓ I regularly hear from people who are finding value in it and it's resonating with them. So this long-term orientation has really helped us think carefully about who we are and how we're going to get there, which has then helped us be more efficient in some of the resurrection of the tools that are going to get us there.

Dr. Josh Elmore (15:21)

Wow, yeah, super powerful. Yeah, and I read your newsletter. I love it. So one thing that's kind of coming up for me here is, right, so you have these ways that you were able to unlock for the kind of assets and the external environment to kind of help the business in that long term view. From an internal perspective, how did you help folks ⁓ as they shifted towards that longer term view? Kind of what was the way that you framed it? How did you communicate that so people could really kind of latch onto it and become, see themselves in it?

Liz Harr (15:54)

Yeah, I mean the first thing you know that you know that phrase it's something like when a team knows the mission they can move mountains something like that. One of the very first things we did was communicate our mission who is hinge why do we exist? What are we known for and how what is the value that we deliver?

Just rethinking that and communicating it and then injecting it into everything we do is really important because that means the teams understand every other decision we make. So that was a very, that was a fundamental. Impactful decision we made is let's make sure before we announce any new ideas we have.

Let's make sure we're communicating the mission. So that was the first thing. The second thing was then to have, so that's kind of like macro level discussions. Then what we did is have micro level team-based discussions and really get people thinking, like not telling them, here's your role and here's how you can contribute to our overall mission and here's the expectations. 

We dismantled that and we said, what are your, you know, the mission, what are your thoughts? How are you going to contribute? How are you going to empower the people you manage? What do you think are the KPIs you should be held accountable for? 

Just having that discussion and putting the thinking at that team level was another impactful move that we made that really to your question gets teams, not just understanding, what we're talking about with our long-term mission, but actually excited about it and rallied around it.

Dr. Josh Elmore (17:39)

Yeah, yeah, super powerful in terms of kind of to allow giving people and from an organization development perspective, that's, you know, it's a really powerful practice, putting the kind of, you know, folks that are having to implement the work in the driver's seat and letting them kind of imagine their place in the mission that you've created and to right, co-create.

Liz Harr (18:01)

Yeah, that's right. The third thing we did, which I think a lot of your listeners would resonate with is, you know, what you report on and the KPIs and dashboards you look at is a reflection of your overall approach. So we, we took some of the pressure off of, you know, week to week to week. 

What's the project profitability? How are the projects going? Just that scrupulous look kind of like a day in the life and we shifted that to monthly but on a reporting we really look at quarterly because we understand the ebb and flow and week to week you're just gonna have these fluctuations and circumstances that are that are gonna change project KPIs. 

It almost doesn't even make sense to look at that frequently, but what that also did is it took the pressure off the teams. they, put our, were walking the walk or walking the talk, I guess is the phrase. We said we're looking at the long-term, we're focused on the long-term. So have the KPIs and what report on with our teams, have that be reflective of what we said we're gonna do.

Dr. Josh Elmore (19:09)

Yeah, Yeah, walking the talk. Super, super important to have that follow up. People see it, you know, they pay attention. So, right, you mentioned some wins, right, in this ⁓ year coming up on two years. What are some setbacks and how did they manifest?

Liz Harr (19:24)

Well, I think a big thing we had to grapple with is the type of advisory that Hinge provides is very brain intensive. There's nothing that you can pull out of like a marketing 101. That's not our world. It's very brain intensive. It requires lots of space, lots of thinking time, and lots of our own time to always be up to speed on the latest and greatest on how you grow companies. 

I mean, that's, there's so much to think about and learn there. So with the exit of Lee Frederiksen, the co, the co-founder, when he retired as a managing partner and we stepped in, that left a big brain gap and we had to figure out how to relieve some time from us, the managing partners who were already doing, giving that brain power to our clients, but we were also heavily involved in other things. 

And we had to create time, basically. That's a pretty tall order is create time. But what it helped us do is empower kind of like what we were talking about earlier, the need to create time forced us to figure out how do we empower other team members who aren't at the partner level, but who very much have the talent, the knowledge, and the power to lead. Let's empower them to do that. Take on these tasks. We don't have to do everything. Empower others to do it, which then created the space for the partners to provide that.

We call it the gray hair advisory, even though none of us really have gray hair. have you read that Harvard Business Review article? It's from a long time ago. They talked about the different levels of service in professional services, and that gray hair advisory is the most expensive, most time consuming, but most needed type of advisory. And one of those advisors retired, and we had to quickly create time so the rest of us could step in.

Dr. Josh Elmore (21:34)

Yeah, I haven't read that article. definitely will take a look at it, but it certainly makes sense, right? Because that wisdom, the need to kind of have the experience to provide the advisory at the level that the clients need, given their circumstances and seeing across contexts, a huge lift.

 I know from my own work and it's something that, you know, this idea to also create time and to understand how to delegate effectively, right, takes a little bit of that own, you have to consult to yourself a little bit. How do you do that? So super, super interesting, the kind of wins and particularly, you know, the wins that you had around kind of reorganizing and thinking about the kind of timeline to getting things right. 

And a question I often like to ask my guests is, in the 1980s, John Gabarro ran a few studies focused on general managers and presidents as they pursued new roles and wrote the results up in the book, The Dynamics of Taking Charge. Gabarro explained that an executive has fully taken charge when they have mastered the new assignment in sufficient depth to be managing the organization as efficiently as the resources, constraints, and the manager's own ability allow.

Thinking about this definition where 100 % is having fully taken charge in your new assignment, the areas that you focus on, what percent would you say you are at now?

Liz Harr (23:01)

What an interesting time to be asking that question. AI were not a thing, I would say the reason I say that is partner group and I happen to be super, super, super oriented on performance metrics and operational efficiency like we're just wired that way and I just have the good Fortune to be surrounded by partners who are like-minded in that regard. 

So we're scrupulous about that. However, I think what AI is showing us is that we're you know, it's like humans use just a tiny percent of their brain actually, that's how I feel. That's how I feel with AI is it is showing me as a managing partner we're just tapping into a small percentage of what we could be tapping into to reach supreme operational performance. so, I feel like we're much lower than how I would have rated us were AI not in the picture.

Dr. Josh Elmore (23:54)

Wow, yeah, so kind of the long hill of reaching kind of comprehension or comprehensiveness of ⁓ ways of working and doing things is super interesting. So you said, were AI not involved 75 % given AI being involved, of how far has that set you back a little bit in terms of thinking about taking charge?

Liz Harr (24:29)

Yeah, I mean, I like, I'm saying, I think it's probably 25%. And that's not really a bad thing. AI is such a tremendous opportunity to re use the word reimagine earlier when I was talking about our processes and some of our tool set. It's an opportunity to reimagine how you do things. And so I'm excited about it. But it's just overwhelming to think of what to focus on first and where to apply it; which process, which workflow. I think that's part of my job as a leader is to look at where are the weakest links in our path forward to growth. And then looking if there are appropriate ways to apply the efficiencies that AI can bring to the table in those weak links and just kind of approach it one weak link at a time.

Dr. Josh Elmore (25:21)

Yeah, yeah, and it speaks also to kind of the long-term thinking as well, right? know, kind trying to imagine where the future is going to be and how it can address those challenges of the moment. So what advice would you share with leaders currently entering a new high stakes role?

Liz Harr (25:39)

I think three primary pieces of advice come to mind. One is to relieve yourself from the pressure of feeling like you've got to tackle everything all at once. One of our managing directors, he's my go-to guru for metaphors and analogies. And I was talking with him the other day, and he says something that really resonated and speaks directly to this. 

He said, when his son, who's much older now, but when his son was young and entering Little League baseball, and he was so excited, and he's like, I'm going to get five home runs today. And he had all these expectations. And he was saying, I really had to temper.

my son's expectations because even in the major leagues where these guys are the professionals, a good batting average, like we're not even talking home runs, but does it hit the ball with the bat is like a point two or a point three. So temper expectations. You're not going to walk in as a new leader and tackle everything all at once, nor should you. That's too disruptive. Transitions are noisy. They're disruptive. 

So, temper your expectations like I was talking about earlier. What are the biggest, weakest links? And maybe tackle one at a time. Empower your people to help you tackling those weak links. But really temper expectations so you don't come in like a bulldozer and just dismantle. Because when you do that, a lot of times you dismantle things that are working and should be leveraged and should be retained. So that's my first.

My second is show up with authenticity. I think when leaders are authentic, they are making it more comfortable for others to step up and help lead the way. Conversely, if you show up with bravado and fluff and, you know, all the confidence in the world, that's really not approachable for others to kind of grow up through the ranks. 

But when you show up with authenticity, I think what you're showing is, hey, I'm human. I don't know everything. I shouldn't know everything. I can't do everything. So let's do this together. you're making it doable for people when you show up with authenticity. So I think that's important. 

And I think the last one is, kind of related to that, but I always say if you are constantly the smartest person in the room as a leader, you have failed big time. And that's because you cannot genuinely be in command of the number of specialized areas of expertise required to run a company. you cannot. 

So a good leader in my mind, especially when you're in that transitional role, will arm themselves with others who are smarter than they are about a particular lane or a particular topic. So be comfortable when you're not the smartest person in the room. That means you've succeeded.

Dr. Josh Elmore (28:44)

Yeah, and that really speaks to kind of the authenticity and humility that goes along with kind of what you shared is how do you not be the smartest? Well, you got to kind of speak, you got to show that you don't know everything and that's Instead of, and maybe you can be pleasantly surprised if you're managing your expectations because then you set yourself up for success. Yeah, super powerful is, know, thank you so much for sharing with us.

Liz Harr (29:04)

Indeed.

Dr. Josh Elmore (29:09)

Is there anything you'd like to share that's coming up for you or Hinge?

Liz Harr (29:13)

Well, know Hinge is known for our original research and we have a flagship report that we produce every single year. It's called the high-growth study and I would encourage people to go to our library. You can get the executive summary of this year's report for free. We're actively working on the 2026 study, which will be out early next year. 

But I mean it is just, I love it because it helps leaders think about, hey I've got dozens and dozens of possibilities when it comes to how I'm going to grow my company and apply marketing to that growth equation. What's really going to move the needle? And that's what this research is about. So I'd love for anyone who doesn't know us for that research already to go check it out.

Dr. Josh Elmore (29:56)

Sounds good, yeah. Moving the needle is critical. All right, well thank you Liz. Really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Liz Harr (29:59)

Thank you, Josh. It was so fun to talk with you today.

Dr. Josh Elmore (30:05)

Certainly. Thanks so much for listening to the Land and Lead Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore. Tune in next time for more stories from leaders navigating high stakes role transitions.