Joining Jonathan Goldhill in this episode of the Disruptive Successor Podcast is Chris Lonergan, President of Communication Partners, CEO at BenefitElect, and one of the Disruptive Successors in Jonathan's book. Chris shares his experience of entering the family business and his decision to seek the help of a coach to usher in sweeping change. He implemented new policies in hiring, created accountability metrics, and started managing his responsibilities with quarterly exercises like the "Vital Few, Trivial Many." There was a tangible improvement within two weeks of implementing these changes, as well as applying the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). What resulted was a simplified business process which led to happier clients and, ultimately, to even more business. Chris also shares the role of first gen ego in running a business and the effectiveness of a business coach to help manage that.
HIGHLIGHTS
03:59 Entering the family business and realizing areas of improvement
07:50 Taking action with a business coach to improve the company
11:09 Action areas: Hiring, org chart, "Vital Few, Trivial Many"
15:21 Book recommendation: What the Heck Is EOS?
17:31 Making metrics and accountability company priorities
23:06 Adapting to online work and and a methodology of rating meetings
29:41 Simplifying the business for happier clients
33:38 Earning out equity and how gen 1 can let go of ego
35:53 Advice to next gen leaders: Be patient
QUOTES
08:10 "After a few years, some of the stresses and the problems from not having those processes began to mount. I did realize at that moment that I needed to do something, that we were not going to stumble into something. I really needed to take the reins and take action."
11:40 "Probably was guilty, more often than not, of keeping people around longer than I should have before we moved them out of the company. But that was really one of the first things that I wanted to focus on."
13:58 "I immediately started seeing the impact in a lot of different areas. The power of outsourcing, the power of delegating, the power of eliminating some of these trivial things that didn't turn out to be all that important anyways, once they were eliminated."
26:55 "I don't think that there's a substitute for in the flesh, in person meetings. The quality of the meeting that takes place, the attention, oftentimes the preparation that people take in advance of these meetings is always better in person."
30:19 "I came back to the strategy of simplifying everything within our business, from the products, to the processes, to making sure that we have assembly lines, so to speak, in-house for everybody that is touching these deliverables is an expert in one or two functions that they're responsible for."
To learn more about Chris, you can check out the links below.
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