In this episode, Keith and James are joined by friend, colleague, and author, Mike McHargue. Mike’s first book was published over 6 years ago. His new release, That’s on Me, is an update for our post-Covid world with new stories from seasoned executives sharing their rookie mistakes. This book is the epitome of vulnerability based trust. The stories included are organized around 5 major mistakes: Allowing confusion, Failing to connect, Running truly awful meetings, Hiring too fast / firing too slow and Failing to give elicit feedback. These errors are common, but avoidable if you’re willing to learn from the mistakes of others.

Transformation requires humility and open-mindedness. In this week’s episode, Keith is joined by colleague Joyce Schaefer and Jason Smith, CEO of True North Companies, a privately held insurance brokerage and professional services firm. Jason shares his journey as a new CEO and how his team embraced the values of being hungry, humble, and smart. Together, they’ve built a stronger foundation for growth and execution by using the right tools.​

This week, Keith is joined by colleague David Hoyt and two Hall of Fame clients, Gary Gray and Alec Kinard – former and current CEO of Graydaze Contracting. Gary and Alec discuss how intentional they were with both the process and timing of transitioning leadership. They emphasize how careful consideration and planning led to a rare story of successful succession for the team at Graydaze.

In this episode, James is joined by colleague and friend Nate Nielsen and their client, Guy Ironi. Guy, CEO of ColdTrack - the country’s largest cold and frozen e-commerce fulfillment platform, has experienced firsthand the importance of focus, alignment and trust on a team. His executive team was already filled with smart, competent individuals, but now they are running the company instead of just talking about it.

Leaders often confront the need to make significant changes to the team's structure. This may be triggered by a change to the business definition or strategy, a change in focus, the departure of a key person or even the impact of rapid growth. In this episode, Keith and James explore a simple approach for making difficult decisions about the makeup of teams - org design, role definition and, of course, the personality and character of the person needed to fill that role.

Fellow Table Group consultant David Hoyt and his client, Janet Simpson, join James to discuss the Org Health Journey Janet has undertaken as President of TVS Design. TVS is an award-winning architectural and interior design firm working on well-known building projects around the country. In this episode, Janet discusses creating an executive team; building trust and accountability on the team; developing team norms; and establishing the habit in their meetings of discussing and making decisions on the most important topics.

James is joined by colleague Casey Thompson and his client Brian Shonbeck, who has successfully built several thriving businesses. In this episode Brian shares: (1) His initial negative beliefs about business consultants; (2) The need to quickly scale knowledge and clarity when experiencing rapid growth; (3) Identifying and communicating Strategic Anchors so employees at every level can make consistently good decisions using the same filters the exec team uses; and (4) His unique “Roast Brian” Monday meeting.

In this episode, Keith is joined by good friend and colleague Bill Weingartner. Together they interview Len Finkle, CEO of Profisee - the fastest growing master data management company in the world. Len shares about the focus, resilience and consistency that it has taken in order to achieve growth, profitability and heightened employee engagement.