Hard Decisions Define Leaders: Joe Crandall on Accountability, Standards, and Doing What Others Won’t

In this episode of Activating Greatness, Alec McChesney sits down with Joe Crandall, CEO of Red Leviathan and Executive Chairman of Greencastle Associates Consulting, to explore what it really takes to build high-performing organizations rooted in accountability, trust, and clear expectations. Drawing from his experience as a Navy SEAL and business leader, Joe breaks down why most leaders avoid tough people decisions, how to ensure you have the right people in the right seats, and why radical candor is essential to building strong culture. This conversation challenges leaders to stop tolerating underperformance, define what “right” looks like, and invest in people and systems that drive execution. If you are focused on building culture, strengthening trust, and leading with clarity, this episode delivers practical, no-nonsense leadership insights.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, hello everyone. It's Alec here. I just wanted to jump in to frame today's episode. I'm really excited for you to listen to my sit-down conversation with Joe Crandall. Joe is the CEO of Red Leviathan and the executive chairman of Green Castle Associates Consulting, a former Navy SEAL, one smart individual, and somebody that can take the 30,000-foot view and make it really practical for you to be able to take home. We're talking about the tough decisions that most leaders avoid. We talk about how to put the right people in the right seats, why radical candor matters, and how clear expectations create stronger teams and better outcomes. You're going to love this episode. Enjoy. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney. And every episode, we sit down with leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff: leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because it's greatness, it isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something you activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening, for showing up, and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now let's dive in and meet today's incredible guest. Today's guest is Joe Crandall, CEO of Red Leviathan and executive chairman of Green Castle Associates Consulting. Joe is a former Navy SEAL, turned business leader and operator, known for building disciplined, high-performing organizations that execute when the margin for error is thin. He previously served as CEO of Green Castle, where he led the firm's transformation into a premier strategy execution consultancy and now oversees a portfolio of veteran-owned company companies through Red Uh Red Leviathan, all aligned around clarity of mission, operational discipline, and accountability. And we're going to talk about the tough decisions. We're going to talk about decisions that most leaders avoid. We're going to talk about how to put the right people in the right seats, why radical candor matters, and how clear expectations create stronger teams and better outcomes. But before we do all of that, Joe, uh everybody who listens to this knows I can get excited and I want to start running. But before we do it, I would love to have you uh uh further introduce yourself and also just want to say thank you so much for spending some time uh with me and the activating greatness audience today.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Well, no, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Uh looking forward to the discussion. Uh, but I think one of the key things that uh uh I want to bring out is that uh Greencastle Consulting is an all-veteran company. So every person we've hired uh in the last seven years has been a veteran. And uh that's uh that's an important factor from the standpoint that uh they uh the veterans uh are really good at solving big problems and not really getting uh too gummed up on uh small little things and uh some of the things that we see our clients uh needing help with. So uh I like to say we're the uh all the nation's largest all-veteran company, uh, and I'm gonna continue to say that until uh somebody tells me otherwise. But uh beyond that, uh your introduction was was spot on.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Oh, I I love it. And you know, to take us down a tangent right out of the gate, I had a CEO on uh from Citizens Inc., John Stenberg, just a couple of weeks ago. His episode aired uh the last week of of March or second to last week of March. And when I asked him who we should interview next, he had one answer. And then he talked about him being a veteran and wanting to have more veteran leadership stories on the podcast. And I briefed him on our upcoming episode offline, and I know he's really looking forward to it. And I'm certain that we can have some of that conversation today. But as we go forward, and to your point, uh, you know, having an organization of veterans, you know, I'm sure there are things that you guys are comfortable doing from a decision-making process because it there's one, there's one answer, there's one decision. We need to move forward with it. And talking with Joe Whitti on our team here at Velocity, some of his background uh is in the same perspective of, hey, this is the decision that has to be made. Let's make the decision, let's move forward. And you, Joe, are a strong believer in our first prep call of the right person, right seats. Uh, you know, we talk about traction, right butt, right seat, and that it's actually, you know, one of the most human things that a leader can do. So I want to start there. How should leaders think about evaluating whether someone is in the right seat, whether they're in the right role? And frankly, what happens if they're if they're not in the right seat?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. So the from the get-go, uh, before you even get to that point, you have to really define what your culture is. Uh, because if a person doesn't pass the first pat first part of the people analyzer, which is your culture and your core values, uh, you really have to ask yourself, why are they even on the team? And so once you've done that and you've identified your core values and you've identified uh what it means to be on this team, uh, what are your standards, what are the the things that you're expecting them to do and not do, uh, then it gets into what traction calls the get it, the want it, and the capacity to do it. And uh the traction methodology says if they don't, if a person doesn't pass any one of those categories that you should just uh look for somebody new and try uh try with a different person. When I for for us, uh the culture part was the most important piece from the standpoint of if they weren't part of the culture, uh, we really didn't move either forward with them in a in an interview process or we tried to find uh a location within the ecosystem of companies where they would be successful. Once you get to the get it, the want it, and the capacity to do it, the get it and the want it are extremely important. If they don't have those, in my opinion, they're the then they're not gonna do a good job. Uh the capacity to do it uh was one that we were willing to uh have a little bit more grace on because uh we were hiring veterans that uh potentially didn't have the skill set that we needed them to have at the time, but they had the capacity to grow into it. So we were willing to take uh take on veterans that uh uh would be able to have the capacity to do it in a certain period of time. And uh but the I'm a big believer that uh from a business standpoint, uh 80% or plus of your problems come from the wrong people or the wrong processes. And uh if you get the people down, the processes are next. And if you can do that and meld the two together, you create some good business systems that allow you to have a company of high accountability. Uh you'll be amazed at what the what the team can accomplish and also accomplish without you being there on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

So much good right out of the gate there, Joe. But I want to double-click on the the fact that you jumped right to culture, right? You talk about culture, and yet so often the culture piece of the puzzle is a disconnect for a lot of organizations. They might say, hey, we have a great culture, or culture is a uh a word on the wall, but it's not something that actually presents a hiring lens, frankly, a firing lens or a promotion lens. Is that something that you took from your time in service with the Navy SEALs? What led you to say, hey, culture is the foundation of us being successful, and culture is the foundation of how we're going to build and hire and establish our presence inside uh of the business?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, actually, it is something I learned as a young uh platoon commander um back in the late 90s. Uh, we had a uh our platoon was doing really well, Charlie Platoon, and uh this was all before 9-11, back when uh you know I was much younger. And we had one guy that uh just wasn't living up to standards, and really he was dragging the performance of the whole platoon down. And uh it took me a while to actually uh build up the paperwork and the documentation to finally remove this person from the from the platoon. And as soon as that happened, uh the level of performance, the level of accountability went through the roof. And it was because we were no longer having to work to the standards of uh an underperformer. And doesn't mean he was a bad guy, doesn't mean that he wasn't gonna be successful somewhere else. It just meant for our platoon at that point in time, he was the wrong person. And so by learning that early, uh, I've kind of carried that through uh my entire career where uh I've had had I've had to have just difficult conversations with with nice good people, but they just uh they just didn't either uh uh do the job I needed them to do or they're they were uh they provided uh uh friction uh and uh you just you know that the team's gonna be better if they can be uh successful somewhere else. And so uh I boiled it down to pretty much a a uh pre a pretty easy way to think about it is is aft if they're if you're putting somebody through the people analyzer, fundamentally what you're asking is is are they adding to the energy of the team naturally or are they drawing away from it? Are they sucking energy in? And if they're if they're neutral or sucking energy in, uh you have to think long and hard. Why is that person part of your team?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So much that other leaders can learn from that story about your platoon. And one of the things that we focus on at velocity is how to retain top performers, how to retain the the high potential emerging leaders inside of the organization. And one of the things that the data shows us over and over again is that retaining low performers, retaining individuals who are hurting the culture is actually one of the greatest risks to your top performers. And it it's a it's a clear pathway and it's very easy for everybody to understand. And yet, leaders hesitate to make those calls. They hesitate to make the tough decision, to have that conversation, to to have the paperwork, to have the the frankly, the the process to to to remove that individual from their team or from their organization.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Why is that, Joe? Why, why do we struggle with that? And and what is a what is a way for us to be able to have those hot hard conversations and make those those hard decisions a little bit easier?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

I think uh primarily for leaders, it's it's sometimes really tough to tell somebody that they're not doing a good job. And uh the longer you let that go on, the harder it is to have that conversation. And uh Kim Scott book, uh Radical Candor, uh, along with the EOS methodology, has really uh allowed us to uh set the standards at which we want a person to perform, and then also have quick and uh directed conversations when they're not. It's very once you've identified that person's role and what they're responsible for, and if they're not doing that, you can have uh a bevy of conversations that start out as verbal and then just kind of work their way up to the ultimate potentially uh leaving the company. Uh but the the idea is that you're giving that person every opportunity to course correct and you're giving them the tools, you're giving them uh those kind of things that they need. The uh one of the biggest questions I always ask when somebody's struggling and a leader comes to me and says, Hey, this person uh just isn't getting it, I ask them, Did you show them what right looks like? And if they know what right looks like and they just can't do it, then it it might be a uh a situation where that person isn't never gonna get it. And if you just continue to have those conversations, it should never be a surprise that when a meeting for myself or for the current CEO, uh, if it pops up on your schedule to meet with me, that that's kind of you should be exp you should expect to be fired because you you've had those conversations and you've been told uh that this is the potential outcome. And if you haven't made those corrective behaviors, then uh it's the logical outcome. And I'll tell you, uh one, uh Greencastle itself has tremendous retention. We're uh I think we're less than a half a percent uh turnover on a month-to-month basis. So it's we're like 99.5% effective. And the other thing is, is when people do leave the company um from a voluntary status, they they want to go try to do something else. Uh, we have, I think, over a dozen who we call boomerangs where they've come back to the company uh as a as a returning employee. And so uh I think by holding people accountable, creating the conversation, uh, and I think uh Kim Scott, uh, or it might have been Geno Wickman, I can't remember which one, but if you're coming at it from a position of compassion and uh really wanting to help that person, then it shouldn't be a hard conversation. Think of uh think of like uh if you and your buddy are getting ready to go do a big presentation and he's got a huge chunk of salad in his teeth. Are you gonna say something to him? Yeah, because you care about his performance, you care how people are gonna perceive perceive him. Or if you if you don't and you let him get up there and he has this huge chunk of salad, then really the question is is are you living up to the culture ideals that uh your company has set out? And um, and so it's really about uh being compassionate and uh Geno Wickman does call it uh making decisions from a position of love versus a position of fear. And uh, you know, and and Kim Scott's book goes through the quadrants of uh ruinous empathy and uh all these other things. And uh most most organizations suffer from ruinous empathy, uh, where they don't want to say something to hurt somebody. Oh, it's only the first time he's done it, or uh it's gonna it's really gonna hold their career back when in reality it probably isn't only the first time they've done it. Maybe somebody else has observed it, or maybe their career deserves to be held back because they're incompetent.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

I I wanna I wanna go back to the beginning of your answer here because I think that this needs to be said a handful of times. Did you show them what right looks like? Is the question that you asked of a manager on the team. And a lot of times that's the biggest hurdle is that we haven't had that conversation. Right. We we see it not working. Uh, you know, Joe Woody on our team talks about the the four levels of incompetence, right? And and competence, and there's different levels to that. But you you have to show them what right looks like, and you have to be able to give that feedback in real time so that way there aren't surprises, and you have to give a couple of those chances for somebody to grow into the capacity to do the work. Like you mentioned. What we see at velocity is that too many managers have been promoted without understanding what it takes to actually be a successful manager. So they're not comfortable giving that feedback in real time. They're not comfortable picking up the phone and saying, Hey, I just saw how you handled this. I want to walk through what should have happened versus what did happen, or even asking the question, hey, how did you feel that one went? Right. Like being able to have those tougher conversations. And, you know, we talk about it as a tough conversation in real time is a lot easier than a tough conversation that you put off for six months and there were genuine struggles and and now there's surprises. So is that something not only within the organizations that you work with, but also clients and and and different mentorship that you've given, is that something that you're really focused on? Is he, let's do real-time feedback, let's capture it right then and there so that way it's understood that hey, I I might have missed stepped there, and here's an opportunity to be better.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah, the the longer you go uh to saying something when you've noticed behavior, uh, the harder it is for that other person to hear it. So imagine if if you did something wrong three weeks ago and I'm I just now have built up the courage to say something to you. You're gonna walk away going, well, that son of a b, you know, like why didn't he talk to me back then? And uh even high performers want to know when they're not living up to standards, uh, because they might be really good at six tasks, but that seventh one they're kind of faltering on. And so they want to know that they need help with it, or or maybe you remove it off their plate and give it to somebody that's really good at it. You brought up a good point that a lot of organizations they will promote people based upon the performance in their current role, not in the potential of their future role. And so that's the classic, hey, I took my top sales guy and made him the sales manager. Just because he can sell doesn't mean he can manage people. And uh and sometimes people get also get promoted into the Peter principle. They get promoted into incompetence, where at a certain level they're excelling, and then at the next level they start to falter and start to have issues. And uh the the right thing might be to say, hey, listen, uh it's we we made a mistake. We need to move you back to where you were so you'll be more successful, and we're gonna hire somebody in above you or find a different person for that role. And that's that's the tough thing is one, admitting you made a mistake, and two, really telling that person in your current skill set, in your current capabilities, you're you're at the pinnacle here, right? And if uh if they if they listen to that and they want more and they want to uh move their careers along, unfortunately it might be something where they need to go out and hone some skills at a different organization, or they might need to go to school, or they might need some mentoring or something like that. Uh, but a lot of the times uh people uh once they've hit that ceiling, they get really discouraged. And and it's really just a matter of uh finding their path and knowing knowing what they're good at and uh following that that path versus trying to uh follow the path that they think everybody else uh thinks that they should be on.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

And some people are okay being really good at the task and skill set that they are really good at, and they get promoted without really their passion or interest in being promoted, right? And you know, I I always raise my hand when this conversation comes up because I, you know, being vulnerable uh on the podcast, I was the sales leader who could hit goal, hit numbers, and motivate people. Well, it makes perfect sense for him to be a sales manager and have a team. Now it does five years, six, seven years later, as I'm more comfortable with that role and have failed a lot. But five, six years ago, when that first happened, I was I had no understanding of what it would take to manage four, five, six different people in their roles just because I knew how to prospect and hunt. And it was never communicated to me. It was just, hey, you're gonna take on this opportunity, you're gonna take on this role. Okay, great. Let me let me let me try and fail forward. But there are a lot of avenues where that wouldn't have worked. And I love the traction model in terms of the right seats, and and you talked about culture, but also understanding, let's not put names in these seats yet. What does this actual role need? What is this responsibility? And then could Alec fit into that seat versus saying, okay, here's Alec and we're plugging him into a seat. Let's find the seat and really understand what skill set, what responsibilities do they have, what responsibility do they have to the organization and to the people that report into them. And like you said, am I at that level or am I not? And that's okay, but we have to be willing to have that career path conversation. And that's a gap that I think right now just exists across uh any of the industries that we work within. It's just not happening.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, the the uh career conversation is a tough one because uh think of you if you're a manager and you're having a conversation with an employee and the the career their career that they have in mind doesn't include working at your company in five years. That's a that's a hard thing to tell somebody and because you know that that will impact potentially your career path at that company. And so I I'm a big believer of whenever somebody joins an organization that I'm a part of, they're eventually gonna leave in some way, shape, or form. They're gonna retire, they're gonna quit, I'm gonna fire them, right? Or some other mix in there. Whenever that an eventual departure happens, and I hope it doesn't happen, but whenever it does happen, uh I want them to leave with more skills and more capabilities than they came into the job with, even if it's a six-month stint. And um and so I'm very proud of all the people that have come to Greencastle and left on their own accord to go do entrepreneurial ship, business ownership, uh to to jump into the passion that they've been uh trying to do because that means that while they were at Greencastle, they potentially got additional. Skills that allowed him to make that jump. And uh, and and that's to me, that's a success. And one of the key things that I've tried to uh pound into everybody on the team, uh, all the way uh through the entire organization is that you have to be a leadership factory. You have to uh when you're when you're looking at your people, if you don't have uh identified leaders at every level and they're second and they're third, then you're you're really doing one the organization a disservice, but also you're doing your leaders a disservice because how are they ever going to take a vacation? How are they ever gonna take time off if they can't trust uh a second uh secondary person to fulfill their role temporarily? And uh the third belief I have around all this is is that uh if I refuse to delegate and I continue to want to do all these tasks myself, I'm robbing the other generation, the other levels of leadership of valuable experience that they could be getting under my supervision. And so uh one of the key points of attraction is to delegate and elevate. And essentially, you want to the way I look at it is you want to delegate yourself out of a job and uh allow the organization to uh work at the right levels. And uh when I first purchased Greencastle, uh we had no admin staff, we had no HR, no nothing. Everything went through the partners, and that was a self-limiting factor because all the sales were the partners, but also service delivery. So we were on a roller coaster ride. We had because we focused on sales, we were doing really well, and then uh because we were doing the projects, the sales started slumping. So we were just on this roller coaster, and one of the first things I did was remove all the admin tasks that uh I didn't want to do. I hired uh her name's Alicia, and she's been with us ever since, and she's really good at them, and I was okay at them. And so that's that was always my uh my goal is every time I hired a person, whatever I was doing and that they're taking over from me, I wanted them to be 10x what I could do because that's just that's just good business. Why would I hire somebody that's worse than me? Uh, because I wasn't even doing a great job on some of these things anyway. So it's like uh, and so by doing that, you you create a uh culture where uh there's high accountability, people are really good at their jobs, and they really take ownership and they they truly feel bad if something falls through the cracks. And thankfully, uh in our organization, uh very little falls through the cracks, but when it does, uh they take ownership and they say, Hey, that's my bad, and and we'll fix it. But because they're high accountability, they're not like, well, it's his his problem, his problem, or her problem. Everybody's like, Yep, okay, that was me. I I got it, you know. And uh uh and we move forward. We don't hold it over their heads uh as you know, a guilt trip or anything like that. We might bring it up when we're having cigars on the patio as a joke of like, oh, remember the time, you know, but uh it's never it's unless it's a systemic and uh consistent behavior, it's never used against that person.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Right. Which comes back to the culture that you put in place and that you live in on a day-to-day basis. I I want to go back to this leadership factory because it it's also it's it's future-proofing your organization, it's succession planning in real time, it's developing top individuals. It when when we talk about that at velocity, one of the pushbacks that we get, and I just want to throw it to you, and I want to hear your thoughts is hey, we develop them and then they're gonna leave.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

And what happened if you don't develop and they stay, and they stay. You know, that's the classic conundrum, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Right. And and I I I wanna I I wanna hear your your thought process on this because my answer always goes to if we don't develop them and they stay. And also, I I think one of the best things for an organization is if you develop, let's say they develop the heck out of Alec McChesney, and Alec McChesney leaves and becomes top person at superstar company, that's really good for this organization to say, hey, they we promoted Alec and he's now here, or we promoted Joe, and he's now that's a great thing for the organization to be able to sell from a recruitment standpoint. But do you have any other thoughts on that, Joe? Or when you receive that pushback, is there something that you always go to or a story you tell um that that really resonates with you?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, I would say uh, first off, uh if you've developed people and they leave, then that means they had a good experience with you. So they're more likely to say, hey, yeah, you should you should go look at this company or uh give you referrals or say, hey, you know what, you need their services. Why don't you go talk to this guy? Um so that's the first thing. And the the second thing is is um none of this ex none of these uh philosophies or approaches exist in a uh a silo. I always refer to it as the watch, right? So think of like a very expensive watch where you pull off the back and you have all these really uh tiny gears and and springs and stuff, and every single gear has a purpose, every single spring has a purpose to keep that uh exact time on that watch. And that's the same thing for a business is there should never be a spring or a gear in there that doesn't provide value to the company. So that's the first thing is I I make sure that we're only we're only focusing on the things that are going to make us a better company. And then two, uh every every spring has to do its job, every every gear has to do its job, and that where that's where traction comes in with the quarterly rocks and uh setting expectations. Uh but um you know, and as you're doing that, you need to realize that certain people uh are okay with uh a job just showing up nine to five, and some people really want to have a meteoric career uh path. And uh an organization that can embrace both those is good as long as they're being held to a high accountable uh work product, right? The problem becomes is the person that doesn't necessarily want to move up through the leadership ranks is sometimes tolerated uh with their low work product, but uh we don't do that, right? So it's it's like you have to perform at a high accountability level, but you don't have to get promoted. That's you know, if you want to, that's great. Um, and to prove that, what we did is uh uh couple years ago, we created uh the managing director track and the principal track at Greencastle. And so the managing director track is think of it like uh a partner in a law firm where not only do they have a book of business, but they have to go out and find new stuff and they have to the it's a sales role, it's a it's a uh business development role where a principal is of track where somebody can get to a principal or senior principal level and just go do service delivery, just go do projects all day long, every day, because that's what their passion is. And I think that's really lent lent to our retention. Again, uh since I bought the company in 19 to now, uh, we I don't think we've lost a senior person uh over five years of tenure, uh except for potentially them jumping off to go do their own business or buy a business. Uh and so I think that lends to if you hold people accountable, regardless of whether they have career aspirations or if they're just there on a on a daily basis, if you hold them to high accountable work and high quality work products, then uh and you see and everybody sees that you're doing that, then everybody uh understands the mission of the company is to uh to continue uh doing that on a daily basis. And the low performers aren't aren't going to be tolerated.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah. Well, I love the two different tracks that you have, but I I I want to put a bow on this portion of the conversation, then we could talk a little bit about culture, people, systems. I as I asked that question, it just continues to hit me that the data shows us over and over again that if we invest in the people, the people stay. So the question of the question of what happens if we invest in them and then they leave, it just really is a broken question. And that's not a question leadership should ask.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Like that's that's not a leader.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yes, yeah. Well, I mean, it's like bad yeah. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I no, I was gonna say I was gonna say it's it's really frustrating when I how many times you've seen that. It's just a it's a bad question, it's a bad thought process, and it's actually what leads people to leaving your organization is having that thought process.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, I mean, I believe so much in training and upskilling people uh that uh when a person joins Greencastle, they go through a month-long of training to get their uh PMP uh change management certification, lean six sigma. They get a little Power BI experience in there as well. So before they even hit a client, they've gone through a month-long of training and they end up with several certifications that allows them to speak the language of our work environment. And then it's really on them to continue that path. But um, you know, the the idea that uh not training somebody is gonna save me, you know, a thousand dollars here or there, it it's really costing me more probably 10x that if I don't train them because of the rework and the redundancy and the the lack of accountability and the the slowdown of work. And it's so by investing in people, and I can tell you, I can tell you from my direct experience, by investing in people and their careers, we have gone uh from uh a very good company to a great company. And uh we did that because we invested in our people, not only just skill sets, but leadership, uh personal, right? We we have uh uh we have one of the more liberal uh maternity policies. We have uh discretionary pay time off. We have all these things because we treat our people like adults and we expect them to act like adults.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Whew. All right. Listen, we're at the halfway mark, and I'm fired up right now, Joe. Uh this is this is a great conversation. It's exactly what we wanted to have here. I've got one one more line of questioning before we get into the the rapid fire leadership round. And it it's it's about culture. We talked about people, but then you talked about if we get the people right, the processes come into place. And had a have had a couple of conversations on this podcast about culture being the combinations of people and systems and having them really be able to work together. And it seems like you, you know, we talked about EOS, we talk about clarity, consistency, accountability. I I want to just hear from you how you see the blend within culture of systems, process, and people, and how this really drives an organization forward.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, the I define a system as the the melding of the people in the process, right? Most most companies, uh, their processes are the amalgamation of multiple years of just tacking this on, doing this. Oh, we got to add that step. Very rarely does a company sit back and look at what they're trying to accomplish from uh start to finish and say, what are all the steps that occur? The the real steps, not the steps that you think are happening, but the ones that people are actually taking. And if and it's so true, if you map all that out honesty, uh with everybody in the room, you can sit there and look at it and go, why are we doing that step? Why are we doing that step? Why don't we move that step forward? Uh well, because uh whenever a quality control looks at this, uh we have to do the another quality check at the end. Well, then maybe quality control is not doing their job. What is happening down here that's not happening uh to prevent it from occurring down the stream in the process? And so uh our contracts were a good example. For for a good year, uh every time a contract landed on my desk with for a client, there would be errors. And I I was I just got to the point where like I'm not gonna look at another contract if it comes across my desk with another error. These are just very simple things that need to be you know put at the beginning of the process and fixed. And uh when we did look at the overall process, we found out that uh the area where I thought somebody was supposed to be looking for these errors, they weren't. And it was because they had the understanding that it was my job to find the errors. And so once we clarified that, it was like I never saw an error again. And uh, but that was that was just a small disconnect, and that happens all the time, over a hundred times a day in any business, just because of think of all the moving pieces. And so when you meld the people and the systems together, uh the and uh the processes together, and you build a system that doesn't rely on a single Hercule effort of a person, then you have a business. If you don't do that, you have uh you have a you have a business, but it's not something you could uh walk away from for a week. Uh if it relies on you or a key person, you have to build a system uh systems that are bigger than individual efforts. And so one of the things that we have adopted recently is uh we learned uh I learned from Elon Musk is on his rockets, every every part has a name to it. Like he could point to a tile and say, that's Bob's job. Oh, that's Bill's job. And so we did the similar thing, uh, which is uh taking the traction, identifying your core processes. We took it one step further and we we assigned names to everything in those, like who's even like who puts the flag at half mast. Well, that's Justin's job. And Justin knows it's his job, right? And so uh when now when all that happens and people know exactly what's expected from them, very rarely do they not do what they're supposed to do. And uh a lot, a lot of I I say it all the time, uh anger and frustration are born out of uh missed expectations. I have an expectation that you're gonna do this job and you don't do it, so I'm getting angry with you, or I'm getting uh frustrated. And or uh I expect to get paid every Friday, and if that doesn't happen, of course I'm gonna be angry or frustrated, right? So the sooner you can uh stop that anger and frustration from occurring from missed expectations, uh the better. And so that's why uh you know, conversations around career and work product, they should be happening on a weekly or at a at the worst a monthly basis. And that's what we built into Greencastle is a very, very active feedback loop that takes out uh the emotion. It's not in in ideally the leader who's having the conversation with whoever needs the to hear it, they're getting it from a position of care and love because that person wants you to be better. And uh when it's coming from a position of fear, that's when you get the the people that are like, oh no, I'm not gonna say anything. I want him to screw up so I look better. And that those those people you shouldn't tolerate at all.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Yeah. Uh I I want to I want to call out a couple of things there. The ability to set the right expectation, the ability to be clear with what success looks like goes back to your call out of did you show them what right looked like? And being able to set clear expectations that goes back to Kim Scott and clear is kind and that entire thought process. It also is a real good blend with traction. Uh, you know, my my first agency was an EOS implementation shop. And one of the negative pieces of feedback that EOS gets is it removes the human emotional element of uh of a business. And our counter to that was always your culture as the human element, and this is the system, right? And if we can, if they know we're doing it with empathy and care and passion, then we can put the system in place on top of that. The system is not meant to strip all of that away. And then the third, I'm gonna give a shout out to one of my favorite books by Dan Heath called Upstream, which is all about solving problems well before uh they become massive issues. And I think it it goes to your point about the contracts. A lot of times, if we just look at the process, we see, oh, wow, it's actually not really a massive problem. It's just a disconnect, or it's a it's an email exchange that get that went awry just a little bit, and we can solve that problem before it becomes a massive issue. So um I I loved each of those examples. I do want to ask you, you mentioned the naming of the the task and of the of the solution. And as you pair that with uh delegate and elevate within within traction, is that something where if Justin's out, we know who has Justin's back? Is that something where you have kind of that built-in process as well?

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, I think uh that's just a a mindset we learned in the military is uh one is none, two is uh two is one, and three is too many, right? And so uh every every action or every uh process in our we call it the pat tool. Every process in the pat tool uh has a primary and secondary. And so uh if, for example, uh Jeff's out on vacation and we need to get an invoice out, we have a secondary. Now they might need some guidance and help because they know kind of how to do it because they that's not their primary job, so we help them, but everybody, everybody has a primary and secondary, and so uh it's a it's an important part of uh a mindset that allows for people to go on vacation and not worry because uh I'm a big proponent of you need you need time off, right? You need to recharge, you need to get, you need to turn off the teams notifications and your chats and all that kind of stuff and just not have to worry. And I think with uh you know, specifically with Red Leviathan and Greencastle, I think we've built uh great systems that allow for that to happen. Now, as a leader, just you're naturally going to check and be in there anyways, but yeah, uh you you're monitoring versus uh meddling. And uh the yeah, the other thing that I do uh I think is extremely important, important for almost any leader is take tactical absences, right? So if like for example, we were implementing traction at Red Lev and I would pick certain days not to be at the level 10 meeting in order to as the visionary to let one let the integrator own it, but also for him to kind of struggle through it and then to learn it. And if I was there to save him, which uh he didn't need saving, but you know, if I was there and I was a safety. If you jumped in, he would never he would never learn and uh and and grow. And so I do that, uh I've done that throughout my career a lot, is I would give somebody a new task. Uh the way we learned it in the teams is you see it, you do it, and then you teach it, right? And so if you see it and you let the person do it a couple of times, then you should one let them do it, and two, uh give them a few opportunities without you looking over their shoulder to really uh uh try it, try to try to do it in their own way. And then that that brings me to uh you know back to the radical candor and corrective correcting behavior. A lot of leaders think that a style difference is a behavior that needs to be corrected when really they should just be looking at substantive uh differences in uh the outcome that way they were looking for. So let me explain that, which is let's say I'm in charge of painting cars, right? And uh and I learned uh from somebody to paint the cars top to bottom, boom, and it and it it that's the way it is. And but the goal is ultimately to have a nice clean car with with the right color paint. I train somebody else and they find that they do it better by going from to front to back. Product is as good or if not better than what I did. Should I correct them and say, no, you're supposed to go from top to bottom? Or do I let them add their flair, add their uh, you know, little bit of uh uh you know, personality to it and let them go with it? And I that's that's a a struggle, I think, for a lot of leaders is because the way I do it is the right way, no matter what.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

And uh they get frustrated when they delegate, and the person doesn't necessarily do it the exactly the same way. You see it in relationships too, but uh you see it in in work a lot. But really, what a leader should be asking is is am I getting the outcome that I that I'm desiring? And uh if that person, because I've been surprised more times than once, where I've shown somebody how to do it and they go, okay, great. And then what's the intent? What are you really trying to get at? And I tell them, hey, this is what we're trying to do, and then they find a way to do it faster, better, uh, you know, and why should I get pissed off if they're not doing exactly the way I did it when they can do it in a shorter period of time at a higher quality? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Oh, and and that's where having guardrails and having a system and a process, hey, here's the process, here's the system within it, play within that sandbox. The way that I might get to five million is different than the way Joe might get to five million, or the way that we might do a task is different. But if we're doing it within the same methodology, the same uh, you know, mission, vision, values, all of the above, then heck yeah, that's what makes an organization great. So, Joe, we we're we're at the final part here where we go into some rapid fire questions. Before we do that, uh, I want to give you a chance. There's no question here. This wasn't in the outline, but I want you to talk if you're comfortable, just about the the the veteran aspect of the organizations. You mentioned the largest veteran uh let organization uh in the country until someone stops you. Why is that so important to you? What makes it unique? Uh, what fires you up? Um, you know, I I we want to we wanna I want to shut a light on that. And and certainly as I think back to my conversation with John Stenberg and saying, hey, we, you know, there's more veteran leaders that we can interview on this podcast. I want to hear from you, Joe, and and just kind of why that's been so pivotal to the organization. Success as well.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Yeah, that's a good question. Because we uh years ago when we were first uh thinking about how should we market ourselves, uh, we marketed ourselves as an all-veteran company uh uh and veteran-owned, right? And we didn't really get a lot of traction in the consulting world around it. So uh one of the key shifts is I said, let's just be a really good consulting firm that are all veterans and uh versus an all-veteran firm that does consulting. And so when we made that shift, we really started to uh to hone in on the quality and all that kind of stuff. And it made it was even better than I expected because everybody was a veteran and they had that shared experience. And because the the other side of it is is there a lot of people uh when they're looking for jobs, they're they're not willing to put up with a lot of BS or a lot of oh, this is broke or that kind of thing. And uh a key mantra of mine is every organization is screwed up. Every organization. It's just a matter of whether what's screwed up is acceptable to you. And so Greencastle is screwed up, but the things that are uh screwed up are acceptable to veterans because it they just know it doesn't matter. It's just like eh, whatever. I'm still getting paid and doing a good job, right? And uh, yeah, okay, we could have done that better. Let's do it better next time, but eh, let's move on. And they have that mentality of uh it's not the end of the world if something doesn't get done. And uh they also have a high level of accountability because I guarantee you every single, every every person that's worked for worked for me has been called out on the carpet by a senior officer at some point and been chewed out, and you know how it feels. And so it's like, you know, we we we understand uh when something falls through the crack and and uh uh we just we do everything that we can do to prevent that from happening.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Yeah. Oh, I love it. All right, let's thank you for thank you for uh going down that pathway, Joe. It's uh I think it's uh it was a uh question that I wanted to make sure that I asked, and certainly something that we want to share as well. But I do have to ask you the four rapid fire questions before we get you out of here. Uh 30 seconds for each answer. Question number one. What is one leadership habit that you rely on every day, no matter what?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Oh uh planning my week, uh planning my day. Uh and so I have a planner. And it went from when I was uh in charge of the day-to-day from a huge list uh and a lot of stuff to do to now uh I can do it on a weekly basis. But uh I look ahead and I and I plan things to make sure that uh uh you know that I I I'm supporting the teams as they need.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Yeah, I love it. I love it. What is uh and the question number two, what is the most underrated skill that a leader needs to succeed today?

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Uh decision making and velocity of action. Sometimes uh people get so uh wrapped around a decision that they want to talk to this person or talk to the group. Hey, what do you guys think? And in a lot of ways, uh the role of a leader is just to make the decision and deal with the consequences and uh and then have velocity of action behind it. Uh if you make a decision and and there nothing happens, people see it and it starts to erode the organization.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Yeah, I love pairing the being able to make the decision with the velocity of action uh and being able to run with it. On the opposite side of that, we're going for question number three. What is one thing that you believe great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Uh, focusing on things outside their control. I'm a big uh fan of stoicism and uh I'm also in a vistage group. So a lot of conversations are around the economy and tariffs and Iran and the cartels, and it's like I I can't do anything about that. All I can do is is uh really build a business that's resilient and uh gonna be inoculated from that stuff as much as possible. But if at the end of the day a nuclear bomb goes off in Philly, what can I do?

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Yeah. I I uh I've had a couple of conversations about the world, the market this week already, and it's only Tuesday, and so much of it is hey, we gotta be proactive. There's yeah, that that you know, COVID changed everything, but it happened in 2008, happened in 2001, happened in, you know, it's it the businesses that are proactive, the businesses that have the right people in the systems are the ones that can prevail. And to your point, when when the when something happens that eliminates that possibility, then something happens that eliminates that possibility, and it's outside of your control regardless. So uh I love it. Question number four, last one here on the rapid fire. What's the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_00 48:39

I learned this in Bud's uh SEAL training uh when I was going through uh don't confuse effort with performance. And so uh goes back to some of our conversation of uh I don't care how hard you try, just get it done, right? Uh and it's a very Gen X way of looking at things. Uh the millennials don't necessarily like that, but uh it is a uh it is the the only thing that matters is outcomes. And if you've clearly defined the outcomes, uh then you're gonna have a good organization. And so um, yeah, don't confuse effort with performance.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

I I think back to uh I used to I used to oh I used to give over effort in high school basketball, balls already out of bounds, and then you would see me diving, and I finally had a coach come up to me and say, everybody sees that, and that's not what we're looking for here.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

And I love I I haven't heard it said that way. Uh don't confuse effort with with outcomes. Uh I love that.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

In that scenario, you in that scenario, you could be getting upset because you're putting out this extra effort that nobody's recognizing when the extra effort isn't needed. And so that's good that the coach said something to you to kind of be like, hey, look, dude, don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Yeah, it's not needed. It's not needed. Uh oh gosh. All right. Last question of the day, and then we'll get you out of here, Joe. Who is a leader? Uh, who's a leader that you believe that we should interview next? Could be inside an organization, somebody that you've worked with, somebody that you, you know, consider a peer. Who is that leader that the activating greatness uh audience can learn from?

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Uh Nick Learman comes to mind. Uh, he runs Team Foster. He's also an Army Jag, and uh he's grown his organization from a small uh local thing to now uh uh a regional uh organization that provides uh service dogs to veterans and they raise uh a ton of money to do that. And so uh it's a not-for-profit, but he's he's been the leader of that organization for a while. Him and his wife, Erica, do a really good job of looking out for the veterans. Uh, they're both veterans, and uh, you know, creating uh just uh uh a program that uh gives dogs to to veterans that deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

I love it. You said it's Nick and Erica, right? Yeah. Okay, awesome. I will I will absolutely I'm gonna I'll follow up with you to try to get some contact information. I always share the video of you saying, you know, the guests saying the the nice words about them, and we'll try to get them on the podcast. I think maybe we could have them both join, uh, which would be uh a lot of fun. Joe, I knew you're not fighting.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Yeah, it ends up being counseling the entire time. Uh put them on the spot. I Joe, this is uh, you know, when I when we had our prep call about a month ago, I knew this episode was one that I was gonna be really excited about. Joe on our team messaged me over and over again. Gosh, Joe is so smart. You're gonna this episode's gonna be great. Uh, he was not wrong. I was not wrong. This was exactly what we were looking for. I think everybody that's listening to this uh not only uh learned a lot, but have a lot of actionable insights that they can implement with their team. Uh want to give you, you know, the microphone one last time. Any final thoughts or takeaways that you have for the audience?

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Uh trust the EOS process and uh hold your people accountable and reward them when they do well. It's you know, really simple. It's not it's not hard, it's tedious.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Yeah. It's uh we overcomplicate it, right? Uh I love even the hold holding them accountable uh and reward them when they do well. It's it we overcomplicate it and we make it harder than it needs to be. Everybody that is listening to this, you're probably thinking Joe's episode is your favorite one yet. Uh absolutely connect with Joe on LinkedIn. Go look at Greencastle, look at Red Lev. Um, make sure that you follow their work, connect with Joe on LinkedIn. Let them know that the Activating Greatness podcast is where you discovered him. If you did love this episode, leave it a five-star review. Uh, we're 24, 25 episodes in now. Can't believe it. Uh, it's already March 31st as we're recording this. We've got 80 episodes in the plans for 2026. Every Monday and Thursday we're releasing Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Velocity Advisory Group, wherever you get your podcast. The only reason we're able to do this is because of unbelievable guests like Joe, but also because of the audience that continues to ask for this type of content, the ask for the stories that Joe and our other guests are sharing. So make sure you uh subscribe, leave a five-star review, download all of the episodes on the platform of your choosing. And thank you, as always, for being a part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Joe, thank you so much. Can't say enough how how much fun I had on this episode and really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to share with me and to share with the activating greatness audience. No, thank you for having me. Absolutely. And as always, we'll see you on the next episode of Activating Greatness. Have a great day.