Unedited Transcript

Jim Rembach (00:00):

Okay, fast leader Legion today. I’m excited because I have somebody who is sitting in a soul home. No, that’s not why I’m excited. I’m excited because we’re going to have a discussion about three things that are really important to your ability to making an impact on this world. And that means internally and externally for your organization. So, yes, we’re talking about the employee experience. Of course, the customer experience, Patrick F S Frazier was born in Chicago and moved to GOARN Missouri, a small town with flute, fewer than 200 people at the age of seven, being raised in a rural farming community. As the eldest of six children, Patrick, learned to care for others, lead others at an early age and never be late for dinner. He taught his dad, taught him the importance of hard work, resourcefulness and determination while his mom taught him to have fun and whatever you do, these qualities inspired Patrick to leave a small farming community and to become the first member of his family to attend college and receive a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Jim Rembach (00:57):

Patrick began his career as an airline control programmer for TWA and later with American airlines and United airlines. In 1991, he moved to South bend Indiana on a three-month contract for the associates and eventually advanced to lead an organization of 250 employees for city groups, card services, statement processing facility in 2005, Patrick launched his executive coaching practice, which currently serves and carry certifications from trusted advisors, inner metrics, total quality improvement, Robbins international, and Gazelles gravitas impact coaches. He has helped to solve business problems for nearly 100 companies and professionally developed over 2,500 individuals along with rich experiences and training and leadership. Patrick has numerous community affiliations and professional commendations under his name due to his helping nature and ability to lead. He is always eager to find a better and optimized way of doing things. He is an avid reader problem solver and hence proven fierce competitor during his free time. Patrick enjoys traveling, pickup basketball and spending time with his grandkids. He’s a Christ follower, faithful husband, who has been married for 38 years, a servant leader in his family and a role model for the next generation of leaders. Currently Patrick lives in Westfield, Indiana, or just near to Indianapolis and his wife and four children now. And he has a wife. We mentioned of course, but he has four daughters and 10 grandkids and counting Patrick fray, Patrick S. Frazier, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Patrick S. Frazier (02:33):

I am. Thank you, Jim. So

Jim Rembach (02:36):

I’m glad you’re here. Oh, I’m glad you’re here now. I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you, but can you share which current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Patrick S. Frazier (02:44):

That’s great. You know, Jim, I’m really excited first of all, to be here with the listeners sand, I’m looking forward to this day for quite a while. You know, my passion is pretty simply just helping small to midsize businesses help win, right, Jim, you know, 96% of businesses today fail to scale, right? And when you look at why that is, is really pretty simple because they’re failing either because of poor marketing, lack of leadership or poor lack of execution disciplines. So as I mentioned in the introduction, I’m a competitor and I love to win and I love to help others. And I’m passionate about helping David beat Goliath, you know, and a lot of times helping small and mid-sized businesses scale and expand. That’s so important because that’s where our customer experience lives. That’s where our employees live. Those are our families, those are our communities, right? And I just believe that it’s that small businesses have that right framework. They have the right resources, right? If they have the right accountabilities, then they can win. They can beat the odds. They can stack the deck against failure and they can be one of the 4% that actually went in. That really gets me excited, Jim.

Jim Rembach (04:00):

Well, and as you’re talking, I start thinking about the power of proximity. And, you know, there’s been stories told about, you know, the smaller business, uh, that was greatly impacted by that mega retailer that came into town. You know, and there’s a lot of those stories where that mega retailer suffered, you know, because of certain elements and components associated with just the way that they go about doing business, that really allowed that smaller midsize organization with that power of proximity to grow beyond what they would have originally, uh, because of that big box store coming in.

Patrick S. Frazier (04:39):

That’s great. And you know, I believe that businesses today have everything they need within their own organizations to succeed. They just haven’t been asked the right questions. They haven’t developed their talent or develop the potential that it’s already within their organizations. You see the small guy can compete with the big guy because they’re not burdened by all the bureaucracy of the big guy, the big box, right? So if we can create an environment where we’re developing our leaders within our organization, developing that potential small and mid-sized companies can win, they’re more nimble, they’re lean mean fight machines, right. And, um, and that’s just so excited to be a part of that.

Jim Rembach (05:25):

Well, and as you’re talking, um, I started thinking about that, that smaller organization and that transition and that scale dilemma, uh, you talk about three core areas being, you know, the whole marketing leadership and then the execution component. But I start going back to something that a friend of mine who, um, essentially what he does is goes into mid-size organizations and help them prepare themselves for being acquired. So, Hey, you know, I have a, a, a group of ownership and, you know, if they’ve made decision for whatever reason that it’s time to, you know, sell the business, right. So they have to prepare themselves kind of like we would all sell our own home. I think, you know, you’re sitting in a home that you guys just sold and you’re getting ready to relocate. Um, but you know, you have things that you need to do in order to prepare that, to get their best price. Right. And that’s what he does. And a lot of times what he’ll do is he’ll have to, he’ll find himself going into these mid-sized organizations and, and looking and saying that one of the reasons that, um, could impact, uh, and that does impact their resell value, but has also impacted their ability to scale and get even larger is because all of their processes and practices and policies they’re in the heads of people and they can’t be followed by others. Do you find that?

Patrick S. Frazier (06:46):

No, that is a great observation. And I’d love to have coffee with your friend, you know, and talking more about that. You know, I commonly run into to business owners that are in that situation as well. They think it, you know, at some point I’d like to exit this business or I’d either like to sell it, or I would like to hand it off to that next generation. Right. And whether it’s now, or whether it’s tomorrow or some point in the future, what we want to do is we want to maximize the value. That’s going to give that owner the most options in the future. And we want to give them the most options at the greatest value in the future, whether we hand it off or whether we sell it or whether we decide to keep part of it. Right. W how, w what are some of the things that we can do to maximize the value?

Patrick S. Frazier (07:40):

And there are specific things that we can do to work on it. One of those things, as you’ve mentioned is, is the owner replaceable. In other words, Jen, if I come in and I want to buy your business, right. And we agree on some price and we make a transaction, right. But if you’re the one that’s running the entire business, you’re the one selling, you’re the one doing all the customer service. You’re the one doing all the finance right after I buy your business. If you leave your company, isn’t worth anything. Right. So we talk about one of the value or the multipliers and receiving the maximum value for your company. Is, are your processes defined and documented? And do we have the right people doing the right things to get the right results? And is the owner, or are the key positions, um, redundant in the sense that we have process that allows us to go hire somebody else? Right. So we want to make sure that we’ve got the right people doing the right things at the right to get the right outcomes and to document those processes so that we received the maximum value. So we have the greatest number of options in the future. They point people, when I think about let’s, let’s think

Jim Rembach (08:56):

About it and maybe even a little bit of a larger organization. And, and, and I’m thinking about myself being in a position where I am say I’m managing frontline staff, I’ve got to do the same thing for my frontline people. I have to make myself replaceable. Now it’s counterintuitive because people will say, well, gosh, now it puts me at risk for being replaced. And I, I, for me, I have to beg to difference, say that puts you in a position to be elevated.

Patrick S. Frazier (09:22):

Mm, great, great, great point. Yep. You know, for, um, for those that, um, maybe I’ve ever been in a point in their career where they were not able to take a job of greater responsibility because they had not developed a success. Right. Those people look at the world completely different than those that have never had that happen to them. Right. To think that, you know, if I train somebody else or I develop somebody else and they can do their, uh, my job, then why would the company ever need me? Right. That’s scarcity mentality. Right. But if you look at it in an abundance mentality, that if I can train or develop the potential within others, right. Then that opens a whole new world of opportunities for me, for me to add greater value to a company or an organization.

Jim Rembach (10:15):

Well, and that issue right there, and the lack of it to me is one of the significant contributors to the whole execution issue that a lot of organizations deal with. Right. Because I have not essentially done a good job of succession planning at all levels. And then therefore, when it comes to executing on plans, it stops art stop. And then I wonder why things didn’t happen.

Patrick S. Frazier (10:42):

Hmm. You, no, that’s really interesting. Um, I had a, um, just this morning, um, one of my clients is a very large auto dealer here in Northwest Indiana. And I was meeting with, uh, the, the manager of, uh, the dealership at the time. And we were talking about, um, he just didn’t understand how come there was so much drama. He didn’t understand how come there was. Uh, uh, there was no ownership. He didn’t really understand how they, uh, couldn’t consistently hit their targets. And I just simply said, well, have you define the priorities for each of your department leaders? And he said, well, uh, I suppose I go, well, that isn’t a real strong answer. It’s either yes or no, you either have, or your habits. And I go, if I were to go interview each of your department managers and ask them what their top three priorities are, what would they tell me?

Patrick S. Frazier (11:37):

And he goes, well, I would hope they would. I go a hope as an appliance, right? We’ve all heard that. So I said, the first thing we need to do, we need to clarify what the priorities are. Secondly, we need to understand what the metric is for that priority, right? And then third need to understand what the goal or the desired outcome is for that priority. Right? And if we understand the priority, we understand the metric and the goal. And then we have proper communication rhythm. Those are the elements of execution. As I mentioned, 96% of companies fail because of one of the three reasons. And the number one of the three is execution. And it’s really not that hard. What’s your priorities, what’s your metrics of what your communication rhythms and Oh, by the way, that communication rhythm is a form of accountability. And then accountability is a good thing because it teaches people what’s important on the business and what drives the business and how to prepare for the business. And it’s developing those people within the organization to mind the things that matter most, it’s a great form of training as a form of accountability.

Jim Rembach (12:47):

And so for me, I often try to boil it down for my simple mind and to say that I need to be able to inspect what I expect. If I have not done a good job of conveyance and informing and developing the expectations, you know, what am I going to get from my inspection? Right. I mean, it’s, and then I have to reinforce it, right? So there’s, there’s many different elements to all of this. And so if I talk about this 96%, and I talk about these three core areas, and if we’re talking about an organization and we know what the number one is, but oftentimes when you start talking about the number one issue, problem, constraint, whatever you want to call it, that oftentimes isn’t where you focus. You know, you have to focus on something else in order to impact that. Do you find that to be true?

Patrick S. Frazier (13:35):

No, that’s interesting. A really interesting observation. What I’ve experienced firsthand is that, and we probably heard this from the textbooks, but you know, what you, what you measure generally improves, right? Even if you make no changes to the system or anything else, but if you just start to measure it, it’s telling people that that’s important enough that we measure and they tend to pay attention to it. So for measuring quality quality improves, if we’re measuring timeliness that improves or migrant production or units that tends to improve just by measuring it. And we also know from textbooks and say, once you can’t measure, you can’t manage or what you don’t measure, you can’t manage. Right. So we can’t influence that, right? So this whole idea of determining what the metric is, what the measure is and setting the goals is really an important part of this improvement or achieving desirable outcomes.

Patrick S. Frazier (14:35):

That would be my experience. Now you bring up a really good point and the, you know, what, if you focus on and, and measure and manage something that’s out on the outside, I would tend to call that a leading right. There are leading indicators and lagging indicators. There are certain things that are important and desirable results are outcomes that are truly lagging indicators, right. But one, if we look at those leading indicators, the things that we do that produce the lagging indicators, right? So I think you’re absolutely right, but I, the, the vernacular is just a little different. I would call it a leading indicator and a lagging indicator. The things that we measure up front to produce some desirable outcome in the end. Does that make sense?

Jim Rembach (15:22):

It absolutely does. And that’s for me when I started thinking about, okay, if I’m talking about being more customer centric, executing on behalf of the customer, uh, you know, delivering an experience that differentiates, you know, talking about taking advantage of all the things that I may have, uh, that have more of a personal touch and feel because that’s the core of who I am. If I’m a medium sized business, and by the way, large companies are trying to do the same thing they’re trying to extract, right. They’re trying to human and create that type of empathetic, um, you know, compassionate type of connection. I mean, everybody, that’s essentially the competitive ground right now. And so when I start talking about that and, you know, hitting most those elements, you know, being able to make a difference, impact, a better customer experience, do you find, you know, that organizations don’t have the measures and metrics in place for that? Or do you find they’re looking somewhere else? I think it’s, I think

Patrick S. Frazier (16:18):

Interesting. I think for our listeners too, we might say, you know, say a desired outcome or a measure is, uh, financial success, you know, top line revenue or profitability or something like that, right. That might be a desired outcome for your CFO or the CEO or your board or whatever. But we know that there’s this thing called for example, the net promoter score right now, our listeners know the net promoter score is, um, uh, you take your, uh, uh, your, you know, the percentage of nines and tens. Those that wouldn’t be, you know, agree with, uh, you know, they would recommend, um, our business or product or service to friends or family, and you subtract to tractors, right? The zero through six, that percentage, and then come up with a score. Now here’s the thing, Jen is we know that net promoter score is a leading indicator to your future success and profitability, right?

Patrick S. Frazier (17:15):

So we can look at that net promoter score real early. And we can tell if a company is on a, on a trend line for success in the future financially, right. And profitability and growth and all of those things. So, um, you know, absolutely you have to look at the leading indicators and you have to back that up, but we can back that up, even what goes into the net promoter score, right? One of the things that we do and how do we measure those things contribute to advancing that net promoter score, creating more rabid, uh, zealous fans of what we do. Those people that are buying more of our product or service, those people that are out there referring us to others. Right. So that we continue to advance and grow.

Jim Rembach (17:59):

Yeah. And, you know, you bring up an interesting point. So when you still put them out, you know, customer experience metrics is a slew of them, you know, you know, hate net promoter. You know, some people love it. Some are apathetic, some will measure customer effort, some will measure satisfaction, some won’t. And I think one of the things you said a moment ago is really most important here is that it’s, it’s where we focus. Right? So every single customer experience based metric has issues, every single one of them. But the point is that we’re at least focusing,

Patrick S. Frazier (18:36):

Right. I, uh, you know, when I was running the print and mail facility for city group, um, it was, it was a huge job and responsibility from running a smaller it staff. But, um, I learned to, to, uh, to get my team to, and they would today, you know, 20 years later, they would still remember focus, align, execute. And that was the mantra focus on what’s important, align our resources, right. And our behaviors around what it is that we want to accomplish and then just run the place, execute. Right. And so focus, align, execute. And that, you know, I still get people that I’ve run into around, down the pump into may focus, align, execute. Right. Yeah. You know, what was your first name again? Right. So, but they, um, you know, kind of remember that mom. So I think what you focus on, you tend to, uh, tend to find, um, I had a really good friend, short story, Jim, but a good friend that lives in st.

Patrick S. Frazier (19:41):

Simon’s Island. Um, and, um, he lives on golf course and he has one job according to his wife. Right. And that’s to walk the dog, right. So he’s a little overweight and his job is every morning to walk the dog every night to walk the dog. So he gets on one morning, puts on his coat, starts to walk the dog, the golf course, hundreds of times, he looks down. For some reason, he sees a golf ball. So he picks it up and he goes, Hmm, that’s not odd at all, but I’ve never noticed it. And all the times that I’ve walked, you know, a golf course, sure. There’s going to be golf balls. So it puts the golf ball in his pocket continues to walk. And now he’s looking for golf balls and, you know, he finds about a half, a dozen golf balls and he puts them in his pocket.

Patrick S. Frazier (20:22):

He hangs his coat up, puts the dog away. Then he comes back in the evening, picks up his coat, feels the weight of a golf balls. Oh yeah. Golf balls. So he starts looking at any fines about a half a dozen more. And he goes through this routine. He says, after about the third day, he goes, don’t, you know, the dog. And I reset her. He was not the smartest breed on the planet, but the dog started out golf balls. Right. So then he finishes the story. After 30 days, he pulls out, he goes, he pulls out two milk crates full of golf balls. And he goes, I learned something that day. He goes, you know what you focus on? You’ll find, and you’ll find golf balls. If you’re looking for golf balls, if you’re looking to improve the customer experience, you’ll find a way to improve the customer experience. You’ll find that right metric that drives the behaviors that produce that experience. You’re looking for.

Jim Rembach (21:21):

I love that story. Um, and that, and I also have to share is even more personal for me because my family keeps bugging me about getting a dog. And I said, I’m only getting one dog. If you want it. Now we have to agree upon that one dog. So my one dog is an Irish.

Patrick S. Frazier (21:40):

Yeah.

Jim Rembach (21:43):

I had experience with my aunt. My aunt had Irish setter and I had some fond memories. And I said, that’s the only kind of dog I want, if you don’t want, guess what? No dog.

Patrick S. Frazier (21:51):

Yeah. Well, they’re a friendly breed

Jim Rembach (21:58):

Bright. Now it wasn’t very bright, but you know, that’s

Patrick S. Frazier (22:01):

Yeah. Right.

Jim Rembach (22:03):

I think it’s really important for us to talk about that. Um, in a multitude of different ways, because our focus can often get very, very distorted, twisted, diverted, I mean, all of those things. Um, and, and those cause problems in a multitude of ways that we just don’t necessarily realize drama, drama, drama, drama. Right. Well, how does it happen? The drama happens because we haven’t done a good focusing job and we haven’t really put ourselves in alignment. Um, and I also think it’s important to talk about the whole repetition piece. And when you start talking about leading and being a leader, that reputation or that repetition piece is vital

Patrick S. Frazier (22:47):

And that broken

Jim Rembach (22:49):

Record, that people, you know, Oh, what’s your name, but I know what you’re telling

Patrick S. Frazier (22:53):

Me. Right.

Jim Rembach (22:56):

They forget your name, but they know what your focus is to me. I think that’s ultimately going to create that better outcome,

Patrick S. Frazier (23:03):

You know, um, you know, adults, you know, learn things and, um, you know, a couple of, couple of ways, you know, we, uh, we learn by, um, impact, right. Something, you know, something happened that impacted our lives. Right. Um, we learned, um, a couple of other ways, but the way I wanted to kind of talk to our listeners about is one of the key ways that we learn things is through spaced repetition. And, you know, it’s really pretty simple. It just says, if you hear something, you know, once or twice, right. You’re likely to remember, you know, less than 10% of that, you know, after 30 minutes, no, you know, I’m 60 years old. So, you know, I, you know, I may not remember it until I get my car. Right. Sort of thing. But space repetition says, if you hear something, you know, six or seven times within a short period of time, you know, say a couple of days, sequentially over member, um, you know, 60, 70%.

Patrick S. Frazier (24:13):

And not just till you get to the car, you’ll remember it, um, for 15 or 20 years. Right. So it’s, you know, it’s a great way to learn. So, you know, if you’re leading, right, it may seem like that you’re repeating yourself over and over and you may feel guilty about that. But the reality is that’s part of the leadership responsibility is, is to beat that drum to say, this is the vision, this is the mission. These are our priorities. This is what we have to do. Right. Um, because that’s how people learn. If you question this thing called space repetition, then just take a moment and, and, and just listen to the TV or when you pick up your, uh, you know, your cellular device, right. You know, you’re getting ads over and over and over again. Right. So if it works for a multi-billion dollar industry, don’t you think it would work for something as important as leadership in our organizations?

Jim Rembach (25:16):

Well, it has, it is proven in science. I mean, the problem is it’s just not common and in what we’ll have to look at the other side of what you’re talking about and what we oftentimes fall into as a trap, when we start talking about leading and we talk about spaced repetition, and we start target, we really have to stop and essentially assess ourselves. And we have, we have to listen back to what we ourselves are saying, because we could be enforcing or reinforcing or galvanizing a particular message that we never intended to do.

Patrick S. Frazier (25:52):

Right. You know? Um, that is so true, Jim. I mean only 7% of what we communicate is the words that we used. Right. That other 93% is the tone and the body language. Right. So when we’re communicating to people, right, as part of that employee experience or to our customers, right. We have to make sure that the words and the tone, the body language match, right. Because we think what we’re saying, the words is what’s being interpreted, but what’s really being interpreted is that 90, uh, 93%, that tone and language, or that tone and body language. Right. And, um, so there has to be that alignment between tone, body language and the words that we use, or we’re sending about mixed messages

Jim Rembach (26:44):

And let’s convey that to the customer. Right. So if our relations with our customers to contain certain elements, and we’re also coaching our people to say certain things, certain things sometimes, um, you know, w we have to really take into, into mind, you know, what that could, for example, be impacting in regards to our net promoter score.

Patrick S. Frazier (27:05):

Right. Very good. Very good. I love it. Love the connection.

Jim Rembach (27:09):

So all of this, and when we start talking about execution, when we start talking about marketing, when we start talking about, uh, you know, the leadership and all these different aspects and elements, you know, survivable, uh, you know, new leadership change impacting frontline, I mean, cautious, it’s just riddled with tons of emotions. And one of them to talk about that focus, you know, how, where do we focus on the show as we look at quotes to help us focus? Is there a quote that you like that you can,

Patrick S. Frazier (27:36):

Oh, I thought about the, um, um, and I really think there’s a, there are so many, right. I mean, uh, number one, my favorite quote of all time is if you want a two extra company, you need to three X your rate of learning. Right. Um, I love that quote because it really puts, you know, leaders, you know, you know, you know, leaders have to lead leaders have to be learners and leaders have to be readers. Right. We have to read. And I use reading, you know, somewhat generically. I mean, you know, some of us listen to podcasts, some of us watch videos, but we have to constantly be learning. That’s really the only, um, um, insurance that we have of being successful in the future. Right. The other, the other quote is really one that, um, um, I learned a long time ago and I still love, it’s only been a good answer from Zig Ziglar.

Patrick S. Frazier (28:35):

And I remember him saying one time, uh, we didn’t have podcasts back then. Right. And it was probably over a radio, um, uh, uh, radio, uh, session or something like that. But he said, he said, um, you know, uh, the, the only difference between a little shot and a big shot is a big shot, used to be a little shot that just kept on shooting. And I love that because, um, it really talks about, um, you know, really in business. I think that today persistence is more important than intelligence. Right. You just gotta keep trying, you just gotta keep going. And if that doesn’t work, what did you learn from that experience? Right. And then try it again and just keep trying pivot and persist. Okay. So, yeah, I love that.

Jim Rembach (29:28):

Yep. It goes through and, and, and oftentimes learn those lessons the hard way is that you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share.

Patrick S. Frazier (29:38):

Yeah. You know, and, um, back in, um, 1982 to, uh, to, to 99, I had, you know, primarily my, my role was in information technology and I had teams of 25, 30, 40 programmers developers and that sort of thing. And then in early 2000, right. Right. Or if we rolled over in the new millennia, right. If you were in it, or any of our listeners are in it during that time, you remember how exciting it was. Right. Because we thought the world was going to crash because all of our computers were going to go belly up. It was very anti-climatic for those of us that were in it, the world didn’t man, just because we rolled over in 2000, but I remember that shortly after that, I took a job, um, and took a leap out of it and into operations. Right. And it was basically, I had reached a point in it where I was, you know, my, the programmers joked and said, look, he’s, he’s moved up the ladder he’s been promoted because he can’t code anymore.

Patrick S. Frazier (30:41):

Right. You know? So, um, so I had to take those leadership skills and transfer those into a statement operation for the associates right now, when I jumped in to the new seat, right. And the corner office, the vice president, the area director, I had over a hundred people reporting to me, I had, um, had to, had to do a building expansion that, um, uh, increased, uh, the floor space by 50%. I had, uh, uh, dozens of customers that had to maintain service level agreements with, and, um, vendors for printers and in sorters and sorters. And it was, um, I had a $300 million postage, but right. So it was a pretty big set of shoes. And there was a lot of stuff going on. I had, I had operations managers that were responsible for team supervisors and shift leaders. Right. So I had new layers that I had to figure out and, uh, uh, how to, um, how to manage and how to lead.

Patrick S. Frazier (31:46):

And my mail inbox exploded. Right. I ahead over a hundred emails every day, you know, and I had to give town hall presentation. So it was all new and all very exciting. And, you know, I felt like I had to be always on, I had to be in the middle of everything. I had to be the thug guy that made all the decisions. Right. And it wasn’t very long before I was just physically drained, exhausted, and, and, uh, emotionally, and honestly, I started to get behind. Right. I don’t think I was doing a very good job and, you know, people kept telling me, I need to delegate, delegate. You need to delegate, you need to delegate. Right. You need to go learn how to delegate you to delegate. So I did, I took a deep breath and want to give it up, but I did. Right. So I made a list and then I just went around to all my operations manager and just start a deal on a, like a deck of cards. Right. And, um, it felt, it felt awesome. I don’t remember that day. You know, my list went from this big, you know, that big, it felt awesome. I was free, you know, it wasn’t my problem anymore. It was our problem. Right. And, um, let’s just say it was not a good employee experience.

Patrick S. Frazier (33:03):

Um, in fact, um, uh, they actually had a name for me. Right. And it was called the Harbor painter. Well, if you’ve been in the military, a Harbor painter as a seagull, right. And the reason they call it Harbor painters, they fly over the Harbor and they paint the Harbor. Right. So that was the nickname that my team was giving me the Harbor painter, because I would fly over and I would crap. Right. I would fly off. Right. And, um, so, um, I learned, you know, the definition of that one day and it didn’t, you know, and I realized that, uh, that was not a good thing. Well, my boss heard about it. Right. And he was in Dallas, Texas, and he decided he was going to come visit me. Right. And spend some time with me. And I thought, Oh, great. This ought to be good. Right. It’s never good when the boss comes into town. But actually Jim, he gave me a couple pieces of advice. And this is where the story really turned good. He saw that I was reading everything and in the middle of everything and trying to ingest everything, he says, Pat, he says, look, if you’re going to eat like an elephant, you better learn how to crack like an elephant.

Patrick S. Frazier (34:16):

And I thought, gosh, what what’s he telling me there while he was telling me that I needed to be able to learn how to pull out that 20% that I really needed quickly and let the other 80% go. Right. And that was such really good advice, um, to be able to learn how to get what I needed to summarize and to be able to get that, those nuggets of information. And then he told me, he said, Pat, you need to have the courage to let others fail. And I thought, wow. Um, no, I don’t think he put me in this position, Jim, to, to fail. But what he was saying was he says, you know, people learn stuff when they, when they learn stuff, when they fail, but it was not acceptable for me to not develop the people on my team. So, because I thought everything had to be perfect and everything had to be delivered on time.

Patrick S. Frazier (35:07):

Everything in the, you know, everything had to be just right according to my standards. Right. I wasn’t giving people the opportunity to try to win some and to fail some, but to lose, um, or to win that chance to develop themselves. Right. And because I wasn’t developing the people on my team, it was really putting the organization in jeopardy in the future. Okay. So there was no succession, you know, it was a good day that day because I learned that, um, I had to pull out that 20% of the information and I had to let the 80% go. And I also learned that I had to have the courage to let other space who was great wisdom and letting others fail so they could learn so they could grow so that we can continue to develop the talent within our organization.

Jim Rembach (35:58):

I mean, for me, you talking about that and thinking about the discussion that we’ve had, that was the building blocks of you being able to learn how to execute and help your team do that.

Patrick S. Frazier (36:09):

Exactly. Yep. Exactly. It was a, um, it was a great day. I mean, I got to say, you know, it was a little anxious, you know, the boss was coming in town, but it was a great day. It’s a great lesson. That’s really carried me for, um, the latter 20 years of my career.

Jim Rembach (36:25):

Uh, we have all these credentials, no, we have this work, um, that you currently have, uh, you know, as far as, um, you know, coaching and developing and working with these small to midsize organizations, impacting the customer experience, employee experience, all of that. And I start thinking about, um, you know, some goals that you may have. Is there one of those that you can share?

Patrick S. Frazier (36:45):

Yeah. You know, the biggest goal right now is, um, uh, as we mentioned, the front end of the hour, uh, relocating my practice and expanding my practice into to-do areas. Right. And, um, honestly I opened my practice 15 years ago and it was a tough haul to kind of get it up and running, but, um, we’ve had some really good years, um, even though the economy has been up and down and roller coaster rides for, for many, but, um, here’s the thing opening and expanding into two new markets that are three hours apart. It’s like starting all over. Right. So, um, uh, I’m just like, well, starting over, it’s always easier the second time. So how difficult could it be that you see for the last eight to 10 years? I haven’t had to do any marketing, any sales, uh, everything was just through referrals and, um, you know, additional work from existing clients and that sort of thing. So, um, so it’s been a great learning, uh, uh, moment in my life too, because I had to relearn that, you know, if you’re going to be in this business, you gotta love it all. You gotta love marketing. You gotta lift sales, you gotta love operations. You gotta love the finance. You gotta love the administration. I love the customer service piece of it. Right. And you gotta love the whole, whole ball of wax per se. Um, so that’s the goal I have right now is to re-establish, uh, a solid practice in to new markets

Jim Rembach (38:16):

And the fast Legion wishes you the very best. Now, before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. And even better place to work is an easy to use solution that gives you a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement, along with integrated activities that will improve employee engagement and leadership skills, and everyone using this award winning solutions guaranteed to create motivated, productive, and loyal employees who have great work

Speaker 3 (38:36):

Relationships with our colleagues and your customers to learn more about an even better place to work, visit [inaudible] dot com for slash better for winning solutions, guaranteed to create motivated, productive, and loyal employees who have great work relationships with our colleagues and your customers to learn more about an even better place to work visit [inaudible] dot com forward slash better. Here you go. Fastly to Legion. It’s time for the home now. Okay. Patrick, the hump they hold on as a part of our show where you give us good insights, and I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust, yet rapid response to that can help us move onward and upward, faster. Patrick S. Frazier, again, help us get over the hump. Absolutely bring it all right, holding you back from being an even better leader today. You know what,

Patrick S. Frazier (39:23):

And Liz Wiseman’s work, uh, the multipliers, right? She has this thing called. Everybody wants to be a multiplier, but most people are what we call accidental. Diminishers and you know what? I’m an accidental diminish. I’m always on, I’m a rescue or I’m a pace setter. I’m an internal optimist. Listen, I’ve got all kinds of stuff to work on, but, um, here’s the thing. I care about people. I care about my employees. I care about my clients and customers, right. And if I really care about them, I care enough to be better every day that I, I boot up and suit up and go to work. So I got things to work on accidental. Diminisher what is the best leadership advice you’ve ever received now? Um, it goes back to my dad, you know, hard work, beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Right. And we’ve heard that over and over, but just hard work, grit, persistence, and determination.

Patrick S. Frazier (40:18):

Uh, uh, art Williams also just do it right. If you haven’t, if you haven’t watched that video, check it out. Art Williams, he’s been around a lot longer than Nike, but I kind of coined the term, just do it, just get out there and just do it right. You’ll learn through it. What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success? You know, uh, leaders are readers and great leaders have a council of many, right? You can’t have too many mentors, advisors or counselors, right. As you, as you kind of navigate through the complex business world of today a year from today, you’ll wish you would have started reading something most definitely. What is one tool that you believe helps you in business or life? You know, my day planner, I don’t know what I’d do without my day planner. In fact, if it’s not my calendar doesn’t get done. Right. So, um, you know, and I’ve also learned that, you know, inch by inch, it’s a sense yard by yard. It’s hard. So take those big tasks, break them down into small pieces that are booking into your calendar and get it done.

Speaker 3 (41:21):

You’d recommend to our Legion. It could be from any genre actually you’ve mentioned,

Patrick S. Frazier (41:25):

Uh, Jim, I can’t do that. There’s so many, right? I mean your oxygen mask first by Kevin Lawrence is awesome. Just for personal, you know, I love, uh, scaling up mastering Rockefeller habits by Verne, Harnish Shalom, the ideal player and five dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni. But I got to say, my favorite is John Maxwell’s work. Some teeth, irrefutable laws of leaders.

Jim Rembach (41:49):

Okay. Fast leader Legion. You can find links to several of those and other reasons by going to Patrick’s show notes page, and you can find that@fastleader.net slash Patrick Frazier. Okay, Patrick, this is my last Humpday. Hold on question. Imagine you’ve been given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you can take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you, but you can’t take it all. You can only take one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why

Patrick S. Frazier (42:16):

Learn? How to learn? The world is changing so fast and there’s so much information that’s newly available, available, researched and minted every day. It’s impossible for us to keep it on. So if I can tell or if I could just have one skill, it would be, learn how to learn.

Jim Rembach (42:34):

Pat. I had fun with you today. Can you please share your Legion? How they,

Patrick S. Frazier (42:39):

Yeah, sure. Uh, check me out on my website, coaching authority.net, or if you would like, um, real easy. If you just text me coach, right? All one word to three, one nine, nine, nine, six. It’ll open up my calendar and you can book an appointment with me and I’d love to get to know any of your listeners. Thank you for having me today, Patrick,

Jim Rembach (43:01):

As Frasier. Thank you for sharing wisdom. The fast leader, Legion honors you, and thanks you for helping us get over the hump.