Transformative Leadership: Building Resilience in Revenue Teams

Brandi Starr [00:00:37]:
Welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandy Star and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Michael Allison. Michael is a U.S. marine Corp. Veteran, Purple Heart recipient, leadership expert and the visionary CEO of of the Adversity Academy Leadership development company. With over 20 plus years of experience in leadership, Michael has transformed lives and organizations by empowering individuals to embrace adversity, breakthrough limitations and lead with resilience around the globe. As a globally recognized keynote speaker in the areas of leadership, corporate culture, high performing teams and mental wellness, Michael has delivered transformative presentations at high level leading organizations and Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, TedX, NBC and the University of Columbia.

Brandi Starr [00:01:37]:
Michael, welcome to Revenue Rehab. Your session begins now.

Michael Allison [00:01:43]:
Hey Brandy, thank you so much for having me here. It's an absolute pleasure to be here with you.

Brandi Starr [00:01:54]:
Awesome. I am so glad that you are able to join me and before with a little woo saw moment that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what industry buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Michael Allison [00:02:16]:
Yeah, I think one of the industry buzzwords that I think we hear too often is content is king. And I hear that quite often a lot. But there's much more deeper things to that opposed to just stating that word. So that's one of the buzzwords I think that I would probably get rid of.

Brandi Starr [00:02:32]:
Ah, I was gonna say. I can definitely say that is one that I unfortunately overuse, but I can at least promise not to use that in this discussion today. Yeah, I think I have used so many variations of that statement over the years that I probably have contributed to you not liking them. Yeah, so now that we've gotten that off our chest. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say. Sorry, I think I've got a little bit of delay. My. My apologies.

Brandi Starr [00:03:11]:
There. Finish what you were gonna say.

Michael Allison [00:03:13]:
Yeah, I was gonna say we kind of hear that quite often, but whenever I work with companies and organization, I just kind of get into the debate in regards to like what is content and what does it look like in regards to like your industry, your company and in regards to like your direct audience and things like that. Then we started getting to it a little bit deeper and we realized there's so much more to it than just stating Content is king.

Brandi Starr [00:03:37]:
Yes, I do agree there, that there is a lot more to it. It's about the experience, what you're putting in place. And you know, there was a period where everyone had to shift to adjust to developing content. And I think that's where that statement originally came from. But now it's kind of like to your point, we have used it for enough years, so I am okay with retiring it. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to revenue rehab today?

Michael Allison [00:04:12]:
Yeah, definitely. I'm here today because I think leadership is in crisis. Too many organizations are stuck in the cycle of what I kind of call the unleadership, where things are kind of outdated and things are ineffective when it comes to some of our leadership models that we have within our companies and within our organization. And I think that is leading to disengagement and lead into some high turnovers and lack of resilience when it comes to some of the things that we have within our workplace. For myself, as the United States Marine Corps veteran that has seen leadership all the way from the lowest ranking person all the way to the senior executives that we have within our rank structures and things of that, then you could kind of understand that leadership is at every single level and it affects you in so many different ways and it has a greater magnitude regardless of what the outcome and the impact is as well too. So that's what I'm here to talk about in regards to what does leadership look at every single different level and how can it have an impact within your culture around accountability, resilience, transformational leadership? And that's something that I think we could start reframing and start understanding some different approaches towards your personal growth, your professional growth in regards to driving your revenue, driving your retention, and have some real impact within your company.

Brandi Starr [00:05:21]:
Awesome. Yeah, you gave me a number of points that I want to get back to, but before I do that, I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should expect from our talk today. So what would you like people to take away from the discussion?

Michael Allison [00:05:43]:
Yeah, definitely what I would like people to take away from our conversation today is that leadership actually helps drives the revenue in regards to your organization and your company. I think Port Leadership driven can actually cause and affect you with billions of dollars, especially with the type of business and companies that you're running. And how could we actually look at ways to fix that? And how could we fix retention, engagement and profitability the next thing I would look at is that, you know, what are some of the things that's in your organization that is affecting the leadership that are some of like the silent killers when it comes to like the growth of your organization. The next thing is building resilience inside of your organization where you now have a competitive advantage to your customers and your, or your, your competition, so to speak. And then all of the thing is the scalability of things like how can you scale your leadership where it's equal and scalable, where it could help have an impact on the revenue within your company.

Brandi Starr [00:06:40]:
Okay. And it's very interesting. I know, you know, I did not personally serve in the military, but I've had family and friends. And one of the things that I have always observed is that consistency that the military is able to, you know, to effectively create where in one group. And I'm just going to use very generic terms so that I don't butcher the correct terms. But you know, in one group, someone that is, you know, a sergeant or a general, they're going to lead in, in very similar ways as in another group. And you don't see that in corporate America. You know, I've definitely seen situations where within the same organization, if you're on one team, you may have a great leader and it may be a great place to work, you're on another team and it's a completely different experience.

Brandi Starr [00:07:41]:
So I love that you talk about creating that consistency across the organization. The first place that I'd like to dig a little deeper is tying it to the why we should care most. And I say most because anyone in any sort of senior role has taken on the responsibility of leading a team. And so we should definitely care about our leadership abilities. But highest on the list is always revenue generation. And so talk to me about how you made the statement that leadership drives revenue. Talk to me about how those two connect.

Michael Allison [00:08:20]:
Yeah, I think the biggest aspect to that is that's actually connected to how you manage and how you lead your people. And I think oftentimes some of us as leaders get into our head where we're focused on the title and we're not actually focusing on the people itself. You mentioned earlier, when it comes to what it's like, kind of like in the military and how we have different rank structures and different silos in regards to how we operate. And if you was to remove some of the things that's tied to the titles, you'll see that leadership has so much of an effect from your first new staff that you just hired into your company. And if you do not empower those people to actually have an impact in regards to starting in your company, then they may come inside of your workforce and not really truly understand their role in the magnitude of how they have an effect on the bottom line in regards to what they're generating and what they're doing for your company. So you need to have that level where there's a buy in when you have a new people on staff, on a role in regards to them coming into the organization. So you may want to actually start now having them to be a part of some of the things that the company is doing, what the organization is doing, so they actually have an idea of what is actually going on. So when I look at some things that's tied to that, you know, it's like am I actually utilizing my title and actually am I using that to empower other people within our company, within our organization? And then actually let me look at how am I having an impact in regards to looking at the data and looking at what things are looking like for our company when it's tied to like either our turnover.

Michael Allison [00:09:53]:
What does it look like? Am I engaged with my team or am I disengaged with my team? Let's assess what that looks like actually itself and then let's take a step back and assess what is the culture like in our organization and seeing if this is having any effect in regards to how we're making and generating funds or generating revenue within our company as well.

Brandi Starr [00:10:14]:
No, that's, that's very interesting because I know a lot of times people don't think about turnover as something that has a direct impact on revenue. You know, outside of like cost structure to rehire, like those things are pretty self explanatory. But to your point, people feeling empowered to do whatever it is that they are hired to do have, has a great impact on the revenue. And you talked earlier about some of those silent killers. I'd love to hear what those are.

Michael Allison [00:10:48]:
Yeah, I think some of the silent killers are whenever you actually shut down an employee or shut down a staff member, shut down a leader that actually have some great intangibles, has some great leadership skills and those things are told to be quiet, don't say anything, do not speak up. These are some of the silent killers that you have that employees will now feel disempowered and not be able to use some of their skills that they have that they actually could bring to the company and bring to the organization. When I think about Some of those things I've seen employees will actually leave a company, leave an organization, and go and shine somewhere else. And those are the same employees that still have some of those same skills or some of those same abilities, but they were not able to use some of those things that they had within their company. So those I. I learned that especially at a, At a young age when I was serving in the military, we had junior Marines that were coming in as lance corporals, pfc. Some of them were even in sergeants too, as well. And it took for us to actually start empowering them and giving them responsibilities and giving them tasks to actually see what their true capabilities were.

Michael Allison [00:11:53]:
And from what I saw, seeing that was that they were getting promoted, they were much more enthusiastic, they were bringing more ideas to the table and allowing us to flourish and having us to have great, greater success within our units. And this is some of the same concepts that I've seen or some of the silent killers in regards to what it could have an effect on inside of some organizations. I'll take that in regards to another example. In a corporate space. We went out to go work with the railroad. And on the railroad they had employees that were actually going up and down the railroad, seeing the tracks day in, day out. They have the most advice that it could give to senior leadership. And me and one of the, one of the senior leaders, executive decided to go out on a railroad, go out on the territory, and let's get with the people that are actually riding up and down this railroad, looking at the track, looking at the lights, talking to the dispatchers day in, day out, and see what are some things that we could actually improve on the railroad.

Michael Allison [00:12:45]:
And what we did from that was we realized the tracks were out of date, so let's improve the tracks. We realized the speed of the track was slower. We realized some of the customers that was dealing with some of the vendors, they needed some help with some of the things they were doing because things are being not connecting on time. For us to improve the track speed, for us to have that conversation with the vendors, was able to generate another $25 million in regards to revenue on that track, was able to actually start working with the customers and delivering their products on time. We're actually able to reduce the fuelage of the gas that we're using and burning the gas because we was running so much slower. So these are some of the things that you actually get to get to do as a leader within your company organization. When you actually get in tune and get in contact with your people that's actually seeing some things on a day in and day out basis.

Brandi Starr [00:13:31]:
Yeah. And I think there was two key points there that I've heard time and time again from just talking to employees that are in individual contributor roles at different companies. And it's where you hit on leaders, shutting them down one or just plain not asking to. And I think that having that exactly what you talked about in getting out there with the people who are, you know, boots to the ground, so to speak, seeing exactly what is happening within the organization, where are some of the bottlenecks and challenges, what ideas that they have? I think that is so important because it's like the people with the most information that can lead to change are the people with the least direct influence on change. Whereas those that have the most influence on change, quite often if they don't do things like that, have the least amount of information. And so to your point, it is about getting those people together in ways that can actually impact the business.

Michael Allison [00:14:45]:
Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:14:46]:
Is that a fair summary of what.

Michael Allison [00:14:49]:
Yeah, that's a fair.

Brandi Starr [00:14:50]:
And so thinking about this, you know, disengaged employees, high turnover, leadership at all levels. One thing is I think good leaders recognize when these things are happening. You know, when they've got disengaged employees, when people are not thriving, etc. Those leaders that I won't call them bad leaders, but those people who have some blind spots often don't recognize these things. And so I'd love to hear you talk about ways that this shows up in organizations that some people may not recognize as like, oh, my leadership style or approach might be the problem here.

Michael Allison [00:15:40]:
Yeah, I think one of the things that we as leaders could acknowledge is actually have accountability partners and having discussions within our own groups and where we could be vulnerable and transparent with some of these conversations that we're having. It's okay to start having conversations around am I micromanaging? And ask for those types of feedback and hearing what people are saying, Then also have some of the conversations that talks about accountability. Am I being accountable for myself? Am I being accountable for you? So let's look at some of those things that's tied to accountability for us as leaders. And then the other thing that I would would bring up as well too is something that we've seen and we've worked with organization is what is the culture inside of this environment and is it fear driven? And if you have a culture where fear is driven and people are scared to talk, people are scared to speak up, people are scared to talk to you and won't bring anything to you. That's some of the things where you'll see some of these things show up inside of your organization and then you'll start wondering, why are things going this way? Why are things going downhill? Why are things in our operations going like this? And if you're the type of leader that's creating these types of things, these are some of the things where you could actually look at, am I micromanaging? Is there a lack of accountability inside of our organization? And what is the culture inside of our organization? Is it fear driven where people are scared to talk up, scared to help? And what are some things that we could start implementing and putting in place to actually reverse that and change some of those things so we can start changing that mindset and having that shift, that culture shift for that organization that we actually do need?

Brandi Starr [00:17:13]:
Okay. And I want to shift gears a little bit. I know you talk about unleadership, and I'd love to understand more about what does that actually mean, because unleadership as a term sounds counterintuitive.

Michael Allison [00:17:33]:
It does. And it's really. The concept started when I was actually a young junior marine. And I'll tell you the story of where the concept came from. When I was serving in Iraq, one of the first signs that I saw when we got to that FOB was complacency kills. And it always had us thinking in mind that we could never get complacent with anything that we do. And it encourages us as leaders that any single one of us within our unit are leaders. And I say that traditional leadership most people think of the leaders are just the senior top people within our company, within our organization, and no one else has a leadership role.

Michael Allison [00:18:16]:
If you ever think about it, whenever we've interviewed some of people or organization that we're working with, if it was to go to one of like, like let's say for example, we work with a transportation industry company and went to one of the drivers and we asked the driver, do they think of themselves as a leader? And the driver said, no, I'm just an employee. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do. And that was his mindset in regards to thinking of, I don't have any leadership role. And then we went to another organization that kind of operate kind of like a convenience store, if you want to say, or a super, like a Walmart, that type of thing. And then we spoke with some of the employees just to get an assessment. And if they were just stocking shelves, if they were working in the warehouse. They had no concept that I had a leadership role or I could do anything, feel empowered to do anything. I'm just a person that's stocking shelves.

Michael Allison [00:19:05]:
I'm just at the register, those types of things. And we realized that a lot of people have this mindset of thinking that I do not have a leadership role. And the concept I'm bringing back to you is that when I was serving overseas, we had a junior Marine by the name of Lance Corporal Puckett. And Puckett was with Corporal Combs, which was his senior leader. And they got into a firefighter, and while they're there under fire, Corporal Combs took shot and his vehicle caught on fire, and Puckett was in the back of the vehicle. And Puckett could have easily ran, Puckett could have easily left. But Puckett decided that I'm going to try and save my corporal. And that's what he did.

Michael Allison [00:19:48]:
He saved them, got him out of that fire and saved close to over 10 people while they were under fire and while they were getting shot at and while their vehicles were being burned up. And I say that, as in anyone, if you have the courage, if you have the willpower, you could actually start taking a leadership role and do some great things as well. But it's up to us as leaders, whenever we bring people in our organization, as I'll say again, is to start empowering these people and give them roles and give them things where they're accountable and responsible and let them know that they do have a place in our organization, within our culture, to start thinking of ways we could be innovative, ways that we could help the culture, way that we could aspire to do great things, way that. Ways that we could climb up the corporate ladder regardless to. In our organization. And that's the mindset and the concept around the leadership.

Brandi Starr [00:20:38]:
I love that, especially the phrase complacency kills. And I feel like I need to write that on my board and keep that in front of me because, you know, in the military, that is quite literal that, you know, getting complacent could cost you your life. You know, for those of us that are leading marketing, you know, it. It often is like, well, it's not that serious. Like, nobody dies if, you know, the marketing is not done well. But just really taking that to heart because I do think with, you know, always having so much on our plates to do and, you know, it can really become easy to get complacent and comfortable in the way that things have always been, because it's like not being complacent also comes with additional things to do. And sometimes that can feel like a challenge. But if you really internalize that as complacency kills in, you know, kills the revenue, kills the engagement in the team, you know, it really, it lights a little bit of a fire under you to, you know, keep your head on a swivel, so to speak.

Brandi Starr [00:21:54]:
And because we all have so much to do, that tells me as a leader, I really have to empower my team because, you know, to not operate in complacency because I can't be all places at all times. I can't see, you know, like your, your train example, I can't see that the tracks are outdated because there's, you know, how many ever thousands of miles of railroad tracks there are in the country. And so it almost becomes one of those things. If you adopt that as a model that placency kills, then as a leader, you really have no choice but to create and empower those around you. Because very, you know, similar to the military where if we don't all take that approach, our lives truly are on the line. And the way that turnovers have happening, it's one of those things where it's like all our jobs are on the line. You know, it is when revenues down, that's when layoffs happen. And you know, so it is really, you know, we don't lose lives, but it has that, you know, it has a similar level of, or not similar, but it has a relatable level of severity that we can all really adopt.

Brandi Starr [00:23:16]:
And so I think that that concept really is a powerful statement in thinking about how you empower those people. So the person that feels like they're just stocking the shelves or just answering the phone or, you know, just whatever their role is, they're not leading people, they're not leading a function. What are some ways that we as leaders can help to empower that, you know, empower them and instill that sense of leadership within them?

Michael Allison [00:23:54]:
I think one of the key qualities as a leader is empathy. I think whenever you have the chance to be relatable and understandable with your people, with your staff and having that type of relationship with them. That's one of the key things that I found as a leader as well, in regards to how I run my business, run my company, is actually being able to communicate effectively where everyone is understanding of what I'm feeling, what's going on when it comes to regards to our company and to our organization, and then also sharing with the people that you have within your organization the understanding around resilience. And when I say resilience is what are some things within our company, within our organization, within ourselves that we could actually start learning from, that we've seen from either data, from experience, that we could actually take some of those things and use it as a building block, as a stepping stone for us to get better every single day. I think whenever we are faced with something catastrophic or something bad, we have to have that mindset shift of looking at it from a positive standpoint, from a learning standpoint, from a teachable standpoint of how we could get better when it comes to our marketing, when it comes to our revenue, of ways we could go about things so we do not make some of those same mistakes again, opposed to looking at something and just gnawing at it over and over again and not actually getting past that. And I think the next thing is actually putting systems and putting in place and having processes in place to actually streamline things when it comes to things for us as leaders or things that we need to do and employ for our employees too as well. And I think having some of these practical steps in place helps us have much more of a mental fitness in regards to just preparation, in regards to something hits us, something faces. The other thing is tying to that is having some adaptability with our training.

Michael Allison [00:25:46]:
If things are not going right. What are some things that we could plug into place and put into training to make sure that everybody is on and have things in place, Especially when you have a newer employee that's coming in. If we have training and onboarding processes in place where they could come in and things are much more seamless, that's one of the greatest things I think could be quite beneficial. And last thing I would just touch on is the leadership development growth. That's something that has to be ongoing for myself. When I look at leadership, you're going to have leadership from your first line and your frontline supervisors. Then as they progress, you're going to have leadership at your middle management. So there's always going to be leadership development, there's.

Michael Allison [00:26:22]:
And then for your senior executives, leadership does not stay there. Which is why I talk about you do not want to get complacent. So especially at your senior executive level, your leadership development and growth has to be continuous too as well.

Brandi Starr [00:26:37]:
Okay? And talking about our challenges is just the first step. And nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at Revenue Rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. And so for those who are listening and that this resonates with them, what's that one thing? What's the first step that they should take?

Michael Allison [00:27:07]:
The first step that I believe that you guys could take for something you can start actually implementing is like access your leadership model. Today, let's start asking, are we inspiring resilience and are we running out of fear or are we running some of the with some outdated models and processes? The next thing is, I would say, is let's start investing in our leadership transformation. Let's move beyond some of the management things that we're doing and start looking into some true leadership development. The third thing that I would like for you to do is start like making resilience a part of your business strategy. Actually start equipping your team with the mindset and the tools and the skills to actually start bouncing forward.

Brandi Starr [00:27:49]:
I love that I was gonna say our one thing is three things. So everybody's got something to focus on.

Michael Allison [00:27:56]:
I like to over deliver because I.

Brandi Starr [00:27:58]:
Do think, hey, I will take it. I, I love. That's one of the things, you know, I've listened to a lot of podcasts and so often you hear great content, but then it's like, okay, what next? Where do I start? And so I always like to leave people with a clear next step if this is a challenge that they're struggling with or even just a place where, you know, it's not necessarily that we're all struggling, but often it's just a place where that we feel like we can lean in and be better. Well, Michael, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, tell our audience how they can connect with you and definitely do the shameless plug for your organization. And you know, I know you've got a book and a podcast, so tell us all of the things.

Michael Allison [00:28:50]:
Well, Brandy, it's been an absolute pleasure to be here with you today. So a little bit about the Adversity Academy. We are a leadership development firm where we do in person leadership training. So we do our trainings for your frontline supervisors, your middle management and your senior executives, where we're going to go through our five leadership matrix concepts and principles to help employ and empower your team and your organization. We also have personal development programs too, as well, where those are some of our online programs that also comes with assessments to actually take a 360 dive into you, yourself and your company organization to find some of those blind spots as well. Too. My new book is called Break the Bottle which will be coming out and that book is really focused on some of the things that are helping you get past some of the limitations that could be holding you back either in your personal life or within your business. But start thinking of like solutions focused.

Michael Allison [00:29:38]:
Start thinking about what are the right questions I need to start asking myself for me to get past some of the barriers and have that achievable success that I'm trying to desire for my company within my career or my organization. And most definitely you can find me at Michael W. Allison at all social media platform. The website is Michael W. Allison as well too. Our company is the university academy.com and thank you so much for having me on your show.

Brandi Starr [00:30:06]:
Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to the book and your website sites and all of your social profiles. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes so that you can connect with Michael. Michael, again, thank you so so much for joining me. I, you know, I always love when I can learn something and as soon as we are done, Complacency Kills is going up on my whiteboard so that I can always keep that in front of me.

Michael Allison [00:30:38]:
Absolutely. Thank you.

Brandi Starr [00:30:42]:
Awesome. Thanks everyone for joining me. I hope you have enjoyed my discussion with Michael. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time. Bye Bye.