Creating a Healthy Company Culture | with Zach Montroy

Building a Coaching Culture - #83: Creating a Healthy Company Culture | with Zach Montroy === Zach Montry: [00:00:00] I think, ultimately, a healthy team is one where every person on the team understands their unique genius, their unique ability. And J.R. Flatter: everybody, welcome back. JR Flatter here with my co host Lucas Lucas Flatter: Hello. J.R. Flatter: this podcast is Building a Coaching Culture. our distinguished guest today is Zac Montroy. I'll give you a, uh, opportunity in a second to introduce yourself. I'll just remind everybody, who are we [00:01:00] talking to? leaders of complex organizations competing and succeeding in this global 21st century labor market. bottom line, how do you become an employer of choice in that environment? Lucas and I think it's culture, and it's culture focused on a coaching style of leadership. So with that, Zach, I'll pass the mic over to you and take some time to tell us about the amazing stuff you're doing. I'm looking at your bio here. Zach Montry: so much, J. R. and Lucas, great to meet you, appreciate just the opportunity to be on your podcast today. I have a team, a company called The Intention Collective, and we really are focused on helping to, really helping entrepreneurs build great. Organizations. And we, you know, believe at the core of who I am, that that is a combination of great systems and great cultures. You know, you can't build a company that is purposeful and [00:02:00] lasts without both things. Those, think two ingredients are so incredibly important. And so, uh, really what our team helps, uh, leaders do is we, we, we help entrepreneurs grow and scale, uh, healthy organizations. J.R. Flatter: so you said one of my favorite words, entrepreneur. do I need to know to be an entrepreneur? Can anybody be an entrepreneur? Zach Montry: Yeah, that's a great question. I honestly, it's a term I struggled with for a lot of years. I was, I I worked in a larger organization for about 15 years and ended up in a COO role. I always felt like I had entrepreneurial gifting was, scared to death to start my own company. And so I thought, well, I'm not an entrepreneur, right? Entrepreneurs start their own companies. I think entrepreneurs. Live within a lot of different organizations. There's probably people within your company right now that have that entrepreneurial gifting and [00:03:00] skillset. And how that came out for me was I was always starting new things. I was the person, who really was taking the vision. of the organization and figuring out how do we put strategy behind this? How do we make sure that we can actually execute this vision? Because most organizations have a great vision for the future. Oftentimes it's in the senior leader's head. How do we get that out? How do we make that happen? How do we make that become a reality? There's a lot of. Entrepreneurship to that, right? Entrepreneurship isn't just starting your own company. I think it, be the, I think I've heard that term, intrapreneur, but, really think that it is a, a gifting that can come out in many different forms and it actually was the Kolbe assessment that really helped me put some words around that and really embrace that giftedness that I felt like I had. Lucas Flatter: I also see, um, you know, you mentioned healthy teams and how that's kind of [00:04:00] important for growth and scaling. how does a healthy team look in your opinion? Zach Montry: think, ultimately, a healthy team is one where every person on the team understands their unique genius, their unique ability. working in an environment, uh, engaged environment, an environment that is, uh, rich with psychological safety. We're living out our core values, but ultimately, every person on the team understands their unique ability, their unique genius, is being coached well. But they understand how that is serving the broader purpose of the company, the broader purpose of the organization. They're putting that to work to help grow and scale the company. think that so many people come to work every day and spend the majority of their week at work. And. of have an idea of what their best in the world at, what they love doing, sort of where their passion and competencies lie, but they don't understand how that connects to the overall mission [00:05:00] destination of the company that they're working for. And I think that that, when you think about culture, when you think about the people that make up that culture, that really is a distinguishing factor, I think, in a healthy team, a healthy culture. J.R. Flatter: of the first things I wrote down in your first sentence was the intersection of system and culture. I'm intrigued by that. to us a little bit about that, if you would, please. Zach Montry: Yeah. I mean, I think. feel like I'm a culture guy by, default. had the, at this point I'll say privilege of working on some really terrible, toxic teams early on in my career, I say privilege because, uh, luckily that wasn't later on. I had some great mentors that We're really able to help me put words and language and understanding around why that was toxic and learned a lot from that, right? Learned what I didn't want to repeat as a leader. so when I think of culture, I think, you know, we are really clear on who we are, where we want to be, what the destination [00:06:00] of the organization is. We're really clear on the ethos, uh, how we live out our values, what, the habits behind those values are. Right. You know. We've worked in. Tons of different organizations and most everyone has core values, right? How do we live those out? How do they really define who we are? Uh, are they really a filter that we use to make hard decisions? Are there habits that we're investing time and energy and resourcing behind? And do we have a culture of, you know, really empowerment, you know, giving people the tools, the accountability, the autonomy to do their job really, really well. We have high standards. We also have high care for people. And then on the system side, we know how we're going to do this, right? Like we, we actually, we don't just have this dream, you know, high hopes and dreams for the company, but we actually have a cadence of. Getting things done. We [00:07:00] understand what's most important right now because everything can't be important. Everything can't be on the front burner. So we've really created these systems to say right now, this is most important for us. Here's how we're gonna get this done. Here's who is going to, you in charge of or help lead this thing towards being done. We are measuring the right things. We're holding one another accountable. We're building trust. we, really have this cadence of saying, you know, we're going to, we're going to have really productive meetings. We're going to have productive standups and we're going to really hold ourselves accountable for what we said we're going to do. We're going to get it done and we're going to learn from that. We're going to fail along the way, but I think that that's where system and culture really create a perfect pairing for a great organization. Lucas Flatter: So something I've been thinking about a lot lately has been, you know, having those systems that are repeatable and predictable, but then also how that might kind of butt heads with a [00:08:00] more innovative spirit where you're trying to, you know, change the way things are done. And I think you mentioned prioritization as kind of a means. To balance those two things, could you get into that a little bit? Zach Montry: Yeah, I, I mean systems shouldn't hinder our ability to innovate, right? Like we, we need to create a system that really Innovation, you know, especially in an organization where that's a critical piece to our growth and a critical piece to our health a team and as an organization. I think a system enables us to, to fail intentionally or fail, learn from that failure in a more rapid way, a more rapid environment so that we know what did we learn from this? What did we do right? What, you know, maybe didn't we do right? How do we take those learnings forward? And that requires an immense amount of vulnerability, right? It's not just sort of this squishy, like, okay, we got to be vulnerable, but really, you know, [00:09:00] vulnerability means. We're going to talk about the risk. We're going to talk about, how we hope this might go. We're going to talk about with clarity what we're hoping to achieve, who's in this, make that agreement to learning and having a growth orientation and mindset. know, a system is not bureaucracy, right? Systems can become bureaucracy if we're, you know, if we're just building process, maybe for process sake. systems really are the guardrail, I think, that help us stay focused on the right, best, and sort of highest use of our time. J.R. Flatter: you mentioned the Colby assessment and how valuable it was for you. Could you talk about that tool and what you took away from it? Zach Montry: Sure, I'm a little bit of an assessment nerd, so I'll just put that confession out there. but for, for me, you know, there's, kind of going back to Plato, Aristotle's Three Parts of the Mind, there's, you know, the cognitive, where our [00:10:00] skills and our reasoning lies, the affective, where our emotions, our emotional intelligence, our desires lie. And there's this third part of the mind that the countative, which is a pretty obscure word in the English language, but really it's how we strive, how we behave. really when we're at our striving point. So not just like how I'm going to behave when I mow the lawn, but how do I behave when I'm really putting a lot of mental energy to work? And so there's these four spectrums on how we utilize or how we live out, how we sort of behave around, it is that we do, where we're striving. And so the Colby measures us on, it's a strengths based assessment. So there's no wrong answer. four different spectrums, spectrums, how we. Utilize information. So on one end, you know, some of us just really want, need high end summary. Some of us need all the detail, all the facts, how we organize or systematize. So our tendency towards building structure systems process, our tendencies towards change, [00:11:00] risk, innovation, we call that the quick start spectrum. So on one end, someone who stabilizes, really enjoys things being the way that they, they are. And Then on the other end, someone who loves and embraces change. And then how we demonstrate in the real world. So on one end, you have someone who's really more visionary, can use words, pictures, illustrations, analogies. On the other end, someone who really lives in the physical world. And so really what this helps you understand is, you know, how do I best put my skills and abilities to work? If I'm having to, you know, as someone who's a high quick start, constantly try to stabilize, keep things the same, not allowed to innovate, not allowed to take risks, I really going to feel like I'm using a lot of mental energy and I'm getting nowhere, sort of the spinning wheel thing. And so, Colby, I think creates a lot of self awareness to understanding do my motivation, my joy, you know, that the desire to do my [00:12:00] work, where is that? Where am I at my best? And it also helps me understand those around, right? To hopefully help hire people that are not just like me, right? That we, are better together when we're utilizing. different skills, different, countative abilities. And so I think as a leader, not only does it build that self awareness, it also really helps us communicate well, treat other people like they should be treated and really put them in roles where they get to utilize their highest and best strengths and skills. Lucas Flatter: going back to the talk about systems and, you know, failing fast and, and kind of having that psychological safety and open feedback, it, it makes me think a lot about, you know, development teams doing agile or scrum practices where it's, you know, two week iterations So my question is, do you see... That kind of scrum or more developer [00:13:00] Silicon Valley kind of style being applied in different industries. Zach Montry: Yes, I think that there's so much that we can learn, the Scrum and Agile methodologies. One of the tools that we use is Paint Done, right? setting this initiative forward, we're saying this thing is going to be really important. or I'm delegating, we're thinking strategically, like paint done. What does done look like? Help me understand context. Help me understand connective tissue. What's the cost going to be? What's the consequence if we don't do this or do this wrong? know, really helping people understand the color behind what it is that we're trying to accomplish. And I think what that does is it says like we can have a commitment here. To get it right. And there's a lot that we don't know, right. Oftentimes when we're making decisions, oftentimes when we're planning strategically, I can do my best to, you know, predict the future and hope and dream [00:14:00] for where I hope to be in five years. But I don't think most business owners in 2015 said, you know, in five years, we need to be ready for a pandemic. I don't think that was on many people's strategic plans in 2015, and so, you know, your ability to iterate and check in and say what's working, what's not working, and how do we sort of overlay that into the horizon of what's happening around us, that's a great business, right? And one that requires a lot of courage. A lot of vulnerability, a lot of clarity, and this willingness to say we're here to get it right. It's not about any one of us being right all the time. It's really collectively, how do we do this best together? J.R. Flatter: I love that. Um, I'm a boomer. It's obvious looking at my, if you can see the video. Living in the 21st century, right here we are almost in the 25th year. We're in the 24th year of the 21st century. an entrepreneur and as a [00:15:00] consultant to entrepreneurs in the 21st century, what are the differences? What would you tell me that I need to do differently? Zach Montry: Oh, that's a good, that's a, that's a tricky one. Um, don't know that I have a broad answer for what I think a boomer should do differently. what I will say though, is, know through research, one of the biggest fears in the workplace is the fear of irrelevancy. The fear that, you my skills, my talents, my expertise is no longer needed, no longer valued. And so thing that I always encourage Boomers, people who are older than me, especially when I feel like they are, you know, feeling like, Oh gosh, here's another, I mean, I'm getting to this point. My wife calls me a boomer, especially around technology. Cause I'm like, damn it, I do not want to learn another tool. Like I have [00:16:00] enough tools. And she's like, when you were 25, this is what all the 45 year olds were saying and drove you crazy. And when I think about it, it's like, I. There is a fear underneath that of like, I'm going to suck at using this tool and all the young people on my team are going to be like, Oh, here's Zac again, trying to learn how to use, you know, a new piece of technology. I think underneath that, is this like, do I have to learn something new? Because if I learn something new, I might suck at it. People are going to think I'm irrelevant in my skills, and then the story just continues there. We tell ourselves stories all the time. I'm not needed. I'm not valued. I'm not wanted. And, I think about the, 50, 60, 70 year olds that I work with and yeah. You know, maybe you learning how to use a new, whatever tool, maybe that's not going to be your best contribution. I appreciate you [00:17:00] trying. I appreciate the vulnerability you're putting out there, but we need your experience. We need your wisdom. We need your discernment. so that, that really is a form of shame that we're, you know, letting fester inside of us. shame and vulnerability cannot coexist. And so I think that that, you know, the thing I would tell boomers is we need you and we need you to be vulnerable and we need your wisdom and discernment and we need the 20 year olds too, right? this is where we are better together. We need the way that you think and your expertise all at the same time. We got to stop creating these wars against generations. That was a really long answer, JR. I'm sorry. J.R. Flatter: No, I'm laughing with you, not at you, because and I are exactly 30 years apart and he's catching himself now. years my junior in those, oh my God, I'm, I'm not old [00:18:00] yet, but I'm certainly not the youngster in the room. you know, it's not lost on anyone that in the arc of a career that it's looking forward now versus the arc of my career, when I started, there was a lot more predictability, a lot more sustainability. One of the words you used was build a company that lasts. Jim Collins wrote a book 25 or 30 years ago, Built to Last, and I bet a lot of his findings are irrelevant now because things are so different, but a lot of them are still the same. culture was, even when he wrote that book, important thing. Lucas Flatter: so yeah, I think just piggybacking on, you know, just Poking fun at different generations, that, that kind of ability to laugh at yourself, or we call it, you know, being vulnerable in certain situations, how do you kind of encourage somebody to, be less [00:19:00] protective about the ego and being willing to kind of Open themselves up to allow for this, these open conversations and things like that. Zach Montry: think the hard thing about it is it has to start at the top, right? can't ask you to do something that I'm unwilling to do myself, and you also have to make sure that You're creating an environment where, you know, that protectionism is not needed and it's not rewarded. And so it's going to be really difficult for me, you know, to say, hey, you know, hey, everyone on my team, we should be super vulnerable with one another. Like, let's stop protecting. Let's put our whole hearts into work. And, you know, I'm a mid manager in the organization and the C suite executives are, you know, throwing down shame on everyone all day, every, every day. Like, I can maybe. Create a little bit of a protective bubble, but that's going to be really difficult and really challenging if that is not modeled,[00:20:00] I would say really driven from the top. So I would say as leaders, our job is to create environments where self protection is not needed. It's not rewarded. You know, Brene Brown calls it our armor, but we assemble our armor for a reason, right? Like we assemble our armor because of past hurt. brain assembles that armor because that's a place, you kind of raw. That's a place that we've gotten hurt in the past. And so, you're telling me I don't need that armor, I don't need that protectionism, and then you violate that, that's really hard to come back from. So I would say as a leader, I've got a model vulnerability. I have to model courage and vulnerability. And that takes a lot of skill. That takes a lot of work and that takes a daily commitment as well. And I think when, when people see the leader modeling that and they see the safety that can be created there, then I'm, I'm going to be much more willing to take that risk. J.R. Flatter: incredible [00:21:00] because, um, I knew you had a hint of Brene Brown in you. You kept mentioning a lot of her themes, one that I keep coming back to, and so Lucas and I are both accredited coaches, and I always like to tell our guests when they've coached me and didn't even know it, the first time ever I've connected shame with coercive power. talk about the different kinds of power all the time, and you know, most of us are familiar with positional power, reward power, and coercive power. I was wondering, as Brene mentioned shame all the time, and now you brought it in the room, a 20th century leader, and I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, but we use shame as a method of accountability. Didn't even recognize it was coercive. just recognized it 30 seconds ago. how do you create accountability without coercion? Zach Montry: a really deep subject too. And I, and I [00:22:00] completely agree with you, especially on the correlation there between, certain types of power. And I think that the interesting thing about power and position is I think one of the things that we've been taught is power is a finite resource, right? Power is like, uh, pie, you know, the, if, if, if I share my pie with you, I'm not going to have any more pie for myself. And so we get really protective over the power that we have, especially, you know, positionally sometimes, um, how I hold people accountable when I think when we share power and really think of it as an infinite resource, the more I give away, the more there is to share. and I think that that can create for us just a completely, that can really flip those paradigms on their heads. And so, you know, we think about how shame shows up in [00:23:00] organizations, you know, back channeling, gossip, favoritism, nostalgia. You know, power over, passive aggressiveness, gossiping, all the invisible army, that's probably the one I hate the most. All of those are ways that even if I don't have positional power that I'm using. power in a way to, you know, use shame to drive getting what I want. And so when I think about how do we use, courage instead of shame to hold people accountable, I really think that it comes down to clarity. First and foremost, if we are not clear as leaders, On what we need, what we want, what we expect, where we're going, why we're going there, what, you know, you know, what's in it for everyone else. There's no way I can hold you accountable. There's no way I can have those conversations with you. And I think that that's the reason most leaders don't, right? If I have an accountability conversation with Lucas, if [00:24:00] I really think about it, you know, he's probably going to say, like, I had no idea that's what you wanted from me. I had no idea that that's what you expected. And he's probably right. down, he's probably right. so I think Oftentimes, when we're being coercive around accountability, it's because we're trying to not let ourselves get thrown under the bus, and we're trying to put someone else there instead for us. So when I think of the most healthy accountability, I mean, accountability really comes down to reliability. We do what we say we're going to do, we know our skill sets, we know what's on our plates, so that we can deliver on what we say we're going to do. And when we screw things up, it's... Apologizing, making amends, and making plans to fix it. so, accountability should be, okay, well, we, we were really clear on this conversation. Lucas, what's going on? know, you said you were going to do this, you said you were going to deliver that, and, you know, it's Friday, and you said it would be done by Wednesday. What... What happened? What do you, [00:25:00] what do you need support on? And, and there I'm not sliding the problem to him. I'm putting it in front of us to talk about. And I think that that requires a lot of vulnerability on my end. And, you know, maybe he says like, You never told me you needed this by Friday. I had no idea. Then we can talk JR. J.R. Flatter: I say the phrase all the time, problem solving without blame. But now you could probably given your definition, problem solving without shame. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Blame or shame. Okay. Lucas Flatter: so I see in your bio, um, and I'm, I'm listening along and, and just like, wow, like you're really. Taking all these disparate topics and really explaining in your answers, and on your [00:26:00] bio it says one of your skills is distilling complex concepts, and I believe personally I get a lot of practice doing that, just talking about pop culture, you know, movies, games, books. Do you have anything that you do to practice kind of Almost like that critique muscle. guess I'm trying to get to, um, like the critical thought layer. So maybe you watch a movie and you say, Oh, I really noticed like how they're trying to convey this idea. Maybe it's subtle and not a lot of people are going to notice it, that kind of thing. Zach Montry: wife would tell you I'm the worst person to watch a movie with, and it's probably like the attention, constant attention deficit disorder, so like I'm always trying to be doing something else while that's happening. But I think the, the critique layer for me Came from just observation and loving learning and loving observing other people and [00:27:00] getting really curious around that. And so to be able to sit in a room with other leaders, and I mean, you all do this every day with coaching. You're like, okay, I can, I can kind of, I'm starting to see the theme here. I'm starting to see, you know, really what is underneath the surface and what you're talking about. And really using curiosity as a tool to guide them to that point. And I think You know, the thing I would say I've learned in the last 10 years is like, I don't have, I don't have the, I mean, you, and we do this as coaches, right? Like, I don't have the answers. I don't have a secret plan for your life. what I can help you do is using curiosity as a tool to help us. Help guide the conversation to a point where we can start to realize behaviors and tendencies and kind of pull up out of the, the, the forest to really see the trees, through that. And so, and, and be the encourager, be the challenger. And so I think for me, it's sort of like the [00:28:00] nerdery around loving to learn and loving people and observation and curiosity, really pairing those things together for me is like. Really what I love. So not as much in movies, it's really more in like nerd talk, around work and things like that. Lucas Flatter: I identify with that being the youngest sibling just always observing, and I think that's kind of my personality as well. J.R. Flatter: right, my final question, because Lucas gets the last question always, looking at yourself as a human being, not as a entrepreneur or a consultant or whatever other roles you have in your world, to us about your work, family, and self balance, and you could, you could substitute any word, people like harmony or, it's not a third, a third, a third, we never mean it to be that, but. How do you keep it all together? Zac the human being. Zach Montry: yeah, like the word integration, um, that's my, you know, my, my substitute for balance, but I completely know what you're, you're asking there.[00:29:00] remember a coach telling me years and years ago, like, I don't believe in work life balance, it's just being intentional about the season that you're in. And so, uh, for me and my wife, we're just, we really talk about that a lot. Like, you know, launching a business was hard and, you know, we really had to say like, okay, I've got to be intentional about the time that I'm working. And it's going to be more right now in this season. I also think maintaining healthy boundaries is, incredibly important to all of us as a leader. And so heard Patrick Galincioni say one time, I've never met a transformational leader that didn't have a coach and or therapist by their side. And so I, I mean, I, we believe that for all the people on our team as well, right? We, we need someone to, you know, be Helping us see what's happening around us, the impact that we're making on one another and being really intentional about the things that we need to be intentional about. And so, you know, for me, [00:30:00] that that means I leave, like I get to work pretty early in the morning, but I'm leaving at five every day so that I can go to my kiddos soccer games and baseball games and, homework that I don't understand with them, night. So it, it really for me means trying to be intentional with the season, with the time, with the days that I have. Lucas Flatter: I kind of used my, um, weird question already, so. But, um, I'm thinking about, you know, the new generation coming into the workforce, and We kind of touched on, like, oh, just different generations from that perspective, but if you're looking back at yourself 15, 20 years ago, what would you kind of give yourself as advice coming into the workforce? Anything specific? Zach Montry: think The the older I get the more I realize I don't know and so I think just if you're gonna make mistakes Make mistakes on the the [00:31:00] non human side of work invest in people Be curious around people, care for people really well, mean I just love that phrase, you know, be committed to getting it right, not being right, and don't have to try to solve a problem in five minutes or less, I valued that as a skill for so long, you make really bad decisions when you're trying to do that, I think, and so really working to get curious, to understand the problem, and what other people's viewpoints are, and not thinking you're right about everything. So I think just the human factor and component to leading, um, just to get better intentionality around that for myself is advice I would give me 15 years ago. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, and I guess it makes me think, like, even if you do have the right answer, if you didn't, like, get input, it's going to come across like, you know, maybe the wrong answer. Zach Montry: Totally. Totally. J.R. Flatter: hints of Daniel Kahneman going on there. Fast brain, slow [00:32:00] brain, yeah.