Scalable Systems for Significant Growth | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

SUMMARY: In this episode, Mike Kramer and Matt Zaun talk about how business leaders can implement simple strategies that will lead to significant growth.

MIKE KRAMER BIO: Mike is the founder of ManageHub, which provides mid-market and smaller organizations leadership and coaching services. He utilizes Baldrige-based management for results.

For more info, check out Mike HERE.


MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors.

 

Matt Zaun 

Two words that are easier said. than done for most entrepreneurs and managers. Sustainable and scalable. How do we implement simple strategies that lead to significant growth?

Let's talk systems. Today I'm joined by Mike Kramer, who is the founder of Manage Hub, which provides mid-market and smaller organizations leadership and coaching services.

He specifically utilizes the Baldrige-based management for results.

 

Mike Kramer 

Welcome, Mike. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate to be here.

 

Matt Zaun 

I really appreciate your time and I have really looked into a lot of what you do. It's fascinating to me.

I feel I'm always intrigued by setting up systems, by setting up structure. I think there's a lot to be said, especially in my world.

I'm really focused on communication and storytelling. A lot of the inspiration pieces, but in order to have that work to connect and offer value to our clients, we need structure.

We need systems, we need to build a base and you are excellent at that.

 

Mike Kramer 

So I want to talk about that. I just want to dive right into something that you talk about often, which is the Baldrige base management.

And so for leaders out there that they may not be familiar with that term, they might not know what the ins and outs of that.

Could you give us like a brief synopsis of what that entails? Well, Baldrige, the US Baldrige Performance Excellence framework, is America's standard of management excellence.

It's very similar to generally accepted accounting principles, but you can think of Baldrige as generally accepted management principles. And what's so helpful to leaders having access to the Baldrige framework is that they don't have to imagine what current best management practices are.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST.gov, has codified best management practices. And all a leader needs to do is

is referred to the Baldred Standards to assess their own leadership and management skills for their organization.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. So one of the things that I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen this time and time again, is there will be an entrepreneur and they have an awesome idea for a startup.

They go out there, they get some investors, and it takes off, but they don't, they haven't really I don't want to call it luck, but a series of situations happened in the marketplace that led them to have a lot quicker growth than maybe some people would have imagined.

And now they're looking back and they need to train people and they need to be leaders. They need to be those managers in order to scale.

 

Mike Kramer 

So would you recommend that someone that has a great idea, they start getting investment, they should start focusing right away on how to implement great management, this is an

Excellent question because I often recommend the leaders to adopt Baldrige-based best practices as early in their life cycle as possible Because they will simply avoid the typical growing and slowing pains By having that sustainable scalable and I add a third as salable infrastructure What Baldrige having Baldrige-based best practices Organization to maximize its success.

They're going to spend a lot less time putting out fires and being stressed out Not having Not having the ability to manage the variables within their control Because they'll have the infrastructure that will allow them to be Amazing business leaders So we'll get to that medium side

 

Matt Zaun 

as company or as you mentioned that mid market.

 

Mike Kramer 

But let's talk about smaller organizations.

 

Matt Zaun 

So at what point, when you say right away, at what point would someone say and keep in mind, a lot of entrepreneurs, as you know, they're working crazy hours and you know, they're hearing you say this and they're thinking, oh my gosh, one more thing to add to my plate, which you know, could save them a lot of time in the future, a lot of headaches in the future.

It's actually going to probably help them time wise in the future, but at what point would a leader say, hey, I need to step back and implement this.

Is this a couple employees?

 

Mike Kramer 

Is it a dozen employees? Is it a hundred employees at what point would they implement this? Well, let's first say that it's not for the startup with a little sparkle in their eye.

They really haven't had their first customer or they don't have their attraction yet. Sure. It's not for them. But it is for the solo entrepreneur that wants to hire their first employee, because what's the point in hiring a first employee?

If you don't have a way to delegate responsibility responsibly, and the trap that most entrepreneurs fall into is that they follow the old adage, hire a great person and set them free.

Then if they luck out the randomness of that success that you were referring to before, if they luck out and find that great person, that great person will take responsibility for that area of the business, they will begin to own the knowledge around what they've created.

Ultimately, knowledge is power. The owner, the business runs the risk of having entire areas of their business being held hostage by that knowledge owner.

As the business grows, that person becomes more and more powerful. And if they don't share the knowledge, the business will not be able to scale.

So a much healthier way for the... So entrepreneur to begin hiring is to create systems that are owned by the organization and include the new hires and building those systems, but the organization must always own its knowledge, its know how.

 

Matt Zaun

I want to express the depth as to which delegating responsible goes and some of the catastrophe, so to speak, that could happen.

Here's what I mean by that. So before the episode, we were kind of talking a little bit about political realm.

I don't know how much you know, but my backgrounds in politics. I was a political speaker at her for quite some time, a little over a decade.

One of the things that I will mention for everyone listening to so I want people to understand the magnitude of this.

It doesn't matter what political persuasion people listening have. If you look at the last, I would probably say 40 years that we've had in the United States.

If you look at all the different presidents, different sessions in Congress, the ones that were the most effective, it always depended on the Chief of Staff.

The Chief of Staff, they gave the power of delegation, the Chief of Staff, and that Chief of Staff ran their calendar for the ones that did not run their calendar and delegate well.

Now, regardless of their ideology, they did not get done the stuff they needed to do. And the reason why I bring that example, that is one of the peaks of power, so to speak.

That's like the image we have of power in the United States is the presidency. Well, the ones that got done what they needed to do, they understood the importance of delegating responsibly.

So I appreciate you mention that. It is so unbelievably critical to not only our growth, but setting stuff in place to spur on that growth.

But I want to ask this question because this is really important. I know that there are leaders listening. Medium says companies, they may have, you know, five, six hundred employees.

They're doing well. And they may be thinking to themselves, we've had good managers for a while, Mike. We have stuff in place.

Do we need to review? Do we need to really think about this? What would you say to them? Is there some point where it's good for them to kind of dissect what they're doing, try to figure out, is it the most effective use of time?

 

Mike Kramer 

What would you say to them? Well, it's interesting because to build on what you were just saying with political realm, your listeners should ask themselves a question.

Is there anybody in their organization who they're afraid to lose? If somebody would suddenly, God forbid, get sick or alternatively, just quit.

How much of the know-how of the organization would leave with them? If they have a sudden fear running through their spine, as I talked about this, they should start thinking about, well, what systems are we missing?

what knowledge do we need to capture and how quickly could we do it? Or even worse, is there anybody in your organization right now that you feel is holding you hostage to the knowledge?

They're almost manipulating you. That's the worst case. But it happens very often. And oftentimes when I'm asked to come into an organization, the leader will, you know, build up to a story where they're really concerned about certain employees who they no longer have the right balance of power in the organization.

They may be the owner, but they no longer have control of certain knowledge and know-how and it concerns them.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. I like those two questions. So essentially, are you afraid to lose and are you being manipulated, right? And try to set checks and balances in place.

I mean, I'll tell you right here. There are people that I would be petrified to lose in my organization so that you're getting me to think.

think, am I properly unpacking elements of my structure, my systems? So after they ask themselves those two questions, are you afraid to lose this person?

 

Mike Kramer 

Are you being manipulated? Where do they go from there? Well, then it's really just applying the Baldrige framework. And here's the caveat that I need to mention.

Baldrige itself is simply a framework. It tells you what systems, what methods, what management tools you need in place.

It doesn't really tell you how to do it. So that's where Manage Hub comes in. We've worked very closely with the Baldrige community to create an integrated tool set that kind of fits together like a puzzle.

You can start anywhere you perceive your pain to be, but ultimately you just add more and more of these puzzle pieces or tools to create a fully integrated Baldrige based management system.

So for the leader who's fearful of knowledge, leaving their organization, I would think that there's two kinds of assessments that we would need to do.

First is an operational process assessment. This is very unique to the organization itself because there's no two organizations even in the same industry that have the same operational process profile.

So we have to understand what key processes are performed in each of their departments. And then determine to what extent they're systematized and standardized.

Then we need to do a separate assessment for their management processes. So we can determine to what extent their management processes are systematized.

And in many organizations, they have multiple manager ways, multiple location ways of doing things. And this just makes it very difficult to create one company way and drive the organization in one direction.

Once we have that kind of assessment in hand, then we simply. We prioritize improvement plan where we systematize and standardize the organization, starting with those areas that they're most concerned about.

 

Matt Zaun 

So you brought up one of my favorite words, which is framework.

 

Mike Kramer 

It's unbelievably important.

 

Matt Zaun 

I think that there are a lot of leaders out there that don't focus on it enough, probably because they don't see the importance of frameworks in life in general.

So just to unpack some frameworks. I have an obsessive personality. I love obsessing over specifically storytelling, but unpacking elements of what works, what doesn't work.

So just to keep people in idea listening, the best selling songs. So your number one hit songs across the board followed a very specific framework within the building of that song.

The most successful movies that are the most quotable movies all followed a very specific framework. Primarily the hero's journey framework speeches follow a specific framework.

Story telling. follows this very specific framework, right? So I love that you bring framework into this. When people really start to look, not only at the psychology of inspiration what really connects people to people, but just the understanding of success in general, it all follows a framework.

So I appreciate you mentioning that. So this operational process profile, this can go pretty deep, I'm guessing, because you're unpacking all kinds of layers of your day to day, right?

 

Mike Kramer 

Well, it's so interesting because it can go very deep, but it's really very simple. And the way we have structured it using the Manage Hub strategy to adopt and deploy Voldridge is to engage the frontline employees as much as possible.

The people who actually do the work, know what's working, they know what's broken, and they usually have a very good idea of how to fix it.

And there's no point in taking a system that's broken and then writing step-by-step operating procedures. you kind of memorialize all those broken elements in the organization.

So what we like to do at the same time since we're going through the effort of creating an inventory of operational management processes, it's to kind of do a little bit of an assessment, talking to the people who actually use those processes, to see what is working, what's broken, how would they fix it, and then we again, we create a prioritized improvement plan.

And then the last step would be to create a step-by-step operating procedure.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I cannot stress enough how much I love this, and here is why, because leadership as you know, can be very difficult at times.

And often there's a glitz and glamour aspect to leadership, where a lot of times we've been putting entrepreneurs on pedestals these days, right?

The flash that glitz the glamour, but we know a lot of it comes down to grit. And a lot of leadership is challenging in some ways.

Was working with the CEO recently, a very successful individual, has a massive work. I was actually meeting him. I met him in the lobby of his building and we're walking through to get to his office, gorgeous office.

And I was amazed as to how deeply he knew his employees. We're walking through and he was fucking John.

He stopped and talked to Susan and he's talking, oh, how's your family? And all the back and forth. And I came, I got into his office and I looked at him and I said, wow, I said, you really know your employees on a really deep level.

And it was incredible. And he looked at me mad and he said, not only is it the right thing to do, but it's been the most profitable thing I could do.

And he said, he had a conversation with someone that was working in his warehouse that they, now keep in mind, this is a very successful CEO.

So they felt secure and safe enough to approach the CEO, a warehouse worker. And they told him that different things were happening that was causing

massive headaches in the warehouse. He figured out a way to change which led to massive profitability because of what they were doing.

So what you're saying like spot on this assessment of people is absolutely critical, absolutely critical. And I don't want leaders to think, oh, well, that person couldn't help the organization.

Oh, they're, you know, they're a small cog in this giant wheel. That is the wrong way to look at it in a big, big way.

So can you speak to that? Have you had, can you point to an example of working with someone and they did this assessment and they it unpacked and revealed things to them that they were bewildered, that they were there?

 

Mike Kramer 

Well, this conversation sings to my soul. And one of the things that really attracts me to Baldrigge is how people focused it is.

It is really, it really shines a big bright light on the fact that leaders have the do-sharing responsibility to maximize the

experience of their employees. And part of that experience is having impact. That requires it to listen to them. You give them an opportunity to let you know what's working and what's broken and their ideas of innovation and get them involved in the creative process.

Don't exclude them because you never know where the gold is hidden and the cream rises to the top. And the more you engage your frontline employees in this conversation, the more you identify super powerful and impactful people that will rise to the top.

So basically part of Baldrige is identifying and cultivating future leaders in your organization. And I could just tell you as a, you know, maybe a general story is that so often frontline employees quickly, given this opportunity, once we lay in a layer of Baldrige best practices, wickly rise to the top to COO level.

I'm thinking of one. a person in particular at a behavioral health care center, where this person was working in an operational role, and simply given the opportunity to report issues, the fixed problems to create systems, rose to the level of a COO in the agency.

So it's outstanding.

 

Matt Zaun 

Sure. Wow. That's awesome. Well, thank you. I appreciate you sharing all this. This has been really helpful, and I feel that I personally learned a lot, and I don't want people to miss some of the key elements that you mentioned.

You mentioned a lot within our conversation, but there's three things that stood out to me most. I really appreciate you mentioning people should be implementing the bulge ridge management as soon as they possibly can.

So as soon as they're bringing people on, get those systems in place, try to figure out how to have structure.

You mentioned delegate responsibly. I also appreciate the two questions that you asked. I think it's really important. I don't think enough leaders give them so far to ask these questions.

is questions. Are you afraid to lose anyone? And is anyone manipulating you? That should send red flags, hey, maybe we should start figuring out our systems working.

And the third piece, I really appreciate you mentioning frameworks. I really do. There's a lot to be said about successful frameworks.

When something works again and again, there's probably a reason it probably has a framework. And that really goes back to your assessment, having this whole framework and assessing.

So thank you, Mike, for sharing that. I very much appreciate it. If anyone wants to get more information on you, what you do, they want help implementing this with Manage Hub.

Where's the best place that they can go to get your information?

 

Mike Kramer 

They should visit managehub.pro. And at Manage Hub.pro, you could download the Manage Hub Strategy book. It's a playbook. It tells you step by step what a Baldrig is about, how we translate Baldrig's theory into something that's very practical.

And I give you access to a tool set. For those that want to dive a little bit deeper, we have a bootcamp that they can join.

And of course, if an organization wants to talk to me, I'm always available. You can click the Calendly icon and make an appointment with me, and I'm happy to talk with you.

Also, we're doing something new, and that is we're training consultants and coaches to apply our methods, our Baldrige-based methods.

These are the largest organizations in the world have adopted Baldrige, the IBM, the FedExes, the AT&T's. But we want mid-market and smaller organizations to adopt Baldrige, and that's going to require having an army of talent helping and assisting.

So if anybody's interested in that, there is also links on my site.

 

Matt Zaun 

Thank you for sharing that. To make it extremely convenient, that'll be in the show notes. People can just click and go and check you out from there.

So again, thank you so much, Mike.

 

Mike Kramer 

I very much appreciate your time. And thank you, Matt.