#009: Renegades Audiobook Chapters 2 and 2.5!

System and Soul, welcome back. This is your host and friend, Benj Miller. I'm so glad you're here and thank you for the feedback on the first chapter of Renegades. We thought we'd give you a little more.

So here is chapter two and chapter two and a half. Yeah, half chapters because who follows rules around here? Not me. Hey, while you're here, I want to let you know that you can get the full version of the audio book on audible.

And also we have a ton of great tools to help entrepreneurs and leaders over at system and soul.com. So I want to invite you to come over there and take a look around. And if there's something that you're looking for that you're not seeing there, hit me up on LinkedIn.

I'd be glad to help you on your leadership journey. That's it for now. Let's jump back into chapter two of renegades. Three, two, one.

Chapter 2, The Shit Show. For the first five years of running my marketing agency, there were a lot of moments for my renegade thinking to shine. I built a network that helped us close some huge high-profile deals before we ever had a well-known reputation for our work. I pivoted projects when inspiration struck and we delivered insanely innovative solutions for our clients I even designed our office space to include a rock climbing wall and a foosball table before it was cliche To make my business an inviting unique place to work I didn't feel like we had any major issues holding us back as a business or stunning our growth But I took the advice of a friend who recommended that even if it looked good from my seat I should have a consultant come in and evaluate the business If you'd asked me then, I was 100% certain we had a healthy, happy team and a pretty great business.

I knew we would ace this consultant's evaluation, so it was basically going to be a waste of time. Yet within the first half hour of the consultation, I realized the business I thought I'd built was not the one everyone else experienced. Where I thought we were fun and flexible, loose titles, even looser meetings, and the freedom to create without much direction, my team voiced that the way we operated was chaotic. Where I thought I was taking mediocre work to the next level when I swooped in and changed the designs we were delivering to the client the next day before a presentation, my team was frustrated by the lack of process and feeling sidelined.

Where I thought my rock climbing wall and foosball table was creating a cool culture, the team was just wishing they had clearer job descriptions. I thought what I had built was pretty good, and in a way it was, but it wasn't working for everyone. In those days, more people's opinions were beginning to matter than when I was going solo. Challenges I'd never considered surfaced that day as this consultation with my team.

I realized then what all renegades have to face eventually. My renegade founder thinking was not the only fuel we needed to take us where we wanted to go. I became aware that day, but it took me a long time to understand and accept this reality. The truth is, no matter how hard we fight and push back and cleverly outthink the change we face, being a renegade seemingly comes to a screeching halt as soon as the business needs more than invention, ideas, and drive.

Practically speaking, that usually happens when the business reaches 15 to 25 employees, or when it passes the seven-figure mark, but it can vary for everyone. Some call it reaching the control stage or stage two. All of this is very dependent on several factors, but it looks the same in every case. Find product market fit, demand grows, revenue increases enough to hire more people, promote a few people into leadership roles, people start asking for process, you become the bottleneck.

When you change your mind, people get frustrated. When you don't follow the process, people get frustrated. When you wing it, go off script, do it your way, or call an audible. people get frustrated.

You don't get what the big deal is and you start to feel like an enemy in your own camp. Maybe you even keep decisions from them until you absolutely have to tell them. For a renegade founder, being a renegade at this stage can feel like constantly stepping on land mines in a place where you used to run free. You start to internalize that the team just doesn't get it.

For the team working with a renegade, it can feel like you've become an arsonist. When you once lit a fire within the team, motivating, inspiring, and helping them see what's not there yet, the fire gets out of hand and creeps into everything good that's been built. The rule-breaking renegade starts to break down the effectiveness and unity of the organization. Running into the mess becomes running nonstop.

Betting on themselves and changing the cards becomes chronic whiplash. Figuring it out as they go becomes inconsistent delivery and chaotic systems. Seizing the day becomes burnout. Being whoever they want to be becomes an identity crisis.

Making their own way becomes leaving the team in the dust. Left unchecked, the renegade arsonist ends up driving the business into misalignment, discourages their best talent from sticking around to extinguish the flames, and ultimately creates a problem only they can solve, putting down the matches. It's not that easy, though. Two sides, same story.

Renegade feeling. I have more at stake than anyone. This is my business. Of course I want it to be successful.

They need the way I think and my intuition. Otherwise, we'd be dead in the water. If we're not constantly inventing and being willing to seize the opportunity, we'll stall out. They just need to be flexible and know that we're the kind of company that moves fast and works hard.

I wish they could speed up and see where we're trying to go. Team thinking He has no idea what it takes to pull this off and how much harder and more complicated he makes it every time he changes course We should just hold out and wait to take action on anything knowing he's just going to come in tomorrow and change his mind. It's hard to feel like we're winning and it's even harder as a manager to explain to my team how this constant change is tied to our vision and goals. I'm not even sure.

I wish he could just slow down long enough to see what he's doing. The third option. As a business coach, I've heard both sides of this story, kind of like doing couples therapy. Before I go on, I want you to hear it from someone who seeds the other side of this problem as she both survives and supports the renegade in me.

Mackenzie Decker is my operator and business partner at System & Soul. She, like a lot of people on your leadership team and in your organization, has felt the tension we're talking about. She likes having a plan, setting a path and sticking to it. She is risk averse, suspicious of sudden change and wants to do things the right way.

I know I drive her crazy. If you don't already know, you drive people like her crazy. But I know she's my biggest fan and constant protector of my dreams in the business we're building. I want you to know her perspective because at times I think you and I don't champion the dignity of our best allies, our team, much less our own dignity in the process of getting to the dream.

When we lean in and listen, we might find a pathway to dignity for all. Take it from a renegade, Mackenzie Reeves Decker, operator, COO, and co-founder of System and Soul. First and foremost, I think it's important to keep in mind the feelings on both sides are mutual and for good reason. Our renegades feel trapped in an endless loop and so do our teams.

The problem is we tend to stay stuck when we're only interested in our side of the story and getting it resolved how we see fit. Over the years as I've worked on teams and served as a leader, I've watched the same disappointing patterns play out over and over again between renegades and their teams as they seek out one-sided solutions. Hiding. The renegade stops communicating with the team about decisions, deals, and ideas, and finds new ways to excite their own interests and engage opportunities.

The team hides, perhaps literally, whenever the renegade is in the office and trying to round up everyone for an impromptu brainstorm session. They hide their plans and quietly push their own agendas forward, hoping to go unnoticed. Ultimately, what results is division, secrecy, and a growing lack of trust on both sides. Disengagement.

The renegade gets bored and assumes the spark in the business is dead. Maybe it's time to sell. Maybe it's time to start a new venture. Their mind drifts to far off places and more interesting prospects while their team scrambles to deal with the problems of today.

The team gets discouraged to the point of wondering if it's worth it. Why work this hard when the renegade is only going to change their mind? Lots of great talent finds its way out of environments like this where they feel underappreciated or ineffective for the work they're equipped to do. Defense.

The renegade being on their island, making their own way, starts to resent the team and begins guarding what they've built, fearing it's all at risk of being ruined by the lackluster approach everyone else takes. Maybe worse, the renegade starts to fear the future for themselves, wondering if it will always be this confining. The fear of losing their personal freedom grows. The team withholds their creative thinking, they think, why would I give up my good ideas to someone who doesn't want to share the stage?

They collude and form a firm, withdrawn defense against the renegade, who they see as out of touch with what's really happening on the ground floor of the business, and remains oblivious to how her visionary ideas turn into more distractions for them to manage. From my experience, the real challenge here is not to determine who is right or wrong or who will eventually give in. It's so much more about being able to see and appreciate the very real perspective coming from both sides.

The Renegade sees their world in terms of quickly passing moments of opportunity. The team thrives on clarity and having the time and space to do their best work. If, let's say, our aim at the end of the day is to be a company that champions the dignity of every person who walks through the doors, our challenge, I believe, is to be able to find common ground and common purpose in the fact that we all want the same outcome. To win in our work and know that what we contribute matters.

We need our renegades to help drive us forward. We need the team to build the bridge and pave the road in the right direction. But I don't think this just happens because we compromise or agree to disagree. One of the most important things that Wild Renegade Bench has demonstrated to me and the teams he leads is that really being able to solve this problem inside our organizations starts by addressing the root causes within ourselves.

chapter 2.5 the problem with the problem here's the problem you already know you have you can't keep this up i mean you can but i doubt you want to live another 20 or 30 years by the mantra 25 hours a day seven days a week hustle grind repeat my ideas my time my input me myself i as a coach i meet with founders all the time to talk about these challenges they face when they grow the business to the point that no longer works the way it used to Often it seems like they lost their magic We can't find the right people and get them to stay.

We've been stuck for three years and our profitability hasn't budged. We can't keep up with what our customers need from us. Our reputation is in jeopardy. We're losing out to our competitors and we don't know why.

I started hearing these kind of statements from my friend and fellow renegade Jason Moore a few years back. He'd built a fairly successful healthcare technology company, but almost a decade into running the business, he felt stuck. They had a team of 10 people running a $5 million operation and market conditions were great for the foreseeable future. They'd plotted out a decent amount of growth for the next few years, but nothing epic.

Quietly, he was pretty disenchanted with the whole business, as any true Renegade would be. Over time, he wasn't thrilled with the results and definitely wasn't motivated by the marginal status quo progress. Even more so, he wasn't proud of the culture they'd built. The leaders he'd promoted to help him were more of a drag on the future than a catalyst.

It wasn't like he was sitting on his hands either. He had read all the business books leaders are supposed to read. He'd made his team read those books too, but nothing changed. As the slog continued, he met with his investors.

They were unhappy with the company's projections and challenged him to find a new way forward. But he just couldn't figure out how to move forward and do things differently. Underneath the conversation we were having about the business's languishing bottom line, there was a story unfolding that founders like him are often afraid to admit. He couldn't figure out how to do it his way, his sheer will, drive, and abilities.

They'd been game-changing before. Hell, the business survived on it for five full years, but it wasn't enough anymore, and he was exhausted. Welcome to the shit show. This common story takes on many voices for renegade founders at this point.

The frustrated critic. I've done everything right, and now I feel imprisoned by my own creation. The doomed free spirit. I've become a slave to this business.

I'm losing sleep and the freedom I thought I'd have by starting my own thing. The anxious controller. I'm still the one that has to fix everything. The agitated achiever.

Without me, this business would have no drive. It would die. I'm still spending tons of my time making sure people are actually doing what they're supposed to. The martyr.

Why don't they care as much as I do? The jaded inventor. I wanted to build something different, nuanced, something people would crave, something amazing, and it's just so average. They're all thinking, I built this so I could own it, not let it run my life.

I want freedom, and I want this to work, but I don't know how I can have both. This is the founder's gap. It's the seemingly bottomless, impossible to traverse, sure to suck you in an ultimately deadly gap to cross from the business you built to the business you want to own. The gap might be visible in the business itself, flatlined growth, rising or consistently high turnover, or a culture of confusion, apathy, or reactivity.

Sometimes though, the symptoms don't readily show themselves in the business or the balance sheet, not on the surface anyway. More often, the gap starts internally with you, the founder, and either you suffer silently or slowly start to leak out into your organization, but it always flows from you. The founder's gap exists for a few distinct reasons. Number one, personal.

As a founder, you'll always struggle to see your business without distortion. You'll have the tendency to see it as much better or much worse than it is. Number two, structural. The systems and behaviors you've created in the business, accidental or intentional, don't support what you need to function at scale.

Number three, philosophical. And this fixes the first two reasons if you can figure it out. The gap exists because of how you see yourself as a renegade founder and how you create value in the world. Circle one or two or all three.

Renegades, we all get here. This is our journey. And you should know that what you want is not wrong. It's not unattainable.

It's not complicated. it is just so hard. It's particularly hard for you because you have to face your own identity in the business. If you are what you do, how you perform, and what you accomplish, then you're leaving a lot up to chance, to the range of your emotions, and to outside circumstances.

And where you go, the business follows. My coach and mentor, John Ritchie, brilliantly articulates the root of all business issues flow from the heart of the leader. The business follows the heart you bring into it. If you're jaded, resentful, afraid, angry, insecure, apathetic, then your business will be right on your heels.

We can't deny the fact that we're central to the health and growth of the entity we've created. It doesn't stand apart from us, and it's reactive to whatever version of ourselves we bring to it. If our identity is rooted in our success, and we're not achieving the success we feel we need, If our identity is rooted in being the smartest or being ahead of the curve and we make mistakes or we don't have the answers anymore. If our identity is rooted in being independent, being able to do it all on our own and we're running out of capacity or reaching a ceiling for what we can truly handle, the business will react.

Every decision we make is laced with this urgency and panic to fill the void, protect the ego and restore the identity. It probably feels unfair and maybe unhealthy to be this integrated into the life of our businesses. But it also feels like the success of your business is far too incumbent on your role in it We need to recognize the power we hold examine the identity that is impacting the business and then work to create a healthy separation between the two Make no mistake, who you are as you lead and what's at the heart of you will always have an impact on the business.

I want to equip you to be more resilient, steady, and aligned to your vision so the business can leverage the best of you. My own version of misplaced identity caused one of the biggest business mistakes and personal failure I've ever known. About 12 years ago, I refused help from a leader and it ended up costing me more than half of my business overnight. At that point, my marketing business was in a stable and rapid growing phase.

I was known in my community as a successful founder and a gifted strategist. I felt like I was deep in my skill set and winning big. So when this leader tried to give me crucial feedback and offered to partner with me in the business, I just didn't have a whole lot of room for his offer or investment. Back then, all I could think was, he was trying to take the business I'd built.

He didn't understand it like I did. I didn't want to lose my freedom. We don't take the entrepreneurial leap just to have someone step in and turn our thing into another watered-down, overly democratic, out-of-the-box business. I certainly hadn't.

At the time, I would have told you wholeheartedly that I was protecting an asset. I had a hundred reasons why this guy was wrong and 200 reasons why I was right. On paper or in court of law, I would have been convincing. The problem, as I look back on it, wasn't the advice I was given.

It wasn't about him or his proposal. It wasn't really even about the business and protecting the amazing place I'd spent so much time in. It was about me. My business and its success was everything.

Without really being conscious of it, I was living and dying each day by what the business said about me. If the business was successful, I was successful. If it was chaotic, I would feel incredibly anxious. If someone else was leading in it, then what would I lead?

I needed the business because it made me valuable. So when I turned down his offer, the business took a plunge. It lost value and so did I. I can't say I've ever been at a lower point in my life.

I'd completely lost my sense of identity. To have your identity stripped away is painful, shocking, and empty feeling. I was contending with what its failure said about me as a person while I tried to salvage any pieces of the business that were left. I had no energy or confidence to do what needed to be done to move forward.

I was confused, afraid, and felt so insignificant. There was not enough I could do anymore to create value. I went back to counting cash in terms of weeks to determine if and when we would run out of money. I lied awake at night rehearsing how I would tell my amazing team that they needed to start looking for other jobs.

I felt like I was captaining a sinking ship, but at the same time I was scrambling to find a way to salvage it. Calling friends and emailing clients for more opportunities as fast as I could. Underlying the work I was doing non-stop, I was fighting this overwhelming shame and defeat. All I wanted to do was hit stop on this nightmare and walk away.

This was the very bottom of my founder's gap. And I was the one to blame. But not for the reasons I believed at the time. In the midst of that low, it took a while for me to see the truth about myself.

You may not have experienced a failure that set you back after years of work. Not everyone does. But what's necessary for us to understand and take to heart is that moving from renegade founder to renegade leader is first a personal decision, then an organizational one. You have to decide what well you want to draw water out of.

If your identity is rooted in all that you can accomplish and how powerful a force you can be, it will quickly run dry. If your identity is rooted deep in who you are, you will never run out of resources to give. We never worry that we'll be empty, useless, or without value. In the next section, I want to give you six choices I had to make to escape the founder's gap and take my organizations to scale.

If you're really challenged by your renegade identity and it's tied to your business, I want to ask you a few questions to reflect on before we move ahead. Take some time to think through these questions. Really be honest with yourself. The more you can know about yourself, the more you'll be able to lead this business to a new level.

Don't judge your answers. What do I want? Really? Why do I want what I want?

What makes me valuable? What would other people say makes me valuable? What happens if this isn't true anymore or can't be achieved? How have I forced this business to support my identity?

Go ahead. I'll wait. 3, 2, 1. Here we go.

I'm out. Thank you.