Developing Talent & Accelerating Leadership with Nate Boaz

Nate Boaz: Foreign.

Dominic Piscopo: Before we jump into the episode, I want to give a special thank you to this week's sponsor, Live Oak Bank. Live Oak bank truly understands the unique needs of your accounting and tax business and specializes in providing customized financial solutions to support firms like yours at, ah, Live Oak. They grow with your business and want to be your firm's financial partner. Whether you are buying, building, or simply looking to grow your accounting and tax firm, they will design a loan package that supports your business goals. Their accounting and tax lending team offers numerous financing options nationwide. Ready to achieve your business goals? Visit LiveOak Bank Big 4 today to connect with a member of their team members member fdic. And now back to the episode. Hello, and welcome to the Big four transparency Podcast. I am joined today by Nate Boaz, the co founder and senior partner at, uh, Kanavic Leadership Acceleration. We had a really good conversation before I kind of left on holiday shaking the rust off here as we get back into the podcasting and uh, you know, we had a little chat off air. Nate, you're very easy to talk to, so it's great. We're going to kind of ease back into this whole thing.

Nate Boaz: I appreciate that.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah, my pleasure. Um, yeah, so why don't we kind of start off with you telling us a little bit more about what Kanavic does, um, and your kind of area of focus, and it'll become pretty obvious early on why. I, uh, think, you know, that we have a lot of common topics together that we, we can talk about. So, um, yeah, let you kind of talk to us about that.

Nate Boaz: Yeah. So Kanavik Leadership Acceleration is a firm that, you know, in its simplest way, we help our clients grow their business by growing the leadership of their leaders. So we help them grow their business by growing the leadership of their leaders. So we're really focused on sort of senior manager partners, senior executives in professional services firms, uh, who are looking to grow their business, which I think just about every one of them is looking to grow their business, right? Uh, you hope so. You hope so. But, you know, I think a lot of them, you know, are, have been focused on consolidation and, you know, uh, inorganic growth. And we're much more, you know, helping, you know, their, their partner level folks accelerate, uh, their performance by, by growing, um, their leadership. That's what we do.

Dominic Piscopo: Right on. And I mean, this is a fairly recent firm I think might have been founded about four years ago. And you're in your first few months with Kanavic, is that correct?

Nate Boaz: Yeah, so it was, you know, really forming about Six or seven years ago. So. But I was, uh, a client first. Right. I was at Accenture. I was at McKinsey. Before that, I was at Accenture. And I was wondering why some of the direct entry partner hires, um, were doing well and some weren't. Right. You know, and so I started digging into that, and many of them came from the search firm Beecher Reagan that spun out Kanavic and created this leadership acceleration firm. And they were doing, you know, assessment and really focused onboarding and traction planning for these partners and then coaching them to success. And I was like, wow. We kind of did an AB test and these partners that were going through that program were hitting their numbers faster. We're exceeding their numbers. We're staying. Right. There's a lot of retention issues, usually with, you know, external hires at this level. And we weren't having that problem. And I compared that to the ones that weren't doing it. And so then I became an advisor to KVIC in its early days. And now, so I've sort of come back home, you know, um, to do this work because it's a real passion of mine to help people. And, um, that's what we're doing. Cool.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah. And I'm seeing a lot of, like, kind of acceleration, it feels like, of firms wanting to bring in, um, you know, kind of leadership level people. I'm seeing this from the accounting side. I know you guys are. Are more than kind of public accounting firms. You, you deal with, uh, with a lot of consulting firms and I believe, legal as well.

Nate Boaz: Yep. Legal, tax, accounting, management consulting. Yeah, all of it.

Dominic Piscopo: Cool. Yeah. And then, and then there's a lot of leadership integration to be done as well, where the public accounting firm anyways, has become much more acquisitive than it has in the past. Right. And so there's a lot of work that needs to be done there to make sure smoot transition. A lot of, kind of making sure that the leadership you've acquired is going to, uh, pay off in the acquisition as well. And I think you can assign a lot of deal value to both the current and next generation of leadership within said firms. Right. So succession is really, really important. And so anything that can help kind of improve the success rate of that succession, I think is obviously a very, uh, important thing to have in the industry. So to kind of get a little bit deeper into this, like, what does this work look like a lot. Like, are you working both with the, with the firm on how to take in new leadership and integrate them, or does the work tend to be more focused on those new leaders coming in themselves and how they can do the work to become better leaders.

Nate Boaz: Yeah, I will say to your first point about like the, the increase in acquisitions and consolidations and just bringing together, you know, lots of smaller firms into medium sized firms. Right. There's a lot of work that we're doing there. And people tend to think about the formal structures. Okay, I've got, I've got to get the compensation aligned, I've got to get the titles and the org structure aligned. They think about the formal structures of getting the organization built, but they don't think about the culture and the leadership interactions and you know, how they get a new partner team, right. Uh, bringing together firm A, B and C to be firm, you know, this new firm, how they get the leadership teams integrated and working together. And so that's one of the ways we've been working with a lot of clients is assessing the different leadership archetypes across that group and then doing talent mapping, as we call it, to figure out how that top team can be more effective.

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: Um, and work together all, all with the rose in the water, all at the same time going the same direction. Um, the other one is, you know, there's a ton of, of hiring between these firms, right. And, and, and so you see a lot of direct entry partner level or senior manager level hires, aqua hires or individual hires. I mean, one firm we're working with is hiring, you know, call it 50 to 100, you know, new partners every year. You know, so that's not just promoting, but that's hiring. And um, to this example that I gave when I was a client, you know, uh, you have a choice. You could either have a good number of those folks come in, feel lost in their first year, maybe leave by year two and never hit their target. And that's an expensive, you know, sort of waste of money, right? Because you think about like signing bonuses and just the recruiting cost of finding the person and getting them all the way to the, to that decision. And so we do a lot of work there. Not, not only making sure you're selecting the right people, but making sure that once you have. Because a lot of these firms have good recruiting processes, right? Like they're, they're not doing a, you know, they wouldn't be in the business they're in, but it's. Once you've got the person on board, how do you make sure that they feel well integrated into your new culture, your new system, your new management, you know, um, systems that you're using and then actually help them go after their target, get on target, exceed target faster than they would otherwise, which they'll feel really good about, you'll feel really good about, uh, but do it in a way that's not, you know, a pressure cooker, but more investing in their development.

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: And so that's where we come in.

Dominic Piscopo: And how do you do that? Right. So, um, because obviously, like, that's uh, it's uh, a pretty easy sell to tell me that that's important. Right. And then. So how are we?

Nate Boaz: Oh yeah, and there's a lot of people, I'm sure you get hit, hit up on LinkedIn. I get hit up on LinkedIn. You know, could I be your life coach? And I'm like, what have you done in your career that's going to actually help me in mine? Um, so I think there's a few things. One is we, we put hard data on the soft stuff, right? So we um, we take a multi factor approach to understanding the individual leader in the context of what you're trying to do. So we build a success profile, um, of what it takes to be successful in this firm at this time with a forward look, right? So what got you here might not get you there. And so we're looking at like, what are the personality traits, the capabilities, the experiences to be successful in firm A right now and going forward, we look at the individual, we do a, uh, Hogan personality, you know, assessment. Hogan is one of the most sort of scientifically valid, legally defensible, been around for a long time, um, you know, baselines of data. So we do a Hogan assessment. We have our own proprietary database we call Verity, which looks at senior executives who have been and partner level folks who have been successful in professional services firms over time. And what do they look like when we have that profile? And there's archetypes, you and I were talking about it, um, offline before this and those archetypes clearly come out in the data and we can see which archetype you look like, uh, using your individual data based on that, that forms the basis of how we're going to coach you and how we're going to develop you. So we've got that success profile, we've got your individual data, we have how that data looks versus other successful partners and firms like yours. Uh, and then we help you build a traction plan. So it's really practical, right? Like most adults who are, you know, going through some kind of leadership development, they're like, oh, great, another training program. I gotta Listen to somebody, right? We're very much, how am I gonna help Dominic hit his plan and his metrics in the next 6 to 12 months? Uh, we work very closely with the sponsors. You know, most of these firms, right, they have some kind of apprenticeship model and there's some senior guru that you're assigned to, right, who probably doesn't have time for like, time to do the mentoring and coaching. So we help them be better sponsors, right, and know what you need coaching on, know what help you need in your client service, know what help you need in the firm in terms of networking and execute on that and help hold them accountable. I mean, there is, uh, you know, somebody asked me the other day, well, why would they want to do this, you know, with you versus just doing this internally? And I'm like, the same reason why people want a therapist that's not their spouse. You know, like, yeah, you need someone else that has your solely, your best interest in mind that's helping you through, you know, navigate that. That, you know, um, that first six, 12, 18 months that you're new in a role, uh, whether you were promoted into it or hired into it, that's. I think that's the sweet spot of where we can help people the most.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's kind of a topic I've, I've spoken about in the past a lot, but more in the context of kind of junior people. So it's cool to then bring the conversation now to, you know, Kanavik's area of expertise, which is probably more kind of in the senior manager partner type level. But like, I've spoken about this a lot where we're finding, you know, a lot of junior people where, um, in 2022, 2023, let's say, um, there was a big emphasis on like, seats almost at first, right. And it was like, let's just like, like we need to bring people in. And now there's a lot less of that pressure at the lower levels where it feels like there's, you know, less appetite for needing to bring in as many junior people as, you know, maybe technology improves and there's less of the, the need for kind of the grunt rote work to be executed by onshore staff, because a lot of that's offshore, you know, starting, uh, to be AI. And then also tech improvements have just kind of helped make that more. More effective. And so you need less of the lower level labor. And so now where firms, I think are really feeling it in the accounting space is like, we need people who can manage client files. Right. And we need people who can take on that client relationship and become the trusted advisor to said client and walk them through everything. Um, and then, you know, I talk about the need for that a lot, but the, the actual practical parts of it are a little bit tricky. And I think we can probably borrow a lot of what's happening in terms of the integration of partners as well, to help improve how we're integrating and training up people to be that advisor and client manager.

Nate Boaz: I think it's, uh, I think it's even more important now because the model's shifting, it's changing. You're talking about that, Right. A lot of people will talk about, well, you know, if AI and technology and you know, uh, a different sort of, you know, pyramid structures happening at the, at the bottom.

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: A lot of analysis and pattern matching and, you know, algorithms can be built to do that better and faster and more efficiently than humans can. Okay. And so the cost of cognition is being driven, you know, toward, toward zero. Whatever the cost of electricity is, is going to be the cost of cognition kind of thing, which is exciting and scary all at the same time. But then, um, what, what does it mean? What's the implication for us? It means that the people that are involved in consulting, whatever it is, tax consulting, legal consulting, management consulting, whatever kind of consulting you're doing, judgment and wisdom and the ability to think across problems, you know, like having that sort of, those kind of abilities. Right. Um, to make sense, make meaning out of change and chaos becomes even more important. Right?

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: And so instead of developing people that went from being the best business analyst to the best case manager, to the best, you know, associate partner to the best, you know, salesperson, rainmaker. Right. I think the model is shifting more to how do we identify and develop in people earlier in their career. Judgment and decision making and creativity and problem solving, you know, and being able to have, you know, connect the dots across big strategic ideas, you know, the combinatorial effect kind of thing. Right. And so I think that kind of stuff becomes even more important in this age of AI at a more junior level than it's ever been.

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: Because you don't just need the person to be like a really, really shithot analyst, you know, you need them to have actually judgment younger, you know, earlier in their career. Mhm.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah. And I think again in the past, like if there were a, uh, starting cohort of 20, 25 people, you probably only needed three or four of them to work out all the way to the top.

Nate Boaz: Yeah.

Dominic Piscopo: Um, and, and probably, you know, three of those people naturally just had it and like it was gonna be fine, but now Instead of those 20, 25 people, maybe have 15 people and you actually need four of them to work out to the top. Like, now the firm needs to be more actively engaged in making that happen. And so what are some of the kind of tools and structures that firms should be thinking about in terms of making that happen as, uh, as they're kind of developing those people?

Nate Boaz: Yeah, I think, I think one of the mindsets, you know, that's, that's sort of old school and needs to die in consulting is up or out, right? Yeah, I think it should be much more grow or go than, than upper out. Um, you know, because I think you really need to give people an opportunity to develop these muscles that maybe they weren't having to use somewhere along the way in the development path. And so I'm a big believer that, you know, one, not everyone's fit for every role. Right. Like, you want them to be passionate about it and good about it. But I do believe that most of the things we need people to do can be developed. So if they love to do it and they want to do it, then develop them to do it. Don't force them, don't force them out. Right. You know, um, so I think that needs to go away. I think the way firms also need to look at it is they've made all this productivity stuff a cost cutting exercise. And I think that's the wrong mindset. I think it needs to be about abundance, not scarcity. In a world where there's an abundance of cognition, an abundance of ideas, what are you going to create with it? So think about the numerator of productivity, not the denominator. Right. So many firms, like my old firm Accenture, you hear like, you know, we're using AI and we're cutting 10,000 jobs. I think that's really stupid and shortsighted. Right?

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: One, they're probably not using AI and therefore don't need the people. Right. They're just using it as a, as a, as a cover.

Dominic Piscopo: Cover. Yeah.

Nate Boaz: You know, but two, you know, you've got all these awesome people that you've hired and now you can augment them with technology. What's the awesome client value you're going to create with these people plus that technology? It should be a one plus one equals three proposition, not a, uh, how do I squeeze more juice out of a rock kind of thing. And so I think there's a big mindset shift in leadership that needs to occur in this age of AI. Much more about abundance versus scarcity. And then I think this sort of belief in investing in the, you know, development of people. Right. Capabilities, um, you know, they wane over time, and new ones are needed. And so just like you maintain capital assets, how are you maintaining the capability of your human assets in your organization? Um, and so I think we ought to see more investment in development, in the flow of work.

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: How do I help people do their job better than they could do them previously? Yeah. And how do I, um, unlock the creativity and the uniquely human potential of my workforce? By augmenting them with technology, not replacing them with it, you know?

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah. I like that mindset a lot. Is. Again, yeah, we've unlocked some capacity here. What new markets can we enter? What new.

Nate Boaz: What can I do?

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: What can I do with that? That awesome capacity and ideas. Right. Um, these new ideas I have, what can I create? What can I build with that? That's what I think is uniquely human, is that we're creators and builders. Um, we're not computers. Right. But people are thinking about it in terms of, well, we had these human computers, and they were slow, and they had a limited processing speed and they had a limited memory capacity. And now I have these new computers to replace them. I think the AI and the breakthroughs we have are taking away work we shouldn't have done to begin with. If you think about, like, you know, we used to, you know, before there was a mule pulling the plow, there was a human pulling the plow, you know, well, maybe the human shouldn't have been pulling the plow. But they were the best technology at the moment. Yeah. You know, to do it.

Dominic Piscopo: It's a good analogy. I like that.

Nate Boaz: Yeah.

Dominic Piscopo: Um, and so kind of left unguided. Right. Like as a little bit of a sales pitch for Kanavic. Right. So, uh, affirms. Ah, Never heard of you guys. Um, the individual partners or person hoping to progress and become a very successful partner has never heard of you guys. Um, where are the common pitfalls? Like, where do things tend to go wrong? Um, if again, like, there's this ambitious person at the firm, they're coming up. Maybe they're required, maybe they weren't. Whatever. Um, and. And the firm also needs some succession planning. Right. But they're not being intentional about this. So what usually goes wrong there?

Nate Boaz: Yeah. I'll give you a real one that's. You brought up secession planning a couple times. And it is critical. Right. Like, you Know the, the. If you have, the. If you have a good enough CEO or practice leader or you know, managing partner or whatever, um, you'll be fine. Cause you've got lots of other leaders. But if you have a bad one, if you have the wrong one for the moment in time, it can be really detrimental to the, to the value, you know, and dilutive and even, even destructive to the value of the firm. M. And we've seen that, right? We've seen that in people who are just, you know, uh, and I'm not even talking about like ethical problems. I'm talking about just a poor leader. Right. Um, and the biggest pitfall I see is what I call the self referential problem. Dominic has been the head of this firm for the last 15 years. Let's just make something up. And Dominic looks for someone that's just like him to be the leader of the firm for the next 15 years. And uh, doesn't use any data. And therefore you pick the usual suspects. Your shortlist is the usual suspects. You don't look deeper in the organization. Maybe your best successor is one or two levels down. Maybe they're not currently, you know, someone that reports to you. Right. And people, I mean, I've been in part, I ran partner committees for, you know, a, uh, part of the Accenture consulting, Accenture strategy. And when I was running these partner election and promotion committees, I'd hear people say all the time, Dominic can't make partner. He's only been senior manager for six years and it took me eight years. And I'm like, we're not assessing you. Yeah. And we're talking, you know, and what does tenure have to do with readiness? Right. And so I see that problem all the time where people are not using data or they're using the wrong data, they're looking at themselves. That's a self referential problem to solve something where it's like you actually need the person that's going to get you to the next level of performance. And they probably don't look like you, you know, they probably don't have the same profile as you. So let's use data to inform that personality traits, derailers, strength, strengths, motivators, you know, real experiences that are applicable to the future of this firm, not what got us to where we're at today. So I think that's the biggest pitfall. Uh, and then they don't invest in bringing the team together to be effective. Right. They just leave it to chance, you know, as if everyone knows exactly how to bring their Team together and get the most out of it.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah. I feel like in, in accounting specifically I've seen a lot has been left to chance, I think historically speaking. And like that's just kind of no longer going to cut it for obviously for the more ambitious firms. Like if you're going to kind of trade sideways, like that's probably fine. Um, but there does need to be a lot more intention on a lot of these things.

Nate Boaz: Um, you reminded me of one other thing real quick.

Dominic Piscopo: Sorry, go ahead.

Nate Boaz: The best accountants and the best accounting partners doesn't mean you're the best at leading an accounting firm. And I'll pick on a client that we're working on recently, which is an architectural firm. They have some of the best architects, but just because they're the best architects and best at leading their practice area and architecture doesn't mean they're the best at being an effective leadership team of an architectural firm.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: And so if people look at that as a worthwhile investment to make sure that they're getting the most effective top team, you know, integration and everyone again with their rows in the water at the same time, you know, at the same time paddling in the same direction. If you want that, which I think all of you know if you ask, yes, of course I want that. Well then invest in that and do the things it takes to actually make that happen.

Dominic Piscopo: Mhm. Yeah. And I mean so in, in training up leadership too, like yeah, uh, it's not, it's not real that everyone's going to be a managing partner either. And that's okay. And I imagine that's probably where the archetypes come in a lot. So I'd be curious to kind of talk about those archetypes. Right. Because I think when we think like partner for me, I think like, okay, there's one person who maybe is really strong as like a strategic thinker and um, really good at sort of organizing the pieces and probably they should be at the helm is like what I would think. Right. And then there's some people who are more kind of on the business development side. I, I would place myself there if I were still in the accounting firm where like you know, managing relationships, finding ways to drive more revenue through existing relationships and then also just generating net new relationships. And then I think like there's the need for the technical partner, there's the need for. Some people are really good at developing the next generation of people. Um, and I think sometimes, and I've seen this, I would say in like people within my own cohort who think they want to be the one kind of partner. And it's, it's really like, you know, you want to be CEO because you've heard that the CEO is where it's at. But like, you're probably actually really good at being like the be, uh, you know, one step down. But you, that, that doesn't devalue what you're doing at all. It's just, it's a different archetype and you're still super important, but like you might be gunning for the wrong thing. Like, do you come across that a lot?

Nate Boaz: Yeah, I think, I think there's a big gap and you're, you're highlighting it. Like people want, you know, the, the, the top rung. Right? They, they, they're chasing brass ring. They, you know, but oftentimes they're expectations don't meet their standards. Right. They're not practicing for that, you know, managing partner level role. They're practicing for one of these other roles, but they're saying that they want, you know, and so that gap between expectations and standards and what they're holding themselves to don't, don't match. But also how they're wired. And that's where I think, uh, doing a deep personality assessment, understanding your traits, understanding your default settings. Right. It doesn't mean you can't overcome them. But sometimes the cleanest path to success is doing what you're good at, that you love to do. And if you love to do something and you're not good at it, you can work on that. And if you're good at something and you're doing it but you don't love it, you can either learn to love it or leave it and try to do something else. And so I think understanding the intersectionality of, you know, your passions and your strengths and then, uh, aligning that with the archetypes that are needed. And I think you laid them out. I mean, you know, it's an oversimplification, but there's people that tend toward hunting but not farming. Tend toward farming and, you know, tend toward tribal leadership. Right. Like, like leading all the hunters and farmers in the, you know, in the tribe. Right?

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: Or client account leadership. Right. You know, um, and owning the relationships. I will say across all these though, there's an increasing need for leaders, whether they're a rainmaker, you know, originator, whether they're a client relationship owner, whether they're a strategic firm builder and an owner, um, to be much more about rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands Dirty and driving to results. I think gone are the days of, you know, expensive PowerPoint. Right?

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: You know, I, um, think a lot of these firms that, that were doing that, some of which, that I used to work for, you know, uh, McKinsey, Accenture, whatnot, are having to figure out that it's not enough, uh, to just advise people. You got to be a doer, you

Dominic Piscopo: got to be results, got to deliver on the results.

Nate Boaz: Yeah, you have to deliver the results and you have to put yourself side by side with the executives, your clients that are trying to do this stuff and really put yourself in their shoes and help them figure out how to deliver the result. And you have to have a bias for action and you have to have, you know, I think much more humility and adaptability. In the past, you could, you could be the smartest person in the room, you could be the know it all expert. And clients would pay for that. Boards would pay for that because they would want this really smart person to have looked over their strategy, poked holes in it and come up with some new options. Right. Um, or maybe get creative on how the accounting's done and look for ways to do it better than any other firm could. Right now I think it's much more about, um, co creating new solutions with clients, um, as, as fast as you can and trying stuff and prototyping and failing and learning from it.

Dominic Piscopo: Right, yeah.

Nate Boaz: Which is, I think it's, it's, it's a new type of, of leader, it's a new type of consultant.

Dominic Piscopo: And so like to get practical. Like, I think I'm a very introspective person and like, uh, my journey in entrepreneurship has allowed me to learn some of these things about myself as well and be able to lean into them where I've, I've very much, I think early on in my career it was very much like, ah, you're really good at this. Don't worry about it. Um, you're not so good at thing X, Y and Z. You need to hit your head against the wall until you're better at those. But then now again, like working for myself, I've been able to kind of self assess and realize like actually I can just not do those things and I can try to like get other people to do them or find external help and things like that and I can just lean all the way into what my strengths are. So, but like, if I wanted to excel in a firm again, let's say with my own traits, right, where I have a huge bias for action and I get very frustrated when processes aren't good. M. Um, and I'm really good at identifying that and like let's say saying I think we need to do things X, Y and Z. But then if you tell me it's a one year implementation to fix the thing two to three months in, I've probably found the next thing that I'm now obsessing over.

Nate Boaz: Yeah. Ah.

Dominic Piscopo: And it feels like pulling teeth to do those last nine months of the implementation. Right. And so like within a leadership assessment and, or uh, things like that, like what's the advice? Like should I be um, fighting against my own self to do those things and to be like, oh, you need to stick through the implementation or is it again, like in teaching someone who has maybe some of those traits like like okay, great, like again, lean into your strengths and, and hand that off. Or like what, like what would you do with me in the firm?

Nate Boaz: You know, so I think we're living in this, this world where, you know, um, and, and I'm an entrepreneur as well, right. In this firm and I started a couple of firms before this, you know, I believe. Let's step back and look at productivity for a second, right? Which people get scared by that word, but I think it's an exciting thing to think about. It's just outputs over inputs and you do need to think about time and cost and quality and all that. St productivity is outputs divided by inputs, right? The denominator for a second. It's all the things you're saying, eliminate, automate, delegate, right? Like eliminate the waste. Don't do stuff that doesn't create value. Number one rule of lean, right? Don't do anything that doesn't create value for your customer or client, whoever that is. Automate use technology or some kind of service that does it better, faster, quicker than you delegate. Give it to someone who's better or less expensive and can do it the same, right? So if you, if you do those things on the, on the denominator, then what's that leave for the numerator? Create, right? What can you create now that you're doing these things much more efficiently and spend your time there? I have, you know, you hear all these people say, well I was using ChatGPT or you know, Claude to, you know, write my emails and now I can send more emails. Well, maybe you shouldn't be sending emails at all, right? Maybe you think about the eliminate part of it. Is it actually creating any value? But the full value of these things is having agentic AI. So I Use quad cowork every day. I have different project environments set up with different agents doing different things for me Right. Right now. Like I have agents working for me right now while we're doing this, you know, podcast. Right. And so I think that's the environment that we're living in where you need to be very thoughtful about that. But then try it. Right. You know, I just, you know, for, for another business that my wife runs, uh, you know, um, she was asking me like, let's do a session later this week on how she can build the agents she needs to go work on the work that she's working on so that she has more to do the things that she's. That's highest and best use for her. Right. And so that would be my encouragement to you is like, figure out what's your highest and best use and then, you know, eliminate automate, delegate and take the full value of agentic AI to do the things that you shouldn't be doing so that you can do more of the things that are the highest, best use of your time.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah. And I imagine a lot of the work that like people are doing with Kanavic probably comes around to identifying those things within themselves.

Nate Boaz: Yeah, I think getting deeper alignment between how you're hardwired and how you show up, how you show up at your best, how you show up at your worst. And then it's all about complementarity. So we have this team that we're looking at, consulting leadership team of a, um, you know, successful mid market business and like I'd say 2/3 of them are new. Right. You had some legacy folks, you had an acquisition, you had some aqua hires, you had some external hires. And so it's a mixed bag of nuts. Not to say that they're crazy, but like, it's literally, you, uh, know different people from different backgrounds and different cultures and now you got to work together and go grow this business. We did all of their assessments and they have some really clear strengths. You know, I call it like the big lot. What's your big lobster claw? What's your small lobster claw? Their small lobster claw is operational rigor and processes and getting stuff done. And so. And uh, I saw this in some leadership teams that I've pulled together and led before. And it's like, okay, we might have to hire or build, you know, hire or build or complement ourselves in some way to make up for that small lobster claw, because otherwise we're going to have all these strategic ideas and big plans and goals and like you said, you know, three months into it, we might not get any of it done and we might get distracted and go do something else. Um, and so having that self and team awareness.

Dominic Piscopo: Right.

Nate Boaz: Situational awareness. What. What is this team going to. What's going to make this team fail if we don't plan for it now? Yeah. So we're actually going to go do a leadership workshop session with them, uh, in a couple weeks. Not only to, like, build trust and get them to know each other and collaborate and how they're going to work together, their ways of working, but to literally stare clearly at this gap that they have in their collective strength, you know, and be like, we got to fill that. That void somehow, or else six, 12 months from now, we're not going to have made progress against these goals. And we'll know exactly why, because this is how we're wired as a team. Yeah.

Dominic Piscopo: And then they can be more strategic, I guess, in their next aqua acqua hire or hiring of an agency or something, where they say, okay, cool, like, we're lacking in this area. Um, I like that kind of approach. It makes me think I have, uh. I can't remember in what context this was, but there was a company or firm or somewhere that I had heard of who basically had made baseball cards of all their, like, top leaders. And they were like, almost like Pokemon cards. And they're like, here's, like, my ability, and, like, here's my, like, secret weakness. Yep. And they had, like, made it known to people like, here's everyone's baseball cards. And they kind of, like, put them all down and looked at it like a deck of cards. And they were like, what is this. What is this deck of cards really strong at? What is this deck of cards really weak at? And then they tried to kind of make improvements from there. And I think that that's really, really, really interesting, um, as an approach to. To making things. And, you know, there's been critiques of these assessments or personality archetypes and things like that as being sort of like, hokey pseudoscience. But, like, whether or not that's true, I do find it can be actually very helpful to label and identify things where, again, Deloitte, when I was there, had, like, four archetypes of personality traits. And it was like, guardian was the predominant one, which is like, um, super attention to detail, you know, execution, things like that, which was most accountants. And then there was Integrator, who is like, the person who is really good at bringing people together, training the next generation, creating functional Teams. Um, and then I found myself in Pioneer, which is like the kind of more thirst for innovation, wanting to question things, change how things are done.

Nate Boaz: Started your own company.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah. More creative, which was the least represented one. And then there was like, driver and there was like different axes that people were all presented on. And I kind of had some ch. Like, some people I just didn't like working with and I found it hard to do. And it's like you look at the spectrum and the, like, that whole team is there and I'm here and even just seeing that. And there was like, advice of like, oh, if this person's working with this person, like, be considerate of things X, Y and Z and understand that maybe they perceive things that way. And, and again, is this the best, most hard science? Probably not, but I found it actually very helpful to be like, oh, you

Nate Boaz: need a common language for these things and you need to be able to name it and then claim it and then, and then, you know, be able to frame it in a way where you're like, okay, now I understand how I'm interacting with this group or what, what my own gaps are. Right.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: What my own tendencies are. How do I show up? Why would somebody say, I like to work with Dominic on this stuff, but if I'm at. If, if I'm trying to get this work done, I'm not going to give it to Dominic because it's, you know, that's not, you know, uh, the sweet spot for him.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah.

Nate Boaz: And, and so that's what we're trying to do. It's not saying that any of those archetypes that you just listed, you know, there's no hierarchy of some are good and some are bad. It's like, fit for purpose. Which ones are, you know, using the right tool for the right job. Right. Um,

Dominic Piscopo: yeah, I feel like I could kind of geek out on this forever. I love this type of stuff.

Nate Boaz: This is passion. Right? You can tell that.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, we only have a few minutes left. Uh, but I, uh, want to kind of sort of lightning round ask like, yeah, what are some of the skills or archetypes that are most important to lean into or focus on developing to be, you know, again, not necessarily the managing partner, but like a great leader into 2030, let's say, as the landscape is evolving, like, what do you think more people need to lean into more?

Nate Boaz: I think there's two. Two traits, and I think they can be developed or they can be practiced until they are, you know, developed. I, I think of these leadership traits as, as muscles. And sometimes we let them atrophy because we don't exercise them. And so, you know, it's like you, you, you start to exercise them. Wow. I do have this. It's just not as built as I want it to be. They would be humility and courage. And I know that's sort of like, well, now we're talking about character stuff, but I think it's important because it's foundational. Um, and what's happening right now is the environment is changing so fast that leadership is really about changing yourself as fast as the environment around you is changing. And to be super adaptable, you first have to believe that you don't know everything, and there is a lot for you to learn. And so that's where humility steps in, which is like, you know, there's a lot changing. There's a lot that I don't know that I need to learn. And there's probably someone or something because, you know, AI can teach us a lot. A lot of how I've learned how to use AI is by asking the AI how to. To use it. Right. Like, so there's a lot we can learn from others. Uh, and so humility, I think, is one of the core attributes of leadership right now, which is to, you know, um, expect that you're going to need to learn a lot and keep learning and keep unlearning old, old, old ways of doing stuff. Right. The second is courage to then actually do something different if you want a different outcome, you know, And I know that seems. Well, yeah, duh. But, like, how many times have we seen organizations or teams or leaders get stuck in expecting something different, but then doing the same thing? And, you know, I hear a lot of talk, and I think we need to have less talk and more doing.

Dominic Piscopo: Um, yeah, for sure.

Nate Boaz: Right. There's. There's a lot of talk about, well, you know, AI is going to do this or AI is going to do that. And I'm like, well, get in and start using it and see what it does. Yeah. You know, or.

Dominic Piscopo: Or even not AI. Right. Like, I think, like, sometimes, uh, I like what you said about, like, you're asking AI, uh, how to use it. Like, yeah. Uh, I think people should be doing that with other people.

Nate Boaz: Yes.

Dominic Piscopo: You know, you bring someone on board and you're like, dominic, what would, what would.

Nate Boaz: What would be the best way for you to realize your full potential here? Yeah. How can I say?

Dominic Piscopo: We don't ask that a lot. Yeah, we don't ask That a lot of people, which I think sucks. Yeah. Um, cool. Well, um, I appreciate you talking about this. Um, last question for you, which is also going to be a little bit of a plug for yourself, but like, what are some of the symptoms in a firm or you know, what are some of the areas that you can look at within your own firm and say, like, hey, I think, I think it's time that either we bring in Kanavik or someone to help with this or uh, at the very least that we have a sit down and rethink of how we're training people to be the next generation of leaders. Like, what are the symptoms of someone not doing that well?

Nate Boaz: Yeah, well, I love how you, you're using the health analogy because I think it's a good one. I mean, you don't want to wait until you have, you know, a stage four problem, right? You don't want to wait until, um, you know, you're obese and, and uh, to then start eating right and exercising, know, while you're having to take, you know, insulin or a GLP1 or something like that. And so I think, you know, firms that are doing okay or good and taking them to excellent is a m. Much easier path than having to, to turn around a situation, right. And, and I've done all flavors, but both of those and everything in between. Uh, so what I'd encourage folks to do is like, you know, start doing it now. And we, you know, we've taken firms that have good retention of high performers to great retention. We've taken firms that have, you know, exceeding target performance on target or exceeding target performance to far exceeding target performance. And so I would encourage, you know, clients, you know, of yours and potential clients of mine to, to think about this, you know, well, before it becomes a problem. Because you don't want it to become a problem. Once it becomes a problem, um, then, then you're trying to get people out of a fear based crisis mode into one where they're, they can see a path to growth again. And I'm not saying it's too late, but it's almost, it's almost too late when you're, when, when, when you've let it get that bad.

Dominic Piscopo: Perfect. Well, I, I, uh, agree with that. Like, I think catching it early on, uh, particularly as it comes to succession, like, you know, that's a long process. You can't be like, oh my God, next year we're screwed. Um, and then hope to clap, you

Nate Boaz: know, it's worse than many, many clients will come to us and say, X, you know, x CEO is retiring. Or this CEO decided that they're. They're leaving and we don't know who we're going to replace them with. Yeah, I'm like, how long have they been CEO? 10 years. And you don't know who is going to replace them.

Dominic Piscopo: So maybe that's the exercise. Right? If you're listening and you don't really know what would happen if you got hit by a bus or whatever leader got hit by a bus, like, and then it's time to.

Nate Boaz: Oh, well, you know, he or she said that it should be this person, you know?

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, cool. Well, I really appreciate you hopping on, um, again, I. I think this is so interesting. So we should definitely stay in touch and. And chat more about it.

Nate Boaz: Let's keep the conversation going.

Dominic Piscopo: Yeah. But, uh, yeah, for anyone who's listening, who this renovates or resonates with, um, I'll have all your contact information linked, uh, to the podcast. Show notes, make sure you check them out, um, or just connect with Nate, um, personally as well. And, uh, yeah, thanks for taking the time today.

Nate Boaz: Thank you, Dominic, for having me on.