In this episode, Nathaniel Gaydosik and I dug into Jim Collins’ “Good to Great“.
You can listen to the episode here:
You can find Nathaniel on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Full Transcript:
Mickey: Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline. So that was a quick quote from Jim Collins timeless book, Good to Great, and here with me to chat about it today is Nathaniel Gaydosik. So, Nathaniel, welcome to the show.
Nathaniel: Good to be here.
Mickey: Yeah, thank you. Um, so you picked this book, again, with all the guests I have in here, I let you guys pick the book, and this was a fantastic selection, but Tell me a bit more. Why did you pick it? What did you get out of it? What’s kind of your main takeaway of why someone might want to read this book?
Nathaniel: I read good to great, um, probably over eight years ago. It was the first time I picked it up. I was still in college and, um, I was in, in business school doing a lot of leadership, um, work as an intern and, um, in, in my fraternity. And so there were just a lot of concepts that really stood out to me.
Um, I love research. Um, not all people love research, but this is built on really solid research, but has a lot of timeless principles. for [00:01:00] how to build a great company. But I actually, when I read it then, and when I’ve just kind of have re read it to discuss this with you, noticed that a lot of these principles actually really apply well to our life. So there’s a ton of things that you don’t have to be the CEO or an executive or a senior leader at a business for this to be applicable. You can read it. And apply it directly to building a great life and a great family. And so that was something that stood out to me is even though this is technically a business book, there are a ton of really great life lessons that are found within it.
Mickey: Gotcha. Agreed. Um, give me an example of one of those. Because a lot of what I’ve pulled is more business focused, but there certainly were some life ones. So what’s one of those that you found particularly helpful?
Nathaniel: so his concept of the level five leader, there’s a ton of great, um, leadership thought leaders out there. And Jim Collins is definitely one. thought the concept of [00:02:00] humility. Will and resolve those attributes that a level five leader has are great things. Obviously, if you’re going to lead a great company, but they’re really good principles and really good attributes to have, um, leading a family, just being a person that’s, that’s living on this earth.
And so, um, that was one of those concepts that really stood out. Um, I loved, we can dig into it, but the, the hedgehog concept. Um, I think a lot of people when they’re looking at success in any kind of area, we think that being strategic and cunning and complicated is the best. I really find it interesting that their, showed that simple was best. That the simple and the clear and the honest and, uh, being able to confront those brutal facts, that was actually what made them [00:03:00] successful.
Mickey: Yep. Yeah, one thing I read about level five leadership. I don’t think this was from the book itself, but it says level five leaders look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves. When things go poorly, they look in the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility.
And by comparison, other CEOs did the opposite. They looked in the mirror to take credit, but out the window to assign blame. And so it’s a matter of, yeah, yeah. Take taking credit for the problems, but realizing that success isn’t just from you. And again, yeah, it applies to your family or your business or whatever.
Like you’re trying to, trying to assign credit the right way. It can be tricky and can be a little humbling at times too, but
Nathaniel: yeah,
Mickey: yeah, it can be a huge thing.
Nathaniel: um, I noticed on your, your book list, you had, uh, Chestnut Checkers from Mark Miller. I’m very familiar and done a lot of work in Mark Miller’s, um, content and his, his curriculum.
Mickey: Okay.
Nathaniel: he would that same exact concept that, um, he would talk about, uh, him and Ken Blanchard. Um, they talk about accepting responsibility [00:04:00] and part of that is taking the blame sharing the credit. a lot of, yeah, um,
Mickey: hmm.
Nathaniel: leaders do the opposite. They, they take all the credit, and they give all the blame. And
Mickey: Right.
Nathaniel: yeah, that’s a, that’s a great point, um, from the level five leadership.
Mickey: It was, um, I really liked that one. One piece that really stood out to me that I like was about getting the right people on the bus and it’s the right people and the right seat. And I’ve seen that a few times in our company where there’s a couple of people we’ve had to let go over the years. I mean, we’re 15 years in only let go to for, for bad reasons.
That’s pretty good. But there was one that comes to my way to let go. Cause he was the right person, but in the wrong seat, we just didn’t have the right seat on the bus for him. So we worked hard and found, we gave him plenty of notice and helped him actually find another job and stuff. But realizing just, there’s not the right seat for his skillset, even though he has.
Fantastic skills. It’s just not what we needed. And looking at people that way to see if they’re the right person and in the right seat. And if it’s the right person, we’ll do whatever we can to find the seat for him. If it’s the wrong person, the seat doesn’t matter. It’s the [00:05:00] wrong person. They got to get off the bus.
And so, yeah, I found that interesting just to, he said in the book, he said, the old adage, people are your most important asset. Turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are, and that’s something huge as you’re trying to grow a company of any size is finding the right people.
I think. I mean, even more so when you’re smaller like ours, I mean, we’re only nine people total. It’s, I mean, every person has a huge impact on everything, you know,
Nathaniel: his, his bus analogy, I think, really will stand the test of time. A lot of business leaders, think about that. Something that, I think is, uh, almost a prerequisite to that is his idea of deep understanding that the good to great leaders, the good to great companies. They had a very deep understanding of who they were as a company, what made them successful, what was going to be, uh, really their ethos and what, uh, their contribution to the world was going to [00:06:00] be. And so I think there’s a. Sometimes there’s a danger in, um, we, we think person’s just not on the right bus, uh, but we don’t even really know what the bus is or what, what are the requirements for this bus? Where’s this bus going? Um, and so it’s, it’s
Mickey: right.
Nathaniel: a healthy exercise, but I think that deep understanding is really important to do the front end of that.
Um, I also, yeah, I love his concept of it’s who, then what, that it’s more important to have the right who on your team than it is to know exactly what you’re doing. So, um, yeah, that’s a, that’s a good, a good principle as you’re building a team, as you’re building an organization and as you, as you’re growing it is evaluating or are people in the right seats and is this even really the right bus for them?
Mickey: Yep. Yeah. The who, then what makes a lot of sense. Cause we made a hire last year that was, she was very much the right what, but it was not the right who we had to let her go. [00:07:00] And so we replaced her with someone that did not have nearly the skills innately, but was desiring to learn more and was going to be a great culture fit and has worked out just fantastic.
So yeah, getting the right who in place. We can, we can teach to what, especially for digital marketing, this stuff’s, you know. We’ve got eons of books and videos and stuff to get people trained up, but it’s having the right person that’s eager to learn and wants to do it and wants to care for the clients and work with the team, just all the intangible things that matter so much more than the little bit more skill they might come in with.
So that’s, yeah, well said. Um, another one that was interesting to me, and this one almost seems counterintuitive, was the Stockdale Paradox. Uh, with Jim Stockdale. Um, the quote from the book, what separates people, Jim Stockdale taught me is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.
And it was funny cause in my notes, I tie a lot of my notes from books together. This same thing came up in clear thinking and also came up in integrity. Like it came in a lot of books. They talk about Jim Stockdale, but the idea was when he was in prison, people say, oh, we’ll be out by Christmas and they get their hopes up and the Christmas would come and go.
We’ll be out at Easter and I hope they would come and go and getting your hopes up. Like [00:08:00] seems like a good thing. You want to be. I don’t know if it’s positive and think positively but it put these people basically to the graves because they would become so depressed because Christmas would come and go and Easter would come and go and then another Christmas would come and go and he said, we’re not getting out by Christmas.
Just deal with it and if you learn to deal with that and can steal yourself, it helps but again, it seems paradoxical to me because we’ve been taught like, no, no, be positive like we can do this like some false positivity really can really bite you the other way. Um what what did you get? Do you do you look at the Stockdale Paradox much?
I’m curious your thoughts there.
Nathaniel: I found it, um, I think obviously I read it and I think that was in confront the brutal facts, which. I think it’s a really hard principle for people to sit with. but then it was, came up again kind of toward the conclusion. And I just did a little Google search because I was trying to remember, okay, the Stockdale Paradox, what was that? And the note that I took down was, um, the Stockdale Paradox is to balance persistent optimism confronting the brutal facts. And it’s just really hard to hold those two for a lot of people at the [00:09:00] same time. Um, but a lot of power in being able to accept reality and really take a hard look at the things that are going on, at the troubles, at the problems, at the pain, also have just an unyielding belief that we can overcome this and we will get through this and the end, you know, this too shall pass, that we believe that, but we’re know, it’s not blind optimism.
It’s not, yeah, just, uh, almost a toxic positivity. Um, it’s, it’s blended with accepting reality and the real problems that are, that are faced. But then also having that, uh, just consistent, persistent optimism that we’re going to get through this and we’ll figure it out. And it’s going to be hard, but we’re going to figure it out.
And, and so, yeah, I, I, I, uh, I think that’s a great paradox, a great principle, something that um, is, is always worth striving for, is doing both work of being [00:10:00] optimistic and confronting, yeah, there’s just, sometimes there’s just hard realities that we can’t get away from. It’s a gravity problem. It doesn’t go away.
Mickey: Yeah, the one of them I’m worried about recently, not worried about, but just accepting is AI. Like, for the most part, I mean, there’s going to be some great things with AI, but for the most part, I don’t like it. Like, I want people to write and create and be artists just themselves, but it’s not going to happen.
It’s not going back in the bottle. There’s no laws you can pass to stop it at this point. Like, we have to accept what it is and work with it the way it is. And yeah, I know some people are still trying to fight against it and it’s just, yeah. You’re not going to win. It’s over. So let’s accept what it’s going to be and make the best fit.
And again, there’s gonna be some cool things we do, you know, share some video clips from this on, on social media, and those are gonna be helped with AI to help me find the right clips. And there’s some, some great things there, but yes, we just got to find the right thing. So it’s almost a different angle on, you know, just being accepting the inevitable, but it’s, it’s both ways.
I mean, understanding that and setting your boundaries the right way or setting your, your sites the right way can, can really help even if it feels kind of bad just to, [00:11:00] we’re not getting out by Christmas, like that’d be tough to say, but. It helps, helps a lot to, to set your expectations appropriately.
Nathaniel: in that, that story, it’s like the brutal fact is we just don’t know. We don’t know when we’re going to get out of here. We don’t know. What AI is going to do, and that’s a really hard for people to wrestle with. I think that was something I, you know, we talked about the dark times of 2020 and the pandemic, I think a big leadership lesson for me. During that whole season, just looking at society, at companies and cultures is there was not much of a willingness to just say we just don’t know. And I just, I, I noticed through that time that we, we weren’t confronting the brutal fact that this is totally uncharted territory. We have no idea what is going to happen next week.
Everything could be different and we’re going to be okay. We’re going to figure it out. We’re going to, we’re going to get through this. [00:12:00] going to, you know, we’re going to be okay at the end of the day. But, uh, yeah, just as, as a leader, as somebody, especially when everybody, when people are looking to you, um, it can be hard, but it’s also very crucial.
Like people want to hear, you know, if they see reality, if they see, you know, Hey, AI is not going away. And, and you’re there fighting it tooth and nail. Um, it’s, it’s really not helping them. It’s not helping you. Yeah. So doing both the stock deal paradox, um, is, is a really powerful thing to always be working on.
Mickey: Yeah. The, the Covid example is a good one because, yeah. So many experts feel like they had to have an answer, even they, they didn’t know. And I think politicians in general do that. They feel like they have to have an answer when, I don’t know, here’s what might happen is the more accurate and honest answer, but it just makes you seem soft if you don’t have the exact answers.
So that’s why, especially early in Covid, we had so many things that just weren’t accurate, you know? Things about, yeah, if you, if you take the vaccine, you will never be able [00:13:00] to catch COVID. Like they said that early. And of course you still could. It still helped. It was still a good thing to do, but they were, they were wrong.
And they felt like they had to just have these absolute statements. And yeah, from both sides of everything, there’s always absolute statements on things. And yeah, I don’t know is a perfectly acceptable thing. And really, I find more trusted people that say that because then when they are confident about something like, ah, they’re willing to say when they’re not.
So if they are confident, they probably really know what they’re talking about versus someone that always is confident about everything and is wrong half the time. Yeah. I love, I love a good, I don’t know. It’s, it’s frustrating at the time, kind of like accepting you’re not going to get up by Christmas, but if someone’s willing to say, I don’t know, then when they, when they do know, I have more trust in him for that.
Um, another piece I found interesting was that the flywheel of momentum, um, you know, he said, well, suppose someone came along as what was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast? You wouldn’t be able to answer. It’s a nonsensical question. Was it the first push, the second, the fifth, the hundredth?
No, it was all of them added together. So the overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. And so, yeah, it’s interesting just to see that. I see that with a lot of [00:14:00] things where if things get rolling good, but what was the thing that did it? And you can point to things that mattered more than others, but there’s never just the one thing that got you going.
I mean, I look at our business and there were certainly some, some key hires and some key jobs we landed and stuff, but not one thing that said, ah, that’s what did it, it was a million little things that added up over time, but like a good flywheel, once they get going, they kind of, Keep moving things forward.
It’s not like you have to, it’s not like a hamster wheel where you have to keep putting the same pressure on all the time. The flywheel can sort of run on its own to a degree, thanks to all the work you’ve done before and that’s what the good to great companies were able to do is get that flywheel going and then run with it a bit.
Nathaniel: business principle and a life principle. Um, I, I think about, um, I know people love
Mickey: Mm hmm.
Nathaniel: about, you know, you work for 20 years and then you’re an overnight success. Something, something breaks and it’s like, wow, it’s amazing that you just got all, you were so lucky you had all this. It’s like, well, I, I did consistently, you know, build this over time and then we had [00:15:00] that breakthrough. Um, it’s, yeah, just the consistency piece that came up a lot with good to great companies with the level five leaders. It’s just that constant push, the constant effort, um, always kind of in that same direction.
It was focused. yeah, it’s, it’s a silly question to ask, you know, what was the one thing you did that, that got, built this great company? It’s like, well,
Mickey: right.
Nathaniel: things. I did this for a decade. It, you know, it, it doesn’t make sense to ask, you know, what was the one thing. Um, but it’s the consistency.
If you give up, know, halfway through, it’s going to slow down and, and you’re not going to have that breakthrough.
Mickey: Yeah, I’ve seen this with youtubers, like two youtubers. I follow one is Mr. Beast, who probably everyone knows about. In other words, MKBHD, uh, Marques Brownlee’s a tech reviewer, but has millions of subscribers and both of them, you can go back to the early days. They published video after video, after video with like two views and just nothing, [00:16:00] and there was never one big breakthrough for either of them.
Mr. B sorted it. I think early on when he counted to like a hundred thousand, I think he did a video where he counted like 20, 000. One to, to a hundred thousand. Like it took him, however, however long it did, but, and that kind of gave him a bump, but it put him to like 2000 subscribers and he’s at, you know, I don’t know, a hundred million now or whatever.
So that wasn’t the thing that got him on there, but it was just over and over and viewing it better. And of course, in those cases, and with us, repetition makes you better too. I mean, the quality of their videos is improved both as monies come in to help with some of that, but a lot of it just. learning how to do it better and what makes a good video.
But again, going back to the early days, it’s amazing to see like Mr. Beast just these hundreds of videos that were just garbage, but now he’s thousands of videos in there. They’re pretty darn good. And MKBHD. And I mean, I’m sure there’s hundreds of others on YouTube and elsewhere that get to have that consistency.
There’s that flywheel, just a video, a video, a video, track how it does, see what’s better, keep improving, keep tweaking. And now, again, Mr. Beast is a great example of the flywheel. Cause he makes millions from every video, but then he can pour millions into every video. Keep it running where we can’t just start [00:17:00] there.
I mean, I don’t have 5 million bucks to drop into a video and hope I make 5 million back from it, but because he has the tens of thousands of videos and millions of subscribers, it works that flywheels just humming along and fly wheels can break. I mean, we’ll see if we talk about him in a couple of years, but it’s a good place to be in businesses.
Yeah, certainly the same thing. I mean, we’ve got that with our company, with the flywheels kind of humming pretty good right now too. I don’t know that I could have just, I know I couldn’t have just started today and say, let’s hire these people. And Go. I mean, some people might have that, but us building the sites and learning techniques and building processes and stuff over the years has kind of evolved into a fantastic flywheel and yeah, helped us go from good to great, at least within our little, you know, not, not compared to the companies in this book for sure, but, and we feel much better than we were before and hopefully even better going forward.
Nathaniel: 50 years or so before, uh, you know, you would have record, but it’s that consistent effort. Um, yeah. And I, that reminds me of, um, Ben Rector. Um, I’m a musician. I love music. Have you listened to Ben [00:18:00] Rector? Have you, have you
Mickey: Okay, nice. I’m familiar with them a little bit. Yeah.
Nathaniel: I mean, he’s, he’s not, you know, he’s not Taylor Swift and he’s not Beyonce, but he’s, I would consider him to be a very successful artist.
He has a huge following. He. Played, you know, venues. Like he’s got tons of albums, he’s gone platinum, you know? So he’s very successful. And he talks about, there was a time when, you know, he was playing for trash cans. Like he looked out and it was like, he saw more trash cans than people. And I think we, you know, so many of us, we get caught up in embarrassment or shame or, um, disappointment.
And so, you know, the minute we play for trash cans, It’s like, that’s it. I don’t want to do that anymore. And we don’t. And we don’t do it again. it requires, you know, time after time after time, playing for the trash cans, and eventually, people start to show up, and flywheel starts to get going, [00:19:00] and you get better, and you grow, and every rep is a good rep.
Every rep is worth it. So, yeah, this, that flywheel concept, It’s so important for just all kinds of life things, but business for sure, but also relationships, also your health. You know, it’s, I didn’t run one mile and that make me an athlete and that make me healthy. It’s, you know, hundreds of miles over tens of years that, you know, it’s all of those, the cumulative effect of all these things put together.
Mickey: I love that playing, playing for trash cans thing, cause that’s where your ego has to get out of the way. There’s, there’s, like you said, there’s some people that are going to play for trash cans and say, you know what? It’s just not worth it. I’m not doing this stuff anymore. But he kept at it and certainly he played for mostly trash cans.
There were humans at that show and they appreciated that. He gave, gave his all for them. Wow. This guy’s really good and no one was here for it. I mean, that, that was probably something they’ll remember forever. It was like, I was there when it was only 10 of us in the room and I saw him play and it was amazing.
And. He kept at it and that I’m sure most artists have that going back I don’t [00:20:00] know taylor swift’s early career before she got signed I’m sure she was playing at her church and just doing little stuff and you know but just kept going and kept going and kept going and Yeah, that flywheel and just just staying staying positive and staying pushing forward I guess not too positive with stockdale.
But yeah, but always being positive of where things are going. Uh can be an awesome thing. So We’re about out of time here. You have any any other final thought on what you got out of this that people really should pick It up if they haven’t before
Nathaniel: um, just really loved his tale of the hedgehog concept. And he tells this little analogy of Um, you know, you have the, the hedgehog, which is just a simple creature, and then you have the fox, which is just very cunning, and, uh, the fox is always trying to figure out ways to get to the hedgehog and, and make them his prey, and so he’s got all kinds of strategies and, you know, he’ll, he’ll sit up over here, climb up in the tree, and as he, he jumps down to attack, the [00:21:00] hedgehog is just thinking, here he goes again, will he never learn? And the hedgehog just rolls up into a ball and has all these spikes and, you know, he just, his defense system works and the fox runs off and goes to make another plan and figure out how he’s going to do it. And the hedgehog just goes, goes about his way. Um, and yeah, I think just the, the power of simplicity that, um, it’s, you know, so many things, so many, you know, ways to success in business, in life, in health, in relationships, you know, it’s just really simple. That you do well, that you do consistently. It doesn’t have to be amazing. It doesn’t have to be flashy. It doesn’t have to be new. I think that’s just such a key concept and when you can really practice that and read about tons of people that did it and they made it, you know, make huge success, you know, I think that can be an inspiration for people to look for what’s the hedgehog concept in my life, in each area of my life or in our [00:22:00] business, you know, what is the hedgehog concept You know, it takes a lot of time and work to find what’s sim, what’s the simple answer, what’s the simple deliverable?
But when you find it, that’s where the magic really is. And, and it’s not flashy, it’s not exciting. Um, but that’s where, where really good goes to. Great. So yeah, I love that concept.
Mickey: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Reminds me like when we’re building websites, people say, I want some animations on the site and I’ll say, cool, but why? Why do we just flash things and distract attention? Like there’s a place for it, but let’s let’s be focused on animating things to draw people’s eye to do it for the right reason versus just.
Animating everything on the page just because, and we’ve all been to sites like that where you don’t even know where to look because stuff’s just moving around everywhere versus, oh, that button over there wiggles a little bit, I want to draw attention to it, and yeah, just that hedgehog of keeping it simple and not, not animating and, yeah, being flashy for flashy’s sake.
So, um, the final quote I think I’ll add here is one in the book from Harry Truman. He said, [00:23:00] you, you can accomplish anything in life provided that you do not mind who gets the credit. So. We talked about that earlier, but yeah, I mean, anything you want, as long as, yeah, if you’re focused on getting the credit yourself, you might get it, but it’s a lot easier if you just focus on getting the thing done and let us all get it together.
And it’s a good way to end that, I think. So Nathaniel, this has been fantastic. Um, where can people track you down if they want to, want to learn more?
Nathaniel: uh, is a great place, you know, especially for kind of business centered things, but also Instagram. Uh, my last name is Gadosik, G A Y D O S I K, uh, there’s not many of us Gadosiks out there in the world. So you can, can look that up. You can find me and I’d love to hear what you learned from Good to Great or any other book recommendations, um, that, that people have.
I’d love to start a conversation.
Mickey: Cool. That’s awesome. I’ll put links to the, your, yeah, LinkedIn in the show notes so people can find you there. Um, it’s been fantastic. Thanks so much, man. We’ll talk soon.
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