In the glorious tradition of afternoon naps and Taco Tuesday, we are fast approaching the last Friday of the month which can only mean one thing…Free-Rider Friday! As many know, our typical show is “topic” driven. We dive deep into one subject for the length of the show, usually with a guest or two. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary.
What follows is a full transcript of our interview with Andy Armanino. Here is a link to Armanino LLC as well as the Armanino Foundation.
Ron Baker 0:32
Welcome to the soul of enterprise business in the knowledge economy, sponsored by Sage energizing Business Builders around the world to the imagination of our people and the power of technology. I'm Ron Baker, along with my good friend and various agents, attitude colleague, Ed Kless. On today's show, folks, we're honored to interview my former boss and Andy Armanino. Andy, welcome to the soul of enterprise.
Andy Armanino 0:56
Thanks, Ron. Nice to be with you, too.
Ron Baker 1:00
You started your career with Arthur Young and then joined Armanino in 1989, the firm that your dad built [in 1969] becoming the youngest partner and then in 2005, you took over as managing partner. But before we get to you Andy, I'd love to learn more about your dad because this is the fiftieth year anniversary of the founding of the firm and that's a milestone. And I read somewhere that you describe your dad as a “strong but kind leader.” Tell us about your dad.
Andy Armanino 1:31
I'm not sure as a kid growing up I would have described him as a strong but kind dad. You know how things go as people age they become mellower and mellower. My kids and all my dad's grandkids would say he is the kindest, gentlest man you could ever imagine. My recollection as a kid was yeah, he was kind but he wasn't always as gentle. But he definitely installed a number of things in his kids. And that was do right. Do good, work hard, and what you do matters. And for him, he actually was a guy that went to work for the big eight back in time after graduating with an accounting degree. He spent about five years at the big firm becoming a manager. And like a lot of people, he got to the point where it was painful to be at the bigger firm because he couldn't serve clients the way he felt like he wanted to. He wanted to have a unique relationship with clients where he felt like what he did mattered to their business and their lives. And so he left the big eight with his best friend Tom Jones, and they started a little teeny firm with the two of them. They set out some simple goals to do things right. Like I talked about how you have a unique relationship with the client and be good to their people at first that was very simple because their people was the two of them. They set a goal of growing one person per year. And I actually joined them about 20 years after their start, exactly 20 years after their start, and there were 22 people when I joined. So they checked the box, they grew 20 people in 20 years and they hit their goal.
Ron Baker 3:28
Wow, that's great. Your dad he’s still alive isn't he?
Andy Armanino 3:33
He is. He lives in a little beach community of Capitola. And I actually really appreciate the chance to talk about him because he is now just a wonderful example of a human being after he retired at a relatively young age of 54. He's given back to his community. He shows up and feeds the homeless in his community two days a week and he basically has been a one-man crew at his church holding it together the last number of years. But he's tried to give back and do good basically every day since he's retired from this line of work. So he's been a great example not only in business, but how to live your life.
Ron Baker 4:15
He must be incredibly proud of what you did. And what Matt continues to do with the firm.
Andy Armanino 4:23
Yeah, he is, we're, we're lucky we have a unique relationship while he's dad, he's also a great friend. And for me, he happened to be, when people ask the question who influenced your business life, and there's a lot of people over the years, but by far and away the number one person who influenced how I kind of approach business, my thoughts about how we were going to do things, was my father, I was lucky we got to have a relationship that from a work standpoint could have gone one of two ways, my friends when I came to work, said, two camps, you're crazy, it's going to be miserable. You have a great relationship with your dad, you're going to ruin it. Or the other camp was, hey, you and your dad do have a great relationship and this is going to be the best thing that ever happened. And for me, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened. He was a wonderful, wonderful mentor from the business standpoint.
Ron Baker 5:22
And I don't mean to jump ahead, but you brought it up that he retired at the age of 54. And you retired at the end of last year, 2018, and you're around the same age, was that the inspiration, you were following in your dad's footsteps?
Andy Armanino 5:42
So I wouldn't necessarily say it was his footsteps. We were about the same age, I beat him to retirement by a few months is what I tell him. But what I've always believed in, what he believed in, and what I learned from him because he did it really well is I believe in youth, I believe in supporting the up-and-coming leaders in our practice. I believe that people, when unleashed can do far more than we ever think they can do. I got that opportunity at a young age. And was I ready to do some of the things the firm asked me to do. At the time, I said, Yes. In hindsight, with a little more wisdom, I'd say, No, I wasn't ready. But you know what, I figured it out. And I believe our people are the same. They are unbelievable. Their potential is unbelievable. And for me, I tried to stay very relevant and very innovative. Even up till the end, and there's a lot of people that said, God, you could keep going, you're an innovator. And what I realized is if I kept going, it doesn't allow the space and room for others to expand where they could. And I think that's what the firm's experiencing. So I always knew I would leave at a relatively young age because of my belief in in youth and supporting that upward flow of ideas and energy.
Ron Baker 7:10
And Andy, just so our listeners know, I know you would expect the managing partner, the son of the founder, to say those things. But I've been with Armanino since April of last year. And one of the reasons I joined is you do have an innovative and a young partner culture, and they are entrepreneurial. And they are incredibly innovative, and they are wickedly smart. It's just unbelievable how you're able to develop this talent. And I've just been so impressed. And you know, Andy, you and I have had really frank discussions and we've had our debates and our disagreements. So I hope you know, I'm not blowing smoke up your skirt, I truly mean that.
Andy Armanino 7:52
I appreciate that. And I think you have a unique perspective, at least for this interview, because you've seen some of what we've done. And for me, I know I get the most excited, I think about all the different things that we've done at Armanino and all the things that we've accomplished and the growth and some of the rewards we received and some of the comments that peers make. And the thing I get the most excited about is when I get a chance to work with our young people. It's one of the reasons that we formed something called the SAB [Staff Advisory Board], which I don't know if we'll touch on at all, but the staff advisory board way back in time, which is an interesting story on how that happened. And then a manager advisory board [MAB] and those two boards have real voice for young people, both the staff level and manager level to have impact on the direction of our business. And when I'm working with them, it's good days. Very good days. As you’ve seen Ron, you know, partners are, you know, some days are wonderful to work with partners, some days, it's not wonderful. So, you know, I like working with our young people and some of those days working with partners, I don't miss.
Ron Baker 8:58
I totally get that and because I've had some interaction with both of those groups, the SAB and the MAB. And what really impresses me is the firm the partners give authority to these people to lead initiatives. I'm working on one right now, with members of the management team. And it's phenomenal because it's a big initiative, and it would have a big impact on the firm. And to be able to have that type of autonomy at that level I think is fairly unique.
Andy Armanino 9:29
Well, I don't know if we'll have time or not, and you let me know, the story of the SAB and the concept behind it, how it was formed. I think your listeners would find it interesting.
Ron Baker 9:41
Go ahead and talk about that Andy, we have a few minutes before the break.
Andy Armanino 9:45
Okay, just let me know when to cut me off here. So I heard a speaker back in time years ago, her name was Rebecca Ryan, very interesting person. At the time, she was a young person that was about six foot with red hair on stage and right away told everyone that she was a lesbian. And this is an audience of a bunch of managing partners. And when she looked out, she said, you guys, I see a lot of wrinkles, gray and white. And so she really endeared herself to her audience from the get go. I thought she was wonderful. She brought up a concept of empowerment. And one idea that she touched on is she asked a question, how many of you have a board of your young people, your staff, people or your managers, where you actually listen to them and hear their ideas, and not a single hand in the room went up. And it was a large meeting of managing partners. After the session, I went up to Rebecca and introduced myself and said, Rebecca, we're going to do it at Armanino, and she looked at me and she said, Andy, it's nice to meet you, but you won't because I’ve spoken to this group in your profession a long time, and you know, people shake their heads, but they don't put some of the things in action. This accounting profession is amazing at the lack of change that happens. And I said, Rebecca, we're going to do it. And we did, we went back and we actually had a process that we put in place where you had to raise your hand if you were a staff person if you wanted to participate. And then you had to be elected by your peers. And the first group was a group of about 12 people that got elected from all of our different disciplines, and offices at the time. And I actually was their executive sponsor. And in the very first meeting, I asked the group, what's wrong with our firm? And at first, they were very shy, managing partners and CEO in front of them and they don't want to tell me what's wrong. And pretty soon someone said something and then the juices started flowing. And I had a bunch of whiteboards in the room and my hand got tired of writing the things that were wrong. Then I said, Guys, this isn't going to end up as a session that we're just going to complain. Now it's your job to prioritize, pick the three items that you want to work on changing, and you're going to be empowered to change them. And that's how we started 10 plus years ago, and it's evolved since then. But it is an amazing group of people and a powerful lesson for them in early leadership. And you get to watch these people solve problems that most partners would say they can't solve, but guess what, they can.
Ron Baker 12:31
Yeah, there's a great book, you've probably read it. It's from the Dean of Oracle University, and it's called Rookie Smarts. And the argument is to put rookies in charge of initiatives, and they tend to be on the young side because they bring fresh thinking, they do look at things from a different angle, but they'll still consult the experts as. And I think that's what's so powerful about this. It's just a great initiative. Well Andy, this is great, unfortunately we're up against our first break and folks we'd like to remind you if you want to get ahold of Ed or myself, send us an email to asktsoe@eraSage.com. We will post full show notes at thesoulofenterprise.com of our interview with Andy and where you can learn more about him, in the meantime, we want to hear from our sponsors.
Ed Kless 15:35
Our guest today is Andy Armanino now the retired managing partner of the Armanino firm. And Andy, first of all nice to officially meet you sort of on the radio here and I'm glad to get a chance to talk to you today. But my first question is all that stuff you were talking about with Ron, why did you make this hiring mistake?
Andy Armanino 16:00
I mean, I get a good chuckle because you obviously know Ron. You know, I actually can't remember, Ron might, but I can't remember the first time I heard Ron speak but one thing my brother [who's the current CEO at Armanino] always says about me is I love hearing from and working with really intelligent people. So I'll compliment Ron a little bit. And you know, his presentation made me think, and clearly Ron was a very bright guy and had some different ideas. I have never been afraid of different ideas. Matter of fact, I love being challenged on things and so Ron and I have had some great debates about a variety of topics and certainly it wasn't a mistake because I think Ron's helped move our practice forward.
Ed Kless 17:00
Well, to steal a line, I think Ron knows the actual author of this, but if you think it's difficult arguing with Ron, try agreeing with him.
Andy Armanino 17:10
I've experienced both.
Ed Kless 17:15
But to that, and I did want to ask you about this and just pick up a little bit on the story that where you became the 22nd employee, and that was right on target with what your dad was trying to do with the firm. Obviously, there were some significant changes, and you went through a period of pretty explosive growth. And I wanted to talk to you about that, from the people side of things. What were some of the things that you put in place to make sure that you did get the right people, the right hires? And clearly you have because you talk so highly of them in this interview, so I want to know what is it about your hiring process or culture that makes you able to stick to that and get those great people?
Andy Armanino 17:54
Yeah, and I think you hit a key word there is culture and I'll come back to that. But for me, it was when I got to the firm, the firm had a really wonderful culture for a small firm, very hands on. My dad and his partner, founding partner, Tom Jones, did exactly what they said they would do, they created an environment where they were having impact on clients lives. In fact, when my dad retired, we threw a party and the speakers were mainly clients, and it almost put tears in your eyes in what an impact that he had had on their business. So right in line with what they want, and the other piece of that was having a great place for people to work at. And at the time, it was a family environment as we grew, and I learned a lot, those initial years coming from the big eight, where that feel was not the same feel. It was very much you know, if you're good, you're going to keep moving, if not get out of the way. So I learned a lot about our culture and what it meant to be part of our Armanino. I think that culture continued to evolve as we grew.
We stressed the idea of people having voice, of being innovative and to be innovative, you have to hear different things. And you have to be willing to challenge your different beliefs to make yourself better. And so we've done that. And I think what happened is, not only were we growing rapidly doing good things, but we're also good marketers, and I'll be very honest about that. I hired back in time one of the first marketing directors in an accounting firm, most accounting firms didn't do it. Marketing was a bad word. It wasn't to us and we hired a marketing director who at the time was a rare breed in the profession. She was very good at what she did. And she helped us to advance to be one of the best if not the best marketing in our profession, and so not only were we doing good things and creating a culture, but we were getting the word out there, and it allowed us to attract a talent base that firms our size just could not do.
Ed Kless 20:13
And so what it from a hiring standpoint, though, was there any type of process that you guys put in place to make sure that you are getting the right hires? Did you take a while for hiring, just described that for me?
Andy Armanino 20:28
Yeah. And if I'm real honest, it is. At first it was very haphazard. If you look at our process today, it's very formalized. One of the things we did back in time as we were growing, and we had this concept that we were going to be more than a core accounting firm, meaning we were going to do more than the compliance audit work which is important in our profession and, and it's something today that's still important at Armanino but we're going to be more than that. We're going to be more than a compliance tax firm. And so as we branch out into other areas what we didn't try to do is hire accountants or CPA is to do jobs that they weren't really trained to do. What we did is as we built our consulting practice is we hired really good consultants. And we were fortunate again to have this culture in this growth engine. And we were doing really well. So people wanted to be part of it. So we had a lot of diversity. In our hiring practices, we look for diverse ways of thinking. The other thing I will say that we did, fairly early on, from a not really a formal standpoint, but something that was very important to us is that most accounting firms kind of look at grades, especially for their young people. How well did the people do in terms of GPA at their college? Well, that's important. I mean, it shows that people are intelligent and they're willing to work hard, but it doesn't tell the whole story. One of the things that we did is we focused on communication skills, can this person talk in an interview? Do they have a personality? do their eyes light up with a spark when you're talking to them that clients are going to see? And will they be a good teammate? Things like that. So we did that from a very early stage. And it's certainly become more formalized over the years.
Ed Kless 22:22
And then, of course, you started to become one of my favorite word's: acquisitive, and to take on other firms and bring them in under the Armanino name. What did you look for when acquiring firms, because that's a whole other ball of wax. And oftentimes, they don't quite go as well as there's not a great track record in the accounting profession for mergers and acquisitions to be long term successful.
Andy Armanino 22:48
Yeah, I agree with you there. I mean, there's a bumpy road out there in the merger & acquisition, past and future in our profession. It still continues at a rapid pace. I think for us, we were very disciplined, meaning that we knew culturally what we wanted to be, and what we were and what we wanted to be going forward. And so we looked at kind of concentric circles, we looked at a firm that was in a great geography, we wanted to be in very strong economies. So that was one factor, Hey, is the firm that we're looking at in a location that is a very strong economy, and what are their people like in every deal that we did every deal that I did, we required the other firm to let us get beyond the partner group into their managers, and sometimes below to talk to people to see what their people are like, are they inquisitive? Are they people who are going to have the same mindset about growth that we did? That was the other circle. And then the last circle that was hugely important, was the cultural circle and did the firm have a cultural mindset like we did. And if we could find one that had an intersection of those three circles, then it was a yeah, let's go. And let's go and let's go fast. If we found a firm that was in two of those three, you know, it was a possibility for us. If we found one that was one or less it was we're not looking at this. And one of the things that happened for us was that there are many firms out there that spend a lot of time seeking out acquisition targets. We really didn't, we actually got approached by firms that knew about what we were doing and asked, you know, if we would consider having them join us, so that was an interesting dynamic as well.
Ed Kless 24:43
So you did say no to people then?
Andy Armanino 24:46
Yes. We said no. So several times over the years, and continue to do so today.
Ed Kless 24:53
Yeah, if you can't, if you're not going to say no, your yes means nothing, right? Agreed. And what about now, despite all that, despite all of the great work that you did on being careful, and due diligence and making sure that there was a culture fit, there's still going to be things that are going to be challenging when you have a merger or acquisition type situation come in. What are some of the things that you try to do to make that go as smoothly as possible even on those ones that were like, hey, let's move fast on this.
Andy Armanino 25:22
Yeah. And, and I'm not going to tell any stories have we had bumps in our process? And the answer’s yes. One deal that I worked on, years and years and years ago, we probably weren't as disciplined as when we had our circles. And you know what, sometimes I was younger. Sometimes you fall in love with a deal. And I've heard this from many M&A people, is never fall in love with a deal. And I think I fell in love with the concept of doing this deal. And it wasn't a good a fit. And what we found is it takes a long time to fix those mistakes. And we did. And we put a lot of energy and effort in, but it's not simple. I can tell you another quick story when we did a significant size deal in Los Angeles, and the concentric circles were all there. But it was outside of our area. It was the first kind of big leap outside of the immediate Bay Area. And so what we did is we rented an apartment down there, a three bedroom apartment, and four of us and our C suite made a commitment that we would be there. One of us would be there all the time for the first six months, that we were together with this firm. So each one of us lived in in the apartment for part of that six months. But it had a huge impact having one of our leaders working with them day to day, through some of their struggles and in hearing the concerns that people had and there were lots but it allowed us to handle them and address them on a real time basis. That that is a learning game. That I think that the firm would repeat again if it did a substantial deal.
Ed Kless 27:04
Sure, that's great stuff. Well, we're up against our next break. We want to remind you that you can get in touch with Ron or me by sending an email to asktoe@verasage.com. Of course, the website is thesoulofenterprise.com where you can go and listen to all of our previous 260 shows as well as previews to upcoming shows. But right now, a word from our sponsor.
Ron Baker 29:26
Well, Welcome back, everybody. We're here with Andy Armanino, one of the top 100 Most Influential People in the profession, and a whole lot of other accolades. Andy, I want to go to a 30,000 foot level with you and ask you, What do you think is the most important issue that's currently facing the profession?
Andy Armanino 29:48
So I would say two things right now, and one's going to be very obvious. It's what most people would say, but the rapid change right now in technology and the impact that's having on our clients’ businesses and our businesses. Hand in hand with my second item, which is my fear at times for the profession is we tend to have a fixed mindset about things that we've done things a certain way and they've been successful. The professions have had a lot of success, which sometimes is an anchor, instead of this growth mindset, and I'm reading an interesting book right now on the next stage of the growth mindset. But I think the profession needs to adopt a growth mindset, and it needs to embrace technology instead of fighting it.
Ron Baker 30:47
And on the tech, Andy, are you optimistic or pessimistic? We did an interview with Daniel Susskind, who's one of the co-authors of The Future of the Professions and he's kind of fatalistic about the number of jobs it's going to knock out of even the professions, including CPAs, do you see it being a compliment or a substitute?
Andy Armanino 31:08
So I know Daniel, and he and I have had that discussion. I'm the opposite of Daniel. I'm very optimistic about the potential again, if this profession, and it won't be all, there will be some firms that don't adapt and don't have a growth mindset, and they will go the way of the dodo bird, they won't exist. The firm's that do adopt the growth mindset, I think what will happen is, they will view these changes in technology with some excitement. They'll look at it on what it can do for their clients. They'll have a new tool, a number of tools, a number of new tools in the tool belt to serve their client, and they'll adapt their internal practices to take advantage of technology as well. So I think there will be firms out there that are doing this. And I think they're going to evolve to a place where they're driving more value than they ever could have imagined to their client base. And I think it raises another question that you and I have talked about is making sure then that they capture that value that they're providing their client base.
Ron Baker 32:22
Right, I think some of this change to technology, and you know, technology is just sucking hours out of the system. And it's really driving the move to value pricing, largely because you can't have a business model that says we sell hours if those hours are decreasing.
Andy Armanino 32:39
So just real quick, I know it's a side note, but I was just in Rome at a world meeting for Moore Global and I got to talk to managing partners from across the world. And one of the sessions we did was on value pricing. And one of the partners came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, we're adopting some of this, but the problem is we're making changes to technology today. And what's happening is we're doing some of our compliance work faster and faster. And all it's doing is driving the amount I bill lower. And I just almost want to shake him and say, Come on. You've got to be smarter than that. We have to now capture that value that we're providing with the use of technology. We spend an awful lot of money investing in technology in this profession. I know our Armanino spends a huge dollar amount on technology and we need to capture that value that that we're investing in as a firm and make sure that our clients appreciate it.
Ron Baker 33:45
Absolutely. And I'm like you, I'm on the opposite side of Daniel on this, I've got future glee as Ed likes to say, because I think all this technology takes away that predictable and rote work and allows us to move up the value curve with our clients.
Andy Armanino 34:02
I agree, I do think there will be, I hate using the term, but there'll be roadkill along the way. Because, again, I get a chance to get out and talk to an awful lot of people in firms in this profession. And I'm excited about the number of firms that are now listening to some of the new ideas, embracing some of the new ways of thinking and really wanting to change. But I'm also disappointed at the number of firms that, that have this fixed mindset that they say, hey, we've been successful. We've heard all this change-up for years and years. And you know what, it hasn't happened and I can keep doing what I'm doing for the next X number of years. And that's all I want to do. Well those firms will not be successful in the future.
Ron Baker 34:50
Yeah, I agree. One thing I do love that Daniel wrote in the book is what kills you doesn't look like you. And we do have threats facing us from outside the profession. And that's where major disruption can happen.
Andy Armanino 35:06
Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think one great exercise that every firm out there could do and not just every firm but every business. And we've done it at Armanino and it's something that needs to be updated, not on an infrequent basis. But if you get some smart people around the table, and I would encourage people to have a diverse, smart group of people around the table. And I might come back to that because the book I'm reading deals exactly with that topic, but a diverse group of smart people and think about how would we disrupt this business? How would we kill ourselves? And if you'll come up with some interesting ways that you can disrupt this profession in your own firm, it's got to cause you to think on how to address some of those issues that you raise. And certainly some of those issues that you raise will not be from traditional competitors.
Ron Baker 36:01
I do love that exercise. And a corollary to that is the old Peter Drucker question of, if you weren't in this line of business, would you enter it today? And if not, what are you going to do about it? It seems, Andy, that once we get into something will never exit it, will never abandon it. And Drucker thought that you needed a corporate abandonment policy. So you could move on to other things. What's your take on that?
Andy Armanino 36:31
Yeah. And, man, I love the concept. I was fortunate enough to go to a program at Harvard three times, I must have flunked a couple of times, but a leadership program I've gone to three different times and I'll probably go a fourth in a bit because I enjoy it so much. But one of the cases that we studied is the Netflix case. And it's a wonderful case study, all of you who haven't read that it'd be worth ordering from Harvard. About how Netflix, a successful company who had disrupted their industry, primarily blockbuster, decided to disrupt themselves for the future. And they've been wildly successful, but it takes guts to disrupt yourself when you have something that's working because you recognize that we need to be different in the future. And it's something I know when I get a chance to talk to leaders here at Armanino, I stress it and I know current leadership here stresses it, is we can't fall in love with what we're doing today. Because it's working. We have to still say, will this work in the future? And do we need to do some things differently in the future that will add more value to our client base?
Ron Baker 37:43
Yeah, I've been saying this ever since I've had the chance. Every time I have the chance to talk to somebody in the firm, I say the old Andy Grove line. If you're going to be cannibalized, it's better to dine with friends. And I love that because if we don't obsolete ourselves, there's somebody out there who will do it for us and it’s better to control our own destiny, create our own future.
Andy Armanino 38:05
And I very much believe in that.
Ron Baker 38:08
Yeah, it was announced a little while ago that you're going to become the chairman of Moore Global as of January 1. And I think that's great because it gives you a worldwide perch to view the profession. Do you see similar challenges in the global firms that we have here in the US?
Andy Armanino 38:29
Yeah. So just for background real quick, Moore Global is a network slash association that allows firms to collaborate, share ideas, create a platform and a marketplace for some of the unique ideas that are being created today, and serve their clients on an international basis. And Moore Global is one of the larger organizations in the world that does this, about $3 billion, over $3 billion in firm revenue, and I've been involved for a number of years. Leading North America, the North American board recently agreed to lead the global board. And your question is an absolute Yes. As much as I get frustrated at times with some of the lack of speed and the change of North American firms around the rest of the world, we are rabbits and they're the tortoise. Yeah, it could be a significant issue.
Ron Baker 39:32
Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you're stepping in as chairman because maybe you'll bring the same innovative spirit and entrepreneurial spirit that you brought here in the US so that's fantastic. And congratulations on that.
Unknown Speaker 39:44
Thank you. I promise change for them.
Ron Baker 39:47
Oh good. Andy, what are you most proud of during your time as chairman of Armanino?
Andy Armanino 39:55
So I get that question a lot in. It's almost you know, I think of so many different things here. It is I think of faces, I think of clients that I got to work with over the years and have impact on their business. I think for me, my largest client that I kept as managing partner and CEO was the Catholic Church that I got a chance to do so many different things to help an organization that needs a lot of help. And I think the, the faces of those people, I think of internally, some of the young people here that I've just had an opportunity to sit and talk to share, share ideas, share stories, and you know, you can call that mentoring, you can call it whatever you want, but I've had the opportunity to work with so many of them that later became partners in this firm or went on to great success at other places, which is great, too. So I think about all that. And then the last one I think about is my dad and Tom when they founded the firm kind of had these two pillars, by having this unique relationship with clients that I've mentioned, and have a firm that is really good to its people. I got a chance to add a third leg to that stool and that's through the Armanino Foundation. And that's being good to your community. And what I'm most proud about in the Armanino foundation is the amount of people here that support the foundation, typical charitable foundations, corporate foundations, if you get 25% participation out of your employee base, it's really good. We set the goal to do that in year one. And we did and we far surpassed that now. And so it's meaningful to our people to do good things in our community. And that's great to see.
Ron Baker 41:50
That's awesome. Andy, real quick, I have to ask you, because I know you are an inveterate reader and you and I used to talk about books all the time, but what's your favorite non- business book.
Andy Armanino 42:04
Non business just for fun. Oh man, I love the Lord of the Rings series.
Ron Baker 42:13
Well, that's awesome. Well, Andy Ed’s going to take you home in the next segment, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you so much for coming on The Soul of Enterprise. It's way overdue. And congratulations on chairman of Moore Global and best of luck, and I hope you come back on.
Andy Armanino 42:29
Thanks, Ron.
Ron Baker 42:31
Alright, well, folks I'd like to remind you, if you want to contact Ed or myself, send us an email to asktsoe@verasage.com. And now we want to hear from our sponsor, Sage.
Ed Kless 44:45
Well, once again, we are back with Andy Armanino and Ron this hour goes by quick especially we have such great guests like Andy on I can't believe that we're 45 minutes in already. But Andy, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the implementation of value pricing at Armanino. I know I joked about the hiring mistake but in all seriousness what led you to say, hey listen, we really have got to do this and we’ve got to start doing this now.
Andy Armanino 45:11
So as I mentioned I listened to Ron some years ago and we developed a relationship after that first time I heard him and we had him back to one of our rallies (we don't call them retreats, we call them rallies, I didn't like the term retreat because it implies going backwards now forward). But we had Ron at our rally and you know, it was one of the most popular subjects that we had ever talked about at our rally. And what it told me is it was the right time to start thinking about doing this on a firm-wide basis. And what we thought is we were going to really struggle to do it. What we bought in for the most part in there are always hurdles and I can talk about some of those hurdles, but in general because we have had this firm that is used to change and used to doing some things different. And I told Ron this, we are the right firm for Ron to come and help us put in place some of the ideas that he's had for years and years in this profession. And so that's why we brought him in to help with this. I think it is so logical to say, how do we go have a different kind of discussion with our client about our relationship and the value they perceive in that relationship? And then for us, how do we capture that value the right way? It is very logical to me. Unfortunately, it's not as logical to some of our partners and there are hurdles along the way. It's a massive education campaign. And you have to get people good at doing this because they're not by their nature. They haven't been trained to do this.
Ed Kless 46:56
Yeah, and let's talk about those hurdles. What were some of the ones that may have surprised you, ones that you didn't anticipate?
Andy Armanino 47:04
Well, some of them yeah, I think that's a very good question because some of them you do anticipate, some of the partners, I probably could have listed out some of our resistance and who they'd be for Ron. And they were. And they continue to be a battle at times. But I think some of the hurdles that maybe we didn't anticipate is those people who really embraced it. The amount of kind of practice that you need, the ability to go out there, have those discussions and then get good at, you can have a great discussion with a client but then coming back and pricing it correctly. I was surprised that the people probably weren't better from the get go. And I also think that this is, I have great stories on this if we had time, but when you leave pricing to the partners hands that are untrained they will underestimate the value that they bring over and over again, even if the client has told them the value that we bring is great. And so I'm pushing the envelope on pricing. I was surprised that partners weren't better at that.
Ed Kless 48:21
That they weren't more aggressive in their prices
Andy Armanino 48:24
Yes, that they didn't perceive. One of the hurdles is they don't perceive themselves the value that they bring to their clients at times, or they perceive it, but not in a big enough way.
Ed Kless 48:39
Yeah, well, I think, and one of the things that Ron and I talked about is, that that's why actors and sports people have agents, because it's extraordinarily difficult to price yourself. And in this, in a way, what you're doing is that in a partner and CPA firm is your pricing the work that others are going to do but it's really about your relationship with that. That customer at the time, and you're pricing yourself and you're just not as good as when you're pricing somebody else's stuff.
Andy Armanino 49:07
I totally agree. And that's why I think Ron talks a lot about, I know both you do, about making sure you have experts, that you have a true skill set in pricing. And we've developed that now at Armanino, you know, and I think it's incredible. I know a couple of Ron's disciples here, and I read some of the information they put out and, you know, I'm like, wow, it's good. So you need those people, but it doesn't happen in mass, and what you have to recognize is it's, again, very logical. We have partners that have all kinds of different personality types. Some people are very comfortable in those discussions. Some people will value themselves and can value themselves, and others are just far less comfortable. And I don't think Armanino, and Ron I'd be curious to get your voice on this, I don't think at times we've made the decision to say you know what people just should not be involved in this process at all, period.
Ron Baker 50:04
I wish we would. But that's very difficult to do in a partnership model.
Andy Armanino 50:09
It is. It is.
Ed Kless 50:11
Yeah. It doesn't make them bad people, right? It's just that that's just not a competency and just like you wouldn't put somebody who's a tax expert on an audit, do you just not give them the pricing authority?
Andy Armanino 50:25
Well, and I think this goes back to this whole thing about having a fixed mindset, is a I've always done it a certain way. I'm successful enough. I have a relationship. That's enough with my clients. There are partners here that over the years I looked in their eyes and said, You know what, if you make a mistake on this client, we're fired. If another partner down the hall makes a mistake on their client, they get a get out of jail free because they have a relationship that is an open, deep relationship with our client. And needless to say that carries over into pricing.
Ed Kless 51:01
And turning to what do you think went a little bit better than expected?
Andy Armanino 51:06
Well, I told Ron that the tax group would be impossible. And at first there, and I think it continues, you know, you always have to get over some resistance. But I think we had a partner in particular, Jerry Clancy, who initially kind of threw up his hands and said, I don't buy in. He went and met with Ron for a couple hours, and they spent some time really digging into it. And Jerry came back and said, I'm in, I will be one of the champions in the tax practice, in some of the kind of more compliance related things on the tax practice, I thought would be really difficult. But we've had better buying than I would have would have expected there.
Ed Kless 51:50
That was actually the voodoo doll that Ron built to that guy. So I want to ask you, we got about a minute or two minutes left. What advice do you have for young people entering the profession?
Andy Armanino 52:09
I mean, again, I love speaking to young people, what I try to do is give them an inspiring message about what's possible in this profession. Don't come in and think that, and Ron might have been at the partner rally where I pounded the tables one time when people said, I'm a tax person, or I'm an auditor, and I slammed the table and said, You're more than that. You are a client advisor, you are a counselor, you are someone that your client depends on, you can make a difference. And so that's the message I try to bring to young people today is you can do a ton in this profession, clients need help. The world is crazy out there for them. And they need people who will sit with them, listen to them, and then try to drive value. And it's exciting. It's amazing today, what's possible.
Ed Kless 53:01
Yeah, and I think that goes back to what you were looking for in your hires, as well as the people who can effectively communicate. And it's funny, the more we get technology, the more that the ability to communicate effectively one-to-one becomes more important, because the touches are just less frequent sometimes because of the technology.
Andy Armanino 53:20
I think marrying technology with the human touch is success in the future. And I totally agree with what you just said, it's going to be more important than ever, that we touch humans. That's something that machine can't do, we can emotionally affect our clients. And it's important to do so.
Ed Kless 53:40
Yeah. So even though Watson is diagnosing disease, you don't want to hear it from Watson that you have cancer.
Andy Armanino 53:46
Yeah, absolutely.
Ed Kless 53:50
Well, this has just been absolutely fantastic. And we really appreciate you coming on and spending some time with us today and sharing your wisdom and knowledge to our audience. And as Ron said earlier, we do hope you come back.
Andy Armanino 54:04
I appreciate it, guys. It was fun and I'd be happy to come back. Keep doing what you're doing.
Ed Kless 54:08
Alright. Well, Ron, what do we got coming up next week?
Ron Baker 54:14
Free-Rider Friday, Ed, for October. I can't believe it's the end of the month,
Ed Kless 54:16
Unbelievable. Well, I'll see you in hundred 67 hours.
Ron Baker 54:32
This is from the Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy, sponsored by sage, energizing business builders around the world through the imagination of our people and the power of technology. Join us next week folks on Friday at 1pm Pacific time. In the meantime, check out the thesoulofenterprise.com. We'll post our show notes with Andy and we're to learn more about him. And also you can contact Ed and myself at asktsoe@verasage.com. Thanks for listening folks. Have a great weekend.
Andy Armanino started his career with Arthur Young as an auditor and joined Armanino LLP in 1989 where he built a full-service audit offering before becoming, at 29, the youngest partner in the firm’s history. In 2005, he was elected to Managing Partner where he served until his retirement from Armanino in 2018. Andy’s leadership helped propel the firm to be one of the fastest growing and best managed firms in the US, earning awards and accolades from the profession for its entrepreneurial spirit and innovation. Under Andy’s leadership the firm developed new services, expanded technology offerings, grew a full-service consulting department and strategic acquisitions extended capabilities and geographic locations. His most gratifying accomplishment was launching the Armanino Foundation in 2016. Join Ed and Ron for what’s sure to be a dynamic interview.
Named to INSIDE Public Accounting’s 2014 list of “Most Admired Peers” and Accounting Today’s “2013 MP Elite” list for staying entrepreneurial, Andy Armanino is a former Managing Partner of Armanino LLP, one of the largest CPA & consulting firm in the nation. The firm has been named one of the nation’s top 25 “Best of the Best” numerous times. Andy’s past honors also include “Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting,” “Most Admired CEOs” and “Most Admired Managing Partners” in the nation. Andy was Managing Partner at Armanino from 2005 to 2018 where he focused much of his time on firm strategy, growth and culture. Included in his accomplishments are twice doubling the firm's size, an aggressive growth model of new services, expanded technology offerings and acquisition. Andy will become Chairman of Moore Global on January 1, 2020.
Ed and Ron were HONORED to have Chris “Elroy” Stricklin back on the show for the third time. Here is a link to his book as well as a link to his video presentation. The full transcript from our interview with him is below. Enjoy!
Here is the full transcript from the show. Enjoy!
Like a chrysalis, were emerging from the economy of the Industrial Revolution and economy confined to and limited by the Earth's physical resources into the economy in mind, in which there are no bounds on human imagination. And the freedom to create is the most precious, natural resource.
Ron Baker 0:33
Welcome to the soul of enterprise business and the knowledge economy sponsored by Sage energizing Business Builders around the world to the imagination of our people in the power of technology. I'm Ron Baker, along with my good friend and various agents to colleague, Ed Kless. On today's show, folks, we're going to be talking to retired US Air Force Colonel Chris Stricklin about his new brand new book survivor's obligation How's it going?
Ed Kless 1:01
It's going great. Ron, looking forward to talking to Chris again.
Ron Baker 1:04
Yeah. As you know, I'm probably more excited than anybody about this because I'm a big Thunder boy fan, but Thunderbird fan. But, Chris, welcome back. This is just an honor to have you on for the third time.
Chris Stricklin 1:18
Yeah, you know, I always love to spend time with you and your listeners here. And it's always one of those great conversations. You never know where it's going to go. But you know, we're going to have a good time.
Ron Baker 1:28
Well, I'm going to dispense reading your bio, Chris will post it. But people can just also go back to our prior two interviews where we kind of focused on the lessons learned and the debriefing. But this book survivor's obligation, which you were gracious enough to share with Ed night, prior to its publication, I have to tell you, Chris, I was in a seminar that I was speaking at, and I was in the back of the room. I was reading your book, and I couldn't put it down. I didn't even want to get up and do my talk. Because I was just so engrossed in the book. It It's profound. It's in places it makes you weep. And in places it just, you know, you brought us into the cockpit of your rejection and and I thought to myself, wow, for you to even write that must have been just cathartic, painful, just a bundle of emotions. Just Why did you write this book?
Chris Stricklin 2:24
So first of all, I want to say that what you just said means a lot to me because I respect both of you a great deal and, and this book to write for me and my co author. For me, it was more painful than the ejection it honestly what? And for my wife as well, which we'll talk about here in a minute, but why did I write it for 13 years after my objection, what was deemed an unbelievable objection. It's one of those things where everybody just spends their time going, you shouldn't be here. Why are you here? And that's what I asked myself. It was a lot of weight on me and I was still in the Air Force. You know, I only retired two years ago. So I spent all those years trying to put it behind me and not talk about it. So for me to now write a book about it, and ask people to look at the video and talk about the lessons. It was therapeutic for me, in some ways that made me and my wife talk about it. Because we never mentioned this to each other. We never discussed the actions. in her mind. She was told by the Air Force, I didn't survive over the telephone. Obviously, we both have specific aspects of trauma from this. And it was therapeutic. It is therapeutic, because every time I can talk about my story for me, it gets a little easier to talk about, and I can talk about a little bit more. So thank you for your feedback.
Ron Baker 3:42
Chris, is it easier for you to talk about it now Now that you have?
Chris Stricklin 3:49
That's a tough question. I will tell you, the night before the book released, I had one of those moments I went to my wife and said I think I made a mistake. I wish I had written this book. Because I was terrified to let people in, you know, there's a persona of being a fighter pilot for both me and Joel, my co author, where we want to stand up and say everything's perfect. Here's how good everything we do is. And we don't want to admit we have trouble. We have struggles we have weaknesses, and that things affect us emotionally. I mean, who wants to people to know that fighter pilots have dealings? And and now, like you said, when you read the book, hopefully you felt what I felt you felt what Terry felt what Marcia felt, because this was traumatic on both of our families for our different stories.
Ron Baker 4:37
Do you wish you would have talked with your wife about it sooner? Looking back I
Chris Stricklin 4:42
I do. That's that's my biggest regret is that we didn't talk about it. And it was one of those things that the Air Force could put it aside and let me go on with my career again, so good way and it was just easier than dealing with it is to go I won't talk about that till I retired. And that's ultimately what drove me Open it up as a buddy of mine called it on it and call me on it and said, hey, you're retiring you, you guaranteed you would talk about this and I went, I'm not ready. And and he put me on contract to give a keynote to his organization. And together, we agreed to put my wife in the contract as well, because I knew if we weren't legally obligated to do this and do it with both of us in the same room, that that we would back out. And we needed that that impetus to push us forward and force us to tell our story because I think there's so much that can be learned. For everybody out there. This story has nothing to do with the objection of an aircraft or stage four cancer. Those are two things that spark your interest and may get you to open the cover. But when you finish it, hopefully you will fail that this is about surviving and how we get better to live intentionally tomorrow with the sunrise we get that so many others habits that weren't afforded. And that is what the book is about.
Ron Baker 5:57
Right now. I love how you say that this book is not about Why I crashes about why I survived and how it has impacted my life I guess just incredibly powerful. Chris, I have to ask you, you had a you wrote that you had a sinking feeling on September. What was it September
Chris Stricklin 6:15
2003.
Ron Baker 6:17
50th anniversary of the Thunderbirds, and you had a sinking feeling that day. Can you kind of explain that you didn't even want to do the maneuver?
Chris Stricklin 6:28
That's true. It was. It was one of those days where everything going wrong. It was one of those events where everything is going wrong. We had we had flown too much we were on our third show site third location on one trip. We didn't have enough fuel coming into our practice for neighbors our points move the satellite imagery was wrong. I can go on and on. It's everything that indicated this wasn't a good show. And and for some reason, on that morning, I had a normal routine I did and I completely broke my routine. I usually got up and went for a run and I didn't that day whenever I woke up. I had a sink in feeling that something was wrong? So first of all, I call home and talk to my wife and go Is everything okay? Because Because I think that's what it is. And she's like, everything's fine. What are you talking about? You know? And, and so I go through my routine of what I'm doing and I go, it's not right. So I went into the safety observer and said, something don't feel right today, too many things have gone wrong. I do not want to fly my tech off from there. What I want to do is, is transition to my backup the neighbor which I'll tell you that most most audiences wouldn't even notice we have a backup the neighbor we fly, but my takeoff maneuver was one of two of the most dangerous maneuvers that Thunderbirds color. And I said, don't feel good today. I don't want to fly it and he goes, you're trained to do this. This is what you do. You're skilled aviator, go fly your maneuver. And I went flew my minute.
Ron Baker 7:48
Did he feel any remorse or apologize to you afterwards about that decision?
Chris Stricklin 7:54
Well, there's there's always there's always a lot more to the story and Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Okay.
Ron Baker 8:01
Okay. I mean you like you said you did that maneuver 258 times. And you even had a bad feeling about your rejection. See, you said your crews Ben and all night are fixing it because something was troubling you on flights.
Chris Stricklin 8:16
Yeah, in the end, the month prior to the ejection, we were at the practice range in Las Vegas. And me and the other solo when we take off we go upside down and do about a negative 3g push to check the aircraft out. And when I would push upside down and negative G, the seat would move like a quarter inch, a half inch but just enough to let you fill the seat move. And so the first time it happened, I I stopped the maneuvers I brought the jet back and I wrote it up and I went checked it out and couldn't find anything. So I flew it the next day and it did it again. Well, it turns out, there's only two people that fly the F 16 like that. And both of us are Thunderbirds. So the company goes in to check the specs and see what they are and they go well really there are no specifications when you're upside down it over a negative three G's, you know, because it's not a normal thing. So we think it'll be good. And my crew chiefs, my team, the Thunderbirds, they said if it takes your attention away from what you're doing even for a split second when you're upside down at those altitudes, that's not good for us. And they pulled an all nighter, they replaced my ejection seat replaced every part of it, because it made me uncomfortable. And who knows how what was wrong with the other seat or what would have been different. But I will tell you that the ejection when it happened was on the new seat. And it was an out of the envelope projection, one that they say was unsolvable. And the seat was so far out of parameters, there is no way it could safely get me out of the aircraft. And I attribute that to my team, who put in the extra effort and cared enough to go if it's not right for you. It's not right for us, and we're going to go change it out. Wow, wow.
Ron Baker 9:54
That and also I have to ask you this because you wrote as you were describing That flight in those pages of the book, you said, I made my final decision not to reject. The captain stays with his ship, a pilot stays with his aircraft. Is that the ethic of a fighter pilot? Chris I thought the ethic of a fighter pilot was to reject not go down with the ship like a captain in the Navy.
Chris Stricklin 10:21
So did I. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to eject but when it came down to that moment, and and my training, I did not make it through this maneuver. My training made it through this maneuver. That's the power of what the Air Force does for how well we train, train our aviators. And as you go through because everything was automatic people go how upset were you? how nervous were you going through the maneuver? And I say I was the most calm I've ever been in my entire life. Because I had trained my entire life for that moment. And as it came down to it, when it was time to pull the handle, I made the conscious decision not to I said I'm not going to object and I knew I was going to crash I call it my fighter pilot hand is the one flying my right hand and my fighter pilot hand said, Nope, you're going with it. Either you bring it back or you're not going back and right or wrong. That was my mentality. And that's what went through my mind. And at that same moment, I watched the canopy come off the aircraft, I watched a smoke engulf me, I watched it ribbit by rivet, go through the sequence. And I thought, What's going on? Why is my canopy coming off? And as I look down, my left hand, had pulled the ejection handle. My left hand was the one that said you have to try.
Ron Baker 11:35
Right? Your training, your training just kicked in.
Chris Stricklin 11:39
The training just kicked in. So people ask me, other fighter pilot to want to know what happens when you make that decision. What it's like to make the ultimate decision to pull the objection handle and my answer is, I don't know I decided not to reject. But my training took over and said you have to try to live
Ron Baker 11:57
and that injections 40 Jesus It
Chris Stricklin 12:01
is about 40 G's and and i will tell you as I'm standing here talking to you today, I'm two and a half inches shorter, two and a half inches shorter than I was that morning. And and people assume it's from the ejection going up the rails, whether it's 30 G's, 40 G's, who knows. But the more important thing is, whenever I landed, the one thing that I did not do, according to my training was my parachute landing crawl. We're trained to dissipate the energy when we hit the ground across our body so we don't break anything. And I had so much adrenaline going on that day that I stuck the land and I landed on my feet, and I stayed on my face and stayed there. And it compressed my my body two and a half inches. The doctor said there's not two and a half inches of cartilage in your body and once you push through the cartilage, you hit bone on bone and it shatters every bone in your body. And my answer to them was, I stand before you two and a half inches shorter and I didn't break a bone
Ron Baker 12:59
and you You discovered you are two and a half inches shorter because of the greatest hug ever known to mankind with your wife.
Chris Stricklin 13:08
I love that you pulled that quote out of there. So for those that don't know I'm married my high school sweetheart. We've been together 31 years we've been married for 25 and she flew up there to see me I left. I left the scene on the backboard in a helicopter strapped to that for quite some time. And so he was in the days that followed, she ran up to hug me like you can picture any husband and wife do and and as she embraced me, I step back and I put my arms out and I looked at her and I literally think she thought I was crazy. She was What are you doing? And ago you need to take him to the hospital. And you know this the first thing I said to her and she goes Why? I said because you've gotten taller. It turns out when you've been with somebody that long one of those things you don't notice is you know where your faces touch when you hug and she was over two inches taller and I it took me aghast I step back and go oh my gosh, she didn't get taller I'm shorter and the fact that I entered the hospital on a blackboard means I never measured my height. So I went in, and I obviously the hospital knew me at this point we've met. Can I walk in and go, I want you to measure my height. And in true military fashion, their first question is, well, how tall are you? I know I want you to measure my height and they put me up there and they said, you're five eight, right at my record and open up my record because I've been 510 and a half for my entire life.
Ron Baker 14:29
Wow, Chris, I wish we didn't have to break unfortunately, we're right up against it. But this is just unbelievable story. Folks. I'd like to remind you if you want to get ahold of Ed or myself, send us an email to ask tsp at Vera sage. com. We will post full show notes and where you can access Chris's website his new book, survivors obligation which is just absolutely a fantastic spelled minding read at the soul of enterprise. com and now we want to hear from our sponsors include Sorry, I ran a little long on that, that no,
Ed Kless 15:03
not a problem, not a problem. And I'm just spellbound as well. Good. Just
Chris Stricklin 15:09
you You want me to shorten up my answers? Oh,
Chris Stricklin 15:10
no, no, no, no, I,
Ron Baker 15:13
I hope you don't mind reliving this. But it's just so compelling.
Chris Stricklin 15:21
I'm going to tell you, there's only one part of it I have trouble talking about. And you just nailed it when you asked me about making the decision not to a jet. So we've made it through that. Anything else that fair, JJ.
Ron Baker 15:33
Sorry, I just had to ask you about the ethic of the fighter pilot. I always thought it was to reject.
Chris Stricklin 15:41
Yo, did I were trained to do that. And no kidding until you're in that moment. It's like I say, with military people, until the first bullet flies. You don't know how you're going to react. Are you going to lean in and run toward it? Or you can duck away? You just don't know.
Ed Kless 15:54
Right? what's the what's the mic the mic? Everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face. You get punched in the face.
Ron Baker 16:04
Chris, are you the only Thunderbird in their history too hippy rejected at a live air show.
Chris Stricklin 16:11
I don't know that I think I am but I can't. I can't give you that back because it's not when I've looked up. I will know that after we get off this phone call.
Chris Stricklin 16:20
Okay. Wow.
Chris Stricklin 16:27
Absolutely compelling.
Chris Stricklin 16:29
And and
Ron Baker 16:30
yeah, I don't know if we're going to get to Joel's side but if you want to talk 10 seconds guys side, we can do that.
Chris Stricklin 16:38
I would like that if you just go Okay. How did you partner with Joe? I got it. Okay.
Announcer 16:47
You are tuned into the soul of enterprise with Ron Baker and Ed class. To find out more about our show. It is on the web at the soul of enterprise.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter using hashtag ask TSOE Now back to the soul of enterprise.
Ed Kless 17:06
The book is survivor's obligation and we are here talking to one of the co authors Chris Elroy, Strickland. And Chris, I wanted to ask you about a word choice, a very specific word choice that you had in the book on on page 14, actually. And because it's something that I've done a lot of thinking about myself and I want to perhaps do some therapy with you. My therapy, not yours. And this and this, this is the quote, a calmness I had never experienced before settled throughout my entire body. Now, earlier with Ron, you were talking about how pumped up you were on adrenaline which, you know, makes a ton of sense yet at the same time, there was this calmness that you had never experienced before. Settle through your entire body. I know. We We talked on this show, it's the soul of enterprise. We talked a little bit about spirituality, not necessarily religion, but is this is this the peace, which passes all understanding? Chris?
Chris Stricklin 18:11
It does. And, and it is one of those moments that literally when you quoted that out of the book, I got chills all the way across my body because I can remember it right now, like I was in that moment. And there came the moment where for every ounce of my body, I knew that I was going to crash. There was not a doubt it was not I might it was, I'm going to crash. And at that moment, you know, your reaction defines who you are. And at that moment, instead of panicking, my body went completely calm. And it said, you had trained for this, you had been through this 1000 times in your mind, pilots care, fly. We literally sit in a chair in our office, close our eyes. And we think through everything that can happen, both good and bad, both right and wrong, and how we will react if that happens. And that was the moment Where my body told me you've trained for this now it's time to see if you can do it
Ed Kless 19:07
and did you spend time that because then after that obviously this this incident occurs you have all of the the medical procedures that happened on you find out your two and a half inches shorter the not talking about it with your wife for for so long have Have you ever reconcile the fact that at the same moment when you had this absolute calmness was also the moment that everything flew? all of the pieces literally flew flew apart at the same time.
Chris Stricklin 19:35
So if I could for everybody listening the entire flight from lyst off to explosion, which 25 or 25 seconds long. Think about what you're doing 25 seconds. And for me if I sat here and told you everything I thought about everything I went through, I saw plenty of psychiatry psychologist investigators after the fact. It was three hours long in my mind. The temple was In the temporal distortion slowed time down till it almost stopped. I literally round where I was compared it against the times I had blown it before it was like, it was like Monday talking about a football game. I was watching replays of other times I had blown it to try to figure out what was wrong with this one so that I can correct what was wrong so that I couldn't make it out. It was unless you've been through something like that I can't even explain how fast the human brain can actually work when it needs to. So from that point to the rest of it, that was the calmness that allowed me to make sound decisions, all how go into the aircraft and flashing back to my family thinking about what is going on. You know, they always say, Oh, they didn't see it coming or, and I hate to say this because that makes some people feel okay. But I saw everything. I was oversensitive to everything going on hypersensitive to everything going on, and always thinking about everything in my life and nothing in my life and only the aircraft at hand. At that very moment, it's it's almost incredible to try to explain to you
Ed Kless 21:05
know, it is and I'm going to keep pushing on this because as I said, this is this is something that I personally struggle with because and i think it's it's a moment for us to learn from from a leadership standpoint as well. You know, we talked about, you know, things happening in business and things going going around us. And I came across this quote earlier this week, which is completely different source, but I want to share it with you and test something on you that the quote was this we can't change the past. We don't know the future. And we rarely are ever fully present
Chris Stricklin 21:39
in our in the actual presence. Do you think this sense that you had this again, this that the temporal temporal distortion that happened that made 25 seconds seemed like three hours was just an extreme case of you really being fully present in that moment, as as a as a spiritual being I do. I do think it's for President. And one of the things I'll tell you if I could flash forward a little bit to a different area. And let's talk about at the moment I came out of the aircraft and I will tell you, I never lost constant consciousness. From the moment I came out of the aircraft till I was standing on the ground, but my body, the body is an amazing thing. My body yet 16 years later, has not let me remember what the objection from leaving the aircraft until standing on the ground. So your memory in my opinion is not videos. If you think about it, it's still images of things that happen in the emotions around them. So picture me I know I'm going off the rails on the objection sequence next frame, I'm standing on the ground. And in that moment, I felt everything good in my life. Everything my life did not flashed before my eyes, but in one instance, I felt every positive every good thing, every ounce of love in my world. world. And it's something I can't explain to you. And it was only there for a second because right after I started feeling it I looked up at this guy is a beautiful day. And I was taking it all in and then I got snapped back to reality and went, wait a minute, I was just a mystic thing. Why am I standing on the ground? And so again, my training snapped me back to the ground to get back into the sequence. But, but when you're talking about those types of spirituality, that was the biggest moment I've ever had in my life because the feelings that came into my body, there's no way I can explain them to you.
Ed Kless 23:31
You know, and I know if you're aware of this and just because like I said, this is something that I picked up on in the book and obviously I'm obsessed with it. So if you'll pardon me, but you you right after that passage about what you say I saw no parachute. This again, quoting from the book, with the same calmness I'd experienced a few seconds before in the aircraft I began to look around as a spiritual person. I believe light would lead me to the other side after death, but nothing. My point being is that that That that whole thing that you, quote, can't remember, was completely and totally surrounded by this parenthetically, I guess by this calmness. And I just find that it's beautiful, that there's no other way to describe it, but beautiful.
Chris Stricklin 24:19
I appreciate that. And I love the fact that, that you pulled that out of the book because for me, that was the biggest moment. It was one of those spiritual moments and talking about presence. When I go out and talk about the book. It's not about talking about the objection. What it is, is talking about intentionality. Because I'm telling you that presence I had in that moment, the way I felt in that moment, the fact that I got it tomorrow that other people didn't make me so intentional in every move I make in every interaction, every hug with my kids, every time I say goodbye to my wife to walk out the door and go to work. It makes me always think that's going to be my last second and one of the things I ask people to do is After you read the book and see how it resonates with you, and what aspects of it resonate with you, I want you to lay down at night. And when you close your eyes, ask yourself one thing. If this was my last day on this earth, would I have done the same thing? If I knew? Would I have treated people the same way? Would I have devoted my time to the same things? And if the answer's no, live intentionally tomorrow to change those things? Because if you ask yourself every night, if this was my last day on earth, would I be happy with it? Unfortunately, one day, you're going to be right.
Ed Kless 25:36
Yeah. And I grew up Catholic. So I'm always fascinated by some of the stories of the saints and one of my my favorites is along this lines, I believe it was St. St. Anthony of Padua, who was a priest in the Order of St. Francis. They asked him he was he was out tending the garden one day and one of the one of his George's, one of the postulates came over to him and asked Anthony if if if you were told that the Messiah was returning right now what would you do? And he said I would tend the garden
Chris Stricklin 26:15
That's how you know you're doing the right things in life. Because if I could pull on one other side of the spirituality like you said, the book is not about why it crashes but why survive? When people go through trauma and and i will tell you, the way I define trauma is not ejected from an aircraft or stage four cancer. It's everything that goes through our life, whether it's a divorce, a marriage, a child, whether changing jobs, losing jobs, getting those are all traumatic aspects of our life. And you have to think of those things because if you win the lottery today, you don't go Why me? You go out and cash a check for most people. But if something negative happens, you go Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Now? Why did it happen to me and that's where you can get lost in the negative side of trauma. But for me, that's not what concerns me. concern me is, why did I survive? What am I still here on this earth to do? But more importantly, did I do it? Or did I miss it? And it forced me to live every day like today was the day I was left here for and make sure that was ready for those opportunities. But if you think of it that way, because we're all here for a reason, and like you said, spirituality is not necessarily religion. They're two totally different things to me. And they're also two totally intertwined things. But we have to think about what we're doing every day.
Ed Kless 27:33
Well, amen. And this is one of the few shows where I'm sort of resentful of our breaks but we have to take one and want to remind you that you can get a hold of Ron or me by sending an email to ask tsp at various age calm Of course, as you know, the show and website is the soul of enterprise where you will see show notes as well as previews to upcoming shows as well as the link to Chris's book. But right now, a word from our sponsor.
Chris Stricklin 28:01
Alright, you're clear. What do you think?
Ed Kless 28:09
Oh, man,
Ron Baker 28:10
this is great. Wow, that was powerful.
Ed Kless 28:14
I'm trying to withhold from weeping on the air. So yes,
Ron Baker 28:20
that Wow. That read that that first quote you said that about the past and the future was that
Ed Kless 28:30
we can't change the past. We don't know the future, yet we are rarely ever fully present. Okay.
Chris Stricklin 28:41
Okay, where we finish up today if you guys give me one, give me one second to say is there anything else that you'd like to add? I'm going to top that quote, If I don't
Ed Kless 28:54
stop it. Yes. All right. I'll buy you a drink. Anyway.
Ron Baker 29:00
Wow.
Ed Kless 29:01
Alright, so and Brian, if you want to pick up on Chris, I'll I'll can do the fourth segment and talk about Thor story. So if you Okay, okay.
Ron Baker 29:10
Yep. And you can mention that the book goes to charity and all that.
Ed Kless 29:16
Yeah. Because believe it or Believe it or not, Chris, you're your co author uses the word calm one time, and I want to make a connection. So that'll be
Chris Stricklin 29:27
we're very different. And I will tell you one other thing. Yeah, we're a year we couldn't write a book because we went our stories are two different and I don't remember if it makes version but literally, literally, go ahead.
Announcer 29:44
You are tuned into the soul of enterprise with Ron Baker and Ed class. To find out more about our show, visit us on the web at the soul of enterprise.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter using hashtag ask t so we know that to the soul of enterprise.
Ron Baker 30:01
Welcome back, everybody. We're here with Chris Strickland, co author of survivors obligation. And while Chris listening to you and Ed talk about that, how you were full of adrenaline, and yet so calm, and it also just reminded me that you were present enough to realize that there were thousands of people in the crowd that you had to move away from before you did anything. And yet all these other things were going on in your head as well. Your wife your family, your training was kicking in it that's not spiritual. I don't know what is.
Chris Stricklin 30:37
It is there was one of the most spiritual moments I've ever had in my life. And, and it's just like I said, writing the book was traumatic for me, because I had to put words to what I had felt all those years back and hadn't dealt with.
Ron Baker 30:53
Yeah, and you even had the presence of mind when you were in the ambulance to ask first today. Anyone get hurt? He responded, well, sir, just you?
Chris Stricklin 31:06
Yeah, that's, that's one of those moments in the books you can laugh about. But needless to say, when I was in the ambulance there, there put me in the back board and have this airman working on me, but there's a military ambulance. And and I asked him that question. It goes, I got a couple of questions for you. Did anybody get hurt? And and if you could have seen this surprise on his face, because he he kind of looked at me to see if I was serious. And he went, No, sir. Just you and he kind of looked at me on the blackboard in an ambulance. And he goes, he didn't say it, but his face said, You do know you're in an email. Right? Right.
Ron Baker 31:39
And your second question even shows the presence of mind because you asked if you could have completed the maneuver without hitting the ground.
Chris Stricklin 31:47
Because that's what's in your mind. Did I make the right decision? It I heard anybody and did I make the right decision? And the answer I needed an outside perspective on it. And in that moment, He instinctively reacted and said, There is no way you were completing that maneuver. And that's what I needed to go. Okay. I did the best I could. I mean, that's really what we're saying. But that that was what was on my mind. And as you know, most fighter pilots just speak what's on their mind.
Ron Baker 32:17
Chris, can you contrast survivor's guilt with survivors obligation for us? And I think people have an idea of what survivor's guilt is, but I'm not. I'm not sure that
Chris Stricklin 32:29
I can. And so survivor's guilt is something that's experienced, very commonly whenever a unit deploys to combat and 99 of us go home but one of us doesn't. there's times where you look around and go, why did I make it home and he or she did, what they may have been standing right beside you when it happened. And the same thing happens with our first responders. When someone has an incident happening, they don't get to go home to their loved one done. And like me focusing on the sunrise when I when I talked to be In person, there's one picture I show. And it's a sunrise picture. And most people think it's a sunset because they look very similar. And it's a sunrise on the day after my objection over my objection side, and I said, because I hadn't dealt with it, I knew I felt deep down. I wasn't going to deal with it for a while. But I had the presence of mind to stumble out of my room because I really couldn't stand up straight, and take that picture and put it away. And I didn't look at that picture for 13 years. I literally did not open the file. But now it's my favorite picture because it's the tomorrow I almost didn't get it tomorrow. I almost lost with my family with my friends, everything. And that's what's powerful about this is they could be your last any of us, any of us anything we do. It's not just high danger jobs, you got to make the most of it.
Ron Baker 33:47
Now, when you wrote about that single picture of the impact site, I thought, that must be some such a meaningful possession
Chris Stricklin 33:57
as it is I can't even it's another one of those. I can't tell you what I feel when I see that picture.
Ron Baker 34:07
Any reason why you didn't put it in the book?
Chris Stricklin 34:11
Because at the time I wrote the book, first of all, I told you up front that writing the book was therapeutic for me and my co author, and, and literally my wife and I had one of those moments last week where we went, Oh my gosh, I can't believe we did this. And it's still overwhelming for us because people like to ask me, how did you deal with that past hands? Well, people who have been through trauma, don't deal with it past tense. They are dealing with it present tense and the two of us, Marcia and Joel are dealing with his we still talk about that last weekend, we talked about how hard this book was on our wives. Because we are now talking about our trauma all the time, to different people like yourselves, and there are times that we all just break down in tears. I mean, literally, I'm literally break down in tears. That happens to us. routinely now, but now I see it as a healing process, not when I'm embarrassed up. Well, my wife was joking with somebody last night, something came up about some volunteer work we're doing. And she goes, she was talking to my kids. And she goes, your dad can't do that. And they're like, Why? Why can't dad do it? And she goes, he has become too emotional over the last few years, and there's no way he can go, his emotions can't handle that aspect of what we were going to volunteer anybody with a hospital. And she goes, he can't do it. He's too emotional. He's the emotional fighter pilot now.
Ron Baker 35:34
You know, after I finished your book, and I wrote you that note about just how impactful it was, and my dad read your book, as well. And we talked about it a couple days ago, and I said to my dad, I said, I almost feel like I'm invading Chris's privacy by asking some of these questions that I'm dying to ask them. But you write in the book that people rarely asked why good things happen. When painful events happen, acceptance is an important step.
Chris Stricklin 36:06
It is it is. And, you know, for me, you guys have been with me for quite a few years now in different avenues in person on the radio. I think we've all gotten to know each other. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but the side of me that you saw through this book, and our recent interactions are completely different than the persona you had before the book published, is that correct?
Ron Baker 36:29
That is absolutely correct.
Chris Stricklin 36:32
And when you say you're invading my privacy by asking the questions, I would say don't worry about it. You've already invited my privacy by reading the book, because that was an all access pass into my house. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I gave you permission for that. But, but that's what I feel like the book is for me and Joel both is showing the backside of how this affected us how it affected our families, how it affected our children, how it affects our future, and our today
Ron Baker 37:01
Do you think being putting yourself out like you did with the book and being vulnerable? How has that affected people's perceptions of you? I mean, like you said, You're a fighter pilot, everything's perfect. I mean, you guys are flawless. You do things, you know, a couple inches apart. And here, there was this traumatic event. Do you think showing that vulnerability is changed people's perceptions?
Chris Stricklin 37:30
It is, and you brought a smile to my face with that. I will tell you I was terrified to show vulnerability, because in my mind, I thought it was showing weakness. I truly did. And but I felt the calling to do it right. We have these callings in our lives and Joel and I felt the calling to share because we thought we could take our worst day and help other people through theirs help help make good out of the bat. And I'll summarize it like you said, You sent me a note those moments. I'll summarize it this way yesterday, I had a speaking engagement And I talked about the book. And they and we went down a path. I can talk about it so deep, but there's still things I can't. And I almost went over that line and almost got emotional during the presentation, which, as a professional speaker is not something we like to do. And, and there's that moment of how did they react to it. And I will tell you, when I walked off the stage, they didn't only clap, they got up and hug my neck. Literally, this was a professional organization and they walked up and one by one, put their arms around me and hugged me.
Chris Stricklin 38:30
I can't tell you what that means.
Ron Baker 38:33
It means you're human. We're just humans.
Chris Stricklin 38:36
We are all just humans.
Chris Stricklin 38:40
But book let us be humans together. Instead of hiding it or putting in the closet. I always say that I locked everything in a closet. I knew it was there. But fighter pilots are trained to compartmentalize their emotions so that we can contain not just fighter pilots, but military and first responders in general, because our emotions can't get in the way of doing our job. The problem is we Leave it in the closet for too long. And like you read in the book, at one point, something opened my closet a little bit and those emotions started blowing out. And when they did, I couldn't stop. I couldn't they were coming out whether I wanted to or not. And the fact that it took me 15 years for that to happen, My only regret is I didn't open up with my wife or others to help them learn from it. Right.
Ron Baker 39:25
You know, Chris, another thought that came to me when I was reading your book is spend a lot of time talking about living intentionally. And you know how this this dramatic impact affected that. The only other person that I've read that had a similar story to yours not exactly but but parent very parallel was Ronald Reagan. He when he was assassinated, the attempted assassination I was like he said, The Lord kept me here for a reason.
Chris Stricklin 39:56
And I better be ready for it. Right?
Ron Baker 39:58
Yep. And No, go ahead. No, don't go ahead, please.
Chris Stricklin 40:04
So So I got sidetracked on the survivor's remorse. So we started talking about that when you come home, a lot of people feel remorse from that. And as Joel and I started talking about it, we really looked at each other and said, we can't do that because and I don't mean to sound cold, but I'm not remorseful that I've survived. What I feel is an obligation to make it mean something to like, you've heard me say to be ready for whatever it was, I was kept here for and that is for survivors obligation was born that is post traumatic growth. Not ETFs D like we've painted it to be.
Ron Baker 40:38
Right. I just love that title. I love that title when you told us about it. I just knew it was going to be a great book when I think it was the second time you were on the show. And you gave us the title. I thought wow, that's a powerful title. is such a contrast to survivors, you know, guilt
Chris Stricklin 40:58
right? how we live our life we choose to live our life. Right? We choose how we react. We choose how we spend our time. Don't don't live in remorse.
Ron Baker 41:12
Right? And even before you told your wife, you wrote in the book that you had a conversation with a couple friends from San Antonio, if I remember right. In you kind of went through the story with them that must have been traumatic or cathartic.
Chris Stricklin 41:29
So that was unintentional and accidental. So that was the friend I told you about that wanted to put me on contract to talk to the organization and I flew down there to talk to him and his wife. I went to both of both of them, went to college with me at the Air Force Academy. He was in my wedding. So he knew me and Terry very well. And we were sitting at Chris Madrid's in San Antonio, incredible hamburger restaurant, we just went out to eat to talk about it. And while we were sitting there, that was right at the time, I was starting to deal with it back at home with my doctor and with all of the everything going on. And all of a sudden, I go, you guys, you want to hear my version of the story. And it was just meant to be a, you know, a way top version of it. And all of a sudden I dove in at a level I never dove in. And I'm looking at them. We all have tears in our eyes. And I went, Oh, my gosh, how did we end up here in a public place? We're in a restaurant. And that's where I realized the true amount that I had been hiding and putting the feelings aside.
Ron Baker 42:27
Wow. Well, again, Chris, I do resent these breaks. But unfortunately, we're up against another one. But I can't thank you enough ads going to take you home. But thank you so much for coming back on the show, and sharing some of your insights from this wonderful book. I really appreciate it. And folks, we'd like to remind you if you want to contact that or myself, send us an email to ask tsp at Vera Sage calm. And now we want to hear from our sponsor sage.
Chris Stricklin 42:59
All right, you're Clear. Cool.
Chris Stricklin 43:03
Thanks, Chris. Great stuff.
Chris Stricklin 43:06
I appreciate you guys doing this. I'm gonna tell you like I told my wife when I got home last night. Hopefully it's a great show for you guys and your listeners. I'm a professional speaker. You don't know how much it takes out of me to do what we're doing right now.
Ron Baker 43:19
I can imagine. Yeah, I can I get again part of me feels like we're being invasive. I have I have guilt.
Chris Stricklin 43:33
But the book give you permission to do that. People are always afraid to ask me questions. Now. It's like, you know, what's off limits? There's nothing off limits. Just go. Let's go. Let's see, we know
Ed Kless 43:44
for sure. Chris. I can remember the first time we interviewed you and I think Ron and I had a AR before action review. And I think we talked to
Ron Baker 43:54
ask him about the crash.
Chris Stricklin 44:00
And at the time you guys sent me home, you would not have gotten an answer. I don't know how it would have been answered. You know,
Ron Baker 44:07
a little bit about it. But
Ed Kless 44:09
we may you may I think we made the joke because what you had told me that you were shorter. And I think that I think we we kind of like, had a laugh about it to a certain extent.
Chris Stricklin 44:18
We didn't talk about it. We talked around it.
Ed Kless 44:20
Right. Exactly. Yeah, right. Right.
Chris Stricklin 44:23
Right. That's my way of dealing with it for all those Yeah. Yeah.
Ron Baker 44:27
Well, like you said, acceptance is a big challenge in this right. Here. Yes.
Announcer 44:43
You are tuned into the soul of enterprise with Ron Baker and Ed Kless. To find out more about our show, visit us on the web at the soul of enterprise.com. You can also chat with us on Twitter using hashtag ask gsae. Now back to the soul of enterprise
Ed Kless 45:01
And I have never been so grateful for the fact that Ron and I trade segments off before on the show so that I can well and I guess he can recover after talking to Chris about his this this story that he's so wonderfully shared with with us. Chris, I know that there's something that you wanted to make an announcement about was regarding the book. So let's, let's quick talk about that.
Chris Stricklin 45:23
Yeah, so Joel, and I, my co author, and I have always said, This book is not about us. Our stories only get you to pick it up. But it's really about the lessons we learned and, and we have always said we didn't want to be professional authors or sell books. We just wanted to create a community of survivors. All this morning, I talked to Joel and we've decided the best way to take us out of the equation is to donate all profits from the books to charities, so that everybody knows that genuinely, he and I want to share our stories and hear other people's stories. This is not about selling books or making a profit and so now We won't make a penny off the book, everything goes straight to charity, different charities because we're on different sides of the story here we have the areas we want to focus on. But thanks for letting me share that. He just announced that on social media while we were on this call.
Ed Kless 46:12
Oh, outstanding, outstanding. We're glad to be part of breaking that. And I think that's, that's terrific. So let's talk a little bit about Joel as we've alluded to it but to come straight out. It's really the two stories, your story and Joel's story. And Joseph is quite quite different, isn't it?
Chris Stricklin 46:30
It is quite different. So we share a background he's an epic thing, fighter pilot just like myself. And fighter pilots don't like to go to the doctor because we're afraid we might not get fly again. And one day he went to the doctor, he had a plane he goes, Hey, Doc, I got this going on. Just check it out and give me back to fly. And and it turns out, he didn't have just a pain. He had stage four cancer, a rare con that gave him a 15% chance of living five years. Think about that. He was on top of the world. He was on top of his episode eight Got a 15% chance of living five years. Just after that happened. His two year old, had a tumor on his lung. So while his wife is running between rooms in a hospital, she has both her husband and the son in the hospital. Now, mind you, that was nine years ago, nine years ago. So when I retired from the Air Force, I was working with Joelle and some consulting work. And we started talking about our trauma. And that is where the idea was born for the book. And for a year, we say our stories are two different there's no way we can relate them. And then one day, we said our differences are our similarities. The fact that we went through different kinds of trauma, but we ended up with the same post traumatic growth is what the book is about.
Ed Kless 47:46
But there's also some great contrasts to in that yours is 25.5 seconds. Everything happens to in your incident, of course, his story with him being diagnosed with cancer and then if I if I have The this right? He, he was uh, he was aware of that, but then goes to the appointment with his son hadn't yet told his wife, right? Because, again, the one time that he uses the word calm is in that section when he's making that transition, he said, I tried to keep calm in front of Marcia, right. And it was like the this this duel thing. His was it seems like it was 25 days or whatever that was. So there's this absolute elongated sense of his incident as opposed to yours, which is really this this tightness. But what is so cool about it, as you said is, is is in the end? You can't you had you came to the same place.
Chris Stricklin 48:41
That's right, we came to the same place. And you know what, it helped me because since his trauma was so stretched out between diagnosis and all the treatment to get him past it. He had dealt with things much differently than I had. So I will tell you, there were times we met every Sunday afternoon, talk about the book wherever we were in the world and There were times we were we were hugging each other virtually there were times we were yelling at each other, because we were going through different levels of our trauma. While we were writing the book, it took two and a half years for that reason. And I intentionally we wrote a short book because we want it to be a quick read so that nobody can say I don't read books that's too long. Because we think there's so many lessons you can get out of there. And that is his cancer, his long drawn out cancer, my very quick trauma between those two, hopefully everybody can relate to some aspect of it in their lives. Like one of my cats Raiders said it best before we published, he came in and said, there's a moment where you interior in the kitchen, you're talking about the conversation you haven't had. And he goes, that wasn't you and Terry, it was me and my wife. And I was asking myself, how many things are we not talking about that we should?
Ed Kless 49:52
Yeah, no, it's terrific, terrific. Insight there and regarding that, I wanted to to To ask you, you know about your career wise, it's then they both come off as clear heroes in this this story as well. There's a lot of marriages that that don't make it through this right that don't make it through the these types of stressful incidents.
Chris Stricklin 50:17
Yeah, they and I appreciate you bringing it up and they don't come off as heroes. They are the true heroes. They are because they're the ones that held it all together. Right? When I'm in the hospital, and Joel's in the hospital, just like all military spouses everywhere, when I disappear for a year to deploy that gana, Stan, I've got four kids at home and a wife who has to act like a single mom. That is every military person around the world not just looking at trauma. And when you go through trauma, you can choose to either let it bring you closer together or force you apart. That that is a deliberate choice you and your spouse have to make and whether you're talking about it or not. We knew we had been through it together and it brought us closer together.
Ed Kless 51:01
Yeah. At the same time, one of the things I just wanted to point out is that there there are plenty of people who who have experienced trauma and and don't make it. And they have and I'm going to say I am one of them went through a traumatic divorce situation a long, long time ago. It we have a survivor's obligation once you get on the other side of those incidents as well.
Chris Stricklin 51:27
That's right. You look at every aspect of your life and you can apply these principles to almost every move you make. You can imply that intentionality with everything you do.
Ed Kless 51:38
Yeah, so true. Well, anything else you want to mention here, Chris, before we wrap up?
Chris Stricklin 51:45
You know, if anybody takes anything away from the book, here's what I would ask you to take away today. Today, your presentation is the culmination of yesterday's actions, reactions and in Your decisions and in decisions, your peak and your valleys that chart the journey that is your life to today. Think about that. Don't be a passenger. Write your book and live intentionally to become the person you want to be tomorrow. Not the person you have allowed your experiences to make you today.
Ed Kless 52:23
Yes think TS Eliot said it in a minute. There is time for 1000 decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse.
Chris Stricklin 52:32
Powerful
Ed Kless 52:34
Yeah. And you're in your case 25.25 seconds. So just just just just amazing, amazing stuff. what what what's what's next for you? Obviously a speaking turck as a speaking tour for this book, but what what what else are you doing?
Chris Stricklin 52:52
You know, I'll tell you that Joel and I both have professional careers outside of the Air Force. Now that we're out of the Air Force, and we have no engine Tension have given up. We love what we do. We truly do the people we do it with. And it's a reason in the beginning we said we were writing this book to help others and to create a community. But neither of us are leaving our primary jobs to go out on a speaking tour. We're working it in where we can, but I will tell you as a professional speaker, it's amazing how many engagements I've taken in the past month because of the organization's I was partnering with not because of the paycheck that's coming in. It's the freedom of giving back the power of giving back. And I challenge all of you to find the area where you can devote time and resources because it's fulfilling it's more fulfilling than a paycheck ever will be.
Ed Kless 53:43
Yep, so very true. Well, I want to run had a chance to thank you I want I want to thank you for being on the show again. And we just love having you on as a guest whether it's talking about after action reviews and before action reviews and making decisions or This extraordinary personal story that you have chosen to share with us that we, we are all blessed to have, have you share with us and be in our lives. So so thank you for that.
Chris Stricklin 54:12
Thank you, gentlemen. And it was a pleasure as always, and every interaction always walk away better than I was before, if nothing else, because we're spending the time talking about improving some aspect of our life.
Ron Baker 54:26
Thank you so much, Chris. Ryan, what do we got coming up next week, next week. And we have Andy Armand Nino, who retired as of January 1, the former CEO of the firm I worked for so I'm really looking forward to that.
Ed Kless 54:43
Outstanding Well, I'll see you in hundred and 67 hours then.
Ron Baker 54:57
This has been the soul of enterprise business and the knowledge Economy sponsored by Sage energizing Business Builders around the world for the imagination of our people and the power of technology. Join us next week folks and Friday at 1pm Pacific we will have and Dr menino on. In the meantime, visit us at the soul of enterprise. com will post show notes and links to where you can learn more about Chris and the amazing book survivors obligation and his story and even watch a video he's got up there so you can also contact better myself at ask tsp advanced age calm. Thanks for listening, folks. Have a great weekend.
Chris Stricklin 55:36
Bye, guys.
Ed Kless 55:38
Alright, thanks.
Ron Baker 55:39
Thanks, john.
Chris Stricklin 55:40
Appreciate it. As always.
Here it is, folks! At long last we have Chapter 32 — otherwise known as the “Lost Chapter” — from Ron’s book, Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms. The short version is available below and details on all 26+ pages for Patreon members are available at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!
“The management of knowledge workers should be based on the assumption that the corporation needs them more than they need the corporation. They know they can leave. They have both mobility and self-confidence. This means they have to be treated and managed as volunteers, in the same way as volunteers who work for not-for-profit organizations.”
Today’s knowledge workers, unlike the factory workers of the Industrial Revolution, own the company’s means of production. This is what Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation, calls “Karl Marx’s revenge.” People are not assets––and will not be replaced by computers no matter how far advanced artificial intelligence becomes––or inventory, or resources; they are individuals entitled to sense of mission and purpose in their lives, who congregate in firms to make a difference in the lives of others. The universal need of every worker is to perform meaningful work, in a community with others of like mind, to make a difference in the world. The real aspiration of an organization is to make people better, not just make them better off.
People Have Value, Not Jobs
Peruse a corporate annual report or website, and inevitably you will read that “people are our greatest asset” (or “resource”). Stalin use to say it as well. Thinking of workers as resources––from the Latin resurgere, “to rise again”––is equally demeaning, implying people are no different from, say timber, to be harvested when you run out. Even Michael Eisner, former chairman and CEO of Disney, has been recorded as saying, “Our inventory goes home at night.” There’s a new twist––people are now inventory to be turned over. Perhaps one of the reasons for the use of these demeaning words is managers do not understand the worth of their people because they cannot be measured as exactly as accountants record assets, inventory, and other tangible resources. Humans deserve more respect than a phone system or computer. Assets are passive, bought and sold in the marketplace at the whimsy of their owners; conversely, knowledge workers have ultimate control over their careers. Why do we insist on perpetuating this belief that people are resources to be mined rather than human capital to be developed?
Becoming a Lightning Rod for Talent
Southwest Airlines does not hire for skills—it will teach people what they need to know—but for attitude, which is very difficult to teach, or change. It hires attitude, and teaches functionality.
Attracting good people and hiring are two of the most important jobs to which everyone in the organization can contribute input and ideas. Executives spend more of their time—or at least they should—making people decisions than any other. No other decisions have as many repercussions throughout the firm, or have lasting significant effects than hiring choices. Typically, the average firm is batting 0.333 on its hiring decisions; that is, one-third turn out to be good decisions, one-third are minimally effective, and one-third are abject failures. It is rare in any other area that executives would accept this level of performance.
The Importance of Continuing Education
Knowledge organizations must have a healthy respect for these three categories, so as not to make their team members feel as if they are not spending enough time in the production of earnings when they are investing in their human capital. In spite of this, is there any doubt that most firms underinvest in Becker’s second category in ruthless pursuit of his third category?
I have the good fortune to speak to thousands of owners of professional knowledge firms who confirm they don’t spend more than the minimum on their people’s continuing professional education. For certified public accountants (CPAs), this equates to 80 hours every two years. According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the average CPA firm spends just .8 percent of its revenue on continuing education, approximately equal to what is spent for broadband internet service. However, companies like Accenture, the Big Four accounting firms, and consulting houses such as McKinsey, Bain & Co. spend approximately 6 percent of their gross revenue on education. How else do firms expect to increase the human capital and effectiveness of their knowledge workers if they don’t invest in continuous learning? Sure, they can invest in technology or a better widget machine, but those are merely tools. They are the equivalent of having restrooms in your building, not competitive advantages that enable you to do better than your competitors. What counts is what knowledge workers know this year that they didn’t know last year that is more valuable to the company or its customers.
Lean and Six-Sigma Initiatives
I have gotten into vociferous debates with advocates of Lean and Six-Sigma for professional firms. Since the VeraSage Web site has a full record of these debates, and I spell out the arguments for effectiveness over efficiency throughout this book, I will not repeat those writings here. Suffice to say, I do not believe that Lean and Six-Sigma are necessary in professional knowledge firms. They are far too inward looking, tending to focus more on efficiency than effectiveness. Consider Toyota, a Lean company that is having serious quality problems as I write these words. No doubt, these automobiles were produced efficiently, but obviously not effectively. Nor do these programs provide any guidance on how to solve this thorny customer issue.
Want proof? Check to see if any of the firms that have undertaken these initiatives have trashed their timesheets. If Lean and Six-Sigma truly were customer-focused strategies, they would have realized long ago that customers do not enjoy being billed by the hour. They also would have figured out that timesheets are a lagging indicator whose measures are meaningless to the customer, as the focus is on inputs, efforts, and costs, rather that output, results, and value. The VeraSage Institute’s Web site is full of Trailblazer firms that have eliminated these strategies, and not one has undertaken Lean or Six-Sigma programs.
Generational Astrology
An enormous amount of ink has been spilled on this topic, usually along with the different characteristics of the Baby Boomers and Generation X, Y, Z. One reason for this increased attention is there are simply more generations interacting in the workforce today than in the past. One reason is life expectancy. The average knowledge worker today will outlive their employer, with an average active work life of approximately fifty years compared to the average organizational life of thirty. This translates into the average worker today having many more jobs—and even careers—than those of their ancestors a century ago.
It may be an interesting academic and historical exercise to create lists of the differences between the Baby Boomers and Generation X, Y, and Z, but knowing the personality traits between the generations does not necessarily assist a company in attracting or inspiring its knowledge workers. All of this “generational astrology” has all the explanatory power of asking people their signs—it is an incredibly weak theory.
A more robust explanation for today’s workers—no matter when they were born—is the fact that they are knowledge workers, who are far wealthier than their parents—they grew up in what economist Brink Lindsey calls “The Age of Abundance.” Wealth provides more options, from extending education, traveling the world, living with parents longer, or simply delaying gainful employment.
Personality Testing and Performance Appraisals
The most widely used is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), created by Pennsylvania housewife Isabel Myers. This particular test is utilized by 89% of the Fortune 100, given to 2.5 million people each year to identify strengths and enhance teamwork. She thought the test could bring about world peace.
These tests are also popular among consultants, who are paid good money to administer them in a convivial atmosphere. But the fallacy is the tests measure what we are like and who we are, not what we know, believe, or what we can do. They confuse labeling personality with understanding it. These tests are reassuring confirmations of what people already know about themselves, what psychologists call the permanency tendency. They also tend to validate the positive characteristics we all believe we possess, the so-called Pollyanna principle. Companies might as well bring their people together to play with Ouija boards, which are equally entertaining while having roughly the same empirical validity. As they say, if you really want to learn what someone is like, marry them or work for them.
Compensating Knowledge Workers
Any organization of humans—be it a school, a nonprofit agency, a governmental unit, or a business—is going to have a bell curve of high, average, and below-average performers. One study found wide differences in performance for complex jobs (e.g., attorneys, physicians, and cartographers), where the top one percent of producers generated 2.27 times the output of average producers (Davenport 1999: 66). It is estimated the best computer programmers are at least twelve times as productive as the average. Alan Eustace, a vice-president at Google says “one top-notch engineer is worth 300 times or more than the average” (The Economist, October 7, 2006: 22).
Given human nature, not much can be done about this distribution, but what we can do is not exacerbate the problem of below-average workers by designing systems around their weaknesses at the expense of placing a ceiling over the heads of the superior performers. Public schools do this all the time. They “dumb down” the standards for the slowest learners, while letting those with above-average abilities stagnate and get bored. A business organization should not do this to spare the feelings of the less effective team members; rather, it should design processes and compensation systems that take into account different levels of performance.
Are Professionals Really Knowledge Workers?
My colleagues and I at VeraSage Institute spend the majority of our time working with, by any common definition, knowledge workers, at accounting, law, and technology firms; advertising agencies; consultancies; engineering; actuaries; architecture; and software programming firms; and so forth. We educate them on the difference between manual (and service) workers, and knowledge workers.
But I can always count on at least one of my colleagues to cause some cognitive dissonance, and Dan Morris has not let me down. He thinks I am wrong about most professional firms being filled with knowledge workers; he believes the majority of them are more akin to factory workers in the days of Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford. Now I know this is a heretical view, but Dan has assembled a very powerful argument to support his assertion. He does not deny professionals have the potential to be knowledge workers. His argument is they are not largely because of the incentives and structures of the firms in which they operate, which function more like sweatshops of yore.
Summary and Conclusions
We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter, and rightfully so, since human capital is the most important component of the firm of the future’s intellectual capital. It is time for leaders to stop viewing employees as simply problems, procedures, and costs. People are not assets, inventory, or resources; they are individuals entitled to a sense of purpose in their lives, who congregate in organizations to make a difference in the lives of others. The universal need of every worker is to perform meaningful work, in a community with others of like mind to make a difference in the world.
Want more? The full “lost chapter” is over 26 pages and practically a book by itself! Our Patreon members have access to the full lost chapter along with bonus episodes and bonus content every week.
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