On Purpose-Driven Business
February 1, 2022 | On the Steal from the Best Podcast
Katie Burkhart was excited to appear on Steal from the Best where she dove into purpose and the process of developing a company's purpose as well as living it.
Listen to the episode below, on Apple Podcasts, or on Sticher.
read the transcript
excuse any typos as we tried to capture the conversation as it happened.
Host: Katie. Thank you so much for joining Andrew and I today on Steal from the Best. Let's start things off. We'll kick it back to the beginning. Katie, how did you get into the business you're in now?
Katie: So, sort of going all the way back to the beginning, my very first job was as a lifeguard at the pool I swam at as a kid. And I was 15, 16, 17, and I would think, you know, being a lifeguard that there was a sort of intrinsic value to that. You're there protecting lives. But as time went on, less and less people came to this pool. So, you spent a distinct amount of your time watching the water, which very much did not need saving. So, what you ended up doing was watching your time tick by in 15-minute increments. And it left a very distinct impression that I never wanted to be in a job where I was literally watching the time tick down. Like I wanted to make sure whatever I did was worth the time I was putting into it.
So fast forward several years, I'm working another job. And I tell my boss to go to hell. She <laugh “whoa”> she was a yeah. <Laugh> You get one of those cards in your professional career, and I, unfortunately, played it very early and somewhat accidentally. It wasn't one of those magnanimous movie scenes where you're like, “Yes, I've planned this, and it's awesome. And it's empowering.” Like it slipped out there because she was a hyper micromanager. And what was worse about that was she didn't really make any sense. There wasn't a good reason for “this is why we need to get this thing done right now.” And that was very frustrating to me as someone who was working to be very on top of what I was doing, getting things done in a way that was useful to other people, and, you know, making sure the ball was moving forward.
And I was like, “This isn't working. This is not an intelligent way to run an organization or to run a project.” So, I happened to be working on the side, doing other design and story pursuits and determined that...I was like, I think this is a better place for me. This is where I can really start to design more deliberate systems. And I started doing that in a more traditional way with visual design, branding, and really building those key strategies. We were putting together a purpose, a vision, and a mission for organizations, and that was really exciting. And then over time, I ended up shifting that in and saying, “Well, the system doesn't really work unless you get into how you actually run the business.” And that's how I got into my second company and the work I'm really focused on right now.
Host: So, what was the fallout of telling your boss to go to hell? <laugh>
Katie: I was fired. <laugh> I was fired promptly, and it was incredibly unfortunate because it was the last day of the project. Like had I made it one more day, I would've gotten the payout and everything. But I ended up not making half the fee, which was micro to begin with. And you were just done, but it was it was a great moment of like, “I never wanna behave like that again, cuz that's not the professional that I am. Like that's not the type of person that I am.” But at the same time, I'm so relieved. I do not ever have to go back to work with this person ever again. It's over. Yes! I think I celebrated.
Host: Did that kind of put you onto the journey of entrepreneurship, that you didn't wanna work with...for anybody else?
Katie: Perhaps accidentally because I didn't really start my first company with the idea of like, “we're gonna build a really big team, and this is what we're gonna do.” I started it because my parents—especially my mother—were both small business owners, and they're like, “if you're gonna be out there doing design work...I don't care how broad a swath you wanna take, you probably should set up a business, start to protect yourself, and you know, be financially intelligent. Like it was very much set up that way. And this was sort of the turning point where I said, “let's really double down and actually start to see if we could make a business of this.” And I was very fortunate that we had some good clients to begin with and we're able to attract new ones and have just been able to keep the ball rolling.
Host: Yeah. It's a great story. I wanna even go back as far as the lifeguarding days. I was a lifeguard too, and I certainly remember watching the water. But I wasn't as mature enough, I don't think, to take that moment and turn it into a motivational experience like not watching the clock. I looked...I basically did watch the clock and thought about what I'd do with my friends after the shift was over. I think that was more important to me, but I love the drive there and what you took out of that experience. And you’ve become sort of this serial entrepreneur. Can you talk about the different opportunities that you've come across, or really sought out, or built up yourself? And talk a bit about those different opportunities and where maybe the ideas came from.
Katie: So, I'm someone who wants always to be useful, which sounds like a very sort of fundamental thing, but I don't know that everybody thinks about it that way. But I get a lot of joy out of like, “wow, I was really useful. I contributed in a productive manner.” And I mentioned, I love designing deliberate systems. So, when I was first getting started in the first business, I had a colleague who worked with nonprofits, knew I did design work, and approached me. And she was like, “I got this back from my designer for an event my nonprofit is doing.” And it was one of those half question, half statements where she's like, “I think we do better.” And I basically told her, “Yes, I think, I think you can, and you should do better. Why are people gonna give you big dollars if you don't look like you're worth big dollars? And you're not communicating that story really well.”
So that was really where that came from. And my first company, Matter7, was originally founded to work exclusively with nonprofits. Over time, we found that founders and other businesses suffered from some of the same challenges. If you weren't the biggest and the baddest out on the market, there's a lot that goes into getting that story out there. And founders, especially, care very much about their story because there was some reason that they founded their business in the first place. Most people don't wake up and just wanna make money, and then that's the end of the story. There is almost always, even if it's small, something more to it than that. In my case, there was always a lot more to it than that.
Doing that work, I found myself sitting in—I was listening in—on a board meeting for one of those clients. They were a member group, and the revenue model was around paid memberships. And what they were talking about at the board level—and listening to the CEO and whatever else—is we had done work with them, and it was hard. It took a lot of time, and it was a big shift for the organization to really put in a new purpose, mission, values, and story—really redefine what value they were fundamentally delivering. And then you were listening to them, and they’d be like, “Well, we should do this. We should do that. We should do this. We should do that.” None of which actually advanced them towards the strategy that they just put in place. And I was like, “Wait a minute. What's missing here?”
And that was really what propelled me. And I saw that over and over again. And what propelled me to sit down and say, “Okay, we really gotta get into how they run their business.” What do we need to do to get them to take these pieces that everybody kind of throws around and say, “Okay, this is gonna change our day-to-day. It's gonna change what we choose to pursue, how we choose to pursue it.
And at the time, I didn't realize it was called purpose-driven. But what I also found in that work and in that research—myself to really give me a lay of the land and what else was out there beyond my own experience—is that there wasn't a really great definition for purpose-driven out there, especially when it came to running the business versus a marketing strategy, but changing what you're doing. So, the sort of third piece of what I was able to do was put out what we call MatterLogic, which is how you actually need to shift your thinking in how you're approaching both what business is and how you run it every day.
Host: Yeah, no, I love hearing why people name their businesses different names. Where does the seven come from in MatterSeven?
Katie: A tangram is a puzzle that has seven pieces, and you can rearrange the pieces in hundreds of different ways to make different shapes. But at the end of the day, it's the same seven pieces. So, we look at your story, which follows—all good stories follow a very specific formula. Everybody should have a core strategy. Like the pieces are the same to really getting a strong strategy and story out there, but how you specifically arrange them is what makes you different from another organization. We also happen to work under a seven-step process, which was a happy accident. The first reason was the reason we picked the name.
Host: Wow. That is a solid name. Yeah. Very cool. <You're gonna look up tangram for sure.> Yeah. Now your mantra, Katie, it's all about purpose. How do you define purpose and what really is a purpose-driven business?
Katie: So you ever watched the movie Forrest Gump? <Yes, of course.> So, there's that moment after he's gotten shot that he's in the hospital and he's sort of wandering around and the guy looks at him and says, “I'm gonna teach you how to play ping pong.” And he said, “Here's the rule.” He holds the ball up and he says, “Never take your eye off the ball.” And he gives it to him and says, “Anybody can do it.”
And the truth is it's actually very hard to never take your eye off the ball, but that's really what purpose-driven business is about. It's about focus and then orientation. So historically, sort of borrowing from the industrial and even the information age, business has been focused around making money. That's why we're here. We're here to make money, and everything I do is going to drive towards making money—no matter how much I have to mistreat my team, no matter how bad I am on the environment, no matter anything else—if I can turn a profit from, if I can squeeze another nickel out, that's what I'm here to do.
Purpose-driven business are saying we're focusing our eye on that ball, literally ball point, is to say, we're here for a reason. And that reason should matter. In order to matter, you need to deliver value. So whatever that value is that you're delivering, you're orienting your entire business around that, trying to get everything to drive in that direction--from the plan you put together, to how you align your team, to the money that you make, which really should be coming because you effectively delivered that value.
And your customer says, this was so valuable to me. I'm willing to pay you—and not only pay you but pay you again and again and again—so that you can take that money and reinvest it into how you're gonna continue to deliver that value and hopefully deliver it better and better and reach more people.
That's the fundamental difference in what we're seeing and how things work and really getting people's brains around money as the resource, not the goal, and really looking at how they can shift how they're doing everything. Because once you make that shift, you have to realign everything to this different focus.
Host: So, that's absolutely brilliant, Katie. Loving this conversation. I wanna ask you, how do you get everybody in an organization to be looking at the ball or be looking at the same ball, to maybe put it another way? Is there a trick to that?
Katie: So there's no easy way to do it. It takes constant effort. And part of the... cut this pause out because I'm gonna reframe this answer.
The simple answer is you need to align what you're doing with why you're doing it. So, cogs in a machine don't really need a reason to do what they do. You hit the button, and they do their thing. And you turn the button off, and they stop for the day. And if we could hit the button and have them running perpetually, we probably would because that would make us more money. Right? Humans don't work that way. We aren't gonna look at a task list and just push the paper to push the paper. We want to know, why am I doing these things? What's the reason? How does that move us towards this thing that we're doing?
And that in the broadest sense of really aligning your actions to your goals, to your purpose, is how you keep it aligned. And in the best way, you know, I'm gonna highlight two points of our system that I think are really important. They're all important, but two where we see groups fall down over the long term is your decision-making culture.
How do we have a culture where we understand how decision-making guidelines work? It's not just the job of leadership, but we've built that skill into our entire team. And we're making aligned decisions. We're asking ourselves the question of, is this gonna help us with this purpose? Or is it a distraction? Is it not gonna help us here?
And the second piece is what we call calibration. How are you going through the process of listening—not only to the people you serve but to your team and to your other stakeholder—reviewing what's going on, and then realigning yourself on a regular interval. Because if you're not doing it on a regular basis, you can drift pretty darn far.
Host: So how would a big public company that's so focused on bottom line and returning shareholder value, how would they get purpose messaging across to, I guess, their shareholders and their employees at the same time?
Katie: So, I would say that's always a challenge because I think the shareholders are very focused on making money. And I think the key decision distinction that we need to make, and it's why it's one of our top principles, is not that you don't make money. And I think that we can very easily, and we're seeing this in some of the comments coming out about Unilever right now, that you can't focus on purpose and have that focus mean that you become unprofitable.
So, if you look at a nonprofit, for example, there are a lot of difficult mindsets there around what you can do with money as a nonprofit that are actually starving the nonprofit. They're not investing in overhead, they're not investing in infrastructure, they're not investing in team. And as a result, some of them are so starved they can't actually deliver to the beneficiaries they're supposed to be supporting.
And we need to be very careful in business not to put ourselves in the same place. Money is not a bad thing. Profit is not a dirty word. And that's where you get into purpose. It isn’t, we're gonna save the world. You really need to be looking at how are you’re delivering value, and if you're delivering that value effectively, the profits will follow.
And communicating that to a board is gonna be really critical because it doesn't mean—and our system is very clear—that you don’t all of a sudden stop tracking financial targets because if you've built a plan to go out and help fulfill this purpose. And you’re going to have part of our plan, which include your budget, and how are we investing resources to make this happen?
Host: Yeah, no doubt. Okay. That's perfect. It’s a perfect segue to what I want to get your definition on. Or if you can basically tell me that what you think, your working definition of the difference, between purpose, vision, and mission, and even add onto that maybe how core values plays into those three.
Katie: So, your purpose is why you exist and why it is that you do what you do every day and why it matters. Okay. And it's very long-term. There's comments that you should be able to pursue a purpose for a hundred years. It's never reached. It acts as a lens for your decisions. Your vision is where you wanna go, right? So, we need to know what the ultimate end vision is. What is the world gonna look like if I am successful in fulfilling this purpose? Then your mission is the action you actually take to get there. You're on a mission, if you choose to accept it.
Your values are then how you take those actions. So, if your purpose is a filter for decisions, your values are a filter for human behavior. So that helps to do that. And we actually say there's a fifth piece to your core strategy, which is your story—which is what translates your purpose, vision, mission, and values into an accessible human narrative.
So, sort of to look at this a different way, I'm a massive Lord of the Rings fan. And you know, you have the Fellowship of the Ring, and you could say that their purpose is to save the world or save the Shire. Their vision, very clearly, is for the world to reflect what the pristine, beautiful, wonderful Shire looks like and is as a perpetual state. But Frodo and Sam's actual mission is to take that ring and get it into the fire at Mordor. That's the mission that they are actually on and they're trying to take every day. So you need all of the pieces for this to work and work really well as the strategy. They're not interchangeable words.
Host: Yeah, I mean, you hear time, like every business out there... While most businesses out there have a mission statement and a vision state, some kind of vision statement, do companies have a purpose statement that they communicate down to their employees?
Katie: Unfortunately, that varies drastically from company to company, and surprisingly enough nonprofit to nonprofit. You will find that lots of nonprofits have a mission. And in fact, that is part of their incorporation paperwork, but most do not have a purpose, which is very interesting. And it's the groups that we're working with that are like, “Wow, it makes so much more sense to have all of these pieces.” And we're like, “Yes, it does.” And businesses have a tendency to conflate these words and sort of use one statement in place of all three. And we're really working, hopefully, to educate people on why having all five is gonna be to your advantage.
Host: Yeah, that's great. I never really thought about it. And I'll be honest, we don't have purpose statements for any of our businesses right now. That's awesome. So if one's building their business around purpose, do you find that the leadership role it really differentiates at all?
Katie: Absolutely it does. So, the first thing that has to happen—and some leaders do this really naturally based on why they got into doing what they're doing, some don't—but the big piece that we like to say to them is it's not about you and getting them to wrap their brain around the fact that it's not about them.
So to look at this from a storytelling point of view, and to get back to human versus machine conversation, the Empire in Star Wars is very much following the machine way of doing business. You know, it is really all about the emperor and his power, and he does not really care what he does to you in order to expand and maintain his power at the end of the day. And he's just gonna sit on it on his big old throne. And he wreaks a lot of havoc while he's doing it.
I can't imagine his people are very happy. And there's a vast lack of freedom and certainly no real interest in people's time. Whereas the Rebel Alliance in the name has already acknowledged that this is an Alliance—like you are choosing to be here. And that's a real big difference. I'm choosing as your customer to buy your product. I, as your team, am choosing to come to this job. I can just as much choose to say no, thank you and walk away. So you, as a leader, need to look at them and those relationships as something that you're investing in.
And how do you go about doing that? Well, certainly for your customers, we like to call them the people you serve. You wanna make sure that you're delivering value to them, and that you're constantly talking to them in loops.
We call them feedback loops, cuz it should be an ongoing conversation to make sure that you're doing that really well and that you're treating them as a human. But then for your team—and I think this is where the biggest difference is—in a lot of cases, you actually prioritize your team over your customers. Cause if you don’t have a team, you can't deliver the value to your customers and business stops. <Mm-Hmm...affirmative>
So, looking at how do I really work more like a coach and make sure that I'm giving them opportunities to learn and grow, to make sure that I understand what their personal purpose is, to make sure that I'm meeting with them regularly, and making sure that they see how their contributions are contributing. And if they're in the wrong seat for their personal purpose, how do I help them get to the right one, which is a very different way of looking at it.
Bottom line, we wanna make sure...and the purpose economy for us is about a lot of things, but number one is your job is not a job anymore. It's an investment of time. And for most people, it's a third of your life. So, if you're gonna invest that much time, if I'm gonna be part of your alliance, then I need to make sure that this is really worth it to me. And as a leader, that's part of what you're asking. And then of course, being that person that I do want to follow and who owns that core strategy and is leading by example because it does sit a with the CEO. You cannot offboard this responsibility to someone else. I want to follow you. I want to know that we're moving in the right direction, and I'm excited to be here.
Host: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Storytelling you're...you seem to be so good at it. I mean, even just the way that you answer questions, you really go off and use references and analogies. Can you talk a little bit about storytelling and how important it is in delivering a message but also some tips as to how people can go about quality storytelling.
Katie: So, I would say storytelling, which we all talk about... We're like, “You should always tell a story,” and it's actually why it's not in my bio tag cuz I'm like, “Everyone's a storyteller,” mostly cuz I think everyone should be a storyteller. So, it should go without saying because it's human, right?
If you all the way back—this is drawing on my literature degree—and you look at things like fairy tales, these were originally delivered orally. So, it was a way of not just communicating an idea, sharing a message, but it was a bonding experience. It's how we made meaning. It's how we understood the world, and it's how we connected to each other. And that's still true today.
My team's area of expertise in storytelling looks at what we call impact storytelling, and there's five types. One, your story, which we talked about earlier. Stories about the people—use the humans you serve, team stories, what's going on with your team, the education—even though this doesn't sound like the story, but we put it under storytelling. What are you gonna teach? What education and knowledge do you put out into the world? And then how do you tell people about your progress and the impact that you're making—all of which can be done from delivering a story.
And it's all part of and ultimately makes up your story as a company. And I think from a business point of view, really keeping in mind that. I had a very thoughtful CEO make this statement to me the other day where he was like, “I'm so thrilled; we're getting this together. I'm so excited about our progress, but I really do not wanna be out there tooting our own horn. Like how do we tell people about the awesome things going on without doing that?”
And I said, you tell the story of the people you serve. They're the hero, not you. You're the Ben Kenobi making sure that they have all the stuff they need to be successful. <Right, right> But go put Luke's story out there because that's what's gonna help them shine. It helps you shine, and it hopefully attracts other Luke's Skywalkers to you to say, “Ben, I could really use your help,” which allows you to scale the impact that you're trying to make.
And the same goes for your team. You know, how can you recognize what they're doing and the contributions that they're making so that you can acknowledge that you're not doing it by yourself—which is a really great exercise in it of its own—but it's a great way to thank your team for their contribution, which I think is such a small thing but goes such a long way.
And then as far as a few points to think about, we always talk about the fact that most stories follow the same structure so that if you have time—I don't care what genre you like, please watch stories—there are so many available to you right now. It is unbelievable, but make sure you're setting some time to get into a story and think about how they're telling it and the structure they're putting in place and some of those elements. I think it’s a great exercise for anyone, whether you're a super duper literature major and you're breaking apart Shakespeare or you just wanna understand what's happening on Parks and Rec.
Host: Yeah. I wanna ask you where—it's such a great answer, and I wanted to get a sense of where you sort of came up with that answer. Do you have a resource that has sort of given you that type of assessment of storytelling, or is this something you sort of picked up on your own? Where do you think you...what drove you to land to that type of answer to the question? And I do have something in mind. <laugh>
Katie: So, lot, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of reading. So, I don't have one source. I'm the type of person—I'm a little bit of an academic in this way—and it probably goes back to how much I've always loved school and I love to learn. But I've got so many Google Alerts set up on various topics. And I go out and read from all sorts of sources because I don't wanna get kind of polarized around one person's particular viewpoint. Although there are certainly some that I have enjoyed more than others.
I reread A Story Brand over the Christmas break, for example. <there it is> which I find very useful. Albeit, we don't follow that to a T. And looking at some of the other pieces that we really wanted, again, merging that into the operating system of not storytelling in a vacuum, but how does this go back to really running as a purpose-driven business and making all those parts successful, which is how we got to the five. And if people are looking for that, it is in our operating system. We list all five with, with the definition, so that people know what they are and what they should be putting together.
Podcast: That concept, what I love, the reason why I wanted to ask is to see if you'd say that Donald Miller book, The Story Brand, that concept you talked about is sort of making the customer the hero, which <mm-hmm> I love so much. And it's like, it just seems so obvious. And people do have to do it. It's obvious to do it, but it's very difficult. Right?
I think the problem is the execution of it. <mmm-hmm> How many brands out there do you think are doing a good job of that? Like, do you see that as much in the marketplace, or do you think that's something that is just low hanging fruit that people and companies could do a lot better?
Katie: I think it's something where even if they're doing it, they could do it better. And that's just my, like, what I look at on a general basis. I have not done a deep dive—we've, my team, has talked about it—to really go out and be like, can we pick a couple who we think are just outstanding to point people to? But on the whole, what we find—and some of our clients are doing better under lots of NDAs, so I can't who they are—but what we see most commonly is I need to have social proof. So I'm gonna have a section on my homepage that says love notes, and they boil down to something like “this team is awesome.” And I'm like, guys, you missed the point...like, that is so egocentric. It's so much about you.
It's not about them. You know, tell me about them. How are you helping them? What are problems are they struggling with? And this gets into one of the cool parts of being a purpose-driven business, being a human-centered business, and that you really wanna listen to these people. The more that you can capture their language—and I actually saw somebody try to coin the term minimally viable language—the quicker you can get to the words they use, the quicker you're gonna get to an understanding, the quicker you're gonna be able to help them.
So really, as a word nerd, I find that very fascinating, but we work with our clients a lot to be like, don't stop there. Don't market or get in there with words nobody knows what they mean. Let's really think about what words are your people using, what's gonna make sense to them.
So short answer to your question is, yes, I think there's absolutely room to do this better. And I think it comes from that original focus and reorientation we were talking about. Do you get really excited when your customer is successful? I do. So, writing those stories should be exciting for you.
Host: That's awesome. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. You mentioned Story Brand as being a resource that you read. Are there any other resources that really kind of helped you get to where you are, in both business and life? Be it like books, podcasts, mentors...like what, what helped you along your journey?
Katie: I read a lot, and <laugh> I've done what I can to actually list them on one of my sites. Because it occurred to me that that may be useful to somebody else. But books I currently have open right now, I'm rereading The Purpose Economy by Erin Hurst, which is a great book and gives some really interesting perspective into what I'm doing.
But I also do things like watch How to Become a Tyrant, which is a documentary on Netflix narrated by Peter Dinklage. And I was so moved. I wrote a whole newsletter dedicated to reworking the playbook for people trying to run purpose-driven business cause, believe it or not, those tyrants have figured out some things that work really well in advancing your story and building your movement. So, there's a vast array of things from this sort of traditional resource.
But when I really think about what helped me on my journey, I think about my parents, who have always been really encouraging, older colleagues who were willing to help and open doors—whether that was by giving my company an opportunity to work with their company, introducing me to somebody answering my questions, and even just walking through doors that were open for me. In so many cases, we get as emails and it says, we're looking to interview people on X, Y, Z, email here. How many people are actually paying attention and hit the email here button? I can tell you with confidence, if you gimme the option to email here, you will hear from me because you don't know what's on the other side of that door, but they just opened it wide for you.
At this point, I would say the resources I lean on the most are my business coach, who is Number One on the A team, which is what I tell 'em on a regular basis. And I didn't get that until about two years ago. And I really looked out at the world, and I was like, the people that I see as successful, what are they doing that I'm not doing? And I'm like, they have a coach, and I don't, I think we need to switch that. That was a very good choice. And I also have the rest of my A team, like my editor and even my chiropractor, who keep me working and moving forward.
Host: Yeah, no. I think the importance of a coach is just...dynamite drop right there. Certainly we've had a few coaches on ourselves that Brad and I have talked to, and then it seems to be a common theme with really successful people just saying, why do athletes get a coach? And people like us who are working hard in the business community don't have someone to lean on for great day-to-day advice.
Katie: And it's huge if you're a solo founder, which I always have been. Because you want to make sure that...yes, you're growing your team, and like Jean Luke Picard, you want everybody's input. You wanna weigh it carefully and then ultimately say, “Make it so,” but sometimes it's nice to have somebody else to be like, okay, I brought in all the information, I've considered it all carefully, and here's what I'm thinking. What do you think? Just because it can get lonely to be the only, not all of us are Jean Luke. It's nice to have that other person.
Host: Yeah. And is your coach kind of decoupled from the industry that you're in? Like is it more of a business coach that looks at helping you, guiding you, keeping you accountable? Or is there some direct link from an industry standpoint?
Katie: There's no industry link. But I jumped on the call, and I was so busy at the time. And I remember saying to him, look, I'm really looking for a coach that's gonna help me hit my business goals. I don't wanna meditate. I don't wanna hold hands. I don't wanna talk about my feelings. I really want to achieve my business goals. That's what I'm looking for help with.
And he was like, great. That's what I do. And we've been a great pair ever since. I can't speak more highly, but I will say who your coach is and some levels has to do with what you wanna achieve and who you are. And I was very aware of who I am as a person and kept getting recommended to coaches for I'm like I'm sure you're good at your job, but this is not what I'm looking for. But no, I was actually very happy to pick someone who is not an expert in what I do but is an expert in business. And he's been a great resource to be like, “Hey, this isn't exactly your specific area of expertise, but how's it landing for you?” And it's been great to have that as collaboration also.
Host: Yeah, no, it sounds like a great fit. That's so important. And this perfect segue into what I wanted to ask you about next, which is sort of work/life balance. I wanna get into the secret sauce of Katie. What makes you so successful? How do you go about your scheduling, balancing, your home life, and having a social life, and all that kinda stuff—and you’re obviously a highly, highly motivated individual around your business.
Katie: So, I would say the first piece to recognize is that the fundamental principle of saying work and life are somehow two separate things blows my mind. You have one life. You have 24 hours in a day, and you have however many years that you get to live. That is your life.
And how you choose to spend your time is what makes your life. And it's what gets me so excited about all the work I do and really trying to help leaders, and teams, and even individuals make the most of how they're investing their time. That does not mean I don't sometimes just sit on my couch and eat cookie dough out of the bowl, like that happens too. But that's typically something I chose to do and I recognize that I'm choosing to spend my time this way.
So the way that I do it, or one of the things that I implemented as an individual—and it's certainly reflected in what we do with teams—is what I call a life review, which I do twice a year. And I sit down and really list everything that takes my time— from I have a cactus and I have to water it to I have a company and I'm doing this, I'm speaking, and I'm doing these other things. What’s on the list? You know, I have family, I have friends. And I really take, give myself space to reflect on, what of these things do I still wanna do? Are these still things I wanna spend my time on? What things am I saying, “Mm, I don't really wanna spend time on this.”
Every once in a blue moon, it's like, look, if you don't do this, you don't get to goal, and you have to suck it up. But in most cases, what I'm feeling is I only have so much time. These are the things that I'm not in a position to give my time, the way that I'd like, and I'm not gonna do a very good job. And typically what I then do is say, these are the things I'm saying no to—more than the things that I'm saying yes to. And that helps me to make sure that I'm focused on the right things. And that's how I do that.
From day-to-day perspective, I got into the full focus planner which—as part of research for what I was doing—I bought a whole bunch of the planners time management things, how do you structure your day, manage your time? So, I was looking at it an individual level and was thinking about how to translate that to the team level. And I determined I liked this book the best, personally, cuz it structures your weekends also. Because it recognized that like a day is a day is a day and hour is an hour is an hour doesn't matter what day it's on. So that I could better make sure I was thinking about how I spent that time and where priorities were going. And again, sometimes priorities is go to grocery store. But we know what's going on.
Host: Yeah. Now you talk about saying no, which is a big challenge for a lot of entrepreneurs and people out there. Did you find it challenging and, how did you yourself learn how to say no?
Katie: Let's take that all the way back and talk about a story. When I was in college, I was trained in design, specifically in theatrical design, and I had been given a fairly complex show to design and worked really hard on it. I had a great relationship with the director, who was fabulous. The person with whom I did not have the best relationship was the person who was in charge of my department. His name was Tim. He was a very tall man, talked very slowly. We were just...our zens were very different, but we had respect for each other. But it took him a little while, and I knew I had finally won when he came up to me after a meeting and he said, I just—he was so excited, which was not a perpetual Tim state, he sort of hummed—but he came to me, and he said, “I watched the show last night.” He said, “And I sat there the whole time and I kept looking for something to cut. I couldn't find anything. It was exactly what it needed to be.”
And if I had to pick an expression for my work—whether it's a visual design, or the design of a system, or working with organizations, or the language we pick to put in a purpose statement—that's what I'm always striving for. And I can't tell you why. It's just how my brain works. So, for me saying, no comes naturally. What is a challenge is working with others to help them say no. And a lot of what I do is how do we put together the logic that you're going to use to know how and when to say no?
Host: Hmm. I like that. I'm glad that I asked that question. It actually came across like a mock flow chart that someone, an executive, had posted. And it's like, someone asks you, do you have time for this? And you know, it goes, do you have time? Yes or no.
And if it goes to no, then it says don't do it. And if it goes, yes, if it goes to, yes, it goes to actually, no, you don't have time. So yeah. <Laugh> Usually, that's what happens when these things cross your desk, but no, that's a great answer. It's important to recognize and be able to prioritize and then delegate. Can you talk a little bit maybe about how you go about delegating some tasks and the strength of your team?
Katie: So, I love delegate because one of the challenges that I run into myself is people like to talk about is only do the things that are worth your time and then outsource everything else. And the word outsource has a tendency to obfuscate, the fact that there's a human being over there doing those tasks. And I like to say to people when you think about delegating, realize that all work is valuable. If you produce—I see this a lot with consultants—if you produce a strategy because that's the thing that's worth your time, it is worth zero if there's nobody there to execute upon that strategy. <mm-hmm> So, we have to recognize that all work is worth it. As long as it's moving us towards our goals, but there's no level at which it is not worthy.
So once you start thinking, that sort of changes how you think about delegation. And the way I like to think about it is I need to do all of these things to move forward, but there are some things that only I have the skills to do, or I'm gonna be able to do better than just about anybody else. We're gonna put those at the top. Once my plate is full, I don't have enough hours to do things past that list. Hopefully, and in most cases, what falls under that line is what starts to get delegated.
And that's why I start to look for so and so can do this and, if you're an ACE delegator, you start to think about who can do it better than me. And I ask that question a lot. Is there anything on my plate that I could give to someone who's gonna do it better than me so that we're actually accomplishing these actions and moving the ball forward better than if I were to sit and do it all myself? Versus I think a lot of people look at delegation and say, what's the cheapest way to get it done, which might not actually help you accomplish your goals at all.
Host: Now, what about even taking a different strategy entirely, which is to say, I wanna delegate it to this person because they're not good at it. And I think that this can actually help develop and grow that individual.
Katie: Yep. You can do that also. And in some cases that happens, typically as you start to get a little bit on the larger side. So, I was sort of thinking immediate, but as you grow as a team, absolutely because typically there's a manager or another team member in place who can also help them. Because as the CEO, yes, you wanna help give your people learning opportunities. I do it myself all the time.
I was literally on with a team member on Tuesday talking about what they'd like to learn about next, but there's a point at which you cannot personally teach everybody. So, making sure that there's a balance of people who know with people who are learning.
Host: Yeah. Now, now being such a purpose-driven individual and expert, I really gotta ask you, how do our listeners make the world a better place to live?
Katie: The simplest answer that I can give is to—before you do something—to ask yourself if the world really needs it. The world is so full of noise. Whether that's more data, more articles, another book, another app that does the same thing 50 other apps do. Before you start doing the thing, ask yourself if the world really needs it. Is this going to provide value? Am I adding to our collective narrative as human beings? Or am I just adding noise? And really do your best not to add to the noise.
Host: Hmm. I like that. That's good advice. I wanna, I know you're super modest, but you're a contributor. You're a tremendous thought leader in the business community. Katie you are published many works in Entrepreneur magazine, and I followed you there. Can you talk a little bit about that accomplishment, being a contributor in that way? And is there anything, because you've been able to use that platform and have a large voice, that you're particularly proud of that has reached a number of budding entrepreneurs and people that find real value in it.
Katie: So, I love to write, which I think <laugh>, I think the idea with my writing was somehow I was gonna get into creative writing. That hasn't happened yet. But I love writing about everything having to do with these topics—and preferably in ways that someone will walk away with it and say that at least got me thinking better, I found it useful, and I could actually start using it. Great.
And one of my highlights in 2021 was an article that I wrote for Entrepreneur magazine. They actually placed onto their homepage in the top slot. You know, my editor taught me ages ago, always check once it publishes to see if an editor curated it into one of the sections or it got onto the homepage or something like that. And I was like, wow, we made it onto the homepage. We made into the top spot.
This is so exciting. But what was really exciting about it for me was when she said that meant an editor and entrepreneur thought their audience would get a lot of value out of it. And for me, it was like, great. Hopefully we're reaching even more people with a different way of looking at your business and a different way to run your business. So that hopefully we can start to see that seismic shift. I think people have been talking about for a long time, but it has been slow coming for people to shift their focus and shift how they're running their companies.
Host: Mm that's a great answer. That's awesome. I gonna let Brad ask the last question, but before he does that, I want to ask one more because this has been such a great conversation. Do you, where everything we've talked about, is it most useful for maybe that startup entrepreneur, or mature business, or does this just go for any organization? Because I feel like this has been an absolute staple conversation for a business leader. Certainly when looking at build...starting from the beginning and taking their idea, and then applying a purpose, and that sort of stuff. Does it also work for mature businesses or can we use this as a focus for startups?
Katie: So, I would say as much as startups want to jump into this—and we get calls regularly—I often have to get on and be like, okay, look, you still have an awful lot of questions you need to answer about what you're doing before we dive into this. Now, if you want to start diving into it and you're comfortable revising, revising, revising and iterating, like you are everything else, hey, kosher. Like I do it with my businesses, but even I delay a little bit making it official until I feel like we've really got some traction and we know what it is that we're trying to do, which largely comes from understanding what the people we serve care about and how we can improve their lives.
So, I typically spend most of my time working with organizations who have...have some mud under the tires—you know, you've actually made some sales, you have a good sense of what's going on. Up to organizations that have been around a long time, we often find that this comes, this conversation comes because some change has happened. You know, you've acquired a company, merged with a company. You just raised a bunch of money. You're getting ready for the next growth trajectory. And it's like, Ooh, is our house in order? Is this where we need to be? Is this where we want to be?
And that's where we can really jump in and help and where this methodology can jump in and help to make sure that—whether you started this way or you've decided today is the way, I'm going to shift how I'm running my business. You can do that.
Host: Hmm. That's awesome. That's great. Now we gotta wrap it up with our signature question for you, Katie. What is the best tip that you ever received or better yet? What have you stolen from the best?
Katie: God, what haven't I stolen? I'm constantly synthesizing connections of good things that are out there and trying to make them useful. But I would say one of the best tips I was ever given—and I can't tell you where I got it, I can't tell you if I read it online or if I got it outta Grey's Anatomy, and it's quite possible that the answer is both—was, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
Host: Love it. I love it, Katie. Yeah, that is brilliant. It's definitely something we've talked about before, and that actually really is the epitome of the question itself. <Yeah.> And how we learn from one another. So this has been such an awesome conversation, Katie. Like I said, I'll say it again, you're a tremendous thought leader in the business community. So, we look forward to listening to, reading more of your works, and learning—stealing—from you as one of the best.
Katie: Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this dialogue. Both of you.
Host: Yeah. Thank you so much, Katie. And you know what I loved about our talk was all your references to Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars. <laugh>
Katie: Well. Definitely gotta own up to the name, man. I am a total nerd and a registered Jedi—the badge sits on my desk. So, you know, gotta work it in there.
Host: That's awesome. Thank you so much, Katie. Appreciate it. I know our listeners do as well. Thank you.
Voiceover: I learned so much for our conversation with Katie, and it definitely reinforced leading with purpose. I also loved her thought on storytelling and how opportunities are sometimes being missed. I encourage listeners to check out her website and follow Katie to keep up to date on her fantastic, thought-provoking content. Please don’t forget to like, share, subscribe—whatever it takes to help us keep building on the momentum of Steal from the Best.