The 5 Pieces of Your Core Strategy
July 13, 2022 | On the Getting Down to Business Podcast
Katie Burkhart appeared on the Getting Down to Business podcast for a conversation with host Shalom Klein. She talked about the five pieces of your Core strategy and why aligning your business with it provides maximum focus.
Listen to the episode below.
read the transcript
excuse any typos as we tried to capture the conversation as it happened.
Shalom Klein: Welcome back to Get Down to Business—the show all about small business, jobs, and entrepreneurship! I am thrilled to be joined by Katie Burkhart. She is the mastermind behind MatterLogic, the simple system for running a purpose-driven business, and she has quickly become one of the go-to experts in this space. We're going to talk about some of the work that Katie has done, as well as her work as an international keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. And I know Katie's pretty humble, but her work has been published in The Startup, UX Collective, and the Boston Content. Katie, welcome to the program.
Katie Burkhart: Thank you so much for having me.
Shalom: Absolutely. I love to get to know the person behind the microphone. So how did you get into the business that you're in right now?
Katie: Sort of a nonlinear story, for as much as I love focus. But the big throughline for me is all about not wasting time and my obsession with making sure that I'm using my own time well. And being able to bleed that into the things that I do for teams and helping them to use their time well. So, from my first job as a lifeguard, figuring out that watching the time tick by was not the way I wanted to spend my life, up to helping teams to develop really intentional core strategies, and then now doing the work to help them not only get on the same page but stay on the same page.
Shalom: Oh, awesome. Fantastic. That's interesting. So, you talked about sort of a nonlinear story. And I know you talk a lot about working backwards. So when you say working backwards, what does that mean? And how does that sort of go into the subject matter expertise that you've become so passionate about, about having a purpose-driven business?
Katie: Great question. So, the working backwards means instead of starting with the tactic and figuring out what to do with it, what you want to do is start at the end—with the point or the outcome that you want to achieve—and then work backwards to figure out what you're going to do to achieve it. As a purpose-driven business, that's how your whole company should work. I imagine perhaps you've seen the movie Forrest Gump; it's a great film. There's the moment where he's been watching TV and nobody can take the noise anymore. So, they teach him how to play ping-pong, and the instruction is “never take your eye off the ball.” And he excels at never taking his eye off the ball. And that's really what purpose-driven business is all about. We're here to deliver value to someone, or a group of someones, and everything we do needs to drive towards delivering that value.
And that's really where the focus comes from and making sure that you're making the most of your time. And then the work backwards works in “well, if we know this is our purpose, what should we be doing to make sure that we're fulfilling it?” And you can apply that same working backwards—here's an example—to, “Hey, we need to be able to reach this audience for this particular reason,” or “We need to be able to help the people we serve.” Understand this idea, start there, and work backwards to figure out what's going to be the most effective way to do that so that you can make really deliberate and strategic choices versus saying, “Well, everybody else has a podcast, so we should probably make one.” Which means you're going to make—you're going to spend a lot of effort justifying having a podcast and trying to come up with a reason for having one versus knowing the reason and working back from there.
Shalom: Absolutely. So, I would be remiss, as we have this conversation in mid-July 2022, if we didn't talk about how work has evolved. We know that if we were having this conversation in mid-2019, it would be a very different conversation. The reality is that a lot has changed and work indeed has evolved. So, what shifts do we need to make in how we look at and run our businesses?
Katie: So, one of the biggest changes that I think leaders need to make is to recognize that it's not about them. This is something that we sort of knew before. But now we're going, “Oh. Really. It's not.” As much as we sit and say, “You're here to deliver value to the people you serve—your clients or customers—you also deliver value to your team.” And the first way you do that is to pay them well for the time that they invest with you because they can and they will invest their time elsewhere if it's not worth it to them. And that's where the second value point comes in, which is: Make it worth their time. Make sure that they understand why you're asking them to do the thing that they're doing. Make sure they understand how they're contributing to the overall success of your organization.
And if you're still defining that success as, “You put a lot more money in my pocket, thank you, kiddo,” you don't have it right yet. It needs to be more valuable than that, or they're going to invest their time elsewhere. And one way to look at that is, if you're still treating it like Star Wars and you're the Emperor, and you've got all your Stormtroopers building up your Death Star, you haven't made the shift yet. Start to think more like the Rebel Alliance. These people are choosing to be there. They're choosing to come together, to go out and fulfill a great purpose and build a better world.
Shalom: And you've already used the term several times—even in the way you just answered this last question—you've talked a lot about impact. Impact, impact, impact. I'm curious, how can a small business owner that might be tuning in over here...what can they do to ensure that their business has a purpose, mission, and vision? And what's the difference between that, and why is it important for somebody in business to have that focus on having an impact?
Katie: So, purpose, vision, mission, values, and story are the five pieces that create your Core strategy. This is what sets the focus for your business. So, your purpose is the focal point, and it tells you why you're here and why whatever you're doing matters. It's the ultimate value that you deliver to the people you serve. If you've ever watched the show Merlin, which is a retelling of the King Arthur tale, he's there to really redefine what leadership is for the benefit of all people. It's a pretty motivating purpose. And you start to filter things through, “If this isn't going to help us do this, we probably shouldn't do it.” But there are more filters in the lens.
When you look at your vision and you say, “Well, where do we want to get to? Where are we going? And does doing X, Y, Z help us to get there?” In the case of Merlin, the vision is Albian, this wonderful, peaceful world where we live in harmony. Magic and non-magic creatures together. That's, again, pretty inspiring. Everybody would really like to bring that about. But we know where we're going, and we can ask that question. And if we say, “Well, this isn't really going to make that world,” we can say no to that.
Also, then you can throw on the filter of your mission, which is what do you do that fulfills your purpose and ultimately delivers value to the people you serve. In Merlin's case, he needs to keep Arthur from dying, but he also spends time offering Arthur a different perspective to teach him the things he needs to know. And he is really the only person that is in a position to be able to do that. He has unique capabilities. And so does your business. What do you do better and differently than anybody else? You really want to keep yourself rooted in those unique capabilities.
And then the last piece is your values. How do you do things here versus how do you do them at a different organization? And that's where you can really add some specificity. And then your story is what brings all of these pieces together in a way people can understand, talk about them, and really grab a hold of that shared lens as a team.
Shalom: Absolutely making an impact. Again, I'm chatting with Katie Burkhart, the mastermind behind the MatterLogic, and we've been talking all about why impact matters and what purpose, mission, vision, and values all mean to the entrepreneur that might be tuning in to Get Down to Business right now.
And Katie, I am curious about MatterLogic, and the work that you do, and why all of our small business owners should be getting in touch with you. And of course, we'll make sure that they could get in touch with you in just a moment. But what is MatterLogic?
Katie: So, MatterLogic is exactly what it sounds like. It's a logic. It's a way to think about business, and it's also a way to run your business. It has you ask, “What's the point”—from why you exist as a company down to why am I scheduling this meeting today and is it really worth the time I'm going to invest in it?
And when you use this logic and implement the underlying structure, you can connect what you're doing to why you're doing it and really give your team—empower your team—with the autonomy they need to cut through noise and really get things done that you're looking to have done. And we work with teams. People who serve people. And those teams, who have so many ideas and ways to make impact, they need some help figuring out how they move forward—picking out the right things so that they've got the time to do those right things really well.
Shalom: That's awesome. Well, I definitely want to make sure that everybody gets in touch with you. I know you're pretty easily accessible. You're certainly very passionate about what you do, and there's a lot that you have written all over online, but Katie Burkhart, how can we learn more about MatterLogic and get in touch with you?
Katie: Number one, if you would like to learn more about MatterLogic, we've actually published it all on the internet for the world to see because that's how the internet works. And we would really like you to learn more rather than locking it inside a book. So, if you go to matterlogic.co, you are welcome to hit the Get Started button and move your way through all the different pieces of the system.
I would also encourage you to think about joining our newsletter community, which is matterlogic.co/weekly, where I send out one piece at a time, 500 words or less, of actionable ways to actually start using this logic at your organization and with your team.
But if you're looking for me, please find me on LinkedIn. I accept all connections. I also accept meeting requests to talk to people. Typically, I will give anybody 15 minutes, but if you say, “Hey, I heard you here. I would really like to talk to you,” I will make sure that you get 45 minutes of my time so that you can ask all the questions you have, and hopefully I can help you.
Shalom: Awesome. Thanks so much. Quick break here, and Get Down to Business will be right back.