Entrepreneur Intel

EI - Tullio Siragusa
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Intro: [00:00:00] This is the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship. Raw. No VS. No sugarcoating. Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel. I'm your host, Wes Matthews. Each episode, we'll learn from experienced founders and uncover the top 5 percent learnings that led to their success in all things personal, family, and business.

This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, delivering clear marketing strategies, ROI, and no surprises.

Wes: I am super excited to introduce today's guest. He is an operating executive who guides leaders to success. He's propelled startups to unicorn status, driven 30 percent increases in operational efficiency and helped achieve 10X and upmarket growth. He is a host of his own podcast, the Bliss Business Podcast, a founder of Inbetrica Advisory and Fractional CRO and COO Services.

And one unique thing is he helps companies become self managed. I want to welcome Tulio Siragusa. [00:01:00] Welcome.

Tullio: for having me here. I appreciate

Wes: No, I'm super excited. I know, uh, it's been a long time coming. We've talked before. Super happy to have you on today. Um, but I got to start everybody on the podcast. I asked him this one question, you know, you've been doing this now, uh, combination of a lot of things, right? You said he had some W2, self employed advising, but it's about 16 years.

Like what's, what's one of the most important lessons you've learned thus far on your journey?

Tullio: The importance of preparation, um, give yourself time. Uh, I set out on a course to create a path to become a solopreneur eventually. So, um, I began by taking the time to start doing some advisory work, made sure it was not a conflict with where I was working. So that I could build up the muscle, uh, for moving in that direction.

Um, building a company from scratch was [00:02:00] something I tried. Didn't work out well for me. I'm, I really enjoy working with people, helping people grow, coaching people. So. I found a path to get myself there and eventually pull the trigger to make it full time. But, but the most important thing I've learned is patience and look at the long tail of things.

Don't try to rush, make it happen tomorrow. Give yourself a 10 year plan to where you want to be and be patient. That's the thing I've learned the most.

Wes: it's really good advice. Uh, I was talking to a young high schooler that's going through this entrepreneurial program yesterday and we started talking about this and I'm like, cause he's like, ah, I want to go, I want to build this thing and. I'm like, yeah, so did I, right. But you have to like compound interest or you have to give things time.

Um, I think especially too, in the entrepreneurial world, in the fast paced world we live in, everything is like now, now, now we were kind of chatting before we got going about like cell phones and communication and just, you know, the [00:03:00] idea that everything is just boom, boom, boom. So that's really sound advice.

So start, start, start with, um, I'd love to learn a little bit more about like, you know, You have the ability on, on your introduction to say something about unicorn status, like, what's your experience there? Like, what does that actually mean? Uh, you know, from, from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Tullio: I was the chief strategy officer at a company that was growing very rapidly, both organically and through acquisitions. And, um, after about four and a half years there, uh, we were acquired for 1. 5 billion, uh, by a private equity firm. And the company continues to grow and, um, be on track for a billion dollars in revenues.

I left when we were just, um, I think around 300 million. 10, 000 employees. And, uh, It starts to get too big for me. I like, I don't like turning the knobs. I like building the knobs, so to speak. You know, if you're just [00:04:00] fine tuning things, it starts to get boring and get a little too big. I've been in big companies, but we all have our sweet spots.

So for me, it was, uh, solving problems very quickly. I have adopted a few different methodologies and tools over the years. One in particular that I, I am very thankful for that I learned from McKinsey and company over 20 years ago. And it's a force field analysis. So I'm able to get really detailed very quickly into understanding the forces that are helping an organization towards a goal, and then all the hindering forces, keeping them from achieving a goal.

And then systematically one by one, putting those into an organized fashion. On a quarterly basis to just attack every single one of those hindering forces. In some cases you learn there are things that are outside of your control, in which cases you have to pivot and other times you just really get very granular about the reality of things.

And so that tool helps me really get to brass tacks very [00:05:00] quickly. And then, um, you know, having adopted OKRs, I have a modified version of OKRs. I use a very collaborative approach to it. And instead of owners, I have champions and teams that work together collaboratively, because I'm also infusing this idea of self manage and self organizing principles.

So it's, um, a bit of my secret sauce that has developed over the years. And a lot of that came from, uh, this organization that I was able to grow very quickly with and grow and, and, and be challenged. And I was actually responsible for integrating, uh, SIX integration into one brand, one company, one voice, one, And one set of people that came together with new values and defining those values and redefining the purpose as all the companies coming together.

So there's a lot of lessons that I learned from that and I was able to fine tune this and repeat this a few other times. So eventually I developed a playbook. Now I have um, I [00:06:00] consider it more like a framework, right? Cause it's not ever, it's not ever a cookie cutter situation. But, but, uh, one thing I learned very quickly is you got to understand what's driving you forward and what's holding you back and you've got to do it continuously.

And I've gotten really good at that. I would say even masterful at that. So that allows us to quickly adjust. And adapt to the market. Uh, I also learned that there's some very major epic, epic failures where I held on to an ideal strategy for too long,

Wes: Yeah, for

Tullio: instead of like looking at reality, you kind of hold on to the aspirational truth of things and you're like, well, that's actually what, that's not actually what's happening.

So, so those failures helped me to realize you got to be quick and you got to adapt and you got to do it often. And you got to be relentless about it. And I think that that helped me a lot as a strategy officer to just realign and address the issues that as they came along, whether it was scaling the business, getting recruiting fixed or, uh, managing accounts [00:07:00] better, segmenting a client so that you have teams that are managing mid market accounts, large accounts, strategic accounts, all that stuff that you have to continuously do very, uh, very quickly and very often.

To, uh, to be effective. And, um, so I took those lessons and I applied them as a fractional executive now to smaller companies, uh, who could benefit from similar experience, but maybe sometimes they can't afford a full time COO or full time chief revenue officer, but want the benefit of an advisor who can get hands on with the business and get it moving forward.

Wes: So with that company that you were with that reached unicorn status, like what's, what's some of the big, like number one, two, three things, right? Cause I think as an entrepreneur, that's the goal for some is to kind of hit that, you know, unicorn status. Um, what, what's like a big differentiator? You mentioned a handful of things in that, like acquisition.

Um, you know, what do you see in a company that's growing at that rapid of a pace versus let's say a typical [00:08:00] entrepreneur where, you know, most entrepreneurs in my experience are under 20 million in revenue, then you have a bucket from like 20 to 100, then you have beyond that, but for the entrepreneur that's under 20 million, what's a big differentiator that that company was doing or what do you have to start thinking about?

Uh, to get to that level.

Tullio: Don't quickly outsource sales. Get good at sales and marketing and stay involved with it. And instead of investing in hiring leaders and then building a whole bunch of team, get good at sales enablement. Understand demand generation is key to everything. And so one of the things we did, what was unique about it is the key executives stayed involved in closing deals.

Uh, so we had a finger on the pulse of what's going on in the market. And, uh, we spend more time investing in demand generation. We created some unique, unique vehicles to do that. One of them was actually a podcast, [00:09:00] which was a way to invite, uh, ICPs. Ideal client profiles to come and talk and get it, get featured on specific topics of interest, but it was really kind of a Trojan horse and opportunity to get in front of a CEO or CTO of a company that you would otherwise be impossible to get in front of.

So, and you get to spend an hour with them building that relationship. So finding novel ways to create demand, uh, and then, uh, making sure you've got a good strategy to have an inbound and outbound strategy that's solid, don't just be a one trick pony, participate. You got to go to conferences. You got to get booked to conferences to speak.

You've, you've got to do your online social media. You've got a blog, do some video podcast, get involved, build authority in the marketplace. And that's the key thing. If you do that well, and especially at the executive level, if you build authority well and thought leadership well, then automatically [00:10:00] people will.

Look at you as like the go to for that space, right? So you build that authority, build that, that, uh, that brand presence. And so that's all about generating demand and then stay involved as executives in the sales process. In fact, um, if you can avoid it, don't rush to hire like a sales leader. Um, get a fractional sales leader who can help put in place processes and systematically make sure that things can be created in a scalable way.

And once you've done that, well, even when you hire salespeople, stay involved, that's the key thing. It's all about sales. Scaling business is all about sales, right? So, um, a lot of companies make the mistake of having the CEO remove him or herself from that process. Maybe they're not really bent on sales.

It's like, I got to bring in a sales leader. If I could just hire a good sales team, they'll make it happen. No. You are going to make it happen with the executive team. They're going to come in and help. You're going to have systems in place that they can come [00:11:00] in and be successful. And that's the other thing too.

Don't hire with the hope that they're going to be the, the saviors, you know, hire people who can come in because you have a good system and they can be successful in your organization. So set up the success factor first. Instead of outsourcing that to someone who's going to come in from the outside that maybe they have great skills, but not necessarily transferable in your organization.

It doesn't always translate very quickly, very easily. So that's the key thing. Keep the executives involved, build systems that are scalable and then invite sales leaders and sales And scale sales once they can be successful. Don't assume that someone from the outside who doesn't know your business, who's, who's been successful elsewhere is going to come in and replicate what they've done somewhere else.

It doesn't always work that way.

Wes: Yeah. It's really good advice. I mean, um, oftentimes I find like visionaries or the entrepreneur hangs out on the sales side, right? [00:12:00] Naturally. But the reality is in my experience and me personally, like I'm not a systems process operations guy. Like I know a lot of entrepreneurs and salespeople that just, they always push buttons, they go a different path.

You know, every deal is a good deal. You know, they try to press and kind of. You know, it's always sales and delivery, right? I mean, sales has to meet the demand of delivery. Delivery has to fulfill. So how do you do that? Right. As an entrepreneur, as a CEO, I mean, I think you gave some sound advice, like bring in a fractional and I, I want you, I would love for you to elaborate on this, but from my perspective, you Why fractional is really amazing is you don't have to cough up several hundreds of thousands of dollars and commit to an employee, so to speak.

You can hire a fractional for a period of time or on a contractual engagement basis. Meaning if you're not digging what they're doing, you can move on relatively easy and again, it's fractional, so you're not going to pay, you know, that, that C [00:13:00] level full time rate and you're probably going to get the same work product at the end of the day.

Tullio: In fact, I can accomplish in 20 hours. It would take most people 40 a full time because there's something you developed over many years called wisdom. You've been there, you've done that, you've failed, you've recovered. So there's things you learn from that that allows you to, um, foresee what could go wrong a lot faster.

And so you don't waste time trial and error. So, I mean, usually most fractional have 20, 30 plus years of experience. So, and they, they borrow from a number of different experiences to bring to play a good framework. But the key thing is, uh, the other key thing is, um, invest in creating the right culture.

If you create a codependent culture, and this is the biggest challenge most entrepreneurs will have, is they want to be involved in everything, control everything, and they lack trust. And that's, that's actually a, a major hindering force in scaling the [00:14:00] business. Uh, and I always say, if you're that kind of founder CEO, then be happy that you've created a lifestyle business, because it's not going to grow beyond that.

You have the need to be in control. It's a lifestyle business, accept it for what it is. Enjoy it, but you're not going to get to a hundred million dollars. It's not going to happen because you don't know how to delegate and empower other people to run the business. And part of that challenge is, uh, is a fear of lack of.

Transparency and visibility into what's going on. So, um, this is where teaching entrepreneurs to implement self managed organization comes into play. I co founded RadicalPurpose. org, which is a movement showing organization that if you take care of these four key things, uh, with employees, you're going to have a highly engaged culture.

Number one, people have a desire to belong to something greater than themselves. Number two, people need to have [00:15:00] meaning behind what they're doing. Uh, number three, there's a huge desire to make an impact and four, but not least, is the desire to be becoming. So. If you're working in a collaborative fashion, then you're part of something greater than yourself.

If your company has defined some values and a purpose for why it exists, then the employees have some meaning behind what they're doing beyond the transactional day to day job. If you create a collaborative environment where teams can cross and work together, And you don't have too many hierarchy, too many, uh, departments that create barriers, then you have the ability for people to make an impact and also the ability for people to grow and do things they haven't done before.

So this is a, an important element, I think, to scaling because. Then you're scaling with a team that's unstoppable. Everybody works like they're a CEO, right? So it's about creating an organization of equivalence. Uh, it's, it's [00:16:00] treating everyone with adult, uh, as an adult with dignity, and that requires accountability.

Right? So it's the concept of, uh, self managed concept is basically no violence, right? Which means no cohortion, no forced, uh, scenario. No, you must do this. So you'll get fired. That's called, that's a form of violence. And the other one is you have to be accountable, self accountability. You can't operate this way if you just want to hide out.

In fact, in traditional hierarchical companies, command and control companies, an employee can hide out for months. You know, you can hide out, but in a self managed environment where people work as teams, the teams are empowered to call you out and say, Hey, we're falling behind. And I always joke and say, in that kind of environment, no one person can fire you, but any one person can bring about a case to fire you.

So, in those scenarios, the team work together, they have the ability to call someone out, bring them back into the fold, or decide to fire them. [00:17:00] You're not pulling your weight. You're not, you're not gonna be part of this team. It doesn't mean the person gets fired. It means that that team has the choice to decide who works within that team.

And then maybe another team will snatch them up. There's a lot more to it, but the point is if you create an environment where there's collaboration, there's equivalence, there's the ability to make an impact, there's, there's a sense of empowerment and autonomy and teamwork, you don't have to make every decision.

As a leader, you can create an environment where there's trust built in, visibility and transparency built in. And of course you use agile methodology, right? So every week you do a standup type meeting and everybody's talking to each other, supporting each other, including you as the CEO, give your update of what you did the past week, just like everybody else.

This is a difficult thing for some because some have bigger egos than others. And you know, like, You, especially the older generation, we were like, you know, climbing the ladder, getting to the top. That's like the pinnacle of your career. Right? Uh, and then you [00:18:00] realize, well, you get there, now you got to make all the decisions, all the pressures on you and, and, uh, it's exhausting, right?

So I'm advocating on a model that doesn't require getting exhausted, where you can find joy in what you do. And as a CEO, for example, you could do things you love doing instead of the things you have to be doing, which is something I often discover with my clients, you know, working with the CEO is like, what would you rather be doing that you enjoy doing versus what you have to be doing that you have to do?

Right? So, so when, when, when I take away the stuff they have to do, cause it's mostly in the weeds, right? And I love being in the weeds cause I'm a problem solver. It gives new life. to their jobs. It gives them greater meaning and greater ability to make an impact within what they love and what they're passionate about.

So the culture plays a big role in a company's ability to scale and also the quality of life you're going to have as an entrepreneur.

Wes: Yeah, no, you bring up a lot of great points and it hits on. So like, have you, like you have a wealth and background [00:19:00] of experience. My experience or frameworks around like an EOS or scaling up or some type of entrepreneurial framework. But as you were talking, I was kind of laughing because we do a Monday morning standup and we call it stuff.

Like my company is called stealth consulting. So I call it, we call it stealth coffee, but we hired a new fractional CMO in our company. And he comes from kind of a different background and he made a comment from our, like our, our Monday coffees, like some really good nuggets come up because we're talking about, you know, what was kind of a low, what was a win and I brought something up and.

Somebody really brought an issue to the table about how she's struggling managing, you know, day to day tasks with high level conversations with her clients. And it was something that she wanted to get off her chest. And he made a comment quickly. It says, man, as the new guy, I appreciate the transparency because he's, his experience is being in situations like people would shut them out [00:20:00] or be like, you know, what a loser or whatever.

But like, we have this open environment. We're like, yeah, bring the issue to the table. Like, let's solve it. You know, we were talking before and kind of the green room about just communication, these things going off all day, like when do you actually have time to sit down and have effective meetings? So it's really interesting.

So when you come in a lot of what you're sharing, my mind automatically goes to, man, that's, that's really strong COO getting a CEO or visionary wrangled because how do you begin the first steps to like build a better culture as, as a visionary entrepreneur? Like, what's your

Tullio: It takes a little time. I would say it takes a solid two to three quarters to make that transformation. And, um, uh, I built a framework where initially what we do is, uh, as a team, we do these force field analysis. Which is, uh, um, [00:21:00] something I learned from McKinsey over 20 years ago. And, and through that as a team.

So instead of doing it as an executive team, we do it as a company wide thing. So anybody can participate. So that's a shocker from day one. It's like, Hey, we're going to have an, uh, a whiteboard session and talk about what are the things holding us back as a business that we need to overcome. We're going to pick a goal and anyone can participate who wants to participate.

You can be on zoom or you could be in person. Um, Just come as, as you wish. So that initial step sets the stage where it was like, wow, I'm getting, is this a trick? Some people are like, is this a trick? Um, and so there's some skepticism that comes with that, but then you go through it and I have a way to draw people out to get them to talk about things.

And, and the very first thing I do is set the sort of stage with the CEO to say, you're going to play a role like everybody else in this. You're not going to be the CEO in that room. So, so there's gotta be a desire for this kind of thing too, right? So that's the [00:22:00] foundational thing. If a CEO has a desire to, to.

Empower people to make people's lives better. And it's people centric that in itself is a bonus. If they don't have that desire, then this model doesn't really work. Right. But, but if there's a desire, most people, most cases there is, uh, cause as you get older, you realize it's not about you, it's about others.

And, um, And so that's the first stage. Then everyone is participating in all the stuff the company needs to do. Then the next stage is like, okay, okay, we're going to, how are we going to, how are we going to fix all this stuff? Well, we're going to introduce a quarterly way to put objectives in place, and we're going to talk about some key results, and then anyone in the organization can volunteer to be on a team to solve these challenges.

And you could be a contributor. You You can be a champion or you can be just someone watching because you want to learn. Maybe it's something you've never done before and you just want to observe and each one of those teams will create Slack channels and they'll manage weekly stand up to talk about how they're moving the needle [00:23:00] forward on solving that.

So that's another shocker. It's like, wow, I get to participate in something. So initially the first quarter is just, it's not even so much about accomplishing goals as it is getting people working together. So week in week out we do OKR check ins and people are talking and then We see some progress and people learning that this works pretty nice.

And then, so the first quarter is really about learning to collaborate. It's changing the mindset of silos. into cross company teams that work together towards the same goals. The next quarter, we, we define the goals as a team again, and then people sign up to be champions by now. People have like, this is fun.

I get to do things I've never done before. And we encourage those champions to really take ownership with the team and move things forward. And in fact, then in that quarter, we start having people do the, the OKR check ins like we, someone does it. Every week, someone different does it every week. So I'm also trying to help build people into [00:24:00] leadership role, right?

Where they can do the standup. And the other thing is about creating equivalence. So it's not about the CEO doing the check in or me doing the check in and anyone can do the check in. And the idea is we're a team, we all work together. So anyone can lead us through the check in every week. And then, so we spend the full quarter doing that.

And by the time the third quarter comes around, it's become second nature in the organization. Now, there's a few things that I do in between there, too, is I look and identify some key people that might need some leveling up as executives by coaching them. I'm also certified coach, so I'll work one on one with those individuals.

So there's a lot of things we do to get people up to that place. And then also we do some leadership training. Across the organization, I have these 12 principles of a leader, of an authentic leader, uh, training that I do that takes over 12 weeks. So there's a lot that goes into creating an environment of safety and environment of collaboration.

And as within three [00:25:00] quarters, the organization has transformed. Now with some of my clients, we're actually starting to think about how do we put teams into specific pods where they can manage themselves? They can figure out when they can take vacation, when not to take vacation, where the bosses or the leaders don't need to be involved.

And what is the role of the quote unquote bosses in that environment? Well, their role is to be coaches, to be mentors, to be supporters, to, to participate in and continuing that empowerment. So then, and that comes from the team, as the team begins to get used to this kind of environment, they see the possibilities and it becomes very natural.

Now we'll say this. Usually in these environments, the turnover rate is extremely low because it's because you feel empowered. You're part of a team. You don't feel like someone's watching over your shoulder every two minutes and you feel a sense of accountability to your teammates. But it's also extremely profitable.

There are data that supports the fact that companies that operate this way are 7x, 10x more profitable than companies who don't. [00:26:00] In fact, over a 10 year period, organizations that run this way have a 1500 percent return than other companies who don't. So it's not just good for the people. It's good for the bottom line because you don't need middle management layers in this environment.

You just don't, there's no need for it,

Wes: Well, it's interesting, as you're talking, I'm thinking my, I have a, my oldest son's 15, and he just, he plays pretty high level hockey, and he just moved away from a team he was on for 3 or 4 years, and now he's going to play for the high school. So now they have a hodgepodge of kids, right? There's like 20 something kids on this team.

And the first time they played, like it was a disaster. Like they don't know each other. They don't know when the puck's coming. And what's interesting is the next like session, there was two guys from his old team on the team and they played on a line together and like talk about 10 to 30 X efficiency.

I mean, they just, they know each other. One of them feeds the puck. I mean, they're just playing so [00:27:00] well together. And what's funny is my son was starting to, he started complaining about the coaching and this. And then when he went to the next line, it was about, Oh man, I got to play with so and so and so and so.

Like it took it off the organization and it started to become about his three, his two other linemen and how great they were. So it's a, that's a really cool way to describe it. And for me, how to interpret the analogy, because you show up for your team, like your, your manager might piss you off, or you might be frustrated with something that's going on in the company, but you got to show up for your teammate, you know?

Tullio: Yeah. And the other thing is I, I really encourage powerful vulnerability, uh, which creates psychological, you say. So I'll be the first one to look for an opportunity where I messed up something. Highlight it, expose it, and say something. Hey guys, I need your help. How can we fix this? I said, I messed up.

And that's another shocker where people are like, is this a trick question? And then realize, wow, he's actually being [00:28:00] genuine about this. And that creates an environment where you can safely bring up stuff that's going wrong, what's going off the rails. Because, because the expectation that you have to have all the answers and be perfect is, is not real.

It's, it's ridiculous, right? And it's duplicitous. And bosses will show up that way. They're being duplicitous. They put on a mask, come to the office and being this staunch, tough, you know, everything's got to be perfect. And then they go home and they're sweet and loving with their wives or their husbands and their kids.

And it's like, it's exhausting to live like that. It's like, you're being two people, just be yourself, right? You screw up in real life and you also make big decisions in real life. So just, there's no reason that like. Just be transparent about it and support each other. And so that psychological safety is key.

And I actually tested a lot of these principles, speaking of sports, uh, coaching a little league soccer team, first grader soccer team. These are like seven year olds, six, seven year old. [00:29:00] And, uh, within two season, uh, they would show up and. Set things up themselves, like completely like ready to go. Like I didn't have to say a word.

They just knew how to work together, take care of each other. They were completely empowered to, to set up their own practice, which, you know, which to me, those kids have been planted with this idea of self organizing self management principles, very young in age, hopefully they'll, that'll translate it to something later on.

But, but it works every time because it's, it's tied into a human desire that is innate in all of us. And it's those four principles, you know, I talked about. The desire to be something greater, to be part of something greater than ourselves. That's why we like to work in teams. The desire to have meaning behind what we're doing.

That's why purpose and values comes into play in an organization. And, um, the desire to make an impact. I want to lead, I want to step up, I want to do it, but I want to do it in a way where I feel safe to [00:30:00] do it. Not where I'm being micromanaged to do it. And then I want to grow and I want to have the safety to mess up and in that process grow and have people that will help me grow.

Uh, and so, you know, this whole idea, for example, you talked about earlier, the Bliss Business Podcast. Bliss is a, uh, something that was adopted by the company I'm working with, Zero Company as a fractional COO. It stands for Build Love Into Scalable Systems. So. Uh, we actually have had OKRs about blessing our OKRs, meaning that we took, we took on some challenges that were perhaps beyond the capability of some people in the organization.

But we decided we're going to do it anyway, and we're going to support each other and we're going to stumble through learning how to do this, but we're going to do it together. And magic happened. The company, the team produced two new products in one quarter for something we had never done before. And everybody worked through it [00:31:00] and supported each other through that process.

No one felt like they had to be the person who knew everything. In fact, quite the opposite. We're encouraged to step into it, not knowing and learning. So there's a process on how you can create an environment where people feel like. They're growing and learning and we're doing it together. And it's a beautiful thing when it comes to play and accountability is the key thing to it.

You can't do it without being an adult who's accountable for yourself.

Wes: How do you like, so how, like, I love everything you're saying, then there's a challenge on the front end as a business, right? Because when you're talking to new hires, potentials to join your team, everybody shows up and says, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm accountable. Right. And you can count on me. Like, how do you.

On the front end of all this, build a really nice infrastructure to make sure you're getting the right people into the organization. Because for me, it's all about having that right person, the right seat, buying into the culture. Again, I mentioned like [00:32:00] EOS, like they have the VTO, the Vision Traction Organizer that can share that vision.

But how do you streamline that process? Because that's such an important piece to all this, I would assume. Yeah.

Tullio: most of that becomes a challenge when the culture hasn't been defined beyond the executive team, right? So maybe the founder has, or the CEO, the executive team has an idea of the kind of culture they want to create, but it's not shared by the rest of the company. So, you know, who decides if you're the right fit?

It's a handful of people, but the rest of the organization may not agree with that person being the right fit. So it's important to have alignment first as an organization, which is why I believe don't set your values as a business yourself, let the company create the values and interestingly enough.

We're not much different, all of us. We [00:33:00] all have the same desire. So, so there's this concept that I buy into. It's called like attracts like, so if you've established that well enough, you're going to attract people that vibe or resonate within your organization. It's not going to be hard to find the right person.

The right person will come there because it's the right place for them and they're the right person to be there. So, and then, and it becomes very natural to see, you can see just by Basic questions, whether they're going to fit in or not. But the fitting in has to be something that's well defined and transparent across the organization.

I should be able to go on a website and see what the company's values are. And those company values should have been defined by the employees. It should be an amalgamation of all the employees. Basically, when someone comes into an organization and says, how did you guys establish these values? The employees did it.

You know, I established the value. I, you know, you can answer that as an employee. I did this. This is, these are my [00:34:00] values, right? So when you have that, um, it doesn't become as difficult to hire the right people because it's, it's pervasive. It's just part of how things are. Um, if you don't have that, it's a lot, it's a hit and miss, right?

It's, it's based on what you perceive as the person to be the right fit. But your perception is limited only to the conversation you've had between you and your executive team and you've alienated the rest of your, your employees because you haven't asked them what's of value to them. So in essence, you're, you have two different cultures within the company.

You have what the employees like, and then you have what you like and you think, but you keep hiring people that like what you like, it's going to fit automatically everybody else. Well, I can easily fake. In an interview to make myself fit in. Right. But that's the whole problem with it. It's not genuine.

It's not authentic. So you've got to spend the time to get the whole organization aligned around what [00:35:00] they stand for and what the purpose of the business is. Not just the purpose for money. Like what do they stand for? Like you take Patagonia, they stand for something. They give money. They, they, they do, they do things that are meaningful for the environment.

And so there's, there's companies that. that are doing something meaningful with their impact in the world. And there's people who want to be part of that. So you're going to attract people who want to be part of what your values are, what your purpose is. You want to get the right person, define those things first, be transparent about it, let the public know what you stand for, what are your guiding principles, your core tenants, your values as a business.

And someone's going to look at that and it's like, yeah, that's not me. They're not even going to come and interview, right? Or they'll try and you'll quickly see that that's not who they are. So it's important to be transparent, define it, do it as a team, do it as a team, and then, uh, you know, stick with it and be accountable to it.

Wes: No, it's really great advice. I mean, if somebody is listening right, they're like, man, this is, this is great. I [00:36:00] mean, I think it's something that happened in my prior company. Uh, I and or executive team would just hire people, right? We have a rec, we have to fill. And I, first of all, I realized that I have to get out of the hiring process because I would fall in love with everybody.

And then two weeks later be like, this isn't the right person. So helping identify that I got to get out of the way. And then what we did was what we started to find it's, yeah, people show up to an interview and they're the best. And then they go on a team and it's not a fit. We started bringing in the teams to do the interviews.

Um, because what would happen if that person didn't produce the team would be like, you, you, you, you don't. The leadership doesn't know what they're doing. So we spun it around and we were like the first pass and then we would put them to the team and everybody on the team had to give a thumbs up and they would bring feedback that, you know, cause people are going to show up differently to the CEO or an executive versus a peer of who they're going to be working with that completely changed our [00:37:00] company culture because now.

It's like, Hey, you're buying into this individual. Like you guys are on a team. This is the need. You're now pivotal in this selection of this individual. And you're going to have to work with this person completely Jane changed the culture of the company and how we approach things.

Tullio: Yeah. And Nearsoft, um, which got acquired by, but we came in Correlator. One of the company I was talking about became a unicorn was, was a self managed organization, was a world blue certified organization. Even executives got hired that way. And as an executive, you're like, why am I talking to all these guys?

I aren't, they're going to be working for me. And especially when you're coming from a traditional command and control culture. And then you realize. Oh, I see how this works. You kind of have the title really for the market, but you're just someone who's going to lead, not because of the title, because you're willing to serve these folks.

So it's a different mindset, uh, that scenario where the team does the interviewing, [00:38:00] the team is just looking for another teammate, but it's not so much, do they have the job skills as it is, can they add value to our team here? And, and it's fair for the candidate too, because maybe the candidate has some skills.

That are not a hundred percent there, but there's someone else on the team who's got those in spades, right? So, so you were able to synergize the, like, this person's a good add on. We're missing these pieces on the team, which is something you can't see as an executive, cause you're looking for everything, right?

You got this big checklist. They got to have all these things, right? But when you put someone on a team, the team like, okay, so and so has this. So and so has that. So and so has this. This individual, they have something we don't have. We need that on the team. It'll synergize really well. And maybe as an executive be like, but they don't have these other skills that I think are important, but the rest of the team has that in spades.

So you don't need another person to do more of that. You need someone to fill the gaps that the team doesn't have. So you start to think [00:39:00] differently. And, and that creates a better fit for even the candidate. And they feel like, Oh, I see where I can add value on this team. I have something they don't have.

And they have all the stuff that I don't have. I'm looking forward because I'm going to grow learning from them and they're going to grow learning from me. That's when you create cohesion, uh, which is something difficult to do. If you're just the executive doing those decisions.

Wes: So most of these companies, like, are you, are you a big proponent of like HR departments doing the hiring or like, is there any type of methodology or yeah.

Tullio: I'm, a big proponent for teams during the hiring. I think an executive could just do sort of a first level introduction. So I wouldn't even do an interview. My process is, let me just tell you how, who we are and how we work and how we operate. Because I want you to make a decision based on knowing all the facts.

So I'm going to assume you, you've got the skills. The team will flush through that. [00:40:00] But I just want you to get an understanding of who we are as a business and how we work and how we operate and paint the picture. Now, either that person's going to be super excited, or they're going to be scared to death about something that they don't want to be part of.

So when they get to the team, they have an understanding of how things are structured. So it's not a surprise to have four or five people on a call or in a table meeting with them, because they understand this is a highly collaborative environment. It's an equivalence based environment. All these people are empowered to make a decision.

And, and it's just, it flows differently. Right. And then ultimately, like you said, it's the team giving a thumbs up. And if someone doesn't give a thumbs up, we spend a considerable amount of time digging into understanding why they don't, right. And because they might have some valid point everybody else missed, or it could be some bias that they need to let go of.

So we had this principle that says, um, Unless you can highlight something that would change everybody's mind, then come with that. But if it, but it, through that [00:41:00] discovery, if it comes out to, maybe you don't like the way the person talks, cause you've got a personal bias about that, then it's your job to drop

Wes: Or they feel threatened. You know, some people might feel threatened that this

Tullio: With me, it's like, I don't know, I feel threatened by this person. I don't like the way they talk. It's like, okay, but that sounds like a personal thing. So you're going, as a team, we're asking you to let go of that. Cause that's a personal thing. There's no room for that here. Just let go of that. And can you get behind this decision?

And sometimes it's helping that individual realize that it is a personal thing. And maybe it was a blind spot for them. And that's where there's like group therapy that happens too. It's beautiful how it takes place because some of my realize, yeah, I am kind of showing a bias about that. I need to let that go.

And when they let that go, they let it go permanently. So it creates a scenario where that person can come in and be successful at someone kind of like looking at him like this, you're not the right person here.

Wes: Well, you gave me a huge nugget as we're talking because even this morning I have a COO and we're interviewing for a couple of new hires and he was [00:42:00] like, Hey, I have about two people that have kind of made it through that we want to introduce you to. To kind of give that green light. And now, as I'm talking to you, I want to spin that around, give that to them first and let the team decide.

Like, I don't want to be the last guy to say, yay or nay, they're already bought in. You know? So I have to look at my process and make sure it fits with our culture and what we're doing. So I appreciate that nugget. We could talk for hours in terms of this. I mean, this is so valuable because I think as an entrepreneur, like you have to hear different perspectives.

You have to invest in culture. You have to be adaptable to change and we're in an ever changing market and people's values and teams, and just sharing that a little bit about my team saying, Hey, his experience was he kept his mouth shut because he was scared to say something where our culture is like, no, like fail.

And like, let's learn from it. Let's work together and support each other. It wasn't always like that, but I think being open is super important. So Julio, you're like, [00:43:00] you're a wealth of knowledge. How can people. Reach out to you if they need help or they want to, you know, reach out and have a conversation with you.

What's the easiest way for people to get in contact with you?

Tullio: Easiest ways in ventricle. com or tuliosurigusa. com and everything is there. All social media, email, everything can be clicked on an email me button. That's very easy, very easy to get in touch with.

Wes: Well, thank you so much for coming on. If you learned anything, please share. I learned a ton. I got a big takeaway that I got to go back and do something with right now,

Tullio: Great.

Wes: I, uh, I really appreciate the time and all the knowledge you, you, you shared today, so thank you so much. I

Outro: This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us. For show notes or other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel. com. Until next time.