Growth Think Tank (fka "Leaders in the Trenches")

When you are the bottleneck to growth, you have created processes and systems that make you the final say to completion of work in the business. The founders of fast-growth companies often face this after months -- sometimes years -- of struggling with being the bottleneck to growth. It comes with frustration as you want others to support the company to grow more, but you have not empowered them.

Can you even imagine what it takes to grow your company by 10x this year? Well, you will be blown away when I tell you the private company with the highest level of revenue in the last three years grew at 36,680 percent. The one driving force for their growth is an ownership culture. This means they have created a company where the employees feel a sense of ownership in everything they do.

The process to empower employees is often misunderstood. Empowerment takes trust and courage. It also requires that you be the kind of leader that wants others to make decisions. Empowering employees happens to be one of the core principles of having a culture of ownership. My guest today is Jared Hecht, Founder of Fundera. His company was ranked #69 in the 2018 Inc 5000 list and operates a marketplace for small business funding.

Do you want to continue growing your business as fast as you have been growing? If you could see where I am standing right now, you would see a symbol of growth, the Inc 5000 letters at the Inc Conference in Phoenix, AZ. I work with dozens of companies that have been recognized by Inc for their fast-growth and want to continue growing. Primarily, I see their founders and CEOs are driven, confident, and committed.

Creating a mission-driven company is much more than giving money away. Mission-driven has become a buzzword in today's business. The ones that do it right have seen benefits that go beyond philanthropy. Creating a mission-driven company will help you gain customers and even align employees in a way that drives the business forward. Today's guest is Zachary Quinn, Co-founder of Love Your Melon.

Are you a high-performing leader, and you love to learn? I am attending the Inc5000 Conference in Phoenix this week. I stumbled upon three colleges clustered together and was reminded of my college years. I didn't always love the process of learning. When you are forced to learn things that you don't have much interest in to get good grades, it is hard to stay focused on learning. After college, I discovered a love for learning. I got to learn what I wanted, and it increased my value too.

Every leader I know is charged with finding team alignment so that the company grows in a collaborative way. The process of finding team alignment takes intentional thought and robust strategies. My guests today are Blake Harris and Charlie Matter, Co-Founders of Case Energy Partners. Their company was ranked #78 in the 2018 Inc 5000 list.

My guest today is Brock Berry, Founder, and CEO of Adcellerant. His company was ranked #83 in the 2018 Inc 5000 list. Brock shares stories about how his fear of failure drove him in the early days of starting the business. Now he has more confidence in his vision. He also has more confidence in himself. He doesn't lean on the fear of failure now. Brock can see the opportunity with more clarity. Brocks shares his journey of shifting from fear of failure.

Discover why transparency matters in modern culture. One big reason is that transparency breeds trust. When you are open to transparency in your business, you signal to your people that they are part of the process. My guest today is John Laramie, CEO of ProjectX. His company was ranked #65 in the 2018 Inc 5000 list. John shares why transparency matters.

Employee retention is one of the biggest and most expensive problems that companies have. If you have an employee leave before you are ready for them to leave, you know the cost of replacing that person is going to be expensive. Employee retention for some roles can be higher than 50 percent in a 12 month period. My special guest today is Amanda Hammett. Amanda is my wife, and she is amazingly smart in understanding the future of work. Amanda is the host of Next Generation Rockstars podcast

Invest in your employees if you want to create a strong team. Investing in their skills to do their work is a big part of creating a culture that drives the business forward. You might be tempted to reduce these investments in favor of a healthy bottom line. Noah shares why he invests so much in onboarding his employees. The time and money he spends will blow you away. Noah gives you more great reasons why you mush invest in your employees.

Culture is often thought of as intangible. I do believe you can measure culture with attributes that make up how we work and communicate together. I interviewed John Mazur, CEO at Homesnap. His company was #43 on the 2018 Inc 5000 list. John shares with me how to measure culture and why it matters. Discover the key factors to measure culture for your company.

When you lead a company that has an amazing employee experience, you get more than just happy people. The employee experience shapes how they think about their work, their co-workers, and leaders. Creating an amazing employee experience drives company growth too. Dan shares the reasons why creating an amazing employee experience matters. He also gives you a way to improve your employee experience.

Companies that want to grow understand the need for investing in employees. Leaders of these companies make the hard decision to put money and time into skills training that lift their employees to a new level. One mistake that is common, not investing beyond just new skills. Gordon Vanscoy is today's guest. He is the CEO of Panther Speciality Pharmacy, #31 on the 2018 Inc 5000 list. Gordon shares why investing in employees is necessary.

They have proven the value of small incremental growth that evolves the technology quickly. Some companies are embracing an agile culture across the whole company to improve growth. Think that each team has a new project that is the prime focus every two weeks. They learn to complete projects instead of just ongoing work. Andrew shares how his teams think about their work in the agile framework. Create a team that moves fast and makes work happen with an agile culture.