The Power of Peer Learning & Leadership Growth featuring Mike Sharrow

Mike Sharrow [: 00:00:00

I think newer generations of leaders are more predisposed to care and wrestle with like am I making a difference? How am I impacting the world through my business, not just economically, but on humans. I think there's an increased care for that idea, even if it's ambiguous.

Kate Volman [: 00:00:17

This is Lead with Culture. I'm Kate Volman and I'm excited about this episode because I was joined by Mike Sharrow. He is the CEO of C12 Business forums which is the world's largest peer learning organization for Christian CEO's business owners and executives. He just got back from a big trip so we dove right into the fascinating similarities and differences leaders encounter across the globe. We also explored employee development company culture and he shares some really great book recommendations and two habits that have made a massive impact on his life. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Mike, thank you so much for joining us today.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:00:58

Yeah, Kate, we've been looking forward to this for a while.

Kate Volman [: 00:01:00

I know, I know. I'm so excited. Before we dive in to all of the fun conversation around culture and leadership development, can you share a little bit about C12 and your mission?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:01:14

Our mission is pretty clear. It's to equip Christian CEO's and owners to build really great businesses and do it for a greater purpose. And we fulfill that by operating peer advisor groups around the world that are of essentially like masterminds for Christian CEO's and business owners but with professional facilitators that we call a C12 chair that are for growth stage companies and we help people navigate like how do you grow business, how do you grow people and how do you have an internal impact and really view your faith essential to that whole proposition. So I get to lead a small business of 30 folks that support a global network of coaches that then run those careers all over the world.

Kate Volman [: 00:01:53

Oh my gosh, it's so cool. We talked about it. The first time we chatted I was like, you have the best job.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:01:58

When I'm not messing it up, it's a good job.

Kate Volman [: 00:02:00

So how many leaders are part of the organization?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:02:03

We serve just shy of 4300 people right now. And so from everything imaginable from like small businesses to major multinational corporations in eight countries. So just like incredible diversity of leaderships and industry settings.

Kate Volman [: 00:02:19

Actually, we were just talking. You just got back from an incredible trip. Talk about international, really, you deal with leaders all over the world so can you share with everyone where you just came back from?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:02:29

Yeah, I just came back from Asia which is so crazy. So it's been around 30 years. I didn't found the business. I'm the third CEO. I was a member a long time ago, is how I got involved. But about six, seven years ago, we'd never done anything outside the United States. We actually got founded in Florida, right near you. And the question was asked, like, is this going to work outside of an american context? And so, long story short, we prayed, did some brainstorming, came with, like, a framework of how we think it might work internationally, and then literally said, God, you're going to have to bring someone to us because we didn't know how to find the right leader.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:03:00

What our rules was, we're not going to send Americans to do this. It's got to be indigenous leadership from those countries. And the next week, literally after we went, okay, God, if you want to do this, send us a leader. Someone reached out from Shanghai, China, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And I was thinking, like, Toronto, London. I was thinking a little bit more easy countries, but fast forward. I just got back from visiting our markets in Taipei, Taiwan, Taichung, Taiwan, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. We're all over Brazil, South Africa.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:03:29

We're launching Egypt and Ukraine. It's crazy, but, yeah, I got a chance to go visit our Asia rim markets and just meet these leaders who are doing incredible stuff and leading in such different regulatory environments, cultural environments. Yeah. Inspire me, challenge me. It's a lot of fun.

Kate Volman [: 00:03:46

What have you noticed about the leadership? Like, what are the differences and similarities when you're having these conversations?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:03:53

What's been surprisingly encouraging is on the similarity side, is how much we're more alike than we're not. And so when you get past language and cultural accents and I, you know, some of those pieces, at the end of the day, running a business is running a business. And so the pains and challenges of people and process and product and your own leadership shadows and all those things are surprisingly the same. And that's been cool. I was at a meeting once where a CEO from China came to sitting in a Texas forum, and a physical therapy CEO was talking about his challenges running multiple clinics. And this guy runs a manufacturing company in China is like, man, I have no idea about being american, no idea about healthcare. But I know as a CEO, I wrestle with these issues, making those decisions, and the world has kind of got the same. So I think the similarities are encouraging there.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:04:42

The differences. I mean, everything from, like, we're in a muslim country where it's a federal crime to share your faith with a Muslim at work. You go to jail for five years with your business. That's kind of different than the US or where in South Africa where it's like 25% unemployment, 14% inflation rates. Just economic environments are wildly different. But I think what inspires me most is Americans are particularly Christian Americans who we deal with like, we're so affluent as a country and we're so safe. We get kind of comfortable and complacent in a forum where we may be like, hey, like, we're talking about culture, that, hey, God cares about your culture, cares about how you lead people. This is what God's word says.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:05:22

This is best practices in business. And a CEO in America, like, hmm, that's interesting. That's cool. I'm going to think about that, pray about that, and maybe in the next couple months they'll implement some things. But, like, I was in a meeting in Taiwan and I'm literally sitting in the meeting, well, this is very clear. Like, this is good business principle. I hadn't thought about God caring about this. Well, I guess that means that I have to do something about this.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:05:44

So I guess by next month I'll do this, this and this. And it was just like, action. I was like, do you want to. Are you going to think of it anymore? Like, well, once you see what's true, like, I should probably just do it. And so one of the things I love about non us markets is there's generally a bit more hunger because business is not as easy and there's a faster cycle time to actually, like, do something with truth.

Kate Volman [: 00:06:06

Oh, that's so interesting.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:06:08

Work acculturated to compromise. Like, compromise is almost normal in America and it's less normal in many international markets.

Kate Volman [: 00:06:16

So give me an example. When you say compromise of a leader here in the US, what are we compromising on?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:06:22

Example, in Taiwan, we had a CEO. They're complaining about the country and the markets and the eroding middle class and blah, blah, blah, and then some. Okay, what are we going to do about it? And so, hey, we had some content that they're going through on biblical compensation and benefits. And does God care about how you take care of your employees? And are we taking advantage of our employees? Are we creating kind of sustained poverty versus being kind of the principal? Don't muzzle the ox. The CEO went, my gosh, I guess I can't complain about our country lacking a middle class or about these systemic issues if I don't change it in my company. So the next month, he gave his employees a 30% raise across his company, and I allocated 15% of profits to a profit sharing pool, literally I was like, what the heck are you doing? And then ironically, employees are like, where'd this come from? It's like, well, God has convicted me that the way I manage and take care of people is something I'm accountable for. And so wanted to change it. He did that in 30 days.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:07:19

That would have been like a six month wrestling process. In America or like in Brazil, we had a CEO who was like, oh, my business is a platform for helping people know the truth of the gospel. I guess next month I'm going to implement a program to help people do that. In literally in 30 days, he just did that. Whereas in the US they'd be like, I'm going to start thinking about that, praying about that.

Kate Volman [: 00:07:40

See, I find that so interesting, especially today, because in the US, well, what we've seen, because obviously we have a program that is around company culture and engagement. So we see where more leaders are actually coming to us because they are intentional about searching for these kinds of programs where I feel like years ago that wasn't really the case. Yes, you talk to so many leaders when they're coming to the table with their peers and having these conversations. How often is culture part of that conversation? Do they care about it? Are they thinking about it? Or are they really more focused on that product and profit side of the business?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:08:19

Fortunately, a couple of things are converging. I think newer generations of leaders are more predisposed to care and wrestle with, like, am I making a difference? How am I impacting the world through my business, not just economically, but on humans? And so I think there's an increased care for that idea, even if it's ambiguous. And then I think the labor market's been fairly competitive for the last decade. And so I think the reality is you can't really compete unless you attract good talent, engage good talent. I think the challenge we found is some of just don't know how to crack the nut. Like what is it and how are they doing and what's the payoff areas? And so they can feel like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. We do a lot of emphasis around like, hey, it's hard to fix. We don't measure.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:09:04

So are you measuring not just employ engagement, productivity and NP's and those things, but doing culture studies and really seeing where your gaps are, strengths are and helping give them intelligent insight to that stuff. We also, generally, we only serve people of faith. And so it's pretty easy to connect with us and say, hey, God cares about your work. You should be a good steward of your business. He cares about financial returns. But the most valuable asset in the world is humans. Don't sacrifice your impact on people just because you think you're just going to enable you to give a buck later. But let's really let our culture be one of the things that glorifies God and gives a testimony to our faith that ideally, wouldn't it be something where even people radically disagree with our faith, love working for us because of the way we do culture.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:09:50

And so I think we attract people who are biased to that worldview and it's just a matter of kind of connecting the dots.

Kate Volman [: 00:09:57

Yeah, I think we talked about that on our initial phone call. We serve such similar missions and work with such similar people. We're so in alignment that I'm like, oh, yeah, we. Fortunately, the people that come to us, they read the dream manager and they're like, I get it. I understand it. I want to do this. So we're not trying to convince anyone that you should care about your people.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:10:15

Yeah, if they don't care about people, they wouldn't talk to you or me. Like, we would not be their people for sure.

Kate Volman [: 00:10:20

When culture conversations come up, empowerment versus entitlement is definitely part of that conversation. Right? Like, how do you bring people into your organization? You care about the culture of creating a coaching culture that empowers your people to do their best work, but not creating an environment in which now your team members are feeling really entitled. So now you've kind of like gone a little too far. So how do you share or how is that conversation talked about with you and the leaders that you get to work with?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:10:51

That's a constant tension to manage. We find christians can add additional traps to it. We use language of be careful of sloppy agape, where when you add this, like, christian culture, like, hey, I'm a Christian, so I want to feel love and be like, oh, that sounds great. So does love meand no accountability? Does it mean no consequences? If we're one big family, does that mean just everyone gets to stay no matter what? That can lead to this entitlement softness or like, well, I don't think that's God honoring or good business. And so then you get the classic, so how do you do truth and grace? And so we try to regularly reinforce that culture should be about human dignity and believe that people are created in the image of God so that they should be loved and cared for for who they are. But we're also all created to produce and to be productive and to be excellent and so that accountability and performance, we're big fans of anything that creates ownership, thinking throughout the organization. So pay for performance, incentive compensations, profit sharing, anything that helps connect everybody to the fact this is a team that's oriented around performance, not a club that everyone just gets to like, exist because you're a member and one that gives rewards. We live that.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:12:05

The Bible has plenty of examples of God rewarding performance, rewarding risk, and that sowing and reaping is a biblical idea. So how do you, how do you create that in a culture that's a constant tension?

Kate Volman [: 00:12:17

I like that. Rewarding performance and risk. It reminds me of when you create a culture where people feel like they're supported by their leader and they know that they're able to make decisions. And if I. Something doesn't go right, if you fail, if there's a project that you're not going to get fired, you're not going to get reprimanded, it really just goes back to, hey, this is the culture we've created. We want to take risks. But you used one of my favorite words, accountability. We also are being held accountable to the work that we're doing.

Kate Volman [: 00:12:44

And it's just like so many things have to work together to create a great culture. And so I can only imagine conversations around those tables with leaders every month.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:12:57

And I'm one of them. Like, I'm a member of one of our own groups. I pay dues to be part of a group in Austin, Texas. And I mean, I spent a lot of money this, this year on Aria culture study. And we brought in some dev consultants, help us work through some team issues. And I think the thing that's frustrating about the culture topics, you're never done. Yeah, you never like, hey, we fixed it, we're done, we built it. Like, it's constantly dynamic and you're adding people and shifting people and scaling, and you neglect stuff, or you were doing something really well for season, you take it for granted.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:13:29

So it's a bit of a whack a mole of constantly, constantly curating towards health.

Kate Volman [: 00:13:35

I know. Oh, my gosh. We have a webinar all about managerial courage. And one of the things we talk about with courage is you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It's almost like you're in this constant state of transition in business. Whether you're talking about culture, I mean, really every part of the business, right? Because as you're growing, you're adding new things into the business. New people, new product, new services, new processes. It's ever evolving and obviously the people in your group, they're also constant learners.

Kate Volman [: 00:14:07

So you learn something new and it becomes this aha moment. What do you think, Mike, is when you think about your peer to peer groups versus coaching? Like, how is a group like C12 different than having a one on one coach or a coaching relationship?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:14:24

What we find helpful is any one coach can only leverage so much perspective and so much skillset. When you get a group of peers around you, you get a couple different components. You get folks who are shared context, but diverse context at the same time. So like, I'm in a group with a, this one lady's running a film studio, another guy's running a cybersecurity business, one lady runs a healthcare company. Like they're all very different than mine, but we've all got people in scale and product issues. And so when I'm wrestling with a culture issue, a customer issue, whatever, they're not saying, well, here's how to do it in your exact business. They can both relate and say, well, here's how I've navigated that. Why wouldn't that work? And the peers help kind of get you out of your ruts and help you see things without your maybe industrial bias, but they also provide a bit of group accountability and group encouragement.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:15:13

And so we're all able to build into each other, share with each other. No one's a guru. We're all kind of a table of peers. And that just creates a really fun environment to learn in, to contextualize. And it allows the coach to actually get to facilitate leveraging the collective horsepower of that and then go do coaching proper as kind of a compliment. So I think the power of peer learning is I always tell people, no matter what space you're in industry and like, you should find peers that you're intentionally with. And then it just becomes a matter of how rigorous the structure of that is.

Kate Volman [: 00:15:47

It's so interesting to be around a table of people who are also building something because they, they're really the only ones that can truly understand. And so many CEO's, they don't have that person to talk to, right? If you don't have a coach and if you don't have that kind of a peer to peer networking type community, then who do you talk to? Like you all, you can't talk to your friends, you can't talk to your spouse because they don't really understand.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:16:13

I'm texting with my group almost every day in some way. And then when we're meeting, like the one spot where you can, you can get past imposter syndrome. Be like, I don't know the heck to do about this. I'm tired of this, or I'm frustrated about this, or, you know, what's been frustrating is I've had, I think all my ideas are great. They're just not all actually great. Right. And so I, I presented numerous times my group, like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. And here's.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:16:35

And I sell myself on it. I sell them on it to go, I think that's going to blow up your face. Like, I think you're actually avoiding what you really should be dealing with this, this issue over here. And we can spar with no errors. We're not trying to press each other. It's not a networking group. When I joined 14 years ago as a member, for the first time, I was like, I didn't even know how much I needed this.

Kate Volman [: 00:16:58

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's so, so of the time that you've been involved, first of all, can you imagine when you first joined, did you ever think you were going to be the CEO?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:17:08

I would have laughed. Laughed a lot.

Kate Volman [: 00:17:11

So of the time that you've been there, what has surprised you the most? Actually, this kind of like a two part question. What has surprised you the most as being the CEO and then also just being part of the group?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:17:27

So initially, I overcomplicate. It's easy to overcomplicate business. And so I think you and I were talking this spring around, like, research, been doing into our own product, and there's all these things. We got tools and technology and we got systems and all those things, we obsess on them and they all matter. But then coming down to be like, at the end of the day, what ultimately drives a CEO success in our model is just four things. It's camaraderie, accountability, the quality of who's the table and the right number of people at the table. Like, if those four things are right, crazy impact, crazy satisfaction. Doesn't matter how good or bad the rest of our features are, doesn't mean we neglect those other things, but just, just the universal stuff.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:18:08

That's, at the end of the day, what really makes a difference in a leader's life? That has surprised me. And then it just surprised me how much I have to keep growing as a leader, leading the business. Like, we can have great stuff going on, but I've screwed up our culture and team times and I've had to, like, invest more in personal coaching and personal remediation and working through stuff more than I would have ever liked. So I think it's just that realization that you, whether seals running a $6 billion company or $6 million company, the fundamental leader issues are really not different, just different scale.

Kate Volman [: 00:18:41

What do you mean? You screwed up your culture. How'd you do that?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:18:45

Mike, man, you talked about doing a webinar like management courage, I think leadership required. There's a great book called failure of Nerve. Highly recommend. I think whenever you get tired and just choose to not fight a battle, whenever you tolerate something until it becomes systemic and don't provide clarity. Like, at one point, I was not being clear on the kind of culture I wanted to create. And so we had a. We got some culture survey studies back, and they were mixed. We did focus groups and had someone come in to look at, like, what everyone want.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:19:13

And I realized that people were describing aspirations for our company culture that I didn't even like. And I always find myself not liking the place I came to work at. Like, well, if you don't like where you work and you're in charge, like, that's kind of dumb. Henry Cloud says you're. We are ridiculously in charge. You either have the culture you create or you tolerate. And so I literally had to have a family meeting and just unpack. Like, man, I want our culture to be about these things and these things, and I, this is what's important.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:19:37

And there was things I had felt and always judged in my head, but I had not articulated and not defined, codified, trained to, hired to. And so I was resenting the chaos that I was ultimately the only one who could shape. That was super frustrating to be a couple years in and being like, oh. And when I described the picture of reality, I had some team members who were like, oh, that's awesome. Let's go for that. A couple, like, oh, now I get it. And a couple of people like, I don't like what you're describing. I don't want the culture you just painted.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:20:08

And I'd be like, oh, well, then probably to help you find someplace else to work, because this is where we're gonna go. Like, well, we didn't know that. Like, that's on me.

Kate Volman [: 00:20:19

The level of self awareness that leaders have to have and being able to strip away ego, like, being able to come to that conclusion, I think is really remarkable, because so often, look, leadership is interesting. If you're leading a team, if you're. Even if you're building anything, you want to get it right. Like, we want to get it right. It can be challenging for leaders to say, okay, I made a mistake. This is what we're going to do moving forward. And instead of kind of like wallowing in it. And so I think that's interesting for leaders to be able to kind of like, take a look at themselves as a leader.

Kate Volman [: 00:20:56

So you said that one of the things that surprised you was just how much you have to continue to grow. How do you grow? How do you decide in what areas you want to gain the most skills so that you're able to kind of like, have that self awareness and be able to strip your ego as much as we can strip our egos when.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:21:13

Making decisions, you definitely have to get a high pain threshold for truth. You have to want to know the wake and shadow of. Of consequences or things. Yeah, it's just constantly humbling. I think where I most fail is when I, if you get tired of that or afraid to find out what's underneath the rock, but you don't know. You don't know, but you still pay the consequences of it. There's a leader that was really valuable that I knew had some rough edges, but I didn't want to deal with because so the cost of change and all that kind of stuff. And then we finally did find out, well, that was trickling down and affecting teams.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:21:48

They led more dramatically than I thought. So I thought I was just the one paying the price, but it's actually costing others. And so it's kind of hard to not, or it's impossible, I think, to create a healthy culture if you're not going to just have a high tolerance for truth and feedback and data and learning loops.

Kate Volman [: 00:22:06

A high pain threshold for truth. I love that. What advice would you give to someone who's listening, who is working on their business? They've kind of been stagnant for a couple years. You know how we can get complacent. Things are okay. They're moving along. They're not really growing. And like, what, what advice would you give to someone?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:22:30

I used to have these little t shirts made called nope. With a. The word pond scum and a little like, x across it, like, no pond scum. So I live in Texas right now. It's not where I grew up, it's where I've been for a while. And if you go to the eastern part of Texas, towards Louisiana, there's a lot of like, bayous and I lowland water. And if you've ever been a place like that where the water still, it smells bad, like there's funky stuff. There's algae.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:22:54

It gets, it gets kind of nasty in this still water spots because water, like it needs to have some level of agitation to keep it healthy and keep it growing. Then you go to a river or you go to a lake and it looks great. I think organizations and leaders the same way, like if we get too stagnant, you just grow funky stuff. And so you need something that's gonna agitate the waters with assessments and paradigms and like we use a version of balance scorecard and we call it the 5.0 line matrix to really say every leader should be constantly assessing. How's your business performing in organizational issues? What do you know? Are you measuring it? What's best practice? How do you benchmark on that? Sales, marketing, ops, finance? What's ministry look like in a business? And when you get into a cadence of like constantly assessing and looking at and having a way of figuring out where's truth, what's best practice, where's your business at? That will draw you into like a cross training regimen. Business puts you on a journey of constantly getting better. You may not always be getting bigger. Like, not every business is supposed to be a hundred million dollar company and take over the world, but you should always be getting better.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:24:01

We're wired to want that. We just don't naturally do that. Unless you put yourself in a gym, get yourself a coach, figure out something that helps you get feedback and actually see reality.

Kate Volman [: 00:24:12

I love that you said we don't have to get bigger, but always be getting better. Because I do think that we do live in this culture where it seems there's a lot of, especially online, there's a lot of people talking about, you have to make more, earn more, be more, have billions of dollars, like be a billionaire. It's all about more, more. When really so many people, their lives can become so much more fulfilling through less but better, like continuing to get better. So I love that you made that distinction because I think a lot of businesses, we need to be very clear of who are we and who are we trying to be. I think we get advice from people who are building a billion dollar business, but if that's not what you want, then maybe look for other people to, to talk to about where you want to go and ways in which to do that.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:25:05

We did some content this summer around like how big is big enough? And it's this tension. Like we're, we're all about growth, but growth can look different ways. So sometimes it is like gaining in scale, but sometimes it's improving employee engagement, improving margins, improving quality and excellence. Net promoter scores. Like, it's, it's optimizing and getting excellence. And that may afford growth in volume, but maybe is that just being, like, the best world class $4 million roofing company in a small town and so, like, not letting hubris and kind of a worldly pride hijack your definition of success?

Kate Volman [: 00:25:41

I mean, we talk to people that are similar in the sense I know that our, the leaders we work with, they have a lot of pride in not only getting better, but it's not always about growth, but they love the fact that they are getting best places to work. Their people in their community want to come work for them because they have such a great reputation around having a wonderful culture. And those things are really meaningful because we work a lot of our lives. We spend a lot of time at the office. And so I think that's a beautiful thing. Well, I would love for people to really understand. Maybe if there's one or two examples you can share of a C12 member that kind of stands out, something that they were going through, and that because they're part of this peer to peer networking group, they really were able to get through and had some remarkable results on the other side.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:26:35

So, obviously, we all survived the same crisis of the pandemic a few years ago and different kinds of businesses that was more of an existential threat than others and had a member who was running a interior design construction company. And when it became illegal to go to workplaces or sites and jobs all shut down, hundreds of employees looking at how to do layoffs, what's going to happen here? And the invitation of the peers was like, okay, now's the time to invest your people more than ever. Like, how do you lean in and address their anxiety, their distress? How do you have open conversations? How do you support them and care for them? And how do you invite them to be part of the process? And so in general, the members we served kind of rallied through that time and were, like, 60% less likely to do layoffs or cutbacks in those first four months of the pandemic. And as a result, what happened was like, you created this incredible loyalty and fidelity, and we're all like, galvanized together. Is the market opened back up? You actually had higher engaged teams all working together. Like, how do we solve this? How do we create value? How do we innovate together and actually then grew faster in the recovery cycle than otherwise? Whereas if you like to shed your people and just kind of protect your balance, sheet real quick. Then you're hearing, like, how to hire people, how to train people, how to get capacity, and you kind of miss the recovery wave. And so the council there, like, playing the long game and not letting chaos stupefy you.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:28:02

Don't let the stupor of the moment overwhelm you. Lots of really cool outcomes there. I mean, I was a beneficiary. So back to the whole, my ideas are great until they're not. I went to present every year in our rhythm. You present us, like, in strategic plans, your forum. You actually do this big group analysis of your company and provide all this data. As I was presenting to my group my plan to go launch New York City.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:28:24

Really cool plan. All the big language I had, all my justification. Everyone's like, wow, that's really cool. And this one lady in my group who was, like, the newest member of the group, and she asked about a couple of domestic markets nearby, and she's like, how's that market doing? And how's that market? Like, when we're there, we're doing okay. She's like, yeah. Are you doing great in those markets? I was like, doing so so. And she's like, well, why are you launching New York? I was like, well, because the most influential city in the world and huge and yada yada. And then she went, well, what if it's just pride and hubris? Because it's cooler and sexier to say you're launching New York than it is to go fix two markets nearby that are just mediocre.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:29:02

Like, if you put the same energy and cost into fixing an existing market, would you get a better return on your mission than you would chase in New York? And she's like, I'll just challenge you. Is it pride or is it really strategic? And in the moment, I was like, how dare you? Like, that's questioning my motive. Like, that's, of course, this mission in Jesus in New York. And she's like, okay, just. It just sounds like it could be hubris. And I drove home that day, really ticked off at her, but then something unraveled where I was like, if I was spend that much time and energy on existing market improvement, would I actually grow the business better? And she was right. And so we literally pivoted our strategic plan over the next three years, went all in on growing existing markets, getting critical mass, overcoming growth barriers there, and it totally changed our business. So, I mean, that's like, I'm a beneficiary of our process.

Kate Volman [: 00:29:55

Wow. Oh, my gosh. That is so that is so awesome. I think everyone needs that person that they can call when you want to get truth. Like, I have people that I'll call that I know they're going to be like, that's great. Go for it. It's perfect. And I know the people in my phone that'll be like, challenge me down to the core.

Kate Volman [: 00:30:17

I'm going to hate it, but those are the people that I need to call.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:30:21

That's right.

Kate Volman [: 00:30:22

Wow. That's crazy. And this is why I love coaching and what you guys are doing with the masterminds because it really is. Only a third party person can ask you that, kind of convert that question.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:30:34

Totally.

Kate Volman [: 00:30:35

Because your team is all in, too. Because it does sound cool. Oh, launching in New York like that is really. Oh, my God. It reminds me of this quote I've been saying, this quote, I need to learn how to pronounce her name because I'm probably saying wrong, but it's deepen parmer and it says the magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. That is the hard truth that we need to hear. All right, Mike, a lot of our listeners, they are totally on board. The fact that you're always growing, learning, developing.

Kate Volman [: 00:31:04

What are you doing? What are you reading? What books? Do you have any great books that you've read over the past few years or is there a book that you recommend most often to people?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:31:12

I'm rereading right now the book failure of nerve. It's an interesting look at systemic leadership issues in your business, your family, your city or country. And just in a age where everything's kind of caught up in accommodation and don't make waves and how to try and make everyone happy, it sucks like that. Failure of nerve is actually part of the cancer of in your organization. So that book's really, really great. You're not talking about high tolerance for truth and feedback. I read a book last year, a friend recommended called Leadership Pain by Sam Chan's. It was just really good.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:31:43

It was just a candid count. Like, yeah, leadership is hard, so deal with it. If you can't handle ankle biting issues at a team of ten, you're not going to do very well. And you've got a team 100 or a team or a thousand because those things just scale with you. That book was a good kind of, but it's just hard to get over it. I'm rereading the advantage, reread the advantage with my team this year and I'm just trying to continue work on organizational health and clarity stuff.

Kate Volman [: 00:32:08

And the dream manager, of course, and.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:32:09

The dream manager, I'm telling we're just going through some content creation exercise literally yesterday with my team for some stuff we're doing at the beginning of the year. And we're trying to figure out scorecards because we, we. Every business needs to look at measuring success in three different areas. Are you a steward of economic capital, human capital, and spiritual capital? So essentially, are you growing the business in value? Are you growing people in value? Are you making a kingdom impact to your business? And one of our chairs was like, well, can we just put on the assessment, like, do you, like, do you have a dream manager program? Can that be, like, a standard question? I was like, well, I think Kate would love it if we made that the question. But are we.

Kate Volman [: 00:32:46

Yeah, I would love that.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:32:48

Like, is that the universal question? But he's like, but it's such a great way to, like, what's going to make sure you're growing people?

Kate Volman [: 00:32:54

Oh, I love that. All right. And then what is one habit that has made an impact in your life when it comes to your growth, development, and your leadership that our listeners might want to incorporate into their day?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:33:12

A daily and a weekly thing that actually, the founder of C12 challenged me on two areas that I would have always thought I would have said I did, but I didn't really do until entering this role was one having a non negotiable, personal quiet time every morning where I get earlier to make sure I've got time to read the Bible, pray, journal, and literally reflect and process the coming day and what's God doing in my life? And not just like a touch and go or like a little drive by devotion of, like, actually spending time with the actual owner of the business and talking about those things. And then a weekly rhythm that I didn't start doing till about seven years ago. And it's been a surprisingly hard and surprisingly fruitful has been to actually have a sabbath, which is an old jewish idea, not something like, hey, Dave, we go to church. Like, for me, I actually follow kind of the jewish rhythm of it. Like, Friday night dinner to Saturday night dinner, where I don't do any email, I don't talk to people at work. I don't deal with work issues. Like, I'm truly, like, I'm resting, and I'm actually trusting that God runs the world, not me. I've always said, like, I went to church on Sunday and I had, that's my sabbath.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:34:19

But it wasn't restful and it wasn't like the fullness of that idea and sustaining that, even through Covid, through crisis times, through firestorms, has been really good. To make sure I don't have a false messiah complex like that. I'm holding everything all together.

Kate Volman [: 00:34:36

Interesting. I love that. I know it's hard for a lot of people to take that time. There's always more to do, always more to think about, always more to work on.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:34:46

I take vacations and things like that, but that's different. This is a weekly, just no matter what.

Kate Volman [: 00:34:51

Awesome. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us and providing all this value and for people that want to get involved with C12, which is an amazing organization. And I'm so excited because they're actually opening up a chapter here in Westcom beach soon. I know, I'm so excited about it. So it's going to be awesome. But where can people connect with you and find out more about C12?

Mike Sharrow [: 00:35:12

Yeah, if you go to joinC12.com, you should be able to search and find, like if there's one near you. We're about a 100 and 6170 cities, but there's still places we're trying to get to. So trying to get to Miami for a while, but yeah, go to joinC12.com dot. They can find local groups, they can go to our YouTube channel and find a bunch of free case studies and a bunch of content around how we do what we do. But finding a group, that's the best way.

Kate Volman [: 00:35:35

Yeah, and definitely go on the website because you guys have a beautiful journal, you have a lot of really great content guides.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:35:41

Yeah, all sorts of stuff.

Kate Volman [: 00:35:42

Yeah. So there's a lot of great resources for leaders and also if people are interested in potentially being part of the group and then maybe running the group, I mean, hey, you just never know who you're going to meet or when you join this kind of group, the impact it's going to have on, on your organization and of course in your life. Mike, thank you so much. You are awesome and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Mike Sharrow [: 00:36:02

Likewise, Kate. It was a lot of fun.

Kate Volman [: 00:36:07

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you got at least one idea that you will use to help move your business forward. That is the whole point of this podcast is we want to give you resources and ideas. And that's why I love talking to leaders like Mike, because these conversations, he shared some really great stories and he also shared some of the challenges that he's seeing, some of the mistakes that he's made, and that's how we all learn and grow together, which is why he is such a wonderful leader to lead this organization of peer learning, because he's in it. He's in it every single day. Building a team, growing a team, and also supporting others, doing the same. And so I hope that you enjoyed this episode, got something out of it that you're going to actually use to grow your team and to grow your business. If you are curious at all about coaching, I really appreciated that Mike said, you know, peer learning is really wonderful and having those mastermind groups is amazing.

Kate Volman [: 00:36:58

I think it's really wonderful to be able to sit down with people and you get to talk through all of these ideas and what you're doing to grow your business. And then also one on one coaching. There's nothing like sitting with a coach every month sharing what you're doing, sharing what you're seeing and experiencing, and then they come back with you with those hard hitting questions. Those questions that will get the truth right. Get to the truth. I love that he shared. We have to have a high pain threshold for truth, and in order to do that, coaching should be involved. It's a really awesome opportunity for you to really become the best version of yourself.

Kate Volman [: 00:37:32

So if you're interested in one on one coaching and discovering what that might look like for you, then we would love to to have a conversation. You can go to floydcoaching.com, check that out, and hopefully we can serve you in a really powerful way. Thank you again for listening. We appreciate you. And until next time, Lead with Culture.