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

Maintaining a culture with a remote team requires intention. The culture of an organization is the cornerstone of how work gets done. It is easier when the people show up to the same building and gather face-to-face to maintain culture as the company grows. As companies have embraced virtual workers, the idea of maintaining a culture with a remote team has become more critical. Today's guest is Jeff Kupietzy, CEO of PowerInbox, who shares how they have to see a culture with their remote team.

Partnerships are much harder when you don't have a framework for making the partnership work. Today's guests are Sam Khorramian and Oliver Graff. These two co-founders started Big Block Realty with the right frameworks to guide their growth. Big Block Realty ranked on the Inc. 500 list between 2016 and 2018, ranked 26th, 31st, and 33rd, respectively. Sam and Oliver walk us through how they approached making a partnership work.

Discover the rules of making a partnership work from two fast-growth c-founders. Partnerships can be hard. Most tend to end in frustration and turmoil. Partnerships are much harder when you don't have a framework for making the partnership work.

The journey of increasing team confidence requires that you lead by example. This means your confidence level has to rise higher than your team. The energy that you have when your confidence level is high will give you a chance to increasing team confidence.

People first leadership is rare. Putting your team before your clients are tough. After hundreds of interviews with fast-growth leaders, I see that most of these leaders know the value of their people. They are willing to invest in their people and create an employee experience that drives a customer-centered workforce. People first leadership is a way to ensure that your people know you care about them and raises their loyalty to the company. Our guest is Jeff Knauss, co-founder of Digital Hyve.

Vulnerability is often seen as a weakness. When it comes to leadership vulnerability, it is a strength. Those that dare to have leadership vulnerability will say I don't know the answer. They will share from their heart. My guest today is Thomas Donohue, founder of Level Agency. Level Agency ranked #190 on the 2014 Inc List. Thomas shared his challenges with leadership vulnerability during the interview. Being a great leader requires that you build trust. Trust requires authenticity.

Getting your employees to want to do the work is very different than just getting them to do the work. You may think it is semantics, but getting your employees to want to do the work has tremendous power. Leadership is a journey of getting your employees to see their highest potential and live their best lives. I find that employees that want to do the work when they feel that that work will align with their personal goals.

One of the most important jobs for you as a leader is getting employees to think for themselves. You want them to see the challenges of the organization internally and externally. You want them to think for themselves instead of following the playbook. The reason is that the steps in the playbook are likely to change. When they think for themselves, you will see their work proactively and innovatively. Today's interview is with Mark Gallagher, Founder, and CEO of GForce Solutions.

Employees with an entrepreneurial spirit have the capability to be more resilient, resourceful, and innovative. Those with the entrepreneurial spirit have the ability to create new areas for growth. This interview is with Kyle Goguen, founder of Pawstruck. This company was #87 out of 5,000 on the 2018 Inc List. They grew at 3,891 percent in the previous three years. Kyle gives us the real reason why he encourages the entrepreneurial spirit within his company.

Developing entrepreneurial employees may scare you. This is more than just embracing intrapreneurs. Entrepreneurial employees have the ability to create massive value for the organization. Today's guest is Sean Elan, President of Affordable Luxury Group. They had a growth rate of 4,797 percent in the previous three years. Sean and I talk about getting employees to shift to being proactive. Entrepreneurial employees are also able to contribute more to the bottom line and product innovation.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard the term "operationalize your values." A speaker asked the audience of more than a thousand if they had done the work beyond creating values. The process of operationalizing your values will take the company values from a project to a way of living the values. Today I am talking to Zach Smith, CEO of Funded Today about the steps to operationalize your values.

Most leaders don't think about how to make work fun. A few evolved leaders do think about adding fun into the work environment. Today's interview is with Adham Yusupov, founder of Ecology Mir Group. Adham gives the reasons behind making work fun especially important when you have such a critical mission.

Companies want better communication. They really want to improve collaboration amongst their team members. You hire smart people so they can create amazing results. When they collaborate, you see terrific contributions and buy-in.

In the start-up world, there is a famous saying, "move fast and break things" that comes from the speed of action and their comfort with failure. This is the same mantra that Mark Zuckerberg used to align the Facebook team to the early days of growing to more than 1 billion users and beyond.

Every leader thinks about how to improve the process of communicating with your team. The word and the tone of our communication have so much to do with how we interact together. Teams that communicate well will outperform those that don't.