060: Transforming teams through roles, responsibilities, and expectations with Susan Ramirez Founder & CEO of The National Angels - podcast episode cover

060: Transforming teams through roles, responsibilities, and expectations with Susan Ramirez Founder & CEO of The National Angels

Jul 20, 202336 min
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Episode description

As managers, it's on us to make sure our team members understand how their roles fit into the bigger picture, and there's no better way to do this than setting clear priorities and even clearer expectations. 

In this episode of Managing Made Simple, I'm joined by Susan Ramirez, Founder & CEO of The National Angels nonprofit, where we talk about the Roles, Responsibilities, and Expectations framework that has propelled the organization to massive scale, accountability as a leader, and the four questions every manager must ask themselves when leading a team. 

Resources mentioned in the show: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

About Susan: 
Susan is the Founder & CEO of National Angels. In 2015 Susan left an 8 year career in corporate America and has now grown into a national organization, currently operating 21 cities in 16 states.

Learn more about National Angels: https://www.nationalangels.org/

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Transcript

I am responsible for ultimately setting the vision for the company, but I do that with our people. I don't set the vision and say, this is where we're headed. It is very much a bottom up approach, but I'm responsible for strategy, for vision, for culture, and also for, on my R R E, I have to raise about a million dollars a year.

So that's my role as CEO. My responsibility are those taglines that I just gave you. And then the expectation looks like the outcome that I want to be able to achieve that year.

Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager. From conflicts, to feedback, to delegating and more, we will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it, and everything in between.

Doesn't matter if you're a new manager looking for some tips.

Let's go. I know you're here because you want to be a better manager, but I also know it's often easier said than done. That's why I put together a scorecard of 20 things that you can do this month and every month. To show up better for your team as a manager from positive feedback to recognition, to honoring those working norms that we know we got to do, but sometimes forget this scorecard serves as a checklist and accountability buddy to remind you of all those things you got to do to be a great manager.

Download your copy today at liagarvin.com/scorecard Welcome back to the show today. I am so excited to have Susan Ramirez with me. She is the founder and CEO of the National Angels nonprofit. And in 2015, Susan left an eight year career in corporate America to launch this organization. And it is currently operating in 21 cities and 16 states.

And Susan and I met through a mutual friend, Chris Hartley, who was a guest on the show and we immediately hit it off, found so many ways to partner in this shared passion around building great teams and helping people succeed in the workplace and beyond. And I just could not be more stoked to have her on the show today.

Yes, I'm excited to be here and you have a great radio voice. Thank you. Thank you. I've been loving doing this show, so it's been a lot of fun. So I want to just dive right in, you know, you, you even built an incredibly successful nonprofit from the ground up, right? Every single piece of the process. And what are some of the lessons that you potentially brought from the corporate world in order to do that?

Well, building this organization, it's interesting because I would say in the very beginning, I wasn't this grandiose visionary that thought this is what I want to create. What I knew was what I wanted to be able to do, which was to transform the experience. for children and families in the foster care system.

So that was always very clear to me, but the pathway to get there was not clear. And so so many obstacles to overcome so many challenges. One of the things that I took with me to answer your question from the corporate world was this real sense of excellence. And so for us, what we believe in the nonprofit side is that excellence happens in inches.

It's the deliberate pursuit to put one foot in front of the other and show up professionally in a space that's not really known as professional, so to speak. But I wanted to run it differently. I wanted to run this non profit like a business. And, uh, and so we were really focused on that. The other thing was that culture was important in my corporate career.

Where the environment, they took really good care of their people. Not great care, but good care. And so I thought, how can I take some of these philosophies and embed them into what I am trying to build? And so I would say culture was important to me. Then I'm on fire for it now, now that it's You know, I'm the founder and CEO of the organization.

I feel a sense of real responsibility to our people to treat them exceptionally well. And I mean, it's sounds like, is that unique in the nonprofit space? Is it not always the case? Or it's probably all over the map, but what if you Yeah, I think it really runs the gamut. You know, just like in the for profit space.

And you know, there's really no difference between non profit and for profit other than a tax code. You know what I mean? But what I will say is, we've got a lot of partnerships with people in the non profit space. And I feel very passionate about very simple business philosophies and principles that I would say are not...

Yeah. Yeah. And I would say, as you call it, I mean, having a strong team culture isn't always the norm in many companies, right? Corporate or small business or wherever. And I think this is really clear, like what would set you apart as a business and why you be able to grow and scale is. It, you know, it's a hard time working in any kind of company.

And so the more there's a focus on culture, on, you know, employee experience on, on building and environment, people want to be a part of the more resilient people are to change. The more people stick through when times are tougher, I mean, right now with, you know, you have such a mission driven company and yet with all the change and uncertainty and all the ups and downs you have to go through, I mean, I imagine it still can be hard to keep motivation.

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I say that, you know, folk cause we have 21 leaders that, you know, we, um, work with all over the country. And what I say to them is. Focusing on your culture is not a nicety. It is a necessity that our vision is to reach and serve every single child, youth and family that's experiencing foster care in our country.

There's about 430, 000 children right now. We serve on a monthly basis to our programs, about 3, 000 children. So there's this massive gap, massive opportunity between where we are today and where we need to get to in the future. The only way that I believe that we will get there is if every employee wakes up every single day and is excited to go to work and fully understands how to drive value within their role for the organization.

And so we have to, as leaders focus on our people to achieve anything, whether that's. for profit or nonprofit. We just so happen to be in a business to help others in a really meaningful and deep way. But it starts first, that kind of sense of hospitality starts first with our employees. And I will say, Leo, I am, um, you'll appreciate this.

I just finished reading a book. called Unreasonable Hospitality. Have you read this book? Do you know? No. Oh my gosh. I am like on fire for this book and it talks about, so it's about a restauranteur who has written a book based on his philosophy as it relates to hospitality in the restaurant business.

But he talks about how to do unreasonable hospitality also for your team and it. It is a bestselling book and I am so on fire for it. So you definitely should read it, but I'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. I definitely believe in also offering that sense of radical customization and experience for the employee as well.

Yeah. I love that. And you know, you mentioned dot connecting and having people see. you know, the value they bring or the connection to this bigger vision, how their role plays in it. And I see that as part of that, right? Is taking the time and actually doing that work as a, as a business leader, as a manager to show people how they fit in the bigger picture.

And I'm curious for folks. I mean, I'm guessing they see the vision. They, they're, they're passionate about it, but how do you help? You're your leaders across the 21 different divisions. Like how do you help them connect the dots for every single team member on how that role fits within it? Well, a couple of things.

Number one, my point of view is that I believe that the supervisor has the most powerful and important role to play in ensuring that their teammates understand how their job directly benefits either the bottom line. the vision, you know, so on so forth. So I believe first and foremost that the supervisor has to be fully empowered and equipped to be able to do that.

So we have an employee empowerment tool that we use at National Angels called RRNE, which stands for role responsibility and expectation. So every single person from the bottom up to the top down has what's called an RRNE, and it outlines what an employee's role is. What the expectation is of their role and what is required.

What are they responsible for? But what's interesting is that we don't have the supervisor do that for their direct report. The direct report does it for their supervisor so that there's some clarity around what that looks like. So a role is just their title. And I'll use mine for example. So I am responsible for ultimately setting the vision for the company, but I do that with our people.

I don't set the vision and say this is where we're headed. It is very much a bottom up approach. But I'm responsible for strategy, for vision, for culture, and also for, on my R& E, I have to raise about a million dollars a year. So that's my role as CEO. My responsibility are those taglines that I just gave you.

And then the expectation looks like the outcome that I want to be able to achieve that year. So if my expectation is that I'm responsible to raise a million dollars, in my expectation sheet, it would say, raise a million dollars that ultimately leads to transformation for children, youth, and families. So if I, when I meet with my supervisor, I don't have one, but when I meet with or when a supervisor meets with their direct reports, it We have our R& E meetings where you sit down with your direct report.

And so if I was my own supervisor, I'd say, okay, Susan, so your goal this year is to raise a million dollars. Tell me how many phone calls did you make this week? How many donors did you get to meet with? How many lunches did you have? What, what's the reporting mechanisms that you're giving? And then what barrier do you have that stands in your way that I, as your supervisor may be able to remove?

So that you're fully leveraged to be able to live out those things. So for us, one way that we constantly direct people back to the North Star is by having our R& E meetings with their supervisor. I love that so much. And in my program for small business owners, the ops playbook, I call this the priorities, expectation, performance trifecta.

It's exactly what you're saying. And, and I think for small business owners, listening to this, thinking about, Hey, have I, have I set up those RRNs or the priorities, expectations, performance, because when you connect the dots across. Like you just said, now you see how I can impact those 400, 000 families.

Now you see how I can, you know, what my day to day looks like. Like you said, it comes down to sales calls. It comes down to conversations, meeting with clients, whatever it looks like for that specific company. But if you, if it's too abstract for people, It feels too big. It's like, yes, I care about this, but I don't know how my job fits in.

And if it's too granular, it feels like, Oh, am I just a cog in a machine? And so these conversations are so critical to help people see that. And I honestly feel like even if you are, you know, working with, I get a lot of questions from folks like, well, what if I have temporary employees or I'm working with the contractors or vendors?

You can have that RRE conversation with anybody. Absolutely. And I think whatever the vision of the future of the better state that you're trying to create within your company, whether you're a small business or a big business, it is so vital that every single person fully understands. And that is the supervisor's role.

It is the role of the supervisor to paint the picture of where we're headed and how they can play a part in it so that they don't feel like, you know, gosh, I'm doing these. you know, phone calls, but I'm not really seeing any fruit be bared from it. Why do we even do these? You know, it's so important. And I always like to say to our leaders that two things.

Number one, your job as a supervisor is to really be a coach, not a cheerleader. There is a difference, you know, and I think that supervisors play such a powerful and important role. But when we talk about a cheerleader, You know, the children has their back to the game, you know, and they're cheering and they'll turn around and they'll scream some platitudes at you.

Good job. Good job. They're not really in the game with you. When I think about a supervisor, I love to think of a coach who's calling plays with you, who understands the business, who's in it with you, and they have kind of a greater view to see the field. And so when I think of a Supervisor. I really try to tell our leaders like think of yourself as a coach.

You want to be in the business with them. So having the RR& E kind of outliner tools says, Hey, this is what we said we're going to do. What barrier do you need me to remove so that you can be the most successful in your role? Because nobody wakes up and says, I want to go to work, but I don't want to contribute.

Right. Everybody wants to go and feel like their time is purposeful. Yeah. And so how do we make sure that everyone feels fully unleashed to drive value for the organization? Then that creates a culture and, and you can be a small business and apply this. And I'll tell you the real benefit of even if you have one or two teammates, there's so much, there's no real dignified swim lanes when you are in startup mode.

So everybody's doing everything. Yeah. When you kind of create these swim lanes, it helps to absolutely know who's responsible for what. Yes. There's a lot of unspoken, I assume this person is taking care of that, but it's not crystal clear on who's actually responsible to do A, B, and C. So I think it's an incredible tool to utilize and I think every single person should have a defined way to know how to drive value for the organization.

Absolutely. Because in the absence of that, you get maybe a business owner that actually has to pick up all the different pieces and ends up kind of being burned out and always in the weeds. Or you get multiple people picking it up, which is inefficient as well. Right? You have duplication of efforts. I know that's a big thing that's being looked at across the corporate world is like, Hey, are we having too many people doing the same things where we're trying to do more with less and we don't really know like who's responsible for what.

So I think I love it for that reason. Like you say that even if you have, Even if it's just for yourself, like what are your, if you're a solopreneur, like, and, and I think it's so awesome that you shared yours and I encourage managers and team leaders in business in order to share their own RREs because that sort of, that, that gives a couple of things.

It, it shows transparency into what you're working on. It also helps people scope like how to describe the work that they do. I think that can be overwhelming if you're doing that sort of like self evaluation will, I don't really know like what level of detail. So. Thank you. When you share it and you open the door and you say, Hey, here's how I look at this.

Here's how I see my role fitting in. Now your team member can see their own role fitting in. And then one more thing you said that I had to just echo again is like that open ended question of how can I support you in getting in there? This is this making feedback a two way street, having that open door for feedback, making that direct ask, not just saying, here's your plan.

Like we good, but like actually opening the door that is going to give your team so much freedom to say. Actually, I'm a little bit worried about this and they're going to come to you before something goes off the rails. They're going to share, well, yeah, I'm really excited about this, but I feel like I'm not equipped for this thing or I'm, I think we've bit off more than we can chew here or, and you're going to get insight right away into some of the challenges that you can either Help right away with, bring on more support with, get them a mentor, you know, maybe you need another head count for that.

Maybe it's not the right task for that person. You're going to get so much signal from asking that question and asking that all the time. Not asking it once a year, not twice a year, but every meeting that's going to be really key to. Absolutely. And I, I have two other quick things and then we can move on to another topic, but I am, I am really on fire for it.

And I think, you know, it really does create trust. The supervisor in the direct report and yesterday it was so funny because I had sent out a company yd email and one of my direct reports had said, Hey, I have, I'd like to challenge you with something that you sent out. And I was like, Oh, absolutely bring it on.

It was during the RR& E meeting. And I was like, solid point. You're right. I missed the mark here. And I was able to rectify it by sending out something in addition to that with a little explanation of why. And that person said, it's so amazing to me to work for somebody who will a receive the feedback, apologize where it needs to be, and then give explanation.

And I think that what creates this kind of trust environment, is when you show up fully in these environments and say, I want you to reach your goals for you. And I also want you to reach your goals for the mission at hand, you know, and also I'm not afraid to receive feedback. And so these RR& E meetings become a real place of trust.

So that's one thing that I was going to say. The other thing is when you, like, I have a very small team, small team, big dreams, but small team. And so many of us are wearing multiple hats. And so one of the hats that this one employee was wearing, there was no one else to do this specific role, but I needed this one employee to do it.

And I kept saying to this person, listen, I know it lives on your R& E. And I don't, I don't want this to be there longterm, but until we can hire our next hire, it's going to have to live on yours. So every week when we were meeting, I was like, I want you to know that I know that you don't love this and I don't want it to be there either, but there's no one more competent or capable to do this, but you, so hold on with me, stay with me, do this with excellence until I can hire that next person.

So when I was able to hire that person, I was able to move that off of their R& E, reposition some of the things. And it was like, I'm so thankful knowing that my supervisor knew that I didn't want it, knew that it didn't really fit in my role, but was working to get it off of my plate. And so she was able to spend a year and a half with that on her list because she knew my boss sees me, hears me, and is working to get it off of my plate.

And I just would always say, give me time. Help me build this. We will take this off of your plate. And that was a big win. Yeah. And then you delivered on it. And I mean, I think, you know, I mentioned a minute ago doing more with less, a lot of folks, if there's layoffs or cuts or not, you can't hire backfills if people leave, or, you know, for budget reasons, you can't hire.

This is how you get through that exactly what you described. And right now there's a lot of folks having to do a job for someone that left. And maybe there's a little bit discomfort there. You said, maybe it's not the job you want to do. And by having this open dialogue, that's how you will have that role filled for this, you know, fixed timeframe.

And, and again, like, because you deliver on that, that built so much more trust again. And now you have a person that sees when I have to go through something hard, it's top of mind for a manager. They've appreciated, they've recognized it. They know what's not ideal. That's in like, that has, you know, it's filling up that sort of relationship currency as you go.

And then because you took it off their plate and you kept talking about it, they see, Oh, When things have to get hard, my manager doesn't just forget that we talked about this thing and I'm not going to get left like with this thing I never want to do, where I should actually look for another job.

That's right. You know, right now I see a lot of folks that are really worried. Well, you know, if a team member leaves, do I have to do two jobs? For managers, if team members leave, sometimes they're doing... individual contributor and managing role for a short amount of time. And that's a lot of, that's a lot of extra stuff on our plates.

And as leaders, if we're naming it, like you called out and recognizing, I see you, I know this, I'm working on it. And like you said, regularly, not just once saying that, but regularly checking in on that. And, you know, if you have the resources, you know, giving a kind of bonus or giving something to compensate for that, like is there maybe giving a couple flex days off or something like that, if you can.

Just demonstrate that, you know, I get it. You are going above and beyond. So people don't just feel like they're being exploited and nobody sees it. Yeah, this is transformational. Yes, absolutely. Well, when we talked, you know, initially you had shared that there's four things leaders should think about when hiring and managing.

And I remember I was like, Oh my God, I gotta bring that on the show. I'd, I'd love for you to share those with our audience. Yeah, it really came from a mentor that I have that I meet with pretty regularly when we were scaling and growing our business. One of this was something that I had to learn the hard way.

So it's not like, oh, I, you know, this is a Susanism like this was not this was I failed at my job in several ways. And a mentor told me this, and it literally transformed our business. And so which was he proposed And said, you know, every great leader needs to ask themselves four questions as it relates to their people.

And the first one is, is do these people or do do they have the right skills needed in order to do the job? The second is, do they have the right resources? to do the job? The third is, have you explained the expectations for the job? And then the last one is, do they understand the consequences if they don't do these things?

And these are four questions that every leader should ask themselves as it relates to their people. So for us, what I realized was, was that I was putting people in leadership positions that didn't have the right skills, that didn't have the right resources, I didn't set the right expectations for them, and there was no repercussions.

And so I was like, fail, fail, fail. Yeah, but what it did have me do was get really critical about defining what are the skills that a leader needs to have. And so one of the areas. That we started to really kind of try to undercover is what are those skills, capabilities and drivers that we need from our leaders because it's an interesting gifting mix that we look for for executive directors, but it could also be what's that gifting mix for your salespeople?

What's that gifting mix for your marketing people? What's the gifting mix that you're looking for that makes them kind of so perfectly positioned for your company? And so to spend some time identifying that. Like a skill that one of our executive director has to have is they have to be really good at problem solving, but they have to be really good at communication, both written and verbally, because you're communicating the mission all the time, you have to, you know, and so we sat down and it took us probably two months to identify and the way that we did that was we took all of our kind of top performing Executives.

And we said, What do you think it looks like? What skills do you have? And how does it relate? And so we started to move through that. And when we did, it helped us in recruiting the right candidate. It helped us to hold people accountable in those things. And it was a game changer for us. So knowing the skill while you think is pretty basic, having that exact skill trait and drivers like you have to.

Also, one of the things is you have to be okay with ambiguity. because you're running a regional chapter while we give you the blueprint. We're not actually telling you how to wake up and move through your day every day. And so there's so many moving parts to your business. You have to be okay with ambiguity.

What are you going to do? Are you self motivated? And so anyways, so I think identifying those are. And then really understanding what resources does an employee need for them to do their job and ensuring so like, you know, I, I think about our marketing team. I mean, I remember when we were creating and I was like, congratulations, you're head of marketing.

You have no employees and you have not a dollar. Now figure out how to market and advertise us, you know, Well, that's crazy. But that is how I started this business, you know, but you want to be able to find out what resources is an employee need in order to perform their job? Is there a tool that they need?

Is there a resource that they need? And how can you help them to overcome that and get that? And then the third one under Which is why we rolled out the RRNEs. Do you know what's expected of you? And I have found that people will rise to the occasion. And so, for my team, like, I'm very passionate about people showing up on time.

For a numerous amount of reasons. But, my team knows that I will hold them accountable for that. And, and then lastly, like, what happens if they don't? What are the consequences? And what's the plan? And I will tell you that I think a big area for supervisors is to hold people accountable and to do it in a loving way.

To bring people up, not call them out. You know, I think is a big piece and I have just found in my space, we recruit So many passionate bleeding hearts that are caring and that critical conversation piece can be really difficult for leaders in our space. I mean, I don't love having to have hard conversations with people, but I will do it every single day.

I just did it 30 minutes ago on an email that went out that was like, No ma'am, you know, or no sir, but I think it's that expectation piece. People need to know that I'm going to be held accountable to do an excellent job professionally. I know my boss cares about me deeply and I want to do good for them in this way.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that mix of the accountability, the expectations, this is what empowers people to step up as owners. And this is something that I always reinforce with the teams I'm working with is accountability is really about ownership and being proactive and seeing, Hey, I'm not just going to let a problem fester.

I'm going to be taking responsibility. and really, you know, stepping up, being proactive. And we can't do that if we don't have expectations, because it's like, what the hell am I owning? I don't know. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be accountable to something that I don't really know what it is. And I think this is like you say, something that's really, really missing, I think.

And one of the biggest gaps I see in any kind of company, large, small, corporate, whatever, small business nonprofit is a real aversion to accountability and a real fear of saying, Hey, like if this, if this doesn't happen, here's the cost of that here is, as you say, the consequence, because what ends up happening is without accountability.

Everybody's looking to that as an example and it starts to degrade at trust. You start to lose integrity as a leader. It's like, well, we said this was really important, but then we didn't deliver on it. Nothing happened. I guess it's not really important. And so as a leader, it's really important to bring, as you said, like that compassionate accountability, you've built up that culture, you've built up the trust so that when you hold people accountable, They show up for you and it doesn't have to be in a blame and punishment, all the scary words that are often associated with accountability way.

It's about as you call it out. And I think it's often talked about as like in the book, the culture code belonging cues. Like I have high expectations. And you're here because I know you can meet them and I'm going to hold you to those expectations because we have, we have important work to do and we're not going to slow down, but it all goes together.

And if we avoid accountability and we go, Oh, I don't want to be the bad guy. I don't want to, I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to have that hard conversation. It really starts to create like everybody in the organization starting to think, well, I guess we don't have high standards here. I guess we don't mean we say, and that's not going to help you achieve the goals that you have.

Yes. 100. I remember I had a teammate early on that was not performing to the standard that everybody else was performing. And I kept this teammate on too long and it began to erode what I was so trying desperately to build, which was now I am starting to lose respect from other team members because I'm

destroy and contaminate something that so many people are working so hard to build this certain standard of excellence. So, you know, the other thing is it relates to like critical conversations and how to have them. I always tell our leaders to take our values and use our values that are defined and really share them and live them out in this way as a framework to have those kind of critical conversations.

So we had an employee where a supervisor was not empowering their team to the best I'm like empowerment is one of our core values and we define it as this. And so how are you not giving this teammate the opportunity to grow in this way? And so I often encourage our people, like, what are your values?

How have you defined them? And use those kinds of critical conversation moments of accountability to tie those back, you know, and to tie them to the North star, to tie them to the vision. What are you trying to do? And how does that, how does that kind of all come together? I love that. And I think that serves such a great purpose of the dot connecting we talked about.

Like that's why it's important. Even if you have a small company to figure out what are your values, what are my values as a leader, as the business owner, as a, you know, as a team leader. Because when, when you have that clear and everybody's on the same page, then people know why you made the decisions you made and they know when you're out of alignment.

And that's like you just said, like this is how it's a real flag when you're not operating in integrity. When you're saying one thing, you're doing another. Your team member can tell that right away. So I think sharing your values and, and, and living up to them and, and being accountable to yourself, to honoring those is going to be really important as well.

Absolutely. So before we start to wrap, I want to talk about scale, like, because you were able to scale this organization to massive proportions. Like what are some of the lessons you learn in the time of scaling or things that maybe you wish you knew earlier? What stands out to you about that whole process?

Yeah. You know, for us, what we will end up doing. So the vision in my lifetime by 2050. Our goal is to reach and serve every single child. And so that's a pretty massive goal with a massive amount of scale that has to take place. Between now and 2050. Massive things, but the question that I always ask myself is how do we grow big yet stay small?

How do we grow big but not change the impact? How do we grow big and still have that same culture and standard of excellence? And some of the things that we talked about today, culture being such a pillar of our organization. We had to do a couple of sessions around POV work. So what is our point of view of supervision of people?

To ensure that when we have somebody supervising another person in let's say Cleveland for example, that they are leading the same way that I would lead. That they care deeply for people the same way that I care deeply for people, that they're holding them accountable the same way I would. And I think when you build something, you have to be so intentional about identifying and creating the point of view of what do you want your business to look like?

And, and my point of view is I want people every single day to wake up and be excited about go to work and know how to drive value for the organization. And that doesn't mean that a, so like I'll use one of our regional chapters, our leader in Bakersfield would say about her culture that it's very fun.

She's a very fun leader. Everything is about her. She's a walking party. And so her culture, when I went to Bakersfield last year on a trip, I was like, Man, all you people do is like laugh and have fun and that's awesome. But that's not the kind of leader that I am. But it's important to Allison, the leader.

That that's part of her culture. And so I think, you know, it's, it's two things in terms of scaling is like, you want to lay the foundation of what you want out of your people. And then also give autonomy and allow people to build things from the ground up to don't make it so stagnant that it has to be a.

One size fits all box, you know, that you allow people to bring their creativeness and their beautiful Giftedness and their skills and make it better and so to scale I think one being really intentional About what is the kind of business that you want to grow? What's the kind of impact that you want to make creating time to spend time with the kind of values?

What are your values? How are you defining those values? So not just putting a couple of words on the inside of an employee handbook and calling it a day. I'm talking about defining them. So how do you define those values? How are you holding people accountable and how are you living them out? And how are you calling them out?

So when I see an employee Hope, for example, which is one of our values. We believe in hope. We believe that we can create a better future. So when I see an employee living out something and being very hopeful in their interaction and their engagement, I will call that out. Thank you for living out hope.

Or, hey, you just practice empowerment. Or, you just, you know, transformate. So I will call out, and I expect all of our people to call it out when we show it. Or, way to live out community. And so, like, defining, sharing, and living your values is another powerful, important thing to say. Scaling and spending time to understand what is the mission, what is the vision and what is the North star?

What are you trying to actually do? So for us, our mission is to walk alongside children, youth, and families that are experiencing foster care to support them through intentional giving relationship building and mentorship. Our vision is every single child. Our North star is to change the statistics.

That's what we're after. That's what we're trying to do. And so when you have these things defined, What happens is that you can train, onboard, equip, and coach people to also have that knowledge, and to share that knowledge. And ultimately, when you do a really good job of being intentional about your business, and intentional about what you're trying to do, and you bring people along, and you allow them to be exactly who they are with all of their unique giftedness and skills, then that's how transformation occurs, that's how scaling occurs, and that's how people rise in potential.

Oh my gosh. Love that so much. So before we wrap, you know, is there anything you're working on that you're excited to share with our audience? Oh my gosh. I just feel like every day is just so much, probably all of it, but I know you had mentioned, you know, the YouTube channel. I'd love to hear a little more about that.

Yeah. So I have a real passion for teaching leaders. Nonprofit leaders also small business. I'm a person that started from nothing and have created something that I'm really proud of and and I want to give people those tools and resources to know how to do it too. I have made a mountain of mistakes. And so anytime I give advice, it's like if I can help someone.

Save you some scratch needs and some bruised elbows. Like I want to give you that because I, I don't have a scarcity mindset. I have a, if I can give you everything that I have learned along the way, what can you create and how can it benefit all of us? So I'm officially launching a YouTube channel that I'm very excited about called the social entrepreneur and people can find me on.

you know, social media. And I'm just excited to get some of the knowledge that I have acquired out into allowing other people to just reap benefit of some of the mistakes that I have made. Well, I love that. And I mean, certainly such incredible insights. I mean, I think all of us out there are going to run to set up the RR& E and then also So ask these four questions.

I mean, these are transformational things that you can do today. Like I love everything you shared because they're things that you can implement immediately. And I'm all about simple solutions that have like transformational impact. So thank you so much for being on the show. I absolutely love this conversation and I will include links for folks to find you and all of the amazing things you're doing in the show notes.

Absolutely. And maybe on my next YouTube video, I'll do a, how to do an RRNE, how to set it up. Yeah. So it gives me a good idea on that. Yes. I love that. All right. Well, thank you so much. It was awesome having you here. Yes. Thank you. 

That's all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at LiaGarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.

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