Literally Duck Taping the business back together with Mike Kotsis

Mike joins us on the podcast to chat about what it is like being part of a family business and how we can learn to be proactive instead of reactive. As an EOS implementer, he has walked the walk and understands why it can be hard to get to where you need to go, but it is possible to do strategically.

Where can you find Mike?
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Full Transcription below (May contain typo's...):

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] There was, everything was urgent and important all the time or at least that's what it felt like.

 We had about seven family members involved, at the time through various points of that journey. So I had three, I had my father three uncles. I had my cousin, my brother, and then ultimately I didn't feel like that was enough. So we hired my wife, in the latter parts of it as if it wasn't complicated enough at that point.

And so there was a lot of blend in mixing of. you have ownership, you have leadership, you have employee, then you have family member. Like all those dynamics were just intermixed. And so you never knew where you were coming from and who you were talking to in the way, it was all intermixed.

And so that created a lot of confusion. In hindsight, when I look back at it, because there were certain assumptions that in our family business, Hey, your family, you're dedicated. You're [00:01:00] gonna, you're gonna be here all hours, day and night. And you're gonna make sure you're opening and closing.

there was like these assumptions that would go on among all of us. And then if certain family members didn't do that, it was like looked down upon, There was no intention of that, of that happening to look down upon it. But that's a feeling like an underlying current that was there.

Keerstyn: [00:01:48] welcome to the podcast, Mike. Kotsis. I am really excited to talk to you today about EOS and entrepreneurship and how you help your people grow. Can you just give us a brief background [00:02:00] of how you got involved in your work and then what you do now? 

Mike: [00:02:03] Sure absolutely first, thanks for having me here today.

Excited to be on the podcast and to connect with you and to share the message with, with others. Yeah, so a little bit of, background, for me, I won't go all the way back, but just before becoming an EOS implementer, I was running my family's business, Atlas wholesale food company in Detroit.

So ran it for seven years. my grandfather started, the company came over from Greece and. we're Greeks and what do you do? You get in the food business? and so we, had service specialty items to a Greek town and. family diners around Metro Detroit. And man, I learned about my family and a whole new way.

being a Greek and ethnic family that, there was a lot of screaming and shouting and, I had come from the corporate world before that, and it was just a culture shock. I was wondering like, what the heck did I get myself into? and, I quickly realized like, Hey, they're just, [00:03:00] everybody's excited.

Whether it's something meaningful or not, we would just get really excited. And I just found myself in this place that, that I just knew, we had to get some agreement of where we were going to take the company and how we were going to do that. I didn't know how we were going to do that or what we were going to do at the time.

It just knew we had to agree. And over time we were able to generate that agreement and be able to develop that plan of where we were going to go. And, made some key people changes around the team. And at that time I wish I knew about EOS. I didn't, but it would have helped us to do everything.

We went through so much faster and simpler than the way we did it on our own. But ultimately we grew the company during the last downturn in our economy. Seven two Oh nine timeframe. And, the best part about it was is that we had a team of accountable people in place. We were profitable, we were growing and, just realized at that time that everybody else is going through that same type of thing, whether [00:04:00] you're a family business or not.

And I just felt this calling within me to help others. And I. I didn't know how I was going to do it at the time or what I was going to do. I just started doing it through a Walsh college at the time, had peer groups for family business owners in Southeast Michigan. So this is in the Troy area and I started helping some other, friends and colleagues of mine to navigate through some of the challenges, similar to what I had gone through.

And that's when I had discovered EOS. And I, I realized that was the vehicle that, that I could use to help do instead of sitting down, talking about what we might do, which I felt like we were spending too much time doing, rather than actually doing it. UOS was a framework that, eliminated all that.

what are you going to do? How are you going to do it to actually just doing it and being with the team and helping the facilitate their vision and plan. And so this was a little over nine years ago that I, ultimately made the plunge and became an [00:05:00] EOS implementer and started my own business.

Yeah. 

Keerstyn: [00:05:03] That's a fascinating background, especially with the family business and the downturn of. The recession basically. And then how you guys got out of that and on a more positive note too, that's very impressive. And, definitely impactful. I'm sure. I think I, you definitely, I'm sure I have a million stories about, how you guys got through that and why EOS would have been a positive.

they that in for sure. For sure. What was some of those things that you struggled with your family business and specifically, was it like one or two things that you could, just talk about and maybe how you guys went through it and then how it would be applicable now with EOS? 

Mike: [00:05:43] Yeah, sure. There was, everything was urgent and important all the time or at least that's what it felt like.

 We had about seven family members involved, at the time through various points of that journey. So I had three, I had my father three uncles. I had my [00:06:00] cousin, my brother, and then ultimately I didn't feel like that was enough. So we hired my wife, in the latter parts of it as if it wasn't complicated enough at that point.

And so there was a lot of blend in mixing of. you have ownership, you have leadership, you have employee, then you have family member. Like all those dynamics were just intermixed. And so you never knew where you were coming from and who you were talking to in the way, it was all intermixed.

And so that created a lot of confusion. In hindsight, when I look back at it, because there were certain assumptions that in our family business, Hey, your family, you're dedicated. You're gonna, you're gonna be here all hours, day and night. And you're gonna make sure you're opening and closing.

there was like these assumptions that would go on among all of us. And then if certain family members didn't do that, it was like looked down upon, There was no intention of [00:07:00] that, of that happening to look down upon it. But that's a feeling like an underlying current that was there.

And so that made it more challenging. And, just a funny story, just to give you the example of the types of issues that we dealt with. Like we, in an old building on the East side of Detroit, near the city airport and. There, this building was right off of the freeway. It still is still there.

And my cousins runni...