Risk, Change, and Innovation

Welcome to building better developers, the developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of interviews and we are going to start. We're actually continuing our interview today with Chip Nightingale. This is part two. We got to get to know him a little bit in our first episode. This part we're going to talk a little bit about, basically about risk and get into some of the discussion about people that want to play it safe and how that really works, particularly in a changing world and particularly when we use it with respect to training individuals and whether that is something that is going to be, that will say good for you in the long run or whether it's something where you end up essentially training people and then they get better and they go off to somewhere else and somebody else reaps the benefits of your investment. That being said, let's get right back into it. And that's really that's my next question is what would you say to somebody? Because I think you based on your approach, what would you say to somebody that says, hey, I'm not going to I don't want to spend that time because it's just they're going to just learn and then move on to something else? Well, I had had to learn to change my attitude towards it and come to a realization it's not about me, but it's about investing in someone to help them be who they're supposed to be. And so my attitude is it has changed from I'm I'm not preparing that person to just take my job. I'm preparing that person to be the best of who they are. And if they leave, I'm OK with them leaving. If that means that's going to be the best person for them to be in whatever organization that looks like. And that's taking the pressure off. So what it does is I'm constantly looking for people to be a part of my team so that I can invest in them so that everything will continue to move forward. What's interesting about that at the church that I pastored, when I started doing that, all of a sudden they stopped leaving. When my attitude towards that, it wasn't about what I could get in return, but how I could invest in them. Next thing I realized was they they we had people that were offered a lot more money and they didn't leave. We had people who had better opportunities out there and they didn't leave. And I was like, why aren't they leaving? You know, I thought for sure they would leave because we're not paying them as much. We're, you know, they stayed because they believed in what we were doing and they liked being a part of of of the the opportunity that was there. So that's what I learned from this. Have I had some people still leave? Yes. The majority of them are all of a sudden staying. Yeah, I've talked about that with some other people, and it's it's interesting because it really does become a proposition to them of almost like a pay me now or pay me later kind of thing, because it's like I can leave now and I can get a bigger paycheck. But if I stay here, I know that I'm going to continue to grow. So it's like, hey, I'm going to keep I'm still this organization or this leader is investing in me. And so I'm still going to get a benefit if I'm here tomorrow. I'm going to be better than I was yesterday. Whereas if I go somewhere else, you know, then you're sort of rolling the dice a little bit. It's like, OK, maybe I get more pay. But now maybe I've plateaued or I'm going to start my value and my growth is going to slow down or decline. And now it's sort of a tradeoff. There's like, do I take the money now and say, oh, OK, yeah, I have my big payday and say I'm done. Or do I spend a little bit more time and people being who they are? You know, I think it's there's that change that now you don't have to worry about. Hey, I'm happy here. So that's you click a lot of the financial stuff where happiness does in most cases went out over money. I think people are smart enough to take that trade. Well, what's interesting is I use this approach as a pastor. I did the same approach when I was in the business world and then I used it as a pastor. And most churches is all defined on the guy, the guy that's in front of everybody else. And and I'd like to think I was a good pastor, good preacher, good speaker. People like to come listen to what I had to say. But then I began to realize that, well, what happens if I do leave? And so I changed and went from an approach where I didn't preach every Sunday. I actually had to begin to have a rotation. And those who were on my team, I thought they had that gift. I began to let them do it. Well, over time, next thing I know, I'm doing it half the time and then I'm only doing it a third of the time. And and then when an opportunity came for me to step away, they they actually just kept moving. They didn't have to bring in another pastor. They didn't have to do anything like that. And and and the church is still growing. It grew during covid. It didn't have financial struggles. And and the reality was it was because the identity wasn't me. The identity was the the mission or the vision we had as as the church. And business is the exact same way. It will continue to move forward if it has a vision that's sustainable. But if the vision and mission is completely is completely controlled by the one guy and it's not going to work unless the one guy is there, it will not work when he's gone. So so really, we began to even shift the culture. It wasn't about what I wanted to vision to look like. It was what's the vision look like now, now that we have 10 people that are on this team? How has it changed? How is it adjusted? And and instead of me coming up with the ideas, I didn't have to anymore because now 10 people were coming up with the ideas. And and that's how longevity begins to sustain itself beyond the the initial person who has started the company. Yeah, and that's a we see that it's I think a lot of people would love to be the, you know, like an Oprah or Bono or somewhere. It's like a, you know, a name. You're a one name person. But and in some cases, you know, an entertainment industry. Yes, you know, you're that's going to be that person. But when you get out to the business side, then having that one name is great if you're that person. But after that, then it's you know, it's done. And if even if you're that person, that means you're really sort of shackled a little bit to it because you know, you especially if you care at all about the people in the organization, you have a hard time stepping away because you know that when you step away, there is going to be, you know, that organization is going to take a hit. And it's very, I think it's very difficult to be in that situation. And you almost have to I think it's easier. It is easier to go into that situation or any business situation, thinking about sort of that exit strategy in a sense from the start. They're saying what happens when I'm not here so that you have those habits early on that build up an organization or a team that says, OK, I'm not holding all the keys. You also know how it's working. So if I'm not here, if I take a week off, it's not going to be, you know, it's not going to go off the rails. Yeah, well, absolutely. Think about coaching sports. Twenty five years ago, I could just tell them what to do and they did it today. When you coach them, I have to coddle them to do it. Like it is a totally different environment. But if I didn't learn to adjust and adapt to how how they are are learning to understand the game today, I wouldn't have survived after five or ten years of coaching. I've had to learn to adjust. But isn't it interesting? There's only this. I just heard this the other day. There's only 55 S&P 500 companies left since the beginning of of basically the stock exchange. So how many thousands of companies have not survived because they were unwilling to change? They were unwilling to adjust. I love watching the men that built America on the History Channel. And you kind of walk through the tears, the Rockefellers and all of the things that they kind of go through. And and in ultimately, when you watch it, you go, man, that that family has no money today. There are certain families that have no money today because their business was wrapped around them and not for longevity. And we're unwilling to change and people didn't change. And and so what what is I think the better question in longevity is what's keeping us from changing because innovation is huge. You know, Microsoft is is really one of the only I think they're one of the top 10 companies in the last 20 years. But they're the only ones that have survived like the last 20 years. There's been a huge change. Well, what have they done in innovation to be able to sustain for 20 years? Well, I don't know the answer to that question, but I have to believe they were they were willing to adjust and adapt. And how are we willing to adjust and adapt as our culture continues to change? Yeah, it's I think, well, it's it's sometimes difficult to see where like, you know, Microsoft has adapted or not and where they where they, you know, made their choices. It's it is very easy to see where companies died that did not adapt, where you can see over and over. You can point to a company that, yeah, they they stuck this all the way through and then disappeared because that that business model changed. The market changed. The product, you know, customers changed, whatever it was. And then you see the last couple of years have been a little microcosm that it's been interesting to see with what Covid did to organizations that changed so many that there were all of these. There's industries that popped up almost literally overnight that were these needs that suddenly appeared. And there's other needs that just disappeared almost overnight. And it's one of those that say, OK, and that's where you're seeing a lot of books now. And and things coming out around leading through change and dealing with that, because that's some of the I think that's where you're going to be pushed the most is things that the rules change. And now you've got to figure out how to work with that. Yeah, Blockbuster gets used all the time for an example of this block blockbuster and Netflix. And imagine what Blockbuster would have been if they would have just accepted the offer from Netflix. But they they were like, no, this is who we are. It's not going to ever change. And and but it did change. And and they weren't willing to adapt to that change. And when they probably finally got to that place, we're like, oh, my goodness, we better change. It was too late. And so we have to constantly think forward. I was in a training session yesterday on that innovation. And when one of the things that the teacher talked about, which I thought was very important for us to hear here, is that the reason why people don't innovate is because they're they're fearful of the of the unknown because it is a risk. But he made the point he goes, whether you like it or not, when you went bought a house, you made a risk. When you buy a car, you made a risk. When you invest your money in the stock exchange, you are risking something. But you also know if you just put your cash in one place and it doesn't bring on interest, that nothing's going to happen at all. So he's like, sometimes we just have to take a risk. And in order for companies to survive, why is it that we're so fearful? Well, the the organization I'm working for now, they've been around for 80 years now. And for a mission organization, that's incredible. Like most mission organizations are dying off. And I can see where we could start dying off because because ultimately there are times when I when I begin to realize that they're more focused on the task than they are about the future. So these tasks are getting done, but there's nobody out there creating an environment for the future. And if we don't adjust that, we won't be here in 20 years. And but then we're like, oh, my goodness. But if we don't do the task, we don't have enough money to pay the bills and all this type of things. But we need both. You need someone to do the task and you need someone to be innovative and taking some risk. And some of those risks are going to work and some of them aren't. And we're going to have to spend a lot of money on some things that do not work in order to accomplish something that will work. But we have to be willing to take risk if we're going to survive. That's it. Really, the blockbuster example is a good one because they took a risk in not changing. I mean, you say not changing and it's sitting there is is taking a risk. You're assuming that your risk that you're is you're basically assuming that, hey, this is going to continue whatever this is. And if I don't move, then I'm going to be fine. But that's not necessarily true. You know, it's like, you know, if the you're in a some sort of a sky is falling kind of situation, you're like, OK, well, standing here, I'm safe, so I'm just going to stand here. But that doesn't mean that something's not going to fall on you you know, five minutes from now. So it's sort of a yeah, I think it would help a lot of people to realize that whatever you do, there's always going to be a risk. Yeah. And so just, you know, trying to you can try to minimize it. And there's some things you can try to do to to be intelligent about how you take risk. But I don't think you can exist without there being some risk. No decision is still a decision. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You're exactly right. No decision is still a decision. And I think I think that's. Crazy, because usually that they don't believe that they believe that it's just safe. This is the safe place because we know this is going to work. Well, it if your numbers are still going down, it's not working. It may be bringing in some cash to pay the bills for now. But what happens in 10 years, like you said, is still a risk. Now, you mentioned sort of an organization that you know, things are going well, if you're getting things done, but maybe not looking enough forward. Usually refer to that sort of as like working in your business versus on your business. Yeah, it's it's there's things that any organization has to do. There's some level of producing a product, servicing customers, things like that. But then there's also that innovation side. Then your experience, have you found where have you? And if so, what are maybe some ways you found to keep innovation at front of mind enough so that while, yes, we still have work to be done, we're also making sure that we're looking forward? Well, one of the things I began to realize is is that I need to do a better job of listening as as an executive instead of thinking about needing it and and and feeling like I have all the answers that I need to listen to the people that are on the front lines who do have the answers. And and so when they're seeing trends change that I'm listening and we're coming up with solutions and how we can work through that change. Ultimately, that's I think that's why we struggle with it is because we have to humble ourselves as leaders, we have to humble ourselves to this place of realizing that there may be someone we just hired that's going to see something that that we need to listen to. And the reason that they're in that spot in that moment was because, you know, for me, it's I believe God put them in that spot in that moment to tell me what I needed to hear so that I could move on to the next step. So just just, you know, this was interesting. We had our all staff day for our organization about a week ago. And in that moment, we saw all these young people. And one of the VPs looked at me and they said, well, I can tell you what one of our problems is, is that we got a bunch of staff members who don't know they don't understand who we are. And I looked at them and said, I'm actually excited about that because they don't understand who we are. They're going to bring innovation of change. And it was interesting that the two different philosophies, his was, oh, my goodness, everything's going to change. I'm scared. And my philosophy was, oh, man, everything's going to change. I'm excited. And and I think I think we need both. Let's I let's just be frank. We do need that person that goes, wait, wait, wait. Let's take a step back. Is this really a good idea and process it? Because I'm not that person. I do need someone to kind of bring back and bring me back to the center. But at the same time, we need the person that's pushing us and to try something new and realizing that new people sometimes can be a good thing. Yeah, I think that's that's key is that, you know, you will have a conversation about, you know, either innovation or things like that and realize that there is there's always that balance. You know, you want to be like you said, I mean, there's there's things that need to be done and then you need to be thinking forward. But if you spend too much time forward thinking and you don't get the day to day stuff done, then you're lost. You know, then your your your customers aren't going to like you because you're going to say, well, hey, we you had these great ideas. We bought all your products or we got all your services. And then they fell flat because you guys didn't follow through. Vice versa is if you if you only focus on that, then you're never going to give them that have any innovation and not going to have anything new. And so I think it's key to have both of those voices speaking to us is that, you know, is to be looking for how do we grow? But also, how do we you know, how are we better today? How do we do today the way we need to? And also maybe in a way that's improving so that our day to day tasks. Yeah, a lot of times we look at it because we we tend to be more automation. Focus is how do I take care of these day to day tasks in a way that I can start either delegating or automating so that now I have more time to look forward. And those day to day tasks do not suck up as much of my time and leave me. You know, so I now have a little bit of a buffer so I can look forward. Yeah, and we need to make time for innovation. We need to make time for discussion on what what's going good and what's not going good. You know, we do these events where we raise millions of dollars on a weekend. Every time we're done with the weekend, we sit together and go, what went good? What do we need to change? You know, you're you know, for some people are like, well, you we just we just raised a million dollars. Like, why would we change anything? Well, because because every time we do this event, everything around us is changing. The people are changing the the demographic of the people are changing. The environment we're going to is going to change. It needs to feel fresh. It can't be stagnant. We have to have those meetings. We have to be innovative. We have to come up with new ideas. Or else we're just not going to be successful and we're just going to get into a routine. And those things begin to to go away. What's interesting to me is. Is that our ministry is basically camping ministry for young people. And the number one problem that we have is always staff, you know, having enough staff to accomplish what we need. But instead of coming up with a solution with with smaller numbers of staff, we just go, well, we can't do that. That's not the right answer. The answer has to be, well, what can we do with less people? How can we create this environment to make this work instead of make it allowing this to be our excuse year after year after year? Come up with a solution so that we can be successful with less people. And and but we don't do that for whatever reason. We we we struggle in that environment as if it's like, you know what? But this is how we've been doing it for 80 years. So this is how we need to do it today. No, I hate to tell you this. We have young people today that have brilliant minds. And I guarantee you, if you let them tell you how to do it better, they probably have a solution. We just have to be willing to listen. And that will wrap up this episode. We're going to come back next episode. And that will be part three. We'll do a final episode on the Chip Nightingale interview. We're going to continue along the lines as we're really talking about the a lot of these reasons and arguments for training and internal we'll call it informal mentoring and investing in your employees and what that can do for them. As we've seen, particularly in this episode, we're talking about risk. And, you know, the idea that sometimes not doing anything is also taking a risk. Sometimes trying to stick with the status quo is taking a risk. I use the famous example of blockbuster. Maybe it works today, but just because somebody comes in with something different doesn't mean that that's wrong. That may be exactly what you need to do to move forward and to be successful in the future, as opposed to just being maybe comfortable today. So we'll wrap this one up. We'll come back next time. And we're not done. We got plenty other interviews coming. And just keep you know, stay tuned. Stay. Hopefully you have subscribed and keep up, because we're going to keep on putting some great people in front of you. Great ideas. Hopefully these will help motivate you as as we're getting into essentially a new year here. We're wrapping up 2022 at this point, looking to 23. And we will have a flurry of great interviews going into the new year, hopefully to help you figure out where you want to go next and set your plans and roadmaps up appropriately. So as always, go out there, though, and have a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.