Lois Sonstegard:

Welcome, everybody, to Building my Legacy Podcast today. Today I am with Kim Bohr. She is a really exciting person in terms of things that she’s accomplished in her career, but I think also some of the things that she has done really push us in our thinking in terms of where are we going next, what is it next that we’re trying to do with our lives and with our careers.

Lois Sonstegard:

Kim Bohr is an author. She’s an in demand speaker, a covenant executive advisor. She’s CEO of Innovare Group. It’s a firm that’s known for diagnosing and repairing organizational leadership disconnects. Kim, I want to talk more with you about, what does that really mean and how do you do that. Working both with companies and leaders, she helps them to assess, align and accelerate the strategic priorities that impact their talent, execution and business growth.

Lois Sonstegard:

She works a lot with the seed companies, startups, mid market companies and progressive corporate teams, guiding them in their sales and marketing operation’s functions and really looks at strategy without execution. Isn’t going to get you anywhere. Kim, that is a marvelous overview. Some of what you have done, you also teach, I know, and you’ve written a book which is a practical book.

Lois Sonstegard:

I guess, I say that because I think there’s so many things that are ethereal and you can’t apply them. A practical book you can really apply to real life and to work situations. If you would just share with our audience to begin your background, why you got into doing what you’re doing, what your work experience is in the corporate world, because I know it’s quite varied and we’ll go from there. Thank you. Welcome so much, Kim.

Kim Bohr:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here. My background really is from a lot of the successes and the failures of trying to figure out how to be a leader. I’ve always wanted to lead and so how to be a leader, but also I’ve been a deep student of business my whole life. I’ve always been very curious around how do businesses work, how do acquisitions work, what are the challenges. I’ve just really been curious about that.

Kim Bohr:

I’ve always been most curious around how do you have a healthy business and how does leadership come into play. Early on in my career I really didn’t have strong leaders as mentors or as role models. That was really quite disappointing because I was looking forward to taking that type of path in my career. What I started to do is just try figure things out on my own.

Kim Bohr:

When I was first leading others, I had a team and I was still pretty young. I was leading I would say probably more with my head than my heart. I did not have the team doing what I needed them to do. Really, I was failing as a leader. I went to my leaders and had said, “Give me feedback. Something’s not working, we’re not getting results. I don’t know what to do.” They couldn’t give me any feedback or any guidance.

Lois Sonstegard:

[inaudible 00:00:03:33].

Kim Bohr:

Yeah. That was really a very pivotal point because what I realized was that they were very young also in their careers. They hadn’t been given the kind of leadership training that they would need to be able to really guide me. I then set out and looked at Marshall Goldsmith’s book at the time, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

Kim Bohr:

That was like this big moment for me and called up this firm and requested to speak with one of his executive coaches. Ended up at the time, talking with one of the principals in his firm who ended up taking me on as one of his coaches. He had said, “I usually just work with CEOs but there’s something about your story that’s really interesting.” It was through my proactive work that he came in, we did a 360 with the team and we really turned it around. We had people really advocating for me in the end and then the team performed.

Kim Bohr:

That was really that pivotal piece of going through several years of trying to get people to just to have somebody to look up to and not having anybody in my immediate business community that was really highly effective and so then trying to figure out myself.

Kim Bohr:

I don’t ever feel that I’ll ever reach the end of learning to lead, but that was really that piece that sent me down a path of trying to figure out how can I be a strong leader that then can empower people to do what they need to do, to then fulfill the business, which ultimately, as you said, the tagline I use now is, solid strategy won’t survive poor execution.

Kim Bohr:

The whole idea is if you don’t have that alignment between your people and the process, which is driven from the leadership lens, then you won’t be able to execute well. Your business won’t be healthy. That’s been just a constant theme. As I’ve grown my leadership career and I’ve grown other organizations, I’ve always kept those components in mind along the way. By no means have I been perfect, but it’s always that constant learning of trying to become better so I can be better for others and have them be their best selves.

Lois Sonstegard:

Kim, one of the things that you talk about is looking at how do you bridge those disconnects within the leadership group. What do you really mean by that and how do you go about doing that? Because I think disconnects are huge and they happen so regularly.

Kim Bohr:

They do and so I agree with you. There’s different levels of disconnects. Some are that you’ve got teams that work in silos, they work within their own pockets. They think that what they do, they go heads down on and they do it. What they fail to realize is that they’re just a piece of the big picture and that really, their work is impacting so many different people and that they need to be considering those other internal stakeholders, if you will.

Kim Bohr:

I think that’s one of the big pieces of disconnect because you can produce a product or you can implement a new system and if you haven’t actually done the work in having the right stakeholders involved to tell you, what does it look like to use this tool in the field or what’s the experience for our customers, then you’ve just really set yourself and the organization back. I’s helping organizations realize that they’re not on an island or teams realizing they’re not on an island.

Kim Bohr:

Also just looking at how people communicate. A lot of times when senior leadership is in charge of working on the strategy or they’re in charge of just doing a lot of the bigger planning and then they just suddenly it’s rolled out, if there’s really not the operational planning that comes in, if it’s just been strategy planning and the operational planning isn’t put into place, then you start to have those disconnects of people trying to figure out, well why are we doing this, like weren’t we doing this other thing before.

Kim Bohr:

It’s that, that’s the other really big area that I see happening all too frequently, where organizations, it’s just breaking down. Then people don’t understand what their purpose is, why they’re there, why it matters, that sort of thing.

Lois Sonstegard:

We spend so much time, Kim, talking about leadership and what’s good leadership, but so few people really spend time talking about execution, strategy. I see companies spending millions, millions of dollars sometimes on things like culture for example, but after years of of work, they still don’t implement the full culture and they move on to a new fad before it’s over. Right?

Kim Bohr:

Yeah.

Lois Sonstegard:

It’s that execution piece is part of leadership that you’ve really tried to hone in on as I understand it. You have a process that you walk people through. What is that process?

Kim Bohr:

It’s underpinning to any of the work that we do. It’s assess, align and accelerate. What we do is we look at assessing that situation, where are the disconnects happening, who’s got their part in all those different pieces. Then we really look at the gaps, so what are we seeing that we want, what are the actions showing and what are the results that we’re getting in that continuum.

Kim Bohr:

Then we start to say, “Okay, let’s prioritize those disconnects and let’s start to create a plan.” When we create the plan, then that’s where we start to launch into that alignment period. As we play the plan out, we’re starting to find the alignment around the people and the process really. The process oftentimes is the communication and the people a lot of times is around either behavior, skill building or just trying to understand where do I fit in this whole thing.

Kim Bohr:

Then when we see that plan coming into play, really by the time we’re hitting the end, the accelerate portion is really around the kind of the rinse and repeat. Now that we’ve got these right, you even know what the right steps are for you, the next thing that you go to implement, follow the steps, because the idea of our work is to give people either the process, the skills or both that they don’t have, but it’s not to keep coming back and needing to stick around.

Kim Bohr:

It’s really to help them become more self sufficient. Just understanding where perhaps they had blind spots and even that they just couldn’t identify themselves.

Lois Sonstegard:

Kim, you have a workbook around this. Is that something that you use in your training? Tell me a little bit about the workbook because I’m listening to what you do and I think, wow, everybody could use this. There’s not a work group or a team that couldn’t use what you’re describing in terms of how do you really execute. Share a little bit about what you’ve done with your work, how people might be able to use it.

Kim Bohr:

Yeah, great question. Well, several years ago now, I was really starting to track how individuals and teams were interacting with each other. The reality is that we are just in a very busy business culture in our American society. That’s not slowing down. As much as we want to think we can slow that down, I think what we really have to think about is how can we be more mindful and intentional as we go through the day and move from a place of what feels like we’re just checking the box and checking our list off, to a place that says, “Okay, what’s the impact I’m really making?”

Kim Bohr:

What I was finding was that people were just rushing through their days and their weeks and then stopping to look back and not realizing, okay, how did we get here, like how did this thing not work the way we thought it would, how did I find that I’m still in the same role after all these years when I really thought I was going to be moving myself along. What I created then after having tested a lot of these different exercises was a 12 week guided journal. It’s specific to looking at your successes, failures and lessons learned.

Kim Bohr:

There’s a few different exercises in it. That’s the core one. What it does is it encourages either from an individual perspective or from a team perspective to really say, “Okay, what are the three professional goals I want to achieve or we want to achieve in these next 12 weeks?” It gets really specific and part of it does some forward visioning. Okay, in 12 weeks from now, what’s it going to look like if we accomplish this or if we don’t accomplish this.

Kim Bohr:

Then you go through each week and you really are documenting what were the successes, the failures and I chose that word intentionally because it’s really a catalyst for growth. It’s where we find the next place that we evolve from. I wanted that word to become something that people could maybe take a different approach to or a different mindset about. Then the lessons learned come from both.

Kim Bohr:

We want to learn what we did well so we can do more of that. Then we want to figure out what didn’t land well so we can do something different. At the end of each week, then you’re basically looking back and you’re readjusting your goals. With what I said I wanted, now what actions did I take, what didn’t serve me well, and then what do I need to do differently to go forward.

Kim Bohr:

There’s a lot of accountability built into it that really then helps drive performance. Really what it ultimately does is help build confidence so that people can see the things that they’re doing so that the next time they want to put themselves up for a promotion, they can actually look back and say, “Hey, now I’m very clear on what I’ve done,” and not have to really struggle to think, “Well, am I qualified,” or, “Gosh, what was that that I had done,” and and just kind of hold themselves back and ultimately hold the company back.

Lois Sonstegard:

A person can use it also very proactively in terms of their own career growth.

Kim Bohr:

Yes. Absolutely, yeah. Their own career growth, team alignment, performance, when the team’s trying to say, “Okay, we’ve got this big thing ahead of us. What is it that we’re committed to and what do we want to make sure we’re tracking individually and collectively along the way as well?”

Lois Sonstegard:

You also talk a lot about communication and getting clear in communication and having a process that allows you to do that. I’m guessing that’s part of what’s necessary if you’re going to diminish the disconnects that exist. Let’s share a little bit about that because we talk a lot about communication and yet it continues to, I think always emerge in our conversations as the big need.

Kim Bohr:

Yeah, it really does. I think it’s a opportunity I think for everybody to always be mindful of, because again, we move through such a busy pace that we can make assumptions that people heard what we were talking about or know what we’re talking about. When you think about the why execution fails, communication is such a really key piece. I talk about that from a process lens.

Kim Bohr:

If you’re going to roll something out, have you really thought about how that communication is going to roll out? Have you thought about filling in the gaps of why we’re doing this thing and what the pivotal piece was that’s caused us to make a shift, whether that’s a shift towards an opportunity or a shift to help us avoid something that we don’t want to hit? It’s really critical that people think about that process, because ultimately people want to know why their work matters.

Kim Bohr:

They want to feel seen and heard and they want to be able to be committed to the bigger goal. If that’s not clear to them, then you end up you having disconnects, you have people that just don’t buy into the idea and disengaged and all that sort of thing. It’s really like looking at these really core pieces and not even necessarily having it from a lens of something really big.

Kim Bohr:

I mean, it’s just something from even day to day communication as we go into our team meetings weekly, what is that real message we’re trying to deliver and what is it that we’re trying to make the connection on about what the team is able to do and then where it fits inside the organization.

Lois Sonstegard:

For you, as you look at working with companies, what are the biggest challenges you’re always looking to create a result? What are the challenges you face?

Kim Bohr:

The challenges are, there’s a couple of buckets. One is sometimes, especially for really your less tenured leaders, new leaders, a lot of times there’s some element of thinking that they’re supposed to have been gifted with leadership skills because they now have a leadership title. That’s one of those pieces that sometimes there’s this hesitation to want to ask for guidance and help, because it’s like, but I’m the CEO or I’m the head of this thing and I’m supposed to know it. People expect me to know it.

Kim Bohr:

That’s really just a story we tell ourselves. People don’t expect us to know everything when we first step in. There’s the technical things that we should probably know or have an idea of, but we also should know how to ask for help. We also should know how to say, “You know what, I’m not clear on that in this role yet, but I’m going to figure it out and get back to you.” I think it’s having that ability to really be open and communicate.

Kim Bohr:

I think that’s one of the biggest things I run into is that leaders just have a hard time of crossing that bridge. I think that’s why we then have a lot of just the persistence of poor leadership because they’re not thinking about that proactively. The other big disconnect really is in why are we doing this, why are we doing this thing, why does this work matter. I come in and I can do my job well, but I really don’t get how it fits inside the bigger picture.

Kim Bohr:

That’s the other one where I believe, because oftentimes leaders are in different levels of meetings and frontline staff. We’re talking and having these conversations and almost become immune to the topic or to how we’re going to implement this information. We turn then to the frontline staff who are really the ones who are going to be our talent to execute. If we haven’t actually bridged that gap or helped them to see and to understand, then they’re going to be lost. I think that’s the other place we find a big, huge disconnect on a really consistent basis.

Lois Sonstegard:

Kim, if you could structure things ideally, so you could really make an absolutely huge impact, how would you like to be brought in to the whole process?

Kim Bohr:

Ideally it’s always wanting to be brought into at the most senior level that we can. It’s really about if it was ideal, it would be a, hey, we’re starting this new team or we’re launching something new, or we’re getting ready to really assess how our year’s gone and we know we want to make changes next year. It’s trying to be more proactive. I think what tends to happen is it’s a much more reactive place of, oh my gosh, how did we get here. This isn’t working.

Kim Bohr:

It’s coming from the place of waking up suddenly and to realize that the results that are in front of them, they don’t like. That’s more common. It’s just a reality. If that could shift, the more ideal place would be to have a more proactive work. Look, we want to do things differently. Look, we want to lead. We want to look at our leadership style and our alignment as a team. We want to bring somebody in from the outside to actually give us some feedback and look at what we’re doing well, what we’re not doing well. Really that would be more ideal. Work with what we have as it gets presented.

Lois Sonstegard:

Well, you work with some, I think difficult situations, because when I think of venture capital, a lot of times those are people who are doing a lot with a few people and there may be frequent changes. These are assumptions I make. You have an environment that is somewhat in flux and that’s the environment you’ve chosen to work in. Share a little bit more about that.

Kim Bohr:

I like it because there’s so much energy and there’s so much with just a little bit of work, can make the whole thing run really smoothly. What happens with a lot of the VC funded companies at the stages they’re at is that again, they’re moving so fast, a lot of times the executive team tends to be made up of people who are really technically brilliant in whatever they did before. A lot of times it’s engineers or computer science, it’s something really just marvelous and creating.

Kim Bohr:

What they don’t though then have is the leadership side. What tends to happen is, a lot of times your founding team becomes the really savvy sales people, but then they don’t know how to actually build a sales team, or they can hire sales people but they don’t know how to actually then translate how they sell as a founder, to how you systematize and scale inside of an actual formal organization. Those are where I think those are really exciting opportunities because in some ways there’s simple to fix, that one would say, put in place, like the whole system works.

Kim Bohr:

A lot of that is that disconnect in those early stage companies or between sales marketing and then the product being built and having all of those teams really work more synergistically, and then having those senior leaders recognize what it means to lead and to communicate when they’re not maybe as naturally grounded in those areas.

Lois Sonstegard:

I really appreciate your, in a sense, its attention to the detail, to the execution because in a sense it’s not sexy. It’s not trendy. It’s not that latest trend that you’re going to read about. Yet what really makes things work is the nuts and bolts.

Kim Bohr:

Definitely.

Lois Sonstegard:

We talk about not being siloed, but then we don’t look at how do we bring those elements together so that they worked together. I think that’s the gift that you give organizations is you’ve really put some thought into how do you bring these together so they’re connected and can execute out of connectedness.

Kim Bohr:

Absolutely. You’re right, it’s always interesting when people sit down and say, “Well, we had all these initiatives we were going to accomplish last year and we didn’t really move the needle on many of them or any of them.” What’s exciting is it’s always fun to vision and to strategize and to say, “Okay, what’s the possibilities?” Then the expectation is that everybody will just get on board at the same level of excitement and just run with it.

Kim Bohr:

That’s just not how we work as humans. We have to be brought along in the process and kind of be sold into the ideas or gave [inaudible 00:23:43] compelling reasons why. That’s where as much as people want to put the time on the sexy side, they really then start to miss the big picture. The big picture is that well, your execution will just be pretty much guaranteed to fail if you haven’t put in place the thoughtfulness or the skills needed on the people side and then you haven’t really figured out how you’re going to put the process side together.

Kim Bohr:

You can’t really avoid it as much as it’s not as fun. It’s kind of the necessary evil to be able to then reap the rewards of that, all that fun strategy work that you did ahead of time.

Lois Sonstegard:

Kim, it’s sad to have our time almost up, because you have so much and so much to offer. I think from what I see in organizations, it is this execution is the disconnect, the lack of connectedness between different routes that creates so much unnecessary tension and overwhelm, because people are trying so hard to make things happen. If you don’t have that process and system in place that you’re speaking about, it is so difficult. Isn’t it?

Kim Bohr:

It absolutely is. I think what scares people is they don’t want to over process something. They don’t want to have process to where it slows them down. What I often remind them of is, well we’re not talking about this really refined, integral level of process. We’re talking about some really basic stuff like your consistency and your communication, how you deliver that message. Before you go and just send an email out to people, has there been context built around this announcement you’re going to give?

Kim Bohr:

It’s really going back to some fundamentals of process that then can really make such a tremendous amount of difference. I always like to say, “Let’s talk about the right level of process that perhaps isn’t in place today.” That’s really what we’re focused on. That’s going to give anybody the biggest result, if they can just get those basic pieces in place.

Lois Sonstegard:

Kim, we’re going to have to bring this to an end. You have some marvelous material that you’ve made available to people, two different things that are available.

Kim Bohr:

Yes.

Lois Sonstegard:

If you would just explain a little bit about what those are so our audience can use them, that would be wonderful.

Kim Bohr:

Absolutely. There’s the two pieces are relevant to anybody. Whether you’re leading people, business owner or even in an individual contributor, they’re both relevant. The first piece is a checklist of sorts around the seven most common reasons strategic plans fail in execution. Not just strategic plans but initiatives, your goals, that sort of thing.

Kim Bohr:

It runs through the seven, but it also gives a snippet of, if you’re experiencing this, consider this. It’s a good checkpoint. The second piece is a short video. It’s about eight minutes long and it gives some tips that anybody can put to use around, how do you message to get people on board with whatever you’re trying to roll out. Even if you’re as an individual contributor, you’re trying to convince somebody around an idea you have.

Kim Bohr:

It really takes you through the steps around taking people through so they’re current with you and they understand, okay, now I see why you’re trying to move us in this direction. Both of those are very practical and something I want to make sure that we can offer to your listeners if they are wanting to take this work a little bit further.

Lois Sonstegard:

If you indicate, we’ll have a place for you that you can put your comment in, send us an email, we will make these available or get you information so you can get this. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, Kim, is your workbook. It is titled what?

Kim Bohr:

It’s called, Successes, Failures and Lessons Learned. It is that 12 week guided journal and it is available on Amazon. If you put the title in, Successes, Failures and Lessons Learned, and put in Kim Bohr, B-O-H-R, you’ll be able to easily pull it up and take advantage of it right away.

Lois Sonstegard:

Super. Thank you, Kim, so much for your time, for your wisdom. I appreciate your pragmaticness about what you are providing, because I think it’s so much fun to talk about the lofty ideas of leadership and strategy. The reality is it’s in the execution that you win the battle. Thank you so much for what you’ve shared.

Lois Sonstegard:

Those of you who are listening, if you would like any of the information, you would like to be connected with Kim, we are glad to do that. Just let us know that, what you would like and we will send you information. Thank you so much for listening to us today, and we look forward to talking with you very soon again. Thank you, Kim.

Kim Bohr:

Thank you for having me. It’s been wonderful.