Archive for category: Thought Leadership

The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, which means to call or summon. For this month’s huddle, we spent some time with John Coffin about his calling and how we can work together to embrace ours.  

 For most people, their career journey looks like climbing a mountain. It’s a steady and consistent rise upward to larger companies and more prestigious roles. That’s the process that John Coffin took throughout his career as he climbed the corporate ladder in the banking world. While the names on his business card may have changed – Chemical Bank to Chase, Wachovia to Wells Fargo – his roles were similar, serving larger institutional clients as they increased market share. Moving to Atlanta in the early 2000’s led to a shift in focus, as he transitioned into the commercial banking side, where he served smaller businesses and saw the passion of these entrepreneur business leaders who poured their heart and soul into their nascent businesses.  

 In 2006, he decided to take a leap of faith by leaving his job at Wells Fargo and making a big bet on these types of companies when he and a few others walked away from their jobs and started Atlantic Capital Bank, which would focus on these smaller-medium sized businesses in the Atlanta area. Atlantic Capital was the largest startup bank in US history, with an initial capital raise of $125 million. Opening its doors in May of 2007, John focused on recruiting a 40 person team to implement the vision. When starting a bank from scratch, he wanted to find people who were drawn to the entrepreneurial spirit of those they served. Drawing people from across the career spectrum, it was important to find people who were bought into the vision of the new venture.  

 Over the next decade, Atlantic Capital grew to a $2.9 billion bank. Through mergers and acquisitions, it shifted from a private company to one that was publicly traded on NASDAQ. This shift came at an inflection point for John and gave him the inspiration for his next chapter, serving business owners and entrepreneurs in a different way along their growth journey.  

 Today, John is the co-founder and President of Practical Growth Advisors, which provides strategic advisory and forecasting services to 85+ privately held companies to enable them to grow faster with confidence. Typically, companies under $250 million don’t have a broad executive team, so John and his team come in and help entrepreneurs crystalize their vision and they put in place the processes needed to grow with intention in a smart and sustainable way. 

 John shared with us some of the lessons learned on his journey. He started by asking us to identify three people we admire and what attributes we admire most of each. For John it was: 

• Teddy Roosevelt: action-oriented, asked questions and then proposed the “what if”, big thinker 
• Martin Luther King, Jr: courageous, excellent communicator, challenges people 
• His mother: kind, curious and stubborn (this is a positive) 

We then ranked our top three attributes from that list, which John identified as bias toward action, desire to go big and being a challenger. These attributes are ones that have served John as he has progressed throughout his career, and he tries to emulate them and instill them in others.  

According to John, great ideas, great teams and great execution are critical to successful growth. He shared how many great teams are like the spirograph we played with as kids. The spirograph drew perfectly geometric, yet elaborate shapes with the help of gears as guides. As you change pen colors, the shapes developed more detail and depth. While all of the pens operated independently, they were joined by the surrounding gears and together created a beautiful image.  

 We appreciate the time John spent with us as we work to discover and develop our vocare and help great businesses grow.

This month, we did something a little different with our monthly huddle. Instead of sharing the wisdom of some of the amazing people who’ve come to share their insights with us (make sure to go back and read them!), we want to share something from our heart about our call to service.

Here at The Grant Partners, we are committed to a set of core values that drive everything we do. To be honest with you, pretty much every company says that these days … which is fantastic! When it becomes commonplace for companies to write down AND live their core values, then the world is moving in the right direction! We become jaded by watching the news and seeing moral and ethical failings of leaders across the business spectrum. Sometimes it is beneficial to just remind ourselves that there are far more companies who are doing great things than those who are not.

As we all strive to have a positive impact on the marketplace and our community, we often need to come back to the values that ground us and remind ourselves that they are the mirror we must look to daily. For us, one of those values is that we are Purpose Driven. We define that by being “committed to excelling, knowing that we’re serving an audience of one and it’s our pledge to be worthy of this opportunity.” This anchors us and serves as a constant reminder of where we fit in this universe. We serve a God who created us and he calls us to serve.

For many, the idea of service is usually constrained to things like building a habitat house, doing a park or river cleanup day or passing out meals at a food bank. These are all wonderful ways to give back and can be amazingly powerful experiences, but we don’t have to limit service to those projects. From the business aspect, taking the God-given skills that have made us successful in the marketplace and using them to help organizations who can’t normally afford those services is a great way to give back. It sounds so simple, but so often we miss this way to give our time and talents to make our communities better.

Here at The Grant Partners, one place where we’ve taking this approach to service is with the Westside Future Fund (WFF), which exists to help revitalize the Historic Westside of Atlanta. Made up of five distinct communities – Vine City, English Avenue, Ashview Heights, Atlanta University Center and Just Us, the Westside has served as the breeding ground for some of Atlanta’s most impactful leaders – most notably Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – who raised his young family in Vine City. Rooted in the vision of Dr. King’s “Beloved Community,” the WFF helps residents on the Westside renovate and afford quality housing in the area. They also partner with other neighborhood organizations to advocate for community health and wellness, safety and security, and efforts to holistically improve quality of life.

To truly accomplish this bold vision, it requires the support of so many. That’s where we (and maybe you!) come in. Here at The Grant Partners, we have supported the WFF by using our core skillset (executive search) to help recruit inspired leaders to the organization and they work tirelessly to bring the vision to life. So many other Atlanta companies supported the WFF in a similar manner, which is why the WFF is making so much progress toward accomplishing their mission.

Another quote from Dr. King brings us back to that core value of service. He once said that “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

I am sure that your company has a set of core values, and they are the bedrock of your culture. You also have a group of talented people with a heart to serve. When we can pair up their God-given talents with organizations that are in desperate need of those abilities, great things can happen.

Are search consultants crisis counselors? What about accountants, construction foreman or teachers? According to Bryan Harris, this month’s guest for our team huddle, the answer would be a resounding yes, we just need to change the way we think about crisis.

Bryan is a longtime friend of The Grant Partners. Bryan spent 17 years at Jackson Spalding, which was where he first met Ryan Grant, who worked for a client of the agency.

When I began my entrepreneurial journey with The Grant Partners, Bryan became one of the sounding boards for our team as we grew. We’ve been able to serve some of the same clients over time, including the College Football Hall of Fame, Atlanta Braves, The Varsity, Padgett Business Services and others, so Bryan’s visit to the office was like welcoming an old friend into the living room.

Bryan led the sports practice at Jackson Spalding and, starting in 2020, took over leadership of the agency’s crisis practice. In that role, he helped organizations around the country manage through the host of issues that impacted the world over the past three years. 

In February of this year, Bryan left to start his own firm called 25 Hits. He talked about how hard it was to leave an agency where he had spent 17 years (he still serves as a strategic partner with Jackson Spalding on certain key accounts where he played a large role in the past), but he really believed that it was important to refocus on the sports industry where he had deepest ties and could use his 20 years of experience to impact organizations in a new way.  

Our lunch discussion revolved around the word crisis and how terrifying it is for some people. Throughout his career, Bryan heard many talented team members say they were not “crisis” people, which struck him as odd. These were mothers and fathers who managed households with multiple kids, coached youth baseball and soccer teams, cared for ailing parents and planned elaborate trips with their friends. While these may not fall in the category of crisis, they are complex problems that need solving. 

For that reason, Bryan prefers the term issues management rather than crisis. In his words, “Not every issue is a crisis, but every crisis is an issue that needs to be managed.” In the end, an issue is just a problem that is looking for a solution. Few people wake up in the morning looking for a crisis to manage, but nearly everyone can get excited about helping others solve problems.

Bryan helped us look at our world, executive search, and see that we are doing issues management every day. Whether replacing a long-time leader, helping re-evaluate an organization’s management structure or facilitating rapid growth, we are helping organizations solve a problem that is vital to their future success. 

In industries like ours, the goal should be to move from contracted consultant to trusted advisor. Bryan used the example of how metal is shaped into items like golf clubs. The first way is casting. That is where hot metal is poured into a mold. It is faster and easier to do, but casting can produce uneven results and have weak spots that can eventually break. The other production method is called forging. This is where metal rods are heated and hammered into shape. This takes more effort and takes longer, but produces stronger, more consistent results. We may be hired (cast) as a consultant to do a job, but through the fire of a complex issue, a relationship is forged, and we move into that role of trusted advisor.

Some traits that he has found valuable while helping clients manage complex issues include:

• We need to listen to Ted Lasso and learn to be a goldfish. No issue is managed perfectly, and we can’t let yesterday’s “could’ve been better” negatively affect what we do today. Have a short memory and move on.
• We need to be like Lloyd and Harry and ask the dumb question. Many times, we are brought in because everyone inside the decision-making room thinks the same way. Someone needs to ask the “dumb” question no one else is asking.
• Don’t believe you can be David Copperfield and make the issue magically go away. Your goal is not to make things disappear, but to help the client manage through the issue and open their doors tomorrow.
• Learn to be like Elsa and Let it Go. As problem solvers, we are brought in many times when times are tough, and spirits are down. We can’t let the issues of our clients weigh on us and prevent us from being present and joyful away from work. They need us at our best and we must learn to put their issues on the shelf when we are with those we love so we can come back whole tomorrow.

In the end, Bryan reminded us that our job, at its core, is to serve our client in their time of need. Crisis counselors are problem solvers who help their clients dig out of the deepest pits so that they can be with them to celebrate after their biggest victories. 

Benjamin Franklin once famously said “The handshake of the host affects the taste of the roast.” 

No one understood this more than Truett Cathy, who created the Chick-fil-A sandwich in a three-stool diner called the Dwarf House in Hapeville, Ga. While the sandwich he created was incredibly tasty, he knew what enhanced the flavor far more than your favorite sauce was the smile on the face of the person who handed it to you and a gracious “My pleasure…” that followed. It was those personal touches that built a bond with their customers that sustains the brand to this day.

That consistent experience at Chick-fil-A isn’t by accident. It has been curated across more than 50 years of exceeding the expectations of their customers. One of the architects of that experience is Elizabeth Dixon, who shared her insights with our team at this month’s huddle.

Elizabeth first worked with Chick-fil-A in 2004, when she led the creation of their Corporate Wellness Program through Cooper Aerobics. By 2015, she was serving inside Chick-fil-A’s corporate office, working to refine their customer experience program. The key to crafting this experience was identifying the problems that customers faced and creating a mindset with their team members to find real solutions to those problems. 

One relevant insight she shared was how Chick-fil-A created a culture that empowered employees to take ownership of their job and ensure that each customer had a great experience. If something went wrong, the team member was empowered to make it right, and then they went above and beyond by giving the customer a “Be Our Guest” card to encourage them to come back. 

This feeling of empowerment leads to another key mindset – engagement. 

When people feel empowered, they step into the void and engage the tough issues. They become problem-solvers. She noted how good leaders distinguish between people problems and process problems. People problems can be addressed at the personal level. Process problems allow engaged team members to thrive if leaders create high challenge, high support environments. 

Engaged team members are encouraged to work through the issues and make real, tangible improvements. Anyone who has ever been through a Chick-fil-A drive-thru and seen team members walking the line with iPads has seen firsthand how seemingly insurmountable problems can be solved with a little creativity. 

In August of 2022, Elizabeth took this mindset into a different arena when she joined the Trilith Foundation as Executive Director. The foundation was created by Chick-fil-A Chairman Dan Cathy as a companion to Trilith Town and Trilith Studios, the latter of which is the second-largest film and television studio in North America. While the venue may be different, the principles of creating remarkable customer experiences has not changed. 

We could have spent hours with Elizabeth as she shared lessons from her career. Fortunately, she has put many of them in her new book, The Power of Customer Experience. Our team will be diving into her book and putting the lessons into practice as we aim to serve our customers better every day, just like Truett did.

A few years ago, the New York Times wrote a story on one of the most ubiquitous elements in football that was disappearing in front of our eyes – the huddle. For many, this is just a natural byproduct of an evolving game. It just removes an element that slowed the game down, which means less plays and less opportunities to score.

Many will argue whether this is a good or bad thing on the football field, but in growing organizations, the huddle is invaluable. As teams grow and expand, it is natural to feel like movement is progress and stopping, just for a moment, can bring that momentum to a halt. Unfortunately, that constant motion can be what causes breakdowns in communications and stifles a healthy culture.

Here at The Grant Partners, one of our core values is “Make it Better Together.” It’s hard to get better together if we don’t intentionally stop what we are doing and actually come together as a group. So, in 2023, we are committing to doing that every month and leaning into that core value.

At our first Huddle of the year, we were honored to be joined by David Hoyt, from The Table Group. The Table Group was founded by best-selling author and pioneer of the organizational health movement Patrick Lencioni. Patrick, David and their team are driven to make organizational health a reality in companies and organizations everywhere. Their fundamental principle, which we often share with our clients, is that a healthy organization achieves greater results, builds a more loyal customer base, and develops fulfilled employees.

The exercises and applications David walked us through facilitated candid and honest conversations. As a team, we all left knowing each other better and with set goals to hold each other accountable and make our team a shared success.

A quote often shared by Lencioni is, “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, any time.” Never has this been more evident than in the 1936 Olympics. Chronicled in the book The Boys in the Boat, the 1936 U.S. Olympic Rowing team shocked the world by winning the gold medal despite unfathomable odds. One of the more enduring images of that team is of the eight shabbily-dressed athletes huddling with their coach prior to the final race. That moment of coming together before separating to do their individual jobs led to one of the greatest athletic triumphs in Olympic history.

While we may not win gold medals or have books and movies written about us, we believe, like those boys on the boat, that taking a moment to stop and come together make us a better team and allow us to serve our clients more effectively.

Make it Better Together.