Leadership for Leaders: Business Coaching Improves the Bottom Line for Everyone.

Joe Luther  0:00  
Welcome to another friends in wonder podcast, a place where we invite you to wander with us about meaningful topics without judgment or limits, brought to you by two lifelong friends looking for insights through a lens of how can this help. I'm Joe Luthor. And I'm Vince Kern, and we're your hosts. Now let's wander and wander together.

Vince Kern  0:25  
Joe and I are in the different studios today, up here in big bay, Michigan on Lake Superior. And I'm doing today, Joe,

Joe Luther  0:33  
I'm doing great, how can I not be doing good and most beautiful lake on the planet and with my very good friend, Vince, and really excited about the topic of today's episode, because it also involves interviewing another good friend of ours, Paul teatro. And today's topic is something that's near and dear to my heart. It's about business coaching. And the reason I am excited about it is because in my business career, I've been able to utilize these kinds of services.

Vince Kern  1:07  
And how did that go for you in general?

Joe Luther  1:11  
Well, I mean, I think what's interesting, and it's just like, really any kind of personal growth, businesses are the same as, you know, human beings and relationships. And, you know, a lot of times people think that the success of a business is how much money you're making, or how successful you are at making money. But what we found in one of our businesses, in fact, the one that was the most successful at making money, was that it was the one in most need of business consulting and, and there's various kinds of business consulting, there's, as I'm sure I guess, we'll talk about but what we needed at the time was, we had like four entrepreneurial minded businessmen come together and create a business. And while the objective was to make money, what we found as we got to that objective is that we also have a lot of, like, personal infighting, we had grown our team to 3040 employees. And some employees knew that if they wanted to behave a certain way, that they could ask one owner, if they wanted to avoid certain consequences, or, you know, countability, they could ask another owner and, and so we ultimately had to learn how to navigate that. And so we brought in a business consultant at the time. And what was great about it, though, was it not only did it help our business, it just helped us all grow? Personally.

Vince Kern  2:48  
Yeah, it's so interesting that when we think of work, we don't always think of the personal happiness and value that we're bringing work brings. We're not programmed, we're programmed to think about goals and tasks and things. And it sounds like in your experience, goals, were a little off track, because the team wasn't pulling together. And you had to bring somebody in and address that is that what Well, I

Joe Luther  3:09  
think the word goals is probably one of the loaded topics of what today's discussion is going to be. Right. Because, you know, most In fact, I think Western civilization define success as how much money you make, and, you know, certainly in a business, that's an important metric. But, you know, there's a lot of unhappy people making money. And is it Are they unhappy because they've got a very dictatorial, you know, business management style, or are they unhappy? Because it's disorganized? You know, there's a lot of reasons you could be unhappy. But if you just use money as the measurement, you know, it doesn't often prompt your, you know, financially healthy business to take a good look at itself. And that's what you know, we had to do is we, you know, sometimes an owner might say, Well, why do we need to fix this, we're making plenty of money, well, we could probably be doing better, we could be happier, the business team could be doing better, and we aren't really realizing our full potential.

Vince Kern  4:23  
Yeah, you know, it's, you talk about people being happy and I think most people are happy when they are doing their personal best and it's hard to do that. It's hard to stay focused on doing your personal best. I mean, you know, you come up to play so we're sitting here looking at a sailboat going out on Lake Superior. And it's easy to see that the earth was when it's being its best is by, you know, allowing us to be in places like this and so a person to do their best you know, they have to be in a good environment as well and so important that the people enjoy what they do and I'm sure Our guest, Paul will illuminate us he's wears worn many hats in his career. And I think he's had a lot of success in in bringing his best to help other people be their best. And that's one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to him more today to find out how he does that, because it's not an easy task.

Joe Luther  5:20  
No, because I think part of the problem is, you know, it's, it's kind of like any, again, going back to the personal growth problem, and I think they even talk about it in, you know, 12 Step recoveries, it's the first thing is admitting that you need help, or, and I think a lot of times businesses, that's probably the first challenge, and I'm excited to talk to him about that. But, you know, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves at this point, because, you know, rather than us go back and forth about it, why don't we talk to Paul to Paul, I'm overjoyed to be able to briefly introduce Paul teatro, somebody who, both Vince and I have known our whole life, and has had a wonderful and very successful business career. He is a by education, he is an accountant, as well as an attorney. And by experience, he is a successful business person who has sold a business and built a couple of businesses and, and his, in his last five or 10 years has expanded his resume to being a strategic business coach for a company that he started called box car advisory.

Vince Kern  6:39  
Welcome, Paul. It's an honor to have you here today.

Paul Tetreault  6:42  
Well, good, good beer. Thank you, Vincent. Thank you, Joe. It's great to be here in your big bay studio.

Vince Kern  6:48  
I hope our green room was sufficient for your contractual requirements.

Paul Tetreault  6:51  
But I believe given the geographical locale, it was more than adequate.

Joe Luther  6:56  
Good. We were in our introduction, we were talking a little bit about my experience with the need for business coaching. And, you know, I, I briefly discussed how we are an entrepreneurial organization that was making progress financially, but was having difficulty in terms of, you know, realizing our our true potential, partly because we had some dysfunction going on with employees, but we knew kind of deep in our hearts that we weren't going to take what they call the next step. Until we got a little bit more organized. Vince was worked in, in, you know, some large corporations working for the media publishing and in news agencies. I think you had some experience with business coaching as well, right?

Vince Kern  7:52  
Yeah, well, I had a lot of experience with being the person that was responsible for achieving the in air quotes, goals, and then dealing with the leadership not driving those goals home. And so a lot of the people who were doing the goals were somewhat frustrated, because they felt like they were doing the work, but without any support from top leadership. So my perspective has always been sort of at the mid level guy helping to bring us interests together.

Joe Luther  8:21  
So yeah, I guess that kind of begs the question, then, Paul, how, you know, from our standpoint, you have an entrepreneur who is interested in growing his business. In other circumstances, you might have, you know, a team that's being managed, that wants a little bit more structure, how do you? How do you basically come into your work with a business?

Paul Tetreault  8:51  
Well, the way I try to present it to the client is when we first begin discussion is, you know, ask what, in what way? Would they like to see their business run better? What would they like to see differently? And are they getting everything that they want from their livelihood, and their livelihood is composed of, you know, the economic well being of themselves as well as the company but also what they get spiritually from this thing that we call work. But typically, what business owners experience our business leaders because I'm frequently called by them as well is they're suffering from definitely people issues. Business has a lot of people in it. So there's always people issues could be issues on anemic or inconsistent profitability or organizational structure. countability and discipline are big things. So these are usually the symptoms that draw people to want to work with a business coach or me. And so the way my approach is, is that I work with leaders Chip teams only pretty much 95% of the time. And I have them come into my session room. And it's like coming to the Mayo Clinic for annual checkup. And we check in on all these different variables of their business to see how they think they're doing and where they think there gaps are where they need to build strengths. And from that this visit to the May, Mayo Clinic or boxcar advisory, we come up with, you know, very specific tasks lists of what we need to focus on to be a better team.

Joe Luther  10:34  
Well, I guess that kind of dovetails into what we were talking about at the beginning. And that is, you know, how do you how does a business know when it needs help?

Paul Tetreault  10:45  
I think people come to a business coach for a multitude of reasons. And sometimes it's for glaring reasons, meaning they're not profitable enough, because that's what is the ultimate scoreboard. But it's also that they don't feel that the team works well together, the team doesn't communicate. They know, there are many unsaid things and every meetings or their or their meetings themselves aren't very productive. They're just good dialogue. Could be they're not consistently achieving their goals. These are all things that plague companies, because it's you're dealing with, you know, the ecosystem of people. And it's always a challenge to build teams.

Joe Luther  11:27  
And is, as we know, in life in general. And I'm sure it's extremely true in business where, you know, people are concerned about their livelihood. There's always a resistance to change, right, and people are afraid of, you know, they'd rather be, you know, stay with the devil they know, then expand into the unknown. So I imagine somebody your first meetings with businesses have a lot of different

Paul Tetreault  11:56  
flavors. Yeah, there's always an element of apprehension with some or all of the team because they are starting something that is unknown. It was a lot of uncertainty. Very few people have gone through this type of exercise, although that's growing, because business coaching has. But yeah, we're humans. So we're, we don't like change, we like the safety and what we know, even if it's not working for us. So right,

Joe Luther  12:20  
even if you're unhappy, you're still afraid of change.

Vince Kern  12:23  
You know, you talked about the business of business coaching. And I'd love to hear your sort of thoughts on the landscape of that, how it's evolved, maybe what it is now, and what distinguishes you maybe from other business coaches, in terms of what you bring, or what you see in the business itself?

Paul Tetreault  12:44  
Well, there are a wide variety of business coaching approaches and curriculums that you can follow, I think they all follow the same fundamental approach, meaning that you got to get some basic business instincts and tools down, Pat, I think where they differ is in their means of implementation. And that's where the nuances of hiring a business coach is, you know, critical, you got to make sure it's somebody that you can connect with, than somebody that is, has the requisite business depth to be able to dig in with your team on key issues and facilitate the dialogue to get to the real answer, not just the surface.

Vince Kern  13:28  
That's gonna be hard. I mean, that's there's got to be a lot of we've been talking about the opposition to change, but does that sometimes involve the very top level people as well,

Paul Tetreault  13:40  
while work with what is construed as a leadership team, so it's typically between four and maybe eight people at most, and they are the decision makers and the ones you know, chartered with the governance of the company. So that's, you know, who I work with. And my job is to get them to not give them the answer. My job is to facilitate the dialogue, to get them to the best answer for the company, and to get them out of their comfort zones and to dig in and identify what the real problem is because frequently the real problem is in that room,

Joe Luther  14:20  
right? And so that puts you in an awkward position. Sometimes I would imagine that you've got to be pretty frank and direct with the people who are really responsible for you being for you getting a paycheck.

Paul Tetreault  14:35  
Well, it can be a little bit awkward, but my position it's not because I don't I'm not emotionally invested. With the with the company, I am with the people. But, you know, one of the things that I'm trying to teach people is that the issues that affect their business, need to be viewed academically and not dragging in the human emotions of fear and Ego and self preservation, which makes the difficult conversations awkward. And I'm I teach teams to get away from that. And to focus on it as an active academic exercise. We'll deal with the people issue once we solve the root issue.

Joe Luther  15:18  
Yeah. So I think probably one of the really interesting challenges that you face is that you have a management team that's hired you, but may be the source of the problem. And so you've got to be brutally honest sometimes with, with how they need to change their behavior. How do you how do you navigate that?

Paul Tetreault  15:39  
Well, it's interesting, because people go through the, the extreme discomfort of hearing what the problem is, and frequently the problem is them, or a person in the room or multiple people in the room. But what I'm trying to teach them is that there are a lot of unsaid things in the room that is holding the entire team and company back, as well as haunting every one of them on their way home every night. And to just get it out there. And so one of the key things I think I teach people is how to how to communicate and say what's on their mind, but to do so constructively for the benefit of the business. And by doing so, what is once just uncomfortable and very awkward becomes we're just trying to make the business better.

Joe Luther  16:27  
Yeah, well, that's interesting.

Vince Kern  16:29  
Sounds like it makes the people better to, which is that whole circular thing of business and personal, there's, there's, you know,

Joe Luther  16:37  
taking a hard look at yourself,

Vince Kern  16:39  
taking a look at yourself and realizing that, you know, you spend a lot of time at work, so why not be quote unquote, happy, whatever that is how to different people find different things of value in an organization, when you're working with them, we value, you know, one thing over another from a leadership team,

Joe Luther  16:57  
it's that metric of money versus happiness.

Paul Tetreault  17:02  
Well, sure, I mean, you know, if you approach your livelihood as it just work, and you just need to grind it out, you're probably not going to be looking for a business coach, you're probably not going to enjoy working or working with a business coach, because you just want to punch your time clock, what we're trying to do is make your livelihood more of a rewarding experience, because we do spend 30 to 40% of our life at work. And this should be something that gives you purpose, and that sense of fulfillment that you've contributed, and you're part of a winning team, and a team that is accustomed to winning. So people look for different things. I've summarized it very simply, I think people want the exact same two things, we just define it differently. And what people want is they want prosperity. And they want a great place to work without a drama or BS, they want to be able to come in and do their work and have an opportunity tunity to be the best at whatever it is that they do no matter what it is. And that's what people want.

Joe Luther  18:05  
So how does the process work for you, then let's say that you are called into a typical client opportunity. How does it How does it work? I imagine there's different layers of you don't just jump right in and start fixing things, you've got to determine what the issues are first, and do you meet with a team? Or how does it work?

Paul Tetreault  18:27  
And so as I indicated, it's when they first come to my session room, it's like coming to the Mayo Clinic and what we're trying to do as an annual physical, see how healthy you are. So I follow a curriculum of about maybe 15 different topics that we have a discussion about where they think they're at, and how aligned is the entire team that's in my room with what they all think it all means. And one of the key things that we start out with in the first two or three hours of the first day is talking about their culture and their core values. And I always ask well, okay, so what are your core values, and it's very rare for anybody in the room to be able to recite all of them, you know, off the cuff. So right there, we have an issue that they think their core values are important. And yet none of the leaders know them. So we know we need to focus more on that. But there's about 15 different things, and every client is going to be different. But typically what happens is we spend three full days with just a leadership team, three full days, about maybe three to four weeks apart, checking in on all these topics. Some teams, it's two full days, some teams, it's three. And from that we have a very good idea of what we need to be focusing on to strengthen them as a team. But also through that process. We've identified the goals that they need to be focused on both short term and long term.

Joe Luther  19:58  
Interesting Do you think Do you find that people are hesitant at first to want to be honest and open? Or is it just a varied mix? Mixed Bag of

Paul Tetreault  20:10  
it's definitely a mixed bag. But it's more one of one of degree, I don't think I've ever encountered a team that is very open and honest with one another. We're human beings. And we're not wired to be necessarily Frank and very direct with our teammates, we don't want to say things that could be construed as harmful, or that might hurt someone's feelings or talk about their performance, or maybe challenge them on a plan that they have presented. Humans don't want to do those. We don't like confrontation do we? Know we don't. And so, so through the coaching experience, the goal is is to get them to realize that confrontation, or the word that Patrick Lencioni uses conflict, I like saying to set we'd like to have dissent in our dialogue, since stress test is our decision. And all we're doing is trying to find the best answer for the company. And so this idea of confrontation is really about getting to the best answer. And we should view that in a healthy construct.

Vince Kern  21:24  
Do you see that as like a milestone in the change of a team's progress? In other words, once they understand what you just said? Is that when the real fire kicks in?

Paul Tetreault  21:36  
Yeah, it definitely does. I've had probably half a dozen clients tell me that. And somewhere between the six and nine month mark of of our work together, they might say something along the lines of? Well, we aren't yet necessarily running a lot better as a business, but man, are we communicating better, and what they get from that is a lot less stress, because they don't go home and think, oh, I should have said this or I wish, you know, Bob, or Nancy wasn't always challenging my plans, and they feel defensive. All that goes away. And they all realize that they're on the same team pursuing the same thing.

Vince Kern  22:15  
So you've helped make their work life better, which helps make their whole life better? And how do you feel when you when that happens? I mean, that's kind of why you're in this business. I know, because, you know, we've talked about it before, but you've had a long career arc, and you're now helping people be their best, and I'm sure that's gonna be gratifying experience for you.

Paul Tetreault  22:38  
Yeah, tremendously. So I mean, I, my personality is one that needs a purpose. And so I tend to be a giver. And it's to me, it's just very, very rewarding when I, a team just says, we're done. And we're just so glad to be engaged with you, we're finally starting to function as a team or achieving our goals. I've talked to, you know, leaders who have called me, you know, they're on a drive home or something they want to, you know, use me as a sounding board for a particular topic to get to a better answer of how they're, they're sought trying to solve something, and they, before they hang up, they just say, this has been awesome. And it's just great to be working with you. And we, you know, for me, that's, that's extremely rewarding.

Joe Luther  23:22  
You know, the phrase that comes to my mind, when I hear you talk is empowering, that you're, you know, really giving the leaders and the business and even the employees an opportunity to be self empowered.

Paul Tetreault  23:37  
Well, yeah, myself, I'm very big on empowerment, I wasn't my business career, I was very good at holding people accountable. And, and, but also giving them the clarity of, of expectations. And then, you know, giving them the framework to be able to achieve that. And that framework is about empowerment. And I think most people want to work hard, and they want to do well, but they want to be able to do it. And that's where the empowerment part

Joe Luther  24:06  
is the success story. I'm sure you probably can't. Or you might be uncomfortable about talking specifics, with names or companies or anything like that. But how about give us, you know, the listener an idea of what is the success story feel like to you for a typical client?

Paul Tetreault  24:24  
Well, I don't think there's any such thing as a typical client and the portfolio of clients I have is indicative of that because it ranges from a charity that it's about a million a year to a four and a half billion dollar private equity groups. There's no typical client. But I would say that most companies that begin work with me are companies that are doing okay. They're, they're, you know, their their profit is okay. It's usually somewhere right around eight to 10%. They're grown a little bit but, you know, they just know they can be a lot better. Something's Scale. Yeah, there's just some funky and they're just not zeroing in on what the issue is. And they just need need a different voice in the room. And so when they start to be engaged with me, we literally just start sharpening their saw and saying, Okay, what do we need to work on. And one by one, we knocked down where their weaknesses are and build their strengths up. And after about a year, we do a look back. And instead of just looking for issues, we're saying, hey, what Well, what did we do really well, this year, we start listing that out. And also in the team, they start to say, Wow, we we've got a little swagger here, we we actually know what we're doing. And they feel it, they feel confident as a team. Now, instead of finger pointing as a result, they know the flywheel is beginning.

Vince Kern  25:50  
Change is inevitable. And so people are always going to be going through change. I'm curious about, do you have any perspectives on how the last few years of COVID has changed? People, their business, your business in general? I mean, there's a lot of talk about, you know, work, remote relationships and team relationships. But what's your insight into that sort of broad topic?

Paul Tetreault  26:18  
So COVID, affected everybody. And we're still seeing the effects of that. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with a client yesterday who just said that the kids at her her children's school are just suffering so much from COVID. So that's, I think, the real sad part of it from business though business, you have to be a survivor, you have to be adaptable. And so I don't think any business plan anticipated a pandemic, at least none to my knowledge. And so there's an awful lot of pivoting that went on and some of it good, some of it not so good. But I think business DAPT did very well, I mean, just look at what restaurants did. I mean, a lot of restaurants now probably prefer to just do carry outs, they've got their models out.

Joe Luther  27:03  
Less service seems to be the norm.

Paul Tetreault  27:06  
DoorDash is very popular, Uber Eats. As matter of fact, I just picked up, you know, a week or so ago from my family, something from one of the great Asian restaurants in our community. And the bag we picked up was a tamper proof bag, which I had never seen before. So some Yeah, it's an embrace, they put the food in this bag, and it gets heat sealed. So it can't be open, like by a DoorDash. Driver. So it gives, you know, the consumer a little greater sense of security, but somebody identified, there is an opportunity there. So that that I think is you know, one of the good things that came out of it. But I think the other thing that it will come out of the pandemic, it's going to take a while to shake out while probably years. But this idea of working from home taught people that work means different things now, and it doesn't mean that you go in into the office every day or the plan, it might mean that you know your work is going to be more fluid. And even some of the more draconian leaders I work with were at work from home was no friggin way are now saying, you know, it's not so bad.

Joe Luther  28:12  
Yeah. So how would you? I mean, just to continue on Vince's question, how do you know manage during a pandemic, bringing a team together? Do you have like, literally tools that you use for? Is it just a zoom? Or is there some other way? Like, how do you now you've got people remote? And you're trying to coach them? Does that cause concerns about people being frank? In other words, do you have to have everybody in a room? Or can you do it virtually.

Paul Tetreault  28:46  
But I do do virtual sessions and I did quite a bit early on in the pandemic. And like everyone else, I had to learn how to have a eight hour virtual session. And so my session room is probably have about 30,000 hours of equipment in it to make sure that's a great experience. I have multiple cameras sound system.

Joe Luther  29:07  
Why multiple cameras? Because I I'm the reason I'm asking is that I am I envision that every management teams got a bunch of different personalities. And some people like to hide some people like to take the spotlight. So do you navigate that to make sure that the the people are comfortable hiding come out of their shell?

Paul Tetreault  29:31  
Well, that's the job of a facilitator to do that to make sure that everyone is engaged into the process. I mean, in the work I do, if you're not engaged in the process, I will challenge why you are there. Because if you're not engaged and you can't contribute, but this idea of virtual can mean different things. And typically, my preferences is that we are either all virtual or we are are all present. Now, occasionally, somebody is out of state and they can't make an end. So one or two people on a team of six to eight might be virtual, in which case, they'd be on my big screen TV. And that's where I would have multiple cameras in my session room, one of which is, you know, activated by five voice, so the camera will pivot to whoever speaking, but to come up with different roles as an example. And this just what we've learned being you know, more in a virtual world is for teams unless you if you don't have a setup like mine, which very few companies do that if there's a group of more than two people that are engaging on camera with another group, everybody should be on their own laptop, that makes it a more virtual experience for everybody. So even though you have four people one conference room, and you know, four people, maybe virtually the four people that are in the conference room have their own laptop, and camera, and that way everyone looks uniform on the screen, which makes it a lot easier for people to feel more engaged. So that there are these things that we're learning as a world on how to make the virtual experience much, much more effective, you know, maybe one of the cameras I have is for my whiteboard. So I can go to my whiteboard and write on it. And people can see exactly what I'm writing. And I can I can send them a screenshot of it so that they have it for their files. So virtual, I mean, when I first did it, I was terrified, and I begrudgingly did it. But once I got the right tools in place, I'm very adept at it. And in some cases, I would rather do it for Tripoli. Interesting.

Vince Kern  31:47  
So and you have a statewide business to I mean, you're not just dealing with clients in one location. So you're dealing with people all over the state, right? And I imagine that plays into that aspect as well.

Paul Tetreault  31:59  
Yeah, it does. I have one client that's 300 miles away, and they are very thoughtful. And sometimes they will say there's no need to drive, you know, 300 miles to visit us, we can do this particular session virtually. And so I'm grateful for that kind of relationship, but I'm indifferent now, virtual or otherwise, as a matter of fact, I'm contemplating building a library of virtual sessions that other clients can access, you know, on, you know, learning a particular tool,

Vince Kern  32:35  
different topics, different tools, how to address x by doing this kind of I don't,

Paul Tetreault  32:39  
as a facilitator, the only time I don't like to do virtual is when I first meet with the team, I because I don't know the people, and you need to feel the tension, learn to feel the tension, but learn their body language a little bit and get him so that you can identify when somebody is maybe struggling with a concept, which is hard to do when you only have a headshot. But also, you know, when they're saying yes, but they really mean No, I mean, those are things that a facilitator and a coach has to be, you know, identifying and addressing in some way.

Vince Kern  33:13  
So, Paul, you've had a long business career, you're a lawyer, you've had a business degree, you've worked in several different places, and I'm sure you found gratification in what you did along the way. How was this experience, you know, compared to other things that you've done in your career? And now that you're helping others be their best?

Paul Tetreault  33:34  
Um, I know, in some ways, I don't think it differs that much. I mean, when people say, How long have you been a business coach, I say I've been one for over 30 years, because when I built my first business, that's what I was. Most leaders are business coaches. And nowadays, you need to be a better coach, and you do a manager, because that's what particularly younger set are expecting. So if I look back at my career, I was business coach, you know, through as I built my own business, and then after I sold it when I was part of core, you know, corporate America, and those are absolutely a great experience. As a as a business model. This is all I do. And I can you know, nimbly move from one client to the next either in half day increments or day by day. And I'm, you know, very comfortable doing that.

Joe Luther  34:25  
What, tell me what's your joy? Like? What, what makes you excited to get up in the morning? You know, as part of this new experience,

Paul Tetreault  34:35  
what what gets me excited is, is being able to work with a group of people who are capable, they're competent, what they're doing, but for some reason, they're not in harmony. They haven't figured out how to work with a synchronization that delivers results for them the results that they're looking for, and they just need somebody to help them with that process. And so that But that kind of work where I have a very committed group of people that say, we know we can be better, and we want to be better. So help us get there. And when I can participate in that process, it's particularly rewarding. You know, I indicated earlier, you know, where a business leader called me on our way home, and we walked through a very complex employee issue that she had. And at the end, you know, she just said, God, this, this just been awesome. I've lost so much sleep in the last three days because of this. And I just feel better knowing that I've done a sanity check on this. And I feel that what I need to do next, I can do so with greater conviction. And that makes me feel good that I help someone do that. I had another client, where I was working with he and his sales team. So I wasn't working with the leadership team on this. And really, what they needed was just a lot more clarity, not only on the goals that they have, but what were the metrics that they were going to be measured against, and to help facilitate that dialogue. And by the end of the day, at a group of seven people that had been been in this destructive tension for years, and at the end of the day, they suddenly have greater clarity on Okay, now we have a better idea of what we what we need to do, how we're going to go about doing it, and how we're going to define whether we were winning? And sometimes it seems like that's all sounds so simple. And yet, when you're dealing with teams of people, it's very complicated. Yeah, people

Joe Luther  36:34  
that are afraid to, you know, to change or to or to say, what's really on their mind,

Vince Kern  36:39  
once that change has taken place? Does it always stay in place?

Paul Tetreault  36:44  
No, no, it doesn't. Some teams are more skilled at that than others, you know, some of the changes don't, don't become internalized. And that's what I tried to get them to view it as this is a better way to lead your work life. So you have to constantly embrace it. Because in today's world, change is never ending. It's always coming at you. But you need to embrace the changes that we've proved proven in our work together, that this is a benefit to the company. And you know, we got to hold each other accountable to doing the things that are best for the company,

Joe Luther  37:21  
you use the analogy. It's like going to the Mayo Clinic and getting a checkup. I imagine to follow that analogy. When you first start, there may be a lot of interventions. But then afterwards, if the patient's healthy, it's maybe just an annual checkup.

Paul Tetreault  37:40  
I have one client was that is like that, although I don't think we only meet once a year. And I think it's more that they just prefer to facilitate the quarterly meetings on their own, which I'm fine with. I don't think it's best and neither do they. But it seems to, to be working for them. I have one client that I did some advisory work with before I became a business coach, and they found out as to a business coaching, they asked me to do that with him as well. Why? Because this is an extremely well run company. consistent growth, consistent profitability, very few people issues. And the CEO answered very immediately, and it was, well, I want to see how great we can be. So we want to be pushed. And that's exactly what happened. They they went from a company of about 18 million to over 30 million and about a year and a half on they're marching this year towards 50.

Joe Luther  38:40  
Yeah, I think that's an important, you know, maybe to kind of tie this up. We're kind of near the end here. But that's an important thing, I think to illustrate at the bar in order to not illustrate but to emphasize at the end of this is that it's obvious when a failing company needs help. It's not as obvious when a company that's seems to be humming along. needs help. And I think, you know, as I've observed businesses over the years, I think that's probably, you know, the real challenge is getting people who don't recognize that they need improvement to, to want to better themselves.

Paul Tetreault  39:23  
Yeah, well, you know, if you're accustomed to working in a messy kitchen, having a clean one might not make a difference to myself, I don't like to work with companies that are, you know, on a breakeven path, because they're barely surviving and coaching is a turnaround work. It shouldn't be. And, you know, I want to work with teams that are really committed to change, which means both individually and as a team, and to be able to have the grit and determination to implement the change and stick with it.

Joe Luther  39:58  
That's great.

Vince Kern  40:00  
Well, this has been really exciting and interesting, Paul, is there anything that, you know, that we haven't talked about yet that you think it's important in terms of what you do and your business and the mission,

Paul Tetreault  40:14  
you know, you know, my, my mission is just to help people get more out of their livelihood. I mean, I've been just so blessed in my life that for the vast majority of my business career, I've enjoyed what I'm what I've done. And when I hear people say they're miserable in their work life, I just want to plead with them to find something else to do, this is not a way you should live, live your life. And that has a toxic effect, you know, around all the people that they work with. So basically get out of the company. But the work I do is about, you know, helping people have a better life. And, and part of that is by having a more enjoyable work life or livelihood, whatever you want to call it, but also to achieve greater goals, which leads to greater prosperity, which ultimately, that's what everybody wants, even though we might define it differently, might have different goals in that regard. But being part of a prosperous company feels good. And being part of a team that's all working together and believing in the same things and doing the work of work. For the same reasons is, I think, very, very fulfilling to people. And if I can help them get there, I'm a lucky person to be able to do that task.

Joe Luther  41:35  
How does how do people find out more about boxcar advisory,

Paul Tetreault  41:40  
you can go to my website, which is boxcar advisory.com, or boxcar business coaching.com. And you get enlighten yourself a little bit more about me my program there or its list of testimonials, and feel free to reach out on your own, you don't need my introduction, call them and ask them anything you want.

Vince Kern  41:59  
Wow, this has been this has been really cool. You know, we really thank you for coming to our big base studio, replete with some ambient noise and other things. And hopefully, you can join us on another occasion, and we can continue to talk about relevant issues. The Green Room is all prepared for your lunch. I think it was a lobster bisque that you ordered. We thank you so much for being part of our show today.

Paul Tetreault  42:25  
Thank you for having me here in big bay.

Joe Luther  42:29  
That was great. Yeah,

Vince Kern  42:32  
that's a very enlightening interview with someone who's really making a difference in people's lives.

Joe Luther  42:38  
Yeah. And you know, as they say, we spend eight hours or more a day doing doing work. And then when you break down the fact that it's our waking hours, it's really half of our of our days devoted to work.

Vince Kern  42:54  
Yeah. And I can't imagine that if you're not feeling good at work, and not doing your best at work, that you're gonna come home with a great attitude, either. So it impacts everything that we do.

Joe Luther  43:06  
Right? Yeah, he was when we talked about empowering, you know, the the management team, you know, that is very measurable in goals and objectives for the business. But when you also learn how to evolve as a manager, you're probably evolving as a person as well. And instead of being that person that has a lot of frustration inside of him, because of half his day being spent, you know, unhappy, you learn that you can be happy at work. Well, you take that home with you, I'm sure.

Vince Kern  43:42  
And what I found interesting about what Paul does, is strictly working with the leadership team bringing accountability to that getting better. I mean, he doesn't just come in and give a presentation and say, Here you go, here's how you get better, which I've experienced so many times, and then people just go Oh, there's another one of those. Right? We just had a great meeting. Yeah, we just had a great meeting. And and you know, what Paul is doing is, is holding these holding the organization accountable for being their best,

Joe Luther  44:17  
right, and bringing in measurement tools, because like I said, at the start of this, too often businesses measure themselves with the amount of money that they're making. But that isn't always the goal of a business, especially

Vince Kern  44:32  
today, people and when we were younger, we'd started tended to stay in jobs for a long time. And you know, now people are looking and saying I want to go there because of the value that they have for me as a person. Yeah, and then environment.

Joe Luther  44:50  
Well, I think if there's anything that's, you know, a great positive change in you know, this new working in environment we have post COVID. It's this idea that, you know, people can be, you know, remotely working and still accountable and still productive. And I thought that was interesting too is how Paul has adapted his coaching business to embrace Oh, man, the concept of

Vince Kern  45:20  
Yeah, remotely. And you know, this is a guy who had to go out and learn all kinds of new technology to bring that to his clients, and is so passionate about what he does, that he did that, you know, and you talk about getting out of your comfort zone

Joe Luther  45:36  
is still real, because I think, you know, I think there used to be a commercial years ago, where they, they talked about how all the business is being done on the phone, and you got to get out there and meet people. And that's, that was really, you know, an old school metric is that you have to get on the road and do things. And well, I think that's still true today. The other reality is that it doesn't have to be

Vince Kern  45:59  
right, right. And, you know, if you look at Paul's client list, I'm boxcar advisory, he's no dared not for us to say, but he's worked with a very diverse group of clients. And

Joe Luther  46:11  
I think if I remember correctly, he's got businesses that have a total of seven employees, and, and probably businesses that if you, you know, go across the whole business portfolio have 1000s of employees.

Vince Kern  46:24  
Yeah. And so my takeaway from today's show from a, you know, sort of a growth lens, the lens of doing better for yourself to make the world better, ultimately, you know, that ripple effect, and Paul certainly made a lot of ripples in the sea of helping make things better is that is that it's all interconnected, work, personal, everything. It's all interconnected. And it's so hard.

Joe Luther  46:52  
Yeah. And I think that's right, because, you know, I was thinking about it, while he was explaining his services, that there's probably a lot of business coaches out there that don't even know the service exists. You know, because most business coaches are, they kind of have a gunslinger mentality, right. They're, they're risk takers. And, you know, they, they started a business for any one, various reasons. And, but they have kind of a strong sense of self and confidence. So that it's almost like when it comes to, you know, admitting, personally, that you need therapy, these business owners don't like the idea of really of, you know, even thinking that they need business coaching, but as Paul explained it, it's not to expose any kind of deficiency, but really, rather, as a sense, or as an as a tool to help your personal growth and your business growth.

Vince Kern  47:54  
Yeah, exactly. And if you think about it from a therapy standpoint, and we can ask the question, you know, how does this help, right? I mean, the therapist is generally working one on one, or with maybe a married couple, or family and but generally speaking, it's a small group where an organization is a very large group. So not only does it help the business and the bottom line, but it helps a lot of people,

Joe Luther  48:20  
right. And every time you take a look at yourself, either through, you know, a business coach or a therapist, or through a good self help book, you're, you're you're improving yourself, you're improving the way you look at yourself and the way you look out at the world. So, you know, I just think it's, that's what makes it interesting. From my standpoint, it's like, okay, business coaching. How is that really helpful? Well, it's helpful in a lot

Vince Kern  48:48  
of ways, helpful in a lot of ways. A big could be a small ripple that creates bigger ripples and the joy of human beings. Exactly. That's what it's all about. Right? Well, that was fun, Vince. Yeah. Hey, Joe, have a great time until we sit down in the studios wherever we are, again. Looking forward to it. Thanks for listening, everybody. And remember, if you are interested in looking up anything more about flux car advisory, it's simply bucks car advisory.com.

Joe Luther  49:21  
Well, so ends another episode of Friends in wonder, we want to thank you for listening.

Vince Kern  49:26  
If you'd like to listen to more episodes, provide feedback questions, or even suggest topics you'd like us to wonder about in future episodes. Be sure to check us out at friends in wonder.com.

Joe Luther  49:38  
We'd also be grateful if you subscribe, like or share this podcast

Vince Kern  49:43  
until next time, I'm Joe. And I'm Vince and we're friends and wander