Building Profitability featuring Lisa L. Levy - Founder and CEO of Lcubed Consulting

everybody's busy nothing gets done is a big huge sign that there's an opportunity for improvement [Music] without further ado going to tonight's guest lisa l levy founder and ceo of lcube consulting established in 2009 just going on close to 12 years now the l cubed adaptive transfer uh transformation framework provides strategic clarity and team enablement to deliver results this this approach helps companies exceed business objectives by optimizing processes and aligning culture while fostering creativity and innovation now by the way this sounds like you know like what's going on we're gonna unpack this each facet builds the foundation for long-term success connecting vision to date to daily activity lise also wrote a book future proofing cubed it's all about why processes work and why they don't work sometimes or when they don't work and when they're needed most so on tonight's edition we will discuss improving productivity refining process bolstering profitability now that applies to every business if someone doesn't feel that that relates to them then i guess you know listen you can switch the channel but we want you to stay because lisa l levy has a lot to share with us lisa thank you for joining me here on tonight's edition of mind your business yitzhak it's my great pleasure to be here thanks for the invitation thank you so you wrote a book and you run l cubed consulting could you just you know go about how did it all come about i had it all come about did you work in corporate america did you see the you know them try and then fail at certain things and building process first established a framework about your background absolutely so i started my career in it in project management all about getting things done implementing new systems solving problems with technology but it didn't really always work and i'm a curious person by nature so i started to wonder why we have all these great technology solutions but they don't actually solve real problems and i started to roll it back and understand that well technology enables process if you don't know what your process is technology can't do anything to help except make fast bad happen faster and then looking at it right we need our people people need to know what they're doing and how to do it so i really i started to think and went okay so the equation is people plus process times technology equals strategic results and it's a sequence of events that absolutely has to happen so that was the catalyst for me leaving corporate was really wanting to to take that model to the market because it also breaks silos and i was watching executive teams bring in consulting groups to build their best version of their business process and the next group had a different consulting team and another consulting team and the reality was all they did was reinforce silos in corporations and that slows everything down wow now of course for those that are in corporate america or really in any type of business they could relate to what lisa just shared on many different levels many times in corporate america they're they they do have a solid process however maybe in silos whereas maybe you could even go to the fact that the sad reality that in most small businesses there's no process correct correct and so what we've done and what adaptive transformation is all about is taking some best practices from the big corporations project management process performance management internal controls organizational change management these are all important things in large corporations and they're more often than not absolutely missing in smaller businesses but they're just skills and capabilities things that anyone can learn and what we do with it is entirely different because we build it in to the culture of the company across all functions and all roles so it really sets a foundation for doing things differently now in doing the research about your firm there's a little story here about you had a porsche and you sold it you had a dream what was that defining moment tell us about that journey which is the reason why i'm asking you about that is because people are you know near t need to hear also the story behind the brand the story behind what was your vision what was that that aha moment that then catapulted what we know today as lq consulting absolutely and you know the story is it's a fun and it's really it's real right this happened um it was 2008 2009 right i was frustrated uh the reality was i was a couple of years past a divorce i had no responsibilities except to myself and i had this idea this i i don't even know that i'd call it a dream at that point in time right it was just this little kernel of an idea that there's a better way to help businesses position themselves to grow and scale over time and i said well i have i have a funding source i can do something and i took what was a status symbol right we're seriously right it was a porsche that i bought host divorce as my personal declaration of independence and i said what's more important than this thing is what i can possibly do for me for finding a purpose but to actually help businesses be better and so i did a complete 180 in my life and said i'm going to open a business and i am whatever comes i'm going to deal with it and if i can do it in the midst of a really nasty recession i think i might be on to something that's right that's right we all remember that i mean those that have been in business i mean our firm is in business almost 30 years uh 10 0908.0910 it was uh it was turbulent it was turbulent so you started right in that wow right in the in the vortex big hairy audacious goal and a little bit of crazy it's amazing what we can do and a little bit of crazy [Laughter] we're speaking with lisa l levy she wrote a book which of course is a is available on amazon future proofing cube the definitive guide to improving productivity refining processes and bolstering profitability lisa how can people find out about your consulting firm the easiest way to find us is on the web um l lcubedconsulting.com that's a mouthful you can also go to lisalevy.com and that'll take you to everything that is all things l cubed linkedin and youtube channels as well my guest is none other than lisa l levy she runs a very interesting firm and she actually wrote a book future proofing cubed okay and we're going to get into that and it's the definitive guide to improving pro productivity refining processes and bolstering profitability lisa is the founder and ceo of l cube consulting and lisa if it's okay i'm going to get right into the key question that is on everyone's mind and that is how do you set the stage for business transformation so one of the things that i like to do with my clients is ask them a question that's going to make them hopefully just a tad bit uncomfortable and it's are you willing to consider breaking everything [Laughter] can you repeat that because like what and i'm gonna hire you like seriously i'm gonna hire you hello are you willing to consider breaking everything such a great question right how people respond to that question tells me a lot of laughter is my favorite response because oh my gosh right it's a disruptive question disruptive question and so it's very revealing obviously however anyone answers it is revealing either correct either they're going to be open to it or that or or they're just going to fight you tooth and nail absolutely and what i want to do right is start a dialogue about truly being disruptive within your business being willing to challenge the status quo so that we can make a positive impact if the way where businesses functioning today is good enough they may not be the client i want to be working with and i may not be the consulting group that they want to do business with but being able and willing to consider thinking differently is the secret that i'm looking for when i'm my first question so how do i how does that set the tone for business transformation it means they're willing to consider the possibilities so that means that sometimes when you go into a business and you start transforming it you are breaking some things along the way that that need to get broken absolutely absolutely in the last year or to 19 months right we've learned so much needs to be let's use different words reimagined right the tried and true things we all learned along the way coming up over 30 years don't all work anymore and may not have actually worked for a really long time so we do need to to be disruptive and to challenge and shake things up and be a little bit illicit along the way to to get the results we're really looking for now in order this question really will help paint the picture for people out there to understand what business transformation is like and like you said along the way some things may happen uh you'll you'll root out and find some problems and then some areas that are a strength that they need to embellish and build upon question here is of course without sharing anything confidential perhaps you could share a story or two of a company that you took on this journey absolutely so i one story i'd like to share is a group that came to a team to my team asking to improve their customer journey now this wasn't a marketing exercise this was a group actually delivering services to a large base of customers and they had never once really considered the customer i said all right let's see see what we've got what's your process and they handed me this beautiful one-page visual process that it says in four easy steps here's what we do and how we get you the services that you need from us and it'll take us 16 weeks to do it and it right beautiful graphic artist oh my god it was clear it was crisp there was no jargon any person who picked it up would understand and expect that in 16 weeks they were gonna get this service i said okay how do you do it and there were six different leaders who said oh it's really hard i said okay how do you do it and they brought out vizio flowchart after vizio flowchart and each of those six leaders went through and walked me through step by step checklist by checklist everything that went on and then when they were done i said okay how often do you guys talk to yourselves each other right how do you communicate they never did there was nothing in any of their documentation that talked about team one handing off to team two to handing off to team three let alone referencing interaction and communication to their customer and i said okay i want to talk with a team of people who do this work day in and day out bring them into a conference room with a big white board and let's just start understanding what happens okay i'm making a really long story short but after this work effort when we started thinking about it from the customer and what they wanted that 16 to 20 weeks worth of work turned out to be about four and their customers were so ecstatic because all they needed was to get this service in the fastest way possible and to have communication along the way and once this group started to be customer centric and make decisions about how they did things that were based on their customer and not creating another checklist for the checklist for the checklist it all got so much easier you know it's such a great story because when a consulting firm comes in to a firm and has a fresh perspective they're able to see it from the outside in it's not like we're where the consultant is trying to catch people you know back in the day you know playing pac-man you know as we said you know like like they're just they're wasting time it's just it's not efficient it's catching the areas like that that's such a great story because it's not like people are just twiddling their thumbs it's just that people were burning energy and so much maintenance because there wasn't clear process and direction absolutely right everybody's busy but nothing gets done is a really great symptom of an opportunity to make change you said that so so well again everyone maybe you could repeat that everyone is so busy yeah everybody's busy nothing gets done is a a big huge sign that there's an opportunity for improvement such a great point such a great point um let's let's talk about at the end of the day a business would hire your firm uh of course and that's we're speaking with lisa l levy founder and ceo of l cube consulting in tonight's shows brought to you by lq l cubed consulting um at the end of the day every company dreams of scaling every company dreams of gaining market share of growing um what are some companies missing when they want to scale but they're just not to you know they do it they have it down as part of their goals for the next year and they really they're committed to it but it's not happening what do they need to be thinking differently so in business language we use scaling and growing and they mean two kind of different things but they support each other growth is about increasing our percentages we want to increase profitability we want to increase revenue we want to you know mitigate and minimize you know operating expenses scaling is about putting a process around controlling that growth so that you're doing it on purpose with purpose and it is absolutely a business operating system process that you can then control and with that you have the opportunity to have then growth cycles and while you're experiencing one you're planning and preparing for the next it ties in and really requires leadership to foster innovation and having an ongoing influx of ideas of what could happen six months from now 18 months from now so that we're really constantly moving towards the future so true so true you know one of the terms that you uh developed was adaptive transformation and it describes a specific process that you introduce to your clients perhaps you could you know why did you choose that name and what does what can you unpack that adaptive transformation absolutely so we started out earlier even in this conversation talking about business transformation we're talking here digital transformation and one of the things that happens with those phrases is it feels like you do it once and you're done the reality is transformation can should be continuously happening so adaptive transformation sets the tone that this is an ongoing experience as i talked about earlier right it's four key best practices project management process performance management internal controls and organizational change the foundation of that is building skills and capabilities in everyone this isn't a leadership level exercise and it isn't something that you you put off on an individual or a small group of individuals everybody in the organization should understand this because when we get to that point where we have that those that stream of ideas coming in and we have that innovation engine running right this is how we move it forward being able to run a project what does that mean you can plan work do it and get to an end state process and performance management a goes to b goes to c hands off to somebody else i know where my work comes from i know who i give it to i know what value it adds to my customer internal controls okay business geeks this is usually an accounting thing i'm stealing it because internal controls right are those things that we look at in points in process where there's risk to the organization we want to measure and make sure that we're mitigating those risks and when those controls fail we need to improve the process so it's just a set of triggers that we can use to make sure that we are being good stewards of finances that we're being good stewards of people's time and energy that they're doing the right work for the right reasons and last and absolutely not least with organizational change management that's about our people that's where we take them on the journey and understand that change is inevitable we cannot prevent it from happening and if we try our businesses are going to fail we are going to fail so organizational change is about getting people to understand and embrace change and know why it's happening and what's in it for me as the individual contributor so that i can actively choose to participate and move us forward large corporations across the world use all of these things they create them in silos unto themselves with adaptive transformation our whole goal is to empower everyone to be able to participate in these processes this is a yeah i love it and of course the word adaptive is such a great word because then it frames it at the end of the day it's it's it it takes time and even i'm sure as you're developing a new a set of processes within a company there'll be certain things that pop up that they didn't the company itself didn't even realize and it just came up on the radio whether it's a new business opportunity whether it's a way of saving money improving efficiency but the word adaptive is is is is like a magic word there that it just it takes time you gotta let it continue and then you know like slow cook it you know and and and then it will be perfect and even when it's perfect there still may be a surprise and don't be scared by it oh i'm going to share a secret there is no perfect right there is no perfect we do what we do to the best of our abilities we learn from each interaction and do it better next time we're speaking with lisa l levy founder and ceo of lq consulting lisa thank you so much for joining me here in mind your business this is so much fun thank you for having me thank you thank you now this is a a rather interesting question i i don't believe i'm going to catch you off guard because you're clearly an expert in in your space you know bigger companies have teams right um now when when people work on when when when a consulting firm comes in and works on process i mean you touched on this in one of your stories earlier but how do you start to put it together i mean we can't ignore that there are certain teams that operate as silos but at the same time we want the entire company working as a well-oiled machine obviously so perhaps you could talk about that and the the the importance of teams even though of course this still needs to be an overall rubric of the direction the mission vision and purpose of a company one of the things that i love to do and i've talked about it right i want to break silos i want to just blow those things up and really be cross-functional but one of the other key things in teams right is diversity and it is different viewpoints it's different ages it's different backgrounds it's different experiences and all of that being then cross-functional right so really pulling together a group of people that all work together day in and day out but have probably never sat in a room or in zoom boxes together to solve problems and i love investing the time and energy to break that the silos down and build those connection points between strangers who work together every day and that is really how i love to start our engagements and it's not the i don't know what we call the usual suspects right it's not the typical set of directors right it's individual contributors who really know what's what and never have a chance to share their perspectives in your book you talk about the meaning of that's the way we've always done it syndrome i love that that's the way we've always done it like come on you know like if it ain't broke you know why why you know why break it if it ain't broke don't fix it if any broke don't fix it okay and you call it a syndrome i do it it's absolutely prevalent everywhere and i love the way you say it i want to just have a sound clip that i can agree with you saying that over and over but as we start to understand and ask questions about what's going on in an environment i'm looking to get to that answer of that's the way we've always done it because that tells me that what they're doing is done rotely it's not on purpose it wasn't designed to do something so that is that that little trigger that says there's an opportunity to improve they don't know why they do the work so they're basically you know robots right jim trained sally who trained mary who trained whatever and it just sort of happened and there's so much waste that comes from that time money people's energy and their their frustration that comes with the fact that we talked about it a little bit earlier everybody's busy but nothing's getting done well that's the way we've always done it and that's where it comes from so that's one of those opportunities for me to really help them shine because everybody who's doing it has an idea about how to make it better and we just need to focus them on doing that work perhaps i mean you explained it really well but maybe you could even share a story to like to to help people really understand how impactful uh that this this subject matter is absolutely so a number of years ago now i my team we did a large engagement with post-merger and acquisition in in the healthcare space and so we had two sets of everything coming together you know two two different sets of systems two different sets of people doing the same work trying to to bring it all together into the new way to go forward and it was a lot of work and it was very unsettling work right because half of the people or everybody is feeling that they're going to be out of a job because now there's one company right all of those concerns right and mna pain points and obviously then we had two sets of that's the way we've always done it and we were designing a future new way but everybody engaged and everybody participated and we went through process by process system by system right how to align all of this and setting the tone that an accounts payable clerk understands the process well enough to know where her work is coming from and who she's handing it off to and what the system does and when it doesn't work to say something and say we need we you know houston we have a problem 18 months almost two years of work to get all of this humming in the the new way and we're going forward well last year july of 2020 i was reaching out to clients and just checking in right we were experiencing horrific times and in this industry you know a lot had had changed and i was talking to vice president and finance i said what's up right and she said oh my god everything we've built has been thrown out the window i said what do you mean and she starts to describe how all of the different business units are circumventing all of the processes all of the internal controls and it's the wild wild west the way we used to always do it and i was like okay why do you think they're doing it are these malicious attempts to commit fraud well well no they're trying to buy ppe they're trying to protect our patients they're trying to protect our our employees i said so they're doing the right thing and she paused for a minute and she's like yeah they're doing the right thing i said that's awesome i said why are you so bothered by it well they're not talking to me about it they're just doing it behind my back i said well why don't you pull them all together and do it on purpose [Laughter] i said you've fallen prey to the way we've always done it you want them to do those processes that we built three years ago because those are the processes that exist the world isn't what it was three years ago pull them together tell them it's okay to break everything but we're doing it on purpose and by the way tell the board of directors what you're doing and why you're doing it because at the end of all of this is that need to continuously improve when everything settles back down look at what needs to be thrown out from the old processes what improvements you can add because you found deficiencies because you had to and make it better tomorrow than it is today keep adapting that is great by the way how important is it for a consulting firm to to bring the human side to bring you know like a real love care and concern to the table when when uh you know when assisting a company during a transformation process we have to do it right i learned when writing the book which i wrote prior to the pandemic okay right the power of story the power of bringing all that forward we all know that it's there but actually doing it and sharing is uncomfortable and so to write the book right there are lots of stories in there that i've shared and i had to be very human um as i work with my clients right at 2am we all wake up sometimes with the oh my gosh this just could this could happen what if this doesn't happen what do i do if and if we can't acknowledge that we all have uncertainty that we all have things that are you know can concern us that we're afraid of we can't tackle them we can't debunk them deal they'll tackle them and resolve them and so i really learned by writing how important it is to own that we're human as i stumbled over my words 30 seconds ago right my brain was racing and i'm thinking and that you know it didn't come out in the same candor and you know cadence that i would like it to but who cares you know consultancies have changed you know perhaps you could compare how traditional consulting firms were run as uh compared to el cube i mean someday i'm gonna get in a lot of trouble for going down this path but that's okay i'm sorry i hope i'm not getting into trouble here i you know i i think i'm asking for it right okay um the traditional consulting model works incredibly well for multi-billion dollar corporations right the teams come in and they're teams with lots of people um i tend to refer to them as the you know the recent college grads as little ducklings who come in and start to learn the art of consulting while they're doing things for the first time in large corporations where they can deal with a 20-person team that might be okay but in the small business in the middle market it's a very expensive model within my team we joke that we sell gray hair and scar tissue because we have been there we have done it and you are getting our experience so our approach is smaller more strategic numbers of people to solve very specific problems build up the skills and capabilities in our clients environment so we don't have to embed ourselves in there forever right it's not about landing and expanding so we have dozens of us running around but helping them learn how to do for themselves right it's about self-reliance in our client environments right but ultimately it's to to re-uh re-strengthen the model of their business that they've worked so hard to build but just have an outside consulting firm come in study everything make sure everything is is really operating at peak efficiency and then handing them back the keys wow absolutely now let's be serious right i am a consultant leading a team of people if you have another problem we would love to help you solve that because you were so happy with the value we provided in the previous engagement but it's not about being there forever we're speaking with lisa l levy founder and ceo of lcube consulting she also wrote a book which is available on amazon future proofing cube the definitive guide to improving productivity refining processes and bolstering profitability if you're in business i mean that book says it all um lisa before we go to commercial break how can people find out more information about your firm the website is lcubedconsulting.com or you can find me directly at lisalevy.com we're talking about how to scale a business and we're speaking with none other than lisa l levy founder and ceo of l cube consulting she's been in business for nearly 12 years and what that firm does is gets a good understanding comes in from the outside delves in gets a good understanding figures out the processes that need to be implemented and developed and built out and that's how companies scale so lisa i'm going to jump right in and and say you know kind of the obvious question now is what's the best step or the first step a company can take you know to to make sure that they're future-proofed that they could survive a pandemic that they can make it through any type of turbulence am i putting on the spot here no not it's what you do right okay it's what we do right but the first and most important thing is to understand that there is no perfect process and throw out the idea that that's what you're going to get what you need to focus on is getting to 80 correct and investing in ongoing continuous improvement and the secret to all of this from that process perspective is it's only actually a process if it's repeatable so if you have an employee who is the best employee who though the business would not survive without them you don't have processes in place that are repeatable and so that was the number one place to start and take you know not to diminish a person in their superhero cape but make sure that they have the support so that they can take a vacation they can win the powerball and never come back and you'll be just fine it's such a great uh point about future proofing and yet to understand i really enjoyed how you pointed out that like don't worry about it being perfect yes we all want to strive for perfection in fact one of the guests we have had on the show uh stephen gaffney stephen gaffney he said you know many people suffer from perfectionitis perfectionitis they're trying to get it perfect and meanwhile the process is not being implemented and people keep on making mistakes but it's okay listen we're not saying be sloppy of course not but realize it's impossible to get to perfect like lisa mentioned earlier in the show and again just now but start getting close to perfection just aim get to 80 get the 85 get to 90 great but don't hold out and get stuck because you're waiting for it to be perfect because they ain't gonna happen right right and so that that stems with the idea of you know you know agility right being able to take a step learn take the next step learn course correct when necessary perfection is a wonderful goal as long as we all understand that it is an ongoing journey and it's you're you're literally on the treadmill right you're never actually going to get to that but it is about a continuous improvement lisa what is one part of process building that kind of no one thinks of well you know i kind of it's that whole it has to be repeatable thing the one thing right we have a process for this and a process for that and if everybody who's involved in that process doesn't understand their role in it and then again what it means to your customer and that sense of value you're not doing things on purpose with purpose and so the number one thing for me when you're dealing with the process work is making it customer centric thinking phrase you used earlier from the outside in and if something in that process isn't adding value to your customer it's waste to your company and there's absolutely no reason to do it so start with that customer-centric mindset and if it doesn't add value to your product service ultimately your customer why do you do it lisa can you explain what internal controls are and why they're so important so again right it's that geeky side of me that is really trying to mitigate risk to a company and really wanting to make sure that the processes are doing that and it's not about people right it's not about an auditor and somebody looking at the financials and understanding all of the nuances but it's about putting checkpoints in places so that you can distribute decision making across the organization not everything has to roll up to one decision maker if you have the right internal controls that let a team say we're going to try this and see what happens and if it doesn't go right we know what that stopping point is and so it's really it's it's decentralizing some control across the leadership team and pushing it out to the operational levels but knowing that there are specific points in time that it's like you can't spend a million dollars without getting board approval as a you know an egregious example but you know there are those points in time where yes you know there's a check required but up until that point you as a leader can do what you need to do to run your business now at least you probably get this question all the time when people are considering hiring uh your firm and that is at the end of the day how does it translate into dollars and cents meaning you come in and you're giving all types of great advice and you're even breaking things that that need to be broken but does it translate into dollars and cents even over time or after a year or two years it translates to dollars and cents across the organization in numerous ways so let's take it apart and do a couple of pieces productivity same number of people can do more work you can do the same amount of work with fewer people and you can take other people to do new things which drives revenue as you're looking at effectiveness and efficiency right we're still using the internal resources the dollars that we spend the tools that we have to do more to scale to grow to have new clients and customers coming in without having to hire people to throw at them because the processes are designed to embrace that um from you know that profitability perspective we talked a little bit about the idea of scaling and growth and if we're having growth cycles and planning for the next one with the ideation innovation you're bringing new products new services new lines of business to bear it hits everywhere but also right underneath all of that are the people who are doing the right work for the right reason that impacts your customer satisfaction you generate and create raving customer fans and employees who want to do more right and that's right that one wasn't dollars and cents but that's about that culture part that just allows you to continue to move forward correct and of course uh for anyone that on the financial side of a business they know that that does turn into dollars and cents because of course if there's lower employee turnover that that translates into thousand cents into the bottom line for sure when there's low turnover and it brings in the stars who will then help you elevate to that next level which drives growth and scale again now one of the the ways that l cubed handles consulting is uh organizational change management can you perhaps unpack that so we've talked about it in several points through today right people are the beginning and the end of all of this whether it's your employees or your customers right we're people so that organizational change management mindset and setting the tone in your culture to embrace change sets the foundation for you as a visionary leader to challenge them to do anything and you have the tools now with adaptive transformation for them to know how to do it but again we start with a people and understanding their needs to be aware of what's happening that they need the desire to participate and that over time right you reinforce the changes and where we're going next that tunes everything to drive measurable results for an organization is it true that silos are harmful i mean this is something that came up earlier in our conversation we talked about silos are they harmful to businesses oh my gosh right we've we've talked about it and i believe that silos are they're the death of collective wisdom right if all you do is talk with and interact with people who think and speak the way that you do and focus on what and how you run and do your piece of the business where does innovation come from how do you adapt to change how do you even begin to consider what's what's new or possible so yes i believe that you know obviously organizationally we will always have functions of hr and payroll and accounting and finance and i.t and operations those are necessary structural elements to make a business work but the people doing the work should be very aware of what's happening around them and those conversations that dialogue i talked about it as you know the ideas coming in the innovation engine that only works when you break down the silos and are willing to have new conversations and think differently cross pollenization yes yes before i get to my last question how can people find out more information about l cube consulting best way to find this is at lcubedconsulting.com or maybe a little easier lisalevy.com my last question then we asked this for a guest that we know have uh a great tip to share your uh your initials pretty interesting lll lisa l levy perhaps you could share a tip based on your initials whether you want to pick one l or two or three you're cool live laugh lead hey that's great and that could happen in the business world absolutely we're laughing here this is business we're talking lots of business what a great show what a great show thank you for watching and make sure to subscribe to this channel and be notified every single time a new video goes live don't miss out on any of the weekly interviews that i have with top business leaders sometimes fortune 500 executives hit subscribe and turn on notifications [Music]