Mindset First, Strategy Second: Creating Leaders who Lead Effectively, with Vamsi Polimetla

when you are bringing in people you need to start thinking like my current problem if p is hiring people they only focus on how can I increase the gasoline or maybe how can I increase the efficiency of like the materials right you need to completely start thinking outside the box if you wanted to go exponentially you need to start bringing people with those kind of like a thinking we never know like how they are going to be changing your [Music] industry Ry thank you so much for joining me on the let talk business podcast hey Manny great to be here likewise I met you through our your partner Brandon he's a phenomenal guy we had him on the show he spoke all about public speaking and importance for leaders to speak to be able to communicate properly and this is a very important topic for leaders me then he told me that you know if you like my conversation you got to have Ramsey on the show because he is going to speak all about leadership and for our listeners they know know that this topic is very near and de to my heart because businesses are built by great leaders you know you could have not every idea is a business not every business is an idea but every business in order to be successful needs great leaders so it's always important that we get the maximum from ourselves and ultimately from our teams in order to grow our own businesses so for our listeners give us a little bit of the background I know you you started in the corporate world and now you're all about teaching leaders tell us a little about your backstory in order to set the stage for our conversation absolutely many I started my career in a computer science almost like I spent 20 plus years and working in the corporate America and I was in a path to become SE level executive and I realized a lot of people in the leadership roles are not really true to themselves they are like wearing mask they are like a person outside and person inside in the boardroom completely like a different and I started noticing like why I'm thinking most of my time becoming them and the answer was very clear to me I started like maybe investing more into my personal growth and I found out coaching was my passion and I started my coaching business about five years ago next month is my five month five year anniversary congrats yeah I'm super excited and also this is one of the the key Things based on Research 50% of the businesses will collapse in the first 12 months and 80% of the businesses are completely like a shutdown in the first 5 years and only like a 4% of the businesses are REM after 10 years and the way I think is like my 5 years is coming up next month but I'm thinking I'm just getting started I'm not even completing my chapter one I got like a lot of chapters to go so it's all about like a true leadership true personal like maybe taking complete ownership of what is happening happening in one's life that is where the leadership starts yeah and I help people business owners to just take that be the CEO of your life first before you become the CEO of the business and run the organization yeah so I want to dive deeper of what you said before because you mentioned about 80% of businesses fail within the first five years and regardless if you know if the percentage is accurate or not bending on the different research we do but it's very close to those numbers and the one thing I always share with people that are listening to my show and they've probably heard it many times which is that those companies were pretty successful meaning to say they made a lot of money in the first five years it's not like they were sitting there and nobody wanted to buy their product or they didn't have a good product these are companies people don't realized had great ideas executed great ideas started to build a company they had people knocking on the doors I need your product I want to buy from you and they still failed because they weren't set up for Success long-term success and that's what we call scalability and I think that's the essence in my opinion what's leadership is all about because you could be a leader today you could be a manager today but a leader is for the tomorrow it's for five years from now how where do we want our company to be what type of employees do we want to bring in as a culture how do we want to think big so to speak but that's that's my version of it and that's just how I see it and since you do so much coaching on leadership and I think you mentioned before a very important thing is as Leaders we first have to understand we have to lead our lives and then we can leave our businesses and I think it's such an important part it's something at PEX that I always share with my and own employees that if if we are in charge of helping grow other companies because from branding and marketing we need to grow ourselves first us as a company and us as people because you cannot have the mindset of thinking how could I help my company my customers company grow if you don't have a growth mindset yourself and I think think as Leaders we have to have a growth mindset on ourselves as well otherwise how can we grow our team and our businesses so it's a very important Point talk us through a little bit of that process when you say because I think there's a lot of confusion when Al says well I focus on myself I focus on my business but then then you probably some of the people that you coach and you start having those conversations and you see it's not that you know they're not focusing on their own leadership they're not focused on growing their teams and so on and so forth so how you define leadership absolutely absolutely I think you hit really right on the the manager versus the leader many people they think that leadership is all about the title the size of the office and like maybe the the name tag that they got MBA PhD or CEO or CIO no leadership is all about like who you are being in the movement and it can be designed and developed at any point in the life you don't have to go to do Masters or you don't have to complete XYZ to get into the leadership role you can start becoming the leader right now even though you're just like a programmer you're just like maybe a designer you're just an architect you can show the leadership through your work through your commitment the way you are responding back to your customers the way you are answering questions to your manager the way you are thinking the way you're are taking care of your kids the way you are walking the talk many people many they they always talk their audio is super good but in terms of their video how they're acting is completely different right so just just example like if somebody's like a preaching hey you need to get up at 5:00 and you need to eat clean you need to do this exercise and the person is like a 250 pounds overweight and that reflects every single thing you're not like walking the talk the same way the leadership is all about like it's not about like many things it's all about like how how you are planning your day how you are planning this particular meeting how you are showing up to this call that is where the leadership and many people think that I act differently when my boss is in the call I act differently when my maybe the CEO is looking at me it's no it's what you are doing when no one is watching you MH that is where the true leadership yeah I I think this is so important I hope our listeners paid attention to what you just said that that leadership as much as you could learn leadership and as much as you could be good at leadership but it only goes this far if you're able to Showcase how you actually conduct business yourself and your team around you sees how you actually operate that's the best training you could do for your team because that's not only talking the talk but it's also walking the walk so to speak and I think it's a very important point so let me ask you the followup question which is we see a lot of business owners maybe there's solo entrepreneurs starting their business and all of a sudden they're hiring the first employee second employee third employee could be they never had a leadership role in their life they're not coming from Corporate America they started their Force journey by having their own you know this side hustle and they became business and so on and so forth is leadership something you could actually learn to become a great leader absolutely 1,00% so it's not about like a strategies or anything just start with asking yourself where you you are in the map right now I know you are in New York City and if you know you are in New York City if somebody's asking directions to go to Orlando it's easier if you don't know where you are I can't give you directions as a business owner as a leader just like maybe you're starting your organization you need to understand where am I in the map am I in the elementary school middle school high school or a university so you need to identify the phase where you are in because the strategies are going to be different lot of people they hire business mentors they goes to business programs but those strategies are useless unless you know where you are because the strategies will change and the the results based on the strategies also change and the second thing uh money it's all about who you are being inside is more important than what you are doing outside you need to understand why I'm doing this one why in the first place I started this business many people they have that Clarity when they start the business after getting into the business after 12 months 24 months maybe after 4 years they lost that purpose they're doing something completely different than the reason that they started they started because they're so passionate about it if they look back and do the audit 90% of the time they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing they're doing some paperwork they're working on some Logistics they're working on all the the red tape there around the business versus their core thing so so you need to identify why you started the business and am I doing this right now the question that we need to be asking ourself am I doing why I started this business if the answer is no we can always go back to the core we all have the core and we need to our our goal as a leader is to just operate from that core versus like maybe surrounding places so yeah so so let me ask you this because this is a question that comes up a lot so when when you're speaking about financial goals let's say in a business or you want to have a certain amount leads you know you know where you are now and as you mentioned before and I know where I want to go I know the Gap and I know okay I need I go for 100 leads 200 100 leads I have to go from 50 leads to 100 leads whatever it is leadership a lot of it is soft skills is being a great leader I want to dive deeper if you if you don't mind because you know this podcast is all about no you know No Nonsense advice and giving people the action a lot of leaders that's the challenge they have I don't know where I am I don't know if I'm in New York you know I mean yes if I would know I'm in New York and somebody's asking me for directions to go to um Orlando okay I could do Google Maps I could do my my location but in soft skills I don't know I really don't know how far I am from where I need to go in order to understand my strategy how do you coach people to really take inventory so to speak on where are they as Leaders 100% a lot of people that's the biggest mistake they don't know where they are so they can't even to describe the location and the path that that they are in so the very first thing like I highly recommend like maybe this is for all your listeners you don't have to do it alone you need to just like the your responsibility is ask for help and we do this really really well for our kids for example if your kid stuck in like maybe third grade and like having difficulty with one of the subject we put the kid into a certain program we ask for like maybe one of the mentor maybe a trainer to come and teach that but when it comes to our own personal Journey we don't even think somebody else can help us so having that awareness somebody can help me I don't have to do it alone is the first step the moment you know that okay this is the problem the person can come and show the torch light hey looks like you have some blind spots because if you're a dentist you can't teeth clean your own teeth you need to go to other dentist to clean it right the same way you're a business owner you need to have that Mentor or maybe a mastermind group this is where the proximity comes you are doing it alone versus you are surrounded with 10 15 other people like you I think like Manny you doing pretty fantastic job of like bringing all the people together through this podcast you're helping them to see the blind spots right the same way if you sit next to 10 people they're going to be finding out okay these are the things I'm thinking you're missing in this and you need to just like acknowledge you need to have that open cup mentality and this is other problem many people thinks like I know everything I I can do I read this I heard it before the question that is it's not about you read it before you heard it before are you implementing this on regular basis did you implement this morning you know looking at this audit looking at this did you do this morning I think that is the question it takes only five minutes and ask like what are my key priorities right now why I'm doing this why I'm in this podcast I wrote down like five minutes this morning because I wanted to just help other people and you are providing the platform to do that that's my why the same way if the business owner comes and spends 5 minutes in the morning write down why I'm doing this business why I need leads today what is the purpose behind those leads what benefit that they're going to get if they say yes to this program or maybe an opportunity for Branding how this is going to be impacting like maybe thousand more people so you're not just doing it for getting a lead you are connecting yourself with something really really bigger purpose and I'll tell a simple story this this is also going to help like a lot of your listeners so there used to be one construction company and the construction company appointed a a survey team to just like see how their employees are doing and they went to a site and they asked like a couple of contractors who are working on the construction site and the very first person that said that this is not a good place to work this is really like not good working conditions and the second person said I'm hanging in there I'm just like working here just like I'm getting some leads I'm putting some these things and they went to the third person and the third person said I'm building a big Cathedral and this Cathedral is going to be one of the best cathedral in the town three people getting paid exactly the same salary $8 an hour working on exactly the same project and the same location three different views right so we need to have that like a bigger why you are doing that if somebody's looking only for the leads they're only going to get leads if somebody see the bigger picture they're going to get the bigger picture so one of the things let's go a little bit to the house so to speak to get it so obviously there's um there's strategy and then there's a mindset so obviously what we're discussing now is mindset correct so in your case mindset will always be first and strategy second explain what you mean by that absolutely so mindset is just I would say in a there are two types of communications one the communicate whatever that we are communicating with the external world and second part is like a what we are communicating to ourselves when nobody's around us and in that internal communication Manu mindset is only like a 1/4th of it it's all about the information that you are consuming maybe you're reading some books you're like being really positive you're doing the Jing all the things comes under the mindset that's only 25% but but there is more in that internal communication and the second thing this is like most important thing is all about like your heart set who you are at your heart who you are being in that moment what are the emotions that you're processing are you really like grateful for this so that's that's the heart set and the third part is coming into your health like are you really healthy are you really like maybe in terms of like you're taking care of your sleep or you taking care of like maybe quality of like maybe your life in in terms of health that is the third one and the fourth one is all about your soul set your contribution back your character who you are in that so these all the four things that are like internal Empire so every single person that when they're thinking about mindset is just like a piece of it and once we start like a digging into that there are like a more the second one this I learned from one of my mentor Robin Sharma and he really really talks High about all these four comp components and if you miss one of those things definitely there's going to be out of balance in every single thing so let's speak about the leader that's actually focusing on growing themselves and becoming a better leader obviously leading a team is hard you know there's a line that I've used many times on the show which is Once Upon a Time we were in the service business the product business today everybody's in the people business it's all about the people and growing your people and really maximizing what they could bring value to the team as well what some practical advice of leaders really you know being able to bring together a team for the success of a company sure so number one thing this might be a lot of people might have repeated this don't bring People based on the current skills based on their attitude and I wanted to dig more on the problem solving skills like how they are reacting to certain problems you don't have to give them the problems based on the current industry because we never know the current always like most of the the people think that the current whatever the problem that they have that is exactly what they need know something outside I'll give simple example look at uh Ford Ford Motor Company is like a 100 year old car company which is like a valued at $50 billion whereas Uber they own zero cars they have like a zero manufacturing thing it started in the transportation industry with nothing and it's now hundred billion do and it started like maybe 10 12 years ago right so I think like when you are bringing in people you need to start thinking like my current problem if p is hiring people they only focus on how can I increase the the gasoline or maybe how can I increase the efficiency of like the materials right you need to completely start thinking outside the box if you wanted to go exponentially you need to start bringing people with those kind of like a thinking we never know like how they're going to be changing your industry yeah that's the step number one yeah yeah so let me ask you because I think this is a a very important Point you're just making about thinking out of the box I think it's it's used very many times when you speak about creative people let's think out of the box at the end of the day you are in the Box uh as Leaders we are in the box so you mentioned before about bringing in other people what are some practical ways that a leader could challenge the status quo with knowing that they're not just saying I'm thinking out of the box but they actually thinking ahead of the backs absolutely the best best way to do that give yourself some space give yourself some distraction free time I call this thinking time and lot of lot of successful CEOs in the world they do this as well you can go out somewhere where like maybe you are not going to be disturbed for the entire week I'm part of like a multiple coaching programs for myself as well one of my mentor danan he always talks about like your free time your free time is the most important time that you have and that is where you get like a lot of ideas you go somewhere turn off your phone let your fames family know that like you're not going to be available for the next maybe two or three days and start thinking about what is possible for Me based on like current circumstances just don't think about current circumstances like outside that what is possible for me if I'm more courageous manyy what can I do maybe you can start asking that question if I'm more courageous what can I do if I'm more loving what can I do for my team members and maybe write down the top 10 20 people in your life and see how can I add more value what should I do in order for them for me to create more value for them maybe for your customers for your maybe potential customers so there are many ways if you are sitting in the same environment where you are creating all the problems you cannot solve the problems we cannot read a label if you're sitting inside of the jar right you need to get out from the jar to see that I call this like a drone view most of the times we sitting in the same floor and looking at it no you need to take a drone and get out from that maybe 100 feet high you see the bigger picture so that way you're going to find things I like it people listening to this you cannot read the label if you're inside a jar that's a good line and it's important and and people sometimes don't realize you know sometimes they could be very smart people they could even be mentoring other entrepreneurs or other leaders and great mentors they know where there's times when they want to reach out to somebody to Mentor them or to to speak to them why because there sometimes in the box and in order to think outside of the box you need to be able to be from the outside in order to say what if we do this way you know you know all the reasons why you can't change or why all the different ways if this is going to create a problem if you do change but sometimes somebody's thinking outside the box and says you know let's challenge the status quo let's do something different and I think that's a great point and the point that you made earlier and I think it's so important that we're living in such a hustle a life of hustle and grind in our businesses just the the environment that we all in that we don't take the time to pause to say okay wait a minute where am I let's start planning am I the best version of myself is my company in the best state of mind so to speak am my people the state the right state of mind and I think you know people listening to this they can't take three days at least take three hours find the three hours to do it and like you said not in the same environment figure out another way maybe it's a coffee shop maybe it's a just borrowing a friend's um conference room for a few hours you know and in PEX we have a conference room and we've been you know many many business owners have been taking it and you know for a couple of hours say you know what I want to meet with my team and sometimes they have nicer conference from their ours they just need a different setting they need a different setting and and I think it's such an important point I want to speak a little bit more alignment I think leadership is all about alignment with team because you cannot lead a team if you're not aligned and just the you know on the way driving into the office I listen a lot to podcasts and I listened to actually a a past trainer in the military and and hopefully we'll get him on the show so I'll not give away his name so he mentioned something so important and it's a theme whenever we've had different people from the military in the past and we know the strong stronger leadership there and one of the things he said that I know if I don't have my people around me and we're clear with our vision and our mission there's no chance of success I have every single individual that's on my team regardless if they're on the front or in the back end or working from the offices or whatever it is they have to be very much aligned with exactly what we're going to accomplish leadership is the same way and business is the same way if if there is an end result in a goal that you want to accomplish a lot of times leaders are not 100% on the same page with with their team and sometimes the leaders are right While others the team team might say you know what the leader all over the place so it's not realistic whatever it is how do you what's some good strategies of of alignment between leaders and their teams 100% I think alignment is key whether for it's a business or life or anything that we are doing without that alignment no matter how hard we work we are not going to get the results it's like maybe you're putting lot of hours but you don't see that so the best way to do this with the team is having a open heart conversations and asking feedback most of the times like we are asking feedback from people who are above us and we rarely ask people feedback who are below us so it's like I think it's going to be really really helpful I learned this after reading a book from Sam Walton he's the founder of Walmart and in his book actually like one of the lines I read was Sam Walton's wife mentioned that Sam spent more time on his competitor's business than his business he's studying them asking feedback doing all those things and bringing those ideas and talking to the team members people who are reporting to him and going them and say I'm thinking about this what do you think about it so it's always like a getting that feedback having a open conversation and check out the ego no matter who you are check out that ego Just Like You Are a Human Being having a human conversation with other human being if you are like aligned there Auto atically they can feel that energy they can feel that okay I really wanted to help my boss my manager my owner my leader versus like okay it's an order order means like you're not putting you're not aligned there you're just doing it for the sake of putting a check mark and there are two ways anyone can do this money one asking the question am I playing this game to win or am I playing this game not to lose if you're playing the game not to lose you are just like a showing up there if you're playing a game to win that means you are in alignment with your boss your CEO Your Leader you are playing to win you are part of that game so we need to always like ask that question it just reminds me I remember I was uh once sitting between partners and a team that they had misalignment and they asked me to come in to to be there in the meeting and one of the team members really was very outspoken and pointed out some weaknesses of the leader and I I wanted to see how the leader will respond and the words of the leader I still remember when he said this really hurts I really am hurt but I very much appreciate every word you said and I and I found that it was so genuine like if we would brush away that you know you just told me stuff that I don't like hearing and then only speak about oh of course thank you so much I love feedback then it would be Mis genuine or vice versa if they take it personal then ultimately they're not accomplishing and I thought it's really a Act of leadership a leader should say you know from a human perspective from an emotional perspective it really hurts but for the business sake I really appreciate you bring it out because now I know where I need to change or perfect to work as a team together and I think it's very important as he mentioned the human aspect of a leader the end of the day we're all humans first and we'll always continue to be hum regardless of our titles and if you could bring the human element into the conversation in a way that people shouldn't be afraid to raise their opinion if sitting in a room you know people should have you know if they have great ideas they should have the the microphone in order to be able to speak up and share what they feel or if they feel an idea won't work wouldn't you want to hear it from them right there and then versus putting in thousands of dollars and then all of a sudden you're hearing it from the marketplace months later of course you want so give them the platform and I think it's so important so thank you for that I want to ask you one last question which is what are some practical rhythms that you teach leadership leaders in leadership in sense of in order to make sure you're constantly in check with your team what are those you know of course there's always people say oh I have oneon-one meetings and stuff like that but is there a rhythm that you teach in order to gauge feedback on ongoing basis to make sure that you're on the same page absolutely so one common thing that I I teach like no matter where the leader is in the organiz iation the top level mid level or just getting started having your own operating principles I'll share a simple example Manny for example you got in an elevator and you met maybe one billionaire and the billionaire is planning to invest something into your business and uh bilon ask a little bit about who you are and do you share 10 things these are the things that I am and you got out from that elevator within like maybe the next floor someone who is working in your organization got into that elevator and if the billionaire ask the same person you know money he just got down from the elevator and if yeah I know money and if the billionaire ask the same question like who do you think money is and whatever that person answers matches what you described about yourself you are a great leader so you need to have those operating principles always with you and it's not just like you're going to read it one once a month to everyone you need to Showcase that in every single scenario every single situation so even whether you are not in the room people will always remind like say oh this is how money reacts this is how money solves this problem if money is like on vacation no worry I'll take care of because I know how money operates here right so that's how you build it you feed those seeds and that's how the leadership that's the number one thing I help everyone to create their operating principles once they have the operating principles there will be all the responsibilities just going to execute that every single day create that Manifesto do the same at home too you need to have same operating principles at home and help your family members to understand why you are doing what you are doing the same at that team as well beautiful what would be another example you would give on an ongoing basis inside your company an ongoing basis have bi-weekly maybe monthly maybe quarterly checkins because we all need to go back and revisit that where am I in this map and where am I heading and what are the things that are stopping me to achieve this you need to be very honest open conversation you need to always go back to the fundamentals it's not about like a doing new things going back and just making sure this is where I am right now these are the areas in marketing maybe in the sales maybe on the revenue side maybe on the operations I many need to make changes and you come up with your priority it list and share that with your team members so that way they also agree with that so that way they're going to be supporting you versus like maybe questioning you why you are doing what you're doing do that like maybe on a monthly basis is the best thing very good I'll just add because a lot of times you'll hear from leaders that they have these conversations but what they forget is to prepare the the other party that this conversation will happen and what can happen is they want to check it off they have my monthly meeting all of a sudden they send a quick chat or email hey are you available at 12:00 the other party doesn't even know what you plan to speak to them and all of a sudden becomes a one-sided conversation in our company at PEX we have those conversations and a few days before an email will go out that you know well I'll probably reach out to you in the next few days for a meeting and at the same time in those few days prepare yourself as well what you want to discuss like this it's a two-sided conversation and could really add a lot of value to the relationship what they have between the two leaders and and more importantly for the company as a whole so if you're already having those meetings make sure it's meaningful and make sure that not only you end up sharing everything you prepared but you allow the other party to also prepare and ultimately share what they have to share for the success of the relationship and the company absolutely abely make make those meetings are more fun I think that is where like all the magic is don't make it like oh my God one more meeting versus make it more joyable that meeting they don't want to miss even though they prefer this meeting versus vacation so make it like that yeah that's a high bar to to say you know let's think let's brain them how can we make this meeting better than vacation yeah I think like we need to understand like your team members the strengths what makes them really really excited about few things as a leader I think that's your responsibility don't worry about like your leads or numers all other things your responsibility you need to know everything about your uh Team team member your staff members so that way they are the ones taking care of your business not you it's very cool you know what I'll throw out this challenge to our listeners if you have an idea how to make a meeting more meaningful more fun than a vacation email it to podcast at pzg group.com and I'll actually send you free video access to the LTB library of videos of a great content just for taking the effort and responding to this and I just thought about it you know because this is a challenge to put out there because we could all learn from it like how could you make a meeting fun that the people really enjoy the meeting so if you have an idea send it to podcast at PG group.com we're looking forward to seeing what you're writing vamy how could people reach out to you or hear more about what you have to offer absolutely LinkedIn is the best place wami Pola you can you can Google my name or go to LinkedIn or if you wanted to know more about what I do go to wc. Coach you find information about my products and how I serve people beautiful for the links resources mentioned this episode check out the show notes at www.ps group.com podcast where will link up to V's LinkedIn and website let's close with a four rapid fire questions are you ready yes I'm ready number one a book that changed your life the monk who sold his Ferrari number two a piece of advice you got that you never forget start before you are ready number three anything you wish could go back and do differently start my personal growth journey early in the early in the age beautiful last and final question what's still on your bucket list to achieve travel every continent and uh spend one month every year in a new new country oh wow for the rest of my life that's a big bucket list yes thank you so much for joining us I know your time is valuable that is why in the name of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today it's been a blast absolutely thank you [Music] he