Ep. 209: Michael Teape – From disrupted to disruptors: How leaders win in challenging times

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Full Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00]       < Intro
>


 


Adam:           
Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson from IMA, or the
Institute of Management Accountants. For those of us joining us
for the first time. I'm excited to welcome back Michael Teape to
the podcast. Michael is a seasoned management coach and the
co-founder and president of Teape Training International.


 


Today, we discuss the tips for leaders in the face of constant
disruption to business as usual. With Covid, inflation, supply
chain issues, technology changes, leaders need to stop bracing
for the next curve ball, and instead look for ways they can adapt
to find new paths to success. 


 


It was great to get Michael's insight and optimism on this
important topic. Let's get the conversation started. 


 


[00:00:45]       < Music
>


 


Michael, thank you so much for coming back to Count Me In. We've
talked about being more productive at work and maximizing our
human capital management, in the past with you. But today we're
going to focus in on the disrupted leader. And I figured we can
start off by what do we mean by the disrupted leader, and how are
leaders being disrupted?


 


Michael:         I
think it's easier to say, "How are they not being disrupted? "


 


Adam:           
Yes. 


 


Michael:       
 Because, I think, when you're a leader in your
organization and everyone thinks about what's going on? What are
the challenges right now? There's some common themes that are
only getting quicker, faster, more challenging. So you can think
of climate change. Climate change has a huge impact on how we
work? Where we work? All of those, and safety elements of that as
well. 


 


Social change; the diversity of the people we work with now,
that's been being disrupted. We're not all in the office in one
place, that's another part of social change as well. Covid-19, I
mean, hello? Last three years, it's been a real challenge. And
that's one of the biggest ones because it was an unknown
challenge. 


 


The others climate, social, and the last one, technology. The
technology revolution, what they call the fourth industrial
revolution, are the four key areas I see right now, and there'll
be more. There'll be more things that come along, let alone the
small challenges of running a business. Issues with clients, lack
of clients, too many clients, things not going well with clients,
disruption on so many levels. 


 


So now we've cheered your audience up. And, so, it is not an easy
place. It's more about how we react to it, and technology is one
of the biggest ones. That fourth industrial revolution talking
about the technology revolution. It's that people are coming up
with intuitive ways of breaking our systems and doing things
differently. If you have an organization that's run on mainframe
systems, spreadsheets, there are so much things available to skip
all of that.


Fintech, the financial technologies that really don't have any of
those and are just very simply making connections, using the
technology in front of them quicker, faster, cheaper, that's a
huge part that's going on as well. So, yes, where are they not
being disrupted, Adam?


 


Adam:           
Exactly, I think, you hit it on the nose, there's so much
disruption happening all over. But when you're thinking about, as
a leader yourself, if I'm thinking about my team and how I act
with my team. Yes, there's so many outside disruptions. What does
it look like, for me, if I want to look upon myself and how am I
being disrupted? And what does a disrupted one look like? Because
you don't want to stay there, obviously.


 


Michael:         No,
it's a stressful place to be, being disrupted, you're playing
defense. You're frustrated that things aren't working, which
causes stress. Which also limits our vision and our focus. A lot
of being creative and getting ourselves out of these issues, by
thinking of new things that we could do to face a challenge and
move forward. 


 


So, yes, that looks like, and I'll say this, Adam, a lot of the
time we don't realize we're in this space. Call it the disruptive
leader, we don't know that we're acting in a certain way because
we're under stress. We've got our blinkers on, like, "My business
is not making money.


 


How are we going to make some money?" And being stressful,
following up on one particular client who's never going to give
you the money is a blinkered approach. You need to be looking at,
"Well, what could I do to create another million dollars?"
Depending on the size of your organization; 50, 100, million.
"What could I be doing?"


 


So they're disrupted, they're blind to the problem, really. And
what I mean by that is that they're focused on the minute, the
tactical, trying to get the number of accounts, trying to charge
more per client. When really the problem is maybe what I'm
offering the client is not what they're looking for. Have you
ever thought about that? And that would be a curious
mindset. 


 


So being blind to the problem is all about losing your focus
overall and focusing on the minutiae and doing… Have you ever
heard that adage, "If you're ever doing the same thing and
expecting a different result, that's a definition of insanity." I
love that term, that phrase. So that's where someone would be
stuck, that would be one of them. 


 


And that links into the other one is having no direction, no
purpose, and what I mean is that; where are we going? Where do I
want to go? And I think I shared on our last podcast, a little
bit, I'll have to go back and have a little look at it, maybe
your listeners would do as well. Is that I was working with a
client who was totally disrupted by Covid. 


 


They were a Fintech. They were 30% growth they were aiming at and
it just disappeared overnight. Because people didn't need to
manage cash flow because they weren't out spending cash. And, so,
the flow was very different and it wasn't where their market was.
But instead of panicking this person found the purpose. Well, her
purpose was to take over the world and help the cash management
globally, however, that's not possible right now. 


 


So I believe it's coming back but let's focus on rebuilding what
we have. The mergers, the acquisitions, being more efficient.
Let's focus on fixing what we have, and we have a dream time
right now. Let's not think of it as, "Oh, my goodn...