Jon Spiesman

One Percent Better Leader

Just like other skills, leadership is something that improves through willingness and consistent practice.  No one becomes a true leader overnight, but working at it consistently and targeting small improvements over time leads to great results!  Are you willing to put the effort in to get 1% better today?  OPBL is dedicated to helping leaders achieve their goals 1% at a time.

Founder and CEO

Tala Peak Leadership, LLC

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast" - Peter Drucker.  I help leaders intentionally build the culture of their organizations and exceed their goals.  Tala Peak Leadership works with leaders to analyze their situation and create a specific plan to shift the culture of the organization and create measurable results.

Managing Owner

Center for Executive Coaching

Certified Executive Coach 

Bayer

Business lead for Integration of Bayer and Monsanto entities, business processes, and ERP systems.  Set up enterprise project governance and project management systems for $200M integration effort.  Identified and recruited talented leadership team.  Drove collaborative teamwork across teams of Monsanto and Bayer experts, senior executive stakeholders, and complex business teams.  Maintained highly engaged teams throughout grueling and intense 2 year project schedule through visible and authentic leadership, fun and engaging team activities, and regular newsletters and town hall style communications.  Project stakeholder management and communications was considered best-in-class internally and was implemented on other enterprise critical projects.  Creatively addressed the challenges that COVID placed on a global project team to achieve an on-time implementation with fully remote teams.

VP, Business Lead US/CA Integration Project

Continuation of Monsanto role through transition to Bayer ownership.  Responsible for customer support and account management, logistics and delivery, and business process support for $8B revenue business.  Lead team of ~500 with $50M direct budget managing ~$200M of Logistics spend.  Leader of cross functional team, each leader with diverse and independent functions and sometimes diverging interests.  This role required a CEO mindset to elevate vision of team success and foster collaborative teamwork.  Consistently maintained highest levels of engagement scores within function/division/region by prioritizing communication, clear goals, employee trust, and celebrating wins.  Success required effective team building, stakeholder management, authentic leadership presence, and high personal accountability and credibility.
Notable Accomplishments in Team Performance and Innovation Leadership:
•	Defined and implemented new business model pilot for outcome-based pricing and direct to farm delivery
•	Implemented Monsanto’s first Digital Transformation of customer experience encompassing B2B strategy, customer portal strategy, digital finance tools, and market funding tools.
•	Implemented TMS system for transportation optimization and shipment visibility – project won global recognition from JDA for customer value creation, completed on-time, and achieved savings goals.
•	Implemented perfect order metric to drive improved customer experience and streamline processes
•	First implementation of Robotic Process Automation – automating ~10,000 process steps in first year.
•	Implemented hub support model across select support functions to enable standardization and efficiency gains of 20% in cost and resourcing

Director, North America Customer Care

Monsanto Company

Responsible for customer support and account management, logistics and delivery, and business process support for $8B revenue business.  Lead team of ~500 with $50M direct budget managing $200M of Logistics spend.  Responsible for customer support and account management, logistics and delivery, and business process support for $8B revenue business.  Lead team of ~500 with $50M direct budget managing ~$200M of Logistics spend.  Leader of cross functional team, each leader with diverse and independent functions and sometimes diverging interests.  This role required a CEO mindset to elevate vision of team success and foster collaborative teamwork.  Consistently maintained highest levels of engagement scores within function/division/region by prioritizing communication, clear goals, employee trust, and celebrating wins.  Success required effective team building, stakeholder management, authentic leadership presence, and high personal accountability and credibility.
Notable Accomplishments in Team Performance and Innovation Leadership:
•	Defined and implemented new business model pilot for outcome-based pricing and direct to farm delivery
•	Implemented Monsanto’s first Digital Transformation of customer experience encompassing B2B strategy, customer portal strategy, digital finance tools, and market funding tools.
•	Implemented TMS system for transportation optimization and shipment visibility – project won global recognition from JDA for customer value creation, completed on-time, and achieved savings goals.
•	Implemented perfect order metric to drive improved customer experience and streamline processes
•	First implementation of Robotic Process Automation – automating ~10,000 process steps in first year.
•	Implemented hub support model across select support functions to enable standardization and efficiency gains of 20% in cost and resourcing

Promoted to Lead cross functional team including Customer support and account management, logistics, demand and distribution planning, and business process support for $6.5B revenue business.  Success in this role required strong partnering and negotiation with sales and marketing functions and functional global leadership.
Notable Accomplishment Areas in Operational Excellence and Innovation Leadership:
•	Led first Monsanto implementation of SFDC – over 1M cases, 36% increased NPS, 49% reduction in resolution time, and 32% improvement in customer effort score.
•	Implemented Monsanto first mobile track and trace and delivery feedback process, enabling real-time feedback on 19,000 deliveries with a satisfaction rating of 99%.
•	Implemented new OTC system to enable movement of $800M brand to agency model.
•	Established dashboards, metrics, and governance processes to drive consistent operational excellence across business lines.  The improved target setting and harmonization between functions delivered $10M in logistics savings, improved OTD, and a 90% variance reduction against quarterly targets.

Director, US Supply Chain

Notable Accomplishments
•	Influenced key decisions makers to change the strategic plan for the 5 year soy crop LRP through creation of a model to help bring visibility to hidden costs and risk associated with the ramping up of new product volumes.
•	Created and implemented novel contingency plans to replace 20% of total supply plan impacted by historic 2012 drought conditions.

Director, North America Soybean Seed Mfg

Notable Accomplishments:
•	Led first Monsanto implementation of new SC model integrating Procurement, Planning, Logistics, and Customer operations into one organization.  
•	Post-centralization of Customer Service function led a full re-evaluation of the function and the OTC processes which led to several impactful initiatives including:  Implementation of a new distribution model in Italy reducing product returns by 50% with an increase in sales, implementation of a front/back office split in Customer Service enabling 50% improvement in efficiency and labor arbitrage of $2.5M USD to East Europe.
•	Designed and implemented a new Procurement model for EMEA, increasing staff H/C from 1 to 45 but reaching breakeven savings 7 months into first year and 2X committed financial contribution over 3 years ($70M USD).
•	Led definition and implementation of first measure of NPS and OTD in EMEA and drove a 10% improvement against baseline in the first year.
•	Oversight of hosted site shutdown and demolition in Antwerp, Belgium including negotiated settlement with asset owners, labor unions, and works councils.

EMEA Supply Chain Director

Manufacturing Business Unit Leader

Monsanto

Production Planning

Area Leader

Site Manager

Freeing Execs to work ON their business instead of IN their business.

You finally have time set for that romantic dinner date with your spouse.  Her favorite location, the smell of butter, garlic, and wine wafting from the kitchen as you imagine a plate of Veal Parmigiano.  The maitre’d seats you and you open the menu as you feel a familiar buzz from your jacket pocket….
Your phone ringing.  It's work…again.

You missed another of your son’s soccer games.  His dejected gaze at his shoes when you explain, it carves at your soul.  That look from your wife….all too familiar.  

You can see that your strategy is outdated, opportunities laying lonely on the table like those magazines articles you keep meaning to read.  

You just need time…you need to get ahead of a few things.  You need freedom to work on your business, not stuck feeling trapped in your business.

You sacrificed much to build your business.  You deserve success….you also deserve to live your life and enjoy what you have built, not be a slave to it.  You can regain your treasured personal time, you can pursue those business opportunities and catalyze the next level of growth.

If you recognize yourself here….there is hope.  You grew your business career one block at a time…the way out of this situation is the same….to grow out of it. 

I use proven coaching frameworks to target measurable improvement areas for your leadership.  True organizational change starts through courageous change with senior leaders like you.  I’m so confident in this process that I offer a results guarantee.  You will see measurable improvement or you don't pay.  What do you have to lose?

Want a leadership master-class? The Johari window is a pretty good candidate.

Leadership is relationship…when relationships and trust are strong, you have a good chance as a leader.

The Johari window is a framework to expand trust and achieve potential.

The “arena” is where you can openly lead….leveraging your strengths and those of others to achieve results.

In the arena - you build trust through competence and leading with humility.

You also build trust through vulnerability - sharing some of the hidden things in the ‘facade’.

What are the things that you lose sleep over? What are you working on to be a better leader?

Vulnerability requires a lot of courage but it brings humanity into the leadership equation.

When you have gained enough trust, you may start to learn about “blindspots”.

In my last post, we talked about blindspots….negative or positive, they represent opportunity.

A workplace with trusted relationships allows for exploration into the “unknown”.

When you are consistently expanding the arena by shrinking the other three quadrants….I would wager your results will be strong.

It may seem oversimplified to think about this with a 2x2 matrix.

But if you really think about it….does leadership need to be more complicated than this?

What is missing for you?

Have you seen or used the Johari window before?

💡Leadership Tips that make you think
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Best sketchnote by Tanmay Vora ✍️ — make sure to give him a follow!

#EncouragingLeaders #JohariWindow #Leadership #Trust #GreatPlaceToWork #LeadershipDevelopment

To all the overthinkers and perfectionists out there…

➡ Ship the work.
➡ Hit ‘SEND’.
➡ Check DONE.
➡ Declare ‘good enough’.

𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞.

Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.
➡ Progress loves action.
➡ Perfection fears judgment.
➡ And perfection never ships.

Best illustration by melodie_tld

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Leadership insights that make you think twice.

#leadership #culture #motivation #personaldevelopment

In 2017 I was near the top of my corporate ladder.

I was one ‘rung’ away from where I wanted to retire.

I loved my team and felt pretty darn fulfilled…

But I always had this feeling that I was missing something.

Then two things happened - a series of major health and wellness emergencies in my family and my long time employer got acquired and I was being replaced.

Any of these alone was enough to turn my life upside down.

Together the challenges made for some of the hardest days of my life.

I am now so grateful…..those events were instrumental in me deciding to make changes.
↳ I found a clearer purpose for myself and leapt at the chance to take it.
↳ I am super fortunate to be able to do work I love with people that I cherish.
↳ I am living the life I wanted in ‘retirement’ RIGHT NOW.
Not saying everything is easy or perfect, just that I have found how I can feel fulfilled and have minimum regrets.
Why should you care?
↳ When I chose to work with you, it isn’t because I need to….I choose to.
↳ It means I am confident I can help create the impact you want.
↳ I have no interest in selling you a bill of goods or creating a dependent relationship.


Through coaching I want you to get critical results AND to learn how you can replicate them across your team.

I am on a mission to help Leaders be everything they were meant to be.

Great leadership creates great places to work.

Thriving workplaces create thriving employees.
Thriving employees create happy families at home.
Happy families create thriving communities.


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💡I post Actionable Leadership Insights🤔
📈Follow me to accelerate your growth and your path to personal freedom⛱️
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#Leadership #PersonalDevelopment #Management #Business #EncouragingLeaders

What I thought I might get out of posting regularly:

⏩ Many more followers
⏩ The secrets to getting views/likes/comments
⏩ Clients showing up asking for my services


What I actually got:
⏩ A sobering look at the discipline it really takes to build a brand
⏩ Unexpected connections with people who are in it—doing the work, sharing the journey
⏩ Relationships rooted in shared values and interests
⏩ New insight into how I position, market, and sell
⏩ The slow start of a client pipeline I didn’t have to chase
⏩ Glimpses into entire fields I didn’t know existed


What I’ve learned:

Let’s imagine you're building a house.

You’ve got the materials. The tools. The vision.

But if you only lay one brick… then disappear for weeks?

You don’t get a house. You get a scattered mess.

Posting on LinkedIn is no different.

One post won't change your brand.

But showing up—week after week—does something powerful.
↳ It builds trust.
↳ It creates clarity.
↳ It attracts people who see the world like you do.

Most of all, it builds something bigger than audience metrics.

It builds you—your voice, your body of work, your leadership.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐥.
𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞.

What will you build by showing up, even when it’s quiet?

#Leadership #ExecutivePresence #EncouragingLeaders #ExecutiveCoaching #LinkedInStrategy

I’m planning on using the “F” word a lot today.

Forgiveness is one of the most powerful gifts I can give myself.

I don’t have to condone what others have done, but I don’t have to hang on to it.

I can decide to let it go.

I can decide to forgive them and free myself.

++++++++++++

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#stressmanagement #inspiration #motivation #personaldevelopment

Do you know where you are exceptional?

I ‘discovered’ recently that I’m taller than 99.9% of American males my age.

Of course I know I’m tall, but this surprised me.

I don’t feel that exceptional. I notice people my height or more all the time.

I grew up in a small rural town where there were many people as tall or taller than I.

I did more research because I didn’t believe it.

But several models confirmed it.

This process got me thinking about self awareness and blind spots.

Everyone I know and admire has found and overcome blind spots in their lives.

Some might be positive - you are better than you think.

Others negative - you are unaware of creating a negative impact.

My height—>I didn’t create it and I can’t change it.

But I have had other blind spots that I could do something about - once I saw them and became willing to act.

I’ll share one positive and one negative leadership blind spot I’ve tackled in the comments.

❓ Do you have any blind spots that you have addressed?
💡If you can relate but don’t want to comment - choose the “Insightful” reaction.


#Leadership #Teamwork #PersonalDevelopment #Growth #SelfAwareness

Picasso abandoned old styles to create masterpieces

Muscles must be broken down to grow stronger

Organizations must experience chaos to discover a new order

Individuals must experience pain and discomfort to change

Death of the old must proceed the new

Are you seeking to be comfortable with discomfort?

What old ideas are you setting aside, what new habits are replacing old ones?

If you are in the act of destroying and creating, I salute you!

++++++++++++

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#leadership #growth #motivation #personaldevelopment #EncouragingLeaders

The Holidays can be a test of our restraint

I thought of this quote while discussing a friend’s annoying in-law.

Remembering that conflict takes two is something worth remembering over the next weeks.

May your holidays be filled with peace, connection, relationship, and joy!

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#BestAdvice #Whatinspiresme #Holidays  #Joy  #PersonalDevelopment

Life comes at us fast….

It is tempting to always be in high gear, driving as fast as we can.

But we can miss important turns in life if we are going too fast to see them.

Opportunities don’t often come in LARGE PRINT with neon signs attached.

Take some time regularly to slow down and step back.

Make sure you are still going in the right direction before you go back to full throttle.

You stand a good chance of doing better than someone going FULL SPEED in the wrong direction.

++++++++++++

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Brilliant strategies aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on
Unless you have brilliant execution.

A big part of execution is finding ways to create meaningful goals and measures to drive aligned action.

Utah Transit Authority is cascading their strategy deeper into their organization.

This week, they invited people from the 𝐒𝐋𝐂 𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚 to have a look and help them improve.

So, markers and flip charts in hand, we got to work.

I’m sure that not every idea will stick, but 20 veteran people with fresh eyes probably made an impact.

Work is hard, get all the help you can get.

#Leadership #Culture #Growth #EmployeeDevelopment #EncouragingLeaders #ContinuousImprovement #SLCConsortia

Everywhere I look, it seems hate (and its cousins intolerance and fear) dominate media, news, and discussion.


I’m making a concerted effort to tune that junk out.

Limiting news, considering deleting my socials (except here ofc!)

How do you maintain your peace without sticking your head in the sand?

++++++++++++

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#leadership #culture #motivation #personaldevelopment

Focus on MORE THAN the Goal!

My lovely wife brought these ready-to-eat pistachios home from Costco.

After eating a couple handfuls, enjoying them immensely, something felt wrong.

Eating these without the work of shelling felt a little like cheating.

Like maybe I needed to take a cheese grater to my fingers to make the universe right.

This experience reminded me of how important the journey is in life.

Reaching a goal is great, but the true value is in experiencing the hard work, the losses and setbacks, and the little joys along the way.

Focusing too much on the end result can cause us to miss important and impactful things that occur along the way.

Goal orientation is important in business and life, but growth and development happen on the path to the goal, not due to its achievement.

I was once part of a very large project and we were discussing plans for a recognition surrounding a big milestone.

The question came up, "Should we wait to see whether it is successful, then plan the recognition?".


A key sponsor of the project wisely replied "Whatever the result, I want to recognize the hard work and sacrifice of the team, without which we would never be here."

I think this is a great example of valuing the journey as much as the goal.

Are you balancing your drive to achieve with appreciation of the journey?

#growth #EnjoytheRide #Recognition #development #leadership

What do you look for in a leader?

Competence, work ethic, drive, and confidence are common responses.

What about vulnerability, courage, and humility?

This clip is about a leader I worked with who had the first list nailed…

But his work relationships were terrible….people didn’t want to work with him.

In a short period of time working together, perceptions of Ed shifted dramatically.

“Wow, look at what Ed’s doing! “
“He’s taking some risks and being vulnerable.”
“This is a side to Ed we haven’t seen.”

These were some of the comments that were made about him during our work together.

Over and over, I have seen people respond to a leader’s courage with courage.

If you want people to give you honest feedback so you can grow, you have to go first, often by asking for help.

I’ll speak more about Ed in future posts but he was a great example of the courage required to be vulnerable and lead with humility.

Where does courage fit into your leadership development plan?

#EncouragingLeaders #Courage #Humility #LeadershipDevelopment

Delivering bad news is scary. 😨


It is also unavoidable…sh*t happens, people make mistakes, forecasts are wrong, plans are imperfect.

Here’s how to make delivering bad news a good thing for you:

𝟏/ 𝐁𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭
➡ Go straight to the point. Stick with facts about the situation.
➡ Don’t speculate, just report where things are right now.
➡ This demonstrates courage and also allows your boss to get grounded without the color of your opinions.


𝟐/ 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞
➡ Even if it seems clear, DO NOT assign cause or blame initially.
➡ Any blame at this stage may be interpreted as you trying to avoid responsibility.
➡ If you are reporting this to your boss, most likely you are responsible so go ahead, take responsibility to investigate and correct.
➡ Some bosses will push you to see who is ‘to blame’. Gently push back with action….
➡ “We have kicked off an investigation to get to the bottom of this, here’s how we plan to proceed…”
➡ Direct energy toward how to investigate, learn, and prevent.


𝟑/ 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭
➡ Report how this event or issue is impacting key goals or KPIs.
➡ Let them know that you are thinking of the business context and responding appropriately to the level of impact.


𝟒/ 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
➡ Initially, recommend immediate mitigations to stop the bleeding or solve the issue.
➡ All bosses appreciate hearing about problems that already have solutions attached.
➡ Ask for their input or alignment with these recommendations.


𝟓/ 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡
➡ As your investigation uncovers clear findings, take action urgently against root causes.
➡ Communicate findings widely and openly, demonstrating responsibility and a learning mindset.

⚡𝐁𝐚𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐭. 
⚡𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝.

++++++++++++

#Leadership #PersonalDevelopment #Management #Business #Growth

There are two kinds of people in the world…

Those who have found they have blind spots and those who will.

Which are you?

We are not wired very well for self-observation.

Our brains are really, really good at seeing and evaluating other people but as for ourselves….

Not so great.

Want proof? 
When I say blind spots, were you thinking about negative behaviors or positive ones?

90% of people were thinking about negative behaviors they don’t see or didn’t know about.

That is proof of just one of many of our biases at play.

The truth is that you may have positive blindspots as well as negative ones.

Many of my clients learn through our work together that there were things they had talent for but didn’t know it.

Growth is not just about working on avoiding the negative.

Many times, it is leaning into that positive blindspot, an underutilized strength.
One personal example - years ago, I didn’t see myself as any good at inspiration.

In my mind, I was comparing myself to movies and legends where the leader makes rousing speeches and everyone gets fired up to go out and win the game or battle.

I learned through coaching and feedback that most people don’t define inspiration the same way I was.

I learned that I already had some strengths in how I inspired through communication, honesty, and clarity….naturally.

I started to get curious and experiment with how I could learn how to be more inspirational in a way natural to me.

Growth by any flavor is still growth.

❓How clear is your view of yourself?
❓Do you have processes to find your blind spots? 
👇 Let me know in the comments!


#Leadership #PersonalDevelopment #Management #Business #EncouragingLeaders

Most leaders don’t set out to burn out their teams.

But when organizations slap quick fixes on deep-rooted issues, the result is often:

↳ 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑
↳ 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒
↳ 𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋 & 𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

The sad reality? Many leaders just keep pushing forward, hoping things will work themselves out.

🔻 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐤𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫: More often than not it comes down to the leader rather than the company.

A strong leader fosters:
✔️ 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠
✔️ 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 & 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
✔️ 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

A weak one? They bandaid problems until the team walks out the door.

If you are in an organization that tries in band-aid solutions, 𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥-𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. 

𝐍𝐨 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡.

❓Have you seen bulk band-aiding in action? How did it turn out? 
👇 Let me know in the comments!

Best illustration by Marissa Solomon Shandell —give her a follow!

#Leadership #PersonalDevelopment  #Management  #Business #EncouragingLeaders

We didn’t need seven marketing touches. We just handed someone a battery—and they understood.


When I sat down with Thomas Bishop, founder of Paleblue, we talked about what they learned from launching on Kickstarter.


His answer was simple but powerful:
“People got it.”


No pitch deck. No education funnel. Just one moment:
👉 “USB-C rechargeable? Got it.”


It clicked. And that told them they were onto something.

The batteries were intuitive. So the marketing didn’t have to work overtime.

That clarity gave them the confidence to go live on January 1, 2020—right into COVID—on both Amazon and their own site.

Not because everything was ready.

But because people understood the product without needing to be convinced.

That’s rare.

🟦 Where in your business are you trying too hard to explain something people should just feel?

#UntoldPodcast #FounderLessons #KickstarterSuccess #UtahStartups #EntrepreneurMindset #EncouragingLeaders

Not everyone wants a promotion. 

But everyone deserves the chance to grow.

At Steel Encounters, Inc., growth isn’t just encouraged—it’s embedded into how the business is built.

Job descriptions are designed with development in mind.

Employee training and mentorship aren’t afterthoughts—they’re strategy.

And the biggest signal of trust?

Ownership.

Steel Encounters is an ESOP—an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

That means every employee is also an owner.

As CEO Tom Jackson shares in this episode, leading an employee-owned company requires more transparency, humility, and long-term thinking than most leaders are prepared for.


But it changes everything:
🔹 Career advancement is more than climbing a ladder—it's investing in a legacy.
🔹 Employees don’t just clock in—they build the company they own.
🔹 Succession isn’t a handoff—it’s a commitment to continuity.


Some team members are content where they are—and that’s honored.

Others want more—and Steel Encounters helps them get there.

Because here, growth isn’t reserved for a few.
It’s the responsibility of ownership.

Full episode link in the comments.

#ESOP #SteelEncounters #Leadership #PeopleDevelopment #ConstructionCulture #UntoldPodcastwithJon #EncouragingLeaders

Ministry is a mission. 
But it’s also a business.

In this episode, Chris Croswhite, Executive Director of the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, shares what surprised him most when stepping into nonprofit leadership:
↳ He thought the job was helping people.
↳ It is.
↳ But that’s not the whole job.

He learned what the real job was…
↳ By checking the mail.
↳ Reading every forgotten file and policy.
↳ Uncovering the operations behind the mission.

Because if we don’t run the business well, we can’t serve people well.

Here’s what stuck with me:
↳ The heart fuels the mission. The systems make it fly.

Spreadsheets, insurance, HR policies—they may not feel “spiritual,”
but they’re what keep the doors open for healing and hope.

When compassion is matched with operational clarity, lives change.

Full episode link in the comments.

#SocialROI #SLCRescueMission #LeadershipForChange #UntoldPodcastwithJon #EntrepreneurPodcast #UtahBusiness #Ministry

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