The 4 Forces of Growth with Kevin Lawrence

What actually makes a company keep climbing when so many stall on a tidy plateau? We sat down with Kevin Lawrence—CEO coach, Scaling Up contributor, and author of The Four Forces of Growth—to unpack why well-run organizations quietly stop growing and how leaders can reignite momentum without blowing up what works.

For decision-makers dealing with stalled momentum—and for any leader who’s ever felt alone in tough calls about people, structure, or strategy—Kevin brings a question-driven approach to growth. Where exactly did the plateau begin? What changed in behavior, not just metrics? And what’s become not your problem that you’re still carrying anyway?

Kevin’s path from kid entrepreneur to global coach sets the stage for a candid look at the “loyalty liability,” where founders hold on to beloved executives long after the role has outgrown them. He describes the leap from pond hockey to the NHL of leadership, embracing Jim Collins’ “first who, then what,” and building the courage muscle that turns smart opportunities into real thrust. Sometimes growth requires you to run toward the roar—making the people call you’ve been postponing or confronting the comfort that’s quietly calcifying culture.

We also unpack the seduction of streamlining: the drift toward problem-solving that polishes margins while starving expansion. Kevin reframes sustainable scaling through practical lenses—economic drivers, talent intensity, cultural clarity, market relevance, and disciplined execution—showing how focused alignment can create peer-powered disruption inside the organization without chaos.

You’ll leave with tools you can use this quarter:

• Find your X—the core unit that drives your economics—and make it visible so pricing and mix don’t mask decay.
• Protect new X by tracking new accounts and adjacencies, turning farmers back into hunters.
• Set your smack list of non-negotiables to avoid a common trap: hiring an impressive president, then abdicating the operating system that made you great.
• Keep founder mojo inside the company by carving a lane for intuition and asymmetric bets instead of letting that creative spark drift away.

For anyone ready to challenge their comfort zone and move from playing not to lose back to playing to win, this episode is a reset. Kevin blends servant leadership with productive paranoia—and reminds us that listening beats selling, and clarity beats charisma.

Real leaders. Real stories. Real action.
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Transcript

Kevin’s Entrepreneurial Origin Story

Kevin Lawrence 0:00

Yeah, that's it. It's a bit of a wild ride. Like I've always been entrepreneurial. Like I'm the kid that was selling painted rocks and tadpoles as a kid. Like I knew the ditches where the tadpoles were in a neighborhood. So I'd go catch them and then my friends would buy them. So I've always been like that and, you know, paid paid for my way through college with my own business doing like landscaping and cleaning up people's yards and stuff. So it's been in my DNA. And I spent a couple years in the advertising industry out of college, and it was great, but I became kind of disgruntled by it. And in a workshop that I did back then, I got this epiphany that I really wanted to help people to build great companies, like to be really successful, and squeeze the juice out of life at the same time, like to truly live a great life. And I was inspired by a bunch of people I've seen that were wildly successful and not happy. So, you know, with no experience, never having been a consultant, never was an executive, none of those things that you would think would be the normal path. I started doing this work at 24. And that's just crazy.

Mike Maddock 1:04

Welcome to the Your Seat at the Table podcast with your hosts, Idea Monkey Mike Mattock, and ringleader John Tobin. We're two founders, a serial entrepreneur and a billion-dollar operator who talk to leaders about how, when, and why they made their most pivotal decisions in life. Join us as we share wisdom, mistakes, and a few laughs learning from the brightest minds in business today. Lucky us. I have my buddy Kevin Lawrence today. Um, Kevin, how are you?

Kevin Lawrence 1:42

I'm doing great, Mike. I'm really, really looking forward to this.

Why CEOs Stall: The Loyalty Liability

Mike Maddock 1:45

You're going to find that Kevin is Vancouver Nice. He's one of uh my many Canadian entrepreneurial friends. And Kevin is, I I've I've talked about how when it comes to coaches, there's a 90-10 rule. 10% of the coaches, business coaches, I mean, are doing uh 90% of the good. And Kevin is one of those people. I have so many friends who he has helped uh bust through business plateaus like consistently. He has a company of coaches called Lawrence and Company. He's also written a bunch of books. Uh you you are a key contributor to scaling up, Verne, our friend Vern's book, which is a great book. I think it's been published in a zillion different languages. Put your oxygen your oxygen mask on first. And the book that I'm most fond of is your recent book. It's called The Four Forces of Growth. Really, really good. I've had uh the honor of inviting you to speak to my flourish advisory boards as an outside guru, and everybody comes away with like whoa. So before we get to the book, before we get to all the CEO magic tricks that you know, Kevin, um, tell us your story. How did you wind up um becoming uh what you are today?

Kevin Lawrence 2:59

Yeah, that's it's a it was a bit of a wild ride. Like I've always been entrepreneurial. Like I'm the kid that was selling painted rocks and tadpoles as a kid. Like I knew the ditches where the tadpoles were in a neighborhood, so I'd go catch them and then my friends would buy them. So I've always been like that and you know, paid, paid for my way through college with my own business doing like landscaping and cleaning up people's yards and stuff. So that'd been it's been in my DNA. And I spent a couple years in the advertising industry out of college, and uh it was great, but I became kind of disgruntled by it. And in a workshop that I did back then, I got this epiphany that I really wanted to help people to build great companies, like to be really successful, and squeeze the juice out of life at the same time, like to truly live a great life. And I was inspired by a bunch of people I've seen that were wildly successful and not happy. So, you know, with no experience, never having been a consultant, never was an executive, none of those things that you would think would be the normal path. I started doing this work at 24. And yeah, that's just crazy.

Mike Maddock 4:07

That's crazy how our our um our stories are so similar. I mean, I had my shingle at 24, and uh and our tagline should have been sure we can do that too, because I would just go out and sell anything I could and be like, okay, we'll figure it out and kind of learn on the and the go. And thankfully had clients that were um patient enough to kind of figure it out with me, with us. So um, okay, so you're a big let's let's get into the CEO coaching realm because I know that you spend your days with uh CEOs that are doing really well but want to do better. Um what what do CEOs consistently get wrong about growth? Like if if you could pick one thing that they get wrong, what is it?

First Who Then What And The Courage Gap

Kevin Lawrence 5:00

That's great. There's a lot. Um the one that limits them the most is I call it the loyalty liability, is that you can work with the people that you have and they try way too hard for way too long to not swap out their exec team when they need to, and or their board sometimes, if they have control of the board. But they're they become they're so loyal to people and appreciative of people that that they end up with the the team that's built for the hundred million dollar business, but they're pushing for five. And yeah, it doesn't work. And and and and it slows them down and makes it notably harder. But for most of them, they haven't been there before and they they sometimes can't see how it could be better, or they're just super uncomfortable, you know, letting go of people that they've been working with for so long.

Mike Maddock 5:54

And that's that that is a consistent theme that comes up. I know you're a big Yeah. I mean, that you're a big fan of Jim Collins. You were kind enough to invite me uh to one of his events recently. I've read all of Jim Collins' work. I'm a huge fan. And being in a room with him for a day was amazing. His principle of first who then what is that am I getting that right? First who's first who then what?

Kevin Lawrence 6:19

Yep.

Mike Maddock 6:20

Yeah, that that's that's what you're saying, right? And and there's this paradox because good people um want to treat people well, but sometimes you have to treat the the whole organization well, not just the executive team. So you've got your best friend and he's your your partner, and you're stuck at five million, five million, five million, nobody can understand why you can't get unstuck and eventually um is it usually is it usually inspiration or desperation that makes CEOs change out their executive team?

Kevin Lawrence 6:59

Usually more likely desperation. Like it's hard, like it needs to get to the point where the pain of making the change and letting someone like that go, which is really hard, is less than the pain. Um sorry, the pain the pain is greater to stay as it is than it is to let the person go. So it it's usually desperation because you're you're having to fight loyalty, and people have had to do it for people to have been with them. Whether it's six months or or or 26 years, it's hard. So it usually has to come to a massive pain point, and either there's a legal issue, a banking issue, huge amount of stress, like something something comes to a head for a lot of people. Because contrary to popular belief, most great CEOs aren't these ruthless, cold, spineless people. They actually deeply give a crap. That's why they built great teams and great companies.

Mike Maddock 7:51

I I couldn't agree more. I I think the a nice almost gets in their way. Um, you know, my one of my mentors is Rick Vorin, who is the chairman of Stegan. And I remember I was complaining about something and he said, Let me stop you, Mike. In my experience, people like you only change for one of two reasons. Either they are so inspired by the vision of the future that there's nothing, and I mean nothing, that's gonna stop them from getting to that vision, or they're tired of suffering. So I have a question for you. Are you inspired by what's next, or are you sick of suffering? Because unless you can say yes to one of those questions, it's nothing gonna change. Yeah. So you so you um, I've seen you in a room, I've seen you on a stage, and you have jazz hands, you can put your sparkle fingers on stun, which is a great talent. And and you can get people to change because of vision, which is like once, because this is a repeating pattern, isn't it? You it isn't once you have to change your executive team or get them thinking differently, right? It can't it's a re it's it's like five million and ten million.

Introducing The Four Forces Of Growth

Kevin Lawrence 9:04

It's a conveyor, but and you gotta keep you have to it in in my new book, The Four Forces, I call it the problem of pond hockey. And and the simple metaphor is Canadian pond hockey, where whatever kid shows up gets to play. And it it's uh you got to make the distinction from pond hockey to how NHL hockey is played and how people earn their time on the ice. And those are the two extremes. And we're trying to move people from the pond hockey, work with what you got, closer to the NHL. Because but it's like in the NHL, it's for in any sports team, it's a forever and always thing.

Mike Maddock 9:37

Yeah, I it's so amazing. I I can't believe a Canadian is using hockey as a skate to where it'd be really weird if I used cricket.

Kevin Lawrence 9:47

That would be really weird. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Maddock 9:50

Okay, so let's talk about the four forces of growth again. Um, this is a really good book. And I and uh again, you've spoken to the Flourish Advisory Board uh forums about this, and they come away going, oh my gosh. So quickly, if you can, and please um go get the book. I mean, it's really good. What talk about the what are the four forces of growth?

Kevin Lawrence 10:15

Well, it just it goes back to the principles that make airplanes fly. And when I was working on this book, and my question was, how do some companies continue to sustain growth where other ones with equal opportunities, equally capable teams, end up losing it, losing and they start fading over time. And I saw it because I saw it in a boredom all the time where people would passionately pick the wrong thing. So as I was digging into this and trying to figure the right way to explore this, I I came across the four forces of flight. And going back to the Wright brothers and all the other people that brought aviation where it is today, there's four forces of flight. There's the lift, which is created by the shape of the wing that pulls the plane up towards new possibilities, and the thrust of the engine pushes the plane forward. And when you have lift and thrust, you get altitude, the plane flies. Um, there's more to the model, but that's the simple part. And I and I translated this into growth. And for growth, our version of lift that pulls us up is opportunities, looking at new possibilities, generally more services to the same customers, more locations, or adding in new customers. It's about engaging with customers. And then our our thrust is courage, it's willingness to step out into some of the unknown and take some chances and make new stuff happen. And when we are focused on opportunities to do more good stuff for customers and we have courage, we get growth.

Mike Maddock 11:43

And just like plants get out of here. Hard stop, hard stop, right? I mean, that is that is the okay. So where do CEOs typically get stuck? You've got this four forces of growth. Where do they get stuck?

Kevin Lawrence 11:54

Which they did, which they did when they started in the early years, that's how everyone starts. And it's it's pretty easy when you have four customers and three team members to stay in growth mode because you have to.

Speaker 1 12:07

Right.

The Seduction Of Streamlining

Kevin Lawrence 12:07

But next thing you know, you get like a couple hundred people and a couple hundred customers. There is noise and problems everywhere. So what happens is if you stay courageous, now as companies grow, they often lose courage, right? They go from playing to win to playing to not lose, right? They lose their courage, and that's a cultural thing and a CEO leadership piece. But the other thing is that you want to focus on opportunities, but there's all these problems, and problems are so magnetic and they and you get consumed in problems and you get stuck in what I call like the seduction of streamlining, where you think if I just keep solving my problems, I'll grow. Right. Well, no, if I just keep solving my problems, my business will run better for sure. But usually the problems will consume all the resources that should have gone to growth. So you end up with a very well-operating, high-functioning, engaged team, happy customers, good margins, great profits, but the resources get pulled away from growth and you stop growing in simple terms, or your growth slows dramatically. And now you're thinking that the only way you can grow is acquisition or something else like that.

Mike Maddock 13:20

Yeah. And it's um, if you think about it, it makes sense because people want to be valuable, they want to get your attention. So they go looking for a problem to solve. If you're the CEO and you're like, wow, you solved that problem. Good job. I'm gonna go find another problem to solve. Exactly. And it becomes the center of gravity for the company. You know, solving problems.

Kevin Lawrence 13:42

It takes over the culture of the company.

Mike Maddock 13:45

That's right. And you can't solve problems your way into growth. That's essentially the right.

Kevin Lawrence 13:50

Well, here's the way I look at it is that solving problems drives your profit per X, profit for each of your core units, because it gives you efficiency and it really pays off financially. It's kind of like letting the accountants run the company. It's really good for the short term. But if you have the entrepreneurs running the company, they're gonna chase more customers and opportunities, which drives the X or the core unit. So if you're a uh a car dealership, it'd be the number of cars that you sell. It's and and the profit per X is how much you make per car. And you obviously have to do both. But generally over time, gravity will pull you down, like gravity will pull the plane to the ground. Gravity will pull the business into focusing on the bottom half of the income statement instead of driving the top part.

Mike Maddock 14:37

Yeah, you that that's another great takeaway from the book. Um you're and and I I I know that when you walk into a room with a new team, you have the ability to kind of see it um objectively. You're not, you don't, you're not in love with anybody around the table. You're not in love with whatever they've been putting in their pipe and smoking, the stories they've been telling themselves. You're you're really looking for where's the leverage in this business. And yes, you call it you call it the X. Every business has an X. And the game is figuring out the X and driving the X. I'm using bad words, you do a better job explaining this than I do, of course. So, so so give me some examples of um a company that didn't understand what their ex was and how sure finding their ex made all the difference.

Find Your X And Drive It

Kevin Lawrence 15:30

Great. So, and I would say that everyone knows their ex, they just get lost along the way because it's usually not in their reporting. So I'll give an example. A company that was in um, we'll call it warehouse services. They provided products and services to warehouse and construction and and you know, industrial, industrial spaces. Got it. And for them, when I was talking to the CEO at one point, they're telling me about you know their profit growth and everything else. And then I asked about the revenue growth. They go, Yeah, it's pretty good. I said, okay, where did it come from? And they say, well, I don't really know. Turns out as we dug in, we looked under the surface, what it actually happened, their their number of transactions in their business, their X, was dropping. So they're it was going down, but because of the price increases they'd put in place and the mix of business they were selling, it looked like the they were growing. From a the revenue number was larger and the profit number was larger, they were just doing less business, uh less transactions with their customers because a lot of stuff gets buried in financials. Yeah. And and that's why it's it's dangerous. So for them, they realized they totally had taken their eye off the ball. And then I dug in, I said, okay, well, I was brainstorming with the CEO. I said, Okay, well, what's what's what what's happening with your sales team? You know, what are they focusing on? What are they reporting? And so the CEO pulled it up. Everything was around revenue. There was nothing around new accounts, you know, alert. If you don't focus on new accounts in any business, your ex is gonna fade. You can only farm your existing accounts so much, right? And without a focus on getting new ones, by the way, what are your sales team gonna do? They're gonna switch from hunters to farmers. So, long story short, they weren't tracking the exes, and they definitely weren't tracking uh signing up new exes, so that the team became farmers and the revenue, of course, the revenue slowed down.

Mike Maddock 17:29

Yeah, and new accounts can be uh new relationships in a multinational. So, for example, if you have a great relationship with one division, a new account could be another division. Yeah. Okay, so quick pivot, and I'm gonna give uh Tina credit for this because I asked her last night, hey, I'm talking to Kevin tomorrow. What question would you ask him? And off the top of her head, she said, Um, can you have an X in your personal life?

Kevin Lawrence 17:59

Oh, that's a good good job, Tina.

Mike Maddock 18:02

I've had some time to think about this. I have an answer for you. My X is memories.

Kevin Lawrence 18:07

Yeah, I was thinking about something.

Mike Maddock 18:09

Yeah, we can what's yours?

Speaker 1 18:11

What's yours?

Kevin Lawrence 18:15

We we don't have an ex identified in our life, but if you we Heidi and I were just last night on the final version of uh the last half of our goals for this year, we reset our master plan for the next 10 years uh every year, and we're we we're gonna finish it tonight. But if you would look through that, it's gonna be like quality experiences with people that we love.

Speaker 1 18:40

Love it.

Kevin Lawrence 18:41

Which is which is which would result to memories. Um, so it could be one I would consider is like when you know when we were caught up when I was in Chicago, is you know, number of hours in really enriching conversation.

Speaker 1 18:59

Yeah.

Personal X: Memories And Meaning

Kevin Lawrence 18:59

That that could be memories could be. Um I think number of very meaningful interactions with people, not whether in sports and I had a um I like I greatly.

Mike Maddock 19:16

Forgive me for not being able to remember his name, but I feel bad about it. But years ago, I saw someone speak about how he had decided to take a picture every day, and it had to be an interesting picture. And it it completely changed his behavior because every day he'd wake up and go, What am I doing today that's worthy of a picture? And his whole talk was about these pictures that he took and what the behavior that he changed to make sure he got a great picture. And so I I love the way that ladders up to an X. You know, like if my X is about making meaningful memories, that's one strategy to get you to ladder up to it. So anyway, the four force.

Kevin Lawrence 19:59

There's a book called The Power of Moments, I think. The power of moments, uh, which it talks about, like if you've created a really powerful moment, by nature, someone's gonna pull out a camera. They can't help but. And that's a similar philosophy to what you're talking about.

Mike Maddock 20:14

This is like a chicken and egg version of that. Like I'm pulling out a camera, so I better be somewhere that's worthy of the picture. Um, okay, so I'm gonna write that down by the way.

Kevin Lawrence 20:22

I'm gonna write that down. I'm gonna talk to Heidi about it. We're gonna figure out our personal ex because it's in a it's a similar neighborhood to what you're talking about. I love that.

Mike Maddock 20:29

You inspired it. So thank you. Thank you for the gift. Okay, so um, you know that in Flourish Advisor Boards, I there are six different types of CEOs, and I and I you could name CEOs that fit in each one of these seats, but there's the operator, the strategist, the visionary, um, the rainmaker, the tech futurist, and the orchestrator. Um, with that in mind, or maybe not, what are the most common team composition mistakes you see? So when you walk into an executive team, what mistakes do you see? What do you like, ugh, this is this is central casting from it's not going to work? What are the common mistakes?

Team Composition Traps

Kevin Lawrence 21:12

So you could translate it into the to the to the six roles. Um outside of fit, there's people that just don't fit and just don't produce. Um generally, when there's too many operators and there's not a visionary or strategic. Yeah. Like rule of thumb, generally, a lot, I find very, very few executives are really good at the strategic or visionary. And if I'm exaggerating, many of them default to operator. And I'm exaggerating. But what I'll notice, I can tell in their strategic plans because I can see when all of their plans, you know, are all in that improvement quadrant, like in the Four Forces, when they're all about operational things. Thinking and nothing is about growth, which would be coming from the visionary or the strategist, probably. And and so I can see that consistently where there's nobody on there that's really um hungry or aggressive about growth and and and having the courage to push for that. I see that. So too many operators is very, very common. Um and if the CEO can balance it out, then fine. But the team composition that that would be a challenge.

Mike Maddock 22:29

I think that probably goes to the size companies you're used to working with because uh it correct me if I'm wrong, I think the opposite is true when it's in your when you're in startup land, like zero to five million, there are probably too many visionaries and not enough operators. And then as you become uh when you've got more to lose, you bring in the professional operators. Professionals, exactly. And they start surrounding themselves with people that look like them and to respond to problems the same way.

Kevin Lawrence 22:56

Yeah, and then it becomes the core or they become so conservative that they stop really trying to push to win. Yeah.

Mike Maddock 23:02

Okay, so um here's a quick question. And I'm I'm I'm I was so excited about talking to you. So I so I will admit that I wrote some questions down early. Um do you, in your experience, do the best CEOs run their companies for, and this is like multiple choice or fill in the blank, whatever you want to do, legacy, money, mastery, or something else entirely?

Speaker 1 23:28

So legacy, money, mastery, or something else entirely.

Kevin Lawrence 23:36

I would tie legacy and if we use the word purpose, going back to Collins's work, purpose and legacy are similar, where the where it's like the legacy of radiating, like doing good stuff. Like when I'm inside the best companies that I've ever had the opportunity to work with, they deeply care about being great, and that's tied into mastery, tied into purpose slash legacy. The money is a byproduct. Like money, money only takes you so far, and most of our clients as they get going, they don't need more. They just it's a great scorecard. But they but they generally truly are trying to do great things, and they like the challenge of it.

Mike Maddock 24:21

Do you have a um do you have you okay? So agree or disagree, uh the greatest CEOs really don't care if they get credit.

Kevin Lawrence 24:35

Yes. The greatest CEOs, when you step into a room and you don't know anybody, if you're just to observe, you'd have a hard time telling which one's the CEO.

Legacy, Mastery, And Servant Leadership

Mike Maddock 24:46

Yeah, I think there's a I've been uh thinking about this a lot lately, that there's this paradox of um that that great CEOs are servant leaders, so they don't care about their reputation. And so that when they stop working, nobody knows who they are, so they don't they don't get to share what gave them their reputation. You know, the idea of having a portable brand is so important, but the people that that should spend the best ones don't have one.

Kevin Lawrence 25:16

The best ones don't have a brand.

Mike Maddock 25:18

Yeah. So I I uh John's not here today, but my my uh podcasting partner, John, is one of those guys that he will walk into a room and nobody knows that he's the founder of this company or a co-founder of a company with tens of thousands of employees and they don't even know who he is in the room. And it's a symptom of him being a great leader. He doesn't care about that, but it's a shame because he's got a lot of wisdom to share, you know? And so I think I see that in a lot of my friends.

Kevin Lawrence 25:49

Because they're they're about because they're they're about building amazing organizations, they're not about building their own personal brand. And there are the type that lead through their brand and a brand is connected to their product, right? And to a certain degree, that's the case for me. But I'm I'm my intent is to build an organization that's not about me at all.

unknown 26:08

Right.

Kevin Lawrence 26:08

But that's that so I have a bias in that direction. But I think one of the, yeah, a number of the CEOs that we've worked with, um, yeah, it's they don't want they want it to be not about them for the endurance to make the company enduring. And they obviously they like to, they they they're like the engineer behind the scenes.

Mike Maddock 26:26

Is there, yeah, and I've so I've been I've been beating my a lot of my CEO friends over the head, the ones that are like the most legit, humble servant leaders. I'm like, you know, you're gonna leave your company and no one is gonna unwrap the gift that you are. You got to spend a little bit of time, just a little bit, making sure that people know who you are. Um, okay, so let's go to blind spots. There is there a um a CEO blind spot that you see more often than not, you know, like it's uh you can pick a seat, like you can be operator, rainmaker, visionary, whatever, but is there a common blind spot like oh this strength has become a weakness, man? You you and you don't see it.

Blind Spots: Scarcity Mindset On Talent

Kevin Lawrence 27:15

I mean, there's there's lots. There's lots of them. Um sometimes, again, this would probably be a visionary, believing that believing in possibility, they get mired in all the stuff going on, and and believing that almost anything is possible if they stay focused on it. Uh the I think the biggest one is actually around talent. Like I'm helping one of my clients to to um with their advisory board right now and recruiting people. And for years, I've been and this business is about you know close to 400 million of revenue. Yeah. And I'm saying we need to add direct board members who are from at least a billion, but ideally a 1.5 billion with a similar operating system, still founder-led, founder-owned, and they've been a part of that kind of operating system. And it took a while, but uh because I'm like, this is a great company. All kinds of the most talented people in that one to two billion dollar range would love to be on this board. And it took a while, but now the people were interviewing people yesterday, and these people are inspiringly spectacular. Like these amazing people will be thrilled to be a part of it. So I think it's the scarcity belief about talent, and there's not enough out there. I think it's the biggest. There is such amazing people always available to join, whether it's the executive team or the directors of the board, sorry, board members or you know, the directors under the executives. So that's a blind spot. That the spec there is absolutely spectacular talent all over the place. You just gotta you gotta tap into it.

Mike Maddock 28:52

I remember being asked to come in and give a talk to a Fortune 100 board. And I the prep I got was um there's one entrepreneur on this board and he is dying because everyone else on the board is an Enneagram three and they think he's from Mars and they just want to mitigate risk, mitigate risk, mitigate risk. Uh hint, it was a financial services company. Right. But I was just there to soften the beach for the entrepreneur on the board who wanted to take more chances. Yeah. Okay, so let me let me ask you some lightning round questions. Are you ready? Sure. First thing that comes to your head.

Speaker 1 29:33

Um gut or data? Gut. I love it.

Mike Maddock 29:45

I use data as the as the half our audience is like, are you out of your mind? Okay. Uh related question.

Speaker 1 29:53

Visionary or operator? Visionary. Okay, awesome. Um best book for CEOs besides your own. All of Jim Collins's books.

Kevin Lawrence 30:08

Good degree. Probably I like how the mighty fall. It's you know, when one of our sessions with Jim, he asked people the favorite one, and I was the only one, there was like 20 of us, only one that said how the mighty fall. And he gave me this little funny smile. He's like, Yeah, me too. It's my trip to the dark side.

Mike Maddock 30:26

It was so depressing. I felt like I read that book, I'm like, this is a story about me, and I hate it. I mean, I it was like the worst nightmare for a business person.

Kevin Lawrence 30:37

And I just like, oh god, but the thing I love about that book is is like it tells you what the warning signs are when you're screwing up your own company and how to bring it back. I re I reference them all the time.

Mike Maddock 30:51

Try reading it when it's too late. It's very difficult to do. Yeah, no, that would be pain.

Lightning Round: Gut, Vision, And Dark Sides

Kevin Lawrence 30:54

That would be excruciating. Don't don't do that. Read like Winnie the Pooh or something like that. I do. That's not that's go ahead.

Mike Maddock 31:02

I read it right after one of my businesses. Yeah, that was hurt failing. Yeah. I'm like, man, so if you can read How the Mighty Fall and be really happy about it, um, count your blessings because it means you haven't been to the dark side yet. Okay. Very good.

Speaker 1 31:16

Um most underrated CEO skill.

Kevin Lawrence 31:21

Listening and observing.

Speaker 1 31:24

What'd you say?

Mike Maddock 31:25

Okay. You took the bait. Okay. Um, most overrated CEO trait.

Kevin Lawrence 31:33

Talking persuading, selling.

Speaker 1 31:38

What makes top CEOs dangerous in a good way?

Kevin Lawrence 31:44

They often want to empower people and they often will let go of too much of the reins in areas that hurt them in the end.

Mike Maddock 31:54

Yeah, I think that there's a quick digression from the lightning round. Talk about that for a second. You you're uh, you know, delegating or abdicating responsibility. So so you there are certain things that people like I I'll call them God-given gifts that nobody else is ever gonna have, regardless of their CV. And the CEO should, I believe, hang on to that part of their mojo and not abdicate it, delegate it, relegate it, whatever the word is. Um you have a story about that?

Delegation Versus Abdication

Kevin Lawrence 32:32

Endless. Well, I well, I have um probably 14. I'm trying to think of which one would be most relevant. I can show you an example. Like I was on with a CEO this morning and I work within another country, just hired a president for the business. And the conversation is the most important thing is onboarding that person properly and then letting go and staying connected. But in all of the theory out there, he's thinking he needs to fully let go and let this guy run. He has great experience and everything. And in the end, I've probably seen, I don't know, two, three hundred million dollars of damage to companies from them that exact move, because they think they're supposed to give them a lot of space and they give them too much. And it almost becomes like abdicating versus like empowering the person to run and be successful. It happens all the time. And and for example, I got a very good one. One of my clients, uh, this is a US-based client. I'll I'll keep it generic to be to protect the the innocent, but they brought in a great president from a great company, like incredible pedigree, incredible background, incredible company. Love the guy. He was great. This company had a very strong operating system, it had a strong scaling up operating system, and it had some top grading operating system for people. Like it was a well-oiled machine, beating the competitors in the industry on every market. Like it was a beast. We built this great company. Uh that and when the president came into this company, the CEO backed off and gave the person space. At some point, the CEO calls me and says, Kevin, I uh I we gotta we gotta jump in here and I need some help because the the president had a different operating system that matched the company's and and execution stopped, strategy got murky, they lost their competitive advantage. Now, now the company is still very profitable, but now we're in a turnaround. And we're we're doing it, it'll it's fine, but it too much of the core operating system disappeared and the company just started going to mush. Accountability disappeared, everything faded. And and and the conversation with the CEO after, and he was obviously frustrated with himself, and this is all learning. But he realized is that you know, he needed to make sure he needed to hold on to a few key pieces of the operating system that were non-negotiables, and what Jim Collins would call on the smack list, and not let the person bring in their complete own operating system because it really, really hurt the business. And it's it was almost um it was almost depressing in itself. It was just like this is whole this company was a shining star and now it needs a lot of help.

Mike Maddock 35:15

My um my from my experience, something that I see happening a lot is you have a an entrepreneurial CEO. So this is someone in the flourish framework would be a um visionary, strategist, or rainmaker. Okay. And they're they have used either sales or vision or some kind of seeing the market differently to start something new and then do it again and then do it again and then do it again. So they they get this company up to 50 million, 100 million, 200 million, whatever, and then they bring in a professional operator and they like let give them the reins and they get bored because there's nothing for them to do in that company. So they go off and start other companies. Like they start new things, they can't help themselves. Meanwhile, that innovation, that that fire of innovation has left the building and it's what and it's too bad. So, so I my coaching is like, okay, if you're one of those, if that's your mojo, man, cut out something in the new operating system for that mojo to live and thrive. Don't give it away.

Kevin Lawrence 36:27

Yes, keep it in the company because the company needs it. Yeah. Because those types of skills normally the new people coming in don't have them, especially when you hire like the professional president or professional CEO.

Mike Maddock 36:39

Yeah, actually, I'm remembering that when we were together with Jim Collins, he talked about this. I think he used it as um, was it Best Buy, where they were this jogger nut, and then they started uh Auto Nation or something? And it like it because the that that that creativity left the building and started something new. Like, and that's what was the new exciting thing. Anyway, um, if I'm remembering it correctly. Okay, back to the lightning round. Sorry for that. Um, the peak performance fuel of a leader, pick one curiosity, fear, ambition, or insecurity. Oh curiosity, fear, ambition, or insecurity.

Kevin Lawrence 37:26

Fear, fear or insecurity in in the early parts of someone's career. Ideally, they graduate to a cleaner fuel of purpose and impact, and that's a transition. But generally, 20s, 30s, sometimes 40s, people are still fear of not being good enough, fear of not hitting it. But that's a it's a dirty fuel source, but it's a great way to get started.

Keep Founder Mojo Inside The Company

Mike Maddock 37:48

I love that. I love that cleaner fuel. It's a great way to talk about it. Uh, what is the phrase productive paranoia? Yep. Most of my friends that are successful still have a fair amount of that.

Kevin Lawrence 38:00

Huge degrees. Yes.

Mike Maddock 38:02

Okay. Is having CEO friends overrated or essential?

Kevin Lawrence 38:08

I think it's essential. Absolutely essential. One for your sanity because you realize that we're all similarly crazy. And two, you know, entrepreneurs, CEOs, professional CEOs or you know, founders think differently. And it's incredibly helpful to be around like-minded people with similar challenges, whether it's challenges at work or in life. I think like almost every person I spend, almost all of the people I spend time with are founders, mostly founders, founder CEOs. Because you're in the world.

Mike Maddock 38:38

I would I would build on that. And in my experience, the CEOs, there are certain things that feel like first-world problems that you can only tell another CEO, so they don't roll their eyes like, oh, that must be really hard. You know, like, well, it is we talk all the time.

Kevin Lawrence 38:57

We we're not gonna go and talk about first of all, we don't even like to talk about all the good stuff happening in our life with some friends and family because it's too much. But with when you're around other business people and CEOs, it's like the they're doing the same things. It's easier. I I think for me, it's a huge part of my sanity. And I think it's yeah.

Mike Maddock 39:16

The other thing I would say is that um I think sometimes the only person that you're going to allow to tell you that your baby is ugly is another CEO, which is to say that, you know, really um not sure that that's a good idea. Or I tried that and it really didn't work for me. Exactly.

Kevin Lawrence 39:36

You know, and let me tell you why. Yes.

Mike Maddock 39:38

Yeah. All right. Well, Kevin, I I really appreciate you. Again, the 90-10 rule in coaching, I have so many friends that have sold their businesses and moved on to helping other people grow parts of their business. And in the world of CEO coaching, there is a 90-10 rule, and 10% of the CE, these coaches are doing 90% of the good. And Kevin, I feel so grateful that we're buddies and you're one of those guys because you are constantly um, you know, putting fuel in my engine, to use your flight metaphor. So thank you.

Kevin Lawrence 40:17

Thank you. And thanks for doing this. I always love when we chat, Mike. And you know, and you as well. You're you're just trying to do good in the world, you're trying to help people like I am. And the funny thing is, it's really rewarding to help people because you get to see how it impacts them and it's you know, it's business at the same time. So I don't know. What a great way to live life.

Speaker 1 40:35

Yeah, lucky us. Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin Lawrence 40:37

Uh huh. I think so.