Hiring for Good is a podcast exploring the transformative power of leadership and what happens when the right person takes the job. Thank you for tuning in to this episode with our guest Cameron Madill, Founder of PixelSpoke and a social impact entrepreneur.
Hiring For Good Website: https://www.hiringforgoodpod.com/
About Cameron Madill: Cameron Madill is a social impact entrepreneur, renowned for his work building and scaling organizations with a focus on relationship development and leveraging positive psychology principles.
Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/288s2ur...
Podcast on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Tanis Morris: Director of Business Development at Acumen Executive Search Email: tanis@acumenexecutivesearch.com
Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search Email: suzanne@acumenexecutivesearch.com
Acumen Executive Search Website: https://www.acumenexecutivesearch.com/
Acumen Executive Search is the leading certified woman-owned Executive Search and advisory Firm on the West Coast.
Acumen sources, attracts, and qualifies world-class executive and management talent for organizations to support them in achieving their organizational goals. Due to their focus and local network, which is both broad and deep, we are able to leverage best practices across a broad range of industries. We employ an equity lens throughout the recruitment process.
Hiring for Good Transcript
0:00 well good morning I’m Suzanne Hanafin with Acumen Executive Search and I’m here with my lovely co-host Tanis
0:06 Morris. Good morning. And I am so excited today to have Cameron Madrill here with
0:12 us because Cameron not only has been a CEO entrepreneur growth growing a
0:18 business he gave it all up, took a left turn, and now is doing something so
0:25 totally different and I think it’s the bravery and taking that challenge and
0:32 risk that allowed him to do a successful exit with his company and do it
0:39 creatively with an employee co-op and Cameron will share with us his journey
0:45 but he’s writing a book doing research all all around couples and couples in
0:53 particularly with entrepreneurial so welcome Cameron thanks for having me pleasure to be here
0:59 yeah so so again big broad introduction yeah tell us your journey and walk us
1:05 through what got you where you are today yeah okay so that’s that’s a big question um are we thinking just mostly
1:11 professional not from like when I was born we like to start the beginning start wherever you want you know
1:19 absolutely okay well I’ll do a very abbreviated how I got into business um
1:24 you know I I sort of going through high school and college I was kind of interested in everything and that meant
1:30 as I neared the end of college uh and I noticed some people had really good plans you know they were like I’m interning at this place and I’m going to
1:36 go into you know I was down in the Bay Area I’m going to go into uh Silicon Valley I’m going to go to Finance on
1:42 Wall Street I’m going to get a PhD I’m going to do whatever and I just was happily kind of like eating from the
1:48 buffet of life and I realized like oh crap you know I need to have some kind of plan cuz clearly the signals are out
1:54 there um and I sort of put that together with another you know rather basic insight which was that I never have
2:01 really liked doing what other people tell me I don’t like to think of myself as like aggressively antisocial or
2:07 anything but I just sort of I don’t know I kind of like to make my own mistakes and so as I was just kind of casting
2:13 around trying on different hats I just thought you know what maybe I’ll just start a company and just see what happens and at least this way um a lot
2:21 of this came actually because I took two years off in the middle of college to play music so I’d seen most of my friends graduate and pretty much they
2:26 all hated work that was kind of the universal like whether was Wall Street or Silicon Valley or working for a
2:32 nonprofit they all kind of were grumbling about this new life and so I just thought why don’t I basically
2:38 grumble about myself and start my own company so that was my dad and I actually started a company back in
2:43 2003 um and we partnered for about six years um and what was the business yeah
2:51 so the business was this is sort of really where we were at was sort of web stuff like we really didn’t I mean I I
2:58 had degrees undergradu..undergrad graduate degrees in History and Physics so I I mean I really had zero and I did
3:03 this 2-year musical journey I had done so I just had no it was almost embarrassing I remember
3:09 at one point I was like all right I’m going to figure out a system this weekend for like you would guys would relate to this to like helping to have
3:16 people know what to do and when they should get promotions and and then I was like oh crap I think this is called HR
3:23 but I literally didn’t i’ never studied any of this stuff and I literally like Googled HR like I was I don’t know what
3:28 it is um so yeah we were kind of doing websites kind of doing some web software
3:34 it was all self-taught um so those were kind of like the early the years of the early struggle and I
3:40 think for as far as how I got to here the the 2009 the Great Recession was a
3:45 deeply formative event in a a difficult way but I do think there was a lot of post-traumatic growth on on my and our
3:52 part of kind of like okay excuse me you know what what did we learn from this so
3:58 we were we were kind of trying to chase cats at the same time we were trying to do custom web software and websites and
4:04 we made more money doing custom web software but it was I guess at the most basic level I didn’t like it and so I
4:10 just felt like we need to simplify and focus and just do one thing even if it’s like a commodity and just figure out how
4:17 to do that well so we just stopped doing all software work and we just did websites um which was pretty scary
4:23 because that was like 60% of our revenue um but I just thought you know if the ship’s going to sink I at least want to
4:28 say I went down being true to to myself and and is this still called Pixel Spokes well it was called Sin Attack
4:34 back then which is what you name a company when you don’t know how to name a company but rest rest in peace Sin Attack
4:41 so yeah we renamed as Pixel Spoke a few years later okay and then if I were to hit kind of three big bullet points as
4:46 to how I got to where I am today and where Pixel Spoke is today there were kind of like three formative events so
4:53 like coming out of of the Great Recession I was just like I need to stop trying to pretend like I and we are so
4:59 special and we need to just figure out how to do like a commodity web design business well wasn’t very inspiring it
5:05 wasn’t very exciting it took a lot of focus um and discipline but it was kind of like if we can’t figure out a
5:11 foundational thing um we can’t figure out how to be special instead of kind of trying to jump to being special um and
5:17 kind of skipping all those steps it’s kind of like I know um we were talking how we’re both musicians I remember when
5:23 I when I first started playing guitar and people were like hey you need to study this musician let’s say like Jimi
5:29 Hendrick and like I don’t want to sound like Jimi Hendrick and it was only after like really dedicating myself to
5:34 music that I realized if anyone ever mistakes me for Jimi Hendricks I should like fall to my knees and just thank the
5:41 universe for giving cuz that you know to be able to emulate someone who’s truly a master at their craft is incredibly
5:47 difficult and usually that’s the first step you know obviously towards coming up with a unique individual style so
5:53 anyway that was kind of the goal was like learn how to kind of emulate business Basics and then the three big bullet points were in 2014 think that
6:01 was right 2014 we became a certified B Corp and that community of of businesses focused on uh doing well and doing good
6:09 in the world was really transformational for us I felt like we’d really found our people and kind of that appropriate
6:14 balance of of purpose and profit and that they don’t have to be in competition they can actually be you know things that that amplify each other
6:23 in 2016 we went all in on focusing on credit unions and that was sort of the
6:28 second choice of we were working with all different Industries and all different uh types of clients and by by
6:34 having that focus and finding an industry that we really loved um I really do believe that kind of Finance
6:40 well it’s kind of like a a boring and wonky topic sometimes behind every like big social problem there’s finance and
6:47 you’ll see Credit Unions working there um so that was another big step of
6:52 having a greater focus on our clients so that we could add a lot more value to them um and then the the last big step
6:59 was at the of 2019 we converted to an employee cooperative and that felt like kind of for me the I don’t know the end
7:06 of the journey of what I I wanted to be able to do with the company there was a lot of work to integrate that model certainly Covid hit the next year uh and
7:13 you know all the things that happened um but that was kind of the final point where it felt like we really became uh or I think of Pixel Spoke I
7:20 still think of myself as part of it and I guess I am as an adviser but I think of it as kind of like uh my first child
7:26 and it’s like at that point it was like wow you guys are ready to to go off on your own yeah go to college and do great
7:32 things so those are the big bullet points so that’s really interesting you know you you listed kind of three
7:38 formative steps in your growth the events what would you say are the lessons that you learned or or or you
7:45 know they don’t necessarily need to be formative lessons that you learned from those particular events but if you look
7:50 back at your journey what what are the biggest takeaways that you feel that you’ve you
7:56 know that have shaped you um you know as a human as a leader as a as a business
8:02 person yeah so okay big question I know I’m sorry maybe no it’s great maybe I’ll
8:07 start with each of those three so I think from B Corp it was kind of the importance of finding a community where
8:14 um we felt like we mattered and we felt like we could make a contribution um there’s this really
8:20 interesting psychology concept of mattering which is basically the balance between feeling valued and adding value
8:26 and you know that it’s not going to be bort for everyone there’s lots of different ways but I do think we felt
8:31 like we found a home we felt like we found our peers and we felt like we found a place where we received a ton
8:37 and we we wanted to give a lot um and I think that matters a lot for a Founder
8:42 CEO but it also matters a ton for the company you know it’s kind of that um thinking of companies is kind of growing
8:48 evolving things um you know I think from our credit union
8:54 journey uh I don’t know if this is relevant to people out there but I I I’ve always been um like a quick thinker
9:02 and I love to read you know I’ve had a goal of reading a book a week for decades at this point and so I always
9:08 thought oh and and I took strengths finder and it said my you know str..you know strategic is one of my top five strengths so I thought I’m good at
9:14 strategy and people would often invite me to be on boards or or join planning sessions but when I really looked at our
9:19 company’s strategy we were we we didn’t have a good strategy um and as I really kind of was
9:26 willing to look in the mirror I I did this like intensive two-month journey where I read a dozen books on strategy
9:32 took all these notes um had a lot of guidance from my business coach and what I was ultimately left with the conf..you
9:38 know the conclusion is there’s all this writing out there but ultimately strategy just equals focus if you can’t describe what you’re doing in one
9:44 sentence in a way that a 5-year-old understands it I don’t think you have a very good strategy now there’s a lot more that you hang on top of that but uh
9:52 I think before that I would often when people asked what we did I’d sort of be like oh you know we do I can’t even
9:57 remember you know but we do you know digital marketing that connects companies and customers through
10:02 different touch points and I don’t know on and on and on um and so until we got to the point where we said you know we
10:08 want to be we want to build the best websites for credit unions in the world I don’t think we had a good strategy
10:14 right um and I think that’s hard because as humans I think we like to do more but that that whole you know Jim Collins’s
10:20 idea of that the stop doing list is the most important thing that we can do is leaders I think I think has a lot of relevance there and it was really hard
10:27 for me to and actually not just for me for us to shut down a lot of those options it was really hard to say no to
10:32 a lot of things and the risk of course too is if you say no to too many things you might find out there’s not enough of
10:37 a market there and that can be painful too um I think as far as the the employee
10:45 cooperative it is one of the things like I am I’m most proud of that I’ve done and that we’ve done and I think I just
10:51 really I love talking to people about employee ownership because I think it’s something that’s not very broadly out there in our
10:57 society um and there’s a lot of great options there’s a lot of cool stuff happening in Portland
11:03 specifically and I just think as as Founders most of us some people have I guess you talked about your partners
11:09 done a bunch of of startups but most people like most entrepreneurs are only going to have one significant company
11:15 and so you don’t get to like you know just do this a whole bunch and I think it’s really important to look at all the
11:21 different options and I think I think far too many entrepreneurs don’t look at employee ownership to have it on the
11:26 table um and I think far too many entrepreneur just don’t even really think about the end and it’s one of
11:31 those things that I always like to say we all leave our company one day and the only question is is it head first or is
11:36 it feet first and so I think thinking about a way we can do it on our own terms that we’re going to feel great about whatever that is uh means we need
11:44 to look at all the different options and you know as as a business owner I’ve heard of ESOPs I’ve heard of employee
11:51 trust I don’t know really what an employee co-op is cool um yeah there I
11:57 mean it’s it’s not something that that’s huge in the US there’s probably something like 500 uh employee
12:04 cooperatives in the US basically if if you differentiate between ESOPs uh co-ops and employee
12:12 trusts ESOPs um are great option they have a great a really great tax benefit
12:18 for the selling owner and that’s part of why they they work really well and they do I think they do a lot of great things
12:24 in the world but you need to be a pretty large size to do an ESOP um so could I
12:29 interject really quickly just say acon alert acony alert apologies no it’s okay
12:34 we all do it would you mind explaining what it ESOP is please yeah and I’m not the person to do that but I’ll do a real
12:40 high level just say the name it’s okay um employee stock option plan um so it’s
12:45 basically a really powerful retirement plan for the employees um and then the company is
12:52 owned by a trust and the trust governs the the company on behalf of the employees thank you that’s all that
12:57 needs to be said please that’s like all I know so yeah well perfect um yeah so
13:02 typically you need to be over 5 million in revenue and 1 million in profit or eida in technical terms earnings before
13:10 interest yeah anyway whatever that is um so you know that’s that that rules out a
13:17 lot of the the companies in the economy um employee ownership trusts I also
13:22 don’t know a huge amount but it’s it’s sort of similar to an ESOP um but they’re much less expensive to so ESOPs
13:28 are very expensive to set up that’s why you need that scale um so they kind of have a similar
13:33 setup to um an ESOP but much less expensive and I think I think more flexible in a lot of ways there’s a lot
13:39 of them in Portland which is cool and then employee cooperatives are the big
13:45 difference between these other models is they are governed by the employees um so at now and and not every
13:53 employee necessarily gets to be an owner you get to set your eligibility requirements we said 3 years and then
13:58 like a roughly a six-month candidate uh period where you’re getting mentored and trained because there’s a lot they
14:04 always talk about the rights and the responsibilities of ownership and then a $10,000 buy in but what it entitles you
14:10 to is an equal share of um whatever profits are available at the end of the year to be distributed so that means
14:16 that our CEO uh just as much as a junior programmer if they’re all owners they get the same uh distribution so it’s a
14:24 it’s a very um you know in the most literal sense of the term it’s a very progressive approach to distributing
14:31 profits um it’s really powerful if it’s done right because you know you hear all this talking about how do you create an
14:36 ownership culture and you literally create an ownership culture you know the the work we’ve had to do which was
14:41 substantial to have open salaries among the owners um yeah it’s I mean it’s a lot of work you know getting a budget
14:48 approved but what’s cool is we’ve just created this incredibly deep level of um
14:55 understanding uh and and wisdom and expertise about how the business works and how the business is run by every
15:01 single person in the company so anyway that’s that’s the that must be really transformative for the culture of the
15:07 company I how do you I would be curious to hear how that’s sort of um played out
15:13 culturally yeah I mean so launching a a co-op on January 1st 2020 you was one of those things that uh it was actually
15:21 good because I think if we had waited a year we might not have had the energy to do it with everything that happened um
15:26 yeah it was a really and continues be a really wonderful um winding and enriching experience
15:34 um the there was a lot of things that we we we just kind of had to learn along
15:39 the way but I think at the core it it just I think we we had a great culture before but it it it just
15:46 went to a whole another level and I think on sort of um on sort of like an embodied level what I noticed as CEO was
15:53 I was like the happiest and most um I think engaged I had been in a
15:59 long time and I think the reason was I think most CEOs have to hold a ton of cognitive dissonance between here’s what
16:06 ownership even if you are ownership here’s what ownership wants um here’s maybe what the leadership team wants
16:12 here’s what the customers want here’s what the you know the rank and file employees want and there’s I think
16:17 there’s a fair degree of masking of kind of like deception that that even in a really good company has to go on and
16:25 what I found was that true sense of like we are all in this together and I felt really deeply respected for my skills
16:31 and empowered um but uh I I think without that need for
16:38 maybe having to kind of put a mask on at times I don’t think I felt that certainly not all the time and maybe not
16:44 most of the time before that um but it really just sort of felt like we were all people doing jobs who were valued
16:51 for our different skills versus kind of that kind of us and them that happens a lot between management um and you know
16:57 the rest of the employees and I love that comment you can leave a company by your head or feet first head
17:04 first or feet first yeah you you chose to leave and at a great time but you
17:11 also did this huge pivot so talk about kind of the thought Pro what went
17:18 through your head on making these decisions because it’s hard to leave a successful
17:24 business yeah I mean you know what’s funny is it wasn’t that that hard for me
17:30 um and I think the reason was kind of goes back to I at some point kind of in
17:36 my mid-30s I was like I can see this story has an ending right it’s like we know the book has a last page or a last
17:43 chapter and I think there certainly are a lot of people who run one company their whole
17:49 life and stay engaged and vital but I think I had just also met a lot of people who my sense and this is of
17:56 course a judgment on on my part but my sense was they were were kind of trapped you know they had built a successful
18:01 company they made good money you you feel important you have a reason to get out of
18:06 bed but they weren’t deeply fulfilled by it anymore you know they weren’t getting into that flow state of engagement they
18:11 didn’t feel like they were really challenging themselves deeply um and at the worst you know it can turn into
18:17 people who are you know fairly cynical and misanthropic um so I just thought
18:23 and I also just thought I want to have more I want to do more things in my life than than you know just this company I I
18:29 love I mean 20 years of my life I loved it and continue to love it deeply um but that doesn’t mean that I
18:36 can’t do other things so that wasn’t hard but I do want to give a quick plug for employee ownership because one of
18:42 the most important things about employee ownership that people don’t get is in this area I’ve seen a lot of people sell
18:48 their companies and have to show up and say to their entire team hi I sold the company this is the new owner my I my
18:55 email gets shut down at 3 p.m. it’s been great working with you all so back to sort of self-deception and I think it is
19:01 I think it works fine for some people but I also think it’s it’s kind of sad and honestly almost traumatic for some people and one of the cool things about
19:08 employee ownership is you can separate the ownership transition from the leadership transition so I had four years to say
19:14 goodbye um and we really spent the first two years doing that integration of the
19:19 co-op model and just surviving covid and all that you know craziness um and then I told the board
19:26 uh at the end of 2021 that I had another two years. Mmhm. And they were a little bit
19:32 surprised um and then they came around to it and we spent a year kind of figuring out who we were going to replace me with and then we spent a full
19:38 year where the entire company not just the owners knew what the succession plan was so I mean I really had this long
19:45 goodbye uh that was really wonderful and meaningful and then you know by the last quarter I tried really hard to keep
19:51 adding value but it was kind of like my successors had stepped up and they were doing a bunch of my job and um it just
19:57 felt like a natural transition. Hm. So but should I talk about my transition okay so how I went about that so since I had
20:04 all this time there wasn’t like this like one day I’m CEO and owner and next day it’s just gone and I’m like who am I
20:09 and I need to go to you know therapy and do all this processing well because I think it’s a it’s a huge life change and
20:14 a lot of people kind of sprint right up to the end and they’re just exhausted I for all of 2023 was working three days a
20:21 week um my successors had been found and just like I said increasingly kind of my
20:26 job responsibilities were getting you know handed off so I had this long list of things I wanted to do next and it was
20:32 it was wackadoodle it was like a college senior who kind of has no idea what they want to do um but one of the things on
20:38 the list was an interesting couples work um I’ve been deeply fascinated in it for about a decade um my wife and I
20:44 are big fans of the the Gottman Method for folks who know them yeah Drs John and Julie Gottman they’ve done amazing books there’s a a whole Gottman method of
20:51 of therapy and coaching and workshops and I found that I was I was
20:57 allowed to do the trainings even though know um I’m not a you know licensed therapist and at that point I didn’t even have any kind of grad degree
21:03 credentials and so I just thought heck I’ll sign up um and I just loved it so I kind of found over the course of 2023
21:09 that all my energy went towards couples’ stuff so I had this long list but there was only one thing that when I had a
21:15 free day I would spend doing and I I would just literally read random research books on couples um I was just
21:20 so enthralled by it so that was just sort of It kind of just emerged and then from that I I picked up
21:27 a couple projects I started leading couples workshops which was a lot of fun I did a little bit of couples coaching
21:33 um but then it dawned on me that my my wife is an accomplished entrepreneur um I’m an entrepreneur or or ex
21:39 entrepreneur I don’t know whatever I am now and and a couple people sort of commented like hey that’s so interesting
21:44 that the two of you guys each juggle your own businesses and are now four-year-old kid and your marriage and
21:50 you all seem to like each other and be happy we we have our down days like everyone but like it it it works
21:55 overall um and so I I realized I have I’ve done a lot of like learning and studying of entrepreneurs and
22:01 entrepreneurial personality traits and now I’ve done all this work on couples but what about the two together you know
22:07 I didn’t really have any I didn’t have any point of view I didn’t have anything I really wanted to say I was just exploring but it dawned on me those two
22:13 things could intersect so I started a project to interview a hundred couples where one of both of them are business owners
22:19 um which I just finished a couple weeks ago which was…congratulations…a lot of work I know a lot harder than I thought and so
22:26 now I’m working on a book proposal to turn that into a book um and I’ve given a couple talks uh on the topic around
22:31 what I’ve developed um and then in a in a somewhat complimentary vein I’m just about to
22:37 start a MS in Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania which uh
22:43 I think actually is really complimentary because so much of the couples work out there is kind of focused on distressed
22:48 couples not kind of on uh average or functional couples that want to become high functioning so that’s how I think
22:54 the pieces are all fitting together in my life right now how interesting and fun that’s really I mean there’s so much
23:00 there you know typically we ask we ask our you know
23:05 guests here to talk about closely held values that they have and how they
23:11 infuse those values into the workplace yeah but it sounds
23:17 like you probably have some closely held values that that have you know
23:23 transcended the workplace so like do you see some commonalities in some of the work that you’re doing now
23:28 and the work that you did at your organization like where you have values that you’re kind of integrating into
23:34 into that yeah into those streams yeah great question um I love talking about values and I think you’re absolutely
23:40 right that to me it it’s it’s all the same right except for the sexual intimacy part but I think like like no
23:47 but I mean literally I think like I read all this couple stuff and I’m like this is the same this same this happened in this leadership team meeting this
23:52 happened in this you know retreat this happened in this meeting where people got tense um I think the underlying
23:58 relational dynamics are are basically all the same they’re the same kind of like uh systems uh inside our bodies so
24:06 from a value standpoint um so I I so okay there’s this really interesting
24:11 concept called skill transference um which I really like it’s for people who are in therapy typically and they’re
24:17 they’re kind of like barking at their partner they’re not doing well and and they’re told to listen with empathy
24:23 something typically pretty basic but it usually is with us in relationships myself as well right so listen with
24:28 empathy or um just validate what they’re saying don’t give advice um or say more
24:35 nice things than mean things like really basic stuff and people like well I can’t do that it’s not authentic and then you
24:41 ask them you say okay well tell me about this kind of situation at work you know if you’re if you’re one of your direct reports or colleague came to you said oh
24:47 that presentation went terrible would you immediately start being like oh well no wonder like you’re such an idiot you know or look at this cover slide and so
24:54
people we realize as humans like oh like in different domains we actually are able to use these skills um so I think for me personally
25:02
where this is especially relevant is I really think my company forced me to figure out my personal values um I sort
25:10 of went through this process that I think a lot of entrepreneurs do where I was being asked to define a mission and Define core values for my company and I
25:16 didn’t know what my personal purpose was I didn’t know what my own core values were so through a lot of those exercises
25:23 we landed on uh Pixel Spoke six values which are certainly uh all deeply held by by me but there was a lot of
25:29 contribution from our team as well and then I think those in turn did uh transfer quite a bit to uh my my family
25:37 values that I have with Anna and our son doesn’t really have a voice yet but he seems to like them um so I guess maybe
25:43 your question about transference of values I think I would I would just personally say my experience and I I think um I guess there’s research that
25:50 supports this is just thinking about that skill transference piece so if you figure it out for yourself then you can take it to work if you figure it out at
25:57 work then it probably applies to yourself um if you figured it out for your relationship you can apply it to
26:02 work or you can apply it to yourself they’re all connected and to take that one step further um you can apply to
26:10 your children too yeah because again having a house full of teenage
26:15 boys you know it’s important to remember the negotiation skills the the let’s
26:21 have this open honest conversation practicing not your temporate work helps at home I mean
26:28 yeah we…Have a 4 year old…we have a four-year-old but I agree like the whole I mean so many of those skills that
26:34 you’re right at least so far my experience is with kids it’s exactly the same and then sometimes I think kids are the best teachers because often you know
26:41 our our our you know relationship partner or our work colleagues have a a fairly high degree of skill even when we
26:46 think they’re unskillful they’re pretty skilled compared to what a four-year-old might feel like if they 100% want that
26:52 toy plane and they’re not going to yield yeah and you mentioned community um you
26:59 know in in your journey and things and um and community is really important and
27:05 I know you’ve been a member and active member of EO yeah how did that help or
27:12 did it help shape this transition or was it the growth of your company yeah so so
27:19 EO entrepreneurs organization has been um just profoundly helpful for me um I
27:25 first joined a program in 2007 which was called EO accelerator which for businesses between 250,000 and a million
27:32 and then I joined EO itself which is a million and over in 2014 or something I don’t remember the year
27:39 um yeah I mean I think for me that that sort of idea of getting off the island I felt very isolated and and back maybe
27:45 back to that idea of masking I felt like at work I really had to put on a mask like I think sometimes Brene Brown is in a
27:51 great job of popularizing vulnerability but I think sometimes it it and I think she she expresses these
27:57 nuances but people don’t catch the nuances um and so you know I would always tell people like you know okay so
28:04 you want your leader to be vulnerable do you want to know that they were tossing and turning at 3:00 a.m. like going through layoff plans in their head
28:10 because they didn’t think they were going to be able to make payroll like no like but but you actually want to know
28:15 that your CEO you want a CEO who’s doing that kind of stuff uh but you don’t want them to share all the details with you
28:21 because you hope they’re proactively planning for it and looking around the curve and that means that you don’t have to do that um but I wouldn’t want to
28:27 know that I was on a list that you know might get you know cut or whatever so um EO I think really was profoundly helpful
28:34 and that it gave me a place to go with those places where I I had sort of deep existential doubts and and
28:40 uncertainties um as well as often capitalizing on the good things so yeah I think it guided me um every step of
28:47 the way I’ve been in a a small group form of entrepreneurs we’ve been together for eight years so it’s it’s
28:52 it’s kind of been every it’s been I guess you know it’s ostensibly business but it you know inevitably for me has
28:58 meant personal it’s meant family um career transitions and and anything else I’m missing right there absolutely and
29:06 you grew your organization and this podcast is on leadership and hiring yeah
29:12 yeah yeah and so talk to us about really the approach that you take on building
29:18 teams and and again how then did you learn here that you can
29:24 take outside of your business yeah I love that you follow the script this is great you told me this we’re like all
29:31 over the place uh so um what did I learn about building
29:37 teams so I think on the leadership level what what we all what I always broke it
29:42 down what we still break it down to on hiring uh is like the whole you know the whole rule of three thing it’s like is
29:47 someone a culture fit do they have shared core values and are they excited to live them like we always found that the the best hires which is everyone I
29:54 think we’ve hired in the last decade they show up and they’re like wow I didn’t know a company like this existed I love these values these are my values
30:02 so that culture fit is critical but when they’re not shared that’s you know equally damaging um obviously the the
30:07 competency piece can they do the job and do they have the aptitude to keep improving at it um or at least you know get there quickly and then lastly we
30:14 talk about story fit you know is there a three-year trajectory inside the company that’s really going to meet their needs
30:20 and going to meet the company’s needs because I think that’s the basis of like a a reasonable win-win relationship and
30:25 I always felt like planning beyond three years is kind of silly so those are like the three foundational pieces I think
30:32 with with leaders the the two other things I mean yeah there’s so many
30:37 things you can look at but the two big things I think of is someone who’s a coach so someone who’s really exp really
30:43 excited to um Inspire and lead people to their optimal performance and then the
30:49 flip side of the coin is just as excited to help that person achieve their dreams um and and I think that the other
30:57 thing I look for is just someone who’s really intrinsically motivated to have the team win um I think you know our
31:02 current CEO I always love this in her interview um she’s a she’s a pretty
31:07 competitive person but she talked about how she never cared that much about winning herself it was the team winning
31:12 that just lit her up and I think in fact at her you know possibly I can’t remember but so I shouldn’t speak for
31:18 her too much but I think you know at some certain previous jobs she hadn’t really been able to do that so she had
31:23 been successful from the the employer standpoint but she didn’t feel like she was able to be be successful was given
31:28 the tools to help the team to win um and so I just think those those are the kinds of people we all want to work for
31:34 right someone who’s going to push us someone who’s going to keep our dreams and needs in mind and help make sure we’re moving towards those as well um
31:41 and then someone who just is intrinsically you know motivated to do that job because I think you know I
31:47 think we all know the jokes about the Peter Principal or you know people who end up in management just because it’s the next you know rung on the ladder
31:52 versus people who you know really love to do what what can be a really hard job well and it’s interesting because I keep
31:59 thinking this transference that here are these important things of leadership and I can
32:05 apply it really to my marriage and my family too and and to remember that we
32:12 are whole people we don’t turn on a light and say now I’m Suzanne at Acumen now 32:17 I’m Suzanne mom, you know, wife whatever yeah and what we learn on all these different fronts inform us in in again
32:25 like they shape us in powerful ways that we bring to our lives in in all areas
32:31 absolutely well they should right should hopefully we allow them to yeah and I think most of us at least I’ve talked to
32:37 a lot of people have experiences though of like you know oh I learned this thing at work and it was really exciting and then they do it with their you know
32:42 their spouse and their spouse is like don’t you know whatever me so I think you know the the context is different
32:49 but I I do think we should I mean to me that that’s a great definition of thriving right we should be growing in
32:54 all of these areas and we should be learning and curious about how it applies and then kind of what the the
33:00 modification is if it doesn’t I mean you know my four-year-old as well right things that that work really well
33:06 between me and and Anna my wife you know he doesn’t always like so much either right so exactly
33:11 that’s so looking back again growing this organization leaving by choice
33:17 starting something new what advice would you have given your 20-year-old
33:24 self yeah you know that that’s always a fun question cuz I as I mention I’m starting this Positive Psychology
33:30 program so I’m doing all this Psychology reading right now and I’ve always enjoyed doing that
33:36 um I mean one answer is I just think it was just my journey like I had a lot to learn and every step along the way i’
33:43 learn new things from all the mistakes and adversity I encountered
33:48 um and I’m going to throw this in because again listening it’s inspiring but there’s also a fear element to to
33:56 walk away from this comfort this known to do totally something
34:03 else that takes a lot I mean again and maybe I’m more fear-based than you are
34:10 but to me that’s a scary proposition to just go for it I
34:17 think I think I just I mean it was long-range planning Suzanne I mean I thought I was going to do this for I mean I
34:23 intended to do this for close to a decade so I I really
34:31 um I don’t know that I had a lot of fear you were ready I think I was just
34:37 ready I think I just had I think I’ve always tended to really like long range thinking. Mmhm. Um so I think I probably
34:43 confronted along the way and I mean I had moments I I did have a really funny moment right as we were signing the
34:48 paperwork to sell the company I had this like automatic thought in my brain that popped up and it was like they’re trying to take the company from me and then I
34:55 was like wait a minute this was my idea like like you know these are like the you know such like wonderful ethical you
35:01 know value driven people but I so so there certainly were moments of letting go but I I also think I guess this is
35:08 you know for most Founders I think they feel I mean 20 years is a long time most people don’t stay in jobs for more than
35:13 a few years now so think part of it might be that um many
35:19 people their business or their identity as a business leader can be what defines
35:25 them and I think that maybe it’s more that you know it’s like if I’m not the
35:30 CEO of this company who am I it’s interesting that you left and kind of have gotten into psychology maybe maybe
35:38 you’re answering you know I mean there might be something kind of interesting to explore there but I I think maybe
35:44 that’s the fear for for many people or you know you hear about people that sell their company or go through a massive
35:50 exit and then they have this like existentialist doubt or or you know a
35:55 crisis of like identity they call it like like exit postpartum depression
36:01 something like that yeah like what who you know what am I doing if I’m not building this or or striving even like
36:06 at the Olympics right right we’re recording in August and the Olympics are uh currently underway and I think you
36:13 know Simone Biles posted yesterday people need to stop asking gold medalists what what next what’s next
36:21 kind same thing so but I guess you know if you have to kind of ex..existentially confront the idea of like what’s next
36:26 who am I can that can be a hard a hard thing yeah and I think so again this was the benefit of separating the ownership
36:33 transition from the leadership so I had that moment of like they’re trying to take the company and then it was like that’s ridiculous this was my idea you
36:40 know um and that was but that was in 2019 right that’s like old news for me
36:45 I’ve had years to process that um and so I think I I just had so much time versus
36:52 I I do think the the entrepreneurs who really struggle with it have the like sale where they are working their tail
36:58 off and they’re they’re doing Financial things in like covertly at night they have a small trusted circle of people
37:05 doing things and then they announce to the whole company and they leave you know like their emails turned off the same day so I just think I had a lot
37:10 more time to manage that process and I you know I did have um some bittersweet moments I’m
37:17 also lucky that I I still get to lead the quarterly strategic planning and I do monthly coaching with the new CEO and
37:22 president so I have I just feel like I have this really warm connection with all they invited me on the retreat this
37:29 year wasn’t that nice so I don’t know I just feel like it was a way to maintain that relationship without the rupture
37:35 that I think often ends up happening but you’re absolutely right that our our professional identities are where we derive so much meaning just like people
37:41 who retire and I think to lose that can be can be hard for a lot of people and I think without without something that
37:49 you’re pulled towards I think it is a recipe for depression and unhappiness interesting so with all of the bulk of
37:55 this experience and you know these these life lessons and um you know
38:02 successes and and and opportunities to to learn and grow what advice would you
38:08 give to your 20-year-old self all right you’re not letting me out of that I know I didn’t answer before you didn’t like my generic answer okay no that’s fine so
38:15 advis to my 20-year-old self I think it’s that I think this is
38:21 what everyone has to learn in probably in life and in business but that uh the bigger the failure the bigger the
38:26 opportunity uh I’m not really a fan of the like fail fast just for the sake of failure or
38:31 like and failure can have real significant human consequences um but at the end of the
38:37 day I think entrepre..entrepreneurs are defined by the ability to find opportunity in challenge so I think that
38:45 that’s some advice I’d give to myself
38:50 um you know I mean God it’s kind of cliche but I think just take a breath
38:56 everything is better if we can remember remember to breathe and that there is so much that is going to happen to us in our lives that’s outside of our control
39:02 but if we can just take a breath and come back to the present moment and make sure to not not miss all the wonderful
39:10 you know that this I love this notion from um Thich Nhat Hanh who’s a a Buddhist monk who passed away recently an incredible
39:17 thinker and he talks about how the ocean of suffering is immense but don’t forget to turn around and look at the shore and
39:22 I think that’s that’s probably the other thing I would say of there were you know so many failures and painful moments and
39:28 setbacks but there’s always wonderful things you know that that we can just derive a moment of of pleasure or
39:35 enjoyment from if we’re willing to open our eyes and pay attention that’s beautiful so this podcast is called
39:41 hiring for good and usually we end on the question what does hiring for good mean for you
39:49 yeah um you know I really believe that we all have uh that kind of right fit J out
39:57 there I think sometimes it’s oversold that there’s that perfect job that we’re going to be in a flow state every day and spring out of bed you know raren to
40:05 go um but I think that’s where that story fit piece is so important um we we
40:11 do a modified version of of LinkedIn’s Tour of Duty which we call a journey of transformation um our first core value
40:18 is enjoy the journey so that was kind of the connection sounds more fun than Tour of Duty and so every year we sort of say what’s in a what’s in a really
40:24 compelling one-year journey for you at Pixel Spoke and so I think that whole idea of I want
40:30 to be able to see three of those if we’re going to hire you because that’s where all the magic happens at work
40:35 where people just feel they feel lit up they feel like they’re making a big contribution they feel like they’re getting a lot in return and I think that
40:42 takes more work I think we really have to really understand who someone is where they come from not just the things
40:47 they’re saying to us they want but looking at the patterns and underneath it for like what do we think they really
40:52 want um and that’s what I think hiring for good uh is all about I mean the the
40:58 the research is really clear we get more meaning out of any work than anything else in our lives right it’s the
41:04 greatest source of positivity enjoyment overall and so it’s like that’s just sitting there to be unlocked and to me
41:10 that’s what hiring for good looks like is unlocking that for someone as they join our organization love holy cow you
41:17 really couldn’t end any better that is a beautiful quote so Cameron before we leave name of the book the title oh gosh
41:25 well there’s there’s two titles I’m uh toy with one is the business of us which is the name of a podcast I started with
41:32 uh Jamie Bourne who’s a very talented therapist in Arizona who focuses on entrepreneurs uh and the other one is
41:37 the entrepreneurial relationship handbook so we’ll see I like them both probably it’ll be something else anyway
41:43 whenever the editor says. Huh. So we need to we need to keep track of of that and boy
41:49 Cameron thank you so much again for coming here sharing your story and
41:54 really your learnings there there’s a lot lot to take away and a lot for me again absolutely thank you guys for
42:01 sharing what a cool venue you’ve got drum kit and guitar this is the most fun podcast I’ve ever done by
42:07 far well we can’t take all the credit well you you selected it so yeah Page
42:12 Street Studios Page Street Studios love these guys awesome thank you thank you thanks
42:20 for having me thanks for joining us today at Hiring for Good if you inspired by our conversation don’t forget to like
42:26 follow and subscribe subcribe wherever you get your podcast and if you want to learn more about our Executive Search
42:31 Services check us out at www.hiringforgood.net or our company website Acumen
42:38 Executive Search thanks so much and don’t forget to join us next time for another in-depth conversation about
42:44 transformational leadership till then have fun