Hosted by Jeff Walter, Founder and CEO of LatitudeLearning
Every organization invests in teaching people how to do their jobs. New employees learn systems and processes. Sales teams learn products. Service technicians master equipment. Franchisees receive operational playbooks. Managers attend compliance workshops. Learning and development departments devote enormous amounts of time creating content that ensures people understand what they are supposed to do.
Yet despite all of that investment, organizations continue to struggle with accountability, employee engagement, turnover, leadership effectiveness, communication, and culture.
The question is why.
If organizations have become remarkably effective at transferring knowledge, why do so many continue to experience inconsistent performance?
That question sits at the center of a fascinating Training Impact Podcast conversation between Jeff Walter and Helanie Scott, founder of Align4Profit. Rather than viewing leadership development as a separate discipline from organizational performance, Scott argues that leadership behavior is the mechanism through which business strategy becomes reality. Technical knowledge certainly matters, but it is only one layer of performance. The real differentiator lies in how people think, communicate, influence others, resolve conflict, build trust, and create environments where high performance becomes sustainable.
Throughout the discussion, Scott draws from an extraordinary entrepreneurial journey that has taken her across three continents and into organizations around the world. What emerges is not simply another conversation about leadership training. It becomes an exploration of why organizations often invest heavily in technical capability while overlooking the human capabilities that ultimately determine whether that technical expertise produces meaningful business results.
Scott’s path into leadership consulting is anything but conventional.
At just twenty-one years old, she purchased an acting and modeling agency in South Africa. While many entrepreneurs begin by launching small startups, Scott stepped directly into business ownership, responsible for employees, customers, and growth long before most professionals have accumulated significant management experience.
Her early work focused on coaching actors and presenters for television commercials and film. Before long, executives began asking for media coaching. What initially appeared to be an extension of presentation training soon evolved into something much deeper.
While observing executives during coaching sessions, Scott became fascinated by leadership itself. She noticed patterns in how leaders communicated, motivated others, and often failed to build productive relationships. Despite being significantly younger than many of her clients, she found herself offering observations about leadership behavior rather than simply presentation skills. To her surprise, those executives kept inviting her back.
That curiosity became the foundation of Align4Profit.
Instead of concentrating exclusively on communication techniques, Scott immersed herself in leadership psychology, behavioral science, and organizational effectiveness. She consumed leadership literature, studied behavioral dynamics, and gradually shifted from teaching communication to helping organizations improve performance through better leadership.
Her entrepreneurial journey would continue across South Africa, Canada, and eventually the United States. Each move required rebuilding a business from scratch, learning new markets, navigating different business cultures, and establishing entirely new professional networks. Those experiences shaped not only her understanding of entrepreneurship but also her appreciation for organizational culture and the importance of adaptability.
For organizations attempting to expand internationally or scale franchise systems across different regions, these lessons become especially relevant. Growth is never simply about replicating operations. It requires understanding people, culture, communication styles, and behavioral expectations that vary dramatically from one market to another.
One of the most compelling moments in the conversation arrives when Scott challenges one of learning and development’s most familiar terms.
Rather than referring to communication, accountability, resilience, conflict management, and emotional intelligence as “soft skills,” she describes them as “power skills.”
That distinction is far more significant than simple terminology.
The phrase “soft skills” unintentionally suggests these capabilities are somehow secondary to technical expertise. Organizations frequently dedicate substantial budgets to teaching employees how to operate equipment, sell products, use software, or perform procedures. Those investments are considered essential because they directly support operational performance.
Yet when it comes to leadership, communication, or accountability, organizations often expect transformational change from a brief workshop or a single training event.
Scott argues that this imbalance fundamentally misunderstands what drives organizational success. As she notes, executives rarely describe their ideal employee in terms of academic credentials alone. Instead, they describe individuals who consistently demonstrate accountability, initiative, influence, innovation, resilience, and the confidence to speak up when necessary. Those characteristics are behavioral rather than technical.
Technical skills may help someone secure a position, but behavioral capabilities often determine whether they become high performers, future leaders, or long-term contributors.
For learning leaders responsible for franchise training, dealer education, reseller enablement, or partner development, this observation carries enormous implications. Extended enterprise learning has traditionally focused on product knowledge, technical certifications, and operational procedures. Increasingly, however, organizations are recognizing that brand consistency depends just as much on leadership behavior and organizational culture as it does on technical competence.
Teaching someone how to repair equipment or explain product features is important. Teaching them how to build trust, communicate effectively, and represent organizational values may ultimately have an even greater impact on customer experience.
Many organizations spend considerable time crafting vision statements, defining corporate values, and publishing cultural principles. Yet culture rarely changes because a document has been distributed throughout the organization.
Scott approaches culture from an entirely different perspective.
Instead of attempting to transform dozens of abstract concepts simultaneously, she works with organizations to identify three or four specific behaviors that truly define the culture leadership wants to create. Accountability might become one of those behaviors. Speaking up may become another. Integrity, ownership, collaboration, or curiosity could become others.
Once those behaviors are identified, the work shifts toward understanding what those behaviors actually look like in daily practice.
More importantly, leaders must examine whether the environment they have created reinforces or discourages those behaviors.
Scott illustrates this with accountability. If an employee openly admits making a mistake, but the manager responds with blame or punishment, accountability has effectively been discouraged despite leadership’s stated desire to promote it. Employees quickly learn that admitting mistakes carries unnecessary risk, making avoidance a more rational behavioral choice.
True cultural transformation therefore requires changing leadership responses as much as employee behaviors.
For learning professionals, this represents an important shift. Leadership development is no longer simply about teaching competencies. It becomes about helping leaders consistently reinforce the behaviors the organization wishes to encourage.
Perhaps Scott’s most original concept is what she calls “leadership intimacy.”
Organizations have long embraced customer segmentation. Different customers receive different marketing messages, different sales approaches, and different service experiences based on their needs and preferences.
Scott believes leaders should adopt the same mindset internally.
Every employee represents a unique individual with different motivations, communication preferences, strengths, concerns, and developmental needs. Rather than asking, “What is my leadership style?” leaders should instead ask, “What does this individual need from me to perform at their highest level?”
This requires flexibility rather than consistency for its own sake.
Some employees require greater encouragement. Others respond better to direct accountability. Some benefit from detailed analysis before making decisions, while others thrive through rapid experimentation.
Leadership intimacy is not about favoritism. It is about understanding people deeply enough to adapt leadership behaviors in ways that help every individual succeed.
This philosophy becomes particularly valuable in franchise systems, dealer networks, and partner organizations where leaders often oversee independently operated businesses with widely varying levels of experience, maturity, and capability. Standardized operational procedures remain essential, but leadership support frequently requires a more individualized approach.
One challenge frequently associated with behavioral development is measurement.
Technical training often produces straightforward metrics. Sales increase. Service times improve. Certifications are completed.
Leadership development appears less tangible.
Scott argues that organizations often focus too heavily on lagging indicators while overlooking leading indicators. Instead of measuring broad concepts like accountability or engagement directly, organizations should identify the habits that consistently produce those outcomes.
Daily behaviors become measurable.
Sales professionals making prospecting calls before opening email.
Leaders conducting coaching conversations consistently.
Teams beginning meetings with structured accountability discussions.
Managers responding constructively when employees acknowledge mistakes.
These habits create observable behavioral patterns that ultimately influence business performance. Rather than hoping culture improves, organizations begin measuring whether the behaviors associated with that culture are actually occurring.
This perspective aligns remarkably well with the evolution of modern learning programs. As organizations mature beyond simple knowledge acquisition toward skill development, individual performance, and ultimately organizational performance, behavioral indicators become increasingly valuable because they connect learning activities directly to business outcomes.
One of the most interesting aspects of Jeff Walter’s discussion with Scott is how naturally it connects leadership development with partner learning.
Historically, external training programs have focused almost exclusively on product expertise and operational consistency. Dealers learned repair procedures. Franchisees learned operating standards. Resellers learned product positioning.
Increasingly, however, organizations recognize that successful partners must also embody brand values, leadership expectations, communication standards, and organizational culture.
A technically proficient franchise location may still struggle if local leadership cannot build engaged teams.
An authorized service provider may possess outstanding technical certifications while failing to create exceptional customer experiences because leadership behaviors undermine employee engagement.
These realities suggest that partner education is evolving beyond technical enablement toward comprehensive organizational capability development.
Leadership training is becoming part of brand training.
The conversation between Jeff Walter and Helanie Scott demonstrates that the future of organizational performance will depend less on whether companies can transfer knowledge and more on whether they can develop people.
Technical expertise remains essential, but it is no longer sufficient. Organizations that consistently outperform competitors create environments where accountability, communication, resilience, adaptability, and leadership become everyday habits rather than aspirational values. Those behaviors influence employee engagement, customer experience, innovation, retention, and ultimately business performance.
For learning and development leaders, particularly those responsible for franchise, dealer, reseller, and partner education, this conversation offers an important reminder. The greatest return on training investment may not come from teaching people more about products. It may come from helping leaders create the conditions where people consistently perform at their best.
To learn more about Align4Profit, visit https://www.align4profit.com
For more from the Training Impact Podcast, follow us on Social Media:
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Jeff Walter (00:00)
Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, where we explore our channel performance through training infrastructure. My guest today is Yelani Scott, founder of Align for Profit, a consultancy dedicated to helping organizations improve performance, profitability, and growth through better alignment of people, process, and strategy. Yelani, welcome to the program.
Helanie Scott (00:21)
Thank you so much, Jeff, for the invite. We’ve already had.
great conversations. So I’m looking forward to being here. And ⁓ everybody, my name is Yolani. I know when you look at the spelling of my name, that’s a bit confusing, but I’m originally from South Africa since my accent tends to follow. I came to the US ⁓ about 35 years ago, and I’ve had the greatest fun running a line for profit. So I’m really excited about this conversation.
Jeff Walter (00:50)
Well, so a as as listeners know, my first thing I love to know is so a line for profit, you founded it. How did you get there? What made and and as an entrepreneur myself, what made you decide to found a line for profit and what was the journey that got you there?
Helanie Scott (01:04)
Yeah, so it’s a little bit of a long story, but I’ll try and sort of speed it up.
I have an unusual journey because at the tender age of 21, I actually bought an acting agency and model agency in South Africa. So I trained actors and presenters in TV commercial and film. And I knew nothing about business really, but I was ⁓ pure hustle. And so I actually made a huge success of it. What was interesting though is very shortly after
In CEOs and leaders called me and said, hey, we need media training. Can you come and help us out? And so, of course I could do that. And at my tender age, nothing was impossible. So I went and delivered this media training. But an interesting thing happened because as I was observing these leaders,
because of course I would be in their offices, I’d see their interactions. I realized that many of them are not very nice people.
And I was fascinated by it. So I guess I had this tacit ability to see things with very little experience. And I gently said, you know, have you considered maybe doing this instead of that? Or I’ve noticed this is what you did and have you considered a different path? And, you know, at the time, these were all much older people and they were all men because back in the day, that’s what the leadership
Jeff Walter (02:26)
Mm-hmm.
Helanie Scott (02:29)
Anyway, they listened to my advice and they in fact invited me back to give them more. That’s when I became so fascinated with this whole behavioral dynamics and social interactions and really what a leader should be all about. And of course, alongside this, I was a new leader with 10 employees and I had to navigate my world around that. So I literally drenched my
Jeff Walter (02:42)
Is it?
Helanie Scott (02:56)
myself in every leadership book I could find. Now this was pre internet so you can imagine it was odd copies, right?
Jeff Walter (03:02)
Mm-hmm. I
I I’ve got a library behind me of of that, yes.
Helanie Scott (03:06)
That’s right, right,
right, right. And then that I just knew this is absolutely what I want to do because I’m passionate about it. I seem to be doing the right things and got business. So alongside that business in South Africa, I opened a training organization where I did leadership development. And so my road into this was a little bit non-traditional, I guess. And then I moved to Canada where I went
into partnership with another leadership consulting firm. And I really learned again, a huge amount ⁓ from just being in another consultancy. And then when I came to the US, I said, okay, time to do my own thing. And it was funny because I actually landed my first client without having a name established for my business.
Jeff Walter (03:47)
Yeah.
Helanie Scott (03:54)
And I went and he said, you need to invoice me. What’s the name of your company? I said, well, just give me 24 hours and I’ll have it for you. So what was kind of unintentional, I think the name Align for Profit you’ve mentioned before, it’s unusual and it’s interesting. I came up with that in 24 hours. So I think the leadership lesson there already is that let’s not overthink things. you know, just go. So I got the client before I got the business name.
is naming 24 hours, so I have a natural inclination and bias towards action and speed. And I think that resonates with people.
Jeff Walter (04:30)
Well, so a couple of interesting things there I’d like to just touch on because fascinating. I mean, at age twenty one you you bought your first business. Like you y y you didn’t just start it, you bought a business, I think is what you said, right? So that’s that’s wild. And that is wild.
Helanie Scott (04:41)
did. I did. That’s wild. That someone trusted
me to sell them the business to me.
Jeff Walter (04:50)
I
and well well but also that means I mean that means so many things, right? Like one, having the inclination to do it, two being able to to raise the funds to do it and ⁓ and and then and then that that tender age you know, making a go of it. And then it’s so interesting the other entrepreneurial aspects, like from that to media training to then more leadership training. I I I’m curious
And it so I s the arc of the career I see
What precipitated the the moves from South Africa to Canada to the US? Because you know, it it wouldn’t it it it’s not obvious, you know, if you if you invested that time and energy into building something successful that you would then say, you know what, let me move to the other side of the planet and start again. so what what precipitated the move?
Helanie Scott (05:21)
you
Right.
and to start all over again.
Well, Jeff, if you know anything about South Africa.
I moved right at the start of when Mandela took over and apartheid came to an end. And there was such a positive environment in South Africa in that moment. People were so relieved that Mandela is such an incredible leader and he’s going to be amazing. But I looked at the rest of Africa and I went, you know, the rest of Africa is not in a great state and I don’t actually believe South Africa is going to be able to escape it.
And so when I, and I then had like a young daughter and I just didn’t see a future for her there. And when I announced my move, my big move to Canada, most people said, why are you going? I said, because this is what I think is going to happen with Africa. And they all said, you’re crazy. This is the land that will be successful forevermore. We’ve got so many resources. Everything’s going to be absolutely fantastic. And I said, well, I don’t agree.
Jeff Walter (06:36)
Mm-hmm.
Helanie Scott (06:38)
I went to Canada is because it was a little bit easier to get into Canada than actually immigrate to America at the time. And so my goal was always America. But I went, OK, I’m going to go to Canada. It’s easier from Canada into America. So I had to sort of redo it. I don’t advise you start a new business in a new environment all the time because I think there are easier ways to do this.
But then I think along the road that gave me a depth of understanding to work with founders and with CEOs that want to scale their business into new areas. You know, I’ll jump forward to today a little bit. I’m also a board member at the Swedish American Chamber, and I’m not Swedish, but I am American, of course. But that just helps me with an understanding. You know, if Europe or Sweden particularly,
Jeff Walter (07:16)
Mm-hmm.
Helanie Scott (07:31)
wants to scale to the US. What does it take? So I know the pain it took and it’s really hard to open your doors and establish contacts. You didn’t have your university buddies that can support you and extend their network. Which then brings me back to this American culture. It’s very different to do business in America versus anywhere else. So if you want to scale globally,
Jeff Walter (07:47)
Right.
Helanie Scott (07:58)
there’s a lot of cultural nuances. If you don’t get it, it’s going to be really, really hard. And fortunately, not only have I lived in three different countries and worked in three different countries, I’ve actually worked in like 43 different countries. So with my work with leaders all over the world, I’ve been able to sort of really investigate and experience work in all sorts of countries. And if you downplay the cultural nuances,
You’re going to be toast. So I think what I bring today to my customers often is how do I integrate not only into company culture, but also the culture. So I think that journey, although very difficult, really gave me sort of a full understanding and appreciation of what people go through to scale.
Jeff Walter (08:48)
Yeah,
yeah, you know, just you’re the first person I’ve talked to that’s ⁓ created that started businesses in three different countries. So if if we could just go down a rabbit hole for a second, how I mean, other than th the the things you just talked about, it’s like, okay, I’m in a new country, I don’t have a network which has its own challenges, but just in terms of the the different countries or their political regimen.
Helanie Scott (09:00)
Sure.
Jeff Walter (09:19)
Like what was that experience like in the different countries? Like if you can compare and contrast of this was great in South Africa, this was a challenge in America, this was great in C like what was that did any did anything stand out as s significantly different?
Helanie Scott (09:29)
What?
lots, lots. I’m going to try
and edit what stood out. so I think in South Africa, especially the time that I was there, it was very much you’ve got an idea, you open doors and you go for it. There were no restrictions. There were no rules. mean, you could just do what you wanted to do. It doesn’t mean that I avoided tax or I didn’t follow some of those rules.
And the entry to market was so much easier. Sorry, I interrupted you.
Jeff Walter (10:00)
Okay. Yeah.
No no no no no. Like there’s no fri no the there was no no friction.
Helanie Scott (10:05)
Frictionless. Right.
Absolutely. Then my lesson in Canada was that I think you need to be very conscious which city you choose. So I lived in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.
And I primarily moved there because my then partner that I worked with was in Toronto, so that was a taken market. I didn’t really want to go to Montreal because it’s tough to move countries and have, you know, be a single mom and learn a new language, which is French. So Vancouver was great. And of course, Vancouver from the outside in the grass is very green and it’s beautiful and it’s got oceans and mountains.
Jeff Walter (10:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Helanie Scott (10:49)
can ski in the afternoon and be on the beach in the morning. So the sail was done for me.
Jeff Walter (10:54)
All right.
Helanie Scott (10:55)
Not many headquarters located in Vancouver. So when you look at, started looking at the demographics and the size of the, that was tough. I then had to listen if you don’t pivot super quickly, you’re to be dead in the water. So instead of only going directly to B2B, I decided that I’m going to literally run adverts in the newspaper and get people to help them with.
Jeff Walter (10:58)
Okay.
Helanie Scott (11:20)
their
leadership development. And it was a personal development journey then. Although I did have corporate clients, I also did this personal development, which was fascinating. I learned so much through that. And I think that gave me a layer of understanding how behavior change actually happens. And then of course, when I came to the US, there are lots of rules. I I ran my business for six months and I got a message from an interviewer
that said you’re not allowed to do this. I went oops, okay, so what am I supposed to do to become compliant? So the secondary education is a big deal and so I had to go through the process of filling in tons of paperwork and do all of that. So I think that if you can, I think most people will say well you’re and ignorant, you should have checked it out before you landed.
But I think therein lies perhaps part of my success is that I didn’t stop and do a business plan for six months and then launch. I launched and built my business plan as I went along. And yes, I got scared in between, but then I just fixed it, right.
Jeff Walter (12:26)
No.
Right.
Yeah, but yeah, I I I love that. It and it reminds me of bo a book I once read. It was titled Ready Fire Aim. You know, which is not what you usually think. And and the whole but the whole premise of the book is exactly what you said is and I think it’s you know, ⁓ in b in all of your just listening to your your background, it’s fascinating. ⁓ yeah, you you you you jump in with you know, and then you
Helanie Scott (12:39)
you
Bye.
Thank you.
Jeff Walter (12:58)
you pivot or course correct. You know, you you you’re ready, fire. Oops, you know, adjust my aim, go after this, and you keep and you keep doing that. And so I think that’s really I think anyway, I think that’s really I find that very interesting, especially getting your perspective on that. But it also ties back to a line for profit and the leadership development and and the things that we had talked about. And one of the reasons I want to talk to you is, you know, ⁓ the this podcast is focused on
Helanie Scott (13:02)
Right.
Right.
Jeff Walter (13:27)
Impact, training impact, bottom line impact, right? How do you because I’m a big believer in education and I believe that training can have a can have a huge impact on the bottom line. And one of the things that’s been really fascinating for me lately is especially in external learning, is a s slow slowly emerging focus on leadership and culture.
with partner training, training your franchisees, training your dealers, really getting your turning your partner into a brand partner, right? Which means you’re inculcating them with your brand culture, right? Which is not just I ha you know, here’s the thing here’s the thing I’m selling, here’s the mug I’m selling and it’s blue and it’s it holds eight ounces and you know, not the technical aspects, which you know, is traditionally what we’re doing
training people on how to sell our products, service our products, or or use our products, but all but more here’s the brand values, which is culture, which is and then leadership drives that home. it’s like you you you kept going upstream.
until you got to the leadership and culture. And it’s like, here’s So I I I wonder if you could just you know, what have you learned about that?
Helanie Scott (14:39)
Well, you know, it’s so fascinating to me that there are always budgets for teaching someone to use a tool or the product that you have to sell. But there’s a saying that someone once shared with me and it says, skills get you hired, behavioral flaws gets you fired. So I think that
Jeff Walter (14:59)
Well, interesting.
Helanie Scott (15:03)
If you’re not addressing the behaviors and characteristics and the human, all the technical skills that you add on top may or may not stick or work or be executed at the way it should be executed. So, you know, if you ask a CEO, who’s your ideal employee, they do not say, ⁓ it’s the PhD.
Jeff Walter (15:26)
Right.
Helanie Scott (15:27)
They will say, it’s this guy that shows up or this gal that shows up every time. It’s someone that takes accountability. It’s someone that is innovative and comes up with ideas. It’s someone that actually catches me when I’m going on the wrong path. It’s someone that can speak their mind. It’s someone that is charismatic and can win over an audience. It’s someone that has influencing skills that is unbelievable.
And unfortunately, really where it should start is in grade school to teach people these, what often is referred to as soft skills, I think it’s power skills. Because if you’ve got these power skills, any sort of technical training that you put on top or learning about a tool becomes an easy thing. If I’ve got confidence and I’ve got good self-esteem, how do I face failures in a much better way?
Jeff Walter (16:04)
Okay.
Helanie Scott (16:18)
If I know how to navigate conflict, you can put me in front of the most difficult CEO and we’ll walk out of that discussion, maybe not friends, but we’ve had a really good conversation. So unfortunately, if you think about these power skills, where did we learn it from? Who taught us? sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes it’s a sad thing that we learned from our parents.
Jeff Walter (16:43)
Right.
Helanie Scott (16:44)
and our role models and our teachers, but they’re not always really great at this either. So I find it’s so…
It’s like having your hand, one hand tied behind your back if you’re not actually focusing on the behaviors. So I say, if you’re going to teach some of the technical skills or you hire for those technical skills, you need to spend an equal or more amount on really developing those power skills. Because if the power skills are there, if someone, as I said, have the skill to navigate, influence, bridge conflict,
then that’s the solution. So often when I work with CEOs, they say, you know, we want to create this organizational culture. In fact, the reality is they don’t say that. That’s what they mean. But they say, I want my people all to be accountable. You go, great, that’s the word then. That’s the one behavior that we need to get right throughout your organization. What does that mean in your mind? What does it mean for them?
Jeff Walter (17:29)
Right.
Right.
Helanie Scott (17:44)
So when we do any of the cultural work, we really narrow it down to the three or four behaviors. And then we say, what are happening with those behaviors today? Because if I do take accountability, I’ll give you an example. If I say, Jeff, I messed up, I’m so sorry, I’ll fix it.
and you behave in a way that doesn’t support that, then I’m never going to take accountability again. Meaning, if you said, that’s right, Yolani, I’m so disappointed in you and how could you do this? Then I’m going to say, well, dude, I’ve just taken accountability. Why are you crucifying me?
Jeff Walter (18:10)
Right.
Helanie Scott (18:19)
So we look at the behaviors, we teach people what does that look like here? And then we say, okay, leaders, now how are you going to support that so that the environment facilitates accountability?
Jeff Walter (18:24)
Mm-hmm.
Helanie Scott (18:32)
And, you know, having worked with so many organizations in my career, it’s almost not new when I hear a behavior that a CEO wants to drive. It’s often accountability, depending on his profile. Some will say we want to speak up culture. Some will say, you know, we want integrity. So all these behaviors I’ve worked with a lot and therefore have, through trial and error, also been able to discover how do we get this to sit?
Jeff Walter (18:47)
Mm-hmm.
Helanie Scott (18:59)
challenge with all this power skills is I think that it’s a little bit like someone going to the doctor and say okay doc I’ve got this problem this is how I want you to fix it and by the way my budget is X
The doctor will go, what? No, this is how we’re going to fix it, and this is the budget, and this is how long it’s going to take. But somehow, when it comes to these power skills, people have decided it’s going to cost a dollar, and it needs to take two minutes, and you need to have 75 people in the room, because that’s cost effective, and we’re done. So it becomes a bit of a check in the box exercise versus true behavior change.
Jeff Walter (19:45)
Well, and you know, ⁓ when it it’s fascinating. Like I think one of the things is behavior change is really hard. Like like teaching you a technical skill, teaching somebody a technical skill is fairly e I’m going back to the thing you said originally about the CEO and she says, I want people that are like this, right? And and what’s implicit in you know, I want people who I can rely on.
I want somebody who’s going to speak truth to power. I want somebody that’s going like whatever whatever the behavi they usually sp speak behaviorally. And then and what’s implied in that is they usually say, well, ’cause I could teach how to turn a wrench. You know, I could teach them this technical skill. That’s the easy part.
Helanie Scott (20:22)
Right.
because technical
skills are mainly routine and repetition.
Jeff Walter (20:40)
Yeah, and and and and teachable. And what what I’ve heard y you know over the years is behavioral change is really hard and not the necessarily the purview of corporate training, especially partner training. So I’m just going to select four behaviors and then teach technical skills. ⁓ so
Helanie Scott (21:02)
Right.
Jeff Walter (21:05)
But what you’re saying is like, no, you can teach behavioral change. It is possible. I love the term power skills, because soft skills kind of makes them subordinate to hard skills. It it’s almost like the technical skills or the hard skills, and those are those are real skills. And then are these other skills that are like pseudo skills. It’s like it’s like it’s it’s like physics versus political science. I mean the fact that
Helanie Scott (21:17)
Right.
and they’re Yeah, right.
Right.
Right, except
it should be flipped. Right, right, right.
Jeff Walter (21:32)
Political science has to put the word science in it, shows you it’s not really science.
But but yet it it it it parallels things in my mind. You know, and and we need to do more character.
Right. It’s and it’s it but that’s a different that’s that’s a d topic for a different conversation. But
Helanie Scott (21:48)
And you know,
all of this is complicated because it’s not… You can’t teach the exact same solution to every personality’s style.
Jeff Walter (21:50)
Yeah.
Helanie Scott (21:59)
So I’ve got grandchildren and my grandson is a thinker and he asks great questions and he’s a researcher. And for him to see first of all, the benefit of behaving a certain way is a lengthy conversation. This is one 12 year old boy, my toughest client.
Versus his sister, if you paint her a picture and tell her a good story, she gets it. He needs to have the data and support and what ifs. So that becomes the challenge in training these soft stuff. It’s not one size fits all.
Jeff Walter (22:24)
Well I
Well, so how do you do that at scale? And how do you and the other thing is how do you know if you’ve been effective? Because going back to your your your discussion on the budgets, and I’ve talked to a lot of training people that run a lot of training programs about budgets. And I tell it it what I tell them is, well, you gotta remember, executives are really simple creatures. There’s only one thing they do, and it’s allocate funds.
Helanie Scott (22:35)
Now.
Ha
Jeff Walter (22:56)
And they
either allocate it to something that is a cost of doing business or an investment. Cost of doing business is just stuff you gotta do. So you do it and you know, like like keeping the books, right? You just gotta do it. You know, filing your taxes, you just gotta do it. It doesn’t create an ROI, it doesn’t create you know, but it but you have to do it to stay in business. So you try and minimize the cost. And then there’s the investments. This is where I put a dollar in and I get two dollars out.
Helanie Scott (23:14)
All right.
Jeff Walter (23:23)
And I said, is your training program viewed as a cost of doing business or a or a or an investment? And if it’s on if you’re having trouble with budget, it’s ’cause it’s a cost of doing business. So and and on on some of the technical skills I’ve had clients that they’ve done the homework and said, ⁓ a trained salesperson sells twice as many units as an untrained salesperson. Therefore, every dollar in sales training yields a four dollar return, right? Or or you know
Helanie Scott (23:33)
All right.
All right.
Jeff Walter (23:52)
But how do you get that with behavioral change? Like going back to what you said earlier, I want my I want more accountability, right? Like how do I how can I as an executive know
Helanie Scott (23:56)
Right.
Quantify it. Yeah,
what’s the return on investment? I’m gonna get for that right exactly
Jeff Walter (24:07)
Yeah. Well it and it it doesn’t it
but and and and what and I mean by that is not on the pre like if I put a dollar do I get two dollars out, but if I put the dollar in, how do I know that it was effective and that I have greater accountability? Yeah.
Helanie Scott (24:21)
Right, okay, so I’m going to answer two ways because I think
one way is all business, if I break it down to its simplicity, is we either have to grow in sales, revenue growth, that’s a metric, operational efficiency is the other metric, and then I think the third metric that people don’t really count sufficiently is capability metric.
And the capability metric or competence metric is did I develop an IP? Did I create a trademark of sorts? Did I appear ⁓ in media and it created lots of revenue coming in the door? Do I have a workforce that becomes my competitive advantage?
And when leaders can’t see their workforce as a competitive advantage, that becomes a problem.
And the other way I’ll describe that is that from a metric perspective, there’s tons and tons and tons of research that’s undeniable. Like people leave companies, so retention figures, because they’ve got shitty managers. 70 % of the reason people leave is because of the manager relationship. So if that’s not a metric enough, like how much does it cost you to replace an employee? And unfortunately, people down
Jeff Walter (25:13)
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Helanie Scott (25:42)
play that cost and it’s huge and never mind the opportunity cost. So when we say our people are our best assets but then start acting that way. The other way that you can measure is actually your employee surveys of course and the research again is an engaged employee is a much better producer so there is a direct relationship.
Jeff Walter (25:48)
Yes.
Helanie Scott (26:06)
But then the interest, so there are metrics that we can put in place. But I think that the way that I’ve done it is to really evaluate what kind of habits are left over after our training, like instilled part of the culture.
Because every habit is what drives outcomes. And if you can believe that, that’s good. I’m a quick example. If I wake up in the morning and drink a glass of water before I do anything, and then I go for a run and I do this like a habit every single day, and I have lots of breaks during the day, and I’ve got these series of habits, my likelihood of being more successful, more productive is much higher. Plus, I’m going to be healthy. We know this.
Jeff Walter (26:42)
Right.
Helanie Scott (26:50)
But what do most people do is they’ve got the habit of switching on the kettle and surfing on their phone.
And to break that habit is excruciating. mean, people put New Year’s resolutions down and by day 20, 85 % of people have lost their New Year’s resolutions. So to change habits is not just desire. It’s desire, method, skill, choosing the right habit and then sticking with it and tracking that habit and then having an environment that builds that habit.
sales because we all kind of can relate to that so easily. If your salespeople have the habit of before they check their email, they’re going to make 10 sales calls. Just think about what that one habit will do differently in your business. Now let’s put the
Jeff Walter (27:27)
Right.
Helanie Scott (27:42)
⁓ power skills on top of that is when they’re actually on a call, the very first thing they’re going to do is X. They’re always going to close the meeting with Y. These are soft skills, not sales process. So if we can get them to do that front end and back end of a sales call just the right way, then we can track, is this giving us better results? I don’t know if I’ve lost you, Jeff, but maybe I have.
So let’s just stop here because I think my wifi is not good.
Are you back with me? What happened?
Jeff Walter (28:14)
In fact, I don’t I don’t know what happened.
I I I I touched something and everything went black.
Helanie Scott (28:25)
dear. Stop touching things, Jeff.
Jeff Walter (28:26)
my gosh.
I I don’t know what I did. So yeah, I just kicked my hands off everything. all right.
Helanie Scott (28:37)
Okay, so
you just like insert something edit there and then yeah, I was on a roll.
Jeff Walter (28:41)
Yeah. All right. Well well
so we were we were talking about how difficult it is to do ⁓ you you’re you got into habit formation. ⁓
Helanie Scott (28:45)
Thank
Habit formation is what we were talking about.
Does that make
sense to you, by the way?
Jeff Walter (28:53)
Yeah, well, you know, so if if we can start, you know, yeah, three, two, one s so habit formation, well it but see that that that goes b I mean we were talking about how you can get ROI and it’s it’s and it’s hard and but also behavioral changes are hard and that’s where like the what I hear in the from folks is more like well I’m not even gonna touch that. I’m just going to select for it, right? And and and not because it’s it’s hard.
Hat changing like
Helanie Scott (29:22)
Right,
right, but how about we do a little bit of both? I do think behavioral interviewing should be standard and I don’t think that is what’s happening because people naturally, like I said to you at the beginning of this interview, I have a bias towards action. Sometimes that hurts me because I didn’t do enough analysis before.
Jeff Walter (29:40)
Right.
Helanie Scott (29:45)
But as a CEO and a startup, perhaps, that’s not a bad thing. If I’m addressing ⁓ a customer problem and I’m on it quickly, it’s not such a bad thing, right? But that’s my natural bias towards action. And so if someone else, the more I understand,
these behavioral dynamics, I then surround myself with a team that says, Yolani, wait, pause, let’s take time out here. Let’s look at root cause analysis first. And because I know myself and most people don’t know themselves, and I’m not trying to sound egotistical about that, but there’s actually research that only about 15 % of the population actually is self-aware. So if I know that I’ve got this bias to action as my one
Jeff Walter (30:23)
Well good.
Helanie Scott (30:33)
example, I surround myself about around people that I have given permission for them to say stop. We need to do root cause analysis and I’m good. It’s a good trigger for me and I go to my habit of sit back, stay quiet and let them do their thing because they better at it than me.
Jeff Walter (30:45)
Right.
Uh-huh.
Helanie Scott (30:53)
When I look at some CEOs, they first of all don’t want the pushback. They might not fully understand themselves. And then their leaders are not trained how to provide that pause. I mean, right now I’m about to work with a customer where they’re taking a certain level of their organization and they’re saying, we want you to be able to coach up. This is not easy for people.
Jeff Walter (31:06)
Right.
No, that’s
Helanie Scott (31:21)
Because we have
to remember if we, into the psyche of the human behavior, every employee says, don’t want to get fired. That becomes their driving force.
Jeff Walter (31:27)
Right.
Right.
Helanie Scott (31:31)
And so they’re going to always rely on that. So yeah, we can push and try and develop these behaviors and install some habits. But that’s why I say the environment have to say, if you fail, you’re not going to get fired. If you push back, you’re not going to get fired. So we have to create that psychological safety. And when I speak to leaders about psychological safety, they go, that’s soft stuff. No.
Because if someone stopped me and we first investigated a problem, my action will change. So therefore you’re making a different decision. And it’s those different decisions that drives the outcome of the business. So yes, it’s not a linear line that we’re to train these power skills and all of a sudden this is what’s going to happen, but I’ll give you some examples. I worked with an organization
And the president said, I want all salespeople to be amazing because I want to increase sales. And I said, OK, we’re going to do that. First, let’s look at who are your top performers. And we actually investigated and validated and created kind of like this perfect profile. And they started hiring closer to that profile. And they started doing behavioral interviewing to investigate that profile.
Jeff Walter (32:28)
Right.
Helanie Scott (32:48)
and they increase sales within the first year by 35%.
soft skills training, not technical skills. So yes, there’s definitely a link. But it’s almost like you have to educate people before they actually see the link. And ⁓ that’s the challenge in my industry, I think.
Jeff Walter (32:54)
Right.
Well,
you know, it it it there there’s the power skills. But I you know, you said something earlier that I thought was really interesting too when we were talking about ⁓ well you say a lot of things that are interesting, so I don’t wanna just focus it. But the but the one thing that caught me was was breaking the behavior down into something measurable. Like you say you want accountability and and I think in terms of thinking of habits ⁓ is really fascinating.
‘Cause to do what you just said, I mean it it it goes both ways, right? Like to do what you just said about behavioral matching on it’s let’s look at our top salespeople and what what behavioral characteristics, you know, what what kind of where do they line up on the power skills and but and just as importantly, what what behavioral characteristics? they’re all making ten sales calls before they check email. Like or or and it’s it’s very interesting.
Helanie Scott (33:36)
Right. Right.
And it’s a
hypothesis. We think that is what’s actually going to get a better result. But I think that, and of course, we’ve tested it and actually it does, because your brain is brighter, better before you’ve diluted it with lots of information. And I think that what most companies are looking for is those lagging indicators.
Jeff Walter (34:05)
Yeah.
Helanie Scott (34:20)
But I say the leading indicators are almost more important. Can we actually get a group of salespeople of 40 to make those calls before they actually open the email? Did they start those calls with the killer start and the killer stop? And does that actually equate to then more sales? So what are the leading indicators? Those are the habits we’re
Jeff Walter (34:28)
Yeah.
Right. It but
Right. And and if you could break it down
into that, then then that’s then that becomes it it’s still hard. Behavioral change is hard, but it’s something you
that you can put teeth behind because you can when I mean by teeth, I mean there’s there’s meat on the bones there. There’s it it it’s it’s you can sit there and go, hey, we look at our top quintile of salespeople, compared them to the bottom quintile or the the average, and here’s what they do differently. Like that’s one of the things we’ve been I’ve been proposing on the training side is just from a training perspective, what training has your top people done?
Helanie Scott (35:00)
correct.
That’s right.
Jeff Walter (35:20)
versus your middle and bottom quintile. And is there a differenti i is there differentiation there? If they’ve all taken the same training, then the training is not creating the differentiation in performance.
Helanie Scott (35:23)
right.
right.
But there’s another
dynamic, Jeff, and that is, you know, I believe the prime role of a manager or a leader is to get the best out of their people. And they’ve not been educated how to get the best out of their people. And the biggest mistake I see is that they say, is my leadership style. And that’s antiquated.
Jeff Walter (35:35)
And this
Yeah.
Helanie Scott (35:57)
Because I think I have this philosophy of leadership intimacy. Just like you have customer intimacy, you have leadership intimacy. And what that means is when you go to your customer segments, you go with a different message for each segment. You close in a different way. They’ve got a different funnel. You do things totally differently. When you are dealing with your team, you’ve got 12 customers there. And each customer needs a little bit of a tweak and a change.
If you buy into my job is to get the best out of this person, then what is it that I need to do or change or adapt or flex my style to get the best out of this person? I mean, I think you’ve got kids, aww, congratulations. So you’ve got son and daughter?
Jeff Walter (36:41)
Yeah, yeah, they’re they’re they’re adults now. Actually, I just went to my daughter’s engagement party. My younger daughter, so ⁓ yeah, yeah, thank you.
I have two daughters. Two daughters.
Helanie Scott (36:52)
Okay, so
even two daughters, same sex, you treat them differently, right?
Jeff Walter (36:57)
⁓ yeah, they’re u unique human beings.
Helanie Scott (37:00)
Absolutely. Now, when it comes to leadership…
Do people have the capability and the knowledge and the know-how how to adapt their behaviors different to the people? Not saying you’re playing favorites. Not saying I want you to become their best friend. It’s none of that. And especially with franchisees businesses, I noticed that they’re so concerned about the relationship and that they become less concerned about the performance. And for me, it’s not about this best friend. It’s a saying, how do I adapt to get the best
Jeff Walter (37:16)
Right.
Uh-huh.
Helanie Scott (37:32)
out of you. What button do I push? What lever do I pull? So that I can get you to perform the best. When someone leaves because they’re not performing, that to me is a reflection on the leader, not just the employee.
Because if they were lazy or they didn’t show up or whatever they did, well, what did you do to actually facilitate a change? So therefore, if we’re to elevate leaders, we have to elevate them with an understanding of what motivates people. How do you influence behavior change? How do you provide feedback? How do you hold people accountable? How do you guide them through negative thinking?
Jeff Walter (37:51)
Uh-huh.
Helanie Scott (38:11)
So if you don’t have those capabilities as a leader, then what’s your role?
Jeff Walter (38:16)
Yeah. Well and it and it’s i it’s you know it it’s very interesting and fascinating ’cause I I I agree with what you’re saying and the hard part is is that proof, right? But I I like the framework that that you put the proof in. You there’s a couple of different ways you can prove it and
Helanie Scott (38:19)
Thank
Jeff Walter (38:36)
And it it could be the discriminant analysis. Here are the behaviors of top performers versus bottom performers. What discriminates the two? What behaviors discriminate the two. It it you know, there’s the you know selection be behavioral selection, but that also making that known so that the folks that are average or below average go you like, hey, here are the behaviors that can help you get there. Why don’t you try it? Right? And and encourage it and all that and all that type of thing.
Helanie Scott (38:43)
Bye.
Jeff Walter (39:03)
It’s also really interesting you know, our our focus tends to be training and and performance of you know t of your of your channel, the your partners. Where you where you don’t even you don’t control hiring and you don’t c you can control who becomes a partner, but you don’t control the people within that that stuff. And it’s really interesting. I I I it it it’s it ties to what you’re saying. I I I just gave a ⁓
Presentation at a franchise expo, and we were talking about building the franchise network. And one of my one of the lines that really hit home with a lot of people was I said you can only grow your network at the speed of your managers, meaning your franchisee managers, not your internal. Because
Helanie Scott (39:35)
Okay.
Jeff Walter (39:49)
They’re the ones that are carrying the brand forward. And it goes really interesting. A lot of people that I’ve talked to would say, when I have my network, I I’m only teaching the technical skills, the hard skills. The this is how I sell this, this is how I service that, this is how I use my products. And yet I’m starting to see it’s encouraging, starting to see a body of evidence anecdotal right now, where no.
Helanie Scott (40:03)
All right.
you
Jeff Walter (40:18)
⁓ you know, let’s say the franchise oars. I’ve talked to a number of franchise consultants, ⁓ organizations, and they’re like, hey, the franchisees, you know, you’re looking for a good fit, and there’s four things every franchisee needs to be able to do: sell, operate, run the finances, and lead a team. And they all say they’re usually good at sales or operations.
And they usually struggle on everything else. Right? They’re usually good at one, maybe two of those, and they struggle. And especially the leadership. A lot of times it’s the first time they’ve been in a leadership role, not a manager role, a leadership role. And ⁓ and you’re starting to see, and I interviewed ⁓ Dan Aldrich over at Christian Brothers Automotive, half of their training program to their franchisees is power skills. And
really geared towards the leadership, you know, of of the franchise, the the the franchise owner, the the shift and the managers. And their financials are I mean, they’re private, they didn’t disclose them, but incredible. Their their retention is incredible. Their their financials are incredible. And he attributes it to exactly that. Now that’s anecdotal, right? Like it it’s not proof, but it’s
Helanie Scott (41:31)
you
you
But
it probably is because if you actually were willing to put the money behind a research study, the evidence will be there. That’s which is another challenge. People say, yeah, I want to measure behavior change. Oh, it’s going to cost money to measure behavior change? Of course. It’s not a number that you can track on an Excel spreadsheet. But what I find interesting about what you just said is that franchisees are only now starting to think about,
the hearts, the power skills. That’s insane to me. know, when corporations for years and years have been spending time on this. So that opens a huge market for me. Thank you.
Jeff Walter (42:17)
Yeah, well it’s
well it’s you know, and you can understand it because I’m br I’m making you a partner. Yeah like we’re going to a partnership, right? Whether you’re a dealer or a reseller or a franchisee.
Helanie Scott (42:26)
Right, right, right, right, Right.
Jeff Walter (42:31)
Like you take care of your people. you we we come into a partnership, we have a contractual relationship that’s not an employee employer relationship, and I have no say or control over who you hire, fire, what you pay them or anything else. And so you manage your people, I’ll manage my people, and we have this formal business relationship.
Helanie Scott (42:43)
Right. All right.
But there’s an implicit
expectation and the implicit expectation is that if you’re going to uphold my brand, you have to uphold it through your people. And if your people are behaving badly, then how on earth are you going to do that? That’s just not going to work.
Jeff Walter (43:00)
A exactly. And there’s the catch twenty two.
Yeah, well it you know it was interesting. I related to that, I mean, even going back further, just a a year ago I was at a a franchise conference and I was having a discussion with our franchise or medium sized, not not not too big, about the value of training frontline staff. Cause they’re like th so the typical franchise or thing is you get a franchisee, you bring them to headquarters for a couple of weeks, teach them all about the business, then you put her out at a store.
or location for a couple of weeks so she can really see it in action, right? Like, okay. And then they go build out their location wherever it is. And then you send somebody from headquarters there for a couple of weeks to train their initial staff and make sure that the, you know, the launch goes fine. And you know, and it’s great to have that coach there w when you get those, you know, ramp up jitters and and problems. And then basically go, okay, here’s the training manual, you know.
Have a good day. See ya. Let us know if you have any problems. And this this
Helanie Scott (44:08)
Yeah, so
I have a view on this and the view is that, you know, if I go to the gym and I work out for three months solid, I’m going to maybe see a bit of a result. But if I stop, then everything that I’ve just done doesn’t work anymore.
And this is why this whole concept of leader as coach is so vital. Because unless you are there, I I call it just-in-time coaching. So almost everybody that I coach with, I offer that I will always be available for them whenever for just-in-time coaching. And that means I’ve just walked out of a boardroom discussion or a customer discussion, and it was a disaster. If you don’t fix it right then, if you change behavior,
as close to the event as possible, that’s when it sticks most. So why are we not saying a standard for all managers and all leaders is they have to have the skill to coach? Why not? Why is that not a prerequisite? And then coaching has to have this length. There’s something else you mentioned as well. You speak about the network.
Jeff Walter (45:10)
Ha ha
Helanie Scott (45:17)
And I have discovered that leaders think of leadership as a lone wolf journey. They don’t want to admit that they don’t know something. They try and keep their ego in the place. They don’t reach out to, hey, Jeff, I’ve just had this thing happen to me. What do you think I should do? I think I should do this. What’s your experience? Why are we not comparing notes around people leadership?
Jeff Walter (45:37)
Right.
Helanie Scott (45:43)
with one another. I mean, I just don’t get it.
Jeff Walter (45:47)
Yeah, well and well I and there have been things in the p like I have seen things ⁓ i in the network in the network partner networks, like you’ll see a a lot of that in the automotives where they’ll do these 20 groups. Well they’ll put 20 non-competing dealers, you know, they’re not they’re not near each other, into a group so they can over the years start to, you know, build relationships. So so you feel more comfortable doing that.
Helanie Scott (46:02)
Nice.
Bye.
Jeff Walter (46:12)
⁓ it was also interesting. ⁓ there was some training over at Marriott. They did a presentation ⁓ about two years ago at a conference. they had they used to have this ⁓ leadership training where everybody came into one place for three weeks and then would go back. And ⁓ and you know, it was a great great time and and all that. but then when COVID happened, they changed it up to be virtual and they would get together once every other week for two months.
Helanie Scott (46:28)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (46:39)
Instead of three and what they found a and that’s what that and now it’s post COVID and they’re like, We’re keeping that in place because what happened was you’d give a homework assignment, go try this and operate in your operation, and then two weeks later you come back, they tried it, and all of a sudden they just start talking to each other. Well, when I tried it, this happened. well that happened when I tried it, and so I did this thing.
Helanie Scott (46:40)
Such a much better approach.
That’s one, two, three,
Bye. Bye. Bye.
Absolutely. That’s right. That’s right.
Yes.
Jeff Walter (47:07)
But then but then I
had this other issue. I had that yeah. And they and it
Helanie Scott (47:11)
Which
is really the thing we have to get people to understand. It’s not a shot in the arm. You go to a three-day workshop and everybody’s inspired and it’s going to last forever. Now, I’d much rather break it down. Of course, logistics and cost of travel and all of that comes into play. But virtual is super effective if you know how to deliver virtually.
And it’s not a one-way webinar, but there’s interaction. The virtual tools are just amazing. can put group discussions together. You can put accountability buddies together. There lots of techniques that you can do this. But think of learning or behavior change as a journey with touch points. And that’s when you’ve got a much better chance of actually behavior shifting and changing. Because the minute… Sorry.
Jeff Walter (48:01)
Well and that yeah, I’m sorry.
Helanie Scott (48:03)
But I try something new and it fails, guess what I do with that behaviour? I say that doesn’t work, it’s never going to work, it doesn’t work for me. But if I have an opportunity to come back and we can dissect why did it not work, I bet you I can say well because I asked you to ask a question but do you understand the question you asked was offensive? So of course it won’t work.
Jeff Walter (48:24)
Right.
And and you’re saying that well that and you’re going back to the Marriott thing, that’s what they found and so they kept that in place. But but then the other thing they found that goes to what you were saying is because it was over an eight you know, a multi week period and and you had all these interactions, the relationships between all the the cohort built and it survived post classroom where where those relationships really didn’t survive the three day
Helanie Scott (48:30)
Right.
yeah, for sure. For sure.
Right.
Jeff Walter (48:51)
I mean there were
relationships that survived the t but not the pick up the phone and say, Hey, I had this encounter. And so when I look at the the the network, well yeah, I I go y well that’s what you want to encourage. You want to encourage that ongoing touch point, building a relationships and and and and and growing the managers and and then and the th and the the other thought
Helanie Scott (49:04)
Right? Right. Yeah.
All right.
Jeff Walter (49:16)
You know, back to what we were talking about before, the jet the gentleman is the franchise order said, Why should I train frontline staff? That’s the that’s the franchisees role. It it all it’s it’s it’s it’s the other part of it too. I was like, well, that’s your touch point with the customer, that’s your brand representation. Like you you you want to be able to influence how that is happening because that is the brand to your customers, right? So don’t delegate that, be actively involved in that.
Helanie Scott (49:31)
That’s your friend.
Correct, absolutely, ⁓ Right.
Jeff Walter (49:45)
And at the same time, you don’t want to just say, here’s the technical skills to your franchisees. You want to build the culture.
Helanie Scott (49:50)
Yeah, think that, know,
right, I think the major shift that needs to take place is this mindset of the technical skills mindset. I take someone, send them to training, they’ve got the skill and we’re done. The behavior side of things or power skills is ongoing.
Jeff Walter (50:08)
I love the power skills. I’m gonna start using that by the
way. I’m sorry. Okay.
Helanie Scott (50:11)
You steal it with pride.
It’s ongoing. It’s not like it ever stops. Such as, I’m not a very good listener, clearly you can see that from our interview, I interrupt you. I’ve really been working on it, and I’m much better, but I’m probably always going to have to work on it. So if I don’t get a reminder about that, then it’s going to slip for me.
So this is not one and done. I think we have to get into this mindset of building better humans. Building people that might not have empathy to have a little bit more empathy. Building an ability to be able to have a point of view with those people that have no neighbor a point of view. So these things are sort of ongoing. So treat behavior change in a different way.
Jeff Walter (50:54)
Yeah.
Well y you know, it’s it’s i it’s interesting you say that because it just reminded me of another conversation I had at a conferen there was a speaker at the ASC training managers council and ⁓ Je Jeff Peavy, I think it was. And anyway, he had said he said something really interesting and it had to do with the evolution of the worker and its and its impact on economic value.
And that we’re moving into the era of the we went from the industrial worker to the knowledge worker, and now we’re transitioning to the learning worker, where you have to to get economic advantage, competitive advantage, you have to have a workforce that is constantly learning. Because just
Helanie Scott (51:38)
you
Jeff Walter (51:41)
Because of automation, because of AI, because b because of chang how quickly the market changes. And so y it’s constantly and and it was really interesting to hear
Helanie Scott (51:41)
And, bye, bye. Bye.
And you know,
AI can support behavior change so dramatically too. But we have to teach people how to use it so that they can do it. Because of course, I’ve uploaded my personality and brain to AI. So when I ask a question, why would Yolani do this? Or how would Yolani do this? And what’s my flaw? My AI really knows me very well and says, this is what you’re going to do wrong, so stop.
Jeff Walter (52:14)
Ha ha.
Helanie Scott (52:15)
So I think that if we can integrate this and saying, know, we talk about scaling, you don’t always have to ask your manager the question. But do you know what prompt to use to get an answer that is specific to you? No one knows how to do that yet.
Jeff Walter (52:30)
But
No, yeah. We’re g we’re I I yeah, I just thought the the learning it’s just fascinating. And but but and I and I think it but it I also think it brings back more of those power skills, right? ‘Cause it’s and it it’s not just the empathetic listening or or or stuff like that.
Helanie Scott (52:40)
Bye.
Yes, is,
yeah, this is a beautiful quote that says, learning faster than your competition is your only competitive advantage, right? Right.
Jeff Walter (52:55)
Yes. I like that one too. I’m gonna use that one too.
Learning faster than your competition is your only competitive advantage.
Helanie Scott (53:02)
Right,
and so if you’re thinking about franchisees or businesses scaling, what are you going to do to be a competitive advantage through your people? And that’s teaching them power skills.
Jeff Walter (53:16)
Yeah. I like that. I like that. I like I like the learning facet of the competition is the only sustainable advantage. Well, you know, ’cause it kinda rema i it it it’s interesting ’cause it all it it it also it it also ties back to the the whole military paradigm of d you know, the decision loop. You you have to get make your if your decision loop can be inside of your enemy’s decision loop, you you’ll you’ll win.
Because you can adjust make your decisions and adjust quicker than they can. And it compounds over time. And it’s a similar type thing. So I that as soon as you said that, I was light bulbs went off my head. I was like, yeah, you you it’s the pivot is you can adjust quicker than the competition because you’re you’re you’re able to learn it’s that capabilities thing that you mentioned at the beginning, right? You’re able to develop new capabilities that you didn’t have yesterday as an organization.
Helanie Scott (53:44)
All right. All right. Bye.
Right.
Right.
And you know, I really believe this untapped human potential and managers role is how do I tap into that human potential and
Even for an average performer, you know, we kind of spend a lot of time on our high performers and we want them to achieve because they bring in the dough. But an average performer sometimes is a great benefit to a business.
because it’s easier to take an average performer to get a little bit better. And that little bit 10 % better, 20 % better is actually going to give you results, especially if they have the right behaviors to start off with, meaning that you can rely on them, they’re going to show up, they’re going to work hard, they’re going to put in extra effort. But if you’re not pivoting as a manager and seeing that human potential, then we lost. It’s easy. mean, how many people have said that?
I’ve given up on this person, I’m just going to fire them. And then they go to another organization and thrive. I can tell you hundreds of stories like that. And the only difference is, is a better manager.
Jeff Walter (55:08)
All right.
Well, which goes back to that whole you can only scale at the speed of your managers and and yeah, I th I I it was yeah, it just was ⁓ I it just really hit home when I and and and then ha and then the question is well how do you create managers? And and then you ha and then it’s always been the case that you’re better growing them than buying them. Like you can you can make or buy.
Helanie Scott (55:18)
Right. Well, I’ll steal that one.
Jeff Walter (55:38)
Right? You can grow them internally or you can bring them on from the outside. And if you grow them internally, they’re so much more successful. You know, you’re you’re if you bring them in from the if you if you bring them from the outside, you’re gonna fifty percent of the time you’re gonna have a miss. Exactly. Exactly. But if you can develop them, then ⁓ then you know you you have a much higher percentage rate. And I think
Helanie Scott (55:53)
Well, because it’s an unknown entity, ⁓
Jeff Walter (56:04)
That’s been known internally for years and I think it’s starting and especially I’m seeing it I think in the franchise space where there’s a much more intimate relationship. you know, and and one of the things I think would kind of have a huge difference in in scaling performance. And so
Helanie Scott (56:13)
Right.
You know,
and it’s fascinating because, you know, one of the most successful coaching engagements I’ve done is this was a high performer anyway, but he didn’t get very good employee engagement scores. And we kind of, worked with him and we fixed that. He got an amazing rating from his CEO. All his KPIs were met, plus his engagement scores went through the roof. But to me, the real prize
was when I met his wife at his farewell party, he was moving to another organization. His wife came to me and said, thank you for giving me a better husband. So I think what’s really powerful is when I say that I think it’s our responsibility as leaders to create better humans. And that will give us results. We don’t even have to track it. It’ll just show immediately.
Jeff Walter (56:58)
wow. Wow.
Yeah, I I I
it it it ⁓ it wow, that is really powerful. But well ’cause it it shows you that it’s it the the behavioral changes don’t stop at the door. They they they they flow through and it’s so fascinating I ⁓ it’s sending me down another my mind is just like sh down another right. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna pump the brakes on that ’cause we’re
Helanie Scott (57:34)
Ha ha!
Right, right. Anyway, we are so privileged
to be in this space because I think that we do impact people’s lives and especially with AI, I think people are going to need more support and more connection than ever before. So I feel just so blessed that this is where we play.
Jeff Walter (57:41)
I
I and and I I really appreciate your your time today because I I think as we’re going forward and especially as we look at the the the partner learning, the external learning, it’s it’s one of those things that has not been on the radar historically. Because you kinda delegated it out to your partner. But it it real it’s it’s the anecdotal evidence is coming in that
it has a huge impact on the performance of your network and and you can just start to see it and ⁓ and and so taking those concepts and pushing them out and that’s where you get like massive scale.
Helanie Scott (58:33)
Right, and I think there’s another part, you’ll actually feel it before you see it. You know, we forget that it’s a slog. Being a franchisee can be a slog. Being franchisor is a slog. So if we can do it in a nicer, more interesting way, why wouldn’t we do that?
Jeff Walter (58:50)
Yeah.
Well, it never ceases to amaze me. I mean this I’m going off topic but it’s related. It never ceases to amaze me that if you really want to untap human potential in people, you just have to treat them like humans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I a and and like and recognize that they have multi dimensions to their life.
Helanie Scott (59:08)
Not so easy when we’ve got flaws.
Right,
right, right, right.
Jeff Walter (59:16)
That they’re that they’re that
they’re and and then and then treat them with kindness and as a as but also have the humility that you don’t know everything.
Helanie Scott (59:26)
Right, and I think there’s a third part and it says, back to my sort of philosophy around leadership intimacy, you also need to know where you need to challenge them and push them. And I think that in my work, I’ve kind of like, if I boil it down, I put leaders in kind of three categories.
Jeff Walter (59:37)
Yes.
Helanie Scott (59:46)
The one category are those people that can drive accountability, help people accountable, they push them really hard. The other category is he’s the nice guy, he’s my best friend, he supports me, he’s lots of empathy. Very rare for a leader to be able to balance those two in just the right ratio. And so…
Jeff Walter (59:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Well it i and it balance is
the right word ’cause it’s it’s hard.
Helanie Scott (1:00:08)
Right,
and so most of the work that I do is how do I bring the people on the right closer to the middle, how do I bring the people on the left closer to the middle, and then apply that situation and say what does the situation requires for this person right now and what do I need to do to pivot. And so therefore our work will never be done because people need to sort of find that balance and recalibrate that balance all the time.
Jeff Walter (1:00:32)
So ⁓ I yeah, I was it was a very educational for me. So thank you. a very interesting conversation and and and going down a a path that I think is going to have huge impact in the future. And I I I I just really like what you’re doing and I I just appreciate you spending time
Helanie Scott (1:00:32)
This was such fun.
Thank you so much and thank you for having
me.
Jeff Walter (1:00:53)
And
but before we go, is there any ⁓ if if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, ⁓ how would how do they get a hold of you or your organization? ⁓ we’ll we’ll put ⁓ the link to your site in the the show notes. but how how do they get a hold of you?
Helanie Scott (1:01:05)
Bye.
Just my email address is probably the best, yelaney at alignforprofit.com. And then of course get LinkedIn with me, Yelaney Scott. And I’m sure you can put that in the link as well, the link to my LinkedIn. I’m very responsive even when I travel.
Jeff Walter (1:01:17)
Yeah. Yeah, we’ll be in Thailand.
Well, Yelani, thank you so much for sharing your your insights and your experience with us. I greatly appreciate it.
Helanie Scott (1:01:29)
Thank you so much, Jim. Have a beautiful rest of your day.
Jeff Walter (1:01:32)
And to everybody out there, thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time. Bye bye.