Speaker 1 00:00:02  Welcome to the Growth Elevated Leadership podcast with Julian Castelli. Each week, we talk with senior tech leaders to explore stories and insights about the challenges involved with growing technology companies. We hope that these stories can help you become a better leader and help you navigate your own growth journey.

Speaker 2 00:00:28  Hey everybody! Today we're going to talk about team building. Building. And I want to talk about push versus pull. That's the framework I want to use. Is your team pulling you into next year. Are they pulling you into 2025. Are they knocking the ball out of the park in their department? Think about your executive team, right. Is every member of your executive team pulling you towards future growth? Are they inspiring their peers with their speed, their attitudes, and their approach? Or Can you think of some of your team members that maybe aren't pulling, with the pullers? You know, you know, when you have it, you can know it when you can see it. It's like product market fit. they are ripping.

Speaker 2 00:01:10  They're creating opportunities. They're knocking down obstacles. They're excited. They're energizing everyone around them. That's what I'm calling pullers. Then maybe you have someone, some other folks that are maybes. Okay. So you think about your team. They've been pullers in the past. They're likely to be pulling in the future. Maybe sometimes they're off and on. so you can have a maybe group as well. But I also want to differentiate the opposite of pullers. And I think the opposite of pullers are people that instead of pulling you in your team, you have to push them. Okay? You have to really get get with them because they're they're not doing what you need from the team. Maybe they're, they need some help. Maybe they're they're getting outmatched, with the phase you're in, and, you have folks that you have to push and so think hard. Most teams have 1 or 2 of them. And you know, sometimes I ask CEOs, I think I tell them to think about which executive one on one session that you dread the most.

Speaker 2 00:02:09  That might be a sign, right? Maybe you've even stopped doing one one on ones with this executive, or you're avoiding them. That's a sign. Or maybe they're causing troubles in meetings, or they have a lot of excuses. and so I want to think about categorizing your key team members, your executive team members as pullers who are pulling forward. And then there's this maybes, which is fine. Let's set those aside. And then are there sums that you have to push? And if there are, maybe it's time to think about what to do with those, those pushers, next, next year as you start your planning. Now, I heard this concept of pullers versus pushers on a podcast the other day. it's the I o podcast, which is the investor and operator podcast from Sterling and Tyler over at Pelion Ventures. So shout out to those guys. I thought it was a great concept, and I wanted to just spend more time talking about it, because I think it's such a great, easy way to just think about it.

Speaker 2 00:03:01  You can see a puller or everyone's had pullers and maybe everyone, once they think about it in this context, can think about people they had to push. And it really helps. And it just happens to be December. If there's snow outside here in beautiful Park City. And I thought of Santa Claus, right? Because when I heard this concept, I thought, okay, well, think about the pullers, right? That you imagine Santa and his sleigh being pulled by a team of beautiful reindeer. The reindeers are straining on their harnesses, they're pulling forward. There's. They're excited, and everyone's trying to keep up with them. And they're pulling Santa and his sleigh through the night sky. We could also all picture that, right? Santa has eight pullers and I'm not going to name them all. But we all know the song. And how else can he circle the entire globe on Christmas Eve? Unless he had eight fantastic pullers? Now the question is, does he have any pushers reindeer that he needs to push to help them do their job.

Speaker 2 00:03:58  Reindeers that he's pushing all the time, reindeer that might even be sitting in the sleigh next to Santa. Or instead of the the presents or making, you know, taking his seat instead of pulling it. So when I heard this concept, I immediately thought of Santa Claus and said, man, pullers are out front pulling. And as the CEO, you're trying to, you know, point them in the right direction and encourage them, make sure they're fed and everything. Or are they are they arguing with you in the on the bench, in the seat, or much worse, are you having to push them? Maybe they're in the on the in the sleigh and you're Santa Claus behind the sleigh pushing folks. And so I, I thought that was great. And I wanted to share it with everybody to see maybe that image will help you. And I even created a I generated image, which I'm going to put on this posting here so you can see it. But are your is your the question is, is your executive team pulling you like Santa's reindeer or are you behind the sleigh? And there's a couple people in the sleigh and you're having to push them.

Speaker 2 00:04:56  And if that's the case, maybe there's an opportunity for you to really increase the, the, the, the, the effectiveness and power of your team in 2025. So we'll we'll share that picture and we'll have some fun. So so what are we talking about here. What do we what do you need to know? Okay. As the CEO your biggest job is to attract, retain, inspire and support an excellent management team. Okay. As a CEO, you've got three things. You have to have the vision of where you want to go. Number two is you have to attract the team who can get you there. And number three you you lead them along the way. And that middle piece attracting the team is was probably the biggest single job. And that's what we're talking about. If you attract eight pullers like Santa does, you can do incredible things. You can create miracles like like all of us are trying to do in the innovation world. Right? But if you have a handful of pullers and some pushers, it's much harder.

Speaker 2 00:05:53  Right? And so my my point is do you have the right team. Do you have the right team for the next leg of your journey? Right. And sometimes the team changes by stage. So I'm going to ask you the question, do you have the team right. Team not for last year. Do you have the right team? Not for this year, but do you have the right team of pullers for next year, 2025 and beyond? Right. And I think that as you take some time over the holidays and think about, you know, what you can do to be successful going forward. this might be one of the biggest things you can think about to have an impact in 25. And don't forget, this is the most important job of the CEO. And it's the most important because it's critical to your success. We're all trying to innovate and do incredible things out there. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're trying to create innovation and change the world through tech, it is hard enough to do that.

Speaker 2 00:06:48  And it's almost impossible unless you get the absolute best time, best team for the next phase of your journey. It's critical to your success. Number two. If you don't look at the team like this, no one else will. This is the job of the CEO. There's no hiding or hiding from it. There's no one else who's going to come in and do it. You can't outsource it. You have to do it. Number three, if you get it wrong and you don't recognize that you have pushers, it can cause you to fail. Right. And we'll talk about that a little bit. And then the last reason that, it's it's very, very hard. we talked about it in the hire. the fire fast and higher. Slow the dynamic of psychology and why it's really hard to change teams out, but it's important. It's your job as the CEO. You have to do it, and it's critical to your success. All right. Now, why why do we have to know this? Why? Why is this important? Okay.

Speaker 2 00:07:46  It's important to think about it. And the reason I thought about it here, as we're planning for 2025, you know, this is the the end of Q4 2024. So we have the forward year. Look at number one. Almost everyone has this problem, right? Even if you had the perfect team at some point in a stage that your company is growing and it's going to have new challenges and new opportunities, and you're going to need the right team for the forward, stage you're going into. So the right team of pullers is sometimes stage dependent. You might have a puller who was a great puller in the series, a stage, but now you're a series B and they're trying to figure it out, and maybe they're in the middle category and you can work with them and get them to be a puller there, and that's fine. So take everyone who's in the maybe category, put them in the maybe, but really look and see if you have pushers that you're spending a lot of time with that you really have to push them to get the job done.

Speaker 2 00:08:38  And that's the framework that I just thought was so powerful. If you're pushing them instead of them pulling you, then maybe you've got to make a change. And that's a framework to look at. Okay. It number two, it is easy to ignore. In fact, all the circumstances collude to make you want to ignore it because you have so much work to do. Your plan for 2025 probably doesn't include, you know, upending your executive team. That's probably terrifies you, right? And so it's easy to ignore that. It's emotionally hard to act upon. Right. Again, we talked about it in the higher slow fire fast, all the emotional things are going to have you default to try to deal with the status quo, or maybe hide some people in the maybe basket, which you know, you can do for a little while. But again, once you start using this framework of push versus pull, I think you'll start identifying. Yeah. That person that I put, maybe I'm pushing them, I'm pushing them and pushing them.

Speaker 2 00:09:29  And at the end of the day, you have to make that tough decision to to find a puller if you want to be successful. another reason it's hard is it's recurring, right? You think you have it solved? you know, you just make a big hire. It's a huge time of expense. It's emotionally challenging. You might get a recruiter. It's going to take a lot of your your CEO's time, your board board's time. You know, it's very difficult. You think, okay, I've already done this. And all of a sudden, just when you think you have it solved, might pop up in another area. And that happens because the stages that we're talking about. And so again, look at the forward year 2025. Do you have if you have five departments, the five executive leaders or 4 or 3, whatever it is, do you have your three or 4 or 5 pullers? Okay. And is anyone arguing and sitting in this in this slide next to you? So what I recommend that you do what you need to do here is to evaluate your team.

Speaker 2 00:10:26  And it's very simple. Just break them into two categories or maybe three pullers. You know who they are. You have your pushers and you look at each executive if you pull, where are they pulling? You know, can they make be an example for other team members? And then you think about a pusher, where are you having to keep pushing them? Right. And you might have the people that you're not quite sure put them in the middle for now, and we might be able to work them, but you really want to find the ones that you're constantly pushing, you're constantly spending time with, and then saying, okay, what would the impact be if we could upgrade that position? And ultimately, the reason why you need to do this, because if you do, it's going to increase your chance of winning. All right. it's going to it's going to just help your team be more effective. And frankly, you can't do it without it. So here's the finish up here. Here are five signs that you may have a pusher as you go through this exercise of dividing your team into pullers, you know, maybes and pushers.

Speaker 2 00:11:24  You may have a pusher if number one the easiest is performance. Okay. That's that's that's obvious. management 101. You know, look at who who met their goals, you know, have you meet your sales goals that you meet your marketing goals? Did you meet your meet your product goals? Did you meet your engineering goals? this year, you should be doing that at the end of the year. And, and, you know, any area that, is significantly off. That's that's a sign doesn't necessarily mean you have a pusher. It just means that it's an area to look at. And why is that right? Number two, what happens is, when you find someone that's off you, you know, you're a CEO, you're a leader, you're probably a pretty good problem solver. So you might have diving in and you might be trying to solve the problem for one of your team members. So are you trying to solve the problem for one of your executive team members? Right. Do you find yourself becoming an expert in sales or an expert in technology? All of a sudden you're you're look at your look at your bedside table.

Speaker 2 00:12:21  Is your bedside table full of books? Because you've decided you've got to figure out how to problem solve for one of your team members. That might be a sign that you have a pusher, right? You're pushing them because you're trying to figure it out. Now, it may be a unique challenge because we're in the innovation space and it may be something really hard. And, you know, it requires that leader plus yourself, plus maybe some outside experts to solve a problem. So I'm not saying anytime you get involved it means you have a pusher, but it could be a sign, right? If you have the right puller, then you're you're focusing on trying to, you know, clear the path in front of them, making sure they've got enough to eat. And they're they are sprinting towards the objective. If you're trying to problem solve with them, it could be a fact that that you don't have the right puller for this stage of the journey. Right. Okay. Number three, another sign that you might have a pusher is their team turnover in that department.

Speaker 2 00:13:12  Do they keep losing people? Do they have a hard time keeping their team? And so not only are they maybe not performing well, but then their team isn't turning over and it becomes a consistent challenge. That's a that's a warning sign. If their team is, turning over or the caliber of their team is low. Okay, the fourth sign, they are in the sleigh. Okay. is there someone that you're wondering about whether to put them in the maybe category or the pusher category, and they're always in the sleigh? What does that look like? Obviously, you know, you can look at the graphic that I need to post here online. But for in a in a CEO executive suite, it means they are arguing about strategy. It means they are being defensive. And they're they're they're arguing with their peers. So at the executive meeting they're always being difficult. they're spending time criticizing other departments. A lot of times these are signs that that they are struggling in their own area. And so they're, you know, they're not out there pulling, but they're in the sleigh trying to trying to be defensive and, and creating some other challenges.

Speaker 2 00:14:13  So you can sometimes see, the problem. But because they're in the sleigh and they're being defensive or they're arguing. Finally, the the last sign that you may have a pusher is that you can see that your other reindeer are getting frustrated. Okay. And this is why it's so important that you actually identify folks that you have to push and you actually replace them with pullers. Right? eagles like to fly with eagles. Okay. if you have high performing pullers and they see one of the one of their peers is not pulling, they're going to be pissed off. They're going to be frustrated. They don't like to be on teams with other other leaders who aren't pulling. They may not say it, but you have to find out. You have to figure that out and you have to pull it out for them. It may not be politically correct, it might be subtle signs, but you have to have to find out. And when you do, you have to take action before you start losing your other pullers.

Speaker 2 00:15:03  Right. So imagine you've got, you know, five, five, exact team members and one's really not pulling their weight and you got four others and they start getting frustrated. You might go from losing not just the the pusher that you have to replace, but you might lose one of your pullers because they're here to win. And if you don't fix your team and give everyone the best chance of winning, they might leave. Now you've got two problems, okay? You've just doubled your problem because you delayed. All right? So it's one of the key reasons that you have to act once. Once you identify that you have some pushers because your pullers won't tolerate, being saddled up with a bunch of pullers. So that's the framework. Those are five signs. I hope this is helpful. I hope you enjoy the graphic. so you got to find out if you have any pushers. If you do, the first step is to admit it. Okay. Number two, create a plan to swap them out for pullers.

Speaker 2 00:15:55  And if you can do that and maximize the amount of pullers on your team, you're going to increase your chances of winning in 2025. Happy holidays to everybody. Merry Christmas I hope you've got a bunch of pullers pulling you into 2025, and we hope to see you at Growth Elevated 2025 at the end of January. Take care.

Speaker 1 00:16:16  Thank you for listening to the Growth Elevated Leadership podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, would you please follow us and subscribe on your favorite podcast player and we'd be grateful if you recommend it to a friend. If you'd like more resources on how to become a better leader in business, we invite you to visit us at Growth elevated.com. We'll be back next week with more insight from another great tech leader. Thank you.