Catalytic Leadership

Why Growth Fails Without Leadership Ownership Culture

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 4 • Episode 22

Share episode

Send us a text

Growth doesn’t usually fail because of strategy. It fails when ownership breaks down and culture can’t keep up with scale. If your agency is growing, your calendar is full, and you’re still the point of escalation for too many decisions, this conversation will sharpen how you think about leadership ownership culture.

In this episode, I sit down with Chris Sund, President and COO of UnitiMed and GQR Healthcare, two of the largest healthcare staffing companies in the country. Chris has led rapid growth, inherited teams from founders, and made decisions most leaders delay, like hiring a Director of Culture before sales or marketing.

We talk candidly about scaling without burnout, building accountability without control, stopping blame before it spreads, and why execution, not just information, is what actually drives transformation. If you’re refining internal systems, strengthening team performance, or trying to remove yourself as the bottleneck without breaking momentum, this episode will give you clarity you can apply immediately.


Books Mentioned

  • The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

  • Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

  • The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

  • The Need to Lead by Dave Berke


If you want to stay connected with Chris, visit chrissund.com or connect with him directly on LinkedIn. He’s generous with his time and deeply invested in helping leaders grow with clarity and purpose.


Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

I'm honored today to have Chris Sund on the podcast. Chris is the president and COO of Unity Med and GQR Healthcare, two of the largest healthcare staffing companies in the country. He's a Maxwell leadership certified speaker, coach, and trainer who helps leaders build strong cultures, improve performance, and navigate the real challenges of leading people. Chris has led award-winning teams, guided organizations through major growth, and spoken at conferences across the United States. His approach blends relatable stories, practical tools, and clear strategies that inspire audiences to take action. Chris, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Chris Sund:

Thanks for having me here, William. Tell you what, you can do my intro any time you want.

Intro:

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author, and leadership and executive coach, Dr. William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, man, I would love to jump in and start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Chris Sund:

Great question. Man, I'd have to go back probably 20 some years. I spent the early part of my careers in college and afterwards in hospitality, running restaurants and breweries. And I found myself early on in a uh we'll call it a manager role, where some of the people on my team were older than me. And it was then I realized I wanted to, I wanted people to want to work for me, and I really wanted to excel in that role. So I I started picking up books. One of those happened to be a John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Love, so leadership. At the time, it was, you know, probably the most one of the biggest sellers. And I absolutely loved it. And it turned into um, I guess you could almost say a love for reading and learning and listening to stories of people and how they got how they got there. So I think that's really how it started. And that never never really went away. To this morning, my drive-in, it's still listening, uh, listening to an audiobook or a great podcast.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that. And I love that that teachable spirit was present even back then. You know, I know so much of your story has been helping other people, but you really have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first and continue to learn so that you have something to share.

Chris Sund:

Read. You know, there's um I heard and I'm gonna reference John Maxwell, even though there's and there's tons of great leaders I love listening to, but I remember hearing somebody that has spoken all over the world, his books you know have sold, and the amount of time he reads and note takes down notes and how he categorizes his notes, and he has cabinets and filing of this helps with this problem and this helps with this problem. And was really inspired to go, okay, how do you take what you're learning, put it together almost into a playbook, take and make sure you have that to pull into when that situation arises, because you get hit with obstacles and problems all the time at different times, and you have to be able to try to pull some out of your playbook or your toolbox that you know, maybe you never even encounter that. So you got to go back and reference, or you need to get on the internet and start searching and reading.

Dr. William Attaway:

Yeah. Well, you know, I I think I think all of this plays in. I don't think there's any such thing as a wasted experience in our lives. And I think all this plays in to the success that you've had building one of the fastest growing and highly rated healthcare staffing companies in the world in a pretty competitive space. I would love to hear about that. Like, how did you start? Did you start from ground zero, from scratch? Did you jump into an existing organization? What did that look like?

Chris Sund:

A great question. So prior to the current company I've been with for the last four years, um, and this company will be turning, just entering into its fifth year being done, I was with another company. And I started off as a recruiter and worked through uh that side. I started flipping to the client side, and then I led a and started a new sales department within there. And uh from there I then started a business development department, then another service line and had really amazing opportunities. Uh, they really invested, I can say, into me and all their employees, and um and it was a it was a wonderful opportunity. I used to tell people I I didn't just drink the Kool-Aid there, I probably made the Kool-Aid um at that company. And I I love it to death uh what they did for me. And an opportunity came my way to uh come and run a new company that just started. The founder was in a 70s, he had had success starting other companies and was looking for someone to do the day-to-day. And I honestly wasn't interested at first because I had such a great thing going. And I love the people I work with, which makes all the difference, I think, in what you do. But then there was a little bit of side of me going, you know, you may never, this is the type of opportunity that could really um could change you. And that maybe for I had to say, I almost I guess I was selfish. In some aspects, I felt selfish at least, to go, this is though, if my kids had this opportunity or somebody else, I'd probably tell them, you know, you should you should go for it if you feel strongly about it. And I was blessed that, you know, he was willing to give the autonomy to go, hey, if I do this, this I want to be able to put in a vision and and missions and goals, and that you're gonna let me run with those. And those those core principles and beliefs that I believe will make a company successful. And I was I was really blessed um that he did that and gave that autonomy to me. And um it it really helped to be able to go out and build a team and go out and find that team and create it and set forth.

Dr. William Attaway:

Now, that's a that's a very different thing when you're coming in and kind of taking over the day-to-day from a founder. That's a very different dynamic, and not everybody finds a lot of success there for a lot of the reasons that you just mentioned. They don't find that they have the full autonomy that's necessary to to open some new doors or try some new things. You know, what what what are some of the the lessons that you've learned in this season as you step into what somebody else has built up to this point and you're trying to take it to a different level?

Chris Sund:

You know, in a lot of ways, it's a lot harder to inherit something and then to change it than it is to build it from scratch. And one of the reasons I I wanted to build it from scratch is because I felt like I had an asterisk at my last place because the company had been around a little while, had a great reputation. And so I was like, great, you accomplished things, but I always felt like there's an asterisk. This still wasn't ground up day one filling out the paperwork.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Chris Sund:

A lot of that foundation had been poured. They needed direction strategy, I would say probably the most. And, you know, one of those things, like I said, is when you're trying to change people who had already been maybe committed to their career or told, hey, this is how we're gonna do it, or this is what this looks like. And I'm gonna come in and say, this is actually more what it's gonna look like, or this is what we really need, and this is what our focus is gonna be. That's hard. I tell people, and luckily it was a smaller, you know, the team at that point was 20 some employees. The bigger the company you're going into, the bigger the team. It told me it's like a ship. A smaller ship you can turn easier than a bigger ship. It's gonna take longer to get everyone. And so uh yeah, I think it it started off though with investing in the people, getting to know them, making sure they know I care about them, and that this is uh, you know, I take I think people's career is such a massive decision. It's more than just them and it involves their family, their loved ones. And I want to know, I don't take that lightly. You know, we're gonna have high expectations, we're gonna ask a lot, but we also I want to make sure that we're being reciprocal in that leadership and we're giving that back to them. And if you trust that, and you're gonna trust that what we're putting out here for our vision and where we're going is gonna lead us where we all want it.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, so much of that involves culture change. You know, even if you're coming into the healthiest culture on the planet, you're still a different person than the previous leader was. And that's gonna require some culture shift. Is that something that you feel like you stepped into and felt good about putting your arms around that? Or was that something that was kind of a work in progress for a while?

Chris Sund:

That's a great question. I would say the culture, it had a good culture when I came in here. The the founder and the key people really cared about building a great place to work, without a doubt. That was something that was extremely important to them and well thought out. I think there was times where it blended a great place to work with high performing, and there's a difference there. A great you can be a great place to work because you offered perks, but I think most people would rather be on a team that is striving to win or or to really do something, build something special. And so there's a little bit of a change, I would say, just from hey, being a great place to work is important, but we want that pride to be because you believe in the work we're doing and how we're doing it. So yeah, and it was definitely there was a shift. One of the things that I did early on was we didn't have a lot of leadership roles of the people that came in. I didn't have HR, I didn't have a marketing leader. I was getting ready to hire a sales leader. So there was a lot of buckets, compliance we didn't have. There's a lot of buckets we didn't even have. And we knew, hey, we need to build the right leaders when the right timing comes. Because in the beginning, sometimes you just have to wear a lot of hats. That's what financially makes sense to bring someone like that on. But the first leadership hire I made was a director of culture. Now a lot of interesting. Yeah, a lot of people would be like, that's the first place you went before all these other buckets. And a lot of companies would say that is a nice to have.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Chris Sund:

One, it it came down to the right person I felt was available as a potential person to come on. And I may would have reconsidered it, if not. But I knew somebody that understood what it meant to build a great place, how to instill pride in more importantly, have the courage to tell myself and other people in the room what they need to hear and not what they want to hear. That's good. That's good. I was blessed that you know, to have somebody that was always advocating for for the everyone in the company that was really looking at the whole experience and and how we do things and wasn't afraid to speak up when things weren't being done in a right way, or we were doing something that really wasn't making us that kind of company we want to build. And so I there's so much importance, I believe, in having that type of a role or somebody in the company that is spearheading that. And I I really think that had a huge part of our success. I know for a fact I do.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that. I love that focus on culture because I think culture really is uh that touches everything. It touches every part of the organization. And you can focus on building these other pieces or these other buckets, as you mentioned, like, you know, we need somebody here, we need somebody here. But if you don't have a healthy culture, you're gonna have a really hard time with retention. And turnover is one of the biggest non-productive costs that so many companies have to deal with because they don't have a healthy culture in place. Exactly.

Chris Sund:

A great culture is how I believe one of the ways you maximize performance.

unknown:

Yeah.

Chris Sund:

Just so true. When somebody feels pride, that's that's hard to teach, right? When someone feels pride, they're likely their motivation levels high, their output's gonna be high, versus, you know, I can train the skills, but pride is different. And that, you know, I a term I think I used a little bit ago, that reciprocal leadership. That if you're get what we invest or give to our employees, so they're gonna give back. How can we expect an employee to give their all if they don't even feel like we know their name or much about them or care much about them? If they feel like we're just gonna walk right by them and they're just showing up day to day as a cogn in the wheel, they're not giving their all. And they're not proud to work there. So um, making sure we're investing in creating a place that people go. I love what we're doing here. I believe in this mission. And man, I'd probably run through a wall if you put a wall. That's what we want. That's the goal. It doesn't always work that way across the board, but that's that's what we strive for.

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, one of the things that that stood out about you as I was researching you for this conversation is that, you know, that's a pretty, that's a pretty full plate that you have there, you know, with what you're doing. But that's not all that you do. You know, I find that the the highest capacity leaders, the high-performing leaders that I love to have conversations with are also focused on how do I take what I've learned so far and share that with other people. And when I saw that you had made a decision to go through a certification process with Maxwell Leadership, it seemed to me that that was exactly what you had in mind. How do I take what I've learned and share that with other people and add value to them for their benefit? I'd love to hear more about that and about some of the coaching that you do now in helping other leaders to take the next steps in their journey.

Chris Sund:

Yeah. Um gosh, trying to think of where I want to start. So I learned, I don't know, it wasn't terribly long ago, maybe handful or more years ago, that for me, one of the greatest bucket fillers or pride in what I do is helping other people. So a while ago, I decided I wanted it my own personal mission, which is to help others become the best version of themselves. And the reason I the only reason I I bring that up is I've told people in my career that money, those sort of things to me just aren't what gets me excited to want to wake up. But when you help, whether it's an employee or you coach somebody outside of here and you truly invest in them and you help them get through the hard things, or you help them realize their potential and you help them grow. I've been lucky to have employees, spouses, loved ones, not just employees themselves, come up to me and and thank me and tell me I, you know, I've made a difference in their life. And to this day, it fuels me. It doesn't matter how long it goes, those are the things you don't forget. You save the notes, you save the cards, because they're some of the most important words you probably to me, I think I've ever heard. And so um I wanted a way to to learn more and find a way that I can extend that reach. That whether it's it's it's our employees, whether it's maybe another person who's trying to struggle that I can help at another company, maybe it's um a group within a church. It could be a sports team, it doesn't matter to me. Uh you know, if I've got free time and uh it works and there's a chance to to work with somebody and see what we can do to help help each other, that's truly what I'm passionate about.

Dr. William Attaway:

And as part of that, you do leadership workshops, you do keynote talks, assuming you also do some some coaching with individual leaders.

Chris Sund:

Yeah, absolutely. I I think um tend to probably do more speaking than than anything. Get asked to to, you know, whether it's to give a talk or maybe it's to moderate a discussion and help just lead a room to think themselves and to get great ideas out. I think a lot of times you know this because you're a great coach. You're better brain leaders ask great questions. Yes. And a lot of of great coaching or teaching is it's not fishing for somebody, it's teaching someone how to fish.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's right.

Chris Sund:

And so when you can get the light bulb to go off themselves, the better. And so it's spending a lot of time ahead of time preparing and coming up with what kind of questions can I ask that will hopefully take them down the path or make them think differently in a sense that they can come up with a solution for themselves when it works that way, versus just being told.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, it's so much more effective. You know, when they come to that understanding themselves, when they understand that, you know, that they have the answer, they're just unaware of it. It's very difficult to see the whole picture when you're in the frame. You know, and what we get to do is we get to ask questions to help people see from a different perspective, to see things that they might never have seen from where they sit. But somebody on the outside can see very easily. And I think the question, like you said, the questions that we ask, those are the key. That's the key, I believe, to great coaching, to help people come to those understandings, to see that light bulb go off so that then they can go forward with a new awareness, a new self-awareness that is going to serve them the rest of their lives.

Speaker 2:

Said. Well said to say the least.

Chris Sund:

That's um I think that's one of the best parts of the coaching is when the you see the light bulb go off, and even better when you see them put it into action. Yes. When they put it in action and they come back and they're excited with the results and they share that with you, that's what it's all about.

Dr. William Attaway:

I was just telling somebody on a call this morning, I said, uh said, you know, information's great. And obviously I like to read. Uh, love more information, constantly reading, constantly learning. But information alone never leads to transformation. Information plus execution leads to transformation. You have to take action on what you're learning. You have to take action on the awareness that you've grown in. Then you get to the transformation part. That's the difficult piece, I think, for a whole lot of people. It's the execution part. And that's where we get to come in with a little thing called accountability. Hey, remember that thing you said you were going to take action on? How'd that go? Boy, what a simple question. But what power it could bring.

Chris Sund:

You're spot on. I l really love what you said about the execution, is what's necessary for the transformation. And we I just had a meeting this morning with a group of leaders, and it was getting ready to go into performance management starting into 2026. And some of them needed to have talks. And so we were coming up with how do we how do you start that conversation? What questions do you ask? Because we can come in and say, this is what you did last month, this is what we want, and say, just run through numbers, run through a report card. Or we can ask the questions, how what are your goals for this month, next month?

unknown:

Yeah.

Chris Sund:

Do you feel your actions you took last month are going to help you achieve your goals? Right. And then most people are harder critics on themselves than we ever have to be. That's right. That's so good.

Dr. William Attaway:

Chrissy, you have to lead your team at a higher level today than you did even a year or two or five ago. And that same thing's going to be true three, four, five years from now. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that your team and your clients are going to need you to have in the days ahead?

Chris Sund:

That's a great question. Because yeah, uh, you kind of hope the longer you do this, things get easier. And I want to say they won't. If you're investing in the right people around you, there's definitely uh there's different seasons of what difficult I would say is and different challenges. But when it comes to reinvesting, there's I'd probably give three things. And two, I already mentioned, which is continuing to read. I do a lot of audiobooks. I have a 30-minute commute. So I I listen a lot. I love podcasts. I love the fact that I can just find, you know, maybe I know I have to go have a certain type of conversation and go in there. I can look up and listen to people give me quick advice or a nice reminder. That to me in itself is you can't beat that. One of the other things, though, that I I've done or I do that I've learned a lot from, I meet with a lot of leaders pretty regularly. Sometimes it could even be a client, and we go past the this is a working relationship into uh tell me about the struggles you're having running a hospital right now. And other times it's competitors. I, you know, I'll eat lunch or coffee or a quick Teams call with people doing the exact same thing I do, and then some of my favorite people I can say I met with, and not that I don't love meeting with those people, I don't want to listen to this and be like, what? But I I look at companies that I really that inspire me. I look at people that accomplished something um in my community or in you know, in the business I'm in, but a lot of times it's not in my business. It's like this person made this tech company and it's really taken off the last this many years. I want to meet with them. And I want to hear, how did you do that? You know, or how did you create that? And what I usually walk away from, meet with them, is so much years of knowledge and going through it that they're able to share, you know, in an hour or two with me some of their best, like, hey, if I could go back, that's what I'd do. But to me, that's that's one been one of the best ways to learn is just to meet with other leaders.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, that humility and that teachable spirit that you're describing that would go and ask questions, sometimes even if competitors doing the same thing you're doing, you know, that I think reflects what I call a catalytic leader, one who understands that they don't know it all. They're not going to live long enough to make all the mistakes themselves. And if we can ask the right questions and learn from other people, and you I believe you can learn from anybody, sometimes what not to do, but that's incredibly valuable. If you ask the right questions, that can serve as a catapult. It can serve to move you so much farther than you would go on your own. And you would get there so much faster just by learning from other people's stories. So I love that you mentioned that. And I think that's a great model for every single one of our listeners. You know, when's the last time that you made an intentional appointment with somebody so that you could ask questions, that you could learn from, with things that they're proud of, that they're excited about, ditches that they almost drove into or did. All of this can be incredibly valuable on your journey. So I love that you're modeling that, Chris. That's so incredibly valuable.

Chris Sund:

Thank you. And I I really loved your use of catapult. And because it's so true. We you can go through your we can go through the day-to-day and get caught in a day-to-day of doing things very similar to how we did the week before and the week before that. And um, it's really easy to get caught in that and not take time to sharpen the saw to find ways to get more out of out of what we are doing. So I love that phrase that you gave there. I'm not I'm I'm gonna keep that and be using that.

Dr. William Attaway:

That's good. That's awesome, man. Is is there a book that has made a big difference on your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who were listening? Or two.

Chris Sund:

That's hard. You know, I I'm gonna give one because it's timely. So I'll give a couple because it's timely and it's just happens to be what I'm listening to right now. So I fell in love with Extreme Ownership by Go Willink. Yes. Absolutely love it. And Leaf Babin, shouldn't just say Jocko. And then they they came out Dichotomy, which I just think is a beautiful follow-up on balancing, not going too far one way or the other. But there's a new book in this series. It's not by either of those two, and it's called The The Need to Lead. I'm forgetting the author's name, and I probably can't read it from here. Oh, Dave Burke. Dave Burke. And he um led at the top, trained at the top gun academy, unbelievable. One of the very few people that can fly four different F fighter jets, and he got to know Jocko and Leaf side by side in the in the same battle, you know, and um they got to know each other and he went to work at Echelon Front, which is their training company. But he it's actually a third book in the series because they had he wrote the book in the similar style. He gives real life experience that I always say, man, talk about getting perspective. You think's the problem, and then you're like, that's a lot more amplified when you're out on a battlefield or you're you're doing what they're doing. And I'm like, why are we complaining about this again? So I love the perspective. You just get you find yourself going through that real life story, and some of those stories were just actually being the humility of like going through school and thinking he was doing great and finding out his peers, you know, thought he knew everything. Those type of real life stories. And then he applies it to what he's done for consulting in businesses and then the principle that you take from there. And uh I'm not fully done with it. It has been extremely addicting. Didn't want to stop reading it, and so I'm looking forward to finishing it. It's already living up to the other two books. So yeah, I'd say my recommendation.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, I'm gonna add that to my to read list. Thank you for that.

Chris Sund:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. William Attaway:

Chris, I you know, I think a lot of our listeners might look at you and say, oh man, Chris's journey, his his trajectory has just been up and to the right. Like he's never really struggled like I struggle. He's never had the problems that I deal with. And of course, we know the fallacy of that because every leader struggles at different points in the journey. That's part of the journey. Nobody just gets to go up and to the right. In that vein, I'll ask you this. If I had the ability to snap my fingers and solve one problem for you right now in your business, what would you want that problem to be?

Chris Sund:

That is such a wonderful question. So stealing that question, that is a great question. You know, once again, I'm trying to think if I'm the answer I'm gonna give is more timely versus maybe what's gonna move the needle the most. Those are two different things. But I I would say um ability to transcend through everybody, the approach of pointing the thumb at ourselves versus pointing a finger when things aren't going the way you want. And I think it's such an important principle and and fortunately a thing where there are problems and obstacles that come up in some that I would say in our company where I'm like, wow, we really need to dive in, fix that so that doesn't happen again. You know, that's affecting our experience and and causing grief. But it it can get really caught on I could have done this, but I didn't, and I point my finger at this tech or this product, this person, or this recent, and that and um just continue to instill like what can you control like show up? What are your controllables and what are you doing about it? Like, how are you fixing it versus you know, exerting energy looking at things that aren't really gonna help? That's good. I love that. That'd be the problem right now.

Dr. William Attaway:

Well, that's a that's a that's a great one. And I think it's one that I certainly can resonate with, and I imagine most of our listeners can as well. Thank you for your for your honesty and transparency there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. William Attaway:

Chris, I know our listeners are gonna want to stay connected to you and continue to learn more from you and about what you're doing and what you're learning. What is the best way for them to do that?

Chris Sund:

Great question. One, you can find me on my website, which is my name, chrissun.com. The other one is uh I love connecting with people on LinkedIn. So if you you find me on LinkedIn and want a message, you want to set up a meeting, would love to talk sometime, please uh please do that. I love when people reach out. And I've met so many amazing people across this country for that exact reason. Love that.

Dr. William Attaway:

We'll have those links in the show notes. Chris, I'm so grateful for your generosity today in sharing just some of your journey so far. And I can't wait to see what's ahead for you. I think your best is still ahead.

Chris Sund:

I appreciate that. Thanks for asking me to be on here. I love the conversation, even though I feel unfortunately I'm doing more of the answering and less of the asking. But I just I really love the input you made. There's multiple things I'm gonna steal. And so I can't say enough good things about you, William.

Dr. William Attaway:

Grateful for that, man. They're free for the taken.

Chris Sund:

Appreciate it. Question. Uh, I want to flip that real quick. And I know we're trying to tie a bow on it, but I would love to hear. I shared the the one problem. It's such a great question. I'm sure you've thought about it. What what would be yours right now?

Dr. William Attaway:

You know, I just I just this year, uh, over the last few months, we uh we acquired a new business partner and I acquired a new company. And as the CEO of this new company now, I'm stepping in behind a founder who is retiring, stepping back. Very similar to the story that you were telling earlier. And I think one of the one of the biggest things that I'm learning in this season is the pace at which to lead change in this, in this company. You know, there's there's a lot of things that I would love to see happen, a lot of forward progress I would like to see us make. But you don't want to make too much change too fast because you'll pop that change rubber band. You need to let you stretch it and then let it relax and then stretch it and let it go. And I think that it's so easy for us as leaders to run too hard and too fast because we see farther than other people can see, and we see it before other people can see it, what it could be, like Maxwell says. And I think it's I think it's important to think about pace, not only for the good of the team, but also for ourselves, because running at a healthy and sustainable pace is how you avoid burnout. And so in this season, that's my biggest challenge is what does that pace look like? I don't know it yet. I'm I'm too new into this next chapter. And so I'm trying to learn that pace and understand what it looks like to lead in a healthy, sustainable way with a brand new team that I'm still getting to know with a company that I see so much potential in, which is why we went down this road in the first place. So that's the thing that I'm uh that I would love to have somebody snap their fingers and solve that one for me and tell me, what does that pace look like?

Chris Sund:

That's a tough one. I don't I don't have help, but I know knowing um you, you're already taking the time to get to know the great people there and figure out why they built things the way they did. And I think that gets skipped a a lot where people want to fix or maybe tear down a fence um right away before asking, why'd you guys put this up to begin with? Why does this been here? And when people don't feel like you you found that out and you just said, now I'm gonna change it, they're they're gonna not like the idea right off the bat, because uh unfortunately, and so I've I've experienced that, but that's a that's a tough problem uh to say the least. That's one that a lot of people face in a lot of places.

Dr. William Attaway:

It is, and I think that's that's one of the joys, though, of of being a leader, is that we get to tackle the hard challenges. I think that's part of the fun, honestly.

Chris Sund:

Yeah, I some of the best, one of the best feedback I'd gotten from somebody on my team. And uh, yeah, I really appreciate this guy so much because he once again, it's about telling people what they need to hear. And sometimes people are scared to to maybe come up to somebody and and tell somebody, especially if they're above them. You know, he opened my eyes because sometimes, like in this situation, you take your experience and you see something, you're like, we should be doing this. And it would fix things, and then we should be doing this right away. But uh he was going, it goes back to the fishing analogy. And he goes, if you come in and you know your ideas, 95% I'm gonna give you a 95% grade. But they had an idea that was maybe 85, and you just bulldoze it because you you're like, this idea is gonna work better, you're probably better off letting them do the 85%. That's their idea that they're excited about, unless you could get them to think the other idea is their idea. And that was, you know, it's such great advice that I have to remind myself all the time. You're um better off once again taking the route that gets them excited about about the change, right? And about the pace.

Dr. William Attaway:

Absolutely. Otherwise, you end up taking on more than is necessary. You've got to run the run the trot line on that. And then all of a sudden, you're running at a very unhealthy and unsustainable pace that will not serve you well in the long term. And I think that's why we've got to have a macro view of pace and understand what it looks like, even though internally we want to run fast and hard and get there quicker. Yes. Sometimes the best thing you can do is, like you say, say, you know what, that 85% solution, it's good for now. That's a good word. Chris, this has been such a great conversation. I've so enjoyed this, and I look forward to continuing it another time.

Chris Sund:

Yes. Thank you so much, Phil. I'm looking forward to more conversations in the future.

Head Shot

Dr. William Attaway

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

The Look & Sound of Leadership Artwork

The Look & Sound of Leadership

Essential Communications - Tom Henschel
The Lead Every Day Show Artwork

The Lead Every Day Show

Randy Gravitt and Mark Miller
The Global Leadership Podcast Artwork

The Global Leadership Podcast

Global Leadership Network
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast Artwork

The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast

Art of Leadership Network
Seven Figure Agency Podcast with Josh Nelson Artwork

Seven Figure Agency Podcast with Josh Nelson

Josh Nelson - Seven Figure Agency
Agency Forward Artwork

Agency Forward

Chris DuBois