Interview transcript

Reade (00:00):

Three two, one. Welcome everybody to another growth secrets interview. I'm here today with Carlos Valdez, the painter. And I practiced that pronunciation at least three times before we got on a call. So I appreciate your grace. Carlos and thank you so much for joining me today.

Carlos (00:21):

It's a pleasure. You pronounce the name absolutely perfectly read. I'm always good to be in the company of somebody who who wants to get it right.

Reade (00:31):

Well, I'm trying my best. Well, again, I appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Carlos and I had a brief chat I think it was last week. Mmm. And we obviously got onto the topic of what's going on in the world and everything that people are having to do to adjust. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about his business and we're going to talk about some things that you guys can apply that are going to help you not only grow your business, but really manage your your life amidst all this craziness. So I'm really appreciative of Carlos for joining me and folks, if you're watching this live, do me a favor, just leave a comment that says, live down below helps me understand when people are watching so that we can do this at the best time for everybody. And if you're watching this later on, on the replay, on YouTube, or even if you're listening on the podcast later on, just leave a comment that says replay. That's also really helpful. So to go ahead and jump right into it. Carlos, would you mind giving us just a quick background of of yourself and, and in your business?

Carlos (01:38):

Yeah, sure. Well, I I am the founder and w, what's the word? We have a fancy term for what I am a PR PR managing principle, I think is what it is of corporate collaboration resources. It is a consultancy devoted to changing the way people think about and do collaboration within large organizations. I founded corporate Konglish. I founded corporate collaboration resources at that two years ago with my wife after 17 years at Mars incorporated where I was an internal organization effectiveness consultant. It just so happens while I was there, I did some research and that led to the development of a bespoke team effectiveness framework that was adopted by Mars is its global standard for how teams approach improving themselves. Just a little bit more before Mars, I was with IBM for three years at the headquarters in Armonk New York as an internal executive coach and consultant supporting a subset of the top 35 global leaders.

Carlos (02:44):

Prior to that I was an external consultant for for about three years. I got my start in business in an entrepreneurial firm in Manhattan. I won't even tell you the years cause that'll, that'll definitely tell you how old I am. But I was there for nine years and we grew that business from, I think it was 15 people when I started to about 125 and three different countries. When I left nine years later, it was a, it was the best NBA you could hope for. I think in terms of learning to understand how businesses and people interact and how you get stuff done and how you grow.

Reade (03:16):

Well, that's such a great way of saying that. I in my opinion, the on the job training is, is really the true education. Even if you are highly educated, I and I don't knock those who are and those who aren't, right. I think what you have done and what you can do is speaks much more highly than the education you tout. But there is no denying that the, the scars and the real world bumps and bruises that you get are where you get your real education.

Carlos (03:50):

It is so true. Now mind you, I went back and got a master's in org development at some point because, and that helped the resume that made the resume a more marketable product. But that's why I did it. Right? I think you're absolutely spot on. It's the lessons we learn in the trenches, doing what we need to do every day. Making mistakes, picking ourselves up and moving on learning lessons that way is a big part of what my career is. Even even the, the collaboration work I did at Mars, yes, I did a lot of research, but contained within that research were countless attempts to do things that didn't quite work out, had to go back, try it again, see what worked better. Right. It's, it really is. It really is all about, about experience and learning through that.

Reade (04:37):

Oh, no doubt. I had a conversation with another guest last week and we talked about the value of mistakes. That's where you find the, the limit of what works, right. If you've never, if you're acting in a way that is mistake free, it would be difficult for me to believe that you're really doing what is necessary to try to push the boundaries and improve things and, and to try to innovate and do better. Would you you say that's fair?

Carlos (05:10):

Oh, absolutely. I think we sometimes talk about a growth mindset. You're familiar with the term? Yup. If we have a growth mindset, we have to learn how to move beyond our mistakes to incorporate them and then move beyond them. You don't grow if you don't stumble, you don't grow if you don't experiment with some things and learn that way. I think the, the, the, the, the foundation of development and growth as an individual,

Carlos (05:38):

Which underlies the development growth of our businesses is all about what you're, are you willing to to make some mistakes, learn from them and move on. I'll be honest with you, Reed I can beat myself up pretty good for a mistake. I was just, we're working an audio book version of my book that's coming out next month and you go through your your texts from the book and even though the thing was proof-read with an inch of its life, you find things that are wrong. Right? mind you, we were trying to produce a complete book in 40 days from concept to, to print. So it's got some mistakes in it and I'm still kicking myself a little bit for those, those typos and errors I'm finding. But you know what, we did a bold thing. We produced a series of 10 books in 40 days. And that alone is an accomplishment worth celebrating. And I'll, I'll, I'll have to find a way next time to find more of those mistakes sooner.

Reade (06:44):

Well, so what you, what you speak of there that is so valuable for the folks who are watching and maybe they're, maybe they're driving to a work right now for those of you who are still driving to work or maybe you're sitting at your desktop. But what I want you guys, wherever you are to really get from this is that shipping product. And that's just, that's a term that's often used in the tech space, right? We talk about shipping product, meaning that you finish the dang thing and get it out the door and get it in the market is more valuable than having a perfect product. Because Carlos, you may agree with me, there's no such thing as perfect product. There's nothing that is mistake free or error free or, or, or that something hasn't been overlooked. But getting it out the door is the most valuable goal in my opinion.

Carlos (07:45):

Yeah. I think in this day and age that's absolutely the case. I come from this industrial background I had at Mars incorporated where you didn't put a product out there that could endanger anybody. We didn't want anything in our M and ms or Snickers that wasn't health healthy, healthful or that could do harm. Right? So in those cases, you got to get it right, right. And you take your time and you try some things and you learn from your mistakes. However, in the world I'm working in, I'm in this completely new world now where all my clients have to interact with me virtually where I have to get a book out the door because the critical part of it is the help that's in that book needs to land in the marketplace in a timely way so the people can use it to respond to the stuff they're dealing with. What's perfect about it is the timing. And if there are some typos or some incorrect numbers in a list, you know what? They'll figure it out, but they're going to have the product in their hands that's going to enable them to do the things they need to do. You know, the word perfect is misleading, isn't it? Right? It's, it's, it's a perfect product. At the perfect time are all letters and

Reade (08:56):

Numbers perfect. No, that's not what's critical in this case,

Carlos (09:00):

Right?

Reade (09:01):

Right. I think it's about what is what is needed. Right? And, and put that into context, right? You're, if you really believe in what you do and you really have put your heart and soul into your product, then your customers need what you sell, right? And that, that may be a bit extreme, but, but understand what I'm saying is that the best possible outcome is that your product, your service gets in the hands of your customers because it's going to better their lives. It's going to make them better at their work, better at their business, a better at their life, whatever it is. So that's the best possible outcome.

Carlos (09:40):

I think that's the way to think about it, right? We want to, what was the word? We want to optimize the outcome, let's drop that whole notion of what's perfect, what's optimal, what's going to serve the customer and the client in the optimal fashion. And over time we can iterate, we can make changes, make, do a second edition and make improvements come out with Mmm. With another version, version two, version three, that that's how the world works now. Right? I mean, just think about software. Think about applications on your phone. The updates are almost constant because the key is give them the functionality, give them what they need to make this work. And then over time you can, you can refine and you can you can make it better. And I think that's what people have come to expect. No.

Reade (10:26):

Yeah, I, I the the term in tech and not to use too tech terms, is it too close together? But they talk a lot about I think it's, they say constant deployment I think is what it is, where updates are consistently being rolled out. And then in the marketing space that I work in, we talk a lot about data-driven marketing and constant optimization using the term you did where you, you roll something out, you test it, you gather data, then you make changes and you make improvements a little harder to do when you're, when you're producing a print book. I understand that, but I mean, I've got no fewer then 150 books on my shelves and here and probably no fewer than 10 to 15% of them say second edition, fourth edition, fifth edition. Right. Because they've been updated and revised over time.

Reade (11:22):

I'm a big fan of those types of books that have been written. They were written a long time ago. Yeah. And they've remained valuable and maybe they've been updated and revised too. Okay. Talk about the world in a little bit more relevant terms, but those I think are the ones that have the longterm value. So I want to shift a little bit if we will, Carlos, and talk a little bit more about your business. So the question that I ask all of our guests it centers around, I'll ask it different ways, but it centers around the problem that you solve in the marketplace. So when, when you sought out to create this product or start this business or take part in this business, what was the problem that you saw and said, there has to be a better way or, or this is something that we can, we can fix for money.

Carlos (12:18):

Okay. So the problem that I'm addressing is all the tens of millions and my guess is it's probably hundreds of millions of dollars of money that is essentially wasted on what I call conventional team building.

Carlos (12:36):

I've done a rigorous study of the effectiveness of conventional team building exercises and found that while they create a slight bump [inaudible] people's feelings about each other for a temporary for a short period of time that has no apparent impact on outcomes. So we're doing team building that makes people feel better, but it's not actually helping them, helping teams be more effective collaborative units, if that makes sense. And it is. It is the, that approach, the team building is, is foundational and it's what's been done for 50 years and it's not working. The research I did at Mars revealed that hole in the approach. And so we asked ourselves, what we gotta do something differently? What's getting in the way? Why are we spending all that money and not getting actual improvements in collaborative outcomes? And so that's the problem I set out to, to solve the product that came out of that, which we call the high performance collaboration framework, is grounded in a central paradox, which is this, to get great collaboration, you have to focus on individual motivation.

Carlos (13:55):

To get great collaboration, you have to focus on individual motivation. That's what most team building this is. Most team building says, come on and be good buddies. Go bowling together, go do a ropes course together. Learn each other's personality types. Yay. Come on, come together. And it skips right past the part that says, Hey, I'm a hard working individual. I got a job I got to do. I want to be recognized for it. Right? I want to feel good about my accomplishments. If you don't back it up and say, okay, so how do we make collaboration feel important to someone who's foundation is achievement and results?

Reade (14:34):

So that that's so good. So, and I, and I've talked about this a lot, not as eloquently as you put it and not as in a research backed away as you've done, but I, aye. I think what is often forgotten in professional settings is that in what I'm about to say is not a flight on the people that, that this describes, but people are self motivated that does not make them bad people. And those motivations are different, right? I love my wife and my children. So what I do professionally speaking is done with them in mind, right before any, you know, clients or coworkers, you know, forgive me, don't, don't Lynch me for that statement, but I love my family more than I love my clients and coworkers. And that is okay. Right? And other people may be motivated by different things. Some people are, are more financially motivated, others are lifestyle, whatever it is, right? But to ignore that and to just say, well, you know, take one for the team or, or pull together, is it, it is ignoring the central motivations. And this is to pull a lesson from, we talked about education on the first lessons. One learns in economics is that incentives work and people respond to incentives and everybody has them, right? Everybody is being driven by a core incentive and aligning those is so, so important. So I love where you're going with this,

Carlos (16:15):

Right? So yeah, it's that idea. I mean, think about the average, and I'm going to make a sort of a cultural distinction here. Western workplace, right? Because there are different cultural assumptions in other parts of the world, but most major corporations are built on what I call a Western model. Think about the typical job posting for a company like IBM or Mars. You want self starters go getters, results oriented. We hire these people in droves, we bring them in, we pay them as individuals, we recognize them as individuals from modem as individuals. And the whole time we're saying, yeah, but you gotta be a good team player. Come on, just be a good team player. Of course people look, what I found read is people get cynical about the whole team thing, right? They see the posters on the walls, they see the framed quotes from Lou Holtz, the coach, and they're like, yeah, yeah, whatever I got a job to do. I got mouths to feed, I got a mortgage.

Reade (17:16):

Okay.

Carlos (17:17):

The the product we developed this framework for high performance collaboration has figured out how to make collaboration feel like just one more thing to be achieved that I can feel good about. Okay. And part of this, yeah, I like to say it this way to collaborate better,

Carlos (17:37):

Collaborate less on what matters most to collaborate better, collaborate less on what matters most now that collaborate less thing. All those teamwork posters, all those town hall meetings where everybody's talking about the great team and be a team player. Some of the things you, you alluded to a minute ago, it's almost as if we're expected to be team team, team all the time, but we know we can't be, we know we aren't and that's where the cynicism comes from. So the goal is to figure out, okay, where do we actually need to collaborate, where will collaboration feel important to me? And I was just, as I said, recording this audio book and I was struck by one line I wrote. Sometimes I surprise myself with a few good words

Carlos (18:24):

And any a typical employee and an average company is likely to say if you ask them to do something, it's they're either thinking or will ask. So why is it important? Why is this work matter and why is it important for me to do it right? I want to understand that that sense of importance to me. And whether it's an individual task or collaborative task, we should be asking those questions. Why is it important and why is it important that I do it? If you can answer that question around collaboration, what's a, you and I read are expected to get something done together, it's fair for me to say, okay, why is it important for me to be involved in this? How will I add value and how will read add value to me? And if we can make sense of that. If that becomes really clear, it's like battle.

Carlos (19:14):

I'm all over that. I am ready to devote my time and energy to it. What I'm not ready for is just be a good team player. You guys just need to be good team buddies. Just just come on, have each other's backs. Right. Come on, come together. That's empty jargon. Right? And no matter how many times we do the Myers-Briggs together, that's not going to shift my orientation towards I'll do it if it feels innately meaningful to me. Right. I'll do it if it feels like it's going to contribute to the stuff that matters to me.

Reade (19:47):

Yeah. Cause the, the, the response is, and just to put it slightly differently than you did it, it's for what? Right. And we, we try to take so much from the sports world. I mean it's the idea of a team obviously,

Carlos (20:00):

Right? It comes from sport.

Reade (20:02):

But what we forget is that if the team wins, everybody gets to celebrate. Right? Mark Cuban said, somebody asked him why, why would you, you know, why put your money into a an NBA team? Aren't there better places in terms of a return? He said, yeah, but I don't know how many other businesses you can be in where they'll throw a parade for you if you, if you come out number one for the year, right. There is this inherent or this innate a reward by collaborating as a team. And, and that, in my opinion, that that has to be, you have to figure out how to do that, right? You have to figure out how to make it meaningful to people. And I'm sure that's the the central theme of your your, your research and of your, your thesis, if you will.

Carlos (20:51):

Yeah, that's it. That's you tapped into the keyword meaningfulness. So that little motto, I, I spout it out a minute ago to collaborate better, collaborate less on what matters most. Let's figure out what matters to people in terms of what matters for them to collaborate. And then that's going to limit what we collaborate on. It's going to draw out a lot of stuff to say, you know what, let individuals go do that other stuff. Cause they'll do it. Great. They'll do it better than if we tried to force a group to do it, it'll get done faster and more efficiently. So we were collaborating less. Right. And that leads to better collaboration because we're focused on the right most meaningful things. And that's, that's what my life's mission is.

Reade (21:34):

I love the ideas. The last thing you said, I love the idea of a of a life mission, right? And, and I don't want to be too grandiose, but you've created your own meaning and, and what you're working on, right? This is meaningful to you to get this message out now that I think creates a whole different challenge. And how do you, how do you help people create, because I think this is really where you tap into people's motivation and you really get them to over-perform is yes, you can create incentives for them, but how do you get them to tap into their own internal meaning creation software, right? And to say, I want to achieve at this or I want to do well in this space or I want to work hard on this because it means something to me beyond just what the incentives are handed down by my employer, by this organization.

Carlos (22:27):

Yeah. Yeah. Well I think for me, I'm going to turn this towards my clients for a minute, right? The approach I'm offering is somewhat unusual. Most of my colleagues in my field do the sort of traditional let's go have fun together. Let's sit down and have a heart to heart, talk about our personalities and that's going to make us a better team. That I have clients who are accustomed to that and in fact almost addicted to it. And so the challenge I face as a business person is how do I get them? How do I reframe for them in a way that makes it feel important to them, what it means to build collaborative effectiveness. It's a challenge. It's the biggest challenge in my business is I want them to feel as passionate as I feel about what I'm doing and the way I do it.

Carlos (23:23):

Using the understanding and knowledge I have, how do I tap into their motivations to shift from a very satisfying, comfortable way to do team building to something that's actually going to give them a better outcome, but that they're not familiar with. Yeah. It's one, it is the central challenge growing my business is getting them feeling the sense of Oh, I want to own what he's doing, which is what I'm trying to do here. Right? This is if this technology basically just stays in my head and in my book, it's not serving anybody. Okay. Creating the demand, the genuine demand, creating the motivation in my clients to take this own it and do things differently is is what I think about every day. This is what I think about every day.

Reade (24:15):

So that that provides a great segue into the other questions that I ask all of our guests, right? Is what are you doing practically speaking to, to grow the business, right? From a marketing and sales standpoint, right? How do you, how do you transfer that or how do you translate that incredibly meaningful mission into that was a marketing language that is effective. Right? That's, that's a, that's a lofty goal. You're not selling trucks, right? You're not,

Carlos (24:44):

I think sometimes I wish I were, but no, I'm not selling drugs. It's, so I, I look, I need help. I, I'm let's go back to the beginning conversation. We have making mistakes. I've been at this now too, almost two and a half years and let's forget for a minute the whole coronavirus thing. Let's just set that aside cause that's thrown a wrench in the works in a way nobody could have seen. Yeah. But I guess I'm now on my third or fourth marketing person. Okay. I'm trying to grow the business primarily through social media. Here we are on Facebook, right? It's a perfect channel for me. I use LinkedIn quite a bit. I write extensively. I have a long list of blog posts. The real secret in this is, is the platform, is my platform, is the story that I need to tell and the way I need to tell it.

Carlos (25:41):

And I have tried several things. So let me give you an example. Yeah. Mmm. I was on a podcast about a year ago and the podcast host, he, he, he does podcasts for associations, these not-for-profit organizations that represent plumbers or physician's assistants or electricians in the DC area. So he does podcasts, produce bespoke podcasts for these various associations. And he interviewed me for one of these podcasts and he was interested in what I had to say about my book and said, I have an idea. Why don't you do a series of podcasts on your thinking and your book? And we can roll that out over the course of a year or half a year. So forth. And so I invested quite a bit of time and money in recording a series of many, I call them mini podcasts. They're three to five minutes long, a fewer longer. That's summarize the key takeaways from my research and the book. Mmm. It was a great idea. We every two weeks, one of these podcasts drop. We're on LinkedIn, we're on Twitter, we're on Facebook. Letting people know about it.

Carlos (26:52):

We're not getting the kind of traction I had hoped for. Right. the, and so now I've got a marketing expert working with me. We have a call this afternoon trying to say, okay, how do we refine the platform? The, the author that is Carlos Valdez to painter, his big ideas, what he's offering the world the value he wants to provide. How do we tell that story in a compelling way through the right channels? So I am still read working out how do we do this? It is, it is. I am not, I haven't got a marketing bone in my body that I'm aware of. I'm a thought guy. Right? Big ideas. Mmm. Really important ideas based on the feedback I get from my clients and from academics. So I think it's important to find the right help and I've made mistakes on that journey. I've gotten some help, but it hasn't helped me develop the, the traction I need. The person that I've landed with now has quite a good track record. And we'll see what happens.

Reade (28:00):

That's good. And I, and I appreciate your transparency there and I, and I think we can all take a little bit of a, a lesson from that in itself, in that not, not everything we're doing. Well let me put it this way, not all of the lessons that we have, and we'll learn that, that help us to get to where we want to go in life and in business are in the past. Right? That, that's a, that's a a tough thing to grasp is that, you know, in, in whatever the end of our career looks like. When we look back and we're really telling the story this happened, we're in the middle of that. And I don't think it really matters where you are in your, in your experience now. It's not over. You're still kind of in the middle of it, right?

Reade (28:50):

So there's still lessons that we're learning. And I think the really important thing is, are, are you, are you gathering that bad? You know, data and are you learning from it? Are you making tweaks in a smart way? And I think to your point about, you know, having tried different things is we also learned that not every tool is right for every job. I would say that what you've got is you've got the engine of really any great marketing campaign, you've got the thoughts, you've got the ideas, you've got the concept right. Delivering that, taking that out of your head and getting it two the right people, using the right channels and then getting them back to you so that they are either willing buyers or strategic partners or whatever your exact sales process is. You know, that's where the art and science kind of have to mix, right? Yeah. I'll tell you this, it's a whole lot easier. The have what you have, which is the, the, the engine than it is to to have to come up with that, right? You're having to figure out the right channels and all those things. Those are figure outable problems at least are a lot easily more easily figure outable problems, right? Having to come up with an engine,

Carlos (30:09):

Right? So we, yeah, we've got, we've got the basic building blocks and there's no doubt that, that there is value

Carlos (30:17): To be had. There's a value proposition for my potential clients out there. And by the way, for me, the big win is a few significant client organizations who want to roll these big ideas out throughout the organization and helping enable them. It's, I'm not about reaching everybody all the time, right? It's about who are the few major players who want to take these ideas and integrate them into their culture basically. So we'll get there. We'll get there. I'm really, I'm really feeling good about the work we're doing now and pulling together the, the the variety of stuff I have out there and social media. Then I have a few websites, right? I've got this collection of blogs, just the simple act of a S of SEO, search engine optimization. We, we thought we were doing it right and what an eye opening series of conversations were happening about how we're not doing it right. All right. So I'm later in my career than a lot of people, but I, I'm still learning. So learning and that's good. That's what keeps us alive and vibrant, I think.

Reade (31:27):

Totally agree. And folks, for those of you watching and listening, let me tell you the, the greatest lesson to take from this when it comes to marketing is that, that Carlos is Jill working on this. He's still making attempts even though he's tried a few times. Even though we're in the middle of the, the apocalypse. Carlos (31:50): Yeah. Yeah.

Reade (31:53):

The only way to truly fail when it comes to sales and marketing is just quit. It's opt out. Or to bury your head in the sand and say, well, everything will go back to normal and it'll be easy again. I got newsflash, it wasn't easy six, eight weeks ago when we were in the greatest economy in the history of the world. It was still difficult. It was still challenged. I can even make the argument that, and in times of economic difficulty, the level of competition actually decreases. If you're willing to weather the storm and you're willing to keep pushing through. And you catch that wave that really works for you. So I commend you on that. For sure. Carlos, I want to I want to be sensitive of your time. Also want to let people know how they can get to learn more about you. Can they, is your book available for sale?

Carlos (32:39):

Couple of things. So there's a new book out called virtual teams how to hold the center when you can't meet face to face. That's now up on Amazon for preorder. It's part of the series of 10 books, all about resilience from 10 different angles and we've got communications, we've got how to use nature to thrive during a time of crisis, how to aid aging well during a time of crisis. So that that is available for preorder a virtual teams. How to hold the center when you can't meet face to face my up, my original book, lessons from Mars sitting back behind me here that is on Amazon and still available. You can find links to all of that at my website, Carlos, the dependent.com. Carlos V like Victor depend on, I guess my name will show up somewhere. I hope.

Reade (33:27):

Yeah, we'll, we'll definitely leave lengths folks. I'll go ahead and drop them down in the comments you're watching along on Facebook or on YouTube. Just check the description there. We'll have links to all of Carlos's works all of his books as well as his website down below.

Carlos (33:43):

Yeah. So yeah, jump right in folks. There's lots out there. And you know, I got some advice early on. There's a book called your first thousand copies and a great little book at, do you know it read? I haven't, no. It's just about how do you sell a thousand ideas, write a book and then sell it. And one piece of advice this guy gave was be relentlessly helpful. Put stuff out there that people put stuff out there that people can use. And if it's good, they'll come to orient. Say, wow, excellent. I want more. And this is what I've sought to do. So I've got stuff out there, folks. That's practical. You can apply it tomorrow and help yourselves.

Reade (34:31):

That's excellent advice and there's what I would say is the number one growth secret. Guys, when in doubt put out something that helps someone. Right. What else are you going to do with your time if you can't think of any other way to do marketing or to do sales, but to be helpful to somebody? I can't think of a higher form of a higher use of your time. Well Carlos, I really appreciate your time today. This has been really eyeopening. I'm looking forward to getting a hold of your book and I really am looking forward to our next conversation.

Carlos (35:11):

Reed, this has been terrific. Your questions are super and I'm and I look forward to getting back to you in the future with great stories about how my marketing has paid off.

Reade (35:22):

Well folks, thank you guys so much for listening. If you have any questions for me, drop them in the comments. If you have any feedback at all on these interviews, please let me know. I'm always looking to refine things and improve things as, as Carlos and I were discussing, we're always looking to optimize the process. So leave some feedback. I really appreciate it and I will see you all on the next interview. Thanks.