Episode 48 – Heading into the Roaring 20s | Brandon Miller

In this episode I chat with Brandon Miller, where he shares insights from the last decade and predictions for the next.

Listen in your favourite app

Transcript

Murray Guest  

Welcome, Brandon, to the next episode of heading into the roaring 20s. Brandon Miller, you are the CEO of 34 Strong, published author, all around good guy. How are you?

Brandon Miller  

I’m doing great. Thanks. How are you Muz?

Murray Guest  

I’m good mate, life is good. It’s a beautiful time of the year. I do love the magic of Christmas. However, we don’t have the snow and the cool. We’ve got, you know, unfortunately fires and heat at the moment. But it is a beautiful time of the year connecting with family and friends. And I’m really loving these chats with everyone and connecting and reflecting on the past decade and what’s coming up for us. So thank you for your time. How’s your 2019 ending?

Brandon Miller  

Strong. Yeah, very strong. Yeah, it’s been a, it’s been a whirlwind year. In fact, at the end of the year, it just recently occurred to me, maybe even with your email that we were ending a decade.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, I know. And it feels like that. It feels like the 2000s were just like, remember y2k and everything? And now it’s like, it’s 20 years ago. It’s like, it’s amazing. Yeah. Well, someone said to me that the years go faster. We’ve got kids and kids are great. That’s okay.

You’re gonna be hearing my puppies, which are going to be, she’s, she’s, she’s protesting.

Murray Guest  

Okay, that’s okay. But what I was gonna say someone said to me recently that the years seem to be going faster, because we’re more in that state of flow. And doing what we love.

Brandon Miller  

That’s a good comment.

Murray Guest  

Yeah. Well, I’m embracing it. Yeah, that’s, because this year has gone like that. Yeah, so tell me when you think about the past decade, you know, 2009 through 2019? What are some standouts that we can take some time to reflect and celebrate, for you?

Well, I have to start with just my family. So going from being the parent of number seven, was born in 2010. And then my first grandson was born in 2017. So in that decade, became the father of our last of the tribe, also began the next generation. So that would have to be for us, the big marker, 25 years of marriage, in the midst of that we were able to celebrate. And then on top of that, we also had the opportunity to launch 34 strong. So the partnership with Gallup began in 2013, and has carried us forward in this decade.

Murray Guest  

That’s a that’s a lot of fantastic things happened in the past decade. I love that you started with family and I know family is such a key part of your life. As a father, when you think back of, and a grandfather, what what’s some of those lessons that really stand out to you?

Brandon Miller  

You know, I think as as a father, we had to learn as we write in our book, I guess what should be another big accomplishment in the decades is being published in a parenting book.

Murray Guest  

That is a beautiful accomplishment.

That was, that was a big deal. But I think, learning how to apply what I do professionally, to my home environment. And so for whatever reason it it came more natural in the professional space, helping others think about the strength of their direct reports in the workplace. And my own that I worked with, for bringing home was much more personal and much more intimate and being truthful, more difficult. Yeah, learning to stay in discovery mode and learning how to be fascinated with our kids and learning how to focus on what’s right with them more than what’s wrong, has been a really a decade’s long journey to bring us to this point.

Murray Guest  

I totally echo that point. And I think about the the experiences I’ve had in my corporate roles have the chance to develop professionally, and the training that I’ve provided people, and I think a lot of people in corporates get that opportunity. But we don’t get that as parents, I think about my own parents, and did they ever get the opportunity? Or was that available to them? To invest in what it means to be a parent and to learn and grow as a parent? I’m sure your your parents probably very similar didn’t get that chance. Whereas I know your book and your programs and are giving people that chance to do that. Yeah, I also agree it’s actually a bit more difficult when we bring those lessons home because there’s a whole different dynamic. And that’s in there, isn’t it? And I’ve actually had my daughter say to me, right now, Dad, I need a dad, not a coach.

And I think I think that’s a big part of just this learning process around if development starts in the home first, we are the primary mentors and coaches and teachers along with being the dad and we how do we balance those roles and bringing up those parts of us at the right time? I think is, I think it’s a lifelong journey. I mean, just with now adult kids, figuring out what they need from me, and probably more importantly, what they’ll accept. And what they’re willing to listen to is been quite the quite the process with them.

Murray Guest  

Yeah. What about 34 Strong, so you’ve done some amazing work, your business, since the launch in the past decade, when you reflect back on the growth and the impact of the business, what’s the things that stand out to you?

I think really getting to the point of understanding who we are, why we do what we do, and the way that we go about it. Because to go in and say, we’re going to transform a workplace sounds almost audacious and too hard for people to believe. But when we could help an organization realize that we’re going to get there by transforming the way their managers manage. So we set out as our goal to develop the best bosses within an organization. And then to those people, leaders, we tell them, our goal is to inspire you, to aspire to be the best boss someone’s ever had. Yeah, and talk to them through what that means and how transformative that is, for a person to have a great boss, and what that relationship can not only mean to their professional advancement, but just their personal life and the way that they live outside of the work and the great good that a boss can do. So I think getting to that clarity for 34. Strong. And, you know, with the with the goal that we want to, we want to develop globally recognized best workplaces. And so looking back in the seven years that we’ve existed, and having the opportunity to see both in some really, really hard workplaces here in the States, one of the worst workplaces a person could even imagine would be the Department of Motor Vehicles. I joke about that when I talk to clients. So if you think you’ve seen bad, no, let me tell you, but to even watch very difficult workplaces become better, because bosses decided that they were going to take the challenge and try to really move the needle and so that have those accurate, measurable outcomes has been quite fulfilling.

Murray Guest  

I think about the DMV and my experience of the version here and that, that sense of disengagement, right. And that type because of the type of work that they’re doing. And unfortunately, the treatment, there’s this the cycle of how people are getting treated, I think when they go to the DMV, but you’re right, if we can change the culture, in that organization, or any organization similarly, you can change it anywhere, can’t you?

You can because you know when we think about the private sector that we get to work with, and they’re often family owned, legacy type businesses, so midsize companies that we get to spend time with. And I particularly enjoy working with Gen 234, all the way up to five, and to track and monitor the change. And when we think of the quantitative change the actual improvement in their profit, in their productivity, and decrease safety incidents and all that. But when we hear the qualitative change, I was talking to a CEO recently, and they said, so we just got your your Q 12 back and your score went up in all 13 categories, and you’ve moved into the top third percentage of companies in the world. So can you tell me what’s different. And he said, I’ll tell you what’s different. We were looking to acquire another company. And we made our offer to them. And it was below asking, and we were making our case as to why they wanted us to purchase them. So they came in and spent a day with our management committee, essentially the senior leaders of the organization. And at the end of the day, they walked out saying, There is something about you that we’ve never seen in another team. And they called it an aura, a kind of an aura about you, where you have this openness in this, this dialogue that just you’re trusting each other. And he said it’s so authentic. And he said, there would be a great example of a qualitative metric that he said I could point to as two years ago, before we started this work that would never have been said, of our management committee.

Murray Guest  

Isn’t that beautiful? And that’s the stuff that is so important and so valuable in corporates, but we, we can’t measure. It’s like measuring love, isn’t it?

It is and I think I think just that the reality that when we think of organizational realities, qualitative becomes actually more real to a person because it’s visceral, and it’s remembered. So quantitative is great. Did I get a bonus, did I achieve the goal, all those things that you know we can put our hands on and calculate out but when you get into how it made you feel, and the way that you’re left with an overall sense of the word that, you know, we like to use the word well being and you know, what does that mean that it’s well with you? Well, when you get into because I feel better and I feel different, I love it when people start to describe work, this is one of our, it’s the two big F words that we love to hear in an organization, that work has become fun. And the people have become like family. Yeah. And when we hear those two statements, it’s become fun. And the people are like my family. We know that it’s a transformed workplace. And those people’s lives outside of work have become, at least according to Gallup, three times better, three times better than where it was before.

Murray Guest  

I want to ask you, considering your journey as a business owner, and a business leader, what’s been some some lessons you’ve experienced in that journey over the past, you know, seven years.

You know, I think, being faithful to this idea that I’m not in business for the business to own me, I decided to go into business to have an opportunity to certainly provide for my family, but additionally, to have an impact. And I And what’s great about that opportunity, is I have a choice in where to spend my time. And it’s a fine line, because as a owner operator, as you know, Muz is that you can get yourself caught into the operation side, so much so that you’re not getting to do the things that caused you to want to go into business in the first place. And so I think learning that, adhering to that, and being a good student, and then I think the other reality that we figured out probably a year or two in and we actually started our company with this mindset, that we wanted to work with the people who we really wanted to work with, that we fit, we thought we could help. But early on, you pretty much say yes to whomever will give you money and learning how to tell the difference between good revenue and just earned money because it was necessary. Yeah, that transition has been really important for, I think, the health of our company, as well as our own quality of life.

Murray Guest  

I think and it’s an easy trap to get into. And I’ve been there certainly, in my own journey, as a business owner operator, of gotta put food on the table, versus what’s the work I really want to do. And actually comes even a little bit easier because it’s the work that is so inspiring, and it’s that you know, you’re connected to and you’re driven to do you got a purpose to do. Yeah, if we, if we can have everyone doing that. And I think even the bit that’s coming to my head right now, it’s as our as we are business owners, that we are living and breathing what we’re talking to organizations about. I want to think about the next 10 years. So we’ve just been through about the past 10. If we think about you know, 2020 to 2030, what do you reckon is some of those key things that are going to be happening in organizations and some of the trends that you think might be emerging?

You know, I think people as as we move further down this path, have recognized recognizing what it means to work for a great place and what it means to not work for a great place what it means to have a great boss, what it means to not have a great boss, because I don’t I don’t even know that we’ve caught on to quite the viral wave that this will engender. Because I think as we learn and we understand that people work for people, people don’t work for organizations, that that gravitation toward places that don’t just pay me well, but they treat me better. And they do that. And so I I think we’re going to watch organizations have to determine that part of their competitive plan needs to be the their developmental philosophy, their management, training and practices, really looking at becoming a best of whether it’s in their region, their city, their state, their you know, the world. Yeah, it will become very much a priority. So we’re, I’m already starting to see that and hear that, are prioritizing that movement, because they recognize what it’s doing internally to the to the pride and motivation and interest in, in retention, but just how it attracts talent, yeah, and brings people in. But I also see that that as the good become better. I think we’re in for some dark days. In other cases, I think having the movement of AI may diminish the human spirit and human contribution to an extent where people can be perceived as expendable, and, you know, they’re not as relevant and I don’t think people are going to take well to that, you know, it’s a revert back to the industrial age. Well, you’re just, you’re just here to fill the spot. And so I don’t, I don’t know that that’s gonna go as well as we might have, some might hope. And I hope that we, we see people adhering to really wanting to be their best and do their best.

Murray Guest  

I’d like to think it’s not going to be like that industrial age. But as we think about history repeating itself and as we get back into that, yeah, what does the next 10 years look like for you? 34 Strong, Brandon Miller, what are we going to see? What would you like to put out there that you’re going to hopefully achieve?

Well, I could say that we’ve thought a lot about human management, and the gap that we hope to fill. So I give this statistic when I speak to a room of CEOs. And it’s where I’ll ask the question, how many of your organization’s have a training program that will train your managers how to really work with their people really engage them really develop them really know how to do that? And it’s, it’s about 2%. Yeah, we’ll acknowledge this. And these are, these are, these are micro companies, these are companies of about 100 employees up sometimes as many as 1000. And by most counts, that’s not a micro company anymore. These are 20 to 50, the as high as $500 million a year brands, and they have almost nothing for this middle level. So as we’ve started to recognize that opportunity, with a gap in the market, we’ve really shifted to say how can we help and so our goal is, in the next decade to train 100,000 managers is what we hope to accomplish. I’d be thrilled if we exceeded that. But I think that’s our opportunity to equip. And honestly, this is interesting every time Murray, we do a manager training, we are going to have some of those managers in the room tell us that they are in the wrong job. So I hope to liberate the good ones to become amazing, great ones. And I hope to equally liberate the individual contributors who are dressing up as managers who really belong back in that space where they were amazing. That’s why they got promoted in the first place. They were amazing at what they did, let him go back and be that person. So hope to see both happen through that process and raise the raise the bar what it means to be a great boss.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, I unfortunately, I’ve had that conversation way too many times where I’m talking to a manager and they’ll say something along the lines of, we’re a bit different other organizations, we’ve promoted people, because they were good at their job, and we haven’t really trained and support them. And I say, actually, unfortunately, that’s too common.

Brandon Miller  

That’s, that’s almost everyone. Yeah, not unique at all.

Murray Guest  

But and I think the the point you raise is really good if people start to realize that this thing of managing people, having those conversations, inspiring people, coaching people, caring about your people isn’t right for you. And you’re more suited for your talents, your skills somewhere else. That’s a great awareness to have.

It is. And I think, you know, there are amazing salespeople that have no business being sales managers, and amazing technicians who have no business, go back and be an engineer, go back and be the brilliant person who is helping us with our technology, or, or you’re the physician trying to be the chief, but you don’t belong there. Yeah, go be a brilliant surgeon, go do what it is that you do. And I think, I think understanding at a senior leader level within the organization, that if you esteem the track of management, so people leadership, as high as you esteem, the track of process or project leadership, you will see people thrive in both roles.

Murray Guest  

That’s a really good point. And I’d actually even say it the other way around as well, where we actually treat process leaders with the same level of respect and importance as the people leaders, because I think quite often people think they need to go into these people leadership roles to increase salary, increase their level within the organization. Yeah, it’s true. Yeah. Now, you obviously published a fantastic book with your beautiful wife this year. 

Brandon Miller  

I might just have a copy right here.

Murray Guest  

Oh, well, good, man. Product placement is important. There’s got to be a few more books in you. What does that look like going forward in the next decade?

So we’re working on two right now. The first one is called Incredible Parent. So in, in play to their strengths. We talked about the need for parents to know what their strengths are, that are unique to parenting. So there’s several assessments out there that can tell you what your values are. Clifton Strengths is a great job of identifying your talent 34 themes and Myers Briggs can give you a type of your personality and DISC can do something similar. But knowing what you do as a parent is something we found was a gap. And so the Incredible Parent has been in production for a while now to get itself to a reliable standpoint, and that’s going through validation. And so that book is being written and the assessment is online. It’s free currently, because we’re in beta by January 21 when the book will be published and released, the assessment will be out there. And then right behind it six months later, we will publish Incredible Kids. So this is a space where we identified that for young ones, specific three to 10s, that outside of just learning how to see strengths and try to identify them, there wasn’t a way to objectively assess it through a psychometric assessment. And so we developed something where, knowing that the strengths will move, because children brains are pretty malleable, and they’re gonna go a lot of ways, but you can, you can identify what what some researchers and scientists are calling core strengths. So the ones that are really innate, genetically coded these are, these are part of who they are, came with package, and knowing how to, to develop those without trying to perhaps have the child become someone or not. So those two will come in 21. But after that, I gotta tell you that I am very interested in writing a management book. So my partner Darren and I, 34 strong have had that in the back burner for enough time. And I really want to get something out there. I mean, the playful title right now is ban bad bosses, is, you know, just this idea of, let’s, let’s get very serious about what bad bosses do to good people. Yeah, and whether they know they’re doing it or not, but put it out there and really talk about in the book. Conversely, what does it mean to be outstanding to be the best boss, you could be?

Murray Guest  

I want to go back to the parenting one first, because I think that is so valuable. And I love that you have developed the program, so parents can understand where their strengths lie. And for parents to understand where their partner’s strengths and approach might lie. So that it can actually bring back the joy in parenting. And the way we approach that, the way we raise our children, the way we might discipline, the way we might approach them through a completely different way, and bring back that joy and reduce the stress. And I think there’s obviously some great links there to how people show up at work. Because if you’re having that stressful time raising your children at home, and the impact that has on the home environment that also impacts how you shop at work everyday as well. So for sure, that is I know, it’s a great program, and it’s got some great assessment tools in there. I’ve done the assessment, it is fantastic. That book is so well needed. I’m excited about that. 

I’ll tell you that because with it is you and I’ve talked in the past, the initiative to certify coaches who are equipped and it’s not just coaches, it’s coaches and ministers and teachers, administrators, counselors, and we just set out to do our early adopter. And we’ve, as of today’s recording, about 80 coaches have gone through, and we’ll get to about 100. But our mission, if we can see, you know, the number hit past 1000 coaches that are certified to do this, and in 10 years get to 10,000 of them. I think by that point, we’re now cascading down. This idea of look, parenting isn’t something you have to do alone, parenting is not something that you have to try to just figure out. And you don’t have to lean on the parenting experience that you had good or otherwise, yeah, you don’t have to, you can you can really advance this. And as I would say about management, be really the best parent you can be. So I think, for Analyn, and I have this, which was I guess a side hustle that has grown into something far beyond that. Our passion, our mission to change the world, one family at a time. It’s been just just a joy, to experience others coming along, saying that’s my passion as well, that’s going to be my business model. And though that probably won’t be ours, and I think we’re going to have partners that do most of that work. We can’t help but just love and appreciate the opportunity to to give tools to people to use effectively in that regard.

Murray Guest  

So make sure I share the links to the the assessment and to the program and to coaches out there that want to know a bit more to anyone who’s just saying that is interested. I also look forward to sitting down with you in 2030. And talking some numbers because we’re talking you know, 100,000 people impacted, 100,000 managers, we’re talking about 10,000 coaches changing families lives, books, banning bad managers or bad bosses, I think, oh, yeah, that’s definitely needed as well. So and you’ve got, obviously you and Darren, you’ve got a wealth of experience to draw on with those organizations you’ve partnered with as well. So and part of this conversation is putting it out there putting out to the universe and making sure that into the world that these things that we’re talking about are going to be out there and taking place so I’ll love these, these goals you’ve got my friend and the impact you’re making.

Thank you, Murray. And I think for my wife and I, and all the wonderful people we work with, I feel like going into the, I love the roaring 20s, you know, just putting that image back up, because I feel like for some of us, we’re coming in with a roar and expect to really, you know, ramp up and take off and in, in such a more impactful way than perhaps the 1920s. Right? Yeah, for global good and global benefit and seeing just dramatic change in that regard.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, I know, I’m hoping so as well. And I’m really excited about what this next decade holds for just humanity in lots of ways. And when there’s people like you and Analyn and your business doing the type of work you do, it is actually changing the conversations people are having over the dinner table, and over the boardroom as well. That’s right. Now I’m going to give you the chance to hire a sky writer, and this is old school technology. But this sky writers flying around the earth and it’s a message that everyone can see and hear. What’s that message that you’d love to give to everyone?

So if I had a skywriter, I’d probably want to keep it somewhat brief so people could see it. Yeah. Because I can I can extend a message out far beyond what what a skywriter do. But that’s a great image, I think. I think the first message that I would love for people to hear is believe you can because I think I think there’s so much out there in the world of people starting off with negativity. I don’t know if I can I or I can’t, won’t. Yeah. And I think I think this opportunity to genuinely believe you have been endowed with amazing talent. And you’ve learned a lot along the way. And your failures didn’t disqualify you, they’ve actually qualified you to step forward and learn. Because next to believe you can, another phrase I would love to say is failure is not final. And that when not to have plenty of fail, and perhaps fail big. That may have just qualified you for the next round in a whole lot better condition than you would have been because failure humbles us studies as it teaches us that if we can learn from our mistakes and grow, then I believe that we become more of who we were intended to be.

Murray Guest  

I love both of those. And I’ll let you have two, no one else. But you can have two. Well, I think they go together and that they’re very powerful messages. Mate, I want to thank you for your time today. It’s been a great conversation. I love sharing your knowledge, your wisdom and your experiences, those lessons from the past decade and and putting out there the great work that’s coming up for you. Analyn and the business. So it’s been awesome chatting, where’s the best place online for people to connect with you? Is it 34 strong.com? Or where else we’d like to send people.

So for business, it’s 34strong.com for what we do with families, incrediblekidsmovement.com Yeah, it really is a place where people can find assessments and they can find other other opportunities, whether it’s for coaching, or it’s even learn how to start your own coaching practice around this idea. So those two, and then I would say a third Analynbrandon.com. It has a lot to do with just our work in our books and some of about our story and some of our speaking.

Murray Guest  

Fantastic. I will make sure all those links are there for people to check them out and see the wealth of great work that you’re doing with organizations and with families and coaches. So again, thanks so much for your time, great chatting, have an amazing rest of the year and bring on the roaring 20s.

Brandon Miller  

Here we come.