Shift & Thrive: CEO Insights on Driving Change

S&T_Vaughn Thurman
===

[00:00:00] In today's business world, change is the only constant, and mastering transformation is the ultimate key to success. Welcome to Shift and Thrive. I'm your host, Natalie Nathanson.

Each week we'll bring you conversations with CEOs who delve into how they successfully drove critical change in their organization. This show is sponsored by Magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consult. And the getting it done, power of a full service B2B marketing agency.

Natalie Nathanson: I am very excited to introduce today's guest. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and enterprise technology leader with nearly 30 years of experience building and scaling software and technology businesses. After starting his career in the US Air Force, he then went into the private sector and built, grew, and eventually sold an IT services company after which point he turned his focus to software.

[00:01:00] He's also the author of several books, including Lessons from the Edge of Business Disaster, where he shares candid lessons from some of the toughest moments entrepreneurs can face, and I know we'll be getting into some of that in the conversation today. He is the CEO and founder of High Gear Software that helps highly regulated organizations manage and automate critical business processes.

Vaughn Thurman, welcome to the show.

Vaughn Thurman: Thank

you for having me. Uh, it's an honor and I appreciate that very kind introduction.

Natalie Nathanson: Thank you, uh, very well deserved, and I'm looking forward to getting into conversation. And I know, You know, you've navigated some pretty high stakes situations through your entrepreneurial journey. Um, and there's one, uh, in particular, uh, that was a, a trying time. I know it was a number of years, uh, back, but would love if you could just walk us through, um, You know, the situation you were facing and then we can kinda unpack, uh, some of what you took away from that experience.

So can you start by taking us through that moment?

Vaughn Thurman: Yeah, you bet. And, and I, You know, I share it, uh, [00:02:00] in my first book, lessons From The Edge because it, it really sort of draws people into the crisis of the moment. And, uh, I think a lot of entrepreneurs face those kinds of moments or fear facing them a lot more than they let on.

Uh, I, I, I, I think there's kind of a, a tribal code that we should all tell everybody, say, how's business? You say,

oh good. You

know, and whether it's good or not. And, And so the reality is, uh, I was one of those guys who was really good at, at giving people the high five and, and telling 'em things were going great on my end.

And, and I wouldn't lie, but I would find the three good things, four good things I could come up with and avoid the terrible ones until they kind of piled up on me. And there was this key moment, um, my middle son was turning 10 years old. And, uh, that, that evening was his birthday party, relatives

and friends

coming over.

And

during the course of that day, uh, the bank had [00:03:00] already sent me a letter a week earlier, uh, telling me that, uh, they wanted to call in the lines of credit and all of

the credit

facilities that we had

with them and

the. Uh, the, the bad news was that if I couldn't address that in 30 days, they were going to address it through the collateral.

And the collateral was my home. I was one of those entrepreneurs who signed there and said, what's that matter? I'm, uh, we're never gonna have risks here anyway. And the truth is, we hadn't missed a payment. Uh, but we had broken covenants. We weren't

hitting the profitability

margins that we were expecting, and we'd had a critical shock to the system.

Two customers that represented 60% of our revenue. One was 40, the other was 20. Uh, I learned a lot about concentration then,

and, and it, You

know, I don't mean staring at something and memorizing it, but the idea that my revenue was concentrated in just a couple of key accounts and that 60% of our revenue 22

days

apart, both walked out

for different

reasons.

One was acquired and said, Hey, we [00:04:00] need the keys. This is it today. Uh, sue us if you want to. The contract's over the other one showed up 22 days later and assumed they were gonna do the same thing, but really gave us about a nine month ramp down. But the reality was, uh, we went through a financial shock just after we'd grown the company a great deal, and the bank got a look at the impact on our financials to trying to recover to that and said they wanted out.

And, uh, like I said, a handful of days later, I got

a tap

on the door. Uh, the, the day that my son was going to have his birthday party, we got a tap on the front door, and there's more to the story. I tell him the book. But the long and short of it is it was, uh, the IRS and it was a collections agent from the IRS, uh, coming personally.

Because we were two quarters behind on payroll's, tax, payroll, taxes, and I wasn't aware of, uh, the gravity of the situation. I knew we'd been one quarter behind before and paid fees for it. I didn't realize my, uh, [00:05:00] relatively inexperienced finance leader, uh, at that point, uh, thought well, if one quarter, if we can borrow one quarter and pay some fees, why not borrow two quarters?

We'll pay double the fees and that'll help

us

right now with cash flow. But they came in a little heavier and they said, um, we're, uh, looking for you to pay about as much as we owed the bank and we're gonna give you 10 days to do it. And if you don't, we're probably gonna

bar the

door and we may take you to jail. ~And I, I came home that evening. Uh. You know, knowing~

~a, a 10-year-old~

~boy doesn't really need to hear his father's troubles on a day like that. My family was there, my in-laws were there, and I remember this critical moment where I went to, uh, really get~

~some fresh~

~air because I was just feeling the stress of trying~

~to smile and~

~trying to be present in the moment.~

~But, but having all of this~

~stuff running~

~through my head, how am I gonna get through this? How am I gonna cover~

~these, You~

~know, these funds? We had enough personally in the bank account probably to cover the next car payment and a mortgage payment. And I had enough work to~

~get through~

~the next payroll, certainly not to cover a, a sudden and unexpected pay down, uh, of, of these, You know, large, at, at this point, they were six figure numbers.~

~But for the~

~size of business we were at that point, uh, two significant six figure, uh, surprises were, were more than we had the resources to handle by orders of magnitude. And my mother-in-law could tell something~

~was wrong,~

~and she followed me out. And so God bless her, uh, she walked up to me and~

~she says,~

~you, You know what's going on?~

~I said, you don't want to know, I,~

~I, You know, and~

~she said, no, no, you've gotta have somebody to talk to. And I, and I remember thinking that there was a part of me that desperately wanted to sort of let this burden off of~

~my chest,~

~but I thought, how pathetic has my life~

~gotten if~

~my mother-in-law. Is the only person I've got to talk to~

~about this.~

~But I, I~

~did, I actually told her, I said, You know, like things are so bad that if I can't come up with this massive amount of money very quickly, um, my family may be living in your basement and I may not be there.~

~And, and she was right that I did feel better for a moment because for the first time I could ever remember, uh, my mother-in-law was, was stunned, uh, into silence. She didn't have anything to say. No, no, great advice, but it didn't last very long. ~The heaviness of the moment kinda landed on me and I realized,

uh, I

was going to have to learn how to run a, a business that now had two very powerful entities, both who had, uh, legal, You know, the legal power to, to Changed my life,

to change the

way that business

was functioning radically.

And I was gonna have to figure out how to get through this and keep

the business running,

uh, or, or I was gonna have a life level crisis. And so that kind of draws, You know, draw you into the moment. I, I, I guess I'll sort

of stop

there and [00:06:00] see where you want to

take that.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. Um, I mean, I can't even imagine the, the stress or the strain that, uh, was kinda happening at that time. And I'm sure there's a number of things kinda operationally that you did to get through it. But I'm wondering like, what did you do on the kind of more emotional side, right? You must have had a lot of resilience to kind of pull through that.

Um, do you remember kind of what you told yourself? What, what's helped you?

Vaughn Thurman: Yeah.

I, I, I can tell you that, uh, I didn't handle it very well for about a week. Uh, I, I kind of, I, I looked for people to blame. I, uh, somebody, somebody said to me around that time, one time, you're, you're never really a failure,

Until

you fail to own what got you there.

And

it, and it sort of challenged me and made me realize that

nobody

had gotten there, me there, but

me. I, I

signed the agreements, making my house collateral

for bank

loans. I delegated [00:07:00] responsibility for tax payments to, You know, new employees without setting

clear boundaries

and rules. And those

are a

lot of things that, that, uh, make

you a

much more experienced business person very quickly, uh, You know, as

you work your

way through that.

But, but I think about a week along, uh, You know, part of it,

I, I'm, I'm,

You know, Faith is a big component for me.

I, I

really ended up having to sort of plead to God

for some help there.

But I, I

also

had a series of lessons that, uh, began to come

along. Probably over

the course of the following three months where I, I, I

think I put the foundation

in place for a real turnaround.

That business, I got a very successful, growing, profitable, uh, and, and got it sold a number of years later. And, and, uh, it was a, You know, terrific turnaround. But I certainly was not qualified to do a turnaround. I, I wasn't qualified even to run the business. I felt like when, when all of that went on. But

what I began to learn, I, I went

to customers that I thought I could [00:08:00] never afford to lose this customer.

And if they find out what's going on, they'll certainly run for the hills. Uh, but I, I learned humility, uh, that there's, there's a disarming power of humility. I went to clients that I desperately needed. And I said, look, I'm, I'm in trouble

and and I know we

can get through this.

I, I'm determined I'm

gonna get through it.

And I think I had to believe that before I could go tell anybody that I, I had to get down to that kind of gut level resolve and say, I'm, I'm not gonna let

this burn me. I, I didn't

need to tell everybody every detail. Right?

You know, it's

not necessary to volunteer every, uh, You know, every level or every component of every crisis that you go through as an entrepreneur.

But I got real with some of my biggest customers. And, um, it was amazing. Uh, some of them found a lot more work for me and they weren't wasting money. They just said, these

are things

that we've been thinking

about doing,

but we'll rush and, and get 'em done now. 'cause we get it. You need it. We don't wanna lose a good vendor.

We had folks who said, uh, listen, why don't you start charging me, uh, half upfront? [00:09:00] And I thought, that's a great idea. I started asking other large customers,

will you pay half

upfront for what I do? And, You know, so we, we had to learn, uh, how to improve our cash flow. But part of learning how to, uh, improve our cash flow meant that we had to get real in, in front of important customers and ask for their help.

And,

and that same humility, uh, I, I

began to have to express that by going to other people who were running businesses and who, who I had been wasting the relationships when they would say, how you doing Vaughn? house business?

I would say, I'm

doing great

and business is

great. And, and, and again, it, it wasn't, uh, a lie, but it was certainly leaving out the truth.

And

when I went back to some of those folks and said, You know, I'm actually, I'm in trouble. I'm, I'm having one heck of a hard time. I began to find people who weren't sure they believed me before anyway, uh, very willing to coach, counsel, advise, and,

and even support in

ways that I didn't think [00:10:00] they, uh, they would.

And,

And so I found out. The hard way that I was lacking authenticity

and transparency

and humility in the way that I was doing business. And I had a turnover in employees. They were frustrated. They didn't, they didn't want to hang out and, uh, You know, support a guy who, who was always claiming things were going great when they could tell behind the

scenes things

were rough.

Uh, but when I began to really get down to earth real with people and, and let them know that I needed their help, I found out something remarkable about people, human beings really want to be needed. And it isn't a manipulative

tactic. It's, that

it was real. I really needed

them. And

when I was willing to be humble enough to tell them I needed their help, I created a place for them to lead.

I created

a place for them to

grow. I created a place for their work

to matter,

for their customer relationship to matter. And I, felt like at that [00:11:00] point,

I went

from being somebody who wanted very badly

to be

a success and was trying to hold up

the pretend

version of me that looked like success to somebody who began to succeed by discovering how much I needed the help of others.

So, um,

I

wish I could tell you there was some overnight transition. It just happened like that. But I think,

You know,

a lot of it happened in

three months

with me having to learn to get humble in front

of customers of, uh,

and employees.

And then

there was a lot more that I learned over

the following five

years during what, what looked like a flat line.

But underneath we rebuilt the foundation of the business. Uh, we rebuilt a lot of the

relationships and, and,

and got it

to where it

took off again and became very attractive to one of our, uh, large competitors It was, that was growing, uh, You know, growing all around the country through acquisition.

Natalie Nathanson: That's amazing. I know you said you're not turnaround CEO, but through that experience, clearly you showed, uh, that you, You know, could do the right things to uh, uh, to bring that full [00:12:00] circle. I know there's, You know, I, I find there's a fear of vulnerability, right? And that's why I think you're, I. Uh, experience talking to clients, talking to the team in that way is so powerful and I think you're spot on that like humans want to be needed.

I really like that. Uh, and I think there's a, a humanization that even though we're in business to business, um, it, we're all people at the end of the day. And if you have a strong, You know, client relationship, uh, that's, uh, that can go such a long way.

Vaughn Thurman: Yeah, that's, that's well said. And, and I think, um, it's also, the, there, what's, what's the right way for me to say it? There's a vacuum, just like there's a vacuum for leadership. There's

a vacuum for authenticity.

Um, You know, people that, that, that desire for people to be needed, they experience that in business as well.

You

know, your, your business matters to a lot of folks that are vendors to you and to your employees and to your [00:13:00] customers. And, um, You know, the, the relationship that you have with them can be great because you're delivering great services, but it doesn't become a human relationship until it becomes vulnerable.

And, uh, You know, and it's, and it's funny, I I, some of the best customers we have. are, are folks that we let down somewhere

and had to

admit the truth about it, even when they weren't sure they knew

it was us,

~Right. I, I remember in that services~

~business,~

~uh, we had a customer, we'd~

~put a large~

~scale storage system in for back when these things were, You know, it was, uh, well into six figures it'd been in for about a month and it crashed.~

~And we discovered that we hadn't set up the fault~

~tolerance in this~

~thing, right.~

~And we had~

~engineers there all day before we figured that out. It was after hours. It was a very large manufacturing company, and the customer had left, our staff was still there. They left them keys and left them into place.~

~And, and, uh, we had~

~two people~

~stay all night. Uh, we managed~

~to recover their~

~data back to when things crashed in the morning, but. They had a day's worth of work, uh, that, uh, half a day's worth of work that they'd, they'd lost, that they'd entered into the system and they had to take a~

~whole bunch of stuff.~

~They tracked~

~on paper in that afternoon and reloaded in and, and, uh, You know, their CEO called me very nervous the next day and said, I see you guys got our stuff back up and running.~

~Called me on my cell phone. He~

~said,~

~how bad is the bill gonna be?~

~Uh, I~

~don't know how many people were here. He said, but when I got here in the morning, you still had two engineers here. And, and I said, uh, You know, the guy's name was Bill. I said, bill, there isn't gonna be a bill. Uh, we. We own the mistake.~

~And I, I, I told him what happened and, uh, I, I was, You know,~

~humiliated~

~and, and embarrassed over what,~

~what had~

~taken place and to realize that it was a simple mistake that one of our engineers made. But the second part of that story is that, uh, about a year and a half later, uh, the same engineer who made that error, who, who they loved,~

~who was~

~still working there with them, um, came back and told~

~me that~

~they had laid off 270 people that day.~

~And, uh, I get an email in my inbox from their CFO that said, you and I need to speak as soon as possible. Could we meet for lunch? I thought, well, that's it.~

~I guess~

~that account's gone by the wayside because~

~if they're,~

~You know, losing 270~

~people, we're, we're a vendor.~

~We're probably going to,~

~we,~

~uh, my, my, uh, chief Technical officer at the time and, uh, chief Technology Officer and I went out to lunch~

~with their CFO~

~and we had a 45 minute lunch, and he rambled through all kinds of things, all sorts of small talk, and I couldn't stand it anymore.~

~The, the CFO's name was~

~Paul, and~

~I said, Paul, uh, just~

~say it. It's~

~okay. We understand you guys~

~are going~

~through changes. You know, we, we assume that you're letting us go as a vendor, and, and it's okay. We get it.~

~You know,~

~companies go through hard times. We've been through~

~some of this~

~ourselves, and, and Paul said, what do you mean?~

~Uh. And, And,~

~and we said, well, we heard the~

~news. You've let all these people go, we assumed you're letting us go. And he said, no, Vaughn, he said,~

~uh, my~

~board of directors sent me here to talk to you guys and~

~tell you~

~that we're struggling financially and we may have trouble paying you a little bit over the~

~next 60 days,~

~but we're gonna prioritize you guys and we won't let~

~you down~

~and~

~we don't~

~want you to leave us.~

~And I said, wait a minute. I thought we were coming in here to find out we were fired. And, and he said, no, no, no. He said, um, do You know how hard it would be for us to find another IT vendor who would tell us the truth? And, and he said, everybody remembered the story of you guys making that error. But when Bill called you to find out what was going on, you told us what had happened.~

~And, and You know, that was something when we were going through the list~

~of vendors and~

~employees and relationships that we could afford~

~to lose,~

~that we couldn't, You know, we decided we couldn't afford to lose it.~ So I, I, I would have to say, yeah, yeah, I've learned

some turnaround skills,

but man, I wish I'd never gotten in the situation to, uh.

To force me to learn all those things. But what ultimately

came out of it all

is that I learned that

that transparent

and authentic, uh, and, and humble way of doing business was so much better in terms of the human relationship

component and

the loyalty that it engendered and, and the, the way our customers would fight for us

to keep [00:14:00] us in there.

Uh, we, we've brought that into

the way we do business in the software company, uh, as, as well, and I think even more effectively. But, um, yeah, that's kind of the long way. Rambling around to your question there.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah, can you talk to me? You said you've brought that into your, your current company. Can you talk about how that's taken shape, uh, in the current business?

Vaughn Thurman: Yeah. Well,

we're a culture, um.

That is based on core values, and we keep those core values, we keep

our mission,

our

vision up on

the wall. We really keep people focused and, and you'll hear one of them in there, You

know, passion,

humility, teamwork, integrity. That's our focus. But

unlike

what a lot of companies do, where I think the executive team goes off into a closet or a,

a conference room somewhere and

decides what they want to aspire to, uh, we asked our team to do it themselves.

We asked them to try to figure out who we were. And so, uh, one of the guys took the lead and surveyed everybody, and then they had group [00:15:00] meetings and, and they tried to figure out what were the four things that actually represented the way we made decisions today. And they were, that we're passionate about helping our customers.

We are humble. We think our customers are more important than we are. Uh, that we always want to be able

to ask

a question

if there's something

we don't know. Instead of making a, You know, a, a, a claim. Um, the teamwork piece, the integrity piece, we had a lot of stories around that. So we, we put that up on the wall, but then we held ourselves accountable to make our decisions based off of that, our hiring decisions, our firing decisions.

Uh, is this customer a good fit for us kind of decisions.

And

I, I, I introduced that to the whole team and said, this is something that is not a vision we're aspiring

to be one day. It's

not a, a marketing statement. We're hoping our customers or future customers will believe about us. This is our set of core values and, and this is what we want you as the team to feel like you can fire us as the leadership, [00:16:00] not, not that we're giving them the right fire, but, but the truth is, You know, if, if we have a member of our

leadership team that

isn't living up to those values, they don't belong here.

Uh, and, And so what, what we had learned out of that was that when we were a valueless company, and I don't mean that we didn't have economic

value, but

when, when we weren't driven by values in that technology services company, but only by performance, not only did our performance get hurt, but our values, the weakness of our values were what made it

so difficult

to turn our performance around.

~And while I made~

~some changes~

~immediately out~

~of bare~

~necessity, it, it wasn't until those things became a systemic part of our organization that we actually began to see. The results~

~come up~

~in a sustainable way. And so the software company, which was kind of my other gig at~

~the time,~

~I was running this technology services company that was in trouble.~

~It was at risk of being bankrupt for probably~

~three and a half~

~years. And it was~

~about another~

~two and a half years really getting through, excuse me, really getting through the rest of that turnaround there. And, um, You know, but, but during that time, this software company, we were only hiring people that looked like they were such a great fit that we had to, 'cause it was my other thing.~

~I didn't have a, I didn't have the time to focus on it. And we built~

~this team~

~that really got along well, really~

~aligned with~

~our~

~core values~

~out of the gates and where we'd kind of had to do some rebuilding in the other company. This one had organically come up~

~that way. And~

~so before I sold the technology~

~services company,~

~the two shared office space.~

~And it was interesting to see the, the dynamics and how people would get along and how they would resolve dispute. And so, uh, it made me a champion after I sold the other company~

~and split~

~high gear software off~

~and, and~

~took it out to its own office. Um, we really doubled down on this idea of being a values driven, values~

~based company.~

So, like I said,

it's, it's

hiring and firing decisions.

You

know, if, if someone. Lies and, and it hurts us internally. We might have grace on 'em one time, but if somebody's got a habit of lying to customers, we're gonna let 'em go no matter how well they perform. Um, You know, and, and it's the same thing we've had, we've had interview cycles where everybody's excited about a candidate, but [00:17:00] they'll end up expressing a behavior that we realize would be incompatible with the organization.

And we make the decision that we've gotta make a change regardless of how excited we are about the potential for their performance. Because what we've learned is performance is fleeting, right? You can get performance to go up five or 10% in a quarter or any year. Uh, by hiring the right resumes, by offering the right products, by partnering with the light right companies.

But sustainable growth

and, and sustainable,

uh, operations

are

are really run by cohesive teams of people that know in

the morning what

it is your organization wants to get done by the end of the day. And, um, And so that's, that's how we've brought that across. I think, You know, also having learned some of those tough financial

lessons, I certain

one, You know, one of the things I really changed, we, we believe in keeping a significant cash reserve and always working to be profitable, uh, You know, every single

month. And

that, that forces us to [00:18:00] make tough decisions. But it was a lesson that I learned. We, we,

at that

point, we were growing at all costs and I didn't understand the costs. Um,

the, the, the other

part, I didn't tell you about that story, about that disaster in the other business. I was growing by 50% a year. And everybody was amazed with our growth,

but I

had, I, I had no concern for whether or not we were profitable.

As long as we kept growing. I just wanted the numbers to go up and, uh, and that kept making us vulnerable and I wasn't working on keeping enough reserves in place. I, I, I didn't really, um,

invest in those banking relationships and

investor relationships and, and, um, that's something also that I brought along is I, I've just learned that, You know, we don't, we don't carry any debt, but I keep a good relationship with bankers and I talk to any investor that wants to talk to us and, and give them the same transparency and authenticity because if we get into

a situation

where we need some help, I don't want that to be

the first time I've talked to

[00:19:00] somebody, uh, when I need to come to them humbly and tell 'em I need some help.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. I think too, you're pointing, you mentioned kinda not growth at all costs that I think that can be very alluring and I'm surprised in many ways, um, how still so much of kinda business awards like industry awards are, You know, fastest growing come. Company, um, versus thinking of kind of metrics for healthiest company, right?

Happiest clients, um, team satisfaction and longevity. Um, so I think, uh, it's interesting to see the, the dichotomy between those.

Vaughn Thurman: Yeah,

Jim, Jim Collins talked about that a lot in his, uh, first three books, good to Great, great by choice and You know, how the mighty fall, the, the difference between, uh, sustainable growth and, and flash growth.

Right. Uh, You know, whether, whether you're actually building an organization of leaders or an organization of followers. And, um, You know, that was another thing. I think I had to change a, a lot.

I,

I

I I didn't

read enough.

Um.[00:20:00]

I thought I was the smartest guy in the room. And, and, uh, You know, by, by fortune of genetics or something like that, I, I, I,

You know,

I was born able to learn,

uh, and,

and comprehend things pretty quickly.

But, You know, it's a danger for an entrepreneur or a leader especially to think that they've arrived. Um, I, I think I, my attitude has really changed over the years. The more experience

I gained,

the more I've learned, the more I know how to do, the more I feel like I'm becoming a student. I, I approach every situation, every customer opportunity, every new interview with a new potential employee as an opportunity to learn.

And, and being a perpetual student has done much better for my bank

account than

when I was

the perpetual know-it-all,

uh, who thought everybody liked me. And, and quite frankly, it was probably driving everybody crazy with that, uh, with that wrong [00:21:00] attitude.

Hey, this is Natalie, your Shift and Thrive host. After chatting with lots of CEOs, one thing is crystal clear. Leveling up your company means having a killer Go-to-market strategy. That's what my crew at Magnitude Consulting does every day. If you're trying to step up your marketing game, whether it's strategizing, accelerating your pipeline, expanding into new markets, or getting into AI and automation, let's talk.

No pitch, no pressure. Just good conversation. Visit shift and thrive podcast.com/natalie to schedule a time. Can't wait to connect. I.

Natalie Nathanson: I wanna talk a little bit about, uh, the space that, that you're in, and I know you, your organization helps with, uh, better processes and workflow systems. Can you talk about kinda what the industry is facing and kinda what some of your customers are, are navigating in their organizations?

Vaughn Thurman: Yep. So. We have two products out of that [00:22:00] company. In fact, here, I'm gonna pull the book up, right?

So whatever it's worth, I'll

stick that

up for a minute. The, the process of improvement, I highly recommend

it. Of course.

Um, we've taken 20 years of being able to watch some of the biggest organizations in the world use our software to drive process improvement efforts.

We, of course, don't

name the ones that did badly.

Um, but uh, we do give credit to a

few that

have done it very well. We learned, uh, as

I was just

talking about asking questions, being a student,

we've frankly learned

more from our customers than they've learned from us. And we've taken a lot of those stories and, and turned them into the form of a guide to take someone who wants to take

on process improvement

from kind of zero to, uh, really a, a corporate world class effort.

And, And so set it up into a series of steps that are, You know, part process improvement, but also part psychology of change.

And,[00:23:00]

and both of those are relevant right now with kind of the,

the big

AI wave that's coming at everybody and everybody's trying to figure out what do I do with that? And, and uh, You know, when it comes down to those two things.

Um. It's just

a process

improvement. It's just digital transformation. It's just the next wave. Uh, just like RPA robotic process automation. Before it offered the ability to do things that people could do before, but it

could do

it quicker and easier as long as they were

repetitive.

AI is offering the same kinds of capabilities, but with the add-on of the ability to think and process, uh, and, and the agentic capabilities to do things with less, uh, direction.

But, You know, even, even some of the RPA tools were beginning to get to that point where they were running headless and they could get things done. So there's, You know, on one side the, the question of what can we have technology do to help make our people more productive? And then on the other side, there's the, the psychology [00:24:00] of how can we lead our people through that

change?

Without them being terrified or running for the hills or, um, resisting it. And, and You know, there, there are some changes that come along like Lyft, this, like the internet did, like

the cloud, did, like RPA

did

through financial services. Uh, and,

and certainly AI is one of them that is, uh, inevitable. There's not much that we can do to avoid

it.

It's, it's a change

that's coming. And

so it affects companies like us. We're embracing it and embedding it. Uh, we've, we've just released some new technology, uh, that allows people to, uh, take or, You know,

to

specify agentic steps and take data from high gear, from workflows and send it out to their favorite AI brain and have it come back in, uh, with, with

some intelligence su applied

and improve the workflow.

But. At the end of the day, what, what I think a lot of our

customers are

facing out there right now is, is not unique to our industry. It's uncertainty. [00:25:00] Uh, the folks that we serve in

financial services,

I mentioned we have

two products,

high gear, which is what, what the company's named for, primarily source financial services, energy and government.

And, uh,

financial services right now is

doing well from a financial perspective. A lot of those customers are, but, but they're dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Um, I, I think there's a

lot of housekeeping happening, uh,

right now around the world. And so there's a lot of dust

getting kicked

up as the carpets are

getting shaken

out and people are trying to figure out where things are going.

And so it puts pressure on them to want to try to find efficiencies of scale. Uh, but at the same time,

it

also makes them nervous about making. Changes, um, un unless they feel like they've got a, a little bit of a net beneath them to, to, to figure out how to address it. And energy, uh, is the same thing.

Energy

prices are

very high right now. When you

and I are

recording this,

they may be low in

two weeks. They were low two weeks ago. [00:26:00] Nobody really knows where that's going. And, and, And so, You know, people are having trouble making wild

investments and AI is

coming along saying it's offering this, You know, potential to really change everything, but nobody's quite sure where they can get the ROI out of it.

And so with, with our software, we have, uh, really taken a,

a, an

approach of embedding ag agentic AI

in a very

controlled way so that business analysts and people who think like them. Uh, who may not have a cybersecurity degree and may not

think about

the rule of three of, of the three things you never wanna do together to have Agentic II leak your data out on the web

and, and

give them a safe environment where they can actually build end-to-end workflows and interact with sophisticated agentic ai, uh, in a, in a safe way.

~The same kind~

~of con it~

~is funny, this ties to the first part of our conversation. The best, uh, vendors that I have right now in the AI space are the~

~ones~

~who feel like they're learning~

~next to~

~us and are willing to ask us questions and charge us~

~for their~

~time when they're answering questions.~

~And the best way I think we~

~can serve~

~our clients is to. Both give them the answers to~

~the questions we've~

~already figured out ask them questions for the things that we don't understand. This AI journey is something we're all on together. Nobody has to be the~

~expert. Every field has~

~new and exciting products coming out that one day people fear they're all gonna lose their jobs because~

~of it.~

~The~

~next day they go use it and they go, wow, I can figure out how to use that. It'll make my job faster and easier. And, and, and, You know, we live right in the middle of that space with workflow and digital transformation. We're focused on helping people make~

~work more repeatable,~

~sustainable, traceable, accountable, visible.~

~And at the end of the day, we want it to go faster. And so AI is just another way to help work go faster. Um, when I, when I zoom out and look at the macro, I, I, I would tell you, uh, there are folks who can offer a lot more~

~expertise on this than~

~I, but I'll give you my opinion nonetheless. Having watched it very closely, having.~

~Uh, pushed my organization to learn a lot about AI and adopt it way ahead of, of significant portions of the~

~market.~

~Um, there there are two real phases when new technology comes along. There is the, uh, the chaotic disruption phase. When the internet first showed up, people were wondering, should they still buy fax machines?~

~They still needed their fax machines for probably eight or 10 years. But, but they immediately began to wonder, is it all gonna change so quickly~

~that I~

~don't need this fax machine anymore? Should I not get it? And it, and it creates pressure and, and changes on all kinds of markets. And, um, and, and there's phases~

~where~

~real changes come where, You know, I, I don't think a lot of the layoffs that have happened so far are really from ai, even when people mention it, I think they're using that as an excuse.~

~I think what's interesting is that the employment growth or decline rate is about~

~the same~

~across all industries, whether they're vulnerable to AI right now and what we've been watching. So I, I don't think anybody's really figured out how to get rid of the x, y, Z department~

~and replace it~

~with ai. They end up having to hire other people at higher salaries to help keep the AI under control if they're able to keep it under control at all.~

~So I, I think very much we're still in that disruption phase, that chaotic phase where people are trying things, we're all learning together. We're trying to adopt safely, some cool cutting edge technology that's gonna help us, and we're sort of watching to~

~see where~

~it's gonna land. And then there's that second part that enterprises sort of wait~

~for enterprises,~

~larger businesses, I mean, the implementation~

~phase, when~

~things have stabilized enough.~

~Like right now you can't do that. When you hear that the new model, the new LLM, the new~

~version fixes~

~that for you and wait for that, it'll be out in two weeks. That's the chaos phase. You can't build a business around something that's changing every two weeks. The AI companies are complaining that 80% of their customers are using less than 20% of their capabilities right now.~

~And, and that'll certainly grow, but it's not gonna grow until they slow down, until they figure out what is~

~the end~

~product that we want to offer. And their investors are gonna say, we don't wanna keep putting~

~a couple of billion dollars in every~

~couple of weeks for you to lose while you're building this exciting thing.~

~We wanna see you start to turn around and turn this into a business model. And when that commoditizes and stabilizes and the releases start to slow down and people start to know what the functionality is long enough for an enterprise CIO to plan the, the wide deployment of technology across larger businesses.~

~That's when we're gonna see, uh, the real, u uptick of this that I'm expecting in. In fact, I expect it to be very positive for our business. It's a reason we're trying to be very careful about how we deploy and implement ai, but also staying very~

~much on~

~board with it. Because I think what's going to happen is~

~it's going to~

~create an acceleration, uh, economy based on the fact that people will not spend nearly as much time doing busy work.~

~They're, they're gonna~

~get elevated to what they all need to be doing more of, but can't get to. Um, valuable employees come in and spend all day reading, email, catching up on things, um, doing low value tasks, building reports for other people to look at and if and when we, and we will. But, but You know, even when~

~we get~

~to the point that AI can take a lot of those things~

~over.~

~at first, that person's gonna sit back, worry, and go, well, that's what I used to do all morning.~

~What do I do now? But I've seen that before many, many times with our business because we've sold into organization that organizations that have completely eliminated jobs that were focused on what went wrong yesterday and how do I get it back into the pipeline of work today. And they~

~had giant~

~whiteboards and spreadsheets that they sent around and all kinds of things, and they get our technology in.~

~And by no means were those people ever at risk. They~

~were such~

~deep subject matter experts of how the processes ran. They got pulled into much higher value parts of the organization. Like I said, we've seen it over and over and over again where those companies grow. They~

~take on~

~more customers. The people end up being able to take on more valuable roles.~

~They become more competitive against their competitors who are still doing things the old way. Uh, And so it'll shift, You know, there's gonna be shifts~

~in the~

~economy. An acceleration is not, You know, when, when, a, when somebody~

~stomps down on the accelerator pedal in a~

~car, that's not the way to get everybody~

~a comfortable~

~ride.~

~So some people will shift around, some people will shift forward and backward, and~

~some people~

~will get thrown around in ways they don't expect.~

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah,

I think there's an interesting element of, uh, and you touched on this, of the, the market readiness, right? There's like, where's [00:27:00] the technology and is that ready for primetime? There's the other kind of systems and your data and uh, even if the technology's there, you might not be ready for it. And then the change management piece, and you talked a bit about the psychology of change being such an important component.

I'm curious just how you think about that and, You know, for other listeners, other CEOs and founders especially, what kinds of things should they be keeping in mind around the psychology of change,

Vaughn Thurman: Hmm.

Natalie Nathanson: in, in, in this sphere?

Vaughn Thurman: Uh, there's a fantastic book. I can't recommend it enough.

It's called The Motive. Uh,

I would say that if you have, uh, if you're an

audio book kind of person, you

could consume

it in two hours. I think I played it on one and a quarter speed and got through it

in two

hours. I had a one hour trip somewhere, and on somebody's advice, listen to it on the way there and on the way back.

And, uh, I, I think one of the things that's really important in

the Psychology

of Change was, was really reiterated in that book.

Um.

There are times that I repeat [00:28:00] myself a lot when I'm talking to my staff. I'm, I'm, I'm sharing the same ideas over and over because I wanna burn it into their brains. And, and, uh, and I worry, You know, like, am I annoying them?

Am I doing my job? It was great to listen to that book because he said, no, no, You know, I, I am a CRO. And, and the guy said, oh, you mean a chief revenue officer? He says, no, no, chief repeating officer. Right? I, I repeat the same things over and over again until they become, uh, You know, it, it, having the

values

on the wall don't matter if people can't remember them.

right? So

I say them all the time. I remind them, I bring 'em up in conversation when I say something is our strategy for this quarter, people hear it from me at every monthly meeting and every small group meeting, I remind them of what our North Star is. And, and I think, You know, that's the first thing in change management.

People are always terrified of getting on a bus or a train car or wherever else, uh, if they don't know where

they're going. And, And

so it's really important that they know where they're

going. And I, I have

seen a lot of [00:29:00] organizations

do a really

bad job at that, um, because they think they've got a hidden in the back room.

There'll be a C-suite appointed team of change management experts meeting in a,

You know, behind

closed doors. And of course, it's usually glass walls so everybody can see something they've

written down about

the coming change. And the rumors run rampant around the organization about what's coming and how bad it's gonna be.

And,

and they still think it's

a secret and

they've got this master plan for delivering

something fantastic. And

by the time they get out there, morale is down.

People are

expecting something horrible. They're wondering if they're gonna get layoff notes and they'll go to roll out a new system or a new way of doing business or a new acquisition, uh, to massive amounts of resistance.

And I think nothing kills projects, nothing kills, uh, new systems. Nothing can kill

an acquisition

other than a resistance psychology. And, and the best ways to beat it really, number one, are communicate it to [00:30:00] death. Tell people why

it matters

for them. And I, I, I wrote a lot about that in that book. The, the process of improvement.

I really, probably a third of the book on the Psychology

of Change

and things that we've seen people do well. Um, the other thing is really selecting it, it very intentionally

selecting people

who are pro change. On their own and, and one of the ways that we suggest looking for early adopters is looking for people who are already early adopters on

their own.

Not that they're holding their hand up saying,

I'll volunteer to do it,

because not all volunteers are early adopters. Early adopters are the ones who when the new iPhone comes out and you're not even sure if it's got stable software on it,

They've got

it that day.

they've

got that new iWatch or, or they're using the latest version beta AI model when it's not stable and they're risking the hallucinations and, You know, because they want that latest thing.

~And, and those earl, You know, and it's the same thing. you'll you'll find it with cars. They, they want the newest model when the body style changes and nobody knows if this, You know, new radically changed engine Ford's put out is gonna do well. Uh, they've gotta have that car.~

And, And so those

personalities are attracted to change.

They want [00:31:00] to be early and they're more likely to speak positively about the experience they have, even if it's challenging. And, And

so

getting people like that involved in change early engenders, the idea that you're going to get feedback. In, a productive means, not feedback like, we hate this. Please don't make us do double entry.

They're gonna say,

this

is awesome. And they're also the, almost the more important thing is that they're going to share that feedback with others around the organization who you held off to be round two or round three, who begin to hear that, hey, what Natalie's working with, she says is twice as fast as what we've got and we can't get it yet.

And they started asking people, Hey, when are we gonna get the new software? When are we gonna get the

new software? You create the inverse

effect of what I've seen in these disastrous deployments, uh, You know, of, of projects, programs, plans, systems, et cetera. Where, where people have that big bang

in

the back room.

And, And so like, like I said, one, one [00:32:00] is the communication,

another is, um,

getting those early adopters on board and, and I think another piece is. Making it their

solution.

Um, it doesn't matter whether you're making a procedural change, changing the way an organization runs, deciding to acquire another company or merge with another company.

Uh, when people are told, You know, some people like a little bit of micromanagement, but most like none. And, and it's the same thing. Uh, some people like a surprise, most prefer not to be surprised at all. And, and if you've got a big change coming along like that, bringing people in, if I know we should go this way.

I'm worried that my team's gonna want to

go this

way. You know, I'd rather bring them in and negotiate that we're halfway between those two points. But I do it on this condition. I say, I, I will make changes to this plan. I'll, I'll even maybe, uh, give them a veto on something if they can [00:33:00] make a strong enough argument that they think we're headed in the wrong direction.

And that's really powerful. It's, it's costly to me. But then when we're going forward on a direction and, and I think we should go this way, they think we should go this way, and we end up agreeing 45 degrees in between, I'm able to get a tacit agreement from them to say, look, if it turned out I was right, and we should have gone this way.

I

will go, I will meet you halfway over here. If

you guys give me

your, your commitment, shake my hand, look me in the eyes

and tell me You'll do whatever it

takes to get us back on course. And I'll tell you that if you turned out to be right and we belong over there, I'll do whatever it takes to get us to that course over there.

So I think that's the third piece is really

a, a

negotiated change. It's part of the reason I'm not an advocate of Big Bang changes. I really think small incremental improvements that show people value, that let people say, that was my idea. I told them they should change this thing and they did it.

I, I think that's more important even in the system that you choose, [00:34:00] if you're putting a new piece of technology in, I think it can even be more important than the people who lead the team, that

you

really take into account the psychology of the people who are gonna be impacted by the change

because

they dictate your customer experience.

And at the end of the day, if you deliver a horrible employee experience, they will do a great job at delivering a horrible customer experience. And then you're in recovery mode. And, and that's usually when, uh, the people who do the Big Bang implementations leave, put the great success on their resume and go repeat it somewhere else while the people who are really committed to the organization stay for the next three to five years and, and clean it

up.

Natalie Nathanson: I

think those areas. You mentioned like really resonate, and I think there's, You know, change that might be kinda a point in time where you're going through some, uh, change in the organization that has a start and end to it. But I think there's also, You know, the, the ai, uh, phase that we're going through right now where, uh, You know, there's eventually an end, but [00:35:00] just to a large degree, there's no end in sight.

And so every leader right now I think needs to be navigating this change management for, You know, themselves, what it means for kind of their role and how they work, their team, their organization. And so all these things that you're talking about kinda communicate, uh, early and often and probably what feels like more than you need to, uh, thinking about the different kind of skills and uh, uh, kind of passions and, and strengths on the team and how to build the change and account for that.

I know one of the mistakes, um, that my, my team that I made as an organization a few years ago when we were just getting started with. Generative ai. So we started with everyone kind of experimenting and having that kind of r and d time, uh, which was great to get everyone to a certain level, but then I continued that to kinda, everyone has a similar role in our innovations.

Um, and we lost a little bit of time in that because not everyone kind of wanted to or could show up in the same way towards, uh, looking at [00:36:00] kinda how do we reinvent a process? How do we kinda rethink how we do certain things with the kinda new tools that are out there? Um, but really kind of right seat on the bus, bringing it back to, uh, one of your

Jim Collins references,

Vaughn Thurman: Yeah.

Yeah. Fantastic. That,

that's absolutely right. That's, that's one of the things I cover in there as well, that, that you end up finding people and we, You know, we, we talk about the business analyst brain a lot. Uh, our software is targeted at business

analysts, people

who, who don't know how to write code, but they are wonderful resources because they've spent years studying what an

organization does and writing

it all down in

big documents and spreadsheets and

handing it to IT departments, and then waiting in line for the IT guys to code it for them.

And, You know, we're, we're AI development is offering this, ours is specifically, we're, we're more, much more laser focused on work management. So where I think you can do sort of vibe coding and build apps of any type, um, this is, this is really an enterprise grade workflow application that's targeted to that business [00:37:00] analyst brain.

But

You

know, that, that business analyst brain is something that, um, can be

trained. It, it, it, it is something that, uh,

people can take

college classes for, but it's also something that often emerges as a secondary trait

for people in

roles all across an organization. And you just nailed that, that you end up finding.

There are certain people that you can just throw at new technologies and they're an early adopter and they're gonna pick it up. And there's also people that can get their head around, um, mentally framing the mental model, framing up

a process, and

thinking about how that flow works. And we're a visual tool that allows 'em to diagram it out.

Um, but, but somebody's gotta have that capability in their mind to

be able

to see, just, just like peop not everybody can flip real estate, right? Uh, not everybody can walk into a home that

looks an

absolute mess and picture what it

could look like fixed up the

same way in business. Not everybody can look at

a process that's broken and imagine

ways that

it could [00:38:00] improve.

But when you identify those people

at, at,

You know, in, in the course of doing process improvement,

That, that's a

wonderful thing if you can empower them to become the, the, uh, continuous innovation, um, sort of resources across the organization. So,

You know,

by the way, I, I, uh, forgive me, I am, I'm kind of curious to learn a little bit more about your business.

You've asked me an awful

lot of questions. I, I wonder if you couldn't, uh, share with me a couple of minutes of what you do.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah, yeah, of course. Um, so we're a Go-to-market consultancy that works across the strategy and, uh, full service execution, uh, for companies, uh, Go-to-market and their marketing specifically. Um, and a big focus for us, uh, is through kinda major moments of change in an organization. So it's kind of a change management component, but it's through, uh, the Go-to-market lens, whether that's an early stage company that is.

Uh, building their, their [00:39:00] Go-to-market and their marketing kinda infrastructure and content and all, and plan and all of that, uh, at, uh, for the first time or organizations that, um, maybe are going through, uh, kind of M&A activity or services company launching their first product. Um,

Vaughn Thurman: Or, or a rebrand or something.

Natalie Nathanson: exactly.

exactly. So kind of big moments in a company and then what needs to change. Um, And so there is a component of, um, right, looking at, You know, the, the external kind of market strategy. There's looking at kinda internal team and dynamics, like what assets do does an organization have. And so while it's different than, uh, kinda a technology implementation necessarily, um, a lot of those kind of change management components,

uh, very much there's, there's a lot of similar, I, I knew, I knew you were focused on, uh, marketing and on change management from some of the research I I did on you as well.

Vaughn Thurman: Um, but, uh, that,

that's terrific.

And I, I, I see marketing, it, it,

it.

it's very [00:40:00] similar because actually it's one of the things that happens first here. Uh, if you can't make it here, if you can't

get space

in someone's head. Um, I, I, there's another great book

that's coming

to mind, um, crossing the Chasm by Jeff Moore.

Uh, and, You know, he talks a lot about, uh, positioning and, and getting to buy that space in somebody's head. That is a, that is a mental model that getting people who are you, you talk about change too. We've been calling it something

for 15

years and you tell me you want

to call

it something different 'cause it's, we're gonna resonate

to the

market better.

Ah,

You know, some people are

going to adopt and gra gravitate to that

and others

are gonna run away. Um, I, I mentioned earlier, You know, we have two products, high gear being one it manu We began to pick up a lot of manufacturing customers and, and interestingly enough, we spun up another one just

in the

last year so.

We've gone through that. Double branding exercise. We, uh, we have functionally the same software, [00:41:00] but we, we re-skinned it and we had to come up with a new brand for it and

functionally messaged

it differently because our manufacturing customers care about very different things. And we're, You know, in some ways we're stripping it down from some

things they

don't care about that our other marketplaces do and trying to get them a lower price out there.

But,

uh,

it, it is

a, it is a very difficult

task

to connect with a potential market and, and to message it correctly so that they resonate and, and respond. So I get the big change piece there. Yeah.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. Well, and I think it goes back to a lot of the things that you were talking about earlier in the conversation, right? Um, to connect with, with the market, whether it's one-to-one on the sales side or one to many on kinda the marketing side, being authentic, showing you understand the pain points. So kind of creating that human to human, uh, connection and understanding, uh, carries forth, uh, and of this level and then carries [00:42:00] into, uh, customer relationships.

Vaughn Thurman: Well, Natalie, I'll have to get you to go look at our job track website and, and give me your, uh, give me, give me your professional opinion. But, uh,

Natalie Nathanson: to take a look anytime, anytime. V Um, I know I only have a, a couple minutes left. Um, I'd love to ask you maybe a more introspective, uh, question as we, as we close, um, and wanted to find out what's the best piece of advice that you've been given, uh, that still shapes you today?

Vaughn Thurman: Hmm. Run into

the

fire, um,

uh,

at a

really difficult

time in the middle of

that turnaround

story that I told you about. Um, I was having some staff challenges. I am still married by God's grace, closing in on 30 years and six kids and two grandkids,

and two

more on the way.

But, You know, my marriage was having difficulty because of the stress level that I was [00:43:00] going through and, and, uh, the amount of time that I spent

working.

Um, and personal finances were tight. Business finances were tight. We were starting to see the upturn, but it was just so much pressure. And, uh, in the middle of that, like I said, I was having a staff challenge with a key

personnel.

And, and there was

somebody

who'd been in business a lot longer than me. I, I've been self-employed most of my life. Uh, I've got about 30 years under my belt now, just like marriage. And uh, at that point I probably was about 13 or 14 years in, and there was a gentleman who had about 30 or 35 years of business experience and. And he kind of, he, he, he had that quiet moment. He put his

hand on my

shoulder.

Uh, and

he was listening to me sort of ramble about all these things I had going on

and how overwhelmed

I was and how in

the middle

of this,

I can't deal with

this employee giving me this, You know? And, and he said, Vaughn, he said, somebody gave me this [00:44:00] advice 15 years ago.

I hope

it's as useful

to you as it is

to me.

He said, always, always run into the fire. And, and his point was,

You know, he

gave the longer version, and I won't give you the long version of it, but

You know, the fire. It never

gets cooler by leaving it alone,

uh,

the fire always spreads. The fire always gets

worse,

and you imagine that the fire is going to

burn you

much worse than it does.

You imagine. There's no way you can run through it without getting burned. You often can. Uh, so the longer it goes on, the worse it is for your own psychology. And as a leader, the psychology of a

leader is

really, really important.

And,

And so what it taught me, and I don't like it because, uh,

You know,

by my nature, I would rather avoid conflict and go running for the hills all the time.

But I've had to learn by experience to follow that mantra, run into the fire. Uh, when,

when there's

a problem, when people aren't getting along, grab 'em [00:45:00] immediately. When there's a customer who's concerned about something, call them right away. When, uh, You know, it looks like there's an inevitable change coming, don't think about it or connate on it.

You know,

trust your gut. It, it, it knows usually long before your mind does, um, make the decision

and

and move forward. But, You know, courageously confront

the things that

look most difficult. And most days you'll go home with most of them resolve. And, and if you let them linger and smolder, they'll still be burning tomorrow and you'll have worried about them all night and it won't have made 'em a bit better.

Natalie Nathanson: I think that's great advice. I have had some of those, uh, similar circumstances myself, so I think that's very widely applicable. So. Thank you for sharing that, Vaughn, and as we wrap up the conversation, if listeners wanna get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that?

Vaughn Thurman: Uh,

Yeah, I'm easy to find on, uh, uh, LinkedIn.

[00:46:00] Um, just Vaughn Thurman, V-A-U-G-H-N, last name T-H-U-R-M-A-N.

Um,

if anybody be interested in a copy of the book, I'm not trying to sell it, they're, they, can get a free one if they go to high gear.com. Uh, under one of the menus it says the Process

of improvement book.

If you click on that, um, I think

you

don't have to share anything but, uh, an email address and

a name

and an address, I think, and we'll send you a copy out.

Um,

and, uh,

and,

and certainly, uh, I can always be reached

directly, um,

by just somebody calling the main office here and asking for me. I'll, I'll,

take a

phone call from anybody. It's always, uh, an opportunity to learn, like I said before.

Natalie Nathanson: That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I think the book is a really great, uh, offer, so I know I'm gonna be checking that out myself.

And I really loved hearing so much of what you shared, um, from kind of your story, uh, where things were a bit on the brink and kinda how you navigated that, uh, some of the messages around [00:47:00] vulnerability and the impact and benefit that that has.

And, um, some of the, uh, insights and advice around, uh, change management. So thank you so much for that.

Vaughn Thurman: Thank

you, Natalie. Thanks for having me on. It's been a pleasure to talk to you and, uh, I, I look forward to seeing when, uh, when it goes live. Please let me know and, uh, look forward to talking to you again. I hope.

Natalie Nathanson: Thank you. Thank you very much. Great conversation. And thank you too to everyone who's listening. Uh, if today's conversation sparked something for you and I'm sure that it did, please pass this along to another leader because we know that insights like these fuel fresh thinking and help all of us drive real transformation in our companies and in ourselves.

This has been another amazing conversation on Shift and Thrive. I'll see you all next time.

That's a wrap for this week's episode. For show notes and more visit Shift and thrive podcast.com. A special thank you to our sponsor, magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth [00:48:00] consultancy and the getting it done Power of a full service marketing agency to help B2B companies fuel their growth.

For more information on magnitude and to get your complimentary transformation readiness assessment, visit magnitude consulting.com/. Get ready. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.