Scott Ward (00:02)
Welcome to the Habitstack podcast. I'm here today with Laura Pitsch who spent 14 years at Lululemon growing from the ground up to senior management, where she oversaw communications for hundreds of stores. Then she went to be the COO at Mine and Yours, where she managed to do amazing things.

Revenue wise in a short amount of time. We're going to hear all about it now. She is a fractional coo very interesting fractional coo she works with founder led companies whose operations are Getting a little hairy, but you know, they're not quite ready to go With a full-time executive and so i'm very curious to hear about all of that laura Thank you for coming on the show today. I appreciate it

Laura Pitsch (00:42)
Thank you for having me and thanks for the nice intro.

Scott Ward (00:45)
Yeah. Well, so you spent a chunk of time at Lululemon and had quite a kind of ride there, you know, a wide variety of things that you ended up doing. And I have a feeling that it kind of set you up for future things. And so tell us a little bit about that ride there at Lululemon.

Laura Pitsch (01:01)
Yeah, so it was never the plan to stay there. I should start by saying that it was a retail role when I was in university and I joined when Lululemon was not a household name. So I joined when people didn't know Lululemon across the world. They would ask me like, what do you mean you sell yoga clothes? So I started in our stores and quickly then when I moved into our contact center where I learned the fun of

operations and numbers and the complexities of keeping a big call center staffed and then moved into marketing and then ultimately strategy and communications. Not a normal path in a corporate setting. It didn't make a lot of sense at the time, but gave me this real breadth and experience that I leverage every day now. And a lot of sort of experience leading big teams, small teams,

you know, people who there was the first job versus people who had been at it for 20 years longer than me. So really formative years for me and skills that I use every day now and actually really like use those skills and teach other people.

Scott Ward (02:11)
Yeah. So there's, it's always interesting to hear about kind of the inside of various organizations. You've been, deeply embedded in Lululemon and also involved, with other companies, a lot of different companies, actually more than usual because you're fractional. you, get a slice, of life with a lot of different organizations. So I, what I'm curious about is ⁓ now that you've had so much exposure, like, what do you feel like Lululemon did?

particularly well that it turns out to be unusual.

Laura Pitsch (02:39)
Yeah, they, at the time I joined, were really focused on developing their leaders and felt that to be where they wanted to go in the world, it was going to happen through these strong leaders. And even, you know, was, we talked a lot about the mission, which was elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness. And their view was that you'll do that through your leaders, whether that's inside of Lululemon or leaders that then went on outside of Lululemon.

⁓ I also was there at a time that the expression was asked for forgiveness, not permission. And so it was this real ability to make decisions and ⁓ paired with a ton of leadership skills. So feedback, accountability, you know, they would teach you at an early age in leadership how to build org charts, how to, you know, the financial components of running your

portion of the business and they took risks. put me into roles. When I moved into marketing, I had no marketing experience at all. But they knew that I was a great people leader. They knew I knew how to scale teams and they believed that you could learn. As long as you were a solid leader, you could learn the business components. I thought that that's how all businesses were until I left Blue Lemon and

realized that feedback culture and the culture of ⁓ ask for forgiveness, like all of those things were really unique to the brand at that time. And a lot of businesses don't have that sort of leadership experience, those skills, people weren't getting that in some of these other businesses I was working with.

Scott Ward (04:15)
I'm just curious how it gets applied in a smaller situation because one thing that occurs to me about the founder led company is that it's it's still possible to ask to be like a permission based thing because it's not so big that it's impossible. And so I think there's some challenges there. Like in some ways, when you grow to a certain size, it's like totally unwieldy otherwise.

Anyway, let's talk about it more in a moment. Mine and yours. So you left Lululemon, went to Mine and Yours, served as a CEO. Tell us a little bit about that experience.

Laura Pitsch (04:35)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it was an incredible experience. I walked into the stores. I always, you know, sort of evaluate the brand before I'll work with the team. And I went in and what stood out for me was that they had this incredible brand. So you walked in. It's not the it's not a usual secondhand experience. Everything was beautifully merchandise. The stores were beautiful. It really felt like that premium experience. And then so so the brand was there.

The look and feel was there and the more I talked to the team and the more I experienced their in-store experience, there was a lot to work on for the operations. A lot ⁓ that needed structure, when they're one retail store, you only need so many pieces of structure. But as we quickly expanded to four retail footprints in the first year I was there.

one versus four source is very different. And we were very much building the plane as we were flying it. So yeah, there was a lot to work on there. It was incredible because what I realized and was able to do was apply all of these skills that I had had from Lululemon and directly apply them. So coming in and saying, oh, do you have financials? Do you have an org chart? Do you have?

Scott Ward (05:44)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (06:06)
Do people know what their job description is? And having the skills to be able to do that allowed us to grow that much more quickly. yeah, even with, was still, there was definitely chaos along the way, but I think I was that structure and that person that was sort of putting the plane together while we were midair. Yeah.

Scott Ward (06:27)
Right, right, yeah.

how did you end up from there going to become a fractional COO? And maybe unpack just for completeness or for thoroughness sake, what is a fractional executive compared to say a consultant or advisor or even a outsource? Kind of like nuance that a little bit, but also.

Another dumb question, what is a COO? Compared to, you know, maybe what people think it is.

Laura Pitsch (06:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, so the way I talk about it, a lot of people ask me this question, what's a COO? So Chief Operating Officer, it's a fancy title for a pretty broad role in my experience. So really the way I talk about it is your COO is running the business. So really in the business across a breadth of teams. think there are many different COOs. We all have a different type of

way that we'll be a COO, we have different experience. So in my role, I held all the teams of mine and yours except for marketing and that was because the founder loved marketing. And so otherwise all of the business was, I was responsible for and it's this real stagger between running the day-to-day business but also working on that longer term vision. So that one to three year plan really

hand in hand with a founder. So your COO is really sort of like that right hand, if you will, to the founder and CEO. Typically they're the same. And so I left mine in yours because I love working with these small mid-sized businesses, which are in this point where they've established that they've got some momentum, they've got a bit of a team going.

founders are so incredible at that early stage of hustle and really getting things live and there's some revenue now. And what I find often is that that next phase when you hit three million, that sort of range is not their favorite. It's things start to get a little bit messy. ⁓ know. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Scott Ward (08:32)
Things used to move so much faster. I just thought of an idea in the morning and we did it in the afternoon.

Laura Pitsch (08:38)
Exactly, and that works when you're small and it stops working at a certain point. And I know so many founders that don't like that slowing down to speed up phase or don't have the experience. What I love is that, and this lends to what's a fractional COO, you're getting a fraction of my time, but you're paying me because I've done these things before, because...

I've made the mistakes. I've seen what other businesses have done. I've opened many stores before and I know, and so I often talk to founders and they say like, I don't know how to do these things. And I say, great, I do. let's, so we can do that together. And so I'm, yeah, I'm a fractional COO because I want to have greater impact than one business. I want to work with multiple businesses and really help these businesses.

hit their next level. I think especially in this era, 2026, there are so many that stall out at that three to four million range and don't invest in the COO. And had they just paused and really worked with a fractional COO, I think they would have put in the time and they would have made it to that next level.

Scott Ward (09:50)
yeah, things are, could imagine a founder saying, you know, things are a little bit chaotic and, and, know, yeah, we don't have an orange chart and good job descriptions or lots of things that go into, we could run better, but, um, you know, but sales and marketing.

That you know, that is like our that that that's what it's going to make the difference. It's all about revenue and so How do you not that you can argue somebody out of a position like that? what is the relationship between? well, and how direct is the relationship between let's say smooth operations and And progress in growth

Laura Pitsch (10:28)
Yeah, mean, it's so yes, I often, often I hear this and I know I say that ops is sort of not that sexy and it's the behind the scenes work that nobody really loves but it's so important So I think of it as okay well great sales is working but you if you have a messy, you have messy operations what happens when that client has purchased something and then has a really poor experience? So

It gets fulfilled incorrectly They have a poor customer service experience There's so many ways that operational, yes you do your marketing and your sales but that's really the start Then what does that ongoing experience look like? And messy operations it will impact You'll see that in the client experience at some point or another

And I think you also see it in your people experience You're not going to retain great people if it is constantly putting out fires and constantly every day is a new fire or it's a new change of direction Your great people will not stay for all of that know there's some people who are really loyal and will but a great talent doesn't. There's only so much of that that they can handle

is sort of my perspective on that.

Scott Ward (11:45)
Yeah, makes sense.

Scott Ward (11:46)
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Scott Ward (12:34)
I think maybe we can dovetail from here into the feedback culture thing, because that's one of the things that, you know, there's certain cultural maladies that become increasingly important and, you know, you can't just ignore forever.

Laura Pitsch (12:48)
Yeah, and I would say this is one of the ways I think I'm a different COO. And I said, every COO sort of has a skill set or a thing that makes them unique. And I am people focused. It's my time, a Lululemon, and my time in other businesses. I think it's such an important part of business. yeah, I think this feedback culture, I've worked for, obviously worked in and with so many businesses. And what I've observed is

People view people first as we're nice and I'm fun and I buy my team coffee. And I think that works at the beginning. It works when there's a five person team and you're all in it together and that stops working. And I would argue that it probably doesn't even work for that long at that phase, but it stops working the bigger the team gets. And so this feedback culture to me is really that

and even like that people first culture is having relationship with your people. So knowing what they're strong at, what they're maybe weaker at. You have a sense for what motivates them. Why are they here? Why are they connected to your business? And then the feedback, I think my time at Lululemon, I've really learned that it's a gift and it can be hard. It's really, I find so many...

founders and business leaders, regardless of the company size, they don't like to. It's an uncomfortable conversation. And it's one of these things that you have to, you just have to keep ripping the bandaid off until you get more comfortable with it. You just have to keep doing it. And when I think about feedback, it's really, it's positive and constructive. And there's so many different models for how to give feedback in an effective way. But I view feedback as

this gift that people, you know, you are in this dialogue. They can give you as the leader and founder feedback and you can give them feedback that ultimately builds their skills. As ⁓ an employee, you're telling them, listen, when I asked you to take over the email marketing campaign, really this is what I had in mind and here are some of the gaps I see. And giving them that feedback allows them to then grow and allows them to then

figure out, what can we do differently next time? I see that what happens when you don't give the feedback is that people still know, people still know, oof, that person wasn't super happy with the outcome of that. They had somebody else redo the work or they told somebody else that they weren't happy with the work. We still know. so really just having the direct conversation while it's hard.

Scott Ward (15:18)
Right.

Laura Pitsch (15:25)
allows that employee to offer their perspective and really work to sort of fix or change it. Yeah.

Scott Ward (15:32)
What's a quick

and dirty like your favorite quick and dirty model? said there's lots of models for providing feedback. What's what's like your go to?

Laura Pitsch (15:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, I always think in the back of my head, is it to better the other person? I think we get feedback wrong when we were, actually just about making a point or we want to be right or we're too heated. That's the other thing. So is it for the benefit of the other person or the broader business is, are you in a

you know, place to be delivering the feedback. If you're really mad or you're really upset about something, then you're probably not in a place to have a really productive conversation. So I often say pause and come back to it, but do come back to it. And then is it factual? That's the other place where I see so many people sort of get it wrong is they are, it's a perception based piece. so is it factual? know, did you, I asked you to,

to deliver this on this date, you didn't, and you didn't communicate with me. What can we do? And then what's the solution going forward? What do you want to see them do differently in the future? And this works for positive too. What did you do? Scott, I saw you participate in this meeting. You brought three new ideas. really boosted the morale of that meeting. And I'd love to see you continue to do that, really specific versus this, good job, Scott. And you're like, OK.

okay you know.

Scott Ward (16:57)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, you know, it feels like there's a there's a bit of ⁓ you mentioned a couple things, ⁓ like a ways to almost Earn It's not earn the right to provide Constructive feedback, but it but it helps One thing you just said, you know if there's there's been quite a bit of positive like you've you call out the positive regularly that helps to lay the groundwork for when you say something that's not so positive, but then the other thing is

Laura Pitsch (17:15)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Scott Ward (17:21)
That you've been quite clear because that's, mean, I don't know what you think about it, but sometimes it feels like, the expectations were so unclear. know you're mad, but the expectations were so unclear. Like, I'm not sure that you can really come down hard in this situation because you didn't do a good job of setting, setting it up. Right. There's no facts actually. There's just feelings here. And so next time do it, do it. there's facts and then, and then we can take it.

Laura Pitsch (17:40)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think often what I see in these businesses is a founder who's frustrated and a team who doesn't know how. I guess I'm of the belief that everybody wants to be successful in their jobs and they don't always know how, especially in these and sometimes in these smaller businesses. You're hiring people who this is their first or second job.

Scott Ward (17:47)
What do think about that?

Laura Pitsch (18:13)
⁓ You know, they're they're newer in and they may not have all of the skills that they need yet and so yeah, I think you have a founder who's maybe got a lot going on and isn't clear and then you've got a team who understands that the founders frustrated but isn't clear on what they're what they need or what they're asking for and so then yeah you get into these tricky conversations, but that comes back to the relationship and

where you want to have enough relationship and enough positive feedback with your employees to be able to, for them to be able to say, I don't understand because I see a lot that people will just shut down and take it. And then those conversations never go anywhere. And then you'll in two months, back in the same situation where the founder's frustrated and you have an employee that doesn't know how to change things.

Scott Ward (18:56)
Right, right.

Yeah. Yeah. It feels like the, um, the anger thing makes me think also, don't you think that part of the thing too is to intervene earlier than later because you avoid it and because, and because it's just a little bit annoying, a little bit annoying, a little bit annoying. And then you're like ticked and it's too late. Like, I mean, you still probably need to address it, but it would have been better.

Laura Pitsch (19:21)
Yeah. ⁓

Scott Ward (19:27)
to do the awkward thing earlier than later so you don't get to the, I mean, in some ways it's basic relationships, same thing with kids and you know, I don't know. Yeah, exactly.

Laura Pitsch (19:36)
Yeah, there's a lot of similarities there. Yeah.

I mean, it's like that tricky conversation of, arrive five minutes late to my meeting every week and every week it sort of irks me a little bit to the point where I'm ready to, I don't know, be unprofessional and I've seen this. And all we had to do was have a conversation that first time, which was a little bit uncomfortable, but I just had to say, hey Scott, I start my meetings at 9 a.m.

Scott Ward (19:54)
Yeah.

Laura Pitsch (20:03)
And I'd really like you to be there right at 9 a.m. And you're like, yeah, okay, got it. I'll grab my coffee a little bit earlier. Yeah, we see this so often.

Scott Ward (20:12)
Yeah. What do you, you know, I feel like a founder who's, who's flat out, right? They're, they're, building this thing. and there's a feeling like,

I don't have the bandwidth to...

to babysit anybody almost, or to provide this level of coaching and feedback and to go through this, like, I am flat out. I basically need people to be, I need people to be awesome all the time in order for me to survive this thing. And maybe I think sometimes there's this feeling of when you're a larger organization,

There's the bandwidth and the organizational heft. Sure, we can send people to training and we can do all these things. We can raise up leaders. But in a smaller organization, people need to figure it out on their own almost, or they need to come in ready to rock and roll. I just do not have time for this. So I'm kind of channeling again, Boundaries. So what would you say to somebody who, in their heart of hearts, they say, yeah, people first. Yeah, that's right. got feedback.

Laura Pitsch (21:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ward (21:13)
But in their heart of hearts, like, I do not have the inclination or the time to do that.

Laura Pitsch (21:17)
Yeah, that makes sense. That's really common. I mean, I think my first sort of reaction is like, okay, do you have the right team then? Because if you don't have the space, and I mean, this is pretty common, if you don't have the space for this, for a pretty quick conversation, then do you have the right team in place? And I think about often that transition from

⁓ startup and really the founder with a lot of people who are really execution based to this switch of, okay, that we've now got some momentum and starting to bring in potential leaders who can give the founder back some space. So I think my first question there is, do you have the right team structure in place? Do you have too many doers and not enough leaders in your business?

Scott Ward (22:08)
Specifically leadership

team question, right?

Laura Pitsch (22:10)
Yeah, yeah.

you know, I think founders set the culture, you set the tone. And so whatever you focus on is sort of has this trickle down experience for the rest of the team. so, you know, if that people experience is really important to you, then start with something, start with, you know, and build from there. So if it's as simple as I'm going to focus on sharing positive feedback, that's not a hard one.

share positive specific feedback. That's a 30 second conversation after a meeting or after a one-on-one that you can start with. And then I think my third thought is then maybe you need a fractional COO. Maybe you do. Maybe you're at that point. But I think those would be my questions. ⁓ And I think it's a fair feeling. I think it depends where they want to go. Do you want to grow the business?

Scott Ward (22:51)
yeah. Yeah.

Laura Pitsch (23:03)
Are you good with this sort of startup phase or do you want to grow the business to be this bigger business? And if so, you have to start laying the foundation of those cultural pieces now.

Scott Ward (23:13)
If somebody's listening and they want an action item out of this right now, I would say what you just said is super solid. I've seen this work with other leaders too. It's just like, make a habit of saying, of giving positive feedback starting today, at least once a day, find somebody, find something nice to say that's specific to somebody and do that for a few months. And then that'll help. Actually that helps a lot of things. It's not the whole solution.

Laura Pitsch (23:37)
Yeah, it does.

Scott Ward (23:40)
but there's a very,

Laura Pitsch (23:40)
Yeah.

Scott Ward (23:41)
very nice action item for anybody listening.

Laura Pitsch (23:44)
Yeah, I love that. And then build on it. But who doesn't love a really specific piece of feedback? I think we all do. it'll create more. Like we talk about what you reward is what you create more of. And so what you focus on for positive feedback is what other people notice that. Other people hear those conversations they notice. So yeah, it's an easy one. Easy, quick thing that you could do now.

Scott Ward (24:10)
Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about, so we said, you know, one option is to hire a fractional executive. And I think, I personally think that's a very interesting direction because you have. A lot of times the instinct is when, is to, well, if I have some, some extra cashflow, what I really need is more doers, you know, more people to do the actual work. can't really,

free up. I don't have the, if I had to choose between a strategist and a doer, I'll take a doer. I'll take somebody who can deliver actual, you know, like do the actual work. So, and I think, I don't know what you think about this, but personally, I think that sometimes they're right. Like sometimes that is the right choice. It's not like a one size fits all. What do you think are the signals or the kind of the rules of thumb that a founder could use to know what situation they're in?

Laura Pitsch (24:56)
Yeah, so I think they have to, I think you start with a founder self-awareness, which is really taking a step back to say, I need another, do I need somebody to execute? Do I need somebody to, you know, I know that my social media is really effective and I'm still, I'm as the owner or founder still doing the DMs. You need a doer there. That's probably a doer. That's somebody who can come in and take that off your plate.

But I think it comes to this self-awareness of a doer versus strategic. And so when you're thinking about a fractional COO, the fractional COO's job is to come in and respectfully sort of challenge your thoughts. Their job is to come in and say, okay, this isn't a problem now, but it's going to be in six months time. And so you'll feel the impact of a doer immediately.

you're going to feel the impact of a strategic hire in the next six to 12 months when they've solved a longer term thing that was going to become a bigger issue. But yeah, if you feel very clear on an item, and I often say, I'll come into businesses and they think, I need somebody to do social media. And I say, well, actually,

you've got this customer care person who isn't really doing a ton during the day. Could they take over the DMs for you? Where can we be thoughtful about headcount and clear about headcount? And so sometimes I'll say, bring me in, I'll do an evaluation and then I'll tell you where you actually need to have people or where you could clarify jobs. there's no reason why when a business is small, somebody couldn't own

social media and customer care at the same time. And so you have my perspective of, or this fresh perspective of, why do we have this person owning this part of the business? Like we could be more efficient there. And then you actually wouldn't need additional head count. ⁓ So I do think there's a time and place. I often think about this thing I heard that when a founder CEO doesn't have an assistant and if they...

Scott Ward (26:56)
Right.

Laura Pitsch (27:07)
are drowning in their schedule and their to-dos that if you don't have an assistant and the COO becomes the assistant. And so I'll say, and you don't want to, you don't want me for those things. I can do it, but you, it'd be better, better having somebody whose job is to be an assistant, get your calendar sorted out and really getting your life moving smoothly. So that one sort of always sticks in my head as well is for lack of a

For lack of an assistant, even if part-time, your COO will become that, which is not a good use of money either.

Scott Ward (27:37)
Hmm.

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, can we talk a little bit about that? What, how would you compare and contrast a COO, a chief of staff, an executive assistant, you know, like help us help, help everybody who's listening to understand, who does what and who you should look to win.

Laura Pitsch (27:57)
Yeah, I think it's funny because I also think a chief of staff sometimes gets intermingled with the COO and sort of used interchangeably. I think from an assistant perspective, know, that a great assistant is managing your calendar, they're managing your emails, they're really creating the structure that so many founders I see need. You know, they're that person that

Scott Ward (28:03)
Yeah.

Laura Pitsch (28:19)
is prepping them for meetings. They're making sure that they've read the important emails. really a great assistant is thinking from the perspective of the founder and making their day-to-day lives easier. I think a chief of staff COO, yeah, I've noticed a lot recently that early stage startups will call it a chief of staff, but there's a lot of COO in there. ⁓

Scott Ward (28:43)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (28:43)
I think it's this like mix, like they want both. So they're like, okay, well, you'll be the assistant to the leaders, but maybe there's not enough work there. So you'll also take on some of the operational work. You know, I think of a COO as somebody who's gonna come in and isn't managing your calendar. are, you know, they're coming in, they're getting deep into the weeds of your business. And they're working directly with the founder, not on

not just on the problems, but also those future pieces and really looking for ways to streamline and make that daily operation better, but also challenging the founder to be thinking about the next one to three years and what needs to happen there.

Scott Ward (29:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. feels like a COO. So chief operating officer is going to be.

leading building saying there's a peer relationship there. On the other spectrum, an executive assistant is assisting any executive, but in this case, the CEO, to do all the things to keep organized. There's a big catch-all thing. The chief of staff, I'm just talking it out right now, the chief of staff feels like it

Laura Pitsch (29:35)
Yes, absolutely.

Scott Ward (29:55)
is in between those two things, but it's also, there's more clout. With the chief of staff, there's like this idea of the chief of staff is in the meeting, then the CEO is in the meeting, right? If the CEO and the chief of staff in the meeting, then you listen to the CEO, but if the chief of staff, whatever. So it tends to be a higher, a more experienced person who actually can say yes and no to things, has authority, can spend money, like what are all those sorts of things, but it's not, but it's kind of like actuating.

Laura Pitsch (30:03)
Yes.

Yes.

Scott Ward (30:22)
or actualizing what the CEO is trying to do. And the COO is actually has their own things that they want to do, you know, like their own, like their own areas of responsibility. Like they're bringing new innovations, whereas the chief of staff is just kind of is not just, it's incredibly useful, but they're kind of in the service of actualizing what the CEO is already thinking about, where the CEO is thinking about things that the CEO is not thinking about.

Laura Pitsch (30:32)
Yeah.

Scott Ward (30:49)
What do think about that? I just made it up.

Laura Pitsch (30:49)
Yes.

Yeah, I actually think that's really well said. I think that's exactly right. Your COO is, yeah, I'm not at that peer level, at that group where I find with so many founders, they're looking for somebody who doesn't report to them to bounce and consider ideas with. And so I spend so much of my time

being that person that also can respectfully say, that's not a good idea. yeah, but let's think about it from this perspective. it's like that almost, and it's not a peer level, but I think that's exactly right. It's your COO who's deeply in the business and also driving that future and has sort of their own perspectives, things that they're really trying to get that COO to consider and work through.

But really that relationship is what I've found, especially in a fractional position, is so many founders I think feel lonely. I even felt like this in my COO job as the person without peers in many cases. It can get lonely and it's hard being the one that has all the tough conversations, makes the tough calls, communicates all of those things. And so I find that a lot with founders.

is they want somebody who they can trust, who they know has their business's best interests at heart, but also is gonna challenge them and say, I don't know, should we add another three stores this year? I don't think so. Or I find myself often saying, yeah, we should do that. Why haven't we done that? ⁓

Scott Ward (32:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

in.

Laura Pitsch (32:29)
And I know how to do that. Do ⁓ you wanna start a new e-commerce business? Okay, let's do it. I know how we can do that. that's one of my favorite bits.

Scott Ward (32:36)
So yeah.

So as a fractional, you like, how often, how much are you involved and how, like, do you have reports and stuff or like how, what's, what is a fraction? What does it mean to be fractional versus a full time?

Laura Pitsch (32:50)
Yeah, I think it depends on the role, it depends on the business and depends on what I'm coming in to do. So I can have direct reports. I'm happy to have, you know, if it's a longer term engagement, I'm happy to have a team that I communicate and sort of work with. And they report to me for a while if the goal is to upskill them and to develop them.

I typically am looking for a business where I can, they have a team, a big enough team in place that I can be effective. So a COO is, they do some.

things we are somewhat of a doer, but we're mostly a strategic, we can delegate, we can get a lot done through people. And so I'm often looking for people with a big enough team to be able to sort of get the momentum for me to be successful and also for the sort of have the founder be happy with the results.

So yeah, I would say I'm pretty involved. I like to be in the business. I like to know the ins and outs. I will go to the store. I like to be on the calls. I spend a lot of my time with the founder, especially initially. But I also want to spend time with our team. I think it's just really dependent on the business and what I'm coming in to do. If we need to.

Scott Ward (34:04)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (34:06)
reorg and create, know, or upskill your people, then yeah, I'm going to spend a lot of time with their people and really understanding everybody's roles in the business.

Scott Ward (34:15)
So I think that that is the interesting distinction between like a consultant or an advisor. I think this is maybe the, the, the fear of the founder bringing anybody in is kind of, well, like, well, you should do this, this, this, like this, this, these are the things. And like, well, you know, I could have a chat GPT. And I kind of had a feeling that I needed an org chart and whatever, but, but I can't, you know, like, don't know that this is so, so there's a way not to denigrate advisors and consultants.

Laura Pitsch (34:32)
You

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ward (34:42)
But there is a way, and maybe consultants would say like, Anna, we'll do it for you, but it's a little bit.

Yeah. So I think what's kind of interesting about the fractional direction is that you have a senior level person who is actually involved in the, in the day to day, but it's possible to hire them because at a certain stage is very difficult to bring somebody on who's at that level.

Laura Pitsch (35:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's this, my goal is never to, and I've been on the receiving end of those where you're like, well, that's nice, but we don't have anybody to execute your 10 page strategy. Like I already knew all of that. And so, you know, I view my job as coming in, identifying where the problems are or where the gaps are, and then saying, great, and here's what we're going to do to solve them. Whether that's, you actually do need an additional head count or

⁓ Whether that's, I'm going to help your team learn how to build a training program and I'll do that with them so you don't have to. You know, like I think my goal in this is to leave the team with more skill set and a structure that creates the calm but not so much structure that you then got people who are just building SOPs all day long. So yeah, think, yeah, that's my...

Two cents.

Scott Ward (35:59)
You made me think of something with SOPs. think I read somewhere on your interweb things about process and about just enough, but not too much or something. Now you said it more eloquently than that, can we talk a little bit about that? think how do you, when the chaos is intense and things go wrong, there is a kind of a... ⁓

Laura Pitsch (36:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ward (36:21)
automatic feeling a lot of times of like, well, we need, we need more process. Which is probably true. Uh, but then there's a set of people who's who hate that, you know, and this is too much process. Now we're in a straight jacket. This is not where, you know, what I signed up for and, uh, and you know, and some, and they're not completely wrong. Uh, actually that can be, so what, how do you know? Like, how do you know what is the right amount? What are the signs?

Laura Pitsch (36:32)
you

Yeah.

Yeah, like I say, I think my goal is to give enough that things move smoothly, but not so much that things become harder. if I think about one of the things I see often is founders who make every single decision. Every single decision comes to them and they become a bottleneck as the business gets bigger, they become burnt out.

is okay when you're in startup mode and that becomes a big liability as the business gets bigger. And so I think about it from the perspective of what is the process that needs to be there so that if you want to delegate decision-making power, you can and you have enough there that so if I think about decision-making power, I'm like, what as a founder are the things that you're thinking through when you're making a decision?

and how do we standardize or put some of those in place so that when you say, okay, my leader for marketing can make decisions around these things, they have a filter or something that they can sort of think through and then make a good decision. So yeah, I think it's this balance. The other thing I find is that with these businesses, they're moving so fast that to build out all these SOPs, you in six months,

Half of them are outdated and I found this at mine and yours. You would build an SOP, you'd get it done and then it would be out of date in two months and people weren't following it. And so I always think of it as well as like, are the core operating sort of processes? What are those like real foundational pieces that if we do these things right, then everything else will flow well. But it's a balance and you're right, the people that come on board for startup.

Scott Ward (38:06)
Yeah.

Laura Pitsch (38:33)
If they're great, they're probably entrepreneurial and they don't want structure and process. But the truth is that you need that when things get bigger because you have more people, more opinions. And if you don't have that structure, then you just open up these opportunities for big mistakes, which are really impactful when the business is small.

Scott Ward (38:54)
How do you do you have any tips and tricks for winning the hearts and minds of somebody who's kind of maverick when you need them to be a little bit more process oriented without you know, just being kind of like a you just a force, you know, ideally they they they come around and see the value and want to do it like what what

What have you seen as worked that a founder who's listening could try?

Laura Pitsch (39:17)
I think that it's, I think it's enrollment. I think it's, I don't know, I guess my view point is always what's the reason? What are they, so if you're a maverick and you're, you know, sort of wanna do your own thing and you're not excited about the process, then what is it that's like, why do you feel that way? What's the, and I think about it from like, how can I get curious to understand? Maybe they're scared, maybe they're, see this a lot, they,

they don't actually want, they don't want to feel controlled or they don't want to feel, or they're concerned about more people coming into the business who may be competition for them or, you know, there's often like an underlying reason. And so as a leader, I think it's our job to ask enough questions to understand from their perspective, why, why, what's the, you know, what's the process? Sort of what's the, yeah, what's the concern there? And then I think,

I think also having a compelling clear how this is going to support them in the business. so, you know, understanding their perspective, addressing their key concern, or looking for that, but then understanding and being clear about why this is important for the future of the business. And I said this before but not everybody is cut out Every stage of the business has different needs from their people

Scott Ward (40:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (40:35)
And so not everybody is cut out for that next phase I'm not, you know, I'm not, yeah. Yeah. And so you, I just think at every key sort of revenue piece there's this needs to be this relook at who on our team is like yeah, maybe not the best fit anymore or who, and I think the most generous thing we can do sometimes is to like let them be free and go and

Scott Ward (40:41)
Including founders, I mean.

Laura Pitsch (41:03)
work in a size business that they are best suited for And we had a lot of this at Mind In Yours A lot of ⁓ people who were incredible when it was a one or two store company and not what we needed when we had multiples footprints across the country and needed that structure and needed them to be just operating in a different way

Scott Ward (41:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

That first instinct that you shared, I think, really showed your people first instinct, right? And I agree with you. think founders often, leaders, everybody when relating to others, the first instinct is to assume that you know. Well, it's a character flaw. That's what it is. Or they just dot dot dot.

Laura Pitsch (41:48)
Yeah.

Scott Ward (41:52)
I know that the second thing is to maybe ask one question and take it at face value. You'd like, oh, well, it's because that and run with it. But in reality, the truth is five to seven to 10 questions deep. And it's solved. It's very often solvable, you know, because, because a of founders, a of times can include, you know,

Laura Pitsch (42:10)
Yes. Yes.

Scott Ward (42:13)
It's just, this is intractable. Basically like this is what we need and this is who they are. so, know, it's very, what are we going to do? People are who they are. And there's some truth to that, but there's also, usually in a situation, in my experience, you can take the edge off at least and make it a little like good enough so that the Maverick, because there's one part that really sticks in their craw. And then you look at it you're like, well, that's fine. You don't even have to do that part anymore. That one actually is not that big a deal.

Laura Pitsch (42:38)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Scott Ward (42:41)
Sometimes,

you know, that's an ideal scenario. Or there's a compensation, like, you gotta do that, but how about we do this? You love that part, right? You know, and we can find a way, but it takes some time. This is the thing, it takes time and attention to work it through.

Laura Pitsch (42:49)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the leading people piece is often the hardest piece and the piece that so many founders they didn't set out to do that They set out with this really you know this idea of a product or a service or a thing that they were so excited about and that's how they build their business And they didn't set out in many instances to be

Scott Ward (43:03)
Mmm.

Right

Laura Pitsch (43:21)
people leaders and have these big teams of people who are looking to them And I think that's the hardest It's the hardest piece regardless of the business size is we're all complicated We all come to work with our own history of previous places so, yeah, I think it's one of the most complicated pieces but one of the most important because you're

Scott Ward (43:45)
Hmm.

Laura Pitsch (43:46)
how happy your people are and how clear about whether they're doing a good job and whether they were sort of like moving towards a better future in the business that has such a big impact on the success of the business or lack thereof And you can feel, you can, I've been in many businesses where you have one sour apple and the impact of that sour apple amongst the team is huge. And so sort of like knowing how to,

or how to sort of even hire so you don't hire these people is also really important. So yeah, it's complicated and tricky and it's what I love to do, but I think often so many founders say to me like, I don't want to, I don't know how to do this. don't want to do this with a big leadership team. And so my job is to come in and say, great, then there are options there. Yeah.

Scott Ward (44:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, or even I'm not yet, you know, found it could be kind of interested in getting better, but it just seems so we need, we need to need, I need to be, somebody needs an, in the organization needs to be good at this yesterday. And, you know, I can see that I'm not, I'm a ways away from that, you know, and I don't have the bandwidth to get there. Yeah. I think it's hard to, depending on the personality, but it's hard for.

Laura Pitsch (44:47)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Ward (44:58)
It can be hard for founders to accept that people are not machines. machines are so predictable and they're really nice that way. And of course, if they were just machines, you would lose other things. You would lose a lot that you don't see, not to me, with the business, but also just...

Laura Pitsch (45:05)
you

Scott Ward (45:17)
as a human, as living a life, you know, it's better. It is good to be in relationship with people. And so, you you don't actually want to jettison all of that, but sometimes it feels like it would be easier.

Laura Pitsch (45:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, agree. Even as somebody who loves this part, totally agree. They're still, yeah, they're complicated. And I Lululemon used to say that there was no, and I know people have different beliefs, but there's no home and work that you are, you show up in all places the same and that there's an impact of.

if I've just had a fight with my kids and I've had to have a kid pulled off of me out of incentive daycare and I'm having a fight with my husband, then this idea that we just shut off and are great at work and that's not realistic. And so in those instances, it's that curiosity because those are those times where you'll come into a meeting and somebody says something, but it triggers you the wrong way where normally

Scott Ward (46:01)
Mmm.

Laura Pitsch (46:16)
had you not had a fight with your husband and your kids, then you'd be fine. Yeah, it's a tricky one.

Scott Ward (46:22)
And I wonder if we could collaborate to kind of think of just a minor mindset shift that would be helpful because it does feel like, okay, here's one connection that I'm making. see if I can bring it around. Sometimes my ideas don't always kind of coalesce, but here's when a restaurant or something, when something's wrong with the food.

or you have some bad experience in any company, it's actually like this golden opportunity for the business to solidify you as a loyal customer forever, depending on how you handle it, or to ruin it so you never come back. But it's actually like a very poignant moment if you see it that way, instead of being defensive and like, well, you shouldn't have wanted your food warm or whatever. ⁓

Laura Pitsch (47:13)
Yeah

Scott Ward (47:15)
I wonder if it's a way, I wonder if we can look at people challenges this way too, right? Because it really is like this golden opportunity actually to go deeper with a person, solidify their loyalty on there and, and, and make it so that things are better forever. And maybe that's a way, maybe that's a way to recast or to re re reorient how you feel about this, the disruption.

of yet another challenge around people. don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Laura Pitsch (47:42)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. think how you often I see how you handle these things well or poorly has a big impact on the future retention and investment of that employee. you know, if yeah, if I'm having a bad day and you reprimand me and you don't ask what's going on and, know,

or you embarrass me in front of a large group, which we see and happens, that, you know, that I've heard so many times, people will hold on to that for their next year in the business. And when I come in and ask them some questions, they'll say, well, yeah, a year ago, this, you know, I was having a really bad day and this person yelled at me in a meeting. So I don't participate in meetings anymore. And I don't, you know, I don't share my feedback because they shot me down. And so,

⁓ I think that's so right. And one of the things I talk about is taking a pause. It's so hard, but taking a pause when you're feeling defensive. I think we all know what that feeling feels like and taking a pause to breathe. Or often if I'm in a really heated conversation, I will, and I can sense that I'm, I'm reacting. I will actually just say, Hey, can we come back to this in 24 hours? And I,

I use the 24 hour rule a lot with all levels in a business because often when somebody comes back in 24 hours, have, they've, you know, calmed down a little bit. They have a different perspective. They're able to say like, you hurt my feelings or, you know, various different versions of this, not all the time, but some most of the time they'll come back.

Scott Ward (49:20)
I

thought about it and my perspective hasn't changed at all.

Laura Pitsch (49:24)
That does happen.

And I think, ⁓ shoot, okay, 24 hours didn't work. But a lot of times it does. Or even just in those moments, like I had coaching about this too, what do you do if you're leading a meeting and you're feeling triggered and maybe, so like that couple of breaths, that something to sort of like recenter yourself and stop the reaction.

⁓ because you have such an impact as a leader and how you react in these situations. So I think that's absolutely right. It's a good analogy of your experience as a restaurant customer and what happens and what they choose to do. And I really feel like it's the same in a business when these things happen.

Scott Ward (50:04)
Yeah. And in fact, it's not, if we can read, it's not negative. I mean, it is in one sense, but it's a bigger one step back perspective is that it's actually, um, has potential for it be a real positive. It's funny that you bring up the 24 hour rule because I'm, uh,

This is my aspiration as a father is to introduce even five seconds between me feeling frustrated with my kids and then what comes out of my mouth or what I say. That would just make a world of difference if I could at least just hang on and take three breaths. No, not three, but one breath even. And then I think I would be a lot better father if I did that. That's what I'm trying to do these days. So 24, let alone 24 hours, yeah.

Laura Pitsch (50:29)
Yeah.

Yes. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, have.

Yeah, isn't it funny that the difference and you can do this in a workplace and doing it at home sometimes is actually for me anyways, this can be harder where you're of the exact same scenario where I hope to pause before responding to my kids. And I definitely don't nail it all the time if they will call me out on that. But I actually think there's a similar principle, which is that.

Scott Ward (50:48)
five seconds.

Laura Pitsch (51:13)
⁓ And I've had to do this in my career as well, which is to go back and apologize or own when you mess up. And I do it with my kids a lot, but in work as well. You know, there are times where I've had to go back and say, you know, that was my, that was my, my bad. And that is hard. It is hard as a professional to own that you didn't respond how you wanted to. But man, does it make a huge impact on the relationship. Yeah.

Scott Ward (51:39)
Yeah,

and you know part of the feedback culture thing that we were talking about before is you can see situations where people are very sensitive like you it's very hard to provide feedback because Yeah, they're like very defensive and to see people in leadership humbly admit that they messed up and ask for forgiveness may have make an apology

That really helps to make it so that when a person receives negative feedback of some sort, that they don't take it, they can metabolize it because they've seen other people also. I guess there can be this feeling that

Laura Pitsch (52:06)
He does.

Scott Ward (52:19)
Messing up is just like an indictment on it's like a so deep cuts so much deeper than it needs to and so somehow we need to break that and and and a leader apologizing Is a good way for that for that to happen?

Laura Pitsch (52:33)
Yeah, and you want your people to make mistakes, like that's, you want them to be able to give you feedback. So some of the greatest ideas we had at Minding Yours and in other teams didn't come from me. They came from the team or the team saying, you know, this didn't land well and me hearing the feedback and the ability to, yeah, make the mistake and not feel like they're going to get fired or it's the end of the world.

Scott Ward (52:36)
Yeah.

you

Laura Pitsch (53:00)
It's a, yeah, it's a, I think it does take a bit and it takes so, that's what I mean. You have to keep ripping the bandaid off because it can be hard initially. And it doesn't always land super well if that's not what you grew up, you if nobody ever told you that you made a mistake and, you know, or gave you that feedback. I think it takes time to sort of work on that skill. Yeah.

Scott Ward (53:24)
Yeah, maybe actionable takeaway number two or three, can't remember might be even too light not to manufacturer but to but to be on the lookout for things to Mistakes to admit publicly

Laura Pitsch (53:36)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Scott Ward (53:37)
Because,

and just to set the culture of like, I mean, talk, failings or miss ups are not like indictments. Look, let me show you. I'm to do it right now. You know, in just sort of small ways, right? So that goes along with, so look for an encouragement or a positive feedback for other people and a self criticism to share every day. Find something. Yeah.

Laura Pitsch (53:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that.

Scott Ward (54:04)
So let's, let's transition here to something else I wanted to talk about, which is, you know, I'm a goal and accountability guy. so I kind of think in terms of, of, ⁓ okay, well, what is, what is the goal and how does that break down to the specifically for Habitstack and to the quarter of the month and the week, we don't have to do all of that on, on, on our time together here, but

It would be interesting to know like, are some examples or what's a paradigmatic example? I know it's different for every company and it's not going to, you know, there's no cookie cutter, but if you were to pick like, a bread and butter kind of common thing that you could characterize as a goal. you, if you bring on a COO, it would, this would be the type of thing that you could say, yeah, in 12 months, let's go for this goal. And the way we'll know that that's.

achieved as XYZ. Like what comes to your mind when I ask you that question?

Laura Pitsch (54:51)
Yeah, I think there's lots, but one of the things I see often is a founder who is admittedly or not burnt out and wants the ability to take a two week vacation and know that the business is going to operate or even sort of bigger than that is the goal is that they spend half of their time on strategic future focused ⁓

work. So that was one of the things we did with Courtney when I was at Mine and Yours is our goal was that she would be PR focused and she would be future business focused, 80 % of the time. So I think we could use that one. I think many founders that I work with are looking for that. They're looking for the ability to go on vacation and have things work well. And they're in the future hoping to get back to what they're so good at, which is that

Scott Ward (55:28)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (55:45)
creation, innovation, sort of next phase of the business. And so, yeah, I think that is a goal you can do in 12 months and sort of work back from.

Scott Ward (55:55)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I, you know, one nuance there, I'm kind of a goal geek. So I want to talk about one little nuance is that I feel like, you know, time tracking is you talk about time tracking and P and people are like, I don't want to do that. So one thing that I don't know if this is something you've seen success in, but I have, which is just to list out the categories that you will have no involvement in.

other than within this very specific case, like no more than one meeting per quarter on this topic. It needs to be so clear that it's objectively verifiable like yes or no, is this true or not? Then you get out, then you're not like, it's not a judgment call really, or heaven forbid, time tracking.

Laura Pitsch (56:25)
Yep.

yes.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I love that idea. That's what we did. That's what I would come in and do. That's what I did in my past role was we would say, what do you not, you what do you want to stay in? Sometimes that's easier. What do you want to stay in? And then go through and say, OK, are you comfortable passing off all the finance to me? Are you comfortable not being in a daily conversation about our buying patterns or

Scott Ward (56:50)
Right. Right.

Laura Pitsch (57:02)
And then if it's a yes, then okay, great, we can do that. So yeah, I think that's a great, and I know time tracking, nobody loves that. So yeah, I think that's a great place to start. And I try and say to founders, or one of the questions I ask when I start working with them is where do you wanna spend your time? Where are you, what are you great at? And where do you want to be spending your time? And then we sort of work backwards from there. And exactly as you say, it needs to be objective. It have to be simple.

Yes or no? Is this measurable? Is it simple? I think that's really important. Otherwise, it's sort of vague.

Scott Ward (57:35)
Yeah. How do you, what's in it? So let's say that somebody was working on something like that and, and, ⁓ what does the first quarter look like first 90 days? What would be an example of like, yeah, what I like to do is be able to say, look, if we accomplish this, then we would say we're, we're likely on track for the year, you know? so what would be something like that?

Laura Pitsch (57:56)
Yeah, I think you, so if the goal is to get out of the day-to-day business or at least the majority of it, then I think you are at a stage where you're looking at a leadership team. And so I think one of the starting points is saying, what are our key functions and who's the leader in each of those functions? So I think that's a clear.

Did we identify, do we need to recruit for, and are we clear on who the leaders are for these key areas of the business? And then I think within that, it's saying, great, based on that, what are their key two to three things that they are accountable for? Because this is sometimes hard for a founder. They're used to having their hands in everything. but for this first quarter, what are those metrics that would

help you as a founder know that the things under each part of the business are good, we're good. These three metrics, we hit them, we're okay there. I think that's the biggest thing. And then the one I'm surprised about often is a lot of teams don't have leadership meetings. So it's having, you've got these leaders, you've got metrics, and then creating that leadership meeting.

Scott Ward (58:44)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (59:01)
so that you have a place as a founder to stay sort of updated and aware of what's happening in the parts of the business. And we could have a whole podcast on running an effective meeting, but there's structure and templates. Chat TV can give you a basic leadership sort of structure for that meeting. But I think those are three things, sort of Q1, where you say, if we do these things, that is your start of.

Scott Ward (59:15)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (59:24)
starting to sort of essentially move decision-making power to different leaders in the business. And that's how we're going to make that 12-month goal.

Scott Ward (59:31)
Boom, I think that's perfect. Yeah. So basically there's, have ⁓ somebody who's accountable for each of the key areas. Each of them has three metrics. Maybe we take the quarter in order to discern them, but that at the end, know that they, the commit at the beginning is there will be three core metrics that we all agree are important for each functional area. And we're having regular leadership meeting, high quality leadership meetings.

Yeah, I think you're right. think if those things were done at the beginning of the first 90 days, you'd have a good feeling that, I think the founder's on. Probably we are going to achieve this yearly goal. Can I ask you one other question before I let you go? OK, you said, yeah, Chet Shibuchi can give you agenda for our leadership meeting. What is the thing that Chet Shibuchi

Laura Pitsch (1:00:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Scott Ward (1:00:16)
can't give you, so you have, like agenda is important, but it doesn't, like it doesn't guarantee that you have high quality leadership meetings. So what's the top tip for running a good leadership meeting?

Laura Pitsch (1:00:28)
Yeah, think that's a good question. What's my top? I think that there needs, you need to have direct and healthy conversations. Meaning, I think it's such a waste of time to have everybody do these updates and yep, everything's looking great and we're hitting our numbers. And I think you need to have numbers. So you need metrics of, I've always had dashboards in my meetings to say,

you know, it doesn't have to be big, but it's what are the three numbers per department that we're continuing to look at? So it's numbers and then it's at a leadership level, is your leadership team, is there's this culture of them having the real conversation, which is actually, well, actually Scott, you know, you didn't deliver on, or I'm having issues with our product chain or.

And having that conversation and having the ability to resolve it, I think is another thing. So that you're not having these continued conversations. So don't have a meeting for the sake of a meeting. Have a meeting for the sake of ⁓ really this like alignment or these bigger discussions that you need to have. A check in on the broader business and making sure that everybody sort of understands what's happening across the business. And then yeah, and then it's having this

the space to sort of have the real conversations. What's really happening in the business I think is important. That's not one, but that's a few.

Scott Ward (1:01:52)
Yeah, start and end on time because there's going to be another one that's going to be another one. You can't just can't be endless people. think there's something really, I haven't thought about how to articulate it, but there's something I think that is very powerful about being disciplined with the, with the structure that gives people a certain kind of confidence that, you know, it's not, this is not going to be a

Laura Pitsch (1:01:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Scott Ward (1:02:15)
I don't know, that we're running the ship. We're not just kind of not flying blind, but flying with the seat of our pants and just kind of rabbit-holing all over the place.

Laura Pitsch (1:02:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I always, so I would, in my universe, would start, the meeting started at nine. If you're not there, it doesn't matter if you're the founder, it doesn't matter who you are, we start the meeting. And it did change. Everybody would be, you know, sort of like quietly coming in at nine, oh five. And the minute you set that expectation of we start and end on time, and you were prepared and present in the conversation, that's another one of my non-negotiables is,

We all know there's a lot going on, but to have an effective meeting, we can't all be on our phones. We can't be, you know, like also emailing our team because why are we having this conversation then? So it's like, we start on time, there's a structure, we're present in the conversation. And I often say to the founders, like, if you're not confident, then like fake it till you make it a little bit. We can tell when you're sort of humming and hawing. so, you know,

Scott Ward (1:03:19)
You mean in how they lead the meeting? Okay.

Laura Pitsch (1:03:21)
Yeah, yeah,

come in, come with some confidence, you know, and practice with others if you need to, but come in with that confidence because people feel that. And if you're unsure, then they're unsure.

I actually think there's a real, mean, what you're taught, your, know, Habit Stack is a lot of what I would do without the, you know, the like terminology behind it. But I think it's so important in these businesses. And ⁓ we did, we did EOS at Mine and Yours. And I think it's good for some things and has its own challenges. Like there's a lot of layers to it. And I felt like it overcomplicated.

Scott Ward (1:03:42)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Laura Pitsch (1:03:58)
things like you've got rocks and then you've got all of these pieces and what it still didn't do was get us to do less things better. Like I used to be like all the time, we have to do fewer things better and we would try to and then it would be like, yeah, but we need this other rock and we need this rock and then inevitably we wouldn't do half of the things. yeah, think yours is like, yours makes sense to me and sort of. ⁓

Scott Ward (1:03:59)
Mm.

Mmm.

Right.

Right.

Laura Pitsch (1:04:26)
an easy structure to follow.

Scott Ward (1:04:28)
Yeah, that is such an interesting, observation. So Hamistack also doesn't automatically, I mean, can add a hundred yearly goals if you want to. But one thing that we just are, I just launched actually that I I'm pretty excited about is a report that basically ranks yearly goals based on weekly. I'll be based on the completion of weekly goals that are attached to it.

So I'm able to say, I know there's lots of nuance here and that it's not the whole picture, but if I was a betting man, I would bet that the ones at the top are going to get done and the ones at the bottom aren't. So there's two questions. One is, they, are your weekly behaviors translating into this yearly ranking? Is that correct?

You know, because there are the ones at the bottom indeed the ones that you want at the bottom because they're not always, you know, sometimes they're just the uncomfortable ones or the ones that you don't, yeah, they're harder or whatever. and then the second question is, are you happy with the, are happy with what you see? You know, there's, it, because the, basic theory is like very, it's very, ⁓ it's not very, it's not very high fluting, but it's basically a yearly goal.

Laura Pitsch (1:05:15)
Yeah, no. Yes.

Scott Ward (1:05:34)
that's hard and meaningful is probably going to take.

Maybe not 52 weeks of progress.

Probably 45, like it's in the 40s. And so if you're currently working, if you're currently making progress on it, two out of the last eight weeks, you ain't going to make it. So either let's not do it. So I'm working on this idea around carrying capacity, because everybody always says, how many year the goals should I have? And less is more, but other than that, you don't have much to say. So what I'm working on is being able to say, well,

Laura Pitsch (1:05:41)
a lot.

Yeah. ⁓

Scott Ward (1:06:05)
Look at that report and just assume that the bottom half aren't going to get done. So either, either, you know, maybe we should take them off. Do we talk about this already? can't remember. Yeah. So I'm kind of, I'm, I see the same thing that you did that the systems capturing and to do this and project management is this way too. Like, you know, they're great at capturing all of the things that you feel guilty that you're never going to do.

Laura Pitsch (1:06:12)
Yeah. No, no, no, it's smart though. Yeah.

Scott Ward (1:06:29)
That's, you know, and there's a place for it. know, you know, a sauna, et cetera. These things are helpful, but, but they don't, they inherently push you towards doing more things because it doesn't let you forget, the thing that you flitted through your mind three months ago that maybe you should do. And so it's on there now.

Laura Pitsch (1:06:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and maybe you probably should forget it for until you actually Yeah, I know it's a it's a tricky one But then you know and I think I said this but like so many founders are like, well just throw people at the problem and that is often not the solution because with every person is somebody to onboard and somebody to manage and somebody to you know set these expectations with and

Scott Ward (1:06:49)
Maybe you should forget it. Yeah, okay, sure.

Right.

Laura Pitsch (1:07:12)
I like, you we had interns and we had all these people and then because you can't actually do a good job with each of those people, then they don't accomplish what you're hoping that they're going to. And then you just have a bigger salary head count, you know, in costs and they're not like, there's something to be said for setting like really clear expectations and then being able to coach them along the way to then get to the outcome you want.

that then creates like a leader and somebody who can sort of then in the future run these things without so much support. But that's all time. ⁓ I don't, yeah, it's a, we've tried, we tried it all at Mining Yours. the biggest thing I said to the COO when I left was like, if you could, I will, there was a couple things, but it was like try and get her to do less and do.

Scott Ward (1:07:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Laura Pitsch (1:08:02)
fewer things better and we wouldn't have to repeat these goals because that's the other thing is you'd have an onboarding and full training program for the whole company and you would get 30 % done and then you get derailed for something else. And so it stays on that goal list for like years at a time. And you're like, at some point it just needs to fall off or become the number one priority. Yeah.

Scott Ward (1:08:21)
Right. Yeah.

Or do it. Yeah.

This is, beg people a lot of times like, well, you know, like, no, like I know it's arbitrary that we said we were going to do this by the end of the quarter. And it, it, cause there's no reason other than the fact we chose that, but we, but we have to develop like,

An intensity around it, not such that we destroy our lives and we're not going to tank the business in order to achieve this one goal or all manner of silly things that you wouldn't do, obviously. But we can afford to double our commitment to it, probably. Maybe even triple our commitment to it, to achieve it on time and as stated. Why? Partly just because it's fun and it feels good to do that. But then also because...

it's just gonna pile up. Like you said, like basically like, oh, you know what? I didn't quite make it, but it'll be wrapped up in the following month and like, oh, you we didn't quite make it this year. But you know, and then this keeps going and all of sudden you're

Laura Pitsch (1:09:20)
Yeah,

totally. That's where the accountability piece would come from is you also have people, one person that's supposed to own six of these goals, which they actually can't accomplish. I know they're not going to get it done. They know they're not going to get it done, but then also they're not held accountable to getting it done.

And so then it just continues on. And it's such a tricky, like we would talk about, well, do you, like at Lululemon, your bonus is based on your ability to complete your, or it was, complete your quarterly objectives and your annual objectives. And so like you had an incentive. Like I was going to, where possible, complete my three things that year. It was always two to three.

Scott Ward (1:09:55)
Right.

Laura Pitsch (1:10:05)
And there was a reason and not everybody needs that, but you know, have to, and then there was accountability in place. Like if you're off track, you know, somebody's going to be having that conversation with you. And that's a tricky one to have in a smaller business because often they don't have the money to be doing these annual bonuses. You know, or yeah, we just tried to figure out like what's the

How do we get people to really own those things and drive it themselves? It's a hard one.

Scott Ward (1:10:32)
Yeah, yeah, that's that

I would be curious to hear if you found there to be any dark side to, money being attached to things in terms of, you know, you're highly, you kind of incentivize the sandbag, because you want to hit those. And I know there's ways to mitigate against that, but, also, yeah, anyway, that would be, it's, I find that a very interesting area. How do you have goals that are real?

Laura Pitsch (1:10:40)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I

Scott Ward (1:10:57)
and there are quote unquote consequences of some sort that they, such that people care about them. Ideally, there are things, are internal consequences, know, that things that they just really want to be true in this world and in this business. But.

Laura Pitsch (1:11:08)
Yeah.

Scott Ward (1:11:10)
I think that's a tricky thing for founders because nobody cares about the business as much as the founders do and too much to their frustration. Founders cannot, why doesn't anybody care about my business as much as I do? Like, well, mean, it's your business. That's why. And also you are, that you, are constitutionally designed to, to be this way. And, and that's why you're the founder. So.

Laura Pitsch (1:11:16)
No, totally.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's your business. I know. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, I know that is a hard one. I know that's a, I do think there are people that care and like I often feel like I care too much about, actually I've always been like, God, I wish I cared less because this would be easier for me. But that has to be like almost an internal thing, like an internally motivated, like even if my money wasn't tied to,

Scott Ward (1:11:44)
Right. Right.

Laura Pitsch (1:11:57)
these things, I am an achiever and I'm a like get things done type of person. And so I'm still gonna be doing my goals and like moving us forward because I love to. But also I think there's like parts of it, right? Like if you give me a goal that I don't care about and I'm not that excited about and this not doesn't line up with my strengths, then am I gonna prioritize this? I don't know, probably not. ⁓ And that's sometimes what I've.

find with people is they're like, well, that's nice that the founder wants to make 12 million this year and you want me to help us get there. like, I don't, I'm so excited about that. Like, yeah, it's a tricky one.

Scott Ward (1:12:30)
Very nice. Wow, I'm really

Beautiful. Laura, this has been such an engaging conversation. We covered a lot of ground and there's a lot of ground yet to be covered, but we took a chunk out of some good topics there. I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to come and talk to me about these things and let's do it again sometime.

Where can people find out about what you're up to and how you help people?

Laura Pitsch (1:13:01)
Yeah, so they can find me on my website, it's laurapitch.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn. You're welcome to DM me. I always say DMs are open if you want a sense for whether we'd be a good fit or just have an idea that you want to run through. You're always welcome to DM me, but yeah, website or LinkedIn.

Scott Ward (1:13:20)
Great. And that's Laura P I T S C H pitch.

Laura Pitsch (1:13:25)
Yep.

Thank you so much. Yeah, we could have done this for two more hours, but thank you so much.

Scott Ward (1:13:29)
That's right. Have a great rest of the day.