Drones, Renters, or Owners: Leading People Through Transition

What if the hardest part of leading through change is not building the plan, but accepting that the plan will never survive contact with reality? 

In this episode, Elizabeth Ledoux talks with Mike Wettlaufer, a retired Navy rear admiral and lifelong entrepreneur, about leading people through change. Across 38 years and thousands of people, Mike learned that a straight line from A to B is a fantasy. You hope you land somewhere near where you aimed, but the value was never the plan itself. It lives in the planning: the relationships you build, the options you explore, and the readiness to pivot when something you never saw coming arrives. 

Mike and Elizabeth get into the human side of transition, from why communication is the hardest work a leader does to how you win the middle of a room instead of exhausting yourself on the people who will never come along. Mike maps his own framework of drones, renters, and owners directly onto Elizabeth’s Transition 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0, and he makes the case that ownership is something you build in a successor over time, not something you hand them on day one. If you are a business owner thinking about bringing successors into the process, this conversation is a practical look at how to start early and how to do it well. 

Key takeaways from this episode: 

• The plan is never the point. The planning is. A straight line from A to B does not happen, and the real value lives in the process, the relationships, and staying ready to pivot when something you never planned for shows up. 
• Communication is the hardest work a leader does. People take in information differently, and when someone “doesn’t understand,” it usually means you have not yet found the way to reach them. 
• You do not need the whole room. Roughly twenty percent will follow you because you are the boss, twenty percent never will, and the real work is the middle sixty percent. You only need momentum from about a third of them to start moving. 
• Sudden change creates drones. When a decision lands with no warning, people resist it like a threat. Warm the room early so they build antibodies instead of fighting the decision. 
• Ownership is built, not handed over. You create owners by giving successors real, low-stakes work early and letting them own the result, not by putting them in the C-suite on day one. Coach instead of correct, and let the honest assessment come from them. 
• Without a debrief, there is no learning. Plan, prepare, and execute, then sit down and debrief. That is where the plan gets adjusted and where people actually grow. 
• Start early enough that leaving is not too soon. Owners often step back before their successors are ready. Beginning the process years earlier lets you find the gaps at the five-year mark and still have time to pivot. 

Connect with Elizabeth Ledoux and the Transition Strategists:
Website: https://transitionstrategists.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetransitionstrategists
Elizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethledoux/
Transition Strategists on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transitionstrategists/
Transition Strategists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@transitionstrategists

Subscribe to “The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux” on your favorite podcast player:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3MxSYA2
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3IhMMux

Our Sister Show: Your Next Gen Friend
Hosted by Andrea Carpenter, Your Next Gen Friend is for the next generation stepping into leadership in family and private businesses. If you’re a successor figuring out your path, this show is for you.

Website: https://yournextgenfriend.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournextgenfriend/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@yournextgenfriend
Andrea on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreakcarpenter/
Spotify: https://yournextgenfriend.com/open-spotify
Apple Podcasts: https://yournextgenfriend.com/apple-podcast

Get Elizabeth Ledoux and Laura Chiesman’s latest book, “It’s A Journey: The MUST-HAVE Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning”: https://amzn.to/3oq2LQv

Drones, Renters, or Owners: Leading People Through Transition Transcript

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Hi everybody and welcome back to our podcast, The Business Transition Roadmap. I’m Elizabeth Ledoux, the host today, and I am so grateful and so honored to be with Mike Wetlofer. ⁓ He is a rear admiral, ⁓ U.S. Navy retired. He is an entrepreneur at heart, and he has so much background and so much experience in so many different things. ⁓ You know, in the Navy, he served

38 years and he was a carrier aviator and also test pilot and he’s nuclear trained ⁓ as a naval officer. And so I’m just again grateful to have him here. I’m gonna turn it over to you, Mike, and can you just tell us a little bit about your background, your experience, and some of the entrepreneurial things that you’re doing now?

Mike Wettlaufer:
Sure. Elizabeth, thank you so much. And I really truly appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and certainly ⁓ to reach out to folks who

who maybe you know need a little bit different view of of what they’re doing and and how they’re gonna get after it. ⁓ I tell you 38 years goes by pretty fast. And I was fortunate in the in the Navy that I went I I found a job. I literally found something that ⁓ that made me passionate. flying off aircraft carriers is really dynamic. But before that I’m a science guy, I have microbiology. I thought I was gonna be a doctor and then I decided I never wanted to be inside of a laboratory again.

And I went to the Navy and Hey, what do you got? And they say, Hey, do you want to be a pilot? And I How much does it pay? And here I am. ⁓ and so you know, right, it wasn’t a lifelong passion to fly, it’s a passion built on that experience. ⁓ but then the the entrepreneurial spirit, most people don’t realize they think you’re in the military, it’s like a regimented thing, it is what you make of it. And my career path is very very different ⁓ than most of my my peers, certainly at the time. ⁓ but

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
All that to say that it was very I flew off aircraft carriers. I lived five different times in overseas outside the United States. I never lived in San Diego, which is a rarity in the Navy. ⁓ but I lived in Japan three times. I lived in ⁓ in Germany, I lived in the UK, I work with the Brits, I work for the Brits. I used to say the Queen would pay my travel expenses, which is kind of fun. and I did lots of test, interesting test things, which are also although you know a lot of planning intensive, of

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm-hmm.

Ha.

Mike Wettlaufer:
course, but you’re also exploring opportunity and developmental test ⁓ from simulation ⁓ and beyond. And then I was fortunate to have a ⁓ experience working for Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Gates in a policy job. And people thought, well, that sounds kind of boring. Yeah, maybe sometimes. Well most of the time. but there were these nuggets of opportunity to learn from really experienced diplomats, senior level military people at the at the ⁓

⁓ the seam or you will the the the the the the there’s some friction there between the military level and the political level right and you had to understand where you are and who owns the risk and we can talk about that too. ⁓ and then ⁓ and then in command commanding squadron level ⁓ commanding two different ships one being an aircraft carrier and then commanding lots of ships and lots of people but really interesting at the end of my 38 years the last four years or so

I commanded a a global fleet of commercially owned and operated and government owned and operated vessels. And we did lots of experimentation. It wasn’t just write a contract and take something someplace or use a navy ship or go take some beans and bullets and gas to a to a navy vessel. It was all kinds of experimentation, both in the data side ⁓ and in the physical side, developing ⁓ ways to deliver things in in that would be new, more distributed, networked. and ⁓

Since I left the Navy ⁓ a few years ago, I’ve been involved in ⁓ youth development organizations at the board level, Virginia Space Authority, which is ⁓ really cool, one of four places in the United States that launched the space of Wallops Island on the east coast of Virginia as a a board member with fiduciary responsibility. I’m on ⁓ several startup boards, including nuclear fuel, nuclear ⁓ development and reprocessing.

it’s really, you know, it it it is a passion, right? How do you make a difference? And so this this ⁓ technology ⁓ called cool mint, at least the the commercial side, is ⁓ is meant to help people ⁓ with a overheated body. So if you take core temperature out through through the hands and the feet, ⁓ and you go, You can’t just stick your hand in a bucket of ice, no, that doesn’t work because your body constricts, your your blood vessels constrict. So the temperature is important.

the radiative effect of your hands and taking advantage of that with with a water flow that does you know actually touching the water. and you know lots of other detail there, but it’s just really amazing opportunity to take ⁓ to take what is a ⁓ human performance enhancing capability that we’ve that was found in the research to now maybe address some ⁓ medical challenges or overheating body challenges with menopause, perimenopause, women, pregnant women.

and get some more comfort without having a pharmacological ⁓ intervention to make it happen. And then ⁓ finally, last thing most recently, not finally, right, but most recently in in ⁓ is to ⁓ work it we’re working on a ⁓ undersea test range there’s no commercial undersea test range there’s a log jam in getting things done we want to protect our infrastructure the data across cables the things that are financial and ⁓ and learning

global connection processes rely on. You you need to figure out how to how do we protect those things, how do we maybe guard them, how do we measure them, and how do we help keep others maybe out of our ⁓ of our backyard where we don’t want them. And ⁓ anyway, I’ll stop there because I think there’s a there’s a lot of opportunity to to talk about it.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
That’s great.

Yeah, yeah. And I think everybody who’s listening in can see just the the vast array of background that Mike has. And today, I you know, I don’t know, maybe at some point in time we’ll do another podcast to dive deeper into some of these things. Today, what we want to talk about is the opportunity to lead through change.

And ⁓ I think that that’s an incredible topic because as business owners and as you you know, even as you run your business, but also as you start to transition out, ⁓ there’s always change happening. Transition just is a little bit more intense as far as the change is concerned, because you’re moving people farther faster. And I thought Mike, this would be a great topic for us to dive into since you have been able to do that for many, many years.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah, thanks Elizabeth. So, you know, ⁓ people look at the military that way are really good at planning.

Right. We’re really, really good at planning. As a matter of fact, I do some work for the Naval War College and we go and help higher level headquarters with those processes, but not telling them what to do. That’s the key. Not telling them what to do, helping them with the process of planning. And ⁓ the plan isn’t everything, right? It’s the planning, it’s the interaction, it’s the relationships, it’s exploring what the challenges may be. ⁓ so that when you’re faced with the ones that you didn’t plan for, because they’re gonna happen.

That you’re ready to pivot because you’ve explored and you’ve created the relationships being that that important, you created this connectivity with all those that may be involved, a small team, startup team, right? The startup team with the venture capital folks. Maybe it’s the startup team with the family that’s going to fund it or the family offices behind it, or it’s the transition from, and I’m doing this now, a startup entity.

⁓ that is going to eventually, when funded, become a corporation, and you’ve got to start putting people into jobs that you haven’t worked with before necessarily and picking those folks. In the military, in my experiences, particularly in command or going to a leadership position, there’s an ex you you have this expectation. Most people have an expectation, this is what it’s gonna be like when I get there. I’m gonna say X, Y, and Z, and you know, ⁓ A, B, and C will happen. And it’s just not true. ⁓

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
And so the so I always found it interesting, and maybe just because of my personality, that people were surprised that it wasn’t like they expected it to be. And so ⁓ that’s part of the mentoring process too. It’s it is not gonna be exactly like what you expect. But writing down a structure and having ⁓ having the goals in mind, right? The leadership really are the ones that are gonna look out far. That’s your job.

Right, look out far and take the near term and get it there. Right. And it may not be a direct path, probably not a direct path, right? It’s gonna be a path. No, it’s a yeah, it’s a pinball game, right? And things are gonna happen and the market may change or the underlying thesis may change because technology dramatically ⁓ changes, outpaces you potentially, ⁓ because you weren’t broad enough initially, right? When you’re thinking about what are the options may be. So

Elizabeth Ledoux:
More than likely not a direct path. No.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Back to the planning piece. Planning, the process of planning, having a process is absolutely important. And involving others in the process and not expecting them to think like you do. Because if you expect them to think like you do, you’re going to be trapped in a silo, and your little silo of excellence will not do well when exposed to another silo, right? Or a change. So the silo of excellence, you may be the best person in the world at X.

Mike Wettlaufer:
⁓ but why comes along and if you hadn’t spent any time thinking about options, not necessarily why, but thinking about the options that may occur and being able to pivot rapidly because you’re not wedded necessarily to this starting point or this starting line, ⁓ starting line of effort, then then you’re ready.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, yeah, you know, ⁓ we were we I have had a lot of opportunities in my lifetime and one of the fun ones was just yesterday ⁓ we were a keynote with about twenty five or thirty business owners that ⁓ came in through Charles Schwab and ⁓ it was it it was great to watch them and to be with them, but realizing you know, there were a variety of people up on stage ⁓ that were talking about

Gosh, estate and talking about trusts and talking about taxes and talking about opportunities and talking about business structures and ⁓ all of these different options that people have in front of them to do their transition, not to mention adding in the people, which is what we do, right? Adding in the people side of how do you get the people to move and how do you get them to ⁓ actually do whatever the plan says. So ⁓

But yeah, trying to to do that future thinking, I think the planning is so important and I love your point that the plan doesn’t ever really come out the way you think it will.

Mike Wettlaufer:
No, you mean you hope that the end point maybe is somewhere near where you where you started, right? ⁓ I would like to say, you know, if you draw a big cloud, right, and you maybe the lower left hand corner, if you just, you know, excuse me for the geometry here, lower left hand corner you draw the A, right, and I’m gonna get to B way up here in the upper right hand corner, and you draw a straight line, you can be assured that you will never be on that straight line. and getting from A to B. You will you will have something that’s things that occur along the way. ⁓

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
So all the people, right? The people are so critical, as you just mentioned. And I would say ⁓ one of the things I used to say, well, I still say it today, communication is the hardest thing we do. It is wicked hard, it’s frustrating, they don’t understand. If you hear somebody say they don’t understand, then there should be a mirror put on them that says, you don’t understand how to speak to them. You don’t understand how they receive.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Well that.

Mike Wettlaufer:
You don’t understand how, and by the way, if there’s more than one, they’re gonna receive differently, right? So you one you may have to text, and the other one, if you text them, they’re gonna think that you hate them. ⁓ and so you’re gonna have to call them, and vice versa, and I’m being a little facetious, you know, with the with ⁓ you know generational interpretation of communication. What does that mean? you put a period in your text, you’re obviously mad. ⁓ right? Or you’re in your email, right? ⁓ and so ⁓ understanding the

Personalities, the differences, extrovert, introvert, yes. As a judger, ⁓ as a person, a knowledgeable person that knows a ton of stuff, and they’re gonna challenge you with what they know, not with what you know. And so how do you navigate that? But then more importantly than that, is is what’s the what’s the break point from not moving forward to moving forward? What what’s that number? Right? And so a large group, you know, five thousand people on aircraft carrier, ⁓

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Or 3,000 people on the internal part of the crew in a maintenance period and 5,000 civilians on board the ship. How do you get them all, try to get them all going in generally the same direction? ⁓ It’s 51%, right? You need a momentum, you need something, and you need to show success. So 20%, you don’t have to worry about it. Because they’re going to believe you because you’re the boss, you’re the dad, you’re the CEO. 20% are never going to believe you.

It’s a waste of time almost even trying to get them on side. ⁓ it’s that middle it’s that middle sixty percent, right? So how do I target that middle sixty percent? And and I just need I just need thirty-one percent, right, to start to get rolling. And you need even less than that to show progress.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Wow.

Well and and to think about that, ⁓ you know, what comes to mind for me are a couple things. ⁓ because one of the things that we talk about on this podcast is what we call transition three point So transition one point ⁓ basically w it’s the old way of doing transition. It’s like, hey, I’m gonna transition, I’m not gonna tell anybody until I actually do it, right? And then everybody’s gonna find out.

And whatever happens, happens and everybody’s you know, it’ll just be fine. transition two point ⁓ that is where I decide as the leader owner that I’m gonna transition. I tell you about it, but you have no input, right? So as a successor, it’s like, yeah, you’re gonna be CEO. You know, I picked you because you’re my son or you’re my daughter or you’re the one that I want. And and and the rest of the people like they know about it but they have no

Mike Wettlaufer:
Right.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
input, they have no say, they’re just along for the ride. And we coined this term transition 3.0, which in that one, the owner brings in the successors to help them learn

and grow and take the opportunity to, you know, for them to learn and grow along the way and learn about these options and learn why one was picked. ⁓ So in your planning

Mike Wettlaufer:
It’s a great it’s a great question. And what I wrote down three things. 1.0, I wrote down drones. 2.0, and I’ll tell you in a second. 2.0 I wrote down renters.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
⁓ what’s the value in bringing others in to help you?

Mike Wettlaufer:
And 3.0, I wrote down owners, not just one owner, but owners. And so the the and I just have an example from talking to a friend of mine yesterday who is part of a ⁓ a healthcare concern that was was ⁓ own was founder, owned and operated, very large national. ⁓ it was transitioned and bought out in a private equity process and ⁓

And then ⁓ without notice, they picked a new CEO just recently and through the PE thing. They created a bunch of drones because they just set themselves back so dramatically by not telling anybody, didn’t warm up the warm up the audience, right? They didn’t have the the opening act out there and they didn’t get them involved in at least thinking. So it’s a shock. That’s a shock to the system. And so that’s number one shock. Don’t create shock, create antibodies.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm.

Mike Wettlaufer:
People just resist the white blood cells come out and they try to eat eat the tumor, right? The tumor is the boss in this case. Right. Yeah. And then and this well, the second one, the renters, right? Hey, renters, I’m just I’m just paying rent. I don’t I don’t care about the pay the wallpaper or the paint. I don’t care about the front door. If something breaks, I’m just gonna wait till it gets really bad and then I’m just gonna complain that you don’t do your job and take care me. Right. And and so that

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Is the boss. That’s funny.

Mike Wettlaufer:
relationship is is really key there and you haven’t developed a relationship in two point ⁓ that makes the one and three point really work which is hey you you may not you may not really may not really know them. They may be your kids, but you don’t really know them until you know how they they react. You know how they they think. And you can’t tell them how to think. You have to you have to you can tell them how you think but then you need to give them

Processes, pro things to do that maybe are low impact initially. You can do this with a 12-year-old, right? Low impact, but get them involved in the process. The process is, hey, how do we make dinner? I’m just being facetious, right? But it could be anything in that corporate process. Hey, do you start off sitting in the C suite? Most young people today think they’re gonna sit in the C suite on day one. And they don’t know, and that’s let me tell you, that’s it all the time. They just don’t understand.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
It’s true. But India.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Right, they may be really good and really smart, but they’re not don’t have the experience base to rely upon to navigate the challenges that you know about as the previous or the current leader. And so creating ownership is a is not it’s not digital, it’s experiential. It’s a Malcolm McDowell ten thousand repetitions kinds of thing. Like how many opportunities can you give them? And not just you and that person, hey, they’re gonna have to manage teams.

Engineers have one of the major challenges here, right? They don’t get taught, they don’t have a leadership opportunity until later on, then suddenly they are a 1.0. Hey, you’re now the manager of this group of engineers. I don’t know how to do that. ⁓ and so you know, teaching them and engaging them, ⁓ coaching, I would say not teaching, coaching, giving them things to do, maybe in work together, brother and sister. Hey, here’s your thing, here’s your goal, here’s our goal.

Come back, this is a you know, come back to me and tell me what you’re thinking about it, create this interaction, and then and never say, I wouldn’t do that. Never say that. Never say that, well, that doesn’t sound right. That’s just like 1.0, put up the roadblock. Be a drone. and and then give them the stake, the leverage that you have, I think, in in the in the higher level leadership, corporate, family, doesn’t really matter, leverage you have.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Is when you teach them to think and own and generate success on their own. Then you have leverage. Then they’ve learned from you and they’ll come back to you and say, what do you think about this? Particularly for somebody who’s transitioning a business, right? You may you kinda want to be on the sidelines to make sure that thing is going if you’ve got some future interest in it. But you but if you you can’t reach in and tell them what to do. And so because you’ll destroy that ownership that they’ve created. ⁓ we’ve all seen boards.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
ownership

you create in that human, right? We’ve all seen boards that go in and try to go, okay, turn left. ⁓ you’re gonna lose a lot of people. Maybe you have to, maybe you need to, maybe this is the time to do that, but not all the time.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Well in in as as people go through this transition, there are many whens. So you gave the great example of, you know, a new CEO gets popped in, right, without anybody knowing. And I love the way that you framed transition one point two point and three point the renters and you know, onto the owner you know, just ownership in that. but in the many whens, there are

successors in a job, there are successors in decision making levels, and then there’s successors in actual ownership, actual equity. And so as you walk through that, I think, you know, mentoring so many owners, I think, in my opinion, leave too soon. They assume that the the next person coming in

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
⁓ even if they’ve worked in the company with them for quite a few years, kind of through osmosis is gonna be able to just run the company and and you know, the statistics are horrible that two thirds of companies that in change hands generationally fail. And and

You know, our statistic is much, much higher. We have ninety five percent make it, so or more. So but I just I have this foundational belief over my thirty years that owners leave too soon, which is and the successors, they are not ready for the job for the decision making and the ultimate ownership.

Mike Wettlaufer:
And probably because he didn’t get involved early enough. Right. So to w the too soon may not be too soon if you start the process farther left on the calendar. Right? That involvement right. Right. So I I know a a a company ⁓ that I’ve dealt with a ⁓ an IT company and but they are a deliberately developmental organization.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
But yes.

Right. Yeah, it’s from the beginning to end. Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
And that means they develop their people from day one. And they do it by a a couple of ma major ways, right? One of the major ways is complete transparency. ⁓ and you go, god, I can’t be completely transparent. Well, yes, you can. You just decide not to be. It’s very scary, right? ⁓ Yeah, so but it’s it’s it’s that small project generally inconsequential to the larger organization to begin with. But a small project, hey, you’re gonna

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Scary. It’s scary sometimes, right?

Mike Wettlaufer:
You’re gonna ⁓ plan and execute next week’s or next month’s get together with all the outline people and do the lunch and and you know, do the schedule and everything, and and you’re gonna have to figure out how do you, you know, interact with everybody that makes that happen. and and you get checkpoints along the way just just to make sure, you know, but but if it’s not consequential if, hey, the the ham didn’t come, but we got turkey. And I’m, you know, again, facetious, right?

⁓ we have food and we have drinks and it’ll be okay because it’s just a lunch in the middle of a conference. but you don’t tell that person it’s just a lunch, right? And so and so then you know that you and maybe they’re working with somebody else. And again, that’s just that’s just a maybe a very basic example, but that’s what this company does. Entry level. that’s what you’re gonna do. And then when they they have a feedback process where they’re open to everybody. Everybody is in the feedback process and they actually use this.

And they that’s a you know the phone with an app on it, and they give instant feedback with the presentation. And it goes up on the screen. Now, this is really dramatic. You have to build a culture to do this, right? But they right, but it goes up on the screen behind them. Hey, you’re talking too loud, you’re not talking loud, you’re not looking at us. Or you hey, that’s a you know, but it’s not they’re they’re constructive, they’re not meant to be negative, fully negative comments, but but the numbers there’s they’re supposed to be truthful.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm.

And I’m like, wow, yeah.

Sure.

Mike Wettlaufer:
And you can’t is a four number scale, one, two, three, four, four being really good, one being really bad. There’s no middle ground. So even the people voting can’t hedge. two point five.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. It’s it’s a whole numbers.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Right. And so

yeah, the but the point of that was that clear assessment, the feedback process starts early, and that’s part of creating an owner. Right. Is an o ownership, right? And I don’t mean the owner that person’s getting but owning owning what they do. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yep. No. Yeah, but ownership in the in the Yes. And and at each level, which means,

yeah, to me it’s like how do we get them into the job level? How do we get them into the governance level? How do we get them into the ultimate ownership level? And sometimes they start these successors, they’ll start as an owner because the mom or dad’ll gift them. So they start as an owner, so they’re there and then, you know, they have to figure out are they right for the job and all of that. But ⁓ in the planning, ⁓

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah.

Right.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
I think going back to that concept, that’s a strong place to, in my opinion, help and mentor those successors all the way through this whole process ’cause it’s not just about a job.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah.

No, and and then in that planning process, I’m I build the structure. Here’s my wire diagram of of you know the organization. The owner’s way up here, you know, the king. And I I I do mean that pejoratively and I’ll talk about that in second. But ⁓ the you know, the and but where’s the person start and having agreement on where they should start, even if they’re an equity owner at the early stage, hey, you’re gonna start here so you can learn about this area.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
And then once you learn about how do we how do we set ⁓ requirements, then you’re gonna go over to contracting and see how they execute that. And you can start here, you’re not the you may have equity, but you’re not in a authoritarian position authority position yet. And then then you move them around so that they cr you create how you know the end-to-end of the company. That’s really important. End-to-end execution, right? And and ⁓ and so you you get this opportunity to move around, and they’re part of that discussion because they’re equity.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
They have some equity. ⁓ many employees have equity in companies, but they’re not part of the decision-making process, right? ⁓ and so, but if you have this future plan, then maybe that’s a way to get them, not maybe it works, it that’s how you get them involved in decision making and owning the decisions and an assessment process that says, ⁓ that wasn’t very good, but you don’t tell them that, they tell you that. And then you navigate in that discussion to get a really clear

Elizabeth Ledoux:
That’s right. That’s right.

Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
get a clear shared understanding of of the assessment. ⁓ and what, you know, well, the way we do in the Navy, right, and aviation, right? I get I take my watch off, right, I put it on the counter, I hack, everybody’s got the same time. We do a brief. We go out and execute with that mission, we walk on time, everything’s on time, right? And you the notes are timed. You come back, you have tapes, I know I was here, these are me talking with my hands, the fighter thing, you know, very basic, right?

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, mm-hmm.

Mike Wettlaufer:
But ⁓ and and all that, and your responsibility is to take notes. So you also learn how to take detailed notes so that in the assessment process you participate, you’re not just the end of the of the gun. ⁓ and so ⁓ and at the end, you know, with with the watch and managing up cards and what happened here and there, you actually build the picture. And that’s a detailed, very tactical level detail of movement. But you do the same thing in anything. If there’s no debrief, you plan.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
You execute, right? You plan, prepare, you execute, and if you don’t debrief, there’s no learning. There is no learning, right?

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. Yeah. Well and the and

the learning, like and going back to the concept of, you know, business transition strategies, some of these strategies, in my opinion, most of them are at least five years, but I think ten years, you know, fifteen years is a great is a great strategic ⁓ runway for somebody because there are so many moving parts with the people. ⁓ and you’re changing lives.

⁓ you’re changing your own life as a transitioner. ⁓ you are morphing your successors’ lives, you’re giving them opportunities, you’re figuring out if they are or are not the right person for that job so you don’t get they don’t get stuck with that for the rest of their life. And you know, that’s a big deal to put somebody, you know, help somebody get into that place but not help them get out. ⁓

So so with that as as you wander through, the I think the debrief piece is so crucial and to be able to have that feedback loop because we just I think as owners we just get on this path and we’re just executing and growing and every day we’re moving forward, moving forward and you know, all of a sudden we’re at the end of the road and we go, we’re supposed to be leaving now. Wow. Yeah.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you look over your shoulder and there’s there’s

nobody really there, and you’re over the other shoulder and their mouth is wide open going, my god, I’m shocked, right? Yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
I know. I know. my gosh. Or or I got sick or I did whatever, right? The world will

the world takes care of some of that too. And ⁓ yeah, just being prepared and being ready for that.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah.

Well then you know if you to your point about hey if if you had a fifteen year plan, if you could do it and fift if you had a fifteen year plan, you have to start really early thinking about it. Right. And the other part is maybe at five years, you really get to figure out where the holes are. And I mean holes in a not in a bad way. Like I’ve identified this this is a place this person doesn’t have the skills. So what what can I do with them? maybe I call my friend who’s got another company and say, Could you help me by putting

Elizabeth Ledoux:
You do.

Mike Wettlaufer:
my person in your company in this area, right? And and where now you’ve really expanded the learning and the potential that that person can come back and fulfill. Or they decide because they always have a vote. This is the world always has a vote, right? Time has a vote. Humans have a vote and they may decide that, ⁓ this one is not for me. And the earlier you know that, right, the more successful that transition could be. You can pivot because you plan.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. Yeah.

That’s right. That’s right. You can pivot because you planned. And there’s so much that we can explore here and so we could go into this for such a long time, but we’re already at our time. It goes so fast for me. I start talking with someone and then it it yeah, the the twenty or thirty minutes is gone. But you know, Mike, ⁓ I again just appreciate you being here and sharing some of these things with us because ⁓

Mike Wettlaufer:
Ha ha ha.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
The opportunity to lead through change, ⁓ that we have that as entrepreneurs to be able to do that because the business is always changing. And ⁓ yeah, I appreciate your thoughts on that it’s the planning process that’s important. The plan is great, but it usually does not go the way that you anticipate. And the debrief allows you to go back and adjust your plan and adjust your thinking.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Right.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
And adjust you know those next steps forward to what I think is then to lead in change.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Absolutely. Great. Really, really fun discussion. Thanks so much for having me involved and I look forward to talking to you again sometime.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Well, I am I am so pleased. So ⁓ I always ask at the end of our sessions, Mike, what’s one thing that you would leave with the audience for them to either to inspire them or to remember or to take forward?

Mike Wettlaufer:
Yeah. ⁓ and that one thing is ⁓ well there’s many things, right? But the the one thing is to listen. It’s you have to actively listen. I took me a long time to learn that, right? You get the military and I get this spot and I go okay, this and I you know, I learned, particularly when I transitioned from an all military organization where I could say things I had leverage that way to the civilian ⁓ organization. And I mean listening doesn’t mean just with your ears, it’s with your eyes. And you can look around a room

And ⁓ there’s a lot of people in that room that may be pretending to listen and maybe pretending to to inculcate what you’re saying. but you’ll be able to tell when you ask them a question, not an attack question, but a question. And so you know, watch the room and figure out who those people are. And I guarantee you, if you’re the big giant head at the t at the top of the table, if you look to the second row, you’ll see facial expressions.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm.

Mike Wettlaufer:
disagree with the person sitting at the table that’s talking. And that may be the person you need to go to.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. Yeah. Which means

if you’re not in person, be on Zoom, right? So that you can watch that room and do that. Well, Mike, thank you so much. Thanks again for being here. And ⁓ we’ll have some in the show notes we’ll have some information about Mike and some of the companies that he’s involved with, just ⁓ so that you can get to know him a little bit better and appreciate you.

Mike Wettlaufer:
Exactly.

Yeah, correct.

Thanks very much, Elizabeth. Have a great day. Bye bye.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
You too.

SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION

The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux

How do communities thrive? When businesses experience healthy growth and transition. Join CEO of The Transition Strategists, Elizabeth Ledoux as she and her guests identify what makes a successful business transition roadmap. If you know you want to transition or exit your business “one day”, today is the right day to start planning. This show will give you the roadmap.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, you can check out other episodes here: Podcasts – The Transition Strategists