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Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.

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I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you

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insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise

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but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.

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So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the

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milestones that mark the path to success.

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Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick,

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your host, and today my special guest is Wayne Berenger. He is founder at Jaro Group. He's a

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team aligner, a turnaround expert, an executive coach, speaker, and philanthropist. Welcome to

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the show, Wayne. Sheila, it is great to be here. Thank you very much.

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What was a pivotal moment that led you to a significant shift in your approach towards

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achieving your fullest potential? We're starting with the easy questions first.

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I love it. I think there's been a couple of pivotal moments, but the most pivotal for me

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was between me and my own coach a couple of years ago when I learned from him that I needed to sort

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of get out of my own way, allow humility to actually be not shame or thinking bad about

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yourself where you're less than in a group, but letting my circumstances change.

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I'm not in a group, but letting my superpowers, my Superman, if you will, come out without feeling

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superior to others. There's a lot of complication, but I think certainly for myself, and I see a lot

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of this in the folks that I am privileged to work with today, we all want to be humble. We all want

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to just sort of blend in, and we don't let our Wonder Woman or Superman out as a result. And I

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think that's a big part of the question. I think that's a big part of the question. I think that

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is the reason why I think that we all need those parts of us, and they need the best parts of those

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from us. And when I started learning how to process that in the right way, it just took a huge burden

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off my back, off my chest, whatever the analogy is, and allowed me to just bring my best self

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to the table. So I want to hear the mountain story, but was it the coach that led you to the

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mountain story, or how did you get there? Well, a different coach that I had had several years

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back took some of his clients rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park in California, a beautiful

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place. And on this rock climbing trip, I had never rock climbed, neither anyone else. And this

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terrific sort of corporate and activities coach blends physical experiences with leadership,

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emotional, personal experiences. And the night before we were going to go rock climbing, he took

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us to dinner. We had some drinks, lots of fun, private room in a restaurant, all of this on him.

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And we should have known something was coming. Right before we left, he turned on the slideshow

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before you leave. I'm taking a group to climb El Quijote later this year. Would you all like to go?

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And as I mentioned, we were having a great time. The drinks were flowing. We all said, yes, of

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course, let's do it. We love to do that. Woke up the next day and thought, what did I just agree to?

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You can probably tell my voice is scratchy. I don't breathe very well. I've had some surgeries. It's

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no big deal. But then to think about being at 19,000 feet potentially and a week of climbing

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and everything. Yeah, I got intimidated, but that's what led me to do it. I had already said yes,

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so I wasn't going to back out. And so I figured out the plan and did the training and wound up

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going on the trip in 2018. So where is this mountain? Mount Kilimanjaro is just about on

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the equator in a country called Tanzania on the continent of Africa. And the biggest city near the

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mountain is a city called Arusha. And it's a beautiful part of the world. People who go on

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African safaris, many of them wind up in Tanzania or Kenya, of course. And it's just a great part

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of the world. Sounds like quite the adventure. Certainly was. So what leadership lessons did

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you learn from the Tanzanian guides on Mount Kilimanjaro? Yeah, well, I learned so many

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leadership lessons that I renamed my company after Mount Kilimanjaro. So the Jaro group,

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that name is in honor of that experience. That photo you see right there is, or that painting,

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rather, is something that I bought in the neighborhood. You know, let me kind of set it

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up before I give you the leadership lesson that kind of turned me in this direction.

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It's a week long climb. Anybody can actually do it. So it's not rock climbing like we think about

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when we're on our hands and knees roped up on rocks. It's really a week long hike.

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But it's obviously it's a 60 mile round trip hike in a week. That's a good bit. It's 19,000

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feet in elevation at the top. That's a lot and the air is thin. So there's quite a bit that goes into

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it. On the third day of our hike, I turned to the friends of mine, you know, the fellow hikers and

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said, I think we over trained for this. I feel like Superman. I feel terrific. And they all agree

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that, yeah, we all feel great. So all this fear was starting to subside. About 20 minutes later,

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I stepped off the trail to get a drink. They kept going. I was going to be right back. And

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about 30 seconds later, I became really disoriented, almost sort of blacked out,

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couldn't really see too well, lost a little bit more of my breath and knew that I was in a little

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bit of at least disorientation, if not trouble. Where's my party? Where's my team? Where's my guys?

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Nobody was around. And so all the fear that I mentioned when I agreed to do this came rushing

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back in a single moment. What am I doing on this mountain? Why am I here? Just then the head of the

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guide group that took us seemingly out of nowhere showed up in front of me and said, Wayne, take my

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drink and let me have a drink. And I took some hydration and he said, give me your backpack.

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And he took my backpack off of my back and put it on his back. So now he has two backpacks.

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And he said, I want you to follow me and just put your feet in the steps that I leave behind

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and I'm going to get you to the next camp. And that's what we did. And he walked very slowly.

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He made sure that I knew where we were. And I just followed his footsteps all the way to camp.

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And we got to the next camp and my group was waiting there and I took a nap and had some dinner

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and was fine the next day. And three days later, we got to the next camp. And I was

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three days later, we got to the top. Fantastic experience. What I learned

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is what we try to help our clients with, which is, in fact, I started this business because I see

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people in corporations and in small businesses get disoriented in the workplace. They're not at their

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best. Work doesn't always bring out our best. The stresses and the chaos, the time pressures

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exacerbate that sort of lower self sometimes. And what we want to do is take their backpack,

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put it on our backs and help them get where they want to be and the path that they were on,

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but they just sort of slipped off for a bit. So that's what we do. That's how we try to do it.

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And it just was an amazing experience. The generosity and the genuineness and the joy

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of these guides on the mountain that spent every all day, every day climbing to 19,000 feet and back

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is just something that you have to experience. It was just terrific.

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Well, I'm breathless right now listening to that, just envisioning what you described.

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So back to the leadership lessons that you learned. I know that he helped you,

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you know, he guided you to get to that next, well, in this case, milestone, even though it was a camp.

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What other leadership lessons did you learn from that?

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Well, I think one of the main ones is that no matter how hard the physical or mental or emotional

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work is, if your values are aligned to that work, every minute is joyful. So these were,

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you know, by Western standards, some of the least economically fortunate people I've ever met for

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sure. But they were the happiest people by far that I've ever met. They were carrying 30 pounds

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of luggage on their heads every day, going up and down for water and helping us do all the things

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that we were moderately capable of doing. And we might, many of us might look at that and go, gosh,

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I couldn't do that. Like that's a very hard job. That'd be very stressful to keep everyone safe,

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et cetera. Never felt an ounce of that from them. It was only joy and impact and efficiency, right?

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How can they get us the quickest, most impactful way possible and have joy doing it? That's a huge

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lesson for us to learn. They're aligned with their values in the jobs that they do every day. And

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when you do that, it doesn't matter how hard it is. So in our work, we try to help people find that

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alignment. We find that most people haven't articulated their values clearly, and they're

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not intentional about their aspirations beyond getting a promotion. And if we can help align that

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in them, they can be the leader they want to become. So based on your experience, what are

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some of those significant obstacles that individuals face on the path to achieving their goals?

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Well, I think that that one that I just mentioned is a big one, right? So articulating their values,

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aligning that with their intention so that the work that they do is joyful no matter what. That's

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fundamentally the biggest disconnect. Other things that get in the way of that, we always

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start our coaching with, do you own your calendar or does your calendar own you?

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We see so many people, especially in big corporations, where their meeting schedules

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are completely full from Monday at eight until Friday at five and everything in between. When

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they do have breaks, those breaks are only really used to catch up on email. And then they really

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never catch up. And so at night, they're doing email a little bit too. So their ability to own

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their calendar so that they can spend time working on the intentionality, the leader they want to

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become. Those are big gaps. I think another big gap is people tend to not think constructively

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about the personal traits that they have. Maybe they're visionary or maybe they're detail-oriented.

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And when those traits are working really well, those are our superpowers. When those superpowers

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are overexpressed, those same traits, when they go too far, are our kryptonite. We tend to see our

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superpowers, but other people tend to see our kryptonite. And we don't spend enough time in a

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balanced state learning how to stop the superpowers from being overexpressed or being left unchecked.

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So that's a second thing because people don't know enough constructively about their weaknesses and

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how to moderate them. And then the third thing, I think we see a lot of leaders, we talk a lot about

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there's two extremes of leadership. There's caretaking leadership, which is the extreme

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of people first giving employees what they want. It's the extreme version of that. Caretaking.

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The other extreme is authoritarian, sort of really performance-only based leadership. So

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caretaking and performance. We see a lot of leaders that think they need to live on the

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caretaking side. Well, if you're doing that, how is the performance of your organization being

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measured and how are you elevating that performance every single day? So I'd say it's the calendar,

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it's the superpower of kryptonite. And it's this idea of where on the continuum should you be

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between caretaking and performance leadership. So you have the Jaro five-step framework,

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and this helps improve impact efficiency. And it mentions the joy that I've heard you mention

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twice. Can you tell us a little bit about that framework? I think people feel like work is

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supposed to be work. And if you have fun at work, if you're enjoying work, it's not work. There's

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somehow something wrong with it. So that's why the three things that we strive for, impact,

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efficiency, and joy is so important. Our five-part framework is really for organizations that need

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a significant shift or a turnaround is a phrase that a lot of people are familiar with. We often

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find that most people try to improve organizations by fixing a process or acquiring a new software

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tool. Well, those are steps four and five on the framework that we employ. 80% of corporate change

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in the U S fails 80% of the time, 70 to 80% of the time when teams or companies try to fix things,

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they don't get the result that they intended. The reason for that is that they try to start with

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this process, or they try to start with a software tool. Our five-part framework starts at the top.

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What's your strategic purpose? What's your North Star? We help you define that. A lot of people

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have a vision or a North Star, but when you ask their teams what it means, if you ask 10 people

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on the team, what it means, you get 10 different answers. We help you get super clear on a North

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Star that is actionable and helps you keep everyone on track. The second is how do you develop roles

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and responsibilities in an organizational structure so that you can achieve that North Star? What we

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find is most people's org structures were designed and developed and built years ago. Well, if you

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have a new North Star, it's incumbent upon great leaders to check in with the roles that they have

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defined and make sure that those roles succeed in achieving that North Star. The most important thing

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in step two here is to define those roles without people's names. So a lot of times we'll go to

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companies and they'll say, oh, well, Johnny or Susie have been here 10 years, so they should be

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in this role on the org chart. Well, Johnny or Susie may not have the skills required by that

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new role. And if that's true, we have to train them. So strategy first, structure and roles.

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Second, the third step is talent. Who are your best people with the best qualifications to fit

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in the most important roles to achieve that strategic intent? That talent evaluation is where

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most teams, leaders and organizations fall down because they have favorites and they have

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wide spots and they want to caretaker like we talked about earlier. Evaluating talent for us

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is not about who stays and who gets fired. It's about who gets put in your best positions,

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which positions are still unfilled and you need to supplement with some great people outside. And

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then what kind of training can help you bring everybody else up where you need and they need

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to be. So strategy roles and structure talent. Then once you have that in place, go to work on

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your processes, excuse me. And once your processes are defined, figure out what tools actually make

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those processes work. That's the five step framework in it. It just doesn't fail when you

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follow it in the right manner. So what is your next milestone?

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Well, I've got a couple for this year. We're trying to expand the workshops that we provide

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for clients and for prospects. We're just about to promote a workshop series. That'll be a three part

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workshop series to dive deep into some of the concepts and more that we've talked about.

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We've done small workshops in the past, so this is going to be a bigger undertaking. So

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in effect, a bigger milestone as well. So that's one. Another milestone is we are working to start

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another division of this company that actually delivers some creative design and writing product

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for marketing teams that just have too much work and they need to bring that work elsewhere. So

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those are two big milestones for us this year. So are the workshops in person? Are they live?

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Yeah, in person workshops. We will do some webinars, some online workshops,

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but these deep dive day long workshops, there's just no replacement for being in person to have

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an intimate, close knit dialogue with peers and members of your job role in different companies

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and different industries. So yeah, they're day long in person and essentially you sign up for

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the series and you get to go to three and there's continuity zooms in between.

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So what areas will these workshops take place?

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This year, they're all three or they're in the same city to make it simple in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Where can my listeners learn more about you follow your journey? Because you didn't mention

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climbing another mountain, but after visiting your website, maybe you do have a next mountain

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and sign up for your workshops. Yeah, my LinkedIn is LinkedIn Wayne Berringer.

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We also have Jaro group on LinkedIn as well. Our website is Jaro.Win, J-A-R-O.W-I-N.

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And people can also email us at info at Jaro.Win and let us know what kind of information you're

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looking for. And we'll be happy to give you all that you like, probably more than you need, but

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we'll be happy to give you the info you're looking for. So before we wrap this up, can you offer

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one tip to our listeners that they can implement right away to tackle a big challenge?

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Well, I think if you're listeners from big corporations or even medium sized business,

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any business with more than 15 or so employees, the biggest thing is learn how to own your calendar.

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How can you look at your calendar and prioritize the meetings you must go to and then

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deprioritize and don't attend the meetings that you tend to multitask during, or you don't know

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why you're even there. So I think for big, larger organizations, that's a tip that almost everybody

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I tell that to says, I've never heard that. How do I do that? For almost anyone else, big corporations,

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small independent worker, whatever, that notion of articulating your values, what things do you

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value about how you should want and align those values with the leader you want to become writing

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almost a manifesto of how you want to be a year from now, not the title you want to have, but how

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you want to be, how you want to feel, how you want to show up, regardless of situation. And then

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writing that down and then checking it periodically, that then becomes your roadmap for you to

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become that leader that you want to be. And being intentional to take those steps is just a game changer.

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Wayne, thank you so much for joining me today.

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You're welcome. It's great to talk to you, Sheila.

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And thank you all for tuning into another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership.