In this strategic episode, Dasha Tyshlek, CEO and Founder of StratCraft, shares how she prepares innovative companies to grow rapidly by equipping their leadership team with the practical tools and the essential discipline for executing winning strategies.
You will discover:
– What to do if you have a great product or service, but it’s not getting the attention it deserves.
– The biggest strategic mistake most companies make
– The biggest limiting resource for your company (and how to overcome it)
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello Hello and welcome welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach and consultant and strategist and that is the one and only Dasha Tyshlek. Now, she knew from an early age that she wanted to become an entrepreneur leading people to change the world through innovative products and services. And her love for technology and problem solving led her to study engineering science at the University of Virginia. Now today, Dasha is CEO and founder of Stratcraft, a strategic partner for growing technology companies. Now the strat craft team teaches executive teams how to be more purposeful, more structured, more planful and more focused and assist them through the implementation of their most difficult projects. She’s a recognized leader in the space and satellite communications industry. And I’m so excited to have her here today. Well, Dasha, welcome to the show. Before we get into some of the really cool work that you’re doing, I’d love to just hear a little bit of the fill in some of the blanks for us a little bit of color to the story, what were you doing before stripe craft? And why did you ultimately make the leap?
Dasha Tyshlek
Yeah, I think I’ve had the entrepreneurial age since I was honestly a very young child, I was always coming up with ways to try to monetize the things I was doing writing blogs and trying to sell jewelry that I was, and were going back till I was since I was very young. And I’ve always felt that there was just this really interesting process that has to happen between like having an idea or having something that you’re doing and turning it into a benefit that other people want and have pursued it for a long time. But my career trajectory has taken me through a couple of different terms, including managing strategic planning at the world’s largest hedge fund, and then following that working and developing and launching over 20 products with a top notch company in defense in space. And so after I had kind of accumulated a lot of different experience and worked in a couple of different contexts, I started to see that there, there was some some problems that I was particularly passionate about solving. And it seemed that people really enjoyed it when I was solving those problems that it was leading to really good results. And I wanted to focus in on what that was with my company Stratcraft.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. So then we fast forward to today, that’s what you’re doing, what would you say is some of the most important work you’re doing with your clients right now?
Dasha Tyshlek
I think the most important work I do is actually with first time founders, or companies that are that are putting their products out into the world for the first time. So that process can be really ambiguous and really stressful. There’s a lot of unknowns. And the reality is, I also don’t know a lot of things. But I’ve developed a process for dealing with all of that ambiguity, that kind of chaotic nature of not knowing exactly how things are gonna go, how do you de risk that process and go through it in a way that provides so much learning for the next steps for every next step that you’re doing in that kind of new process to be really, really well informed by the previous steps. And first time founders particularly I work with a lot of technology based founders, people with engineering degrees, science backgrounds, it’s just so amazing because they tend to be people who are really focused on the value that they’re going to be providing they’re really are very passionate about their product, they’ve put a lot of work many years oftentimes goes into development of these products for them to be safe and effective. Both in defense, I also work in biotech and pharma. You know, there’s so much effort that goes in at that early stage of the science and the engineering, but the bringing it out into the world is kind of the the big picture goal. And many of the time these first time founders have never gone through that process before. So helping kind of demystify it, simplify it, and put together some trajectory that helps them feel secure that this first time process is going to deliver their beautiful, amazing sense of accomplishment that they’re going to have, from their innovation. It makes it real and in the world. So that that’s the most important thing. Because once they do once they can then keep doing it, they feel the confidence to keep going and and you want that first, that first product launch that first time they create something that goes out into the world to be even if not brilliantly successful, then at least something that is incredibly out full of learning and something they can build from constructively for the development of future technologies.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, there’s so much good stuff in there. So I want to start with kind of the anti Kevin Costner if you build it, they will cut right so it’s it’s not enough to build a great product, right? It’s not enough to even solve a big problem. There’s more to it. In that when it comes to launching it and getting it out into the public, so what’s what’s kind of the missing pieces? Someone’s sitting there? They have a great product. But it’s not getting the attention it deserves.
Dasha Tyshlek
Oh, my gosh, well, that’s that’s a really big question. I mean, the technology, the technology minded engineer, designer scientists, they tend to have really good ideas about how to develop a product that solves a particular set a particular problem that they see maybe. And also, they really understand the nuts and bolts of what they’re doing right how to run science, while how to discover something. But what makes a product desirable isn’t just that it solves the single problem. I mean, that’s great. But it also has to fit in the context in which it’s getting used. And when we’re talking about, let’s say, defense products, right? It has to go through these difficult supply chains, it has to be out in difficult environments, it has to be user friendly, in an incredibly stressful combat situation, or under situations of emergency evacuation or something like that, right. So you have all this context, that isn’t just the technology itself, but how easily people can understand how it works, how to apply it, how they feel about it. That’s just the first part of the things that have to be considered when you’re just designing the product from a usability and acceptance perspective. Then once even if you have all of those amazing factors in your product early, any you know, there’s there’s a marketing aspect to sales aspect who is endorsing your product? Do people believe that the people who use your product genuinely felt that it provided that benefit? And then how is it getting integrated into the rest of the systems and in healthcare systems, obviously, you have very complicated industry with different people paying for the product, and the ones actually using it than the ones actually benefiting from it right. If a clinician uses something in surgery, the insurance company pays for it, the patient is the one who’s actually benefiting from it. So there’s this real real complexity, you have to convince a lot of people, you have to get information to many different people, and you have to connect all the dots. So the complexity really comes to you can’t just build it and they will come you have to, first of all, build it with full consideration for what world this is going to and how it’s going to get used and how it’s going to be delivered to the user. But also, once it’s once it’s built in that way, considering a couple factors, then you also want to make sure that the right people hear about it. And that’s your marketing and your sales and your communications arms. And that you have service supporting it, and operations that support all of that so that if you buy the product, you don’t then end up in trouble once you have a problem not being able to reach anybody or support it. So there’s a lot of operations, excellence, and a lot of marketing and sales excellence, customer service excellence that goes into the product being available in the right place at the right time. All of that is is what strategy is all about. That’s, that’s that’s what brings it all together into one comprehensive ecosystem.
Scott Ritzheimer
And so that can also feel really overwhelming, because it’s like, all these things are important at the same time. And it’s like, I barely have time to do one of these things. So how do you go about the process of figuring out what are the what are the key pieces? And what order do we need to tackle them in?
Dasha Tyshlek
Yeah, I think, you know, the, the process is the key word. So, you know, understanding the context of the industry is always very important for your product, because that’s going to start to show you where the real risks are. And I think for me, the process always involves actually looking at the risks very objectively. I am I’m a super optimistic person, but I, I always put on my big realist, super conservative thinker hat when I am in in risk assessment mode. And I take a look and I think laying out what the risks are, and what the impact of those risks is, explicitly is a really big part of figuring out the priorities because that’s like, Okay, what things can we absolutely not lose sight of right? And then on the other side of the risks are your goals and the upsides of things? And so, you also want to take a look at okay, what are the potential upsides or opportunities that we absolutely cannot, you know, lose sight of. And so making that process explicit the brainstorming and the complexity, taking it out of your head, putting it on paper, assigning it some sort of time value, when is it likely to occur? Risk value or impact value? How likely is this to either cause a bad outcome or create a really big opportunity? And you know, when you put the put it in time, and in order of of impact, then you start to have a sense of priority through time and that becomes was much easier to handle, then all the questions and all the different anxieties that thinking about the complexity of the industry and of product development can create so, so really planning and being explicit and developing a process of referring back to it and updating it is, is the way that you handle that, and start to see your way through the different obstacles and challenges that come in through that process.
Scott Ritzheimer
Now, one of the big challenges in this process, and I actually think that this is one that that gets harder as the organization grows, and in age is not easier, but it’s just what’s the right level of risk? So getting it out there, you know, you’re creating something from nothing. In many situations, that’s all it feels like, it’s all risk, it doesn’t just what the heck it might as well just go for it. But how do you really? How do you really assess is this an appropriate risk? When you know, starting a company, you’ve got to what 60-70-80% chance of failure in the first place, you’ve already started in an inappropriate amount of risk. So you’re in this like high high risk space? How do you accurately and adequately assess the risks in the strategy that you’re taking?
Dasha Tyshlek
Well, there’s a couple of different ways that you deal with ambiguity. And I think this is really just a question of, hey, you’re in a world of everything is an unknown, and you don’t have a history. So I think you start by learning the history of other companies, other product launches through, you could do it through experts, you could do it through case studies. And as you start to see and accumulate that information, and or bring in the right level of expertise into your company, you are starting to sense, okay, these types of risks. These types of things occur often and have big impact. These other ones are, they seem to be less frequent, right, just like a doctor, when they’re diagnosing you, they have this knowledge of right, you might have this extremely rare thing that you read about on WebMD once, but most likely, you’ve been into the category of a minor infection, or simple cold or something that’s very commonly occurring. And so while they will take a look to make sure you don’t have the rare, high impact thing, they their experience of having seen this many times the case studies that they’ve gone through both personally and through their education allows them to basically say the probability that this is going to be the problem very low, the probability that you fit into this kind of common says much higher. So as we, as we investigate the symptoms, maybe do a couple tasks or scenario plans, right, we can kind of determine some additional information that helps us put you in one or the other category, it’s the same thing with the business, you can, you can get a lot of information and data from things that have already happened in the past. Just because what you’re doing is new to you right now and is innovative, doesn’t mean that something with similar characteristics or problems hasn’t have hasn’t had to be launched into the world previously. So you can learn a lot from from past experience. And I always advise first time founders to make sure that they do have some people on their team as advisors or in in various roles, who’ve gone through maybe either a startup process, or maybe product launch process or have specific expertise in something that they’re doing so that they can pull all of that knowledge into their company company and its systems.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So I want to go back to you kind of talked a little bit through your strategic planning process. I know you spent a lot of time in this space, what would you say is maybe one of the most common mistakes that founders and their companies make during the strategic planning, process or activities?
Dasha Tyshlek
Yeah, I think what I’ll start with the one I see the most common is, is that people really don’t understand what strategy is in, in essence, there is a lot of misconception, that strategy is a single goal, or a single statement of your mission, and that somehow the tactics then connect to that goal automatically. And so you I see quite a lot of CEOs, both first time CEOs, but also ones who’ve had many companies and and once these companies maybe are stagnant, not growing, kind of say, well, this is our strategy. And then they say like, three, three sentences. And then it’s like, well, what what is supporting that this strategy is actually acting out, right. And so it’s not just the communication of those goals. That’s the problem. It’s actually the strict strategy and strategic plan is what connects the goals, the vision and the the kind of big picture how your business does its work with the day to day operations that every manager and leader in your company is overseeing. And so what that means is, you actually have to explicitly go through the process of putting on paper like what are the things that you think you’re doing that support that strategy and You know, oftentimes if you ask your team, and I actually do this exercise with people, when they haven’t had a strategic planning process, I asked their leadership team put, you know, everybody write down the three most important risks, your company’s facing the three most important opportunities you need to take advantage of, you know, and the three most important goals your company’s going after, and have all the leaders write it down. And what I’ve what you find is that people generally have some semblance of an idea, that’s kind of cohesive, but some people see things as risks that are opportunities. Some people see goals as risks. So you have this kind of mishmash of, they’re kind of seeing a very fuzzy picture. And when you see that, you know, it can’t possibly be that, then that what they’re doing in their departments is all aligned, because they don’t actually see the same picture. And so you have to go through that process explicitly, you have to explicitly break down what your what how you’re going to achieve, like, let’s say you’re trying to grow like $10 million, or something, how are you going to achieve it, like, there’s a million different ways you could go about achieving it, and every person in your team, who is you know, passionate and ambitious, and wants to do their best, they’re going to conceptualize what it means, probably based on their previous experience, and the area in which they’re focused. So your CTO is going to focus on new product developments, and your quality director is going to focus on producing better quality, but in reality may be the number one priority for everybody should be enabling sales, or maybe the number one priority is, you know, our operations are disconnected and our systems are outdated, we have poor data, we can’t make good decisions, like, you have to make the goal hierarchy explicit for everybody, and demonstrate to everybody how they’re going to participate in it. So that even if the goals, the most important goals for your company, don’t relate to your area of management and leadership, you still know how you participate in bringing that about. And that process, I think a lot of people don’t realize just how explicit you have to be how much effort and time you need to dedicate to ensuring the vision, and the priorities between your team is, is well understood, and is constantly reiterated and reorganized based on new information that I think is is the biggest, the biggest mistake I see people make just thinking that it’s like, if you communicated once, or you have three goals, that it’s somehow like, suddenly clear, like what everybody does in their area every day in a way that connects to that. And that needs to be that needs to be delivered and sort of written out and documented on a continuous basis.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that is so so true. And I love the idea of a goal hierarchy, I always get a little concern folks come in, they’ve got seven goals. And it’s like, you look at six and seven is like, those really aren’t anywhere near as important as number one. But you could include it all of them in the same list. You know, some people are gonna say, Oh, I love six and seven, I’m going to spend my time on that other people are like, no one’s really important or three is really important. And you’re right, if we’re not clear on that, you’re actually weaponizing the lack of clarity more than you are overcoming it.
Dasha Tyshlek
Well, it’s great. You say that the sixth and seventh, I actually had somebody, like a couple days ago asked me like, why is it three to five goals? Why three to five? I said, Well, it’s it’s actually it’s not because strategy is better, if you only have three things. That’s that’s not it, it’s each of us human beings has a limit to the amount of things that we can carry in our head continuously and comprehensively. We, you know, we are limited by our memory, our focus and the amount of time we have in the day. And all of us have these limitations, regardless of how smart and experienced we are. And so three to five is the number of things that a person’s brain really easily remembers, right. And if you group things, here’s my three. And underneath of that there’s three sub goals that relate and three underneath of that, that’s, that’s a hierarchy, that our brain is like, Oh, that’s so easy to comprehend. And remember, when you have 10 goals, like yes, those things are all important to the company. But you cannot go around every day, making decisions, trying to keep the 10 things with the 10 things underneath and the 10 things below that refreshed in your head in a focused way. And so we have to examine and we have to make note part of strategy is deciding what not to do. And another part of strategy is documenting things you might do if things drastically change or your plans don’t work. And so having the 10 ideas, having the 100 ideas is really good. All of that should be reserved in a bucket of things we might do if like nothing is working that we’re trying out now. But for the purposes of being a focused aligned team that makes rapid progress towards goals, you need to have a number of goals that is manageable by every person in their head on a daily basis. And that’s where that three to five really comes from. It’s like, yes, 6789 10 Suddenly, like, you actually can’t keep track of all of that. But but three to five, yes, that’s a number that our brain is like, Yes, I can do that.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s so true. And it’s funny, you know, it seems so trivial. It seems over simplistic, but it’s true. That’s where the gains come from, are those simple but consistent efforts? So there’s a question I like to ask all my guests. And it’s this, the guy coming on the back of this this last point that you made here? I’m excited about it. But what would you say is the the biggest secret that you wish was not a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody watching or listening today knew.
Dasha Tyshlek
Okay, there are tools that you can use this that help you manage your time. And I don’t mean manage your inbox or give you little buzzers throughout the day, but actually help you understand where your time is going. And whether it’s going to the things that you purposefully wanted it to go to or two things that distracted you as you were trying to accomplish your goals. And if you use such tools, and they can be as simple as as a vision for how your tool how your time should work and simple trackers, you are going to find you’re going to be able to be significantly more purposeful about your time. And that’s the true limiting resource. It’s actually not investments in your company, it’s not money. The true limiting resource for every single one of us is our time and attention and where the time and attention flows. So if you use those things, and you focus a little bit of your time on the management of your time and energy, you are going to find you’re actually managing your time and it’s not managing you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that is so true. That’s so true. One more question that I want to make sure folks know how they can find out more about strike craft in the work that you do. But before we get there, I’m going to have you take off your your coach, consultant, strategist hat put on your CEO hat, if you will, jumped down into the ring with the rest of us. What’s the next stage of growth look like for you as a leader? And what challenge will you have to overcome to get there?
Dasha Tyshlek
Yes, so I think the biggest challenge and the biggest next goal for Stratcraft is expansion beyond sort of me and some support and a little tiny outsourcing of work here and there. I think the biggest challenge in any company probably comes at the hiring of that first full time employee, I have a kind of a long term trajectory I’m building towards strat craft is all about providing strict strategic advising to high technology companies. So my goal is to build a company of engineer strategists, right people who really understand the complexity, the difficulty of technology, who can help with things like technology roadmaps, but also who are strategists at heart and are able to think over long terms in a structured way to help technology companies thrive and compete against some of those really behemoth technology companies out there that have hundreds of 1000s of people working for them. And so that that’s hiring of the first person, figuring out the right time, when you know when to take that risk, what that first person who they should be, what skills should they bring, that’s going to be a really, and something I’m looking out over the next year, and I’m thinking that’s good probably going to be the biggest thing I’m going to do other than start my business is going to be that first person. And of course, for me as a leader, that that’s going to be a big area of growth, because while having managed many teams before, they haven’t been within my own company in the same way. And so this is going to be a different level of now leaving kind of the CEO solopreneur. And putting myself in the position of I am now running the strategy for my company, and I’m getting out of all of the day to day. It’s different, I think, because when you’re it’s your company, it’s your baby, and you know how you want everything to be. So it’s a very different experience. So I’m really looking forward to that personal growth. I’m going to experience a new level of leadership and delegation that I’m going to have to learn a new level of like letting go of things and empowering others, as well as the actual fact of looking to grow and hire.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s a fun fun season. It’s not easy, but it’s a lot of fun. Well, Dasha, thanks so much. Before we let you go, I’ve got to know how can folks find more out about you the services that you offer and and more about yourself as well.
Dasha Tyshlek
Perfect. Yes, you can find me at www.strat-craft.com You can look up Stratcraft also online Can I post often follow me on LinkedIn or on Twitter and take a look at my website, I have different courses that are coming in the new year focusing on planning OKRs as well as time management, and also have a blog where I write different global trends that I’m observing this impacting various businesses as well as tips and tricks on strategic planning and other important processes that you need to run in your company.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. Well, Dasha, thank you so much for being here. And for those of you watching and listening, you know that your time and attention means the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Dasha Tyshlek
Growing up Dasha Tyshlek knew she wanted to become an entrepreneur: leading people to change the world through innovative products and services. Her love for technology and problem-solving lead her to study Engineering Science at the University of Virginia. Today, Dasha is the CEO and Founder of StratCraft, a strategic partner for growing technology companies. The StratCraft team teaches executive teams how to be more purposeful, structured, planful, and focused and assist them through the implementation of their most difficult projects. She is a recognized leader in the space and satellite communications industry.
Want to learn more about Dasha Tyshlek’s work at StratCraft? Check out her website at https://www.strat-craft.com/
Podcast Booking Status: Open
We are looking for podcast guests, and we want to share your story.
Are you a coach, consultant, or advisor for entrepreneurial organizations? If so, let’s do a great show together – and we can promote you to our audience on all our social media channels, website, and email list.
Guest requirements:
- As a coach, you should be experiencing some very good momentum AND be grossing $100K or more annually. We’ll be talking about how you help your clients achieve extraordinary results.
- Consider yourself as equally people and results-oriented in your mission.
- High-authority expert management and independent coaches who work with founder-led entrepreneurial organizations of 40 or more employees. We also encourage guests that are operations/strategy and culture consultants, advisors, and leadership coaches to be guests (no specialties in marketing, branding, sales, or IT, please
- Please, no new coaches (under 3 years), published authors, non-independent coaches, or non-business coaches/consultants.