In this thought-provoking episode, Otis McGregor, Executive Strategist and CEO of Tribe+Purpose, shares how he has used his experience of 25 years in the US Army to help leaders grow and develop as they grow and develop their teams.
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and we are here with yet another high demand coach and that is the one and only Otis McGregor. Now, Otis retired from the US Army in 2009. As a Greenbrae, Lieutenant Colonel following 25 years of service, where he discovered his passion lies in helping people succeed. Now, it’s that same passion that drives them to create better leaders. And Otis believes that better leaders create better organizations that better organizations create better communities, and that better communities will create a better world. Notice, I can’t wait to dive into that. But first, I just want to say thank you for being on the show, and would love for you to open up with just your story. How did you get into coaching and why?
Otis McGregor
Yeah, well, thanks for having me, Scott, this is great. The way I got into coaching was, I’ll put it in a synopsis, I retired from the army with the sole purpose of getting a job, which is not what you ever want to do in life, was just get a job. And I bounced from job to job for seven years. And never understood why no job ever felt right to me didn’t understand what was going on. And then one summer afternoon, sitting here in my home office, feeling sorry for myself one day, got to that point, that pain point where it’s now I’ve got got to do something the pain was, was strong enough at this point, because I was really beginning to wonder what was wrong with me. You know, after working for so many different companies that I didn’t fit into. And as I sat here, I realized only two things have been consistent in my life since I left the army, my family and Boys High School rugby. Say I started Coaching Boys High School rugby, because my youngest son wanted to play. And in that typical Mid America sore thing, my wife would pick him up from school, drop them off at practice. This is middle school, when he’s in middle school. Me I would leave work on the way home from work, I’d pick him up and go home, while I started leaving work earlier, getting the product get into the practice and watching. By the way, I’d never played rugby. I knew almost nothing about the game. So I started hanging out and I was like, Man, I liked this. Started talking to the coach. Next thing I know, the coach asked me to be a strength and conditioning coach. And there’s air quotes to that because even that was a stretch, right? And then I became the assistant coach, then I became the head coach. Then not only was it the head coach for our nationally ranked rugby team, and our you know, our state championship rugby team was also the head coach for the state all star team, all these sort of things. So as I’m sitting here that afternoon, I’m like Why the heck was was I doing that? But you know, basically another full time job, volunteer. And as I looked at that, I said, Well, there’s three things that I know about that activity, that passion that fueled me every day, the game of rugby, unbelievable sport, lots of strategy, teamwork, hard effort, love it. The boys, you know, 35 Extra sons from my wife and I in and out of the house all day long all year round. Love it, chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookies, and lemonade all over the place. Because this, anytime one of them would show up. My wife was cooking. But what I realized is it wasn’t those two things that was truly fueling me. It was being their coach, it was challenging them to do the next thing, holding them accountable to do is do what they said. And helping them achieve the goals that they wanted to achieve. That was what was fueling me to do all that other stuff. So I’ve tapped into my network, about this feeling I had and I learned about executive coaching, leadership coaching. I’d never heard of that at this time. You know, just one of those things. I knew what life coaching was, because everybody knew was Tony Robbins, right. And so I learned about business coaching, executive and leadership coaching, went to the Institute of professional excellence and coaching, got certified as a coach got some great new skills. I refer to that, that certification as a brand new toolbox of Craftsman tools, all shiny and new. They’re not shiny and new anymore. I’ve banged him up all over the place now. But I realized that I was even in my 25 years in the Army. I was a coach. That was the way I lead. Every organization I’d ever been part of was as a coach to help others succeed guide and challenging them holding them accountable. To do what they say they were going to do, and pushing them to do more than they thought. So that was what I did. And that’s, that’s when I shifted gears and started driving purpose and, and really became what I’m calling now. I liked this title now throw it out there and check your facial expression on this executive strategist more than a leadership or executive coach, because I do a lot more than coaching guide. There’s a lot more going on in that development of the leadership.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so good. I tend to get in trouble in the coaching, consulting community because I use the word coaching so loosely. So for some to fill in the blanks for folks listening. There are many people who would say coaching as a pure profession is is Socratic. It’s coming in and asking questions. The basic belief is that, you know, people already have what they need, they just needed to be pulled out of, right, there’s an inherent goodness and inherent wisdom, and inherent brilliance in everyone. And that’s wonderful and beautiful and true. And so in a coaching your pure sense of the word, you can only pull that out, right? It’s not so much about putting in, on the other side of it. There’s kind of this extreme of consultants, right? You they come in, they don’t they don’t like they ask questions, but it’s not for your benefit. It’s for theirs, right? They’re coming in and trying to understand everything they want to thoroughly understand and a great consultant, right, wants to come in and thoroughly understand the organization so that they can provide strategic insight into how to grow it.
Otis McGregor
Which is their IP. And that’s why you hired him, right?
Scott Ritzheimer
And so yeah, in either case, what ends up happening is a lot of the burden can be put on the client, the person who’s actually been coached or consulted from the coaching environment, they got to make sure that they they’re giving the right answers that they’re coming with the right problems, or from a consulting standpoint, they’ve actually got to go through and do all the implementation of whatever the insights were. And, and so what I love and where I think you’re going with this executive strategist is kind of a blending of those worlds of being able to say, hey, yeah, I can walk in, and I can ask, and I can bring the best answers out of you, because a lot of the best answers are there. But I can also come in and say, Hey, here’s what I’m seeing, you know, in terms of patterns across all these different folks, but that’d be an accurate way of describing what you’re doing.
Otis McGregor
Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, you know, I’ve always referred to myself as a bit of a mentor, coach, you know, because one of the things and just sharing with you, one of the things that I do to give back to my veteran drivers is I coach, active duty service members who are separated from the service generally, in the more senior level, their return 20 years or so, or more. And helping them understand that, but in that aspect, yeah, I asked them the hard question. So they get thinking, but I also have a wealth because I’ve done that for 150 guys over the last few years. Plus, I have my own personal experience. So I have a wealth of knowledge that I’m not going to hold back and not share with that’s, yeah, as I told an NFL former NFL player friend of mine, about a year or so ago, I’m being a selfish sob if I’m not sharing what I know. Right? I mean, if you’ve got all this knowledge up here, and you’re not spreading it out, putting it out to people, so that they can have a better life and have more success in life. You’re being a selfish sob. And that’s, I’ll just leave it at that.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. So, so true. We could we could both get a lot of trouble on that point. So let’s start here. So as an executive strategist, what would you say is some of the most important work you’re doing for your clients?
Otis McGregor
It’s helping number one. So for them understand themselves, live with intention. That’s number one. But then, having their plan when they live with intention, because if you’re live with intention, you have to know where you’re going, right? And having that personal plan aligned with the business plan, and then the team selling it to the team, the team has to be bought into it. Otherwise, your team’s going through the motion, and they’re just being a bunch of oxygen, these revenue These, however you want to put it, they’re just going through the motions. I think the the phrase going on right now the phrase does your is quiet quitting. And that’s what they’re doing. Right. So if they’re if they don’t believe in the plan, in the vision in the business that you have, that they are working in, then they’re just going through the motions, a collection paycheck. I don’t know about you, but I want people on my team that want to be there. I want them to be happy about being there. I want them to be excited about what’s happening next year, in five years. And I want them to see themselves in the Those positions, that that’s exciting stuff. And when I have a vision because most executives don’t, they talk about it. But they don’t know where they want to be, they won’t admit to it. Because that shows weakness, right? They have to have a plan, a personal plan of who and where they want to be. And a business plan that aligns with it. Because if those two aren’t working together, you’ve got a problem, before we even get started, before we even talk to the team and sell it to the team. But if we get to the first part, then we’ve got the right team, go to Jim Collins, right, right people on the right bus and the right seats. But we take those and they get bought into that plan. Look out, success happens. I was gonna say easy, never easy, because that anybody would have it right. But you know what, you’re gonna have success. And when you have failure, you’re gonna enjoy a lot more. Because guess what, everybody’s right there pulling together, pulling it up when it falls apart.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so true. So I love kind of how you position this because I don’t think there’s a single leader out there who wouldn’t say I want, who wouldn’t say, like, I want my people fired up about where we’re going. Right. But I would say, a whole lot of the conversation I’ve seen, especially around the idea of like quiet quitting, or, you know, my team, this, my team that is oftentimes is like, there, there’s a problem over there, right? Like the problem with my team, my team is not fired up, my team is not moving fast enough, might be fill in the blank. And so what you what I hear you saying is, hey, there’s an official place to start with that challenge. It’s a real challenge. And that place to start is with you. Would you agree with that?
Otis McGregor
Oh, 100%. Anyone that when I start with every client, one of the things I walk them through is understand themselves. Even you got to know who you are, before we can even start to figure out how to get to where we want to go. It’s even it’s even hard to create a true vision, people will talk about it a true vision for who you want to be without knowing where you’re on the map. Without knowing who you are today, let alone actually making a plan to get there. Think Google Maps, Apple Maps, any of those apps. If your phone does not have GPS signal, and you’re in the middle of downtown, wherever you get all those buildings and the satellites can’t reach your phone. Or you’re in the mountain valley like I’ve been last few weeks. In the end, it doesn’t reach your phone. So now you don’t have a GPS lock. It doesn’t know where you are, it cannot calculate the route to get to where you want to go. There’s no better metaphor than that right there.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s so true. So what would you say are some things you know, you’ve obviously had some success, success with clients. You’ve got someone that comes in, they say, my team, that’s my team that, what do you find that they’ve tried before coming to you for help?
Otis McGregor
Working hard. You know, one of the things I’ve found happens in a lot of business is it’s full of high quality people who work hard. But the problem is, they work hard on what they think is important. There. So there’s no I hate using this word, but I can’t come up with another word. I need some I need a better thesaurus. In my mind. There’s there’s no synergy. Sorry. It was an overused word in the military. That’s why it’s still burns me to say it, but there’s no synergy to what I got. So let’s say I’ve got a team of five people, right, myself included. So I’m one of those five. And we’re all just we’re all top notch, high quality people that everything we do we knock out of the park. Guess what I got going on, I got five things going off. Because every one of us are busting our butt and getting things done and we’re knocking it out. We’re all on five different paths to what we think is important to what we think success is. So until me as the CEO, the leader establishes here’s what we got to do. Here’s the priority work. Here’s the priority of effort guys do these things first. And pull everybody together and have that crosstalk. So now I don’t have I don’t have five things I got this. I got the fist, right. And when when we nail it like that, and we’re working like that, as a group of people, as a team as a cohesive unit. We are no longer five hard working people. We’re one organization which is much more powerful, and much more successful.
Scott Ritzheimer
Alright, so this is a moment I’ve been waiting for as long as my favorite part of the show and I’d love to ask Get this question, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening today knew?
Otis McGregor
It is. You decide how the world shows up for you know, a good friend of mine, Aaron Ellis coined it this way. And I just love the way he did that we get to choose, is it happening to us or for us? Every thing, and you can add in one more piece to this, and this is a little bit of stoicism to go with it. It can it doesn’t happen to have to happen at all. So we get to choose is it good? Is it bad? Or nothing at all? Those three choices do absolutely everything. In our life. It’s our choice, nothing happens. That’s good or bad. Everything happens. We choose whether or not it’s good or bad. And man, if you choose happy, everything is good. Wow, everything is an opportunity. Wow. Think about that. The car wreck. I just got in a fender bender. I just backed in, you know, I was messing with my phone or my phone fell off the dash and I packed my truck into this brand new Tesla in the Walmart parking lot. Oh my gosh. Or after I get out, make sure and kill anybody. Everybody. Okay? What’s the opportunity here that that guy, that lady, that person that knows that car, that could be really cool person that you might want to have a beer with that maybe your client or or they may have that widget that solves the problem that you’ve been looking for. But if you don’t go into it with that attitude with an open attitude of looking for opportunity in everything, man, Zoom is just opportunities will be flying by left and right. Yeah. So that right there is what I wish I knew earlier on. And what I wish everybody else knew is that nothing happens to us. We choose how it happens to us, or for us or not at all?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And I found that to be like, That’s true for people as people, I found it to be especially true for founders, right for the kind of visionary leader types that they get into a place where this is happening, that’s happening. It’s all outside, right? There’s not a single one of them that’s motivated by what’s outside, what they want to do is what they’ve chosen to do. And you like if if as one of those types of leaders, if you can embrace this and say, hey, it’s my opportunity to choose how how this impact is my opportunity to choose how I want to relate to this challenge, you will find like that visionary? And is that creativity, that inspiration will come from just the strangest places. I mean, how many of the conversations similar to yours. The vast majority of folks who’ve come on this show, you know, even as coaches are coaching out of a place of pain right out of a place of like, Hey, I’ve seen what this looks like on the other side. And they’ve taken that opportunity. They’ve turned it around. And now it’s one of the biggest blessings in their life. Fascinating. I love that. Such great advice. Another question that I have for you is shift gears on us a little bit. And love to see if I were to have you take off your coach hat right. You’re exactly to do this. Yeah, there we go. We’ve got props and everything today, and put on your your CEO hat of tribe and purpose. So jump into the ring with us and talk a little bit about what the next kind of level of growth, if you will, looks like for your company and for you as a leader.
Otis McGregor
Yeah, so we’ve got we’ve got two things happening. group coaching, and a program that I call team unity. And it is about what I just said, it’s helping grow your team pull that team together so that you as the leader, have that focus, you understand who you are, what you are, you have the vision for who you want to be goals, objectives, and what are your tax your action steps. What’s your business plan? And then how do we organize your team to create that flow in your team and get them to buy into not just another reorge Check check the box I used to work at Lockheed Martin and it was about every nine months we would we would reorg as a massive reorg if you believe that so that’s number one. Number two, my my son Camden who also do the podcast with the camera notice show has a program coaching program There’s called Next is best. And he’s targeting Division One, retired athletes who want to be an entrepreneur, helping them learn how to take this new this lost identity from taking off the uniform, the swim trunks, whatever, whatever D ones, whatever sport high level sport you played it that you no longer have, and how to foster that energy that lost identity and energy into a new business. That’s super excited. And I’m really proud about that one, too.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s cool. That’s fantastic. So I’d love to actually, if you could tell us just a little bit this folks listening to like executive like, yes, I’ve tried the coaching route. I’ve tried the consulting route. Those didn’t work for me, but this executive strategist thing, right, maybe semantics, but it may really be onto something. And they’re just resonating with everything that you’ve said. How can those folks find out more about you in the work that you do?
Otis McGregor
Yeah, so one of the best things to do is to go to tribe-purpose.com in the upper right hand corner and click the Get Started button. And what I always ask people to do is to two things, one, sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday moments newsletter, I share my lessons of the week for you kicking off your week. So you get it nice and early Monday morning, from things I learned about and thought about last week. And then the other pieces, that’s where you can schedule a call with me. Nice quick call on a vision analysis call. We’ll talk about whether or not where you’re at whether or not what we’re doing with with team unity is the right fit for you. And if it’s not, what are some other areas that you might be able to get some help with to find your focus, because, you know, you talked about my purpose that created a legacy of leaders. I like to tell people to live their life with intention and pursue their purpose to achieve their vision of success. Now, think about living that way. You live that way every day. You can’t wipe the smile off your face.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good. Well, it’s fantastic. Again, tribe-purpose.com, go to the Get Started. You’ll find all the information there. Otis, thank you so much for being on it was just an absolute thrill having you on the show.
Otis McGregor
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Scott Ritzheimer
Absolutely. And for everyone listening today. We’re so glad that you’re here. Your time and attention in the absolute world to us. I know that this was an amazing show for me. I can’t wait for you to be able to enjoy it as well.
Contact Otis McGregor
Otis retired from the US Army in 2009 as a Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel following 25 years of service. Where he discovered his passion lies in helping people succeed. And it is that same passion now drives him to create better leaders. Otis believes that better leaders create better organizations, better organizations create better communities, and better communities will create a better world.
Want to learn more about Otis McGregor’s work at Tribe+Purpose? Check out his website at https://www.tribe-purpose.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.