Waypointers Episode 30 – A former US Marine’s guide to agency leadership

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Matthew Lacey of the Waypoint Partners podcast and discussing my views on agency culture, return to office and all things leadership.

Here’s a few quotes from topics we cover in this episode…

“I love the M&A side of this job. I love working with entrepreneurs. I say all the time to young entrepreneurs who get to the point where they’re thinking about selling their company that I want to see them have the same successful outcomes I had. If I can be part of that journey and partner with them and help them navigate the complexity of a hold co and that transition in their life… that feels really meaningful to me.”

"We really obsess over the word culture. I built a business founded on universal values, and I don’t care about culture. I don’t “manage it”. I don’t “set it up”. I will actually say I am the biggest eroder of culture. The definition of culture is, most of the time, 'safety.' Safety in the sense that a group of people enter an organization, build a culture around themselves, and then new people come in, but the culture doesn’t adapt. When it doesn’t adapt, it becomes exclusive to those already there. Human beings are prone to building walls around themselves and calling it culture, when in reality it means, 'I don’t like change, I don’t like new things, so I’m going to protect the moat around my castle by doing this thing.' People say, 'It’s just not our culture to do that,' but that’s just an excuse against change, not culture."