Shooting the Closest Alligator: Leadership in Fast-Growth Environments

In this episode of Leadership Quotient, Lindsay Guzowski, Founder and CEO of The Crucible, speaks with Shelby Faubion, Founder and Managing Partner of Vector Advisory, about the leadership disciplines that enable companies to scale successfully through growth and acquisition. Shelby shares lessons from his experience in post-merger integration and CFO advisory work, including why intellectual curiosity is essential for leaders, how culture can determine the success or failure of a deal, and the importance of accountability, structure, and consistent operating rhythms. The conversation explores the challenges facing lower middle market companies, the hidden cost of "integration debt," and why execution—not strategy alone—is what ultimately creates value. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Leadership Quotient, a podcast by The Crucible, where we explore how leadership teams and investor-backed companies are built, aligned, and scaled for impact. I'm your host, Lindsay Gazowski, and in each episode, we'll talk with the people shaping value behind the scenes, from operating partners to investors to advisors to C-suite executives, about what it really takes to drive performance through leadership. On today's episode of the Leadership Quotient podcast, I chat with Shelby Phobion, founder and managing partner and Vector Advisory about the willingness to challenge the status quo, the importance of a consistent operating rhythm for growth, and shooting the closest alligator. Shelby, welcome to Leadership Quotient. Shelby, thanks for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Your career got started in the accounting space and you worked for some notable big four firms. Tell us a little bit about what appealed to you in the accounting realm.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Absolutely. So I definitely took the more traditional path, I think, for the accountant coming out of college. Wasn't exactly sure which direction that I wanted to take my career, but you know, certainly working for a big four firm, uh, you know, had the opportunity to expose myself to very high performing talent and get exposure to a lot of different industries and I think, you know, really get a very solid financial foundation. The other thing that it afforded me, and that experience was with KPMG, a little over 12 years with KPMG, and then a year with PwC, that also afforded me as being part of a much larger firm to get experiences across other uh other disciplines. And so I started out in the external audit area. I later worked in an internal audit area where it was a little bit more operationally focused. I also had the opportunity to work on some transformation type projects with like ERP implementations. And so in doing that, I was able to, I think, get a very broad base of understanding across a lot of different areas. And I also had the benefit of working with very, very high-talented, high-performing uh in professionals that I was able to learn from. I think also I had the fortune of having really strong project, uh, I'm sorry, um, very strong performance managers that set very, very high bars. And I also worked with some engagement leaders, engagement leaders that uh were constantly kind of pushing me to push the envelope and and and deliver even better than perhaps somebody else had delivered a similar project. And so I think that that you know gave me uh some just great perspectives about how to think about client service delivery and and client service experience, which I think ultimately you know benefited me in the establishment of Vector Advisory.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

And what leadership lessons did you take away from your time at KPMG and PwC, either from what you saw from clients or from some of those great leaders with whom you worked?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, so I think very much just the willingness to challenge the status quo, right? Not just be okay with it because the last client was okay with that delivery, but actually use each experience to grow. And so I think that that really contributed to my intellectual curiosity, which is actually one of the key things that I think about when it comes to leadership and what I look for in strong leaders, is that intellectual curiosity, or some people call it growth mindset, but individuals that are looking to get better every day and looking for ways to challenge themselves to deliver in new and innovative ways. So, you know, I feel like I was fortunate to work under some very uh very strong leaders within kind of the big four. And actually working out of Dallas, it ended up being a little bit of a leadership hub for KPMG. And so I was actually able to work with, you know, not only very strong local leaders, but also those that had national leadership or global leadership type roles within the firm. And I think that because of that that opportunity to work with those types, it it allowed me to learn how to push people uh to be able to kind of perform maybe at at levels that they weren't weren't, they didn't think that they were capable of, because I felt like in many cases my boss was pushing me, and sometimes it's uncomfortable, uh, but I felt like in many cases my bosses were telling me to do more than what I thought that I was capable of. But then when you come out on the other end, you feel so much more satisfied and rewarded, uh, rewarding about that experience.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Great. And that intellectual curiosity comment, I think, is very salient. I mean, it's one of the things that the crucible tests for as well, because it's not just can you can you be thoughtful and and growth-oriented and make connections across concepts that are in your area and the next one over, but even taking ideas from other disciplines or from something you may have seen in a book that is unrelated and being able to apply a lot of those different concepts to something that can make the business better.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think when I step back and think about the thing that I'm most proud about the team that we have here at Vector is that just about everybody reinvented themselves at Vector. So they came with a completely different discipline. But we've been fortunate to grow by a lot of internal referrals, right? Folks going, hey, you know, I know this individual and I think they would do a great job here. They don't have any of the prior practical experience of delivering maybe the exact service offering that we have, but again, they have the right mindset. And to be able to grow at the pace that our firm has been able to grow with individuals that didn't necessarily step in, having led 20 post-merger integration projects or, you know, having stepped into an interim CFO type role, uh, but to see them develop those, lean into the learning necessary to be able to provide exceptional client service delivery and to be able to do so in a way that caused that private equity firm to call us back for the next opportunity or refer us to another private equity firm. To me, that says everything that you need to know about the team and that mindset. Um again, it's one thing to be able to build a firm based on people that are already kind of delivering, you know, just kind of let's copy what you did at your former firm. Uh, but for folks to come in, develop methodologies literally from scratch, collaborate with other team members, uh, read, research, what have you, to be able to develop repeatable processes that deliver uh at a way that meets a very um uh a very high expectation client in private equity. Uh, you know, I think is really, like I said, it's it's one of the most proud things that I um that I have with with the development of this team at Vector.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Knowing that I'm skipping, you know, your time in defense contracting and the startup, um, we can loop back to that later. But tell me a little bit more about Vector Advisory. You guys do office of the CFO and MA advisory work. What inspired you to start Vector? Where do why do you like to play in this space?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah. So about three years before I started Vector, I went to work for another boutique consulting firm. And that's actually where I got my first exposure to working with private equity firms and privately backed businesses. Uh and in particular, I did a little bit of CFO advisory work, but I would say the majority of that time was spent in post-merger integration work. And I just really enjoyed uh the problem-solving aspects uh and the people alignment aspects of doing post-merger integration work. So when I started Vector, uh, a couple of things. Number one, in that boutique consulting firm experience, I saw that the lower middle market was really lacking access to very high quality consulting services at rates that would make sense for them. And yet I saw so many of them going through this rapid growth or transformation process. And so, you know, I knew that there was a market for that. When I started Vector, it really was with the intention to focus on post-merger integration work. And that's what we did, I would say, for our first two years. But what we found was that routinely in the lower middle market, those finance and accounting teams were not equipped to meet the expectations of this new private equity sponsor. So if it was a new platform, there's just all of this work that has to be executed flawlessly to meet the expectations of that private equity sponsor. And in many cases, those teams were just simply not equipped to do so. So through doing MA integration work, we were often asked, hey, can you help out with this deliverable? Maybe it's the opening balance sheet, maybe it's a final closing statement, initial budgets, monthly reporting packages, et cetera. Those discrete projects ultimately started transitioning to us being asked, can you step into an interim CFO role or interim control role? And so that's kind of how that second vertical was established. And interestingly enough, that area has grown uh exponentially. And now CFO advisory is represents the majority of the work that we do. We still do a ton of post-merger integration work, but uh that area of CFO advisory grows very is growing very fast, primarily because of the volume of activity in the lower middle market. And they all look very, very similar. They're all in QuickBooks, they all have unsophisticated reporting, uh, minim minimal teams in finance and accounting. Lord knows nobody ever overinvests in finance and accounting. And so, with uh, you know, I think with private equity reporting expectations and to get them at private equity reporting levels, it it's really, I think, in many cases, not even considered discretionary spend. It is absolutely an investment that needs to be made for these uh lower middle market acquisitions and add-ons.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Outside of finance team quality and uh capabilities, what are some of the other challenges you see as you're coming into these post-acquisition scenarios or these uh post-merger situations?

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, certainly when you think about more broad post-merger integration challenges, that a lot of things kind of come up. I would say first and foremost is kind of cultural alignment uh as well as just management lead management team alignment. Um, in many cases, the the merger isn't the only thing that they had going on, right? They may have been implementing a new ERP system. Um, they may have other operational process improvements in place. So there's a lot of things going on within these organizations that are moving very, very quickly. Uh, and in environments where those teams are not used to moving at that pace, right? In many cases, it took them 10 years to get to 15 or 20 million in revenue, and the new private equity sponsor wants to move them to 100 million in the next three years. Um, that is uh it's it's a very different environment to operate out of. And so that alignment is critical. Um, you know, so on the people front, you know, you get you've got to have clarity on who's leading where. Uh, and that goes from the CEO down to functional leadership. And then kind of beyond that, it's clarity on priorities. And when we think about post-merger integration, it's got to be clear that look, the the integration isn't supposed to last six months or 12 months or two years. We we've got to rip the band-aid off and get these companies operating like one and aligned as quickly as possible. So, you know, when we initiate engagements like post-merger integration, we we we want to be clear that that's got to be evident to the entire leadership team that that's the number one priority. Um, and I would say the other component of that is letting those leadership teams know that we're there to help alleviate the stress of that, right? They have their day jobs. What we do is to come in with a playbook that helps direct them on what they need to do. We work with them to align on a more detailed project plan of how they get there. And then we help work with those teams and hold them accountable to getting there within the timelines that are committed to. And we provide, you know, the a repeatable playbook for them to be able to leverage going forward. Um, but the biggest thing is we do all of the coordination and alignment while they can focus on execution. And I think with companies that are growing rapidly, one of the biggest challenges is just pure capacity. Capacity and focus. And I think that that's the luxury that we have to come in from a standpoint of a post-merger integration project. We are solely focused on effective management and alignment around that integration and working with team members to execute that. Uh similarly, when we come in for developing reporting, maybe it's Power BI dashboard, maybe it's something other more transformational like a ramp implementation. Um, we have the luxury of complete focus and commit and dedication of resources on those. And we know that our client teams often have these other nine things going on. Uh and it and it gets to be a real challenge to be able to balance what am I supposed to be doing next. So um I think that those would be a couple of things. I think I mentioned culture. Uh, one of my first clients, uh, you know, I I I loved he always talked about the fact that when they were looking at MA, he said they always started with culture. And he said, if the culture doesn't work, the deal doesn't work. And I think that that is is absolutely critical. You've got to be able to know the the leader that is now gonna be joining your organization, what role they're gonna have, and are they gonna be bought in to becoming one company? Or is this their baby and it they're not gonna allow for any sort of changes? That is gonna be a massive disruption. Um, and and a story I could share on that, um, I had one client that was uh you know, you would have thought maybe pot committed to an acquisition. And on the day of closing, uh, he smartly decided not to close uh as a as a result of like he was like, you know, it's clear he you know he'd been working on the other founder. He he thought that you know he was gonna be able to get um get them through it, but ultimately he he saw the signs and he says, you know what, this is going to actually hurt my company if we move forward with this. Uh, and this is gonna be like one plus one is actually less than two. So um, you know, our goal is to help with that one plus one being three and uh and and that alignment uh you know, in terms of kind of pre-close alignment on what roles people are gonna have post-closing in this new combined organization and what that culture looks like, and how do you foster these cultures? Because I think particularly in the lower middle market, these companies have become good companies and uh were attractive for investment because they had solid cultures. And so you've got to really be thinking about like, how do I take the good and great from this culture and embed it with the good and great here? How do we find the similarities and celebrate those? And how do we look for ways to enhance both cultures together uh to create that combined culture? But those would be a couple of things that come to mind.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

And how are you seeing your clients thinking about understanding cultural and leadership elements before these acquisitions? We when people engage us, there's a very specific way they're going about it because they're going through assessments and understanding both teams and looking at combined entities and looking at how all of that plays out. But we often see groups that have never thought about doing anything quantitative or frankly, even looking at the cultures at all.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah. I think it's a great point. I would say I rarely see them taking a quantitative approach to it. I I would say when I've seen the emphasis, which I would say in most cases there is an emphasis on just making sure that you've got that alignment, you're still reliant on, let's say, the acquiring CEO uh to have a finger on the pulse of that. And, you know, that that CEO needs to be spending a ton of time in that diligence process, working with that that leader, um, working with some of the other leadership team that are gonna be critical to the uh the transaction and really kind of understanding that and and and having open conversations about communication, about what's important, learning about how they align on cultures internally and thinking about how that's actually gonna mess with mesh with their own culture. Um, but you know, when you think about if a CEO is also, you know, deep involved in nine other, you know, critical uh, you know, projects across the company, they're not going to have the level of focus necessary. And so where I've seen it work well is that the CEO understands that a significant amount of his time is in that diligence and growing and with a focus towards growth through MA. And uh and they've got the the time to be able to focus on that. So um I think it's it that one's a very leadership dependent uh aspect. And so, you know, I think that there's probably a lot of CEOs that don't understand that all that well and maybe doing more of a gut check on that. But I I think that that's uh that's critical because I I do agree with the the statement that I mentioned before that if the if the culture doesn't work, uh the alignment's not gonna work post-closing.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah, absolutely. And it's part of a lot of the private equity investment theses are dependent on an acquisition strategy. And so if you're in a scenario where you're looking to continue to roll up these companies and you're buying a number of them, often people don't think there's time to think about culture or to think about those aspects. They're just thinking about okay, now we have geographic coverage or customer coverage, or you know, we can achieve because of various sizes of scope and scale, we can get a higher multiple. That doesn't necessarily build a lasting organization to your one plus one equals less than two scenario.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I I think um I think particularly in companies that are planning on doing a lot of growth through MA, uh, you you have to have an intentional focus. You have to have your playbook, you have to have a consistent approach to it because otherwise, and we've certainly seen this as well. Certain PEs will say, you know what, maybe we don't need to integrate. We'll just buy these four companies, we'll roll up the financials. And what we see time and and time again is that companies are getting higher multiples when they can demonstrate an effective integration process and an integration playbook. And uh, and so if you don't have that, I you're you're losing value. Um, you know, and and I, you know, I've seen instances where it becomes such a problem. Uh I had one client that, you know, on paper, you know, they've got the the 80 million in Ebita, which sounds great, but I think it was $85 million uh just to um just to uh you know pay pay for the the debt. And so, you know, that was an instance that you know problems just started compounding. They ended up with four different ERP systems with four different finance and accounting teams, right? Because you, you know, you there was no cross-leverage of knowledge about how to use these systems or report. And you know, some of the most basic questions that you might ask is like, what's the revenue for the week or the revenue for the day? It was impossible to get. And uh in some cases it was taking two to three weeks post month end close to even figure out you know what the performance was for the prior month. So um, you know, it becomes uh, you know, uh uh, you know, effectively like an integration debt uh that eventually you have to pay. And so you're gonna pay for that potentially in uh reduced valuation upon exit, um, or again, making those investments throughout the process so that ultimately you're you're getting a greater multiple. Maybe you're getting one, maybe two extra turns on that exit because you can demonstrate that your team understands how to go about integration. And more than likely the next buyer, if it's private equity, is planning on doing maybe even more significant add-ons and transactions.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Exactly.

unknown 21:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So what are some of the overarching gaps that you see in leadership in the companies with whom you're working? And I'd obviously not looking for specific companies, just uh for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Um I I would say, and again, because our focus is on the lower middle market, I would say a common gap is just typical governance and project management rigor around projects. Um, I think in the lower middle market, a lot of these companies grew and and are managed through heroics. Or, you know, as they say down in South Florida, they're very good at shooting the closest alligator, right? But but you know, that that project management, that governance muscle, I think is often missing in the lower middle market. And I think that that's one of the things that we hear routinely is that after we come in there from a post merger. Integration standpoint that it really was eye-opening for their teams as to the benefit that you get from actually developing a plan, managing toward that plan on a routine basis and then holding people accountable to that, um, as opposed to just, hey, these are our objectives for the quarter, and then at the end of the quarter you realize you didn't hit any of them. So then you move them to the next quarter and so on and so forth. So I think that that's something that that's that's awesome, uh, often missing. Um and I think also in the lower middle market, maybe it's maybe it's related, but I think just having more formalized structure around their processes such that they are better positioned to allow that company to scale. And when you have companies that are growing exponentially through MA, and you don't have alignment on how AP is supposed to work or how you're, you know, um, you know, just recording transactions, how you're storing uh, you know, transactional support data, um, how how you report, what metrics make sense. Um all of these things can create chaos in the background. And like I said, ultimately becomes part of that integration debt that if you don't solve, the problem just gets bigger and bigger and and more hairy, I think, to unwind and clean up. Um, because eventually you're you're going to get to that point where you can't get the data, you can't run your business because you you just you don't have any of the inputs that you need. Um, so that I guess those that would be that those would be kind of the two I would say common themes that I think that we see within our team, other than just generally speaking, capacity. And again, I think I think you know, when you're growing so fast, sometimes it's really hard to figure out what gaps are appearing. And it's very difficult to be able to fill those gaps timely. And I think that that's one of the areas that that we've been able to help many clients with is that when those gaps happen, we can fill those gaps immediately on demand, and then they can be able to, you know, take their time to be able to make the right hires into these different positions down the road. Uh, but again, sometimes it's those blind spots you don't realize that you've got the gap uh, you know, until something breaks.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Sure. So on the flip side, do you have a a fun story of where leadership really made the difference and was able to positively impact success?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Absolutely. What I would say is that uh when we uh deliver work in environments that have a culture of accountability and structure, those environments, we almost always finish these projects well under budget. They run very, very smooth. When you're dealing with a a business that lacks that structure, that lacks that culture of accountability, just there's just, well, you know what, everyone's gonna understand that we've got a lot on our plates and it's just gonna keep shifting to the right. Um, and you know, sometimes you've got to find that balance. You know, there's always extenuating circumstances where, you know, kind of like a good budget, you know, maybe it's only good for a week, or maybe just until the time that you pick it up off of a printer. Um, although I guess nobody's using printers these days. Um, but uh, but you know, you you've got to have a flexible plan. But at the end of the day, there's uh got to be an understanding that this thing's important. We got to get this thing done. This is not a forever project. And um, and so uh, you know, I I would say that those are those are the great environments, the ones where there's absolute clarity on who's got what role. Uh everybody knows that they that they're gonna be held accountable to the successful integration within their functional area or within their area of responsibility. And um and and they don't want to disappoint the CEO or whoever is that hammer within the organization. Uh, but we we've had uh we we we've seen both sides of it. And uh in environments that lack that culture of accountability, um, scale is really, really difficult.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Mm-hmm. Have you been able to take some of those lessons and apply them to running Vector Advisory?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, I think so. I mean, what I would say is that, you know, what I described, uh, you know, we're we're not immune to some of those challenges. You know, as I've mentioned, you know, we've been fortunate to grow very fast uh since I established the firm in August of 2020. And um, and sometimes it's hard to be focused on growth while also make sure that you're not trading that growth off with uh delivery excellence. And so, you know, I think that that's something that my team, my leadership team uh is constantly kind of thinking about is that that you know, are you know, are we do we need to tap the brakes a little bit? You know, do we need to how do we make sure that we're building processes that are sustainable and reliable, that that make sure that our delivery continues to meet the standard of excellence that our prior clients have seen, and which is why they're calling us back. Because, and and I communicate this to my team throughout, you're only as good as the last project that you do with a private equity firm. So, you know, it's not the relationship with the one portfolio company that you stand to lose if you don't perform well. Uh it's potentially a very, very long-term and high value relationship if you don't manage that. So, you know, I I think um I think that process rigor uh is is always a challenge if you're growing very, very fast. Um and uh, you know, and I would say in terms of um, you know, clarity in process, again, that's something that we've spent a lot of time uh just even in the last year of creating that alignment. And it and it continues to creep up all the time because there's new initiatives that create gray areas or blind spots, and uh and it just requires uh, I think a lot of interaction, a lot of collaboration and communication. Um, and so one of the things we do is we have uh a lot of we have a very consistent operating cadence and rhythm, I think, to facilitate communication and coordination. So leadership teams meeting every single day. Uh we're meeting with uh other leaders in our teams, like our directors, uh, every other week. And and we're just kind of constantly going through this cycle of of learning, growing, resetting, you know, and and and making sure that we keep that alignment because it because it's critical. And and quite honestly, it sometimes it feels impossible to maintain when you're moving fast. Um, but uh but I think that those common interactions uh are critical. And I think that when companies move fast, sometimes they feel like, you know what, we're meeting too much, let's cut back on meetings, let's do but um but in in environments that are going through rapid transformation and growth, I I I think you know having a very consistent um you know operating rhythm is is critical.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

As you look forward to the next wave of value creation, especially given the uh extended hold periods and uh some of the difficulty funds are having raising their next fund or capital constraint or even you know the advent of AI. Where do you see groups like Vector Advisory being able to add the most value in that next phase of where private equity is headed?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

So I think we'll continue to have uh you know be that strong execution support arm. We're already starting to work with companies in terms of their data and actually moving them toward uh you know improved reporting and dashboards and metrics using like Power BI, uh, for example. In order to be able to develop those types of dashboards, right? You've got to have clean data. Once you have clean data, reliable dashboards and metrics, now I can actually tie those metrics to concepts like AI to actually then drive decisions. So I think that we're gonna we're gonna play a role in helping these companies along their AI journey. I think it's clear uh, you know, AI is is, you know, it's already had a huge impact, but I think that we're only scratching the surface as to where it's going. And so I think um, you know, I think I think Vector will continue to have a significant role in helping these companies prepare, uh, become equipped for um for how to leverage AI and you know, w where are those use cases um to apply AI toward in these organizations. Um that being said, we're we're we're constantly thinking about like how are we gonna use it better? How can we uh deliver a much better experience? How can we deliver a more comprehensive solution as a result of the use of these different tools? And how do we do it in a consistent way? Um, so so those are things that we're knee deep in right now. Um, but it's also potentially gonna change how we deliver um because things that may have used to take things that might have taken a week to do in years past, we can now do in two to four hours with Claude. So how does that change our own operating model in terms of you know how we work with clients? Um so uh that those those are uh some challenging areas that I'm that I'm focusing on. I, you know, I work with a lot, I fortunately to have in my network a lot of other professional services provider, provider leaders in my network that that were kind of kicking around different ideas. But it's an exciting time, I think, for everybody. There's no doubt that it's extremely beneficial. Um but uh, you know, I guess kind of beyond that, what I'm hoping is, and I think that AI is going to enable us to do this even faster, is that we continue to expand our capability to help folks beyond kind of the office of the CFO, um, you know, beyond the office of CHRO, but you know, even helping in operations and sales area. Ultimately, I see Vector as one day becoming the one-stop value creation shop or extension of value creation for our lower middle, lower middle market and uh and um lower middle market focused private equity firms. I'm sorry. Um so that's kind of how I'm I'm seeing um Vector continue to evolve. And uh and I think AI is only gonna allow us to be able to get there faster.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Fantastic. Well, in closing, any other summary advice or comments that you want to share from your seed?

SPEAKER_00 32:52

You know, I I think the only thing I would say is that um, you know, as with with private equity firms and their portfolio companies, I think most private equity firms are great about working with portcods uh at the platform establishment or even in the early stages of an add-on in developing strategy. Um as with anything, a strategy is great, but you still have to have execution. And I think um, I think that the real opportunity is just to make sure that the teams are equipped with dynamic service providers, whether it's Vector or somebody else, to be able to help them execute these things so that you don't delay value creation, uh, you don't create frustration. And ultimately, and more importantly, I think in most transactions, you don't lose great people. Uh, we are firm believers that most MA, whether it's a platform acquisition or an add-on, the value of these things is through the people that you're acquiring through these transactions. And the more that you can support these teams with actual execution support to execute upon those value creation plans, um, I think the uh the greater your likelihood is of achieving that investment thesis.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Well, we fundamentally agree. And I also think people should understand what those teams look like ahead of time so they can work with them in the most effective way.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

100%. And, you know, again, getting back to AI, right? It's creating so many more opportunities to be able to take, I'm sure, data that you're able to collect and be able to analyze that in so many different ways so that you are able to make the best decisions possible because you cannot delay people decisions.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

And that wraps up another inspiring episode of Leadership Quotient. It was a pleasure having Shelby on the podcast and benefiting from his insights. To our listeners, if you found this conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe to Leadership Quotient wherever you get your podcasts. You can also learn more about The Crucible and how we're helping investor-backed companies align leadership teams for scale at thecrucible.com. We'll see you next time for more real conversations on leadership, talent, and value creation.