In this episode, I interview Mark Horstman, the Co-Founder of Manager Tools LLC, a management consulting firm that regularly provides consultancy and training to managers in Fortune 1000 companies around the world. He also co-hosts a podcast also called Manager Tools, which has millions of downloads a month and has won tons of awards, being named the world’s best business podcast.  

Mark is an incredibly accomplished business leader and personality. He is a United States Military Academy graduate (West Point) and former US Army officer. He was previously a manager and executive in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble, and has been coaching and training managers and executives since 1988. He came on the show to talk about the behaviors that matter when it comes to being a good manager and delivering the expected results at all times. 

He says the hardest thing in management for a small business is deciding to spend time on management issues and internal issues, and that the one thing he would say to a small business owner who is starting out in their growth journey is, “Focus on customers. It’s all customers” Please listen to enjoy all that Mark has to share!

This Cast Covers:

• Working with other people and paying attention to their ideas to really succeed.
• His backstory: From the Military academy, serving in Hawaii, doing special forces work in South America, to killing it in sales at Procter & Gamble, and now coaching and training managers.
• The power of data and how it has enabled them to be the best at what they do.
• Focusing on changing the behaviors of individual managers to inspire change in companies from within.
• Leveraging employees’ strengths instead of trying to fix their weaknesses.
• How managers can deliver great results by engaging in the right behaviors, developing trust, and talking to their people about their performance.
• Improving your management abilities by hiring better instead of hiring fast.
• The two main reasons for a manager to fire somebody.
• Doing over 12,000 interviews as a recruiter for big companies and organizations.
• Mastering the three powers in the workplace: Role power, relationship power, and expertise power.
• Why it’s critical for every manager to be great at feedback.
• How powerful being a better manager can be for a small business.
• The importance of small business owners spending more time on developing a management structure.
• Some of the best management training programs that Mark would recommend.
• The correlation between success and being a nice and kind person.
• Focusing on customers and being conscious of the fact that all results happen outside a small business.

Additional Resources:

• Manager Tools LLC
• The Manager Tools Podcast
• The Effective Manager By Mark Horstman
• The Effective Hiring Manager By Mark Horstman
• The Innovator’s Dilemma By Clayton Christensen
• The Effective Executive By Peter Drucker
• Execution By Lawrence Bossidy and Ram Charan
• How to Win Friends and Influence People By Dale Carnegie

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Quotes:

“If you’re going to be successful in the world, you have to work with all kinds of people” – Mark Horstman

“Management is the same virtually everywhere” – Mark Horstman

“Leverage your people’s strengths” – Mark Horstman 

“Improve your management abilities by hiring better” – Mark Horstman 

“The only thing worse than an open position is filling it with the wrong person” – Mark Horstman

“The way to get ahead is to deliver results” – Mark Horstman

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Music from https://filmmusic.io “Cold Funk” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/