Shannon Waller's Team Success

Strategic Podcast Network
  • 4.9 (27)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

Shannon Waller, author of The Team Success Handbook, has been the entrepreneurial team expert at Strategic Coach® since 1995. Shannon Waller’s Team Success podcasts are a series of insights around teamwork and success that she’s gained from working with entrepreneurs.

  1. 1d ago

    The Hidden Cost Of “I’ll Just Do It Myself,” with Terry Pham

    Entrepreneurs are brilliant at solving everyone else’s problems, but often get stuck in their own because they won’t fully leverage support. In this episode, Shannon Waller chats with Terry Pham of Superpowers about the five biggest delegation roadblocks, how to build a true strategic partnership with your executive assistant, and why letting go is the fastest way to 10x your impact. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Entrepreneurs are great at getting other people unstuck but often need a mirror to see where they’re stuck in their own habits and identity. A truly great executive assistant (EA) is a strategic partner with a “heart of hospitality,” anticipating your needs and future points of friction so you can stay in your Unique Ability®. The best entrepreneur–EA partnerships treat each other as complements rather than clones, so strengths and weaknesses balance instead of compete. Powerful delegation starts by making space to work on the partnership, not just on the day-to-day tasks. Terry’s five delegation roadblocks—”It takes too much time,” “No one can do this like me,” “I didn’t know I could delegate this,” “I actually enjoy this,” and “I don’t believe I deserve support”—show up in almost every entrepreneurial business. “It takes too much time, so I’ll just do it myself” is usually a bad math problem where five-minute tasks, repeated all year, slowly add up to days of lost focus. You can dramatically speed up delegation by labeling tasks as “plastic balls” (low risk, your EA runs with it) or “glass balls” (high stakes, clear guardrails and check-ins), so your EA instantly knows how careful to be and how much initiative to take. Most entrepreneurs are long Kolbe Quick Starts who delegate big-picture outcomes, while most EAs are long Follow Thrus who want details, so clear language around risk and expectations protects both sides. “No one can do this like me” is only true for activities in your Unique Ability; everything else should be delegated so you can spend your best hours on the thinking, relationships, and creativity that actually grow the business. Have your EA map your task list into what energizes you versus what drains you, then target the Excellent and Competent activities for delegation first. Many entrepreneurs discover they only love 20 percent of a task and can happily hand the other 80 percent to their EA to prepare, organize, and follow through. “I didn’t know I could delegate this” is common for rugged individualists who’ve built unconscious competence and simply stopped seeing tasks that could be handed off. Ask your EA to track your invisible tasks for a week so you can see where you’re reflexively doing things that someone else could own permanently. You can delegate far more of your personal life than you think, from family dinners to social media, freeing energy for your biggest entrepreneurial goals. “I actually enjoy doing it” often hides a procrastination strategy where you choose familiar, low-stakes tasks like emails, meetings, and quick fixes over the strategic, uncomfortable work only you can do. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to keep yourself in the not-urgent-but-important work while your EA shields you from urgent-but-not-important noise. “I don’t believe I deserve support” is usually about ego or false humility and can stop entrepreneurs from fully using an EA even after they’ve hired one. Reframing support around impact, contribution, and your company’s bigger future makes it easier to receive help without getting stuck in self-judgment. If you love serving others but resist being served, remember you’re robbing someone else of the joy and pride of supporting you at a high level. Tools like Predictive Index and Terry’s Frequency Assessment help both partners see how they’re wired so they can appreciate each other’s differences instead of fighting them. A simple daily sync can cover energy levels, top three priorities for each person, and any decisions or blocks that need clearing so the day stays intentional. Weekly planning time lets you look back on commitments, learn from friction, and look ahead at upcoming meetings, travel, and priorities together. Entrepreneurs and EAs should regularly work on the partnership by reviewing what’s creating momentum and what’s slowing you down, then adjusting as a team. Monthly “stop, start, continue” conversations in both directions, plus daily SSS feedback (short, soon, specific), clear up unspoken expectations, improve teamwork and performance, and keep frustration from building up under the surface. Being open means being willing to receive honest feedback, not just give it, especially when it reveals your blind spots as an entrepreneurial leader. Terry’s example of his EA asking him to stop checking email showed how a small habit can unintentionally signal mistrust and create extra work for the team. Personality and profile tools make it easier to name differences so you can design meetings and roles that work for everyone. Many EAs want clarity on whether a meeting is for ideation or decisions so they can join at the right time and leave with concrete actions to execute. Staying in your comfort zone of Excellent activities can keep you overpaid for tasks you’ve outgrown and under-invested in the bigger future you say you want. The courage to fully delegate is often triggered when you commit to a bigger goal that simply cannot be reached if you keep doing everything yourself. Entrepreneurs who aren’t willing to grow, let go of control, or treat people respectfully are not ready for an EA and will burn through support quickly. If you treat an EA as a cost instead of an investment, you’ll miss the massive multiplication in time, energy, and opportunity they can create for you. The best EA relationships are built on mutual respect, shared values, and a genuine desire to protect each other’s Unique Ability and well-being. In the end, the entrepreneurs who get the most from their EA are the ones willing to be transparent, let go of control, and treat support as a strategic multiplier rather than a luxury. Resources: Superpowers Setting the Table by Danny Meyer Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara Unique Ability® How To Sell Transformation Using This One Question The D.O.S. Conversation® by Dan Sullivan The Kolbe A™ Index Superpowered by Shannon Waller, Steven Neuner, and Ryan Cassin The Eisenhower Matrix The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan Frequency Assessment

    1h 2m

  2. May 28

    Why Your Business Actually Has Two Companies

    In this episode, Shannon Waller explains why every entrepreneur is really running two companies: the Present Company that generates cash today and the Future Company that drives 10x growth tomorrow. Discover how to ground yourself in current reality while intentionally designing your bigger future using elimination, automation, delegation, and your core company foundation. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Every entrepreneur is actually running two companies at once: the Present Company that pays the bills today and the Future Company that holds your 10x growth. The Present Company is your day-to-day reality—current team, current offers, current clients, and the cash flow that funds everything else. The Future Company is where your biggest innovation, differentiation, and profit potential live, which is why visionaries find it so energizing and compelling. Your core company foundation—Unique Ability®, hero target, and D.O.S.® (dangers, opportunities, and strengths)—stays constant whether you’re operating in your Present or Future Company. When you clearly understand your hero target’s D.O.S., you create a near monopoly on value because you know exactly how to help them. Entrepreneurs naturally over-focus on the Future Company and can unintentionally starve the Present Company, but your job as a leader is to treat both companies as a polarity to manage rather than a problem to solve. Strong leadership means you’re grounded in what’s working now while also intentionally designing what will make your company 10x more valuable in the future. A smart first step is to eliminate uncertainties in the Present Company by getting better data, clarifying expectations, and closing any confusing communication loops. Look for ways to automate or delegate repeatable processes so you can create consistency, save mental energy, and keep the current business running more smoothly with less effort. Use the capacity you free up to elevate, differentiate, and innovate—designing new offerings, entering new markets, or deepening value for your best hero clients. Notice whether your current conversations with team members are mostly about maintaining the Present Company or about building capabilities for the Future Company. Your Future Company needs equal respect and attention, because without conscious innovation and 10x thinking, your Present Company will eventually be outpaced by the market. Make it explicit with your team which conversations are about your Present Company and which are about your Future Company so everyone knows the context they’re operating from. Regularly revisit your core company foundation so that every new Future Company idea is anchored in what you do best for the people you most want to be a hero to. Remember that your Present Company and Future Company are both expressions of the same Unique Ability, and your leadership is what keeps them aligned and profitable over time. Resources: 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy Unique Ability® Do You Know What’s Keeping Your Clients Awake At 3 A.M.?

    12 min

  3. May 13

    Turning Conflict Into Your Strategic Advantage with Matthew Abrams

    Most entrepreneurs avoid conflict, but that’s exactly where your biggest growth is hiding. In this episode, Shannon Waller and leadership expert Matthew Abrams unpack how to turn tension into a strategic advantage using simple, practical tools that make hard conversations easier, deepen trust, and accelerate team performance in every area of your life and business. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Conflict is not a problem to avoid, but rather a signal that you or your team are out of alignment and ready for growth. There are only two kinds of conflict: the kind that connects you and the kind that damages the relationship. Productive conflict means honoring both the relationship and the result instead of over-indexing on one at the expense of the other. When leaders avoid hard conversations, team members shut down, withhold their best thinking, and show up only in the areas that feel safe. Misalignment in a leadership team leads to people rowing in different directions, accountability breaking down, and performance dropping. Teams that get good at conflict move through uncertainty faster and come out of challenges with stronger relationships and better results. Our brains are wired to treat conflict like physical danger, so the amygdala hijacks us into a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response to keep us “safe.” When leaders protect relationships instead of telling the truth, people walk on eggshells, feel disoriented, and never bring their full capability to the team. Being kind as a leader means having clear, direct conversations about what needs to change, not being “nice” and then exiting people later. The healthiest teams treat honest feedback as something precious because it gives people what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear. High‑performing leadership teams practice vulnerability loops, where one person shares a hard truth and the other receives it with openness instead of defensiveness. The most powerful growth happens in the edge zone between comfort and panic, where conversations are uncomfortable but still safe enough to stay present. Relationships are the primary vehicle for your development as a leader because they push you to edges you would never explore on your own. To stay in the edge zone and out of panic, you need practical tools to calm your nervous system. A single slow, intentional breath can bring your neocortex back online so you can respond creatively instead of reacting from fear. Saying “I am sensing … ” or “I am feeling … ” names your inner experience, keeps you in your own lane, and instantly lowers the emotional temperature. Building a richer emotional vocabulary helps you move from vague frustration to precise, useful self-awareness in heated situations. Using “I” statements rather than “you” statements is a simple, powerful marker of emotional maturity in conflict conversations. Active listening—paraphrasing what you heard and asking “Am I getting it?”—slows conversations down and makes people feel deeply heard, while phrases like “That makes sense to me” validate the other person’s experience without agreeing with their interpretation or ceding your position. When both parties feel accurately heard, they are far more willing to disagree and still commit to the decision the team needs. The P.E.A.C.E. Process gives leaders a repeatable framework for preparing for any hard conversation instead of winging it: P: Pursue alignment by explicitly naming what you and the other person both care about so it becomes the two of you versus the issue, not you versus them. E: Extract the facts by describing what actually happened in neutral, indisputable terms before you ever move into analysis or emotion. A: Assess the story and emotions by being honest about the meaning you made and the feelings that came with it, knowing your story may not be accurate but is real for you. C: Compassionately spar, with both of you sharing your perspectives while actively validating each other’s experience. E: Express needs and make a request by translating your emotions into a concrete ask that would restore trust and alignment going forward. One of the biggest leadership upgrades is decoupling your intent from your impact so you can hear how your actions landed without getting defensive. Many entrepreneurs carry an unconscious belief that they must always be right, which shuts down curiosity and keeps others from bringing their best thinking. Inviting dissent and saying “Help me understand” signals to your team that you value truth and alignment more than protecting your ego. Respect is the non‑negotiable foundation of healthy conflict because without mutual respect no one will invest in repairing the relationship. Most of your behavior in conflict is driven by subconscious beliefs and identity, so lasting change requires updating your internal operating system. Neuroplasticity means you can rewire your beliefs and patterns at any age if you are willing to do the reflective work. A key leadership shift is moving from beliefs you inherited from parents, culture, or old roles to beliefs you consciously design from your own values. Feeling like an imposter often simply means you’re in the courage phase of The 4 C’s Formula®, stretching beyond your comfort zone into your next level. Instead of resisting imposter syndrome, you can treat it as evidence that you’re growing and that new capabilities are being built. Using conflict as a practice arena—not a pass/fail test—lets you experiment with new behaviors without demanding perfection from yourself. Resources: Inviting Genius by Matthew Abrams Kolbe A™ Index Working Genius® PRINT® Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss EOS® Worldwide Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge Crazy Good Talks® The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan Unique Ability® The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy The Collaborative Way® Inviting Genius

    1h 12m

  4. Apr 30

    Make Faster Decisions (Without Losing Sleep)

    Are you and your team slowing growth by overthinking every decision? In this episode, Shannon Waller shares practical frameworks to speed up decision-making without sacrificing wisdom. Learn how to use the 40-70 rule, distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 decisions, and free your team to move faster with confidence. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Most entrepreneurial companies lose momentum, not from bad decisions, but from decisions that take far too long. The speed of your decision-making sets the speed of execution for your entire company. People tend to make every decision using their own natural configuration rather than matching the strategy to the size of the decision. Visionaries often prefer to move fast with minimal information, while expert team members prefer deeper research and detail. Treating every decision like a high-stakes, irreversible choice creates friction, bottlenecks, and frustration on all sides. The 40-70 rule gives you a practical “good enough” guideline so decisions don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. Less than 40 percent of the information is usually guessing, while more than 70 percent is usually slowing you down. Jeff Bezos’s Type 1 and Type 2 decision model helps you match the level of analysis to the real risk of the decision. A Type 1 decision is high-stakes and hard to reverse, so it deserves more time, research, and perspectives. A Type 2 decision is reversible and more experimental, so it should be made quickly so you can learn and adjust. Asking “Can I undo this later?” is a simple filter that keeps you from overbuilding analysis around reversible decisions. You can use dollar amounts or impact thresholds to predefine what counts as a Type 1 versus a Type 2 decision in your company. When leaders treat everything as a Type 1 decision, teams learn to escalate instead of taking ownership. Giving explicit permission for Type 2 decisions frees your team to act rather than waiting for you to approve every move. Many team members will not “ask for forgiveness later” unless you first give them permission and clear boundaries. Tools like The Experience Transformer® turn every decision, good or bad, into a structured learning opportunity. When people only follow instructions, they don’t build real decision-making capability or take full responsibility for outcomes. You can coach your team by asking what happens if we go in each direction, rather than just answering the question for them. Over time, routing all decisions through a small group at the top builds bureaucracy and slows down innovation. Protecting agility means designing decision frameworks that keep power and problem solving as close to the front line as possible. Entrepreneurial companies win by making small, reversible decisions quickly and iterating based on real feedback. Clear decision rules create confidence for you and your team, which leads to faster action and better learning. Resources: Transforming Experiences Into Multipliers Kolbe A™ Index PRINT®

    17 min

  5. Apr 16

    Seven Ways To Build A Strong Support Partnership

    Are you treating your Strategic Assistant® like a task-taker or as a true support partner? In this episode, Shannon Waller shares seven practical ways to build a stronger working relationship so you can save time, reduce friction, and create more ease in your day-to-day business. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Your Strategic Assistant is not there simply to take orders but to help manage the moving parts of your business and life. The best support relationships start with knowing each other’s strengths, needs, and natural working styles. Profiles like Kolbe, PRINT®, CliftonStrengths®, and Working Genius® can help you understand your own style and your assistant’s strengths. The Communication Builder is a great tool that helps you understand how each of you prefers to give and receive information, especially under stress. This is a relationship, not a transaction, so commitment and mutual respect are non-negotiable. Frequent communication creates better support, fewer misses, and a much smoother day-to-day rhythm. Daily huddles, project check-ins, and regular strategic meetings keep both of you aligned. Your Strategic Assistant should have enough context and clarity to help manage the details that keep you moving forward. Be willing to be managed because support partners often see the timing, structure, and follow-through more clearly than you do. Your Strategic Assistant is an essential “Who” on your team, often helping with the work that makes everything recur smoothly. Great partnerships are built on humor, grace, and a willingness to learn when things don’t go perfectly. The goal isn’t a short-term arrangement, but a long-term relationship that grows with you and strengthens your productivity and impact over time. Resources: Kolbe A™ Index Working Genius CliftonStrengths DISC PRINT Unique Ability® The Communication Builder Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

    17 min

  6. Apr 2

    Once You Know, You Know

    Are you hanging on to a team member you already know is wrong for your company? In this episode, Shannon Waller talks about the real cost of waiting. You’ll hear practical examples of wrong-fit scenarios, why your best people and clients feel it first, and how to make clear, respectful decisions that strengthen your whole team. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Once you know someone is a wrong-fit team member, your only strategic option is to take action, not wait. Delaying a tough people decision implicitly tells your best team members that you’re willing to tolerate mediocrity. Keeping a wrong-fit person costs you twice: your best team members lose morale, and your clients feel the drag in service and results. Your A-Players will eventually ask themselves why they should keep going above and beyond if you allow B and C performance to stand. The right team culture feels like an all-star team where everyone is growing, contributing, and pulling in the same direction. There are different levels of wrong-fit—from the new hire who can’t do the job to the long-term “legacy” team member your company has outgrown. High producers with bad habits, poor teamwork, or misaligned values are often the most expensive wrong fits in your organization. If someone’s values clash with your culture, they’ll build their own agenda inside your company. People who stop growing eventually slow down your entire company’s growth, no matter how long they’ve been with you or how nice they are. Legacy team members can hold the business emotionally and operationally hostage if you don’t intentionally capture their knowledge and evolve the role. Clients can usually see wrong-fit behavior before you act, and they’ll quietly question your standards when you don’t address it. When you uphold your standards and let a wrong-fit person go, your best team members often feel relieved and more loyal. Taking decisive, thoughtful action—legally, ethically, and gracefully—protects your culture and signals to everyone that you mean what you say. Moving a bright person into a better-fit role is a powerful way to protect your culture, keep great talent, and honor their Unique Ability®. Thinking about a people issue doesn’t create progress; taking clear action is how you learn what works and what doesn’t. Your job as the entrepreneur is to build and protect a high-standard Unique Ability® Team that can deliver the top-quality experience your clients are paying for. Resources: Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller Kolbe A™ Index Unique Ability Process Suite

  7. Mar 19

    Lean Hard Into Your Strengths

    Are you still trying to be well-rounded instead of simply doing more of what you’re best at? In this episode, Shannon Waller shows how connecting your various profile results reveals a natural success strategy you can actually trust. Learn how to stop fixing weaknesses, redesign your role around your true strengths, and create bigger and better results with less effort. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Many entrepreneurs collect profile results, but few connect the dots into a clear picture of how they’re actually wired to create value. When you see yourself through CliftonStrengths®, Kolbe, PRINT®, and Working Genius® together, you get language that explains your best decisions, habits, and leadership style. Your natural strengths are not random; they’re your built‑in differentiator and the reason you’re here to create value for specific people. Profiles are most powerful when you translate the labels into real strategies for how you sell, lead, make decisions, and structure your days. Talent multiplied by deliberate investment—practice, skill-building, and knowledge—turns into a strength that can deliver near‑perfect performance on demand. When you finally take your own strengths seriously, you stop trying to copy other leaders and start winning by being more deeply yourself. Knowing your top strengths lets you design a success strategy that feels natural rather than forcing yourself into roles that drain your energy. When you’re honest about where you’re genuinely useful (and where you’re not), you can structure your role so your best abilities are always front stage. You don’t need to become organized or methodical if that’s not how you’re wired; you just need the right people and systems in place so your strengths can stay front and center. Letting go of who you “should” be and fully owning how you’re actually designed frees up massive mental and emotional energy. Any strength, taken to an extreme, turns into a weakness, so your job is to find the sweet spot where it creates the greatest positive impact. Activities that sit in your non‑strength zones create a negative return on your time and will limit your entrepreneurial growth. Operating only in what you’re merely competent at leads to flat, 1x results and a constant sense that work is harder than it should be. Even Excellent Activities—where you’re skilled but not energized—deliver only linear gains and leave you less time and energy for the tasks you’re uniquely suited to. When you build your schedule around your true strengths and passions, your efforts can create 10x returns and start to feel like energized play. Unique Ability® is where your greatest talent and passion meet a real result for the people you most want to be a hero to. As a leader, your responsibility is to know your own strengths and intentionally bring out those of every team member you rely on. Helping your team see their profiles as a “winning strategy” gives them permission to stop fixing weaknesses and start compounding what already works. When everyone leans into their strengths, you can divide and conquer, freeing up each person to do more of what they’re great at and less of what they’re not. Seeing people as a kaleidoscope of motivations and capabilities keeps you curious, appreciative, and far less likely to make limiting assumptions. The more fluent you become with strengths language, the easier it is to spot right‑fit roles, ideal collaborations, and the next strategic hires. ​Designing teamwork around complementary strengths makes big goals feel lighter, more creative, and more joyful for everyone involved. Connecting the dots on your strengths and your team’s strengths is one of the fastest ways to make work more profitable, more fulfilling, and more fun.  Resources Kolbe A™ Index Working Genius CliftonStrengths PRINT Unique Ability StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

    16 min

  8. Mar 5

    Don’t Take Your A-Players For Granted

    Do your A-Players know how much you value them? In this episode, Shannon Waller explains why top talent is often the easiest to overlook and the high cost of taking them for granted. She also shares a practical five-part formula to ensure your best people feel utilized, appreciated, and rewarded so they never want to leave. Download Episode Transcript Show Notes: Your A-Players are the top 10 percent of available talent for a role, consistently performing at a high level while fully living your company’s core values. A-Players make your life easier by consistently delivering easier, faster, better, and cheaper results, which is exactly why they’re so easy to unintentionally take for granted. When you overlook your best people, they often take on more and more responsibility, leading to burnout, resentment, and eventually disengagement or departure. Top talent will leave if they don’t feel seen, appreciated, rewarded, or fairly compensated for the extraordinary value they’re creating. The real financial cost in most companies isn’t A-Players’ compensation, but the time and energy spent managing misaligned team members who don’t live your values. Retaining A-Players starts with treating them as an opportunity, not a given, and being intentional about how you invest in their growth, rewards, and future with your company. Appreciation is a performance strategy, so make a habit of specifically acknowledging the results and effort your A-Players make in language that really lands for them. Reward your A-Players with meaningful financial recognition tied to their results, remembering that their excellence is already saving you money and complexity elsewhere in the business. Maximize your A-Players by giving them real opportunities to grow, learn, and expand their capabilities so they can see a bigger future for themselves inside your organization. Refer your A-Players internally by championing their reputation, talking them up to others, and making sure the rest of the organization knows how great they are and what they contribute. It’s also important to protect your A-Players from being dragged down by B- and C-Players because top talent wants to work with other top talent and will leave if you tolerate drama and low standards. Treat retaining A-Players as a core entrepreneurial strategy because when you take great care of them, they take great care of your company, your clients, and your freedom. Resources: Topgrading by Brad Smart and Geoff Smart Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller Unique Ability®

    15 min
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4.9
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About

Shannon Waller, author of The Team Success Handbook, has been the entrepreneurial team expert at Strategic Coach® since 1995. Shannon Waller’s Team Success podcasts are a series of insights around teamwork and success that she’s gained from working with entrepreneurs.

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