If You Want To Be Acquired by Private Equity, Fix This First With Felicia Shakiba

Felicia Shakiba is the Founder and CEO of CPO Playbook, a leadership and human capital advisory firm serving private equity and venture-backed companies. As an industrial-organizational psychologist and certified Korn Ferry coach, she has over two decades of experience driving people strategy across Fortune 500 and high-growth companies. Felicia is also an Advisory Council Member for Harvard Business Review, hosts the CPO PLAYBOOK podcast, and developed PIA360™, the first tool that quantifies leadership and culture across a portfolio.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:39] Why founders underestimate leadership alignment and board relationships when preparing for a private equity deal
[5:39] What private equity firms fear most after a deal closes
[8:59] How communication breakdowns across organizational levels create business risks
[13:17] The importance of data-driven leadership decisions
[18:14] Felicia Shakiba talks about fostering psychological safety to uncover workplace issues
[28:36] How leaders cultivate ownership through trust, incentives, and manager relationships
[35:51] Decision agility and accountability as essential leadership capabilities in changing markets
[50:39] Adapting leadership and talent strategies during rapid AI-driven transformation
[55:07] Why AI initiatives fail when leaders ignore employee concerns and change readiness
[1:09:49] Felicia’s educational and professional path into industrial-organizational psychology and executive coaching

In this episode…

Many founders assume that strong financial performance is enough to ensure long-term success. Yet after an acquisition, organizations often encounter misalignment, slowed decision-making, and cultural friction that undermine results. Why do businesses with solid strategies struggle when leadership dynamics are tested?

Leadership and organizational effectiveness expert Felicia Shakiba argues that these challenges stem from leadership behaviors rather than flawed economics. She advises aligning mission and vision across the company, building trust-based communication, and replacing intuition with data-driven insights. Leaders should surface issues early, reinforce accountability, and build decision agility so teams can adapt without losing focus.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris talks with Felicia Shakiba, Founder and CEO of CPO Playbook, about leadership risk and value creation in private equity-backed companies. She shares common concerns investors have after deals close, how ownership mindset and decision agility drive performance, and the key questions founders should address before entering the boardroom.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“Private equity doesn’t lose money because the math was wrong. They lose money because leadership breaks under pressure.”
“Communication, if not frequent and authentic, will kill your business, period.”
“If you want a great business, you’ve got to be great with people.”
“People may not say what they think is happening out loud, but they have intuition.”
“If the leaders aren’t adaptable, you can bet your bottom dollar the rest of the company won’t be either.”

Action Steps

Clarify and reinforce your mission and vision: Clearly communicating direction helps teams align decisions and act with confidence. When people understand where the business is going, they can contribute more effectively without constant oversight.
Establish consistent feedback and communication channels: Creating structured ways for information to flow upward and downward prevents hidden issues from festering. This ensures that leaders make decisions based on reality rather than assumptions.
Use data to assess leadership and culture risks: Measuring leadership behaviors uncovers problems that intuition alone often misses. Data-driven insight allows organizations to focus on the issues that most directly impact performance.
Build ownership mindset through accountability and incentives: Aligning rewards with outcomes encourages employees to think and act like owners. This increases engagement and drives sustained value creation.
Prepare teams for change with transparency and support: Proactively addressing uncertainty reduces resistance to transformation, including AI adoption. When employees feel informed and supported, change initiatives are far more likely to succeed.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:13

Hey everyone. I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce and beyond to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million as you up arrow your business and your personal life. A lot of founders think private equity buys numbers, revenue, EBITDA, growth curves and a spreadsheet. But here's the uncomfortable truth, private equity doesn't lose money because the math was wrong. They lose money because leadership breaks under pressure after the deal closes, after the board changes, after decision making gets political, after influence suddenly matters more than control, and almost no one prepares founders for that moment. Today's guest doesn't just advise on leadership, she measures it, models it, and uses data to predict which companies will scale and which ones will fail fall apart. Felicia Shakiba is the founder and CEO of CPO Playbook, soon to be called leaderbook.ai. We might talk about that a little bit. Former Global Head of Performance Management at WPP, over 100,000 employees worldwide, and she's built what many people now call money ball for leadership teams. Her work helps private equity firms predict sales growth, retention, turnover and even which companies are most likely to exit successfully, not based on vibes or opinions, but on leadership and culture data. Felicia, welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast.

Felicia Shakiba 1:34

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you today. Yeah, I

William Harris 1:38

always like to give a shout out to give a shout out to whoever introduced us, and I was thinking back through this and looking at my notes, and I don't think anybody did. I think we introduced ourselves to each other. I think we met on LinkedIn. And I love when you get to meet people digitally, no intros, but you hit it off and find something exciting to talk

Felicia Shakiba 1:54

about absolutely and and that's what that platform is good at. So I'm happy to have met you, and I'm looking forward to us meeting in-person one day.

William Harris 2:03

Likewise, I have one small interruption, and then we're gonna get right into the good stuff. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that IPO Ed, you can learn more on our website at elumynt.com, which is spelled elumynt.com okay, let's get right into the meat and potatoes. If an e-commerce founder listening today wants to be acquired by private equity in the next two to five years, what's the one thing they are almost certainly underestimating?

Felicia Shakiba 2:39

Oh gosh, what a heavy question. I think they're underestimating the amount of weight that a relationship with the board has on the impact of their business. Yeah, if I were to think about what they should be focusing on, I think that they should be truly focusing on aligning not just the needs of their executive team and their customers, but also how that also drills down into their employee base, and how to communicate that vision and mission so that your entire team, your entire company, is on the same page you are, which makes it that much easier to have good, positive, healthy, debatable relationships with your board.

William Harris 3:37

Yeah, I can remember as a startup ourselves before we had developed our own mission, vision values, thinking that that stuff was just just not necessary. It's the interruption from just, you know, just get stuff done, right? Just get it done. And then we implemented that. And it was amazing to see how many lights were going off, because other people in the team were able to make decisions now that aligned with what we actually wanted to do, and it removed me as being a bottleneck. It's, it's, it's exciting to see that transformation,

Felicia Shakiba 4:08

yeah, and it's so easy to put that aside when you have so many things burning as you're building. And it truly is, you know, even I have to remember sometimes when I'm building my own business, and I have to think about, you know, mission and vision, and I and I sometimes I'm like, Oh, well, that's, you know, that's not important right now. I don't need to share, you know. But it is, it is because it's the foundation in which you build. And so when you're in conversations about your business or to your clients or to your customers, you are truly communicating, or should be communicating, that mission and vision to your customers in different ways, regard, regarding, you know, how is your product designed? How is it actually providing value to the end user, to the customer? Yeah, and and those end users, those customers, those investors, even they can feel and breathe and sense that that mission and vision depending on how it shows up, right? So when you think about mission and vision, it's it's really about the foundation and how you show up in your product and in your value that you provide.

William Harris 5:24

Let's flip to the other side of this coin. A lot of founders I mentioned, they assume that PE is buying numbers, revenue, EBITDA, etc, from your work across different portfolios. What do PE firms really were about once the deal closes?

Felicia Shakiba 5:39

So this is a really interesting topic, because once the deal closes, pe firms are worried about what they didn't know about prior to the deal being made. And this is a very common fear and worry, because most PE firms know that there are things that are going to be surprises. They just want to understand how big is the surprise, sure, and and, you know, it's it's flipped as well. You know, you as a business owner who is essentially selling a part or the entirety of their business to PE firms. PE firms are not always going to share all of their challenges too, that they've had with portfolio companies in the past. So once a deal is done, there's just a lot more transparency, but it's also really challenging to get to the bottom of it, because you're still in the honeymoon phase, and PE firms want to know as much as possible, as soon as possible, so they can case, so they can Support and take care of it, whereas a business owner is still a little bit fearful of, you know, what they might uncover or find out, or, you know what challenges they might be having, because they want to have that honeymoon phase go really well. I think that what we do and what we help our clients do, both on the portfolio leadership side as well as the PE firms, is we help uncover and that information extremely fast, but we also, if not faster, do a u turn and say, Okay, now we know what those Challenges are now we know exactly how to solve them, and here's the game plan. And so it just becomes a much easier way to kind of rip the mandate off and start focusing on, how do we create solutions? How do we create a roadmap for value creation, and what does that look like? And we're able to pinpoint very precisely where should we be spending time in value creation, and where are the challenges that aren't going to move the needle as much, right? Because when we think about after the deal is, is is done, there are 164 challenges. Okay, some are small, some are big, but the big and hairy challenges are often really hard to spot, because maybe they're, you know, mid size challenges, but they actually move the needle the most, right? So what we do is we have our Pia 360 diagnostic, which is the portfolio intelligence assessment. And we truly not just uncover what's going on, but things that PE firms, even executives, didn't even know existed. It is very interesting. It's very profound to watch leaders, you know, uncover, maybe their assumptions of what might be help happening in the business to truly understanding, oh, that is a bigger problem than I thought, or I didn't even know that that problem existed.

William Harris 8:54

What are some of the things that are problems that they come up with that they just weren't even aware of

Felicia Shakiba 8:59

so well, I will tell you, but let me give you some context. Okay, so in any business, not just portfolio companies, but in any business, there is a telephone issue. Have you ever played telephone with a friend and you say something and right? So the telephone issue is much more it's challenging horizontally from one department to the next, but it's also a vertical challenge. So when you think about it, what leaders might communicate to managers, managers may or may not communicate to individual contributors and so forth, right? So there's this game of telephone that is happening. And so when you get all the way up to the board, they're only hearing what is happening in the business from the leader, right? So it's really challenging to you know, you can't build relationships with every individual contributor in the business from the board. So they really, truly rely on leaders to communicate. Kate, what's what's happening, what's working, what's not working. And that when things that are not working at the IC level almost never get surfaced at the top, and that erodes the business value. So if you think about like, what are some of the challenges that we uncover? Well, we uncover challenges that ICs are dealing with and you and an example might be, you know, an IC, an IC, meaning individual contributor might show up to work with their team, and their team is really upset about maybe a specific manager, or maybe how two managers are not really seeing eye to eye, and so their departments aren't working well together, or sales and engineering, like maybe one department is getting more attention than the other. And if that's happening, you know they're not involving different perspectives and opinions into making decisions or the right decisions. And so they don't get the resources that they need. So there are a host of challenges that can truly surface. But with that being said, I think that when you talk or when you share some of those challenges at in the diagnostic with an operating partner, they are, you know, bug eyed. They're they're like a deer in a headlight, and it's, it's nothing to be ashamed of. We we are. We can't be everywhere all the time. You know, as as operating partners or investors or or executive leadership teams, that's actually not a good thing. We rely very heavily on communication and feedback, and if we don't have the right channels for communication and feedback, we're just not getting all the information we need. And not that you need 100% of the information to make good decisions, but you need good perspective and diversity of thought to make good decisions. So if, if you're not involving, if you're not truly digging for the right information and understanding and creating a safe space, like psychological safety for those challenges to truly surface, you are going to be in trouble down the line.

William Harris 12:12

Yeah, it's true. In everything, there's a thing called function health that does a bunch of lab work. It's like 100 labs or whatever that they do, and I've started doing it here. Started doing it here this year, and so they do it every six months, and there's, like, this pretty extensive panel. But to the same point is, you can't make a lot of the positive decisions and changes that you need for your health if you don't have the feedback that you need coming back to you to let you know what these different pieces are doing. And so there could be all these problems that are underlying, and maybe they haven't tipped the scale yet to where, you know, one of the normal blood panels you're gonna get at your annual physical with your doctor is gonna show it. But there's all of these things that are just ready, just about the tip, and maybe now it's, you know, it's too late. It's a lot harder to deal with than if you had dealt with it sooner.

Felicia Shakiba 12:59

Absolutely

William Harris 13:01

yeah, I want to talk about your money ball for leadership stuff here. You've described this, this, this team here. What problem were you seeing over and over again that made you think we need data, not vibes for this.

Felicia Shakiba 13:17

I have worked in a lot of different environments. And when you work in different environments, there are very few things that are consistent, and one of those things is leadership and people. There's people in every company, right? May not be the same product, may not be the same industry, but people and their behaviors are consistent, and so I think one of the things that I've seen over and over again, that really only very few people could see, from my perspective, was that communication, if not frequent and authentic, will kill your business period. And I say that because I, like I said, I've seen it so many times. I was once with working with a company and the leader every every person truly was worried about their job, about where the company was going. They had so many questions, and we would have all hands every month, which is great, yeah. I mean, that's that's important to have an all hands. And the leader would come to an all hands with like a script, and not answer any questions from people, and it wasn't it was less about what he said and more about what he didn't say and what he didn't address. And he thought that he was making sure that everyone was feeling great about the business and great about the product. And. Not to worry. And it was just a really big Miss of getting people to have a sense of urgency of fixing those problems and helping their people get on board and supporting the business in the correct way. And so it was. It was just a matter of time for the business to to truly need a big change. And unfortunately, there were a couple of layoffs, you know, back to back waves and that that's, I think, the worst place you can be, because morale dips and everyone is afraid they've got one foot in and one foot out, and there's a really, it's just becomes very challenging to be resilient as a business. And so when it comes back to like, we need data to show that this is a real issue, that this is a real thing. And and of course, like we once we found the right data, and once we were able to take that data and predict what leadership traits actually moved the needle and predicted business outcomes, we found a lot more than just communication and authenticity, right? But at the end of the day, that was the first thing that I saw that I thought, you know, people are not they. People are very aware. They may not say what they think is happening out loud, but they have intuition. They understand non verbal cues. We understand how to react to human behavior and and there are natural needs like promotions and communication and collaboration and feeling a sense of purpose, and all of those things are, those are natural needs. Those are things that people want and that will help them become more productive at work, you know, there is a huge productivity leak when you have when people are not on the same page, and you can't have your employees be on the same page as you if you're not a leader who is being authentic about what's really happening, because then they're going to make guesses, and those guesses might be right and they might be wrong. And so if everyone is scattered in different directions, there's very little alignment, and without alignment, you can't really, truly provide value to your customer.

William Harris 17:24

As good as we are at reading social cues and things like that, we're also equally as bad. And to your point, I think that from what I've heard, when something is left unsaid, then we will come up with our own idea behind it. And usually it's an idea that spirals. It's not a healthy idea. And so to your point, it's better off getting that out in the open. You mentioned that this was at, like an all hands meeting that he came with a script and didn't ask questions at an all hands meeting, it's very hard to ask, let people ask questions right to a point, because there's, you know, our team is like 20 people. Some teams are 400 people, or 100,000 people. You know, how could that have been handled differently in that situation, since it's in all hands and potentially too many people to be able to ask questions there? Do you still ask questions? How do you decide who's asking the questions? How do you get that communication better there?

Felicia Shakiba 18:14

Well, I think that, I think that, first of all, HR business partners are very valuable, as much as people might think. They're just administrative, really strategic. HR, business partners have a good pulse on the business and people's and what's on people's minds, to surface those questions to leadership and making sure that leadership addresses those questions. So let's say, if it is 100,000 person company, you're not going to sit there and, you know, go one by one and as people raise their hand, but you should be able to have a true understanding of how people are feeling from different sources of feedback, like HR business partners or even your engagement survey, or a survey like what we have, which is our our portfolio intelligence assessment. You know, part of that assessment is a very, very intense survey that allows us to really look at the entire part of your business, and by doing that, and by doing it strategically, we're able to find out more information than you would in an engagement survey. I mean, I would say 10 times more information than you would an engagement survey, and it takes the same amount of time and probably a lot less cost, right? Because we are doing such a thorough investigation of what's happening and looking at every corner, we can then truly prioritize what are the biggest challenges, right? So that allows us to prioritize what's what's truly important. So instead of creating bias of like, you know, the person who is the loudest voice in the room gets their answers, gets theirs, their questions answered, right? So it's not about the loudest person in the room. It could be somebody who has never surfaced this question before, because they might be introverted, may not, may not feel like there is psychological safety. To bring up some of these challenges, but we go an extra step. We don't just do we don't just launch a survey. We actually coach individuals prior to the survey and say to the leaders that, hey, leaders, your job is to get 100% participation, and if you don't, then the rest of that participation of the people who don't respond to the survey, because it is optional, is sending you a signal. The signal is, I'm too scared to tell you what's going on. That's not good. That is still a signal. And you know, so, so we coach the leaders. We also introduce ourselves to employees in various different ways to help them understand what is our purpose as their as a consultant coming in, who? Who the heck are we? You know, these random people are trying to ask me very sensitive questions. We actually also do qualitative interviews to get you know them to understand, what are we actually investigating? What are we looking for? And really, when we do those qualitative interviews, we ask people like, what is your what is your wish? You know, what do you want to change? What do you want to happen? What is blocking you from being the best at your job? And that is, that's really what we're getting after, right? And we reassure them too, that these are confidential conversations like that's that's actually one of the biggest things, I think, that or pieces of value that we provide is that we're a third party. You know, you're not as as a company looking for ways to improve their value, or to increase their value. There is a lot of information that they can get, certainly from their own team members. But because we're a third party, there is a there's a distance between, you know, and or, how should I say this, a greater anonymity, there's a great, greater safety layer of making sure that they're not telling somebody that's part of that company where they might if you know that information gets in the wrong hands, they might lose their job as a third party we prioritize. We wouldn't be able to do our jobs if we didn't make sure that people's responses were anonymous and so and we don't look for outliers. We look for themes, right? So if there is a very serious you know issue, of course, we'll bring that up in the case that that might be sensitive, but for the most part, our job is to look for themes. And so there is no reason for us to bring up one person's statement. It allows us to to actually be influential for the leaders, and say, Actually, this is a problem, because it's not just showing up in the quantitative data. It's showing up in our qualitative data as well. And this is the deeper reason why. And we're able to show a masterpiece, a true illustration, clearly, of what that path is to value creation. It's It's unlike anything I had ever expected we would ever do, because when we started this project, it was really just to get people to or get leaders to have true like a source of truth and understanding of what is blocking their business from being successful. But it became so much more valuable than than that we're able to actually curate true value creation road maps that allow us to identify exactly when that value would be complete, and by how much value is it? Is it a million dollars? Is it at $1.5 million is it $5 million I mean, we can actually showcase the leakage of productivity, or, you know, leadership mismatch and so forth. That allows us to truly understand, you know, what are the solutions to these very specific and precise challenges. A lot of times, like, prior to doing to creating the PIA the diagnostic, I had clients come to me and say, Oh, this is what we need. This is what we need. And I would say, Okay, well, can you give me some data so I have a true understanding of, like, for example, how to, how to create or design this manager leadership training, one on one, right? And there's 100,000 you know, 565 ways of doing that. Can you tell me? Can you give me a ballpark of what you're finding? And it was a lot of hearsay of what they needed. And so I just, I it was, it was painful for me because I thought, Gosh, I'm I am definitely creating value, but how do we actually measure the value that we're creating? And there was just no data to say, Here is the before and here is the after, and that is something that we do very. Very well, we are able to say, Here is the before. And then we have our pulse surveys that that we specifically select, customize for the client, and say, These are the items, these that we need to move. This is the this is where we need to move the needle, right here. And we need to have these pulse surveys to understand, has the needle been moved, yes or no, and if not, then what are we doing? You know, it gives us a chance to course correct extremely fast. Whereas sometimes companies would continue on to these paths of thinking, they're creating value spending a lot of wasted time in meetings and creating programs that aren't really going to move the needle and aren't forecasting for the business future needs, which is also very important, because it's not just what you need today, it's what you need in the future.

William Harris 25:55

I appreciated the way that you called out this thing that's blocking people right where it's like, just letting them say, like, what's blocking you from being your best? Because there's nothing perhaps more demotivating to an A player that you want on your team than something blocking them, like being next to a B Player A C player, frustrating, but not more frustrating than having something that is literally blocking you from being the a player that you want to be. So I think that's a great way to word it in all of your studies. Then, what are the six leadership factors that you have seen consistently show up as value drivers across portfolios?

Felicia Shakiba 26:34

Yes, well, it is a little bit of our secret sauce, but I will share some. I think that one of those factors has owner is Ownership mindset. And that's kind of vague, right? I mean, you can really think about what exactly do you mean by Ownership mindset, and you can capture it in a multiple different ways, but I think that the best way to think about it is also how to pair compensation and rewards to showing up as an owner. And it's it's the approach that people might take, the mindset that people will take. So when they clock in, not only are they just clock they're not just clocking in, clocking out, they are clocking in to say I need to move the needle on something. And this is part of my purpose. I am driven to do this. I want to do this. I want to be here. And if I get a bonus, that's a you know, that is lucky for me. It's this, this mindset that if I see trash on the floor. I'm going to pick it up myself, and I might be the Chief Operating Officer. I'm not going to go tell someone to do it. This is my store. This is my company, and I want to make sure that my company is clean, efficient, productive. I'm going to help the next person who walks in the door, and they might not be on my team, they might not even be in my department, but if they need something, I want to make sure I give it to them right that Ownership mindset of I am responsible for anything you know that I see, and if something's going wrong, I want to be able to call it out. And if you imagine every individual in your business, having an Ownership mindset and coming to work on that day, like, just move out of their way. They're working, but get out of the way. You know. How does that

William Harris 28:32

happen, though? How do you develop that?

Felicia Shakiba 28:36

It's it's a good question. It's slightly different from one company to the next depending on because there's a lot of variables that go into Ownership mindset, right? So some companies might be soft on variable one and two, but might be doing what really well on three and four, and it might be flipped. So that's what, like the diagnostic does. It tells us, like you might be, you know, having, like, a low score on Ownership mindset. But what specifically about Ownership mindset? Are you lagging on and and so it says a different right? So it's different for every company, but a lot of it has to do. I think Ownership mindset has a lot to do with relationships and rewards. You know, do I want to help the people that I work with, are they kind to me? Is my manager? Does my manager care about me? If my if I don't feel my manager cares about me, I'm not really interested to show up and care about my manager. And if my manager is having a hard time, and they are, you know, overseeing seven people's seven different people, you know, imagine like, the ripple effect that that has, right? So it's, you know, if it's important to make sure that the people that you work with also care about you as an individual, and you're more likely to give back and look at the business as like. Almost like a. I don't want to say that it is a human but it's like, it's a, it's a living breathing entity. The company is a living breathing entity. Do I want to support and help the people who make up this living breathing entity? I think that's part of it. But the Ownership mindset is also, like I said about rewards, and it's like, if the company does well, does that mean that, you know, I am also going to take a piece of that, and that's really important. If someone's coming into the business and just, you know, going from paycheck to paycheck, then they might just be there for the paycheck, whether the business does well or not. So it's important to make sure that people have a stake that allows them to be rewarded for that type of behavior. I'm going

William Harris 30:50

to brag a little bit about Elumynt thing, because you said some things that I like, and you can either tell me if these are good or bad ideas, maybe, maybe I'm bragging, but I don't know if there's a good yet, but one to align incentives. We have an unlimited cap bonus, which is tied to how much revenue you're generating for the business, right? There is no cap to that. You can make as much as you possibly want, and part of it, in my mind on, let's just say that Ownership mindset is, if you have some ownership over your finances, right? Like you have the ability or some autonomy over your finances, you feel more ownership then as well, right? So that's one thing, and I thought that was one of the most motivating things. And it was something we did for a while. It was good, but I'd say the thing for me that I have felt has been the most motivating for our team is exactly what you just said about the relationships. And so it was once we implemented our our values. And so we narrowed it just down to three, be innovative. That's what we do. You have to be innovative in running ads. You have to out, think and outsmart the other people, right? Be accountable, because it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, if you're not accountable, you got to do that. But I think the one that really hits home here for me is Be human. And so I'm going to read to you the little like story that I have for be human. See what you think says we have emotions. We have families and friends and pets. We have good days and bad days and even some math days. We have hopes and dreams and fears and heartbreaks, and at the same is true for our clients, our team, our vendors and everyone else that we come in contact with, even the people on the road as we drive to work. So we will make sure that we are a positive influence on every precious human life to the best extent possible. We will take the time to listen. We will communicate purposely, thoroughly and kindly. We will opt for more light hearted, playful communication whenever possible, while recognizing the need for seriousness at appropriate times as well. And while we do have people relying on us counting on us, we recognize that we are not perfect, that we need to be as kind to ourselves as we are to others. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, we recognize that if we want to be a positive influence on those around us, we must protect our hearts by showing ourselves grace as well. We must recognize that we are not alone. Take time off, establish good habits and advocate for ourselves and our teammates against unrealistic expectations. And I wrote that before chat GPT, there was that was before that happened, right? So I want to claim that this is not like an AI thing. This is from the heart of us as leadership says we were working through like, what does this mean? What does this matter? And there's this quote by Josh McDowell that I really like, where he says, Rules without relationship leads to rebellion, and then the reverse, then would also be true, right? That it's like by having that relationship, by making sure we bring people together and actually establishing relationships. It is now no longer just a task that's in a sauna, but it's like a, oh, this is a thing that will needs from me. This is a thing that you know, Grace needs for me or whoever. And so I think it's a little bit more, I don't know, develops the ownership, at least, that's how I perceived it. And I feel like we're doing a good job with

Felicia Shakiba 33:41

that, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. First of all, I think that is beyond what I would even consider how you show up at work. I think that's like more of how you show up in life, right? I mean, it takes it a step further. I mean, it's obviously very inspiring, and very much speaks to the heart and and of who you are as leaders. And I think that's really important. And even more important is that you are you and your leadership team you know are showing up in that way. So it's providing more trust and authenticity as a leader, being able to understand what that means to people, as well as how they how it's being displayed and and projected into the business on a daily basis. And those relationships, I think it's that's absolutely wonderful. There is one piece of feedback that I would give you please only, and is the only feedback is that I would shorten it. And the reason, by reason is because people have can't remember everything, right? I mean, if you want people to truly embody each value, it should be very concise and to the point where they could, later on, you know, tell it to someone else. So there was a. Lot of amazing things that you said in there, all very relevant. I would just shorten it.

William Harris 35:05

That's a beautiful way of explaining. Even in sixth grade, we had used, I remember it was Mrs. Hall, was my language arts teacher, and she would say something along the lines of, like, let's put this in a nutshell, right? And we were working on summaries and things, she was like, will like, this isn't even remotely close to a nutshell, and that's what I learned, my favorite word, or one of my favorite words, pleonasm, which is using more words than necessary to describe something. And so I definitely lean towards pleonasm in most of the things that I write. So I might have to recruit somebody else to shorten this up for us.

Felicia Shakiba 35:36

You can recruit ChatGPT.

William Harris 35:39

That's a great idea. Okay, so owners mindset, and then what's the other one? Because, let's say, Okay, it's secret sauce. Can't go into too much detail. Maybe two of them. Yeah.

Felicia Shakiba 35:52

So another one would be decision making and accountability. So well, it's it's more a decision agility and accountability. So the reason why is because there, I'll give you an example. So I was the former head of Performance Management at a company called WPP, and my it was a very interesting time, because they were a corporate office in charge of more than 13 subsidiaries, and I was tasked to help the 13 subsidiaries kind of merge into one Global performance management solution and strategy, and that, in itself, was a pickle, but it was so fun. I mean, I love that type of work, but it was, it was so challenging. And because you're here and you're like, Well, you have a business and you have a completely different business. You're both in marketing, but you have different values, different, you know, behaviors you want to show up in the business. Like, how do you globalize this? So it was a wonderful, messy problem to solve, and I think I learned a lot in that situation where it was, where do we find consistencies, and where do we find uniqueness, where we can allow different subsidiaries to have different values or different ways and behaviors that to really hold people accountable against. And one of the things that I realized in when, when we started doing the PIA diagnostic, is that this wasn't just this wasn't just an important factor, but it also mirrored the same elements of all the 13 subsidiaries of my previous work, that there were also themes of what accountability looks like and feels like in a business. And a lot of times, people might say, Okay, this then accountability is, you know, performance review, and that is part of it, but there is a bigger part of accountability, and it's about feedback and managerial conversations, and also those those goals that you have should be aligned with your with your leadership team and where the business is going. So there's an alignment piece. There is, you know, how are you doing in your role? There is manager feedback, and then there's tie to compensation, making sure you get the compensation rewards that you need, and when you do hit those goals Otherwise, why would you, you know, put in the extra effort? So this type of strategy, these four pillars of accountability and and is really important. The decision agility piece is kind of a combined factor. And what that really looks like is, are you able to make decisions and pivot quickly, even after they've been decided? And I'll speak a little bit about what that is, because it can be a fuzzy This is not about, you know, are you as a manager or leader, able to, like, dig your heels into something, and then when the business change, the business changes. Are you able to be flexible? It's more about when the environment, like, for example, ai, ai has been an entire disrupter. If the manager truly understands your work, if your manager truly understands your work, your needs, your challenges, what what tasks you're working on, they're able to make truly important and relatable decisions for you to make your life easier as as an employee, it's about truly understanding the the nature of the work your day to day, and not so much where they're doing the work, but they should have a true like they should have a very close understanding. Or a communication or feedback loop that's consistent enough to understand what decisions need to be changed in order to meet the needs of the future. And so when we talk about what's important for leaders is that leaders need that feedback. They need that communication to make good, agile decision making, and then hold people accountable for it, right? So it, there's a lot that I said, there is a very, it's a very rich and deep type of, type of challenge. But, you know, that's, that's what we're experts in, right? I mean, we have dug, true, very, very deep into these factors to understand what they are and what they are not, and they're, you know, they're very small tweaks that make huge differences, make huge impacts. And, you know, we're able to understand, like, where on that line is there a break, right?

William Harris 40:55

Yeah, let me paint like a word picture, see if I kind of gathered it here rowing, for some reason, the thing was, like, rowing a boat, and you're rowing the boat, and the leader is the one who's kind of like telling everybody else, you know what to do, kind of thing. They're saying, Okay, you got to row this direction. This is direction we're going to row. And then if there's not the feedback there, they don't have it. But let's say the feedbacks there, they say, one problem, we don't have any oars. Okay, great. So that's a problem. We're all going to use our hands then for right now, and this is the direction we're going to row until we get the or right. So they're they're doing it with their hands. And then, let's just say, if you're the leader who's just stuck in the ways, then when you know the other team comes and brings you some orders, and now you have oars and you're able to row, then you're like, No, no. That's not how we do it here. We use our hands here. And it's like, Well, okay, but the goal is this. Is where we're trying to get here. We want to get there as quickly, and, you know, efficiently, as possible. And so now we have this. We need to change what we're doing. We're going to pivot how we're doing it. Oh, guess what? Now there's wind coming at us, and it's going this direction. So we were rowing this way now we got to row this way to still end up in the same position that we were trying to go. And so there's all of these feedback loops that need to have happen in order for you do that. So the unwavering part of this is, here's where we're going. That's where that mission, vision value, comes up. Here's where we're going. That's the unwavering part. Dig it all in on that how we get there might change. Might have to change pivots along the way in order to make that happen 100%

Felicia Shakiba 42:15

and I would even take it a step further. First of all, I love your analogy. I think that's exactly what we're talking about. I would even go a step further and say that, let's say, like, the leaders at the front of the boat, then you've got, you know, a manager and like, two individual contributors in the boat. And it's really about the decision agility is, is more mid level manager, you know, focus? I mean, it is for all leaders, but, but if, if the manager knows those two individual contributors very well and understands their world and their work, they might say, oh, you know, Jake over here, can we can actually stop on the side of the island. He can make an ore out of the tree, and then we can keep growing, you know, like they truly understand, like their team and their capabilities in order to make those shifting decisions very quickly, right? So I mean, I mean this, but you know, you could think about however many different scenarios can you think of around decision agility, right? But the core is about, do you understand, does the middle manager understand where we're going from the leader and also be able to make quick decisions by understanding the true context of the work that their teams are in to make great decisions that are fast and are of good quality.

William Harris 43:42

I want to shift and ask a couple of questions about the special cases for E commerce, or at least, what makes it different, since the majority of listeners are in that space, they're not as people centric businesses as they are product centric. And so that means that maybe the teams are only 20 to 100 people. They're not massive teams, right? Does a smaller, tighter team? Does that increase leadership, risk or reduce it?

Felicia Shakiba 44:09

A smaller, tighter team? Does it increase risk or reduce it?

William Harris 44:14

Yeah, the leadership,

Felicia Shakiba 44:18

I don't think it's team size that matters. Okay, I think what matters, yeah, it's not. It's not the size that matters. It's really about building trust, leadership teams that build trust, strategic trust, meaning trust of like, do people trust me as a leader to make good decisions for the business? Sure, that's really what matters. And if you I mean at the end of the day, a decision, a good decision, might be to have a smaller leadership team. It may be to have a bigger leadership team. It may be to have the right leadership team. Right? So it's much more foundational being able to trust leadership to make good decisions. And then part of those decisions are, how do I surround myself? You know, who do I surround myself with to make to help me make good decisions? You know, am I do? I do employees understand how my decisions are being made, and am I communicating what that is like? Many, many times, there is a very big disconnect between, you know, private equity, or our or the board and the individual contributor. There's a lot of different layers there, right back to the name of telephone. So the better the better leaders can communicate, the more likely their teams are going to understand why those those decisions are being made, and then be able to relate it back to their own work and say, How do I contribute to this mission and vision. How do I make sure that when I show up to work and I create this product or I send that email or whatnot, it's in line with the direction that we're going? But if I see a lot of decisions being made and there, and I'm not really sure why, I'm like, Well, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing, and it may not align with this new direction. And I think that change is really, you know, leaders who feel who can't instill the thought that change is constant, I think that's when you get into sticky situation change. I know it's very funny to say, but change needs to be constant, especially in the era of where we are today. You know, with with AI, even my own company, I think I had mentioned to you before that we are going through our own transformation, where we started out as pure consulting, leadership and human capital consulting, and we have now grown into an AI company, where we have an Executive Intelligence platform to both enable us as as consultants and enable our clients to have more better quality information at their fingertips. Have a smoother process in the in the in the in the playbook that we have, so we have different playbooks, so it's just a smoother, more customized, personalized process for them, and wicked fast turnarounds now that we can provide data and value creation planning for I mean, it is just, it is absolutely, you know, the speed in which we are moving is at lightning speed. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to experience. I mean, you know, when we're going to grow up one day and we're going to see the whole world change, not like it was a couple, you know, a few years ago, but it's going to be very different for even our own kids, and so even even I have been in my own transformation, my own business, and I think that we're doing a great job being very adaptable and Understanding where we can provide more value for our clients, and in doing so, I can't think of it of doing it any other way, right? It's just being adaptable, being open minded, making sure that even I am being very precise and communicative with my team internally and help them understand why we're making these decisions. And I'm also soliciting feedback. You know, that's part of decision agility is being able to have, like I said earlier, diversity of thought to make good decisions. And that also goes back to having a diverse workforce. And I know that's kind of like a weird, sticky word, or un sticky word to say right now, but politically speaking. But I think that it's not about diversity of ethnicity or gender or things like that, about diversity of thought. And to get diversity of thought, sometimes you need different genders and ethnicity and experiences, right? So it's, it's rooted in those things, but the goal is to have people in your team that have different skill sets, different experiences, and give you different perspective. And if I didn't have that, if I didn't solicit feedback, I probably would still be where we were about a year ago, continuing on the traditional leadership and human capital consulting process, whereas now it is, we are very much in line with understanding our clients needs and what they're going through. We're going through as well in our own AI transformation. And I, like I said, I think it's we. Have probably 10x star value because we've been this adaptable, and we've been listening and getting you know those those diverse perspectives of building our business.

William Harris 50:09

It's very well worded, and I can appreciate the fact that your your mission hasn't changed, right? And I think that's what makes it easier for you to be able to communicate these decisions and thought process like, look, this is still our mission. But maybe instead of using this wooden ore, we're using these metal ores now, and here's a way that we can do this, and this is going to allow us to do x, y, z. And so I think, to your point, when the mission is still able to be communicated, you can show how the decisions are lining up to that, and that makes it easier for people to adapt.

Felicia Shakiba 50:39

Yeah, absolutely. And leaders, I think, going back to, like, the very first thing that we talked about, which was the mission and vision, and it's, it's not about changing mission and vision. It's about how you how you approach it, right, and what resources are available to you. And talent, talent. Talent is critical. The right talent, the right spot, the right leaders, making sure they're, they're, you know, holding themselves and their teams accountable, making good decisions and having that communication all the way through the business. And those types of behaviors I think are more necessary and needed than any other time in history, because we are going we every business is going through transformation. And so now, in addition to portfolio intelligence assessment for portfolio companies, we're now able to have our own AI transformation and value creation playbook that we provide to our clients, where we have a full understanding of you know, how do you make decisions around AI? There are, again, 1000s of different ways, but to truly help businesses make decisions, to make decisions around their leadership teams and helping their leadership teams identify root causes, right, not surface level challenges, but root causes of what type of like aI opportunities that can be injected, both on the productivity and internal efficiency side, but also for the innovation and creativity of new products and and how they serve their clients and customers are also like those are. It's twofold, right? It's about efficiency internally and it's about innovating and serving their customers with more value. And so we can now help our clients go through AI transformation with our AI value creation playbook and giving them the opportunities to discover what's most important. What do they attack first? Where, where is their productivity leakage in their business? How much and actually put $1 to what that is on a monthly or yearly basis, how much money are they losing by the missed opportunity of AI and making sure that it actually will move the needle. You know, I think, I think there was a statistic. I mean, don't quote me, but there was some statistic, around more than 70% of AI attempts for implementation have failed. I mean, that's just incredible, and it's painful to invest the time and energy and money and the morale like the loss of of productivity or or even clients and business of not being able to compete, because this AI initiative has failed. I mean, it was just an opportunity for us to say we are the masters at understanding root cause and businesses. We are the masters at creating world class diagnostics that give our to give our clients the the clear precision of where they should start. What should they not? What should they de prioritize? Where should they put all their energy into, and what's going to move the needle the most to help them make the decisions of what to do next? Is it's, it's like a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to be able to do it, and we do it. I mean, I'm not, I mean, without, you know, tooting my own horn, like we do very well and and the fact that we can help this analysis paralysis of selecting and identifying or choosing, like what business initiative to start with first, is very, very helpful, both for us and for the businesses that we support.

William Harris 54:42

Yeah, I love that you guys are able to eat your own dog food, as somebody would say, right where it's like you're using your own stuff to be able to figure out what's working, and that you guys have adopted this AI transformation so well. You told me a story, though, about a company where. In place were quietly sabotaging technology abduction to protect their roles. What was happening there?

Felicia Shakiba 55:07

Oh my gosh, yes, and that is that's common. So there is a fear of AI, and there's a rightfully so, because with the efficiencies that come with AI roles are either being eliminated or changed, and people don't have the luxury of learning new skills to fill those new roles quick enough. And so there's a story that I had shared with you about a company where in the face of leadership, they were on board and ready to implement these AI initiatives, and behind the scenes, they were sabotaging, sabotaging those initiatives, because they knew that once those initiatives got completed, their jobs would be at risk, and they were, and that is one of the major hurdles of AI implementation for leaders and business owners and investors, and it's because they are not truly thinking about what's in it for me, for their employees, and not a lot sometimes. And so so we we've seen that as a really big opportunity for us to support and help businesses as well, but, but specifically in that situation, I mean, that is one of the reasons why AI transformation does not work, and it's because there isn't perspective of what the employee is going through. I mean, once that their job is eliminated, there's a sense of loss, not just professionally, but personally, about what is my purpose? What am I good at? What am I going to do? What's my future? How do I support my family? And those are real concerns, and it's heartbreaking to even talk about, because I don't ever want to be the one transforming organizations and making those outputs. What I think that is the right approach, is that, and what we've been encouraging, you know, our clients to do is that there needs to be a more, a better, long term plan, not just for the business, but, you know, for society and people, but ultimately the business should make you know that contribution for society and people, and so the way that they are just injecting AI without sensitivity to Understanding the point of view of your employees, is that that is a recipe for disaster for your business, like hands down, period. So the better approach is to look at, get you know, truly understand number one, what are the metrics you want to move for your business? Is it more revenue? Is it more efficiency? Is it productivity? Is it, you know, customer returns? Is it retention? Like, what is it? And that process itself, in deciding what that is, is part of our process? You know, we don't come to the customer and say, or the client and be like, Okay, you tell us what. You know. It is a it is a discussion, and we wrestle because we and we want to do a wrestling match. When it comes to what should we really focus on? Because it's not just about what what we want to move. It's about what are we capable of moving? Do we have clean data? Do we have the resources in place? Like, okay, not yet. Maybe that's like initiative three and four then. So there, maybe there's some prerequisites that need to happen in order to make that move. So we help the client think through what is the future process look like, and then help make them better decisions today, right? And then once those decisions of like, what metrics are we going to move? Is it revenue? Is it, you know, maybe we want someone to be on our site longer to, you know, check out of their cart or whatnot. Then we can say, Okay, let's take we do. We do our process, which is our assessment, and then we marry the root causes to what is truly blocking the performance of that metric, not the biggest problems, but the root causes that, again, marry to that specific metric. We also have to make sure that governance is appropriate. Do we have clean data to measure whether this is going to work or not? That, in itself, could be its own initiative, making sure that we have good data to determine whether or not it's working. And then the other, you know, the other piece is who owns that AI initiative, who's going to own, like a lot of the big, one of the bigger mistakes, is that everybody owns it. You know, everybody is involved. And that's not always the case. Yes, everyone is involved. Everyone's maybe collaborating and putting their heads together. But there should be an owner to whether or not that metric. Moves like a name to like a stakeholder, to, you know, whether that metric is moving or not. And it sounds a little scary when I say it that way, but at the end of the day, somebody needs to be accountable, going back to accountability, right, which we had talked about before. So you know all of these very you know, specific tweaks inside the process makes just the biggest difference. It saves time, it saves money, it saves conversation, it saves energy, and it saves, quite frankly, it saves souls, because the next step is really making sure that, once we have a good test of what's working, and then we expand into making sure, you know, how does that AI initiative fit into other parts of the business? Then you're looking at, okay, if roles are being going to be eliminated or changed, how do we prepare our workforce for that change, you know, do we have to change or Up skill people who might be working in the factory to working with robots? Do we have to help them understand, like we're, you're still going to need staff to manage those robotics. And, you know, putting in, like a robotics University. You know, inside your business, and it doesn't have to be a big business, it could be 100 person business, 500 person business, but that is key. That's key for sustainability. So when I, when I think about our mission and vision, it's not just about creating, you know, ultimate powerhouses of businesses, but it's about creating sustainability. What does the future look like? You know? I mean, having a wonderful, fantastic working initiative today may not be working next year based on how fast we're moving, right? I mean, I was just on a I was just on a call with engineering lead, and he was telling me that he doesn't even know what his tech stack looks like anymore, because, you know, Claude changes every two weeks, and, you know, Groth has, like, a new feature, and he's like, Where's all my stuff gonna like, live and, and, and he was just complaining about how fast everybody is moving, and the updated features and how much time it would save to move, because essentially, every feature that comes out is a huge time saver for for you know, that end user, and so how do you make those decisions when they're moving so fast? It's, I mean, I'm not gonna swear on your podcast, but like, it's, it's hard, it's hard, right? Yeah, it's definitely hard. So these are the types of things that everyone that I that we service, are going through. These are the the decisions of how we make the decision and and that is really the key. It's, How do we make decisions? Because the decisions that you make today aren't may not be the decisions that will continue to be tomorrow. So how do you remain adaptable? And it has. The core is about leadership. If the leaders aren't adaptable, you can bet your bottom dollar the rest of the company is not going to be able to adapt as fast, right? So the core is leadership and how to prepare leaders for the adaptability and the speed and the competitiveness that comes with these AI initiatives and for the future of the business.

William Harris 1:03:33

It's so good. You talked about accountability and assigning that, and that's something that, like you said, maybe some people don't like that. It's the thing that I always think about with that is picking up your kid from basketball practice. It's like somebody has to be accountable to making sure that your kid gets picked up, right? And so it can be me, it can be my wife. Doesn't matter who, but whoever is assigned to that, that doesn't mean they're the one to have to actually pick them up. Just means that they're the ones who assign it. So I could say, if I'm busy, but it was, I'm the one who was responsible. I could say, Hey, babe, I'm not gonna get there today. Podcast is running long can you pick up our daughter from basketball, right? But it's like I'm responsible for whether or not and so it might be her, maybe I asked my mother in law, somebody, but it's like I'm responsible for making sure that she gets picked up, whether I'm the one who directly picks her up or not.

Felicia Shakiba 1:04:18

Yeah, yeah. You have to be, you have to be, have that accountability and and it also, as consultants, we also are very clear on who we are supporting. You know, yes, we're supporting the leadership team, but who has the most at stake, and we, and that makes us more efficient to support our clients.

William Harris 1:04:40

Sure, I want to take the next section here and talk about who is Felicia Shakiba, because I think it's fun to get to know the human being behind all of these wonderful answers. You grew up around global manufacturing and entrepreneurship. What did watching your dad teach you about people as both accelerators and blockers?

Felicia Shakiba 1:05:00

Oh, so much so, yeah, my dad was a lingerie and swimwear manufacturer. We had manufacturing plants overseas as well as the United States, and eventually they were all overseas. But you know, he has, he had had his business for, I don't know, 30 years or so, and so I grew up skipping in the lines of sewers, and I didn't know much when I was that age. But as I grew older, I I understood like I saw the work come home with my dad, and it was heartbreaking to see when things weren't going well. And I I have a true empathy because of that, for for leaders, and I think that's what makes me good at what I do, is because I can feel the empathy like it doesn't stop when you leave the office. It truly dribbles down into your personal life and and that's very difficult. And that's not to say that non business owners don't bring their homework with them. It's just to say that was my experience, is that the hardship for my family was seeing my dad come home extremely stressed and worried, and there's, you know, he was the breadwinner, and there's a lot of pressure for breadwinners to bring home the bacon. So with that being said, I think that what it really taught me about people and and companies and how they grow is that those challenges were 100% with people. I mean, yes, they the surface challenges were like, oh, you know, this design wasn't what the client wanted, or the client stole the design from my father. And, you know, that's a people problem, high problem, you know, the problems really stemmed from people and ethics, and sometimes people not having the right skills. You know, my my dad, he he didn't have, he didn't like grow up in a business. He created his business from scratch, and had to learn along the way. There was a lot that would have helped my father grow past his, you know, wild success. But I you know, there, there was also challenges of not letting not not having the heart to let people go when they needed to go. And that didn't just hurt the business. It hurted those individuals, because they were not able to thrive, and they were not able to find purpose and grow their skill set and feel, you know, feel desired and needed for their contribution. I mean, it's just, it's very painful. It was very painful. And not to say that there weren't good times, but sure, you know, there, there, the pain was so obvious to me. I'm an intuitive person, and I I can, you know, I think that I'm really good at reading people, and I feel like that pain was amplified with me as someone who was very sensitive to those things, and so I just was like, you know, even personal relationships, it's not AI, it's people. So, you know, I think my theory was when, as I grew up, was just that if you want to make a business great, you got to be great with people, and if you fail at your or if your business fails, then you probably failed in a relationship or two and and by and I and I kid you not, I am definitely guilty of that. I think we all are as people, but if we can just figure out how to be better at those relationships, whether it be your employees, your partners, at home, your clients, your customers, understanding, you know, understanding the market is not understanding numbers. It's understanding what people want. You know, it's it's about what, understanding how to help, how to contribute to people's lives in a better way. And yes, quantitative data is important to understanding how big or how small that those problems for people are. But at the end of the day, you want a great business, it starts with people, and the biggest shift in the business starts with leadership. It's, it's so obvious for me, right, right, yeah, so, so that's, you know, that's the energy, the that I had grown up with, and so when I. Um, graduated from college. I went back, and I actually was in the doctoral program to receiving my doctorate for industrial organizational psychology, and then fell in love with executive coaching, and again, back to the core of leadership. So my background, I have Korn Ferry executive coaching background, which is, again, like, I think, where a lot of my assessment intuition comes from. Korn Ferry's executive coaching assessment, their 360 is the best in the world, and, and, and so I have a lot of knowledge from from that, from understanding those metrics and and getting good quality data for assessments, and then. And then, after that, I went to Stanford and did my leadership program at Stanford. So I am really into leaders. I mean, yeah, I feel like there's really nothing else I could be doing right now to know more about leaders. But at the same time, you know, if you think about the PIA 360 the PIA 360 is basically a 360 on all of your portfolio's leadership teams, which is again, going back to the ultimate diagnostic for leadership. I mean, it is a super, super intense, precise diagnostic that at the end of the day, you know exactly what you need to be doing for your business. And so that's why it was created. It was because people just, you know, they didn't know where to start. And I'm like, I think I have a good idea where to start. And let me, let me figure it out. I just need some data, and one thing led to another. And that's what, you know, that's what we're created and and so as far as you know how CPO Playbook now soon to be leader book.ai. We give us, give us a chance to go through our own transformation once this podcast comes out. But I think that, you know, I'm not sure if there's really anybody in the world that that could do this particular work, like, I'm truly like a founder market fit, type of person for this type of work, not to say that there is more to learn. There is so much more to learn. I'm just saying that I am probably always going to want to learn more, and I want to bring that information to to the clients that we serve and the leaders that we serve, and everybody is going through it, you know, whether it be aI transformation or, you know, having challenge with your team, or not being able to set mission and vision, or being part of a startup and not knowing you know which direction to go and doing pivots, or being, you know, an organization, a family owned organization, that's been doing the same thing for 30 years and doesn't know how to change right there, everyone is going through it, and I've seen a lot of those challenges, and I feel like there is a lot of work for us to do, and we can be helpful. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's answered your question about me, but I'm trying to share something here.

William Harris 1:13:25

So good, and there's so much more that I want to dig into there. But let's end with this one. What's the question that you wish every founder would ask before PE forces them to,

Felicia Shakiba 1:13:41

hmm, that is a good question. I would say, what they want to ask or what they want to answer either one. Okay, I think, I think that they should be just truly authentic about what they need as a business. And I'll tell you why, because that what? What does that tell a private equity operating partner? It tells them one that you're low maintenance, you don't need a lot of hand holding. You got this you understand your business well enough to provide them with the right information so they can support you. That's number one. Number two, every PE firm is wondering, after the deal, like we had talked about before, what they don't know, but if you're sharing both the good and the challenges, then they're going to be they're going to be able to build trust with you sooner and faster, and so you're more likely to be able to go into the boardroom every month, or whatever the cadence is, and say what you need. Say and be more influential, because they're going to say, You know what? She or he didn't have to tell me that that's like, doesn't look good for them. But the fact that they told me, I feel like I can trust them more. I feel like I can trust that they're going to come and they're going to tell me what the problems are, and I'm not going to have to go digging for it and find out later that they just fired a 50 people, right? So it's about building trust, making sure that you're sharing the good and the bad and the ugly, and then within that same like flow, you're able to say, here are the solutions we're looking to try. I'll come back to you with a progress support. P firm is going to be like any questions, no, see you later.

William Harris 1:15:47

That's so good, because that is so hard to do. But even even me as a leader, I like that when my team members come to me with that exact same mindset. And so I can see where it's like, if you come to the PE group with that same process and mindset, it's a no brainer. It's like, yes, your breath of fresh air. Yeah.

Felicia Shakiba 1:16:09

But I mean, sorry, sorry. One more thing, because I just wanted to that's hard to do, and the reason why it's hard to do is because not operating, not all PE firms and operating partners are going to be like, Okay, great. You know what your challenges are. They might give you a slap on the wrist for sure. So, and that is not good if you're an operating partner listening to this, great.

William Harris 1:16:32

That's a good sign to you. Probably not the right one

Felicia Shakiba 1:16:35

for me, right? Exactly. So, so operating partners and PE firms like investors, if they're listening, I think that it's it's okay to be to have disappointment, but it's still important to show how you're feeling, but also be like supportive in a way where you encourage them to continue and come back with those challenges, because otherwise they're not going to come back. You know, I mean, a parent talking to their child and they find out they smoked weed or whatever, you know, whatever the case is, or ran off with their boyfriend or girlfriend or something, and if you scold them, they're never going to tell you again. So just say you can express your disappointment, but also, you know, encourage and reward them for telling you to create that psychological safety, to create the environment for continuous feedback and learning. And I think if you can do that, anything's possible.

William Harris 1:17:37

Felicia, I've absolutely loved learning from you today, if people wanted to follow you, where's the best place for them to do that?

Felicia Shakiba 1:17:43

Gosh, everything's changing. So no, I mean, I say, I would say LinkedIn, definitely. You know, follow on LinkedIn. I'm constantly updating the podcast, and who we talk to on our podcast, CPOplaybook.com, will definitely be available and soon become leaderbook.ai. So feel free to check us out and excited to really speak to anyone who wants to reach out and you know, share what they're going through as a leader, and hopefully we can find some support for them.

William Harris 1:18:19

Well, thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today. Ave you have a great rest of your day. Absolutely you too. Thank you everyone for listening. Enjoy your day.

Outro 1:18:29

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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