From $7M to $50M: The Strategy Behind Nonprofit Growth

[0:00]  as far as upper Mobility we we commit to those children for 12 years not 12 days not 12 months 12 years so we've been running that program here in the local market for 6 years now we have seventh graders and that program that started with us at the tail end of their of their kindergarten year um and that program has tremendous long-term life outcomes as far as staying out of the Criminal Justice System I'm graduating from college we really hang out in this 0 to 18 space starting even prenatal in some cases of educating and supporting families U before a child is born on how to parent how to engage how to communicate how to support um then up to the early childhood education space where we run a um what's considered here a five-star

[0:47]  early childhood education center that's um heavily subsidized um to give a good early childhood education experience to a child no matter what the socioeconomic status of their family is um and and we just believe that's just foundational unfortunately we talk about problems in community the industry of early childhood education is at at serious risk and has been all you got to do is Google it all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I'm incredibly excited because I have will Jones with

[1:35]  me who is the CEO of Thompson Child and Family Focus now something that makes will unique is he is the leader of an organization that is serving the community but also he has an extensive history in the space 30 plus years of working in this space coming right out of college is what you said and something I think is really important to recognize is you said that you're just crossing or rounding third base of your career and I know that that Sprint home is going to bring up amazing opportunities to you will so thank you so much for joining the show man I really appreciate it yeah thank you for having me it's humbling you know today we're going to be talking about a lot of stuff we're going to talk about your journey and the mission that kind of inspired you to take this long journey of 30 plus years in the space we're going to talk about some of the challenges when it comes to being the CEO of a company that has to deal with reimbursement rates right especially coming from government Medicaid grants

[2:22]  things like that all of us are recognizing that reimbursement rates unfortunately are being cut in our communities I want to hear how you're navigating that we're going to talk about about combating burnout and building resiliency in your team especially in this world of instant gratification leading with mission is something I really want to talk about and then last but not least we're GNA really kind of talk about how you guys are thinking about leveraging technology as an accelerator to kind of dive into today's conversation but before we kind of get in there I want to listen to uh what's kind of on the front of your mind in the world of will these days what's going on a great question um I'm concerned concerned about the you know I call the world of work you know I'm I'm really concerned about the workforce um because without the the workforce we can't impact Community the way our mission

[3:09]  calls us to impact community so I'm just really concerned about um all things people um which is really part of our mission anyway right so all things people that that need us but also all things people that we need to serve the people in the community that need us um and that's been top of mind for probably the last three or four years um this this gap between how many jobs in the world and how many people are available between the ages of 18 to 64 that can fill those roles um you know in our community where we do the bulk of our work but not all of our work on the Charlotte Market um how do we prepare and build a professional pipeline of um the Latino population coming in and growing and I think you're going to see that across the United States quite frankly uh there's data saying that in the next six

[3:56]  years 70% of all new employees in the charl area will be Latino so as a um as a business leader whether it be Human Services not for-profit public kind of becomes Irrelevant for me how am I preparing our mission to to be able to tap into that influx of Latino um professionals and people that want to um get into our work and then also how do we remove barriers around um people that really want to get into the work that we do um and a lot of what we're finding in research and convers ation with a lot of Chamber of Commerce leadership um and also um university leaders is that um dollars the ability to pay for Education um is a big barrier there um so we're we're kind

[4:44]  of trying to get creative and Innovative of how do we kind of create a fellows program where we can actually Infuse and encourage people to take the next step and get that advanced degree that you may need to be a therapist as an example um so everything everything and anything about people I mean I told understand that I want to ask a little bit of a question as we rewind a little bit over the last 3 to four years why has the focus really kind of been on people was there a catalyst was it the pandemic what are you kind of thinking about from your position well I think I think as a leader it's always been about people right so I think that's that's always been front and center um for us it starts with leadership the old John Maxwell quote everything begins and ends with leadership that's part of our kind of belief system and our Mantra at Thompson that if you know the leader bad everything else will be bad so we have to really be intentional about

[5:32]  developing hiring developing and teaching good leadership so the people that they support will feel that good leadership um and really be more drawn to do the work that they do so it starts there but you know always um have to um be cognizant and focused on individuals that do the work that we do it's difficult work um you know depending on who you are some people say me it's it's work um that's really sticky it's being the muck or even some people so it's being in the right so it's just really hard work it's stressful work and um and it's needed work um which is more Paramount than anything else it's needed in community right now more than ever let's talk a little bit about the the problem that Thompson in the community is facing but also the problem that

[6:18]  we're trying to solve as well just so we can level set for the audience yeah as far as as far as people um as far as just like the overall organization the challenge that we're facing the community the problem that we're trying to solve I I think biggest problem if I were to C categorize it in one thing it's upward social Mobility it's it's Thompson exists for 140 years to not allow the ZIP code you're born into or you move move into determine your future I mean I think that there's um there's a conversation that I'm having a lot on the podcast right now which is the changes that we've seen in recent let's say five years with the emergence and heavy adoption of things like social media right we gone from being in a local community and we've gone into being in a global Community with how we can work virtually how we can have these

[7:07]  virtual connections we've seen the expansion of our work but also the opportunities that come with it so when I think about being born in a specific zip code there are huge studies that show that the ZIP code that you're born in has a huge determinant on your overall success in life access to education access to resources access to support and so when you talk about helping upward Mobility what are some of the big things that we're trying to accomplish through the work at Thompson is it access to Services is it access to resources what are we talking about yes it's all of the above right you know first and foremost it's um I want to be real clear there's a lot of great organizations human in the Human Services space and I always like to be cognizant to say it's not just not for-profits um it's for-profit Human

[7:54]  Service organization and it's government it's public sector um Human Service organizations none no no no one organization can do it alone so it's important that we collaborate and partner to impact community in the way we need to um but you know obviously um we really hang out in this zero to 18 space starting even prenal in some cases of educating and supporting families um before a child is born on how to parent how to engage how to communicate how to support um then up to the early childhood education space where we run a um what's considered here a five-star early childhood education center that's um heavily subsidized um to give a good early childhood education experience to a child no matter what the socioeconomic status of their family is um and and we

[8:44]  just believe that's just foundational unfortunately we talk about problems in community the industry of early childhood education is at at serious risk and has been all you got to do is Google it um you know teachers um how they're compensated how they're taken care of of how they're LED um is driving them away from the work so you have again you have this again goes back to people you have this this teacher shortage um almost in every major Community definitely in urban areas um and if if you don't have child care one the child will struggle because they won't develop in in ages and stages that they should be successful and then also just a functional need as a parent a working parent you need to have somebody that's responsible and ensure your child is safe and being careful while you actually go out and work um so

[9:33]  that that whole thing is a real should be a concern for all of us without Child Care children are not going to develop the way they need to develop socially emotionally and educationally and then parents that need to work are not going to be able to work and in many cases what will happen is I don't have child care I have to work because I love you but I'm going to have to leave you at home you know and then you end up what ends up happening you have social services um Child Protective Services depending on what state you you live in um investigation on because you had to go and work because you didn't have a you had no other alternative for your three four five year old um so just it's a recipe for disaster in a lot of ways um so that's one thing we do we go up into the schools we do ear we do mentoring in high-risk um zip codes and schools um and we do something a little

[10:22]  differently we're part of a national network called friends of the children it's actually a professional paid uh mentoring program and we we target children in elementary school and here's the cool thing about this as far as upper Mobility we we commit to those children for 12 years not 12 days not 12 months 12 years so we've been running that program here on the local market for six years now we have seventh graders and that program that started with us at the tail end of their of their kindergarten year um and that program has tremendous long-term life outcomes as far as staying out of the Criminal justice system I'm graduating from college I mean high school and moving on to college um not becoming a teen parent and those type of things so we're really excited about

[11:09]  that work and then obviously a lot of the work that we're doing around mental health um both outpatient inhome and then inpatient residential mental health um so we're really hitting on a lot of things and the Charlotte Market if you remember the cheddy study 10 years ago we were 50 out of 50 in urban cities and upper social Mobility they just redid that study were 38 so we moved up 12 only three cities actually moved moved to um Improvement Charlotte was one of them well I'd like to believe the 25,000 people we impacted at Thompson the last seven and a half years is part of that that Improvement that being said it's not good enough and we all should be ashamed of ourselves and and be figuring out what else we can do I mean the the way the reason why I

[11:56]  love having this podcast is I get to to take a deeper dive into the mind of leaders like you that truly represent the intersection of heart and hustle when we're talking about impacting our community in all the different areas that we're doing you are having such a tremendous impact that reaches Beyond Generations I mean if you think about that 12E commitment to those individuals in those school systems imagine the consistency and the reinforcement of continuous care that you are giving for these individuals that often we don't get from our home lives when I think about the social challenges that we face in Society I think it was in 2022 the uh Surgeon General of the United States came on television and said the biggest challenge that we are facing in society today is not another pandemic but it is isolation and loneliness isolation and loneliness in under I would say estimated communities black brown Latino

[12:46]  the list goes on we talk about isolation because of the requirements of both of my family members to work in order for us to meet and or eat meat ends meat and when I think about my father's generation a black man my mom is white they grew up in two completely different cultural atmospheres because my father had two parents who were working incredibly hard who were caught up in a system often family members went to jail and he had to develop in different ways than my mom did and when I think about all of our inner cities today and our underestimated communities we need organizations and leaders like will who are willing to step up and do the work that is so necessary for us to be able to meet these needs and it's just so incredible to be able to sit across the table from you man because I feel like in this world of instant gratification and social media media the good work that you and the team are doing is often not as praised as it should be yeah I

[13:34]  appreciate that thank you so much at homeone I mean it's uh I want to I want to talk a little bit because this is a little bit of a contrarian thought in our previous conversation today you talked about the power of saying no now being a nonprofit often we think that our nonprofit organizations are saying yes to every opportunity that comes but what is the Dark Side of saying yes to everything and what is the power of no yeah I think um you know I think first of foremost a great question I do think it's um really important for non for-profit leaders and non for-profit boards to take inventory um on on their mission first and foremost and um really aligning anything and everything to Mission Vision and values and you know it's that's a kind of a catchphrase thing Trifecta that comes out but if you truly do that when you make decisions if

[14:24]  you truly do try to align to those things the decisions that you make will lend themselves in most cases to an now um because it's important for the mission I always say being on mission is important for an organization and being on Mission kind of gives you a sense that you're moving forward you're you're you're going somewhere and by saying no to things um it prevents you from running in place are are are running backwards um so a lot of times what we find is there there is a expectation the moment um a pay orce a government entity in particular um they actually believe a non for-profit gives them the ability to say hey we're going to give you 75 cents

[15:11]  on the dollar and then philanthropy which you guys have the ability to go out and and raise dollars because of your non for-profit status that Revenue Source will make up the Gap right and I I would say if for 31 years in space that's that's false thinking bad that's bad meth methodology and bad modeling um it's it's say you know we should expect a pay source to cover our cost you know if I go into a restaurant and they're charging me $12 for a piece of pizza as an example um and their cost is 13 you know their cost is is maybe their cost is 12 maybe they're charging me cost break even and I said now I'm going to give you 11 you're going to have to eat one well what's going to end up happening is that business is going to shut down pretty quick well the same doesn't this doesn't this idea kind of

[15:59]  piss you off with all the time that You' sent in the space with all the challenges that you're facing very transparently doesn't that get underneath your skin yeah I mean it does um absolutely but I think there's hope um you know this is why I go back to I think um we go back to leadership you know the concept of saying no as a leader is just as important as saying I'm no as an organization so what you say yes to versus what you say no to becomes really important and it's about your priorities in nature and what's what are you going to say yes to that's going to help you move whatever it is you're trying to get done forward versus distract you from what it is you're getting accomplished so I find a lot of times saying yes to bad deals or bad things that don't align to those Mission Vision and values of of an organization become a major distraction for you and

[16:49]  actually put you in a position to actually have to start walking backwards or running backwards instead of moving forward you know and our methodology is that there's the cost of doing business we expect for you to cover that cost and then we use philanthropy to seed more of that business but not to cover the cost of the business and through that we've been able to grow our impact about 20 19 to 22% year-over year for the last five years I mean let's talk about some of the numbers in our previous conversation you had talked about you guys went from about I want to say it was five OR7 million a year right up to now you guys are around $50 million a year in Revenue so do you think that you can attribute that to staying on Mission staying on focus and saying no to those lady in the red dress that comes by as a distraction of what you guys could be doing yeah

[17:37]  absolutely I I think 100% I always say we grow on the no um and and a lot of people not even our board and even some of the people in the organization because a lot of people say man you guys are growing really fast we actually say no to probably about 80% of the opportunities that we have to do something else for Community um versus the 20% we actually say yes let's go forward let's see if we can do something here you know and then from a missional standpoint you're thinking well if you're saying no to opportunity to impact Community that's a negative well the problem is if we say yes to something that should be a no we impact for a short period of time but a long period of time we will diminish our impact and actually diminish our mission and we don't want to do that and then you referenced earlier um in a conversation we also don't want to

[18:25]  diminish our quality of care MH you know unfortunately it's like anything else you pay for what you what you get what you pay for and if you want a a quality of care that's really good you're going to have to pay a really good quality of care dollar and somewhere down the line people just think they're going to get the high quality of care and not pay for season season leaders season therapists season technology well it doesn't work that way no business operates in that way um so for us it's important to stay um a couple things Miss aligned you know you mentioned Mission creep earlier and one of the things we do every year we just did it we kind of do this kind of mission mission versus um margin um analysis where we're looking to see do we have any kind of low low missional

[19:14]  work that we're doing was there creep that we allowed to happen or did we start chasing a shiny a shiny penny um because maybe there's a shortterm dollar amount out there or do we say true to who we are um and I'm happy to report that out of 21 to 22 different Services they're all identified as high Mission I mean what an accomplishment man I mean just thinking about some of the the Practical business practices and best business practices that you deploy consistently res resonate so deeply with me one of the things that I often talk about in the business landscape is Marketplace optimization so I'm going to use this a couple seconds to kind of talk about this Marketplace optimization is if somebody is selling a service for $10 you have a competitor that comes in and says we're going to do it for $950 and the next competitor says we're going

[20:00]  to do it for $9 and it's a literal race to the bottom and what we think is we're going to provide services with a little bit more we're going to provide a little bit more value and that's how we're going to get win customers but that in itself is a recipe for disaster because you're eating and corroding Away the entire margin of the organization and I love the fact that you're willing to say that if you want good Services if you want senior leadership you're going to pay for those things and I think we need to get back to that as a society to recognize that to have good things you have to pay good prices and I feel like maybe there's a little bit of consumer Behavior out there with Walmart and Amazon and everybody else who's always cutting prices that kind of misinforms our marketplaces and our communities about what it really takes to do a good job if that makes sense yeah no I you mean I I'm so glad that you shared that because I can tell a quick story but

[20:46]  here's the problem with a a Walmart so you know um if you do any research on a Walmart um their margins are actually are really low really low the problem is it's scaled right so what ends up happening you have smaller organizations not for-profits undercutting the cost of things but they don't have the scale to make up for for that and that's that you know we we we really were working with a with an adjoining um government entity um next outside of our state on a big project we responded to something and we priced it the way the way we knew we could do it well and we were really shocked we didn't get the award well we found out they gave to the award to an organization that's about $2 million a

[21:33]  year in Revenue we're 50 um they've never done any work at at that scale the project was probably more than their whole budget they gave it to them um well obviously they they underpriced what what a quality Care would look like didn't have any idea going into new systems and those type of things within a year we got a call saying hey that's not working um are you interested in having conversation so you know I I tell our team stay disciplined you know let's let's our cost is our cost you know there's a cost of doing business we we try to give you a fair cost we're very transparent about what our cost is so we can explain it all we can take a little bit of a reduction on overhead but we do

[22:21]  expect for you to contribute to the mechanism and the Machine of the mission um it's not the full amount but it's a percentage that's that that we can live with um and and then we don't chase right um we we don't want to chase them so if we're not your cup of tea today maybe we'll be you a cup of tea tomorrow um you know before the pandemic I was drinking lattes after the pandemic I'm drinking black coffee so you know we're here if you need us let us know how that works and we wish you well and and intrinsically we really do wish them well because you know and that's been a learn Behavior if you're not careful you can get so competitive where you take Take Your Eye Off what's important for Community um so we never want any over or any partner organization anybody that's working with our risk populations to fail so we really do wish them well

[23:10]  and if we can help down line we we keep that door wide open and sometimes they call us and we and we reintegrate back into those conversations and sometimes we don't hear from them I mean and that's a part of business right I mean standing on your beliefs standing on your morals recognizing what you can do well and staying in that lane is something that I feel like a lot of Business Leaders today deal with when it comes to times of pressure I want to kind of switch gears because you said something that was incredibly impactful for me a couple seconds ago you talked about it all starts with leaders you know in today's world um I think we've gotten away from the emphasis of leadership often in the marketplace of jobs and everything like that a lot of people talk about like this is no longer an employer economy this is an employees economy which is great and I completely think that's true but the other side of that is there are great leaders out there who are going to continue to set

[23:59]  the tone and set the bar where we need to be successful and I feel like you truly embody that I want to kind of Riff on the topic of why you lead with Mission and the mission of why because that was something that you said in our previous conversation because you spent a lot of time investing into leaders and building the next generation of your team why are you focusing on that as a leader and where did that emphasis come from yeah um you know I think um I think where the emphasis comes comes from is you um when you're not receiving good leadership you feel all of it and sometimes when you're receiving good leadership you feel some of it but you just don't feel it as much as you do the bad leadership so there's you know the data set if you believe it um I think it was Marcus Buckingham as um people are either going to leave their leaders or

[24:46]  they're going to leave their teammates well last time I checked the teammates were also being led by that leader so the leader becomes really critical in that relationship um so that was just something when I got Thompson in particular I just believed inherently that we needed to have an intentional investment approach in the leadership development um all the way for how we identify them how we vet them how we hire them how we on board them how we teach them and how we coach them um and through that things will get better if the leader gets better everything will get better we believe in that inherently but I think it goes back to those who people leave you know and most of us will tell you you know most of all us had I interviewed somebody this morning um you know tell me about

[25:34]  something that you learn from a leader that you that that that you don't want to repeat right and just trying to get them to understand that well inherently you learn more about what not to do than to do um in leadership and um and I've been blessed to be part of bigger um organizations that did a lot of investment and I would even say all the way into my mid-40s most of what I learned about leadership was wrong um because most of what you learn through leadership is modeled and seen it's not taught um and what I mean by that is most people that lead in human services if you say what formal leadership training have you received not all but most would say none um I actually interviewed a candidate for a program director which is a leader of leaders role um a couple weeks ago and I asked

[26:21]  that question the person had led in three companies and a leader leaders in one had zero formal leadership training but yet we're putting them out there to lead other people develop other people be a conduit to the culture and that's a recipe for disaster you know and it's not their fault it's the organization so if we don't teach people how to lead the right way align to our beliefs align to our values they're not going to do be the best they can for those they lead and then the the therapist as an example will struggle and then well through their struggle who was going to be the recipient of that bad leadership it'll be the client and customer you know so it's amazing just to feel have you ever been as a customer where you actually are you getting the end results of bad leadership those are the greatest opportunities to learn as a

[27:09]  leader you know it's like Oh I'm a customer and I'm feeling what bad leadership looks like as a as a customer that actually is harder than as an employee and it has to be a little bit tougher as a leader recognizing that there are Ripple effects that go down the chain and reach your end customer you know what I'm saying this an interesting concept to me because I've been talking about this a lot on the podcast which is leadership in itself is a skill set and we have to invest into it separately from the skill set that often our leaders come from AKA are you in sales are you in Customer Support are you in community services are you in peer support often we make the mistake of saying you're the best salesman as an example now you're going to become the leader of the sales team but they've never been given the resources nor have a organization took the intentionality

[27:56]  to invest into the individual so they can actually become a good leader how did you become such a good leader will well personally I'm not a good leader I'm a work in progress right so one of the things that we believe is that we always should be learning and growing and um I probably do more of it than anybody in our organization predominant because I probably need the most work so I think that's important just kind of know your limitation be self-aware um I think that what what helps me in my leadership is the self-awareness that I have that I'm not perfect that I I make mistakes and when I make them I own them and I don't just own them internally to myself it's not just selft talk it's it's I own it and I'm going to share with my team that I made this error and I have owned it so I try to model in that way um you know I so I think those type of things are

[28:44]  really important from a leadership perspective um but again is what what we've done organizationally over the last six years is we went out and where a lot of people saying don't take a Google approach to leadership development it'll go bad what we did is went out and found or an organization several organizations that that's what they do they train leaders as a business so we bring them in to have them train us so we can be better leaders and then and then once we kind of establish that Foundation now we're kind of creating a culture a coaching um culture so now that you've been trained we we trained you how to do this now let's coach you through doing it weekly um through the most important meeting the week which is our one-on ones with those that we lead and then

[29:32]  how are we talking to them about their challenges and it's the fish and Allergy if I'm just giving you fish every Friday for you to eat for the week and the one Friday I show up and there's no fish what do you do you might starve because you don't even know what a fishing pool is so what we're trying to do is teach te teach people how to fish so we want to give them the tools you know here's the rod here's the here here's the hook here's the bait here's where you go and then we want to start coaching what kind of technique did you use to cast the line what was your biggest challenge today what are you doing about it and we want to do that through questioning questioning allows them to participate in their own Solutions and buy into them versus me telling them what to do which isn't going to help

[30:20]  them learn how to fish when I'm not there um and that's the approach we take the arbinger Institute released a study at the beginning of 2024 and it was about the differences in mediocre and great companies this year so the companies that are going to grow and flourish are going to be the organizations that have intentionality of giving resources and investment into their team members to help them grow to become the best leaders possible AKA literally become the best version of themselves so they can then serve the organization and create results as a lagging indicator I want to ask you an interesting question why do so many organizations and leaders today struggle with the idea of investing into their team members with a little bit of how do I want to say this it seems like there's a lot of leaders out there who are

[31:07]  fearful of investing into their team members because they might leave the organization and do something else or become a competitor and I think there's an amazing saying out there which is train them so good that they can leave but treat them so good that they won't yeah what do you think about that well I agree with the saying I think it's a hard time to you know it's definitely a hard time um for that to kind of play itself out one thing I would go back to and I I do this a lot because I I talk to a lot of my peers and say hey you should be doing this the first thing they said is we can't afford to train our people right and and here's the counter that you can't afford not to right so to to your point in that quote so you have to get your mindset right and to understand that leadership

[31:55]  development is not a luxury it's a necessity and until you do you're going to struggle in s in so many different ways shapes and forms as a mission as a company it doesn't really matter what it is you do so I think that's something that we hear a lot of and there all and there are again that mindset so important um we believe in coaching trees so if I grow you up and out and you're become part of my coaching tree that's awesome you know um you know it's my job to help people fulfill their goals and one of the things I I really not I don't want to do is hold them down so much that they want to leave the work so I care less about the walls of the mission I'm more about

[32:42]  the walls of the work that we do classic example a couple years ago and I've had this happen a couple times is a head hunter will call me and said hey there's this great opportunity to lead this not for-profit in Georgia as an example here's a good one in Atlanta um and I said great I said tell me more about it you know tell me the comp tell me the work all this stuff and I said I you know I'm not interested because I really love what I do where I do it but you know what this person on my team really wants to be a CEO an executive director of a nonprofit I really want you I think you should talk to this person I think they' be a good fit for that job so the Head Hunter told me point point what's wrong with that person what what do you mean well why are you recommending them if they're so good well well their goal is to do what I do and I'm not leaving anytime soon so I want to help them achieve their goal

[33:32]  recruiter says I cannot compute what you just said I've had that happen a couple different times and so I I think it happens and I and I want to be very clear I think it happens in our organization it doesn't happen with me I think it's important as a leader the first thing you did do as a leader sometimes is because I'm demanding I also have to be caring I have to care about what their goals are their aspirations their dreams and I need to help them work towards them I I had a leader years ago say hey I think I want to grow and and do leadership Consulting and I said great let's let's figure out a way for within our work to help you get the skill sets you need to do that whenever you decide to do that right or that the same person had an opportunity for and a local CEO job came up again recommended again to a

[34:22]  Head Hunter went through it well who helped him prepare I helped him prepare for his interview is not because I wanted to see him leave the mission or I it's because I wanted to see him fulfill his goals you know so what we it's about Building Bridges not burning them for me and um I don't get anxious about people leaving if they're moving on to bigger and better things and and I like to believe that I help them along the way um but you know sometimes unfortunately um no matter what you do in this current state I I'll be honest with you again it goes back to what's top of mind you know we develop them we train them we love on them we compensate them you know we we do a lot of different things and not everybody's going to be happy um but you just got to wish them well and

[35:10]  but here's what what we find no matter what and I said this earlier most people leave their leaders or their teammates and even in the recent departures that we've seen if I go back to it and we have conversations every leader of the Leer company I try to break bread with pick their brain do a little bit of skip level learn from the experience and get a sense of why they're leaving and 99% of the time it's something about their relationship with their current leader their direct leader not me um and or their teammates or both and it's never the organizations so people think people are leaving the organization they're really not and actually we hear we love the organization I have a lot of respect for your leadership I have a lot of respect

[35:56]  for this person's leadership but I this was a struggle for me on a continuous basis and here give me your phone number um I sent a happy birthday test to somebody left two months ago um because they didn't believe in their local leader now for me is okay what do we need to do to get that leader better right not to get them going but to get them better because something went aide there how do we improve that person so those are really important things for us um you know you you you do have to try to love on your people but to your point there's a there's a very similar to the purchaser of services going on there's a lot of people overpaying people on the recruitment side of the way work it's done now too and um we have a comp philosophy at Thompson and some people

[36:45]  don't agree with it the mission thrives because of it but rule number one of our our comp philosophy is we will never pay ourselves out of business it's not that we don't want to out pay everybody else but I don't want to ever pay ourselves out of business then the mission stops yeah there's a there's a there's an interesting conversation with nonprofit leaders that I love your perspective on and it's about the dark side of the mission so the dark side of the mission is burnout in resiliency issues when we realize we're serving the community in such a pivotal way and we're helping others in so many fundamental factors it's easy for team members to get burnt out so how do you balance the need for results with the well-being and resiliency of your team how you thinking

[37:32]  about that yeah there's two things I want to hit on and I think both of them are coming up and I just want to hit on this one quickly and then I want to get into your question um there's also something there's going on about nonprofit CEO burnout um so there's a CEO burnout and then the people that are doing the difficult work burnout and I'm not just diminishing the work that people like me are doing but here is um I have not experience burnout as a CEO of an OP at Thompson for seven and a half years um and I think it goes back to why I do what I do and my passion to do what I do do I get tired yes I get tired do I need a vacation yes I need a vacation I don't believe in sabatical I do believe in vacations with a family I believe in going to the gym in the

[38:18]  morning I believe in taking care of myself my physical health my mental health my spiritual health um CEO burnout in my mind is a misalignment of what do a misalignment of your why um the day I burnouts the the day I I resign that's just me I got to get that out there because I have a lot of thoughts on that and there's things that I do to self-care but yeah this thing um about burnout um across the people that are doing the difficult work and why it's difficult is most of us in human services not all but most have our own adverse childhood experiences our own trauma at certain levels including myself if this kind of why my calling is what it is um now I would say my story compared to other stories is very very PG um but it's still trauma to say the

[39:06]  least right so my parents got divorced we lived in Europe my dad was in the military my Dad decided to move back to the United States they thought because of the exper opportunities in America that it would be better for me and my sister to come at that point in time I had a fractur relationship with my mother you know and then I saw her three times between the the time I was 7 to 18 until to the day at 51 we we've had a relationship off and on and we haven't spoken in three years so that was a a large part of my trauma where I saw supports counseling therapy coaches help me along the way and I just felt that that's part of my calling but what we're seeing now is different um in our work so people are coming with their trauma um and

[39:56]  sometimes it's unresolved some times it was resolved it led them to be in the work that we're doing but it only takes one or two things to trigger that trauma within them and they're starting to see that with the population that we're serving because we are serving here at Thompson a very high acute um High Aces um um population um and we're so we're seeing more and more of that um now it is a balancing act to your point you don't want to do this work regardless of how it's impacting your Workforce so you know we do some of the there's some of the basics and then there's some of the non-basics that we're doing to try to combat that we're not perfect in this at all and I I always want to state that but first of all we're trying to do a better job on

[40:43]  hiring process so one of the things we're in the middle of doing is um using some of our assessment tools to try to determine where they are with their emotional intelligence their EQ um some of their personal their ability to cope with stress so that gives us some indicators of will do they have resilience are they searching it um just because you've become a licensed therapist doesn't mean you really are resilient nature you know you still might have a lot of unresolved issue so we're starting to um embed that up on the front end and it's not to negate or to dismiss or to rule out a candidate it's to determine what kind of supports are we going to need to put in place if um we hire will and he takes the

[41:29]  job uh I think that's real important so that's the one thing we're doing on the hiring I think we're trying to beef up our supports again I goes back to the coaching and one1 conversations we're having a big part of that is relationship and caring you know there's serious data as a leader if you care you care not if you say you care not if you just act like you care but you actually have to care about the people you're leading even if you don't like them but if you care about them by checking in with them asking them and understanding more about what's going on with our personal lives you don't want to get too deep but just surface level what's going on um you know what can you do to support them through that so that a lot of that happens through coaching connectivity is big in reference to sell and caring for those that you need just checking in on your people um the data

[42:16]  is tremendous on just checking in with your people on a regular basis and what that does to engagement and their their ability to trust you and know that you care so we're doing some of that um obviously we try to have a very healthy um PTO um policy and we really want to encourage people to take that um we don't we're not looking for you to stack up your PTO and roll it over use it or lose it all the other things that are happening out there it's there and it's there for a reason use it if you're feeling underwater you're feeling stressed out you think you're getting to a point you're burned out you're unhealthy use that PTM we also do VTO um probably one of the only non for-profits that I'm aware of that actually encourages our people through voluntary time off programs to go out and do something different outside the mission and take a day a quarter to go impact

[43:04]  somebody else and there's benefits we know that there's health benefits to volunteering right because we use that to recruit volunteers but we also use that to get our people to volunteer and now our mission leaves the building and now it's an extension through this but it also is good for health um we're trying to do more around wellness and self-care um depending on what level the of the organization we've done different things gym memberships pre-pandemic um some of the shiny objects we've done but here's what I would say at the end of the day if you really want to impact um your people and and and care for them and and prevent burnout just care for them just care for them it's a simple thing it's simple to say harder to do one of my favorite leaders right now in the space of business is a 31-year-old female CEO of a family

[43:54]  office called acquisition. comom her name is Lila Hermos and her biggest mission is trying to build a business that is highly successful right now they have a portfolio of businesses that does like 500 million a year so they're really doing well at a young age but her philosophy is we can build an Empire that is based on positive reinforcement instead of punishment yeah and culture is built in all the little interactions me as a leader I want to check in on my team I want to see how Will's doing which is amazing and I love to hear you kind of echo that because the culture that we built is is literally a compilation of all the interactions that we have by checking in each other and making sure that we are serving ourselves before we serve others now something that you hit on which I think you're very passionate about is this non-for-profit CEO burnout okay so it's really apparent to me that the world

[44:43]  that we live in today often demonizes diving head first into Mission because people talk about work life balance I've been playing around with a concept A Lot which is work life integration what do you think about work life integration I I think that's um that's exactly the way I I frame the way I approach my work um so you know I'm blessed to be living out my minist my personal Ministry and get paid for it right so for me it's a blessing um this is what I think I was called to do and in and if I bring it down to just help people to be helpful to people um so for me it's I don't shut it off I don't believe in 5:00 shut it off now I need balance and I'm going to go and be dead and and husband and friend and son or whatever you are um

[45:32]  that's who I am throughout the day um you know I'm husband throughout the day even when I'm working talk to my wife three times already today since I left house um and I'm CEO and leader during nights and weekends um now that doesn't mean I'm I'm I'm firing off emails because to your point that's not good for for for for Burnout and them anxiety in the workplace and care but I'm reading I'm developing I'm thinking I'm Vision casting um I'm taking notes I'm journaling whatever it is I don't shut off the work I do because I just love the work I do um so for me it is a true integration but here's another thing with it on the burnout side um at least for those that I lead um if you have work life balance and it's a it's

[46:20]  kind of a boxed model of what that looks like it's an 8 to five and then you need to go get balance well I encourage my people if they need to see a trainer at 9:00 a.m. to go see the trainer that well that's in the that's in the 8 to5 window um there was a time pre- pandemic If my people knew where I was at 3:30 every day I'd pick up the phone I would check emails but I was at the gym you know that was part of the integration your kid has um first day of school is happening um well go do your thing my son has a has a game be at the game you know it's important for people to show up well in that way so if you think of work in that way I think you're doing yourself a disservice um but there are plenty people that they feel like they have to um I I go back to it's the ability to say no to things that aren't really

[47:08]  moving your mission forward and your work forward versus yes because if you really took an inventory and I just heard somebody and we we did something internally it's like what's your to don't list and start putting things on the to don't list your to-do list gets a lot less filled and then the ability to integrate and to have a healthy work environment just goes 5 10x but you have to prioritize that I agree with you 100% there's a there's an idea um that I've been messing around with it's a framework that I heard on a podcast and you're the first person who I've ever talked about this publicly so I hope this goes okay um there's an idea of energy takers and energy adders an energy taker is having conversations where we feel like energy is being

[47:55]  pulled out of us energy adders are the exercises like spending time with my family being able to watch a movie going to the gym at 3:30 I'm a huge believer if we have balance between the energy takers and the energy adders whatever that is for you burnout is really difficult to come to because we have enough time to rest and recover and I feel like we need to prioritize the energy adders no matter what that means for you in your life so you can show up as your best version of yourself and serve other people what do you think about that concept oh I love it um you know John Gordon wrote a book called The Energy Bus he calls them energy vampires right so they're taking your blood man so yeah I I I agree with that I I think you got to be really careful again it goes back to the saying no concept you even have to say no who you're going to

[48:43]  give your time and energy to as a leader as a person in the community um it doesn't matter who you are it could be personal it could be familial but I would say in the workplace in particular if we are doing a better job of setting parameters protecting our calendars um saying no to the energy takers um from that concept I agree with you and then spending when you are spending time spend time with the energy givers I think that um you know you show up so much better I I just think um for me um I Heard it I heard this the other day too you know most of my stuff I just I just clean it up and refurbish it right which is really cool but you know if you ask your people or yourself how

[49:31]  committed are you to your mission on scale 1 to 10 only the tens change the world so this one this leader said I don't deal with sevens eights and nines I only deal with tens because they're the ones changing the world how many of us are doing that versus spending a couple hours here and there with six sevens and Eights in our organization we should be spending the most time with the people that are most committed and I love that right so those are the energy givers man you just you just gave me the chills I recently had a a guest on the podcast his name is Jason yusi so big shout out to you Jason um he is a large real estate guy investor in uh the Tennessee area and he has a concept called live 100 and he talks

[50:20]  about living 100 for everybody looks different but when you give a 100 in your relationships in your personal Fitness and your finances and how you handle your marriage or your kids relationships or whatever you can live an amazing life and that's dependent on you but so many people today are walking around living at 91 86 75 and you'll never truly understand the Delta of living at 75 and that extra 25% to the 100% of you that could create the opportunities that will change your life the relationships would change your life and often it doesn't we don't really recognize that Delta Until It's The End we're like man I could have been better I could have lived 100 I could have taken more risk I could have been a better person I could have been a better leader and we never think about those things while we're in the process and I hear that you kind of emphasized that

[51:07]  live 100 mentality as well super impressive oh yeah I mean I just um you know most people aren't willing to do what what I'm willing to do to to move the mission forward you know I you know for me it's a starts with a 2hour morning routine before 8 o00 you know and and that's that's for me to show up well as a husband and a father you know and I always say if you don't show up well at home you're not going to show up well here you know for me it's super important it's Paramount as I rounded third right you know so I got maybe six six to eight more years six maybe in the work environment outside of maybe Consulting is the dream I guess but and then who am I going to spend the most of my time with my wife so I'm investing in that I'm investing in that and that's

[51:54]  important for me and and then because I'm invest in that I can show up really well here um and that's important I want to Riff on that for a second sure because often when we talk to amazing leaders like yourself one thing that I recognize my girlfriend always says this as well is there's often a support system behind them that makes all the difference how is your support system with such a big mission and everything that you're accomplishing and see that you have that tenacity and that grit in you you get the support from the wife and everybody else as well or has that been a process that you guys have grown together with yeah know I yeah like any any relationship and marriage first few years are different than the you know that we're now getting ready to celebrate 18 together 19 together I'm 18 married but you know I think first and foremost is my faith my relationship with God is Paramount reference to support um and then it goes to my wife

[52:43]  and she was a um social worker we met in the work 19 years ago and so she understands the difficulty of the work um itself and um yeah super supportive I I couldn't do anything I do without her um in our relationship knowing that that relationship is secure um that I show up to be my best father to my five children um and then I can show up here you know that g you know that um when you're on the plane and they say put your mask on first you know the first time I ever heard that I was like sounds so strange what if I'm next to my spouse or my kid and I was even married or with kids yet and but now I truly understand what that looks like right so you you need to take care of yourself and then you go to your

[53:30]  support system and they need to help take care of you my wife leads me as much as I lead lead here and um you know a great sounding board for me um you know I'm human I'm not perfect I have a lot of thoughts and doubts about and it could be coaching somebody at work it could be a paino at work it could be a struggle at work and what she does is help me kind of take a step back give me some different Vantage points and perspective um she really helps my caring side because she she has a bigger heart I think two is um for me it's just a benefit she's Latino she's from Colombia and so we kind of share multiple cultures in our home and I think that's actually just made me a just a better person to understand what

[54:17]  differences look like when they're in your home and then you're my life all the time um so that's been really big and really huge for me as well I mean that's a beautiful story man and love being able to dive a little bit into the personal side because I think it's important to recognize that we all do need support you know as Leaders of organizations it's very isolating it's very seldom sometimes that we get to lean into others or have people pick us up because we're always the face that's leaning into others right um it kind of goes back to what you mentioned a little earlier and this is a kind of where we'll kind of start wrapping up our episode here today is the soft skill development right one of the things that I like talking about is what got us here is not going to get us there we've seen dramatic changes in the landscape of business how we over our communities over the last couple years I want to talk about curiosity in the vein of technology so the years or since November of 2022 I've been going crazy

[55:06]  about the innovation of Technology things like AI I see it everywhere I'm not sure if that's my reticular activating system that's just picking up on stuff or more people are talking about it how are you thinking about the skill of curiosity when it comes to technology in the organization to help you guys do more with less yeah I think um you a couple things I want to say about curiosity it seems to be something that's come up in my my day-to-day walk recently and I think as a leader in my earlier times even my only few years here I think asking questions was not my go-to it was really telling my story sharing what I wanted sharing what you know all these other things and I've learned over time to be a really good leader and a good partner and to M develop and maintain a network with other leaders and

[55:53]  organizations um it starts with really learning more about them and having them tell you more about them than you telling yourself um so I think Curiosity on on a whole new level is a leadership Art and Science that's really beneficial and I'm learning and that's something being added to my toolbox um you know every interaction I I try to remind myself to be curious um but I think in reference technology and I think you said do more with less is huge right now you know we talked about Workforce um you know what is flat organizations look like um I love uh Walmart predict knew all the data right so I I say this as a joke but not really if you realize what happened in the pandemic they knew what was coming with

[56:40]  the workforce because all of a sudden you go into a Walmart or a neighborhood center Walmart and you became the bagger and the cashier they literally turned you into the worker um so they were really somebody saw the writing on the wall and reviewed the data coming the birth rate data on the workforce but I think for us it's it's challenging to be frank it's because of the type of work we do um we're doing some things using technology and AI on you know how are you um kind of scraping data off of your electronic health record and how is it informing your treatment plan it's a classic example of something that we're doing in that space uh we're trying to we think there's a big AI opportunity obviously for um you know sharing your brand

[57:27]  marketing um blogging again getting things out there on this um this new world um and the way we communicate via the Internet and the phone um we think there's great AI application and Leadership and leadership development you know there's a lot of opportunity and AI leadership chat Bots and things like that um so we're we're starting to ask a lot of questions um you know I think I would also say that we're cautious um you know know on how much of that really is going to impact us um over the short period of time um but here's one thing we know for sure is that you know again we talk a little bit about our beliefs I didn't go through them all but you know in God we trust all others bring data um well AI doesn't function without data so so that's part

[58:16]  of our belief system so if the data is good and we have good data and good informational um data in um AI will will be better for you the analytics and and the intelligence will be so much better for you um but you know I don't think there's going to be a day where you can replace a human in the work that we do um with with a machine um I'd be really careful and cautious about what that may or may not look like I think that'll be well P past my tenure in the work but we're definitely curious about it but I'm also a little cautious because you know there are there are times where again it's it's about that shiny object and right now it's the shiny object um you know I get invited to an AI Symposium or an AI information almost

[59:04]  five times a day um we definitely um our technology leader um is vetting and um looking and recommending opportunities for us to um dabble test pilot um several different solutions which I'm happy about um we have a young it leader younger I want to be respect I mean he's been around for a while but um he's a 10 on commitment and um really could be doing other things um with bigger bigger companies making more money but he has a passion for what we do and um he's really um reviewing and analyzing and asking a lot of questions um about how AI could could be used uh we do need to figure out a way to be more efficient effective in our work um because go back to the conversation we talk about rates

[59:53]  um you know inflation's going up technolog is going up um salaries are going up benefits are going up everything's going up the one thing that's not going up um aligned to those increases maybe a little bit but not aligned to those increases are the rates that we're getting so how do you deal with that um you got to flatten you got to learn how to do more with less and you got to be more efficient and effective and I think I want to go back and Hammer home your point from earlier which is stay on Mission as well you know that shiny object that lady in the red dress is always going to be a distraction and we need to stay with that I want to use the last couple seconds here to talk about what the future of Thompson looks like what are we thinking over the next couple years what are we hoping for what are we pushing for yeah I mean it's pretty simple um you know there's a Biblical patch that says without a vision the people will perish so here's our vision um today we're serving about 4,000 youth

[1:00:42]  a year 50 $50 million in annual revenue and five we want to serve over 8,500 youth On Any Given year and 100 million in Revenue um so that's the vision um how we get there now is the is is the question uh we know it'll be based on a foundation of leadership challenging the status quo innovating testing piloting um trying new things stopping new stopping old things um so we're excited about the future one of the things we're really kind of leaning into is uh Rebrand and marketing um probably more than we've ever done we're 140 year old organization that nobody knows about if you haven't been in the work um and that's not that's not appropriate um part of my legacy in six years of everybody at least in the Charlotte

[1:01:29]  Market knows who Thompson is what Thompson does and how well Thompson does it um I will I will be really really happy if that's the case we say this in Charlotte the only thing outgrowing Thompson is the needs in the community man it has been such a pleasure will to be able to host you and to be a part of sharing your story and the great work that you're doing but also leading from the front as an amazing leader I feel like is something that I'm incredibly happy to be a part of in this intersection of time so I just want to thank you for everybody you know who's tuning in today watching and listening will Jones seriously man can't thank you enough for being on the show as we leave here today I have a question that came from another one of our guests on the podcast now this individual is a leader in higher education and with that changing landscape as well she has a simple question but I'd love to hear

[1:02:15]  your your perspective as a leader how do you navigate moments of self-doubt and what strategies do you use to ensure that it doesn't affect your decision making or the confidence of your team o that's a big question you know you know you probably get a sense of that you've interacted me twice I mean I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed um you know for me for me self-doubts white noise um I combat self-doubt with my faith in my God my faith in myself my faith in my team um you know and I would be remiss I I'm around a team that's been here an average length of time of over seven years in their seats um I capable people around me um but and I do a lot of selft talk right so um all the messages that we tell ourselves and you know you

[1:03:04]  probably know the data most of what we tell ourselves is negative so reframing being attentional about telling myself positive things um not false things but positive things about who I am who God made me to be why I'm on this Earth the impact I'm having and why I do what I do the way I do it um the self-doubt dissipates pretty quick um you know um some people say I'm intense some people say I'm cocky I just believe I'm confident um and um for me that comes with not hearing a lot of the White Noise um again you know most people don't want to do and sacrifice what many very few accomplish um but they love to

[1:03:55]  pull you down into their space and that's where that self-doubt comes and and and you said it earlier I think we got to be real careful about social media and what the world is saying about everything um maybe even including us um and for me I'm just so it goes back and you said this a couple times I'm so focused on my mission I don't care what you think and that's a wrap