Family Business Audiocast | Episode 9 | Bruce Kasanoff | Kasanoff Center for Growth
Available to Listen Now On: Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, iHeart, YouTube
New Episodes Live: Subscribe to receive exclusive invitations to upcoming episodes of the Family Business Audiocast. Join us as we explore the pivotal strategies and stories behind successful family enterprises. Click to Follow on LinkedIn.
—————————————————
About Our Guest:
Bruce Kasanoff is the founder of Bend Reality, a community for expansive thinkers, and has authored six books, including How to Promote Without Being a Jerk. Additionally, Bruce is a proud member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches program, emphasizing his commitment to serving others. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School and has shared his innovative ideas at renowned institutions such as Yale and York University. As a pioneering LinkedIn influencer, Bruce maintains a dedicated readership of 175,000 for his Mountain Minute newsletter, focusing on career growth through altruism. His work embodies a dedication to helping individuals realize their potential while promoting positive values.
—————————————————
[Transcript]
R. Adam Smith
Hi, I'm Adam Smith, creator of this audio cast series. I've been an entrepreneur, investment banker and board leader for over 25 years. I want to thank the registrants for joining live today on LinkedIn.
Family Business is a passion of mine having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs and having engaged for two decades in a wide range of dialogues and businesses with fascinating family enterprises and family firms around the globe. I founded the family business audiocast offer a useful platform for listeners to hear from veterans, academics and leaders in family-owned enterprises, family offices and entrepreneurs themselves.
I hope you find these conversations enlightening today.
We welcome today, Bruce Kasanoff. Bruce, it's really wonderful to have you here today. Thank you for joining and on our being a guest on our podcast today.
Bruce Kasanoff
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for asking.
R. Adam Smith
A brief comment on our esteemed guests. Bruce collaborates with hundreds of top tier entrepreneurs, prominent speakers, and authors whose expertise lies in amplifying their unique skills and visibility by pinpointing the core of their insights that resonate the most with others. Bruce holds an MBA from the Wharton School and has shared his innovative ideas at esteemed institutions around the world such as Wharton, Yale, York University. As a pioneer among LinkedIn influencers. Bruce boasts over 800,000 followers in the platform, and also a dedicated readership of 175,000 for his mountain minute newsletter, where he emphasizes career growth through altruism and several 100,000 overall including his distill the real your newsletter Center are leading a life of purpose. He's also the lead the founder of bend reality, a community of expansive human beings. And he's written six books. Recently, one called How to Promote without being a jerk. Finally, a proud member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches’ program, Bruce fully embraces his mandate to be one of the greatest possible services to others. So, let's get into it today. Bruce, considering your extensive experience in magnifying talent, how do you think entrepreneurs for family-owned businesses and family firms can elevate their unique insights and value to their own organization?
Bruce Kasanoff
Well, I think it's no different than anybody else. And what I found is working with entrepreneurs, that if you can focus on what matters most consistently, day after day, you will be successful, you'll be fulfilled, you'll feel like you're making progress, that's an easy thing to say. The question is, how do you do that? And the answer also, I mean, for so I'll give you just a quick example. So each of my, each of the clients who my entrepreneur clients, we talk once a week, and I always ask them in some form or another, that question - What matters most what matters most to sometimes people say today, sometimes they in life sometimes say in their business, sometimes they're falling into institution, you know, whatever it is, if you stop on a regular basis, so in my case with my clients, it's once a week.
And first of all, you think about what matters most to you. Out of all the things you're doing out of all the directions in which you're being pointed. And you formulate an answer. And what I found accidentally, in my practice didn't start exactly this way, is trying to explain this to a person who literally will not stop asking you questions, until they fully understand you until they can repeat it back as well or better than you can is a profound practice. So, whether you choose a coach, a friend, your business partner, your you know, relative, whoever it is, I don't think there's anything that you could possibly do more than on a regular basis, not monthly, not yearly, but at least weekly. And some people do a daily, ask yourself, what matters most to me, can I enunciate this for other people? And do they understand?
R. Adam Smith
Right, and that's obviously essential today's leadership community for the 90% of the US economy really privately held closely held businesses, right. So many of those businesses are not as plugged into the digital age or LinkedIn. Or they may not be as active in the coaching circuit. How would you? How do you see these entrepreneurs and in our case, some of the family-owned firms, develop trust and utilize LinkedIn in today's digital age in terms of coaching, leadership content, joining boards, maybe you could share some of your vast experience and leveraging?
Bruce Kasanoff
Sure, I mean, I think there's LinkedIn like most ways we communicate these days is really fragmented. And if you, if you look at LinkedIn, casually, you can see a lot of people, you know, they're just, you know, there's a lot of, oh, I made a million dollars in nine months you can too, how to leverage the platform, how to get a lot of followers, you know, it's just overwhelming.
I think the people who use LinkedIn, really well, are the people who know, if I say to you, who's in your network, who matters to you're not trying to be, you know, a mass market star, you, you should have a good sense of who it is that cares about you that you care about, and, and perhaps extended a bit in terms of people like that. The people I work with that are really have a micro community, it doesn't mean it's small, necessarily, but it's, it's certainly a subset of LinkedIn. Yeah, that's, that's the difference is that, you know, like, some of my most successful clients, in terms of using LinkedIn.
If I said to you, who follows you on LinkedIn, they could sit there and name 300 people, because they're people, they also know, in real life, they had no one they've seen them, they look for opportunities to interact, and, and they have overlapping goals. And so, it really comes down to relationships, do you really mean I think of it this way, if you were, let's say, you get 500 people to read something you post on LinkedIn, if you had 500 people in the room with you? What would you do? Would you, you know, have a dialogue with them, where you just say, thanks for coming, I really appreciate the like, you know, and so it's, it's a lot of its functioning on LinkedIn, like you do in in real life and really having conversations. And if somebody says something interesting, you reach out to them or be welcoming, if they want to reach out to you. It's just being a human being.
R. Adam Smith
That's a good point that the genuine factor is very important on LinkedIn, especially given the vast b2b community and I think for family-owned firms, right family enterprises, family offices that are a bit more private. They are increasingly using LinkedIn, but with a bit of skepticism and being very selective, right. So, I like what you said about following certain industries, and certain companies and leaders and people that inspire you, because that will then be within your, your audience. I've no,
Bruce Kasanoff
just jump in and say one thing, Adam, to that it's so that, you know, among my clients, or, for example, like people involved in private equity, they are not necessarily by any stretch of the imagination, who you would expect to be seeing using LinkedIn. They're not necessarily using it to get their next deal. But they still can use it in such a way that they strengthen relationships, they come across people they didn't know or perhaps, here's the way I think of it is. I can't read your mind. I don't know what's most important to you. I don't know what's going on this month, even perhaps this year, maybe I talked to you two years ago. Things like LinkedIn are a good way to keep that kind of the edges of your network, aware of what's most important to you, what you're working on what you're interested in, so that then no synchronicity can happen. People can reach out I mean, this is how people get jobs, they get deals, it's from the edges of their networks. And LinkedIn is phenomenal for that. Yeah.
R. Adam Smith
So on for your newsletters and you and your books. I've been going through them and they're very inspiring. I think, from an entrepreneurial perspective, with the audience, being probably held companies that tend to operate in their own circuit. A lot of private companies are between 100 and 500 million of sales, right? So, they've been building up for 10, 20, 50 years, and they're in their comfort zone, but they still want to grow, and they want to learn and expand their network with other leaders and inspirational figures like yourself, talk about your newsletters and your approach to personal growth. How would you advise family-owned businesses to think about growth within their, within their board within their, their, their culture, and their organization? And what's in those newsletters and also your books that you think would be helpful for you?
Bruce Kasanoff
Sure. Well, first of all, I'm going to answer those two ways. newsletters on LinkedIn are a great way to do what we were just talking about that is to, to identify, you know what it is that matters most to you. Who do you want to communicate with, and have a regular way to whether it's weekly or bi-weekly or monthly to communicate with people on that.
I just like this my second newsletter - Distill the Real You. I only launched it a week and a half ago, it has 10s of 1000s of people who have subscribed. One of the reasons I think it's because it's very focused on a different type, mountain men is about how to do well, by doing good. Distill the Real You is to is about how do you get to the core of who you are, as a human being. It's a different topic, they're overlapping to a degree, but they're a different topic. If, if you can do the same in your business, whether it's on LinkedIn newsletter, or it's in, you know, just thinking about the relationships, and whether they're business or personal or both.
That's really important, because it gives, if you give people clarity over it, for example, I'd like to talk to you next week, next month about it, here's why. Here's what here's what you can expect from me, the more that people can, you know, not to be, you don't want to be predictable in the sense of boring, but you want to know, here's the boundaries, I'm not going to, for example, one of my boundaries is I'm not negative on social media ever. The three or four times in the last 10 years, I've forgotten that I've instantly regretted it.
And, and a lot of what we think of as being constructive or realistic, you know, I just don't want to do that I don't need to bring it into the platform. And so, to make for the people you deal with in family offices and family businesses, you have to make decisions like that, like say, How do I want to move through my world? One of my favorite things, it's kind of lofting, usually...
R. Adam Smith
Continuously building your brand with a positive orientation, essentially, it'd be, because...
Bruce Kasanoff
I would say a step before that, I would say, Who do you want to be? And then if you want to talk about a brand that reflects that, and you can say that for your organization, you can say that personally, you should say personally first, but yeah, who do you want to be? How do you want to move through the world? And then you get to business terms, like, you know, brand and things. But first and foremost, I mean, the most successful people organizations, there's no difference, there's no difference if you meet them in person versus you define their brand. And so, one of the things about family business?
It did, I think there are wonderful examples out there of highly congruent family businesses that are kind of purpose driven, or at least values driven first. And they've done that sometimes through generations, they certainly do that, you know, for year upon year, year, after year, you do have greater freedom than if you're, you know, a public company and you're going quarter to quarter.
R. Adam Smith
True. Well, let's look at the, at the vast scale of privately held businesses and family firms and family enterprises, right? There's, there's so many of them, and almost a majority of them want to continue their legacy, right, they want to get through the G2, G3, they may or may not want to sell their company, they may want to take distributions out of it and retain it because it's what they're passionate about what they know, know the best.
So in your writings, you talk about promotion of yourself, but in a way that is more inclusive, and, and positive and collaborative without being a jerk, let's say. So, in family businesses, the group is so tightly knit often even without outsiders and independent directors or investors.
So for that particular audience that are closely held, how would you suggest that the individuals let's say the children or other partners in the company would expand their brand, but without overshadowing the family business or its legacy or it's kind of the team rah, essentially, of that of that company? Right?
Bruce Kasanoff
Right. Right, right. Look, I think a lot of this has to do with some combination of what we're talking about the totality of this conversation. Being able as an individual to be, I would say, congruent to who you are. And yet serving the system, in this case, the family business, the family itself as well.
I have a very good friend; her name is Molly Tschang. It's T S C H A N G. She does say it skillfully, which is a website. And also, she's active on LinkedIn, because she's built this whole thing around, say it skillfully, which is the videos to show you how to have difficult conversations and content related like that. And one of the things that she has taught me is, you can bring up all sorts of challenging issues, you know, from succession to we have different financial goals to how do we work together to how do I be an individual? And you know, and yet, you know, respect the family?
And the real question is, two things. One is, can you say what needs to be said, as opposed to bearing it? And two, can you say it in a way, that, as I said a moment ago, that serves the system that I'm not saying, you know, I'm out for myself, and you know, screw everybody else, it's like, we're trying to serve the system together. And I know serve the system is not the sexiest or warmest way to say it. But as long as you are doing that, you can tackle all sorts of issues successfully. And, and if you don't convey that, like, if one of the reasons I brought it Molly, and I love her and her work so much, because she'll give a little, you know, less than a minute example, on video. And, and in in 35 seconds of bringing up a subject, as you know, she's modeling it for you. She says about four things, she always says something that's a statement of mutual goals or respect, and that I'm here to support, you know, what we're all doing together. And then she brings up whatever it is that she's trying to bring up. And, and that sense of, you know, why are we doing this together and let me do something constructive is really the key.
R. Adam Smith
Right. And that genuineness really is important in, in closely held businesses for their culture, and particularly if they ever want to have investors to come into that close knit ecosystem to be to be direct and be forthright. And it can open up a bit, right. There's a quote by Mark Twain saying all motion is involuntary, when genuine so it really comes out real.
But I see these closely held businesses have a hard time sometimes opening up to outsiders, it can be an independent board director, it can be an investor, or it can be a partner coming in to come in and buy and build the company. So, what are your thoughts on that balance? Maybe some of your thoughts of experiences from Wharton or some of the Marshall Goldsmith coaching of the entrepreneurs? How do you see some experiences you've seen or conversations you've had to balance that internal culture with? You know, with what the outside world is looking for coming into that company?
Bruce Kasanoff
Well, you know, so just to explain other people. So, I'm part of Marshall Goldsmith, it's probably the most successful executive coach in the world. He started this paid forward organization called 100 Coaches, he said, he teaches us everything he knows for free in the soil condition, we some someday do that for other people as well. That's what my bend reality is, is my attempt to do that.
What I've learned from Marshall and Marshall works, has worked with a lot of family businesses, is, you know, he's a huge believer in in self-awareness and accountability. You know, so for example, everybody individually, this is not a family business thing.
It's the members of the people in the business, saying, he doesn't something called daily questions. Here's my four or five, six questions that I'm, you know, if I say that, you know, my priorities are family, and tenacity and growth and whatever it is that you say.
you know, he advocates, you know, at the end of every day with an accountability partner, who's just someone else who's doing this too, and you take a minute, and you call each other, and you say, you know, you answer the five or six questions you have. Did I do my best today to, to love my family and scale it 1 to 10, you rate yourself and you write it down. And you do this every day, you know, and you see a pattern. First of all, if you do it every day, you end up holding yourself accountable to things like that. That practice also sponsors self-awareness.
Like if you have to sit down to the end of the day and say, it talked to one other person say, realistically, how well did I do today? And what do you see, I've done this, and sometimes you see, I got a zero or a two, you know, two weeks in a row, and then you have to decide for yourself, is that really one of my values? Or should I just take it off the list? Because if I'm getting to, you know, every day for a month, then I'm not living it. And so, it's that sort of thing, which applies. I mean, it doesn't just apply to family business. But I know, through Marshall, it works very well, in that setting.
I'd say the other thing is being willing to take constructive feedback, even when it's hard, even when you don't want to hear it. That's essential, because how do you keep lines of communication open? In this sort of setting where there can be, you know, a lot of love, but also a lot of different viewpoints, and perhaps different values.
And, you know, that's really the thing, like if I give you feedback, and you say thanks, but I'm not going to do it, I'm going to stop giving you feedback. Right?
R. Adam Smith
Well, you can, we could do a whole another session on motion intelligence. But I like what you pointed out about some of the key building blocks, I do coach with the Tony Robbins organization, and I like the pyramid of mastery that they point out within the program, building up from your, your, your person, your personal meaning, going through the management of relationships, and time and work and finances and ultimately celebrating. So, I've learned a lot from that. But I would encourage people to look into the Goldsmith 100 coaches’ program if they're interested in that. It's really a powerful organization, it's great that you that you went, you went through that. Did you bring some of those insights into your book, tell us about the books you've written? And what are your some of your, your favorite mantras or lessons around leadership that you've used?
Bruce Kasanoff
Well, I don't really use the word leadership very often, even though I get that it's out there. You know, my, my, the truest to me book is how to self-promote without being a jerk. And it's, it's poorly named. Although there's reasons, I named that, but it really is built on my credo, which talks about being generous and expert, and trustworthy and clear, open minded and persistent and present.
You know, it's, so it's structured around those elements. And so, it's really everything I do is about how do you move through the world as a human being. And that gets reflected in all the places you spend time were community, friendships, you know, fitness, adventure, whatever it is spirituality, religion, you name it, and, and if you have that clear sense of how you want to move through the world, then everything's not easy, but at least you have a sense of consistency. And what am I trying to accomplish here? And how am I trying to be.
If you don't? I mean, the problem I have with most things I read in business, is that it they're kind of ignore the fact that we're human beings. It's like economics. When I studied economics at Wharton, it was long time ago, but I remember, it was an idealized view of the world, if the world doesn't actually view, like the way I was taught economics. Its people are not rational, they are irrational, and they're emotional. And, you know, so the, I mean, one of my favorite sayings is, Be human, not perfect, you know, to be an actual human being. For example, you know, if you're capable of saying, you know, I don't know how to do this, could you help me. For example, let's say you're dealing with the next generation, or even just bring up talent, you know, that's the most empowering thing you can say to somebody.
You know, and, and a lot of times, you know, confident leaders or, you know, elders that needs to be a learned skill, they, they're not innately you know, willing to do that. Why should I ask for help from some upstart 27-year-old you know. Because as you're going to empower that person, and you're going to give them an opportunity to bring out their talent. So those are the type of topics that really interests me, you know, how do we be more human with each other, and whatever your initial motivation was family business, or it's just I want to have a world in which actually want to live. That's, that's what matters to me.
R. Adam Smith
Well, everyone on the on this audio cast today, and later, we'll be looking to make money. But everybody also wants to be part of the mission, where they feel that they're able to be part of that culture that works for them. Either being connected to the leaders of the organization, or being a leader that is able to, to be an effective leader and part of part of leadership that we are learning today, especially through Harvard Business Review, and some other leaders like Adam Grant and Scott Galloway and other Martin Rove others talking about talking about corporate culture. Includes the really the human element you're talking about. So, I noticed in work magazine, you wrote an article about Kindfulness, sort of having more openness in the in the workplace. And we also see that in Ray Dalio is work as well, that he's discussed being open in terms of looking for improvement within Bridgewater, maybe talk a couple of minutes about the importance of kindness, even within a context of, you know, broad capital.
Bruce Kasanoff
So, you said at least three things I want to comment on. The first is Ray Dalio, who's a complicated and very intelligent person. He'd be the first one to support the first thing I said about focus on what matters most because he's, you know, has always been into mindfulness and clarity. And, you know, do you really understand the subject, and if you don't, then I call you out on it, you should be thankful, not the uncomfortable for that. So, I think there's a lot to learn from him and the way he writes about the world.
Adam Grant, actually, who you mentioned, actually, is the only person on the cover of my book, because I have one testimonial, and it's from him, I think what Adam does is amazing, is given textbook is, which was his first big book, is really extraordinarily close to, to that, you know, how to self-promote without being a jerk, because it's, it's, it's giving the most successful, his thesis is basically, the most successful people are kind of practice enlightened self-interest. You ultimately will benefit more by being helpful to other people, you ultimately, if you do the types of things I'm talking about, even if your goal is to make money, you will still do better, if you are other focused, rather than just self-focused.
And then the third thing is that. Because I know so many coaches who work with literally the top executives around the world, I see a theme. And the theme is, is that there are lot of enormously successful people who would not say late in their life, that they are fulfilled, or necessarily pleased with the way their life turned out. And the difference, and this is not my conclusion, this is a lot of smarter people than myself, is how you deal with relationships. If you put relationships first, meaning the mutual, you know, not just your side, but both sides of relationships. You won't end up in that situation where you're successful, but not fulfilled or successful but not happy with how your life turned out. It is relationships and how you deal with them. That is the differentiator. Because you're you put relationships first does not make mean you won't make money, it means you will be able to be successful, whether it's money or growth or a service, whatever it is.
And the end part is the most important and say, Wow, this, this was a great ride. I wouldn't change anything. You know, I made mistakes, but I wouldn't change anything. And that's, that's the biggest lesson I've learned in the last 10 years, and I think the biggest lesson anybody could learn.
R. Adam Smith
That's wonderful. As a corollary to that, in business, it seems like there's a real drive for success and for wealth and first power, right? And so, a lot of that motivation comes through the what and, and the how, and where and like who you're working with, but ultimately, it seems like there's a lot of value in asking why, why you're doing something, why are you working at this company? Why are you making this investment? Why are you building this board of people and personalities? Just to kind of wrap up today. Tell us your thoughts on you know, how you coach and think about the why and between, you know, with between the chapters and folds of business and how that motivates people to be the best.
Bruce Kasanoff
Yeah, so it's so I start my day with three columns, it's on a piece of paper called daily gratitude. And it has three columns being growing doing and I look at them in that order, you know, basically, who do I want to be and there's you know, five or six things they don't tend to change the pretty much the same every day. How am I growing? And then only then do I look at my doing column i doing column has like all the things related to my business, my clients, and projects and where the status and for me, at least it works. I think you can work well for other people actually got it from a woman. Those three words in UNICEF who during COVID She was instrumental raising a billion dollars to help alleviate suffering around the world. And I thought if it's good enough for her, I'm going to I actually asked her permission and, and I borrowed it and so I think that type of way, you know, because it's, as you said, Why, like, what is the meaning I have money, I don't need more money. What is it that I need? You know, so how do I want to be in the world, and then everything follows that and that sort of clarity, I think is really helpful and it gives you more traction.
R. Adam Smith
That's wonderful. You are a distiller as people say. So, thank you for sharing some very thoughtful comments today about people and humanity, organizational behavior, leadership culture. It's great to dig into some of the true essence of organizations, as you say, with people ideas and possibilities. Bruce can be found at his website at Casin off.com, of course, on LinkedIn where he's going to hit the million mark, I'm sure soon, which is impressive. And Bruce, I'm glad we connected, and I want to thank you for today. It was very inspiring.
Bruce Kasanoff
My pleasure, Adam, and thanks to everybody who's been here I really appreciate it. I'm happy to if you want to reach out and talk, I'm happy to do that too.
R. Adam Smith
I want to thank you for joining today the family business audio casts and our illustrious guests Bruce, founder of bend reality influential, trusted, and well-respected expert. This is R. Adam Smith signing off. Stay tuned for our next episode of Family Business audio casts on LinkedIn. Have a great day.
—
Explore the strategic intricacies of family business success with the RAS Family Business Audiocast. Join R. Adam Smith as he delves into exclusive discussions with global leaders shaping the future of private wealth and enterprise. Each episode offers a rare glimpse into the core decisions driving prosperity in high-stakes markets. Tune in to gain expert insights and innovative strategies that empower family businesses to thrive across generations.
Available On : Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, iHeart, YouTube
Disclaimer:
Opinions presented are personal and do not represent the positions of speakers’, sponsors’, or guests’ organizations.
Family Business Audiocast™
