What’s the difference between companies that last for decades… and those that wither away after only a couple of years? That’s been one of the biggest questions in business for generations. And our latest guest has some of the answers. 

Brad Giles has more than 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur, strategic planner, and leadership coach. Brad is the author of “Onboarded: How to bring new hires to the point where they are effective, faster” and “Made to Thrive: The Five Roles to Evolve Beyond Your Leadership Comfort Zone,” a prescriptive guide on how to become a great leader. Each week, Brad co-hosts The Growth Whisperers podcast and writes a weekly newsletter, both of which discuss how to build enduring great companies. He’s also the founder of the strategic planning and coaching consultancy Evolution Partners.

Listen to the full conversation for more on how to turn goals from garbage into effective strategies, financial principles every organization should follow no matter their size, why it’s so important to actually define a CEO’s job description, and a lot more.

Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Learn: 

• What Brad’s company does, plus the biggest surprises that his clients experience after beginning to work with him
• Why Brad thinks “goals are garbage” — and how to strategize your future more effectively 
• The money and liquidity principles that Brad encourages companies to follow, and how those help them weather external storms
• Why a strong leadership team and a democratization of the decision-making process can help establish better financial planning habits within a business
• More about how Brad’s background and how he got into business consulting
• The hole in the book market that Brad saw, and how his latest book plugged that gap
• How to define a CEO’s actual role — and then how to measure success within that role
• How Brad helps CEOs and leaders define better KPIs in order to measure success within their organizations 
• Why flexibility is so important when it comes to determining your organization’s KPIs (and the balance to strike between lagging and leading indicators) 
• The one metric Brad uses to measure success within his business 
• The importance of gut feel for Brad when it comes to measuring how successful he is in his personal life
• Brad’s book recommendations that go beyond the classic business books in the typical canon 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 

• Evolution Partners website
• Brad Giles on LinkedIn
• The Growth Whisperers Podcast
• “Onboarded: How to bring new hires to the point where they are effective, faster” by Brad Giles
• “Made to Thrive: The Five Roles to Evolve Beyond Your Leadership Comfort Zone” by Brad Giles
• “Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big” by Bo Burlingham
• “Ego Is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday
• Buy a copy of “Lost at CEO: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Strategy” by Carl J. Cox 
• 40 Strategy
• Contact 40 Strategy
• Carl J. Cox on LinkedIn