The Leadership Vision Podcast
The Leadership Vision Podcast is about helping people better understand who they are as a leader. Our consulting firm has spent 25 years investing in teams so that people are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Our podcast provides information to help you develop as a leader, build a positive team culture, and grow your organization to match the demands of today’s business landscape. We leverage client experience, research-based leadership models, and reflective conversations to explore personal growth and leadership topics. With over 350,000 downloads from 180+ countries, our podcast shares our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture.
The Leadership Vision Podcast
Layered Leadership: Unlocking Creativity and Building a Thriving Leadership Culture with Larry Armstrong
In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, we sit down with Larry Armstrong, former CEO turned artist and author, to discuss his new book, Layered Leadership. Larry shares how his background in architecture, art, and leadership shaped his philosophy and how layers—whether in design, strategy, or personal growth—are key to success.
We discuss:
- How creativity enhances leadership and decision-making
- The importance of self-awareness in leadership growth
- Why long-term, daring goals fuel team engagement and success
- The connection between personal well-being and effective leadership
- How integrating multiple disciplines, like art and business, strengthens leadership
Key Quotes:
🗣 “The way I conceive my art, the way I provide leadership, and the way I built my company is in layers.” – Larry Armstrong
🗣 “Being an artist made me a better CEO. And being a CEO made me a better artist.” – Larry Armstrong
🗣 “Self-awareness comes from a mixture of self-doubt, ambition, and learning from mistakes.” – Larry Armstrong
🗣 “Long-term goals create a clear path forward and allow teams to stay aligned with a vision.” – Larry Armstrong
Action Item:
Take a moment to reflect: How can you integrate creativity into your leadership? Whether through art, music, or even a different way of problem-solving—challenge yourself to think beyond traditional leadership frameworks.
Resources Mentioned:
- Layered Leadership by Larry Armstrong
- More about Larry’s work –
- Leadership Vision’s insights on team culture
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Read the full blog post here!
CONTACT US
- email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
- Leadership Vision Online
ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
This idea of continuous learning your whole life. Never stop learning. You learn when you go through. You suffer a lot of pain, a mistake, but you also can learn just by pushing yourself into something that maybe you haven't experienced before.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about us, you can visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom or click the link in the show notes. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg and today on the podcast we have a fascinating conversation with a really cool guy, larry Armstrong, and we're talking about his new book, layered Leadership.
Speaker 2:Larry is an architect at a big, fancy firm in Southern California. He's also an artist, a former CEO and now an author, and his leadership philosophy is built around these ideas of layers how vision, strategy, creativity, how these things all stack together to create bold, effective leadership. In this episode, dr Linda Brian and myself explore how Larry's experience of over 30 years in architecture and art has informed his leadership style and philosophy. We also talk about the role of self-awareness and why creativity is a critical tool for leaders at any and all levels. Get ready for just an absolutely insightfully delightful conversation packed with practical wisdom and inspiration. You're listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, larry, thanks so much for doing this. I want you to introduce yourselves, but I want to give you a couple of quotes to reflect on quotes from you.
Speaker 3:Some about some random quotes.
Speaker 2:Some random quote from some guy named Larry I found. But Larry, this morning when I was getting ready to go for my run I run pretty much every day, as does Brian, realizing that I start my day in layers, thinking about what am I going to wear to face the elements as I go outside. And so I was kind of noodling on that on my run. And then these two quotes from you one is from your Instagram bio that says layered vision provides the basis for creative philosophy and bold leadership. And then there's a quote in, I think, the first chapter of your book, where you say the way I conceive my art, the way I provide leadership and the way I built my company is in layers.
Speaker 2:And so, by way of introducing who you are to our audience, introducing your book, talk about this layer idea. I know this is the whole point of your book, but when Brian and Linda and I were prepping before this, we're like he's an architect. No, he's an engineer. No, he's an artist. Wait, he's a leadership author. There's so many layers to who you are that it just makes sense that this would be your book. So, by way of introduction, can you sort of layer a bunch of stuff together of how to describe who Lawrence Armstrong is, and then we'll get into all the great leadership stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, thanks. Well, this might take a minute. Take it Go for it All right.
Speaker 1:So well, first of all, you know, architects are trained to think in layers, so for architects this isn't really maybe groundbreaking. I think that you know the way I see the world and the way I perceive everything is sort of in this idea of these synthesized layers, and so when it comes to the built environment and design, you have to think in three-dimensional layers of space and void and solid and walls and floors and structural elements and transparency and glass and light. And so you kind of think that way, but I, you know, over time I've kind of extended that concept into this just sort of a more of an idea than a physical manifestation. All the time you know, when you like, right now, physical manifestation. All the time you know, when you like, right now, and I'm in space in my office and I can see through. You know this amazing technology, the zoom technology, into your spaces, and there's several layers I can see in all of your spaces and light there's different layers of lighting in here you can see it. Over there there's different layers of sound right.
Speaker 1:Sounds coming from background, over here, me speaking, maybe a little echo Sounds from your side of the camera, and then there's very sort of conceptual no matter where you are, what space you're in or or who you're talking to or what group you happen to be with, there's sort of this conceptual layer of thought and emotion that is going on in each of us all the time, and so sometimes it's it's really a physical thing, sometimes it's sort of a sound thing, and I I really study music a lot, so there's all kinds of layers that inspire me in music. Sometimes it's just very conceptual, and so I've applied that to my art. My art is very abstract expressionist, I guess is what it is but it's all based on this ongoing study layers conceptually. And then the way over time, as we built our company, I was inspired by really varied kind of input either a person or a concept or something I read in a business book, or a painting or a piece of music or a metaphor, and somehow applying an idea came from an inspiration from one of those sources becoming a strategy, part of the strategy to build our company or to inspire our people, to get a concept that we're trying to implement, to execute on our strategies as a company.
Speaker 1:And so over time kind of put all these together and, you know, ended up being kind of a lot and ended up being pretty successful. So I decided, okay, I better write about it. Oh so, not that you know, I'm not an author at least I wasn't until I did this and uh. So there you go. That's what we're talking about, wow and was it?
Speaker 4:was it someone encouraging you to write the book, like you got to write this down. Or was it like this deep inner, like well, I guess I'm already doing it or I have language for it Like what was the?
Speaker 1:it was kind of both of those things. I think, you know I had transitioned from. I was CEO for 28 years, I transitioned to chairman. I'm being bought out and, you know, had more time for some of these other facets in my life and you know, mentoring and coaching has always been a big part of my, you know, whether it be with my kids or my leaders at the company or just friends that have businesses that I've helped, or actually other people I've met that asked for help. And so actually my daughter, who is a political psychologist, encouraged me that I should probably be charging for these ideas of mine when I mentor people, and I said I, you know I'm happy to help people, I'm happy to work If somebody has a question or if I can mention them a little bit, it's no big deal, I'm not going to charge for that. He goes. Well, then you should write a book, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:You know, so I had to think about that for a little bit, because I you know, I, to be honest, I hadn't thought about it in the past but I didn't know if I'd ever really do it. But really I think it was that conversation with her that kind of inspired me, to kickstarted the idea that, okay, maybe I should think about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, I got a question as a leader, how long were you playing with these, with the ideas, concepts or modalities of this leadership idea that you had, like, did you have a clear sense of the direction you were heading? Were you doing maybe the different layers of this practice over time and you saw, and you saw some connection happening here, like, how did the the process evolve for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it began with just pure ambition originally in terms of the company. I wanted our company to grow and I wanted it to be a lot bigger and more important than it was when I took it over. And so over time, one of the first things I discovered was I got to stay out in front of my company at all times and provide some sort of vision if we're going to go somewhere. And you know, I was really young when I took over the company, so I was learning some of these things on the fly and sort of trying to craft how I was going to do what I wanted to do with the ambition that I had, sort of thing, Because I saw a lot of potential in our company and it was already a really good architectural firm based here in Southern California.
Speaker 1:And so I think over time sort of I guess the impetus or the pressure I put on myself to try to stay out in front, have a vision, be able to tell people where we wanted to go, that idea then was searching for ways to communicate that that would resonate, and so I started coming up with these concepts based on something I was inspired by. Sometimes it was just adapting a concept that you know book that I read, and we've all read lots of books, a lot of business books, but how do you ever really apply that and make it work for your company?
Speaker 1:So that was part of it. But then also part of it was just how do I conceptually explain the idea to get us where we're going, like the visible lifespan?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That was a big one. I have another question for you. This is where you started. You started with your approach and that came from your training and how you wove that into where you're at today. What is the role of self-awareness for you? You start the book that way, but I'm hearing it in your language from the beginning without having identified it to this point. So can you speak a little bit on the role of self-awareness and how important that is in this leadership model that you've designed?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that sometimes that comes from some sort of mixture of self-doubt and ambition, you know, and then making mistakes where you feel like an idiot, and so you know, you have to be able to learn and accept you know your shortcomings and decide if you can overcome those or try to anyway, I think.
Speaker 1:Also, I think one of the biggest things for me was understanding that there are people that really collaborative and good at working together. Um was a huge realization for me, I guess, and you know it's a real thing, you know, I mean, I always say people have heard me say it a million times we have a world-class executive team. There are some Most of them have been with us for many, many years. So you know, it's just this very special thing that we've been able to put together that has really fueled the leadership ideas within our company Because, you know, everyone's committed to the goal, everyone's committed to each other, everyone builds on everyone else's ideas. You know, which is really kind of cool. So you know, that was a big one for us, I think, some of these discoveries along the way and being willing to embrace those sorts of things, Did they start world-class?
Speaker 4:Did you? Did you? No, really like, did you find world-class people? Or or was it part of even your leadership style to kind of unearth some of the excellence, or weave the weave, the goals of being great, being working, you know be great together.
Speaker 1:be great in the in the industry yeah, great being working, you know being great together, being great in the industry, yeah, so I mean I think that kind of like what happened to me somebody saw something in me and developed it and I had a great opportunity, and so we try to find people that really so. We try to find people that really have that ambition and that drive and the ability to work together, I guess collaborate and everybody needs coaching and mentoring, I guess you know. And so I think it's really about having being very talented, the people. They were already extremely talented and really awesome but also brought that sort of mindset and so finding people over time that sort of fit, that mold, I guess you know. And when I say mold, it's not a specific kind of a thing, it's more about very talented, you know, ambitious but collaborative, you know, excited about the vision, and so you know people have different strengths and you work with them to develop those things for the benefit of their own career and in the company.
Speaker 4:So I want to go back to what you said about you know your daughter having a conversation with you like dad you should charge money or write a book. But you know there's oftentimes when people that we don't even expect are watching our movements or who we're bringing together, how we do the work that we're doing, what would you say your daughter saw in in what you've created and how you mentor, how, how you lead, like what, what was it Cause? That's? That's an interesting story.
Speaker 1:I've helped a couple of her friends over time and she's seen that and and you know, I guess there was some conversation about that with some of them that said, look, you know he should be charging for this kind of stuff. I can't believe you're just talking to people for free and I was like they're my daughter's friends, I mean, you know, so I don't know. And plus, Lauren is in my son James. They both grew up experiencing this growth of a company and you know they got a lot of those same lectures themselves to work on building a company.
Speaker 4:Right right.
Speaker 1:You know, but I don't know. You know, obviously she's witnessed the whole thing being.
Speaker 4:Our daughter would bring friends over and she would say can they all take StrengthsFinder? I was like that, that costs money, like that we're not a part of, of Gallup Um, but she, she knew that, you know, with some of that information we could, we could host some nice conversation. So we've, we've definitely definitely um invested and so I just think it's a rich compliment, uh, testimony, a testimony to your legacy as well, that your kids would recognize that.
Speaker 1:Well, they're pretty great. Yeah, yeah, that's helpful.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful. Yeah, larry, I have a question about one of the camera, with Nathan included. The personal well-being of physical, mental health is a big part of who we are and it's a very large part of the practice that we engage our clients with is bringing that side up. I see you have a little like a side connection to financial health. I want to put that aside for a second. I want to have that as a second question to this. So can you speak to um the importance to wellness and how that plays into leadership from your perspective?
Speaker 1:It's huge and it's the reason I put something in there in the book and it was again.
Speaker 1:It was um a, it was a lesson I took to one of our leadership meetings because that when people are really well, first of all in architecture, we tend to work long hours.
Speaker 1:I mean it's just one of those professions that doesn't tend to be an eight to five kind of a profession.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, as we're building a company and people are hard driving and trying to reach the goals and all this kind of stuff, people can get out of balance, do get out of balance, and big time got out of balance. So again, it was another one of my you know personal hard learning lessons that you know you have to take care of yourself, you have to balance yourself, you have to take time away from work, you have to exercise, you have to eat right, you have to take your vitamins or whatever, go to the doctor, do all these things that are everybody knows, but people make excuses, uh, or you know we should not always prioritize, I guess, guess, as they ought to, and so it made that kind of a big deal around our company that I really want everyone to take care of themselves and make sure they go on vacation and do all these things Our doctors and personal trainers and our mom have told us. Our whole life Personal trainers and our mom have told us our whole life.
Speaker 3:Was there a moment many of us in this wellness journey come to some intersection on that journey where we realize I need to make a different choice. Was there a moment like that in your life where you realized that you were at an intersection and an imbalance in how?
Speaker 1:you're taking care of yourself and pursuing your career. What was that moment like? Yeah, it manifested in, um, you know, stress and anxiety and you know, feeling very good. Well then, all that sort of stuff. Luckily, you know, my wife Sandy, helped me figure this out and, you know, over a long period of time, I made little adjustments to my life. I didn't do it all at once and layered in different aspects of, you know, eating better, sleeping better, taking time off or finding something else to do, you know, be or whatever, working out, eating better, you know all this kind of stuff and so, um, but yeah, it was a little at a time. I think implementation was a little time until I really kind of dialed it in. And, you know, I think she deserves a lot of credit for helping guide me through all that stuff is that where the art came from?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, well, okay, so the art, it's an interesting thing. Yeah mean, I've been an artist my whole life.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But I never showed work. You know, it wasn't that sort of thing I would. I've always had a sketchbook and I've always had projects that I've worked exit from the firm and I wanted I didn't want to be one of these guys that I don't retire and then I start trying to play golf and then I'm more bored and I don't know what to do with myself when I'm stressed out. So I said, okay, I'm gonna try to have an art career, and so I started showing my art and this was about 2011 maybe, or something, I don't know. The whole idea was well, I'll start screwing around with this a little bit and by the time I, you know, ramped down here at when Malcolm Moe maybe I've ramped that up a little bit a little bit Issue is that it it ramped up like really steeply, really fast, way faster than I thought it would, which you know it was awesome, but I didn't really plan that it's.
Speaker 3:And so I want to ask a question to reverse engineer that, once you started dabbling into and trying to magnify the artistic side of who you are, was there a lesson that you discovered in that artistic journey that you directly applied to leadership?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. I was really lucky. I think I started pursuing this when I did, because it developed into this thing I say, which is, being an artist made me a better CEO and being a CEO made me a better artist. Yeah, the freedom, and this is what I always say about the art, because there's so much freedom in art, it can be anything you want. I mean, there literally are no parameters.
Speaker 1:See my kids are you know, it's pretty freeing to your the. Your brain thinks right, and so when you are able to express that in your art, you start to learn rule. You start bringing a bachelor company and like, why are all these constraints on all this? I mean, obviously, when you're designing a building, there's all kinds of constraints. You know right, right, why it constraints structural can say, code, you know all kinds of things and that's why it should be. There's still creativity that you can find within those parameters. The idea was all right.
Speaker 1:What are we thinking about in our company that is unnecessary because we're not being creative enough? What are we thinking about in terms of developing our team that can be even more awesome? That we're not even thinking about because we put some sort of guardrails on it that maybe are artificial, you know, or just because you know that's what we do or that's what we're used to doing, or whatever it is. So how can we break that mold and think more creatively, bring creativity to leadership, bring creativity to our strategy to build the company? And so you know that sort of realization and a lot of creative in our company. And so you know, an architect is always trying to be creative, but building a company bringing strategy, strategy building up your people. You know that's not always as so creative. It's sort of like stuff you learn in a business book or getting an mba. That it's not creative, at least the way I see it.
Speaker 3:Yeah so about it. So, with that side of your journey, did did you find yourself then inviting other people into some type of artistic expression outside of architecture, or was this more of how you chose to learn more about yourself?
Speaker 1:I would say it started as trying to figure out myself, turned it into, yes, trying to encourage people to have a creative outlet, whatever that may be, because I think it's so valuable. You know it's unbelievable, you know, because we have, you know, strength slanders We've used that a lot in our company. Okay, well, I don't. You know strength landers We've used that a lot in our company. Good, well, I don't.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's a good tool and it's good to understand how each other works in a company so you can collaborate more effectively and all that kind of thing. I also think it shows you sort of some guideposts for if you want to develop another part of yourself, it kind of exposes that too. So that's what I've tried to actually emphasize. It's like, okay, you're great at that, but if you want to really put up your brain a little bit whole brain thinking is a thing I say a lot, whole brain drinking and maybe you ought to try something, whether it's a hobby or artistic pursuit or something outside of work, or even if it's inside work, look for opportunities to develop that muscle over here, because I think that's an area that people don't really spend a lot of time thinking Correct.
Speaker 4:You are T tapping into our approach.
Speaker 3:Yes, you are tapping into our approach as well, as well, simplistically, my life's work. So thank you. So I just want to make an observation and then ask a follow up question. Just want to make an observation and then ask a follow-up question.
Speaker 3:Whenever an organization uses a tool whatever that tool of choice is an assessment, a psychometric to highlight, emphasize what someone's really good at, re-emphasizing that over and over again can create some very interesting patterning patterning of how people believe in themselves, how they do their work. And there's nothing wrong with behavioral patterns, because the brain loves patterns and predictability and you know peace, for that matter, over rotating on that. You create these deep, rutted patterns of behavior that are very hard to break out of and limits creativity, innovation and the willingness to collaborate, because you see other people as deeply patterned as well. So to encourage so like what you're doing, larry, to encourage people to step away from some of the clear indicators of here's what you're strong at, to invest in something else, I think is extremely healthy for how people engage the natural flow of their brain, because there's different ways we can regulate how we show up, and any type of exercise that we do to open our lives up to creativity and innovation can only help us understand ourselves better, give ourselves a break from over-patterning our lives and being willing to connect with people who have much different approaches, because we realize that that may help us as well.
Speaker 3:Do you feel you're nodding? You're nodding your head? What's the agreement? What are you agreeing? Like what? What stands out from my little example.
Speaker 1:Well, concept, you know, I think that you know it goes to. Really, I learned from Leonardo da Vinci right being curious about a lot of things, not just what you're naturally good at. The endless curiosity and the investigation of something new that maybe you're not as comfortable with, and developing at least a little bit of knowledge or skill around. That thing is incredible. I mean, you know Leonardo's in my book and I talk about Leonardo all the time because I just think he's the greatest genius that ever lived and all this kind of stuff and um you know, that's how I think about it, so, and I've just, I guess, personally felt such benefit from developing skills that maybe weren't my natural ones.
Speaker 1:Not that it's ever going to be maybe my biggest strength, but now I'm at least better than I was at that thing or whatever, or my understanding of that kind of behavior or whatever it is or that thing, and so I just think it's great.
Speaker 1:I just think it's this idea of continuous learning your whole life. Never stop learning. You learn when you go through pain, a mistake, but you also can learn just by pushing yourself into something that maybe you haven't experienced before. So I have this thing. I was looking, I think they're here right now. I think they're at my office. Anyway, I made this thing out of Tinker twice. So I have this. You know the round hub, you stick. You know the round hub and you stick. You know the Tinker Toys in them.
Speaker 1:So to demonstrate this idea, one time everybody take long and short Tinker Toys and stick them in in a circle. Think about the best thing that you do and put the longest one in there. Think about something you're not very good at and put a short one in there, and then just put it short ones and then look at it and kind of spin, you know, out of balance it is, and you know. And then I said okay, in the ideal world, if you were leonardo and you had whole brain thinking and you got better at every single thing across the span of your whole life, don't fall in with the long purple ones, you know, and then and see how balanced it is and then hold them up. You know this, this could be me if I work at it, and this is where I think I am right now, you know. You know, it was kind of a cool little demonstration. I've used those Tinker Toys for a long time years, just to demonstrate this point.
Speaker 3:Okay, I have a Leonardo da Vinci question for you.
Speaker 4:Is it a pop quiz or is it a? No, it's not a pop quiz.
Speaker 3:It's going to be directed directly at Larry. So, with Leonardo da Vinci, I see or understand him as, like you said, a genius who's applying himself in a multidisciplinary way where he's not only studying maybe some of the artistic renderings that may pop into our mind, but everything from human anatomy to a study of water, to how we approach landscapes, to mechanism, to weapons of warfare, like there's just all these different elements that he's dabbling in, and I naturally assume that all of his skill is interplaying with each one of those modalities. Is that a way that you're approaching life, that you're seeing yourself? Well, I'm going to invest in my study of water for a decade. That's going to really influence how I think in other areas, like, do you have that distinctive approach to your practice?
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I'd say everything he did was integrated into you know, as he discovered something, he would find a way that that related to you know, something else that he was doing. All he always did that, and so this sort of synthesizing different types of learning and different ideas is what he was so great at, sounds such a great example for what I'm talking about. Yeah, so you know, I think, as I, as you discover something and it inspires you and you figure out a way to why it, then you teach it.
Speaker 3:Okay, I got another question. Go ahead, nathan.
Speaker 2:Well, so I you know, in your, in your book, you talk about integrating, where to go, integrating creativity layer by layer, and I'm I'm wanting to get really specific and practical, like how, how might you coach someone, or maybe what would be your first step with working with a young executive or a young leader on this idea of, you know, bringing more creativity to all aspects of their life, to arrive at, you know, better solutions? What would be the first step in helping someone do that, other than just say, you know, maybe go look for a better hobby, or something Like did you have specific ways that you would get people to start thinking more creative and all these different layers and aspects of their life?
Speaker 1:You know when it came. When it comes to the company, you know sort of helping people, um, so we're all headed one direction. You know I would use these different lessons or you know inspirations I guess that I found related to how we were going to build the company and, um, and sort of explain it to them and get to getting them to think about it sort of. I think was teaching them how to do that a little bit. Sure, I'm mentoring somebody one-on-one. I like to find out, you know, obviously, what they're feeling good about, what they're struggling with, and and try to help maybe a little more specifically guide them in that way to take inspiration from something that maybe they're going to get better at.
Speaker 1:It sort of depends. But you know, I think a lot of the concepts that are in the book are based on yeah stuff I discovered you know, Roadrunner and a coyote is in there and Slombardi Slombardi's in there. Yeah, no, and Slombardi Slombardi's in there now, and you know the visible light spectrum.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So there's all kinds of stuff in there that I, you know, or you know Home Depot versus Home Ace, you know developing a strategy and who we are. So there's a lot of different kinds of concepts in there, and that's on purpose, because it you think about our business as you apply to our business, different, little different way.
Speaker 2:Right. Do you think sometimes people are too compartmentalized and they don't take oh, I, I love playing music or I love doing these other things, and they don't bring those different disciplines or hobbies or whatever you want to call them into their roles. They keep them at arm's length and so they can't get any benefit from that. Have you seen that a lot.
Speaker 1:You know, I think a lot of people do have great other interests outside of work, and I think it always, whether they realize it or not, or whether it's on purpose or not. I definitely think it.
Speaker 3:I don't know if they realize it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and my idea was bring it to the forefront and think about it.
Speaker 2:Right, you know on purpose kind of you know, which in and of itself might be a unique thing.
Speaker 3:Larry, we spend a lot of our time working with executive leadership teams and all the unique challenges that they face, and I'm seeing one of your chapter headings as speaking to achieving daring long-range goals and I believe like this is well. We find that long-range planning is. It seems to be this ongoing challenge, whether this executive team's long range is Friday or a year from now. You know, whatever that daring part of it is, you know human behavior says no to daring. Why did the daring long range goal make it into your book? Like, what's the important message that you want to make sure people understand about the necessity of making daring long range goals?
Speaker 1:Because I love this so much. It's been so awesome for our firm in building our company. Let me just frame it a little bit. Absolutely, 30 years ago I decided that, hey, you know we need to write a business plan because our company had never had one before. You know what are we trying to do next year? You know never done it. And so you know we spent a few years writing a plan, keeping it tight so it wasn't a binder full of stuff setting out some goals, you know, and having each department or group or office, you know, set some goals that consisted with what the company wanted. So we got pretty good at that. We were. You know we're putting in stretch goals and hitting them and doing a pretty good job. And then, you know, we're putting in stretch goals and hitting them and doing a pretty good job.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, they said, look, we have to write a, you know, more of a long term goal. And so we had gone through a growth spurt and we were the biggest we'd ever been. You know, at that point I think we'd build $20 million in a year. And I said, ok, now what are we going to do in a year? And I said, okay, now what are we going to do? We're feeling good about ourselves because we had hit this goal and you know we're ever been, and all this kind of stuff. Okay, I think we should double the size of the company, you know.
Speaker 1:And so we, the executives, together and said what do you think about this idea? This is just an idea. What do you? You know there's nothing else to that. I mean, do we want to stay the same? Do we want to get better? Do we want to get bigger? Are clients asking us to go other places? What do you want to do? And so the executive team got really excited about this. And, um, anyway, it was 2002. So we decided to write a five-year plan to double the size of the company 2007.
Speaker 1:So, we called it our 007 plan and it was awesome.
Speaker 1:And everybody got really excited. Yeah, it was great. And so, you know, we set out to say, okay, what kind of goals are we going to set in diversifications, where are we going to have offices, and all these kind of things. And again, we kept it pretty tight. You know, everybody, every department could only have one page and we set out to do this.
Speaker 1:And then the cool thing this is the cool thing about a long-term plan First of all, it has to be a bigger vision. You can't get in the weeds of this thing, right. Right, then you can start to see your yearly plan, which we were already pretty good at as a step towards that goal. So now, when you write this plan, you say, okay, we're trying to hit this in five years. So what do we got to do this year to make sure that and that is so powerful. We hit the goal a year early and then we went way past the goal and ended up at 50 million by 07. And we had a big celebration, company wide, and it was awesome and I gave everybody I think Gray died, we had iPods at the time. You know that was a big deal.
Speaker 1:It was a cool thing for our company, you know, and it was really uh. He galvanized everybody towards this goal and it was amazing and we did it again. You know, we went through the recession great recession. We came back out and we wrote another one for 2020 and we hit that goal, you know, at a hundred million goal. You know the a hundred million two years early in 2018. And so you know it's a lesson in yeah, if you, if you write it and you see the vision and you execute on your annual goals, basically you can do. And if you didn't have that plan, god knows what would happen. You'd just be doing whatever you're doing.
Speaker 1:And so then I wrote this thing called Ultimate, where we're Welcome. So this was kind of very conceptual. Okay, if we put an office in every market where we think we should be, our clients need us and we build out every service line that we offer and have a market share that we should have in every office, and we have all our diversifications built in. I mean runway's tremendous and growth is, and so we have a lot of conceptual stuff and a map and a revenue and or chart and all this stuff. And I distilled it. You know, on one page it's like, okay, now what our five-year goals are, a step towards this thing. And of course, we smashed right through my oh, my god, we'll never. You know, this is like a dream. While we already smashed through, we've had to rewrite Ultimate, where Malcolm had doubled.
Speaker 1:I'm a huge believer in this Huge, huge believer in these long-term goals.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and finding people ambitious enough or open enough to even make it happen. Right my question? Can I ask a question?
Speaker 3:You may? Yes, please, I don't need permission from you. I don't need permission from you, but I would interrupt your other one. There we go.
Speaker 4:Oftentimes, when we write things or when we are presenting something, we leave it and there's something that speaks back to us, and so my question to you is, as you've written this book and are promoting it and getting it in people's hands and talking about some of the layers of layered leadership, for you, what has been a helpful sentiment that you have found is reminding you of why you did this work, why you are both the art and science of leadership. What is it that maybe speaks back to you, even though it's your own words? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, first of all, this book has been a giant learning experience for me.
Speaker 3:We know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean crazy, I never. Well, first of all, it's like anything. When I was five years old, I wanted to be an architect and I knew it, but I had no clue what it was going to be. Right Turns out, I loved it, wrote the book, no, what really was going to evolve. You know, I've learned, and then just getting it down, you know, when I I think the cool thing, it was just Monday A box of them showed up. It's not out yet, but I got my advanced copies and this is the first time I've actually had the book March 4th, right, march 4th, it comes out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've had it in my hand. I'm looking at it, it's like, oh my God, this is so cool. You know and I designed the book too my publisher allowed me to design the cover and the font and all the interior of the book. It's just, you know, it's a huge accomplishment, and what something. That's actually much more of an accomplishment than I even thought it would be. It was a lot of work, and it's still a lot of work, yeah.
Speaker 4:So what were the emotions when you were holding it?
Speaker 1:Penis yeah.
Speaker 2:From being done.
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit. I'm kind of proud of myself.
Speaker 4:Yes, good, yes good.
Speaker 1:I think the other thing about it is people who have read it given me such amazing feedback and there's interest in it and people write books you know that's right, I had no idea, and so my I have a very good friend who is an icon in publishing and she is semi-retired now, so she didn't help me formally with the book at all, but she gave me some advice and it was very helpful, and she also introduced me to my ghostwriter, which was awesome, oh nice.
Speaker 4:What was her advice?
Speaker 1:It had to be differentiated. You have to have a differentiator. She goes what's your idea? And so you know she your idea. And so you know she's very. You know she's been in publishing a long time, so she, you know, doesn't mince words and doesn't want to give anybody false hope. So she said yeah, and so I told her my idea and I sent her my outline and, um, she was very, which was great, because if she wasn't, I wouldn't have written the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Congratulations. Yeah, I was going to say one thing I like about the book is all the little like the graphics and the notes and the little examples and stuff that I don't see in a lot of leadership books. Um, even the fact that you have I'm trying to find it here in the digital copy um, the handwritten notes that you kept that you had sent to employees or mentees or whatever. I just thought that was such a cool, uh, a cool touch that you don't again I haven't seen. I've read a lot of leadership books. I don't haven't seen something kind of. It felt very personal, I guess is where I'm going. Like it felt like a personal story, very much of like I'm gathering all this 20, 30, whatever years worth of info and I'm I'm packaging it up for you. So I I think it will be well received, especially from people that read leadership books and they want something not quite as boring.
Speaker 2:So thank you for putting this into the world.
Speaker 1:No, I really appreciate that, and that was kind of a goal is to not make it some long tool lecturing somebody about.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to show some, wanted it to be interesting, with a lot of graphics and my art in there, as you can see. Yeah, and yeah, the notes. Okay, we've done gosh. I don't do it anymore. I delegated that out and when I was doing that, when I was CEO, I did it for many, many years actually, and we still do it. I swiped that from Jack Welch he, he, it was in his book and I swiped that one. It was. It really inspired me and I've used that for many, many years yeah, well, it's interesting, just even on a practical level.
Speaker 2:Obviously you would want to make it personal to whoever you're sending it to, but just like oh, okay, this is here they are. This is an interesting like. How would I send, like, if someone's not naturally good at sending those types of notes to people, it's like oh, this is, I don't know, maybe a good example of like how you would send a note to a leader that you're wanting to connect with.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I have to say I was pretty clumsy at it when I started Of course, but that's, that's the point of like, yeah, you practice, you keep doing it, you get better you iterate and all that stuff, Larry.
Speaker 4:anything else we just have appreciated hearing your stories, hearing the way that you're getting your heart really not just your mind but your heart into the world.
Speaker 1:Geez, I don't know. You guys had great questions and really different questions which is really cool and I loved it.
Speaker 3:I'm glad because asking questions is our job. Well, larry, I want to thank you and thank you for your time. I really appreciate speaking to people that have not only a seasoned expertise but a lived experience that expands beyond that, and so it's clear to me that you have a lived experience that expands broader than your lived expertise. So those two things coming together, I really believe, contributes to the genius perspective that you bring on reality, and anything that we can do to amplify voices like that I believe is helpful, because I think people feel threatened to go on the broader life's journey when they'd rather spend their time in the narrow, and sometimes expertise can be really, really narrow and can lead to a life that doesn't explore, maybe limits, curiosity and creativity. So I hear all those themes in you curiosity, creativity, exploration, a courage to journey onto a landscape that most people don't journey. So I want to thank you for your voice and your time in being brave to write a book so thank you, larry.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. We really appreciate it Absolutely. Wow, what a great conversation with Larry Armstrong. Larry, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2:His layered leadership approach challenges us to, I think, just think differently about leadership, by embracing creativity, self-awareness and long-term vision as key components of success. So one big takeaway that I had is that leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's really about this idea of continuous or whole brain learning, as he talked about. It's about adapting and bringing diverse layers of experience into your role as a leader. So here's one action item, something that you can do, maybe this week. Just take one step to engage your creative side, whether that's journaling, drawing, playing music or exploring just a new idea. See how it influences your leadership perspective. See how it maybe changes the way that you approach problems or deal with setbacks, or even just looks for solutions in different areas.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture, for more resources about developing your team, about developing your strengths or about creating a positive team environment wherever you are. Please click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. We've also got links to everything we talked about here, including Larry's new book, layer Leadership, in the link, in the bio, in the company blog post, in the show notes, wherever you want to find it, also on social media. My name is Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.