Jim Knight
speaker
90 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Jim Knight’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
They're more likely to take the hill with you to get the result that you're looking for and then some because they're in the know. You've given them something bigger, I think, than the day-to-day making the doughnuts. So I think communication is something we can talk about. And again, I'll do it in a fun way. I'll use some band and brand analogies. I do a lot of music orientation.
But at the end of the day, the takeaway is you got to communicate better. The second I alluded to, you got to surround yourself with an army of giants. I think this is where probably some leaders do very well. At the very least, they might have a right hand girl or guy that can really whisper in their ear almost as a mentor, even though they're doing some upward delegation.
But to surround yourself with people who have your best interest in heart and can actually say, I think you're making a bad decision or we ought to step back and think about this. Somebody somewhere has to have that group, you know, this group of people, whoever that inner circle is, you need to surround yourself with these fantastic people.
And then at the core, honestly, I don't even care what the product is. And I say this with love in my heart, regardless of people are selling widgets, it's never about the thing. It's not even about the environment. It's about the people. It's about the humans. It's always been about human behavior. So the goal is don't focus so much on the thing.
Even if you're first to the market, even if you're crushing it compared to everybody else, the goal is you've got to get spectacular people. you know, if you can find some rock stars out there, they will help you perpetuate the brand for all time. And again, I think more people are starting to focus on this today.
There's just too many awesome brands out there that we can point to, but go back in time, 25, 30, 40 years ago, people like me that would throw down the culture card and say, Oh, we need to do this because it would be cool and fun and the right thing to do. That's laughable back then to a CEO. They would be laughing at me saying, Hey, It's not tied to business results.
It's not part of our strategy. But now I think you can absolutely put a little bit more oomph when it comes to culture, when it comes to service. And that only happens with people. It doesn't happen by accident. So- Those are kind of the three things. I'd say you've got to communicate better.
You've got to surround yourself, at least from an executive level, if you're an entrepreneur or a business owner or even a middle manager, whoever the managers are below you, make sure those core people are fantastic to help you out. But ultimately, don't focus on the thing. You've got to focus on getting the right people to absolutely bring something spectacular.
You know, all the best training in the world is not going to help a bad hire. So I'd spend a lot of energy on hiring. You know, and again, I guess the fourth thing might be retaining people. I won't spend a lot of time on that, but we spend so much time complaining about perhaps you don't have the right ones. Fix the front end of the employee cycle first. Find rock stars.
But then, of course, the second part is hold on to them. You've got to love on them a little bit more and get them to stay with you, and then you'll be unstoppable. You'll produce Herculean results. I know that's a long answer, but try and give me as much as I can.
Yeah, it's tough. It's so funny that you say that, Heather. I usually get around four questions at the end of a session. It's usually, what other topics do you do? Do you do any consulting? What kind of hair care products do you use? You know, that comes up every once in a while. But the fourth one, probably my most requested is, I'm just a middle manager, or I'm a vice president.
I'm not in charge of the thing. Can I really absolutely make a difference? And I do think you can. I spend a lot of time talking about, again, I use the language upward delegation. I think a single person with a great idea can start a revolution, a cultural revolution. That's how... That's how countries were overthrown. That's how philanthropic movements are created.
But I think that's how some tectonic shifts can happen in a culture. However, if the CEO, if the top person, he or she just absolutely stinks and they're not going anywhere, it's going to be an uphill slog. And unless you're on some island in the middle of nowhere and you can sort of create your own destiny. It's too tough. And I think you can make the best of it. But you're right.
I think you got to keep a wandering eye to say, what kind of brand would I want to work for or create? Maybe that's where the entrepreneurial spirit inside of you comes up. But I do think that you can create your own bubble. Listen, I had a fantastic environment that I worked in, but I had a crappy boss at one time. you know, working in the Orlando Hard Rock Cafe.
I worked for a general manager who just did not care for me being there because I was getting paid out of the corporate support center. I was an entity that was thrown onto this person's management team. Whenever there was an opening, I got to go and do that and travel and hang out with all the people on the other side of the planet. And then I'd come back and run shifts.
And so this person just didn't like that. And so they put me on the worst shifts possible. I had no department responsibilities. But in my mind, I thought, you know what, in lieu of leadership, I'm going to lead. And so my shifts were, absolutely a blast. I would either create contests for fun or do my pre-meetings. We call them pre-shifts outside or underneath a piece of memorabilia.
When that person wasn't around, I just had an absolute blast. But I also knew full well, as long as this person is here, I'm probably not going to be able to move up. And ultimately, I outlasted the person. That person's not even with the company anymore. So I do think you're going to struggle if the top person isn't in that same mindset.
But I still think a single person with some great ideas, you can start a cultural revolution, no doubt.
A hundred percent. I am with you a hundred percent. And we've done that. Both you and I have done that.
Well, and you said it best, too. I think it's easy for me and probably for both of us to say one thing, but there might be people in the audience thinking, I need this job. I have only a specific skill set. I fell into this gig for whatever reason. I need the benefits because I got kids. My husband, wife, significant other, whatever it is, aren't working, whatever it is.
Showing 61–80 of 90 · page 4 of 5
← Previous
Next →