Nelson Repenning

speaker

205 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2026 last heard 21 Mar

Nelson Repenning’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.

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The Mentors Radio Show · 469. Good Leaders Get Their Hands Dirty, with Guest Mentors Nelson Repenning and Don Keiffer · 21 Mar 2026 podcast

True.

Yes.

And so getting down to the shop floor and being like, oh, my God, I can't believe how we do stuff around here, I think is very revealing.

And I think every senior executive should make some time to do that because it's just, you know, by nature of the job, it's very easy to lose sight of what's going on.

And then I think the other thing that people don't understand often is that everyone is looking at you if you're a senior leader to try to figure out what behaviors are appropriate because they all to some degree want to be you when they grow up.

And it's just like with your children, right?

What you do is often far more influential than what you say.

And I think when our senior leaders are down in the nuts and bolts dealing with printers that don't work or suppliers that can't deliver on time or whatever it might be, that sends a really powerful message to the rest of the organization is we want people who are willing to get their hands dirty and to really make this place work properly and close that gap between the process as we aspire to have it and the way it's actually executed.

So I think the leverage is much higher than you would think by, you know, big interventions lead to big outcomes.

That said,

I think in the beginning and we experienced with our students over and over again is it will feel like you're working below your pay grade, just like it did for Don.

And so people have to be prepared for that, that, you know, in the first couple of months, you know, it may feel like, you know, why is Dan or Don over here working on this one problem when he's got a whole organization to keep track of?

That said, I think once the momentum starts to build, suddenly people are very happy with the with the result.

So it's just a little bit of a counterintuitive thing until you've experienced it yourself.

Yeah, so let me start with this one.

Since I've been out, you know, talking about the book, this is the number one question that people ask.

No big surprise.

You know, every CEO is being asked by their board what their strategy is.

And, you know, I always start with the following story because I think it's very illustrative.

And then you may well remember some of the details here.

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