Mick Unplugged
Blair LaCorte Unpacks Coaching, Curiosity, and Culture in Leadership
Mon, 21 Apr 2025
Blaire LaCorte is a visionary business leader renowned for transforming industries and cultivating relentless growth. As the CEO of Loomis and former CEO of XOJET, Blaire has built his reputation on turning challenges into opportunities, scaling businesses through strategic innovation, and building strong, purpose-driven cultures. Known for his deep curiosity and people-first leadership style, Blaire has guided both turnarounds and high-growth companies by empowering teams, embracing change, and prioritizing authenticity and respect in every interaction. His unique perspective comes from a lifetime of learning, both in business and personal development, making him a sought-after coach and mentor for executives worldwide. Key Takeaways: People Are the Heart of Every Business: No matter how innovative the technology or groundbreaking the ideas, true success hinges on people working together effectively and building the right culture. Strategy Is About Saying ‘No’: While brainstorming welcomes all ideas, effective strategy means making tough decisions, focusing on what matters most, and aligning your team around those priorities. Growth Requires Discomfort and Change: Leaders must create environments where teams are challenged, sometimes by “moving the stool” and letting people stand on their own, learning through failure, and being held accountable. Sound Bites: “Brainstorming is about saying yes. Strategy is about saying no.” “If you assume everybody is stupid when you come in, then they will assume that you're stupid and that you don't see them.” “I can help someone up, but I can't hold them up. If I continue to help you too much and I hold you up, your legs don't get strong.” Quote by Mick: “I tell people all the time and if you listen to the show, you know I say, culture is a four letter word—C, A, R, E. And if you're a business leader, you don't necessarily lead the business, you lead the culture, and the culture is what drives the business.” Connect & Discover Blair: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blair-lacorte-68084/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blair.lacorte Website: https://www.aeye.ai/ Website: https://bootstraplabs.com/community/blair-lacorte/ FOLLOW MICK ON:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickunplugged/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mickunplugged/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mickunplugged LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickhunt/Website: https://www.mickhuntofficial.com Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mick-unplugged/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is the purpose behind Blair LaCorte's leadership?
Not just take it away, but I'm going to move a stool over to a different place and give you some experience because my job is to make the athletes better. One of the reasons we don't do that is because we feel risk. If someone's a high performer and we screw around with them, are we actually injecting risk? The other is it takes effort, and the effort isn't immediate payback.
The effort is the trust that you get from someone, the learning that you get from someone, and the strength that you build in someone usually comes over time, and we're so busy. If we believe our job is just making decisions, we won't move the stool, right? If we believe our job is coaching, and making people stronger so that they can make decisions will move the stool.
And, you know, so I think it's a mindset. I'm also, look, remember, I'm a change manager. So there are opportunities where you don't have to do that. We did a study when I was at Texas Pacific Group and, you know, we had bought a lot of companies over the years, right? You know, at the time I was there, we had bought 93, but we, you know, everything from Neiman Marcus, we bought IBM, right?
We merged it to create Lenovo. We bought Burger King. We bought Grohe. We bought a lot of companies. Every quarter, we were one of the few firms that would actually do an HR analysis of how we thought the team was doing. performing, all of the executive team. Now, you can argue it's biased, you have a certain mentality, but it's indicative over time. Who's an A?
Those are the type of people you thought were A's, they'd stay A's. These are the B's, these are the C's. What we found is that in steady state industries that were growing, if we could pick A players, which we considered A because they had the experience, they would perform like A players. But if the industry changed, the A's went immediately to C's.
If we picked what we would have called B players, which had malleability, they had done different things and they had seen ups and downs. If the industry changed, they would move to A's. So, again, as we start to think about what kind of people we want to hire, it depends on the context.
If I'm just trying to get this company to grow 5% a year because we have market leadership, it may be okay to pick someone and not push them and not try to make them better. If I think that there's an opportunity that the industry will change or I need to grow faster than that, then I need to put time into my management because they have to grow before the company can grow. It sounds very obvious.
But they have to grow before the company can grow. And most people who grow companies, it's a process, not an end, right? So you can't just say, oh, they're going to do the exact same thing again because it's never the exact same thing. So I see this as a mistake. A lot of people think, oh, my God, we need to grow. I need to get a salesperson who's done it before.
It's not just that they've done it before. Can they do it again? You have to ask what was the process and who are they and why did they enjoy that? Because it may have been that they just worked really hard, but they don't have that in them again. It may be that they got lucky. It may be in that particular industry or that particular product that they just got it.
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