Family Business Lessons & EOS Principles for Leadership Success with Kyle Danner

Can lessons from a family business and EOS principles transform your leadership and drive organizational performance?

In this episode of Leadership Levers, Kyle Danner, CEO of Kyle Danner Consulting and a Professional EOS Implementer, shares his journey from managing the complexities of a family business to guiding organizations in building thriving cultures. 

Drawing from his personal experience in the family business & succession planning sector, Kyle explores how family business dynamics shape leadership strategies and organizational success.

Kyle highlights the importance of aligning leadership teams with a clear vision and fostering open communication to overcome challenges and drive success. His practical advice, rooted in real-world examples, is valuable for leaders across multiple industries.

This episode reveals how intentional culture-building lays the foundation for sustained growth. Kyle’s insights offer actionable lessons for creating cohesive, high-performing teams.

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Seeking to align your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges. Not ready? Join our PL3 Community for free insights & connections. 

Transcript

Challenges of Organizational Change and Leadership

William Gladhart 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast . I'm your host , Will Gladhart , CMO at the Culture Think Tank . At the Culture Think Tank , we empower leaders with metrics that strengthen culture , drive performance and return . We're here today to learn about the actions leaders have taken to address organizational change . Our guest today is Kyle Danner , CEO of Kyle Danner Consulting and EOS Implementer . Thanks so much for taking the time to join us .

Kyle Danner 0:32

Thanks so much Will happy to be here with you today .

William Gladhart 0:35

Excellent . Let's start by having you share with our audience a bit about yourself , your background and your organization .

Kyle Danner 0:41

Sure , I started my entrepreneurial journey in my family's business , joined full-time right out of college . At that point , the family business was a small print shop that my brother and sister owned together . We grew it to be the fifth largest printing company in Kansas City , growing it from about a couple million in revenue to over 18 million and from about 12 employees to over 80 employees . And so , first of all , I'm bragging about what we accomplished .

Kyle Danner 1:05

I'm really proud of what we did as a family and we also had a really great group of people helping us along the way . But that's a lot of growth and that's a lot of change , and one of the changes is that the family business and I we're no longer a fit . So , recognizing that , I sold my interest in 2010 , struck out on my own , ended up going back to school for a degree in counseling . Now say whatever you want about 17 years in family business and decide you need to be a therapist afterwards . But along the way , I found I kind of discovered this area that the family business advisors , people who work , help both the family and the business work better together . And ended up talking to some really good friends and they said you should go do that . And I said you know you're right , I should go do it . I should go do that , not recognizing what go do that meant . So I went out , started working , coaching other advisors , facilitating family meetings , helping out wherever I could , and in so many cases , business owners were absolutely frustrated because there are all these people coming in from the outside telling them everything that was wrong with the business and you , being a business owner yourself , don't you appreciate that conversation ? But they weren't really giving the tools to fix it . And so , recognizing that , I really went looking for a solution , because up to that point I'd really focused on the family and now I was being asked what could I do for the business , went looking for a solution and I found EOS , which is the Entrepreneurial Operating System . So if you're familiar with the book Traction , get a Grip on your Business by Gino Wickman , I became what's called an EOS implementer . So I joined a community there's we Are 800 Strong as of today .

Kyle Danner 2:35

Worldwide we help leadership teams get better at three things . We call vision , traction and healthy . Vision is getting the team 100% on the same page of where they're going and a plan to get there . Traction is about bringing that vision down to the ground and instilling that discipline and accountability so they're always executing towards it . And healthy is helping them make a more open , functional , cohesive , healthy leadership team , because most of the times they're not . And then from there the leadership team takes it and rolls out into the rest of the organization . So everybody's on the same page of the vision , everybody's executing on that vision and you've created a culture of people you really enjoy spending time with .

William Gladhart 3:11

Yeah , well , I love that you share that because , full disclosure , many years ago you and I sat down , I think , over a cocktail and this was as you were finishing your degree and talking about family business , talking about all the other pieces and , as you said , friends encouraged you to go do this . And going and doing this didn't really have any sort of model or what it was going to look like , and kudos to you for kind of blazing the path on that , taking what you learned from the family business , building that into the cultural element , but also the process , the other pieces . So , kyle , we'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to our conversation . Would you share why you believe a healthy culture is critical ?

Kyle Danner 3:51

Well , it starts and ends with your people . If you don't have a healthy culture and typically the way that I look at defining a healthy culture is it's really having the right people , those people who share your core values which we'll talk a little bit later on in our conversation today that are really a culture fit and they're paired with the right job , jobs that they really want , they understand they can execute on . Without those two things together , you just you can get things done , but it turns into a slog and you have a never ending list of issues you've got to deal with . So either you can invest in the front end of really developing and growing and having a healthy culture or you can deal with it in the back end , with continual churn for employees , churn in customers , folks not following process , unclear , I mean . The list just goes on . So really a healthy culture is critical .

William Gladhart 4:47

Yeah , I think you touched on and I know you'll touch on this more about clarity of role understanding , communication within the organization and what's the approach ? Is it really on the front end and tackling those before it gets to the back end and too far out of the process to be able to control ? So you know , it's been our experience that leaders tend to struggle in three key areas people , process or profit . In your role , not only as a leader , but also in working with other CEOs and leaders , could you identify which one of these three areas represented a challenge of an organization that you worked with ?

Kyle Danner 5:24

It's people , consistently it's people . Now , of course , I coach leadership teams , so I come in with that lens of really thinking about the people that not only are at the top , but the people throughout the rest of the organization . So for me , it's always the people .

William Gladhart 5:43

Yeah , so was there a specific challenge , either in your own family business or not to disclose any additional information , but in a leadership group or company that you worked with that negatively impacted the organization ?

Kyle Danner 5:56

I'll give you my personal story . So you know folks , I gave you the nice little marketing version of helping grow a business . I joined the family business , like I said , right out of college . My plan was to stay one year . I ended up staying 17 years . So really a role in business , or at least a role in the family business , was never for me . It was a great entrepreneurial journey . I learned so much . I had more responsibility , more reward and I was at the head of the table helping make decisions . But ultimately it wasn't the best place for me . And my last position there Will and you know the story and , by the way , gang , for those of you listening today , will's actually the one who kind of told me to go really get into the succession planning for family businesses . So guilty as charged Will .

William Gladhart 6:44

Well , yeah , occasionally I make a really good mistake .

Kyle Danner 6:49

It was a really good mistake , but really it wasn't the place for me . In my last role , I was director of IT , or I think we called it the chief information officer . I know nothing about IT I'm a terrible project manager but I grew into this role . It just kind of is how it formed , and we were faced with a really exciting opportunity , the type of opportunity that challenges us to grow , and through that opportunity it became very clear I was the wrong person for this job . Through that opportunity , it became very clear I was the wrong person for this job . I had no interest in getting the skills needed . I didn't want to do the job and I didn't have the experience . And as I looked around the family business there was no other place for me . And as I look back on that time , it became really clear that I was the one who was in the way and it wasn't fair to myself . It wasn't fair to my family , our employees , our customers I mean , it just impacted everything . And so that's when I decided to leave the family business .

Kyle Danner 7:47

I see that over and over again , not just in a family business , for any business . Someone is in a position that they shouldn't be in and everybody's afraid to talk about it because they don't want to upset the other person , they don't want to upset the Apple car , whatever , or they just can't have that conversation because essentially , in my case , I needed to be fired . When I say fired , really exit the company and there are ways in which you can help people exit well , or maybe they're just not in the right seat , maybe you need to find another place for them in the organization . But it's this fear about having those really hard conversations . It's what Patrick Lencioni calls about entering the danger . And it's about entering the danger and having those hard conversations Because we think about firing somebody as kind of cruel . Well , what's more cruel ? Keeping them in a position to where you know they're failing ? They probably know they're failing and everybody around them knows that they're failing . How awful is that .

William Gladhart 8:48

Yeah , I mean what a detriment not only to the person but to the company and to everybody else .

William Gladhart 8:53

I appreciate you bring that up .

Impact of Identifying Culture Fit

William Gladhart 8:55

We've had a handful of leaders share on the podcast specifically about that particular challenge of either the wrong fit , the wrong employee , a toxic employee and when that conversation was had , and either when that person was exited or found to be a better fit in another role in the company that people stepped up , people actually offered to help , there was a review of process , there was a review of people . There were all these things that , as you brought up very well said that nobody wanted to talk about , no one wanted to address , and as soon as that linchpin kind of popped out of the whole deal , all of a sudden all of these opportunities cascaded for the company and the profitability and performance skyrocketed within six to 12 months . So I think having those very critical conversations and being aware as leaders to have that conversation is absolutely critical . So you've shared a little bit about kind of that negative impact , but maybe what was the one thing you identified with either a client or in the organization that impacted the culture positively or in the organization ?

Kyle Danner 10:00

that impacted the culture positively . Oh , I go back to thinking about a client I was working with as a professional services firm . The leader was very much a visionary entrepreneur , could think 10 to 20 , 30 years ahead , but was absolutely frustrated because they had a couple of key hires that just weren't getting it running into all kinds of problems . And this is not a person who is patient , because it's never fast enough for them . And it's not that they were mean or rude or anything , it's just they couldn't get there fast enough . They had this vision , they wanted to see the vision , and they just couldn't get there fast enough . And so we're going through an EOS . We walk through core values exercise . I know this is recorded , but I can already hear the eyes roll about core values because it's unfortunately one of those things that's just been beaten to death in business . It means so much but it doesn't mean anything because everybody sees so much of the inauthenticity in core values .

Kyle Danner 10:59

Well , we walked through core values exercise to get really clear what are the characteristics that you're looking for ? And halfway through this exercise , the leader realized why these two people weren't a fit and weren't a culture fit . And then , just once that unlocked , they now felt better about what they needed to look for , because they knew they had to hire a couple more replacements for these people because they were on their way out . But now they had a clearer picture of what they had to look for in terms of culture and that alone . And this was a professional service firm where salary started at the six-figure level . So you think about these folks were around for a year or two your level . So you think about these folks who were around for a year or two , what that did to the bottom line .

Kyle Danner 11:44

Well , once the leader discovered what the real issue was , was able to change their hiring process , and their next round of people that they hired were such a stronger fit , and so they were able to hit the ground running and they didn't feel like they had to babysit them that much , because one of the issues is they wanted people who were high in autonomy , like they could hit the ground running , that they didn't need a lot of handholding , and so then they were able to specifically look for and hire for that in this next round and they were able to grow because , as a result of it , yeah , I think that really speaks to helping the leader identify the type of personality , the type of individual , but also the fit for their company , because sometimes it's really difficult , especially for visionary leaders , to communicate that element either to hiring manager or to an outsourced firm that they're working with .

William Gladhart 12:36

So , again , that truly identifies the power of some of the EOS implementation , as well as helping those leaders being able to step back , take a moment , think around people and process and then start to put the right people on the right team . As you know , Jim Collins always said the right people on the bus going all the same directions . So is there anything else you'd like to share , Kyle , as an advice for fellow leaders ?

Kyle Danner 13:02

You know the whole challenge with people . I mean it's the number one challenge for any business owner , especially now in today's environment . But I think we have to remember that people really they want to feel like the folks you have on your team . They have to know where you're going and they have to know what the meaning is like , what is the impact of their position . And so one and recently talking to a leadership team , it was really helping people understand what is the purpose of their position , what is the impact .

Kyle Danner 13:32

So I mean there's that People also want to be good at their job . They want to have the resources , the training , the development to really be awesome at what they do . And then they also want to be left alone so they can kind of do it . They want to be able to do it on their own , they don't want to be micromanaged and they just want to be trusted . And so I would say for leaders and it goes back to that , three , the three things mastery , autonomy and purpose they want to be great , they want to know it has impact and they want to be able to do it on their own but know they have support when they need it .

William Gladhart 14:05

Yeah , I think that's some really sage advice

Leadership Lovers Podcast Overview

William Gladhart 14:07

. So , Kyle , I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Levers podcast . Thank you again for your insights .

Kyle Danner 14:12

I appreciate the time Will . Thanks so much .

William Gladhart 14:17

Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Levers podcast . Find all our Leadership Levers episodes on the Culture Think Tank website at www . theculturethinktank . com or listen on your favorite streaming platform . We'd love to hear from you about the challenges you have faced as a leader . Tune in weekly as we invite leaders to share their experiences in strengthening culture and performance , one action at a time .