People Before Profit: Frank Clark on Building High-Performance Cultures That Last

What happens when a high performer delivers results, but damages the culture around them?

In this episode of Leadership Levers, Frank Clark, President and CEO of Encore Leadership Advisors, shares why people - not profit - must remain the top priority for leaders who want sustainable performance. 

Drawing on decades of experience in executive search, mergers and acquisitions, and leadership consulting, Frank explains why culture ultimately determines whether organizations thrive or struggle.

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make, according to Frank, is allowing top performers to operate outside the cultural standards expected of everyone else. While they may deliver strong numbers, the long-term impact on morale, engagement, and retention can be significant. 

Frank walks through:

•  Why people are the foundation of performance and profitability 
•  The hidden cost of tolerating toxic high performers 
•  How inconsistent standards create cultural drift 
•  The importance of humility, respect, and continuous learning 
•  Why a culture of candor outperforms a culture of politics 
•  His leadership framework of prioritizing people before profits. 

For leaders seeking sustainable growth, this conversation is a reminder that culture is not a soft skill - it is a business strategy. When leaders invest in people, performance improves, culture strengthens, and profits follow.

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

Welcome And Guest Introduction

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. Today, our guest is Frank Clark, president and CEO at Encore Leadership Advisors. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Frank Clark 0:34

William, good to be with you this morning.

William Gladhart 0:36

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

Frank Clark’s Search Firm Background

Frank Clark 0:43

Excellent. So we're based in Chicago and we're a senior executive search firm. We work in a variety of different industries, such as industrial manufacturing, technology, as well as nonprofit and healthcare. And we also have a strong private equity practice. In terms of functionally speaking, we work in the areas of finance, operations, technology, as well as legal, is where we do most of our work functionally. And we work at the VP level up to the C-suite. And last but not least, we have a thriving board practice as well, where we do executive placements for small cap publicly traded companies and mid-cap publicly traded companies, is what we do. You know, my background is a variety of different business experiences in operations and running companies from a PL perspective. I've got a strong mergers and acquisitions background, and of course, a retained and executive search background as well. We've been around going on 10 years, and we're excited about what the future holds.

William Gladhart 1:52

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Congrats on your 10 plus years of being in business. We all know what a challenge that can be these days. We'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to our conversation.

Why Healthy Culture Is Mission Critical

William Gladhart 2:04

Would you share why you believe a healthy culture is critical?

Frank Clark 2:08

A healthy culture is everything. It's mission critical because it retains employees. It certainly drives performance and outcomes. And it's also some place where people look forward to coming to work, whether it be at an office location with brick and mortar throughout the country or in a specific location, or whether it be virtually. Culture drives results and it always circumvents strategy. So culture is extremely important in any business, whether it be small, medium, or large.

William Gladhart 2:44

Right. Well, I think you mentioned in one of our previous discussions that uh it was something that a topic that came up frequently in search, especially in the high-level placements that you do. I appreciate you sharing

People As The Root Of Results

William Gladhart 2:55

that. Let's begin with our first question. It's been our experience that leaders tend to struggle in three key areas: people, performance, and profit. And your role as CEO, but also working with a whole variety of leaders. Could you identify which of these three areas has been a cultural challenge, either for you as your business grew or as you've seen out in the field as you've helped others?

Frank Clark 3:18

Yeah, the and I like those three pieces people, performance, and profit, how you describe that William. Very provocative. And when it comes to people, that is where it begins and ends. Always, because you don't have performance or profit without people. At the end of the analysis, people is where we put all of our energy. And then we focus on profitability and we focus on performance, but people in terms of training, in terms of making sure their values align with the culture, as well as giving them the tools that they need to thrive and be successful. And last but not least, to be your best self, it's also an inside out process. Inside out process is how you become your best self. So those are the type of things that we focus on when it comes to people and my clients as well. We're working with clients that are in the Fortune 500, but we're also working with clients that are small and medium-sized businesses as well. And that common theme around people is consistent regardless.

William Gladhart 4:29

Right. Well, and it's amazing, and from your background in private equity, MA mergers, that sometimes the powers that be forget that the people are why the business is there for potential sale in the first place. And you know, it's the value of that human capital that really drives the business and the future of the business post-sale. So it makes a huge difference. Can you maybe describe a challenge you had in your own business around performance or culture and or with a client that you worked with, not to disclose any information, how it negatively impacted the organization?

The Toxic Cost Of Untouchable High Performers

Frank Clark 5:02

Sure. I'll give you two examples. One is client-based and one is specific to Encore. One of my clients has a very high performer, very high performer when it comes to delivering the numbers on revenue and as well as profitability, that P word again, also known as IPEDA. And while they deliver their attitude, they have an elite posture about themselves. And it unfortunately is pervasive throughout the culture because this particular individual is such a high performer. And at the end of the business day, you've got to hold a high performer accountable for being aligned with the culture, just like you would someone who's a mid-level performer. You've got to have those same standards and consistency. Because when people see those inconsistencies, and mind you, William, they're always paying attention. When they see those inconsistencies, they think that there must be exceptions to the rule. If you're a performer, I guess I can do anything. And some people will take heed to that and follow that kind of uh bad behavior. And what that causes is a toxic culture, and what that causes is people not being their best sells when it comes to consistent performance. That's from a client perspective. When it comes to our own business, uh, when I see someone that's misaligned with high performance, when I see someone that's misaligned with how we communicate internally, we are a firm that is a professional services firm, but we treat one another with the utmost respect, starting with me, in terms of how we communicate, whether it be on a Zoom, in person, or in writing. The respect level is very high, regardless of who you may be communicating with. So that's one thing that I've seen and have certainly rectified. Another thing that I've seen in our own culture is maybe we have a someone who's got more experience and tenure and perhaps even more credentials than the landscape of the environment. And they tend to have an elite posture and disposition about themselves versus humility and a continuous learning spirit. We have to dip that in the bud as well. So again, culture drives everything in a business. It is just paramount.

William Gladhart 7:26

Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you sharing those two, not only client-facing, but your own internal example. Of course, the common theme goes back to people and culture. I love that you shared the story about the high performer. Uh, we've heard from several CEOs that have stepped into leadership roles in a company where they were brought in to turn around a challenge, something. And often there were individuals, just like you described, identified, basically couldn't keep a sales team, couldn't keep part of the operations because that high performer was driving the people out the door, which in turn impacted profits and everything, despite and the great outcome of those stories has been those CEOs have shared later that by taking steps to rectify the situation, that people stepped up, people stepped in, they found the right alignment, and next thing you knew it, their profitability had gone up, they'd increase revenue by 20%. It's a very scary thing to do as a leader, but it certainly is possibly the right steps. It depends on the situation. As we kind of talk about things that helped impact culture positively, maybe what's the one thing that you have done or you've helped others do in your placement roles that helped impact culture and performance more positively across the organization?

Building A Culture Of Candor

Frank Clark 8:45

Yeah. We tend to drive a culture of candor, not a culture of politics. That in and of itself, William, is a game changer when the team of 20 or 30 people, which is what our company consists of, or a team of hundreds or thousands of people, have this comfort level, this confidence that they can be candid with feedback, and they can receive that feedback as well to get better, to course correct, or to acknowledge someone doing something very, very good as well. Tandor can be very positive, or it can be an exchange of opportunity to improve as well. Our culture and the cultures I've seen do really well is this culture of tandem. I've seen it in Fortune 50 companies as well as entrepreneurial, nimble, and agile companies such as ours.

William Gladhart 9:39

I love that. That's some really sage insight. As we wrap up today, is there anything else you'd like to share or

The CEO Time Split That Works

William Gladhart 9:46

other insights with fellow leaders like yourself?

Frank Clark 9:48

Yeah, the last point that I would say is as you describe those three Ps, people come before everything. It comes even before profitability. People is everything when it comes to driving performance of a business. And I would tell leaders to think about it in buckets. A third of your time should be on people and people development and cultivation and collaboration and continuous improvement. A third of your time should be on people. And then the other third should be focused on strategy and driving your business forward, which is process and the like. So when you think of your business, certainly think about it in those thirds. And then the profitability kind of flows as a result of that. That's how you get steady profits. If you think profit first, you will negate people, you will ignore people and you will alienate people. And when that happens, your attention starts to wane and attrition goes way up. So if I had to leave any words of wisdom and experience, look at it from that standpoint in terms of how you prioritize your day-to-day as a CEO and business leader.

William Gladhart 11:07

I love that. That's fantastic. Frank, I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Lovers podcast. Thank you for your time and thank you for your insights.

Frank Clark 11:14

Thank you, William. Again, great to be with you today.

Where To Listen And Share Challenges

William Gladhart 11:20

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.