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Welcome back to Lead the team.

Welcome back to Lead the Team.

Most leaders today are making a critical mistake that the US Marines solved decades ago and it's holding their teams and organizations back.

Lance Olmsted, a former U.S. marine who led troops in combat, is now president of Copperleaf and helped drive a $1 billion unicorn exit.

Today you're hearing the battlefield tested leadership lessons that still give him the edge and scaling billion dollar companies and how you can use them too.

I'm your host, Ben Fanning.

Lance, welcome to Lead the Team.

Ben, thanks for having me on.

Looking forward to it.

So you've had a unique journey from the US Marine Corps to leading major software companies.

Can you share a moment where your military experience shaped the way you lead in business today?

Yeah, I joined the marine Corps after September 11th and wanted to be part of a purpose driven mission.

I believed in the mission at that time.

So hit the pause button on college.

Joined the Marine Corps right after September 11th and went into the infantry.

And you know, there are a lot of, I think, misconceptions about the military in general within corporate America.

You know, the stereotype of like the brainwashed jar head and those types of things.

And the, one of the main lessons that my time in the Marine Corps taught me was being mission focused, outcome focused and not process oriented.

So using all the tools and resources available to you and all your creative skills, what can you do to accomplish the mission?

The other lesson that I learned in that though was empathy.

Because you can become so obsessed with the mission at all costs that you forget about troop welfare, forget about the Marines around you.

And I think, you know, war kind of reveals the, the best and worst of humanity and having empathy in those situations is a, is a strength, not a weakness.

Wow.

Well, what's the number one mistake you see leaders making now that the, that the Marines figured out years ago?

It's, it's just, it's, it's the next immediate step.

The next immediate immediate step and, and getting the micro wins.

I think a lot of companies and teams I work with are obsessed with like will this scale or can we do this more efficiently instead of just doing it and doing it with the tools you have available right now and then iterating as you go along instead of whiteboarding it out for a month before you start.

I love that.

Take action, y'.

All.

Yeah.

Like the Marines, if the Marines just sat around decades ago just drawing out a bunch of plans and not taking action, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Yeah.

And that's not to suggest that, you know, they're just shooting from the hip.

There.

There is a lot of plan that goes into it, but there's constant iteration.

You're not married to just one plan or one strategy, and you're comfortable and secure enough with your team and that emotional safety net to iterate.

And then, of course, you always do an after action review, and I think businesses should do that too, after every single major thing they do.

Do an after action review.

Could you share a little bit of an experience you had in the military or about a fill lesson or a moment that really shaped you?

I think it's just, you know, I don't want to get too much into it, but, you know, as an example, embracing new technology quickly.

The military is very, very good at looking at civilian technology and looking to get an advantage on the battlefield.

And so I was one of the first Marines to fly the Dragon Eye UAV as an example, which was a man portable UAV back then.

It was a little.

It's a uab, you know, an unmanned aerial vehicle and a drone.

A drone.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Now you're translating it to my level.

It's a drone.

It basically, you know, it was a very expensive model airplane with a camera on it back in the day that you flew with a Panasonic Toughbook.

And if the Marine Corps hadn't.

If the Marine Corps was like, slow and so, well, is that durable enough for us or are we really gonna get an advantage?

You never would have found out.

But then by quickly putting the technology in the field and see if it works or not, I think so.

That's, you know, it's experimentation, it's trial.

Yeah, yeah.

It is so easy to get paralysis analysis.

Like, well, I don't want to spend this money if it's not a guaranteed win.

And you're like, duh, no one does, but you're never gonna know.

And they talk about, like, the mvp, the minimally viable product, to, like, get it out there.

Yep.

And so you got that drone out there.

Was it a successful mission or was it not?

When you do, we want to do it again.

And.

And how.

And then.

And then you look at improving.

And we see this with industrial transformation all the time, where businesses rightfully.

So they need to get an roi.

They need to make sure that they're spending shareholder resources wisely, of course.

But I think too often the opportunity cost is sidelined with, you know, MPVs and trials, and you never get past the experimentation phase and get full, full use of the Solution, I guess, for.

All presidents and CEOs should at least study the military, if not do a stint in it.

Well, you know, would be helpful.

It's certainly been foundational to my success.

I think the, the, the discipline, the focus on mission, the ability to think calmly in chaotic or stressful moments, the ability to compartmentalize has helped me out.

So tell us about, if you can, as much detail as you can give us a chaotic moment and what you were able to do to stay grounded and keep a level head.

And the Marines.

Yeah, I mean, let's just keep it high level for this and keep it kind of fun.

But I mean, you can imagine just, you know, the, the totality of the global war on terror and the deployment cycle, the operational cadence of that.

And you look at the, the stress that, that can put somebody under, the uncertainty, you know, what's the next, what's today's mission?

What's today's objective?

What am I doing next?

And the, the overarching lesson in that is just looking at, and I talk about this a lot in business, you know, internal, external locus of control.

So I can't control necessarily if, if my team is going to be ambushed right now.

But what I can control is that my team are equipped, trained, prepared, have the right loadout, have the immediate action rehearsed.

They know exactly what's going to happen.

Make sure we have radio contact with a supporting fire element, make sure that we have contingency plans.

So when you focus on the things that you can control, you feel very prepared.

When you focus on the things that you absolutely cannot control, you just feel total chaos and it's a waste of, of energy.

And I think businesses should place an emphasis on that as well.

Instead of pontificating on the things that they literally cannot control, like tariffs, as an example, focus on the, the underpinning financial health of the business so that you can absorb the, the uncertainty of tariffs.

That's a powerful mindset.

And it's even more powerful if you can do.

What you're talking about is instilling it in your team.

Because then you can remind each other when somebody's like, hey, this is piling up.

I'm really feeling the stress.

This is the chaotic, I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Okay, don't forget we're here to control what we can't control.

We cannot control tariffs as much as we like or dislike them.

And, you know, what can we focus on?

Because if you spend all your time focusing on, you know, the weather and you're not going to Figure out, you know, what you can do in the weather.

Exactly.

Or get caught.

Or get comfortable working in all weather conditions.

Okay.

And say so the weather's irrelevant to me or the tariffs are irrelevant to me or whatever is irrelevant because I'm an anti fragile person or I'm an anti fragile business.

And my team actually benefits by putting in those, being put in those stressful situations instead of running from them, trying to avoid them, seek them out.

Whoa.

That's a Marine.

Marine.

Someone a Marine told me one time, the first thing they try to teach you is becoming a marina, is that you can really be content anywhere, in any weather, in any situation.

Yeah, I'm happy anywhere.

You know, it's, it's, it doesn't matter.

And I think more importantly, it's within business.

It's being.

This maybe sounds a little cliche, but being.

Being comfortable in the uncomfortable because it's in the uncomfortable where growth and business opportunities reside.

If you're constantly going back to the same friendly customer for feedback as an example, instead of really leaning into the disgruntled or misanthropic customers, you're sort of just, you know, it's just a, a circle, circular conversation where growth is, is limited.

Did you happen to see this Netflix special about the hunt for Osama bin Laden?

Have you heard about this?

Yeah, real familiar with it.

Okay.

Illustrates a lot of what you're saying about being prepared for anything.

I mean, it's a, it's a powerful thing.

Did the, did the lessons that you're talking about, did you see anything in there?

You're like, yeah, that, that's a great example of what I'm talking about.

Or how did it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's, it's, it's table stakes.

You know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, practice, practice, practice.

So you're gonna try to make the practice as realistic as possible.

You know, you hear in business about like the concept of a murder board.

You know, bring a team together and shoot holes through the proposals, everything.

Do a dry run on your.

I actually have a team right now presenting a massive proposal to a very strategic account.

And we spent all day yesterday in the, in scrutinizing why that icon?

Why not this icon, why that font?

Why not this font?

What does this word mean?

Walk me through it again and again and again.

And I'm completely confident, sitting here, doing this podcast with you, that that team is going to absolutely crush the presentation.

Today and win the Business because of that preparation.

Because of the preparation.

And you look at, you look at the way, you look at the way the, the bin Laden raid was rehearsed.

You look at the, the way the intelligence is collected on it.

It has.

They mocked up the entire compound to scale and ran it over and over and over again.

Instead of having one helicopter, let's have two.

Instead of having three of these, let's have four of those.

And constantly looking at the contingency plans and making sure that regardless of one individual piece failing, they're expecting one piece of it to fail.

Well, how does the mission still get accomplished?

And I think that's what it's all about in business.

The whole plan is going to get challenged.

How do you make sure your plan can withstand those challenges and actually get better from the challenges?

It, it blew me away watching that thing.

And one of the talking about the preparation of compound, they didn't know how the walls and the rooms were going to be inside the compound.

So every day they would run a, like a, like a set or I forgot, like a test rate on it and they would move the walls on them.

So they didn't know where the walls were going to be.

So they were prepared when they went in.

The walls could be anywhere.

The stairs could be anywhere.

What happens?

You go midway up a stairwell and there's a cinder block wall that got erected.

What are you going to do?

Yeah, there's a fake wall on the outside of the compound.

A helicopter went down.

I mean, it's, it's really remarkable.

Now this makes a lot of sense from a.

People are listening.

Okay, this, this sounds cool.

For my own personal life as a president or CEO, you may have thousands of people, right.

That you would like to instill this in them.

You know, these lessons.

But they're not going to boot camp.

They're not, they're not going to be Marines.

So where is you as a, as a military leader?

And you're having, you have all these early lessons.

What are you doing to instill them quickly in your team?

So they're thinking about these even if you're not around them every day.

Right.

They might, might be seeing emails from you.

They might not, you know, how are you getting there?

I think it comes, it comes down to first, just first making sure that you have the right team.

And that starts with instilling the right standards, the right kind of mindset in the senior leaders that you surround yourself with and coaching them on how to hire and build and design their organizations.

Because if you start On a poor foundation.

It's just going to be a constant uphill.

So not just delegating.

Say, hey, you, you leader, you're in charge of operations.

You know what you're doing.

Just hire whoever you want.

No, absolutely not.

You have to.

How's that conversation go?

So to.

My job is to create the environment, conditions where success can, can grow.

And so I, as a leader, I have to give my senior leaders a framework.

I have to give them core principles, I have to give them leadership principles that we follow, and I have to embody those every single day, reinforce them through repetitive messaging and, and coach them.

And my, my job is to inspect what I expect.

My job is to create the environment where, where average players can become above average players.

Because we can't exclusively hire, you know, rock star people.

That's a, that's a fantasy.

So the beauty is, how do you create an environment where an average team member can come in and very quickly do above average things?

And when you think about what the Marine Corps does, they're hiring average people kind of fresh out of high school or in the middle of college and creating an environment where they can do above average things very quickly.

And so it's all about creating the culture and the leadership principles and what I call the non negotiables.

Is there one?

Maybe, maybe that.

Maybe the non negotiables gets there.

But is there one thing like a saying or a mindset or an action that you found to really be effective?

Well, I think when we look at our core values of trust, agility, collaboration, grit, I think we use those as the compass.

Are we adhering to, to those?

And then what I kind of lay over, that is a, is a value on speed, focus and simplicity.

So can we do this fast?

Are we focused on the right things?

And are we being simple with what we're doing?

If you can't explain this to me in very simple fifth grade terms, you have to use tons of technical jargon that nobody understands, then I'm going to encourage you to go back, think more deeply on it, and come back and represent it.

And I really put place a value on system 2 thinking like, think deeply on this, because it's only until you've given yourself that space to think deeply that you can communicate in simple, simple terms.

And so that's, that's kind of.

Those are some overarching principles.

But more specifically to your question, I have defined, and I've taken inspiration from the Marine Corps on 14 leadership traits that, that I want to see within my, my teams, what's number one for.

You of the 14?

Which one?

You're like, if we don't have this one, ain't nothing going to happen, right?

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.

I think it depends on the, on the individual team and the stage of their, their maturity at the moment.

The one I'm working on a lot right now is empathy and understanding that with, with the, the disruptive power that AI represents, there are probably some people who are, you know, a little intimidated or a little uncertain of what does this look like.

And I, I'm sitting there, too.

I'm saying, well, are CEOs going to be replaced with AI agents moving forward?

Is my job going to get outsourced to AI?

I don't know.

I don't know.

But I know I can start learning a lot about AI and start becoming an expert in an AI, but I can't control some of these things beyond just leaning into it and embracing it.

So it's.

But it goes back to internal, external locus of control, but doing so with empathy and focusing people on the things that they can control.

Yeah.

So, so good.

And a little bit unexpected.

Right.

Okay, here's the Marine leader coming in, talking about empathy versus just taking action and under.

Meeting people where they are.

And you're right, you can't just translate the lessons of the Marines necessarily, like, to people who aren't Marines.

You've got, you have to think, you say, think deeply about how you're going to make that translation.

Yeah.

You know, you can't just say, just do it, because I've said so.

I mean, that's not, that's how the.

World takes us out of the Marine Corps.

Right?

Yeah.

And they might not be.

It's appropriate to acknowledge that every team member might not be as fully bought in as every Marine is to the mission.

And so how do you, how do you work with the capability and capacity of the people around you?

This idea of speaking simply and concisely makes a lot of sense to me because in a chaotic world, things are changing fast.

People may hear your words, but if they don't understand them, it's like you should.

I mean, you just wasted your breath saying them in the, in the first time or sending the email.

You just wasted it.

Do you have an example of a time where, hey, things were too complex to just too much jargon or something like that, and you were able to work with them to simplify it, or you were able to simplify and sort of change the pace and make things happen?

Numerous, numerous examples of that.

I mean it's the classic, it's the classic problem, especially in sales driven organizations where there's a, you know the cliche, you have two ears and one mouth.

Well, when we're communicating we should appreciate that a people consume information through a variety of medias.

So how do we.

Or mediums, how do we, how do we leverage all of that?

How we, how do we communicate with all of our senses in the message?

You know a teams meeting has probably half of the effect of an in person meeting.

I think, what is it, 70 or 80% of communication is non verbal.

So how do we appreciate that?

So I can't just bombard someone with a.

Too long didn't read email and equally too long didn't.

Yeah, yeah.

And equally when we're, when we're, when we're talking in team meetings or prospective or customer meetings, we need to just shut up and just ask questions and let the other side talk.

But make sure that the questions are actually simple and get to the heart of the matter.

So that's, it's simple, simple, simple for me.

And when someone's talking too much, it either tells me that they're insecure or they don't know what they're talking about.

Yeah, it's, it's big and yeah, too much verbosity is usually indication.

I agree.

Like they don't really know.

They're kind of talking at it and not really getting down to the core of it.

Now taking the next step.

We spent a lot of time talking about your military background, how, how it's, you know, affected your driven your success.

But you had one specific success that was absolutely huge with your one billion dollar unicorn exit.

Congratulations.

But what obviously people are going to look at that and saying that's incredible.

I want to do that.

What did you learn from that and what do you think would surprise people about, about going through that experience?

Yeah, I mean the tons of lessons learned, I think it was life changing.

Privileged to be a part of that team.

The, the team at Red Zone.

The.

I think the primary lesson that I learned in that is that smaller teams are capable of far more than conventional wisdom might indicate.

And instead of small teams trying to think about how they can scale something, how do I need to layer on to what I'm doing and complicate things?

Teams should be saying, well how can I do this with less?

How can I do it with less?

How can I do it with less?

And how can I drive a miraculous outcome for my customer?

And how do instead of spending say like 5 to 10% on marketing.

How can I just spend maybe 2% on marketing and turn my customer base into a massive set of raving fans that do the selling for me?

And so it's challenging that conventional corporate wisdom and really thinking like a bootstrapped entrepreneur that I think is, has been the greatest lesson, the greatest experience.

Wow.

What, and, and what a, what a lesson to hear you say.

Because sometimes if you have too many resources, too much money as an organization, your team has too big a budget, they're not as creative, they're not like the constraints are really gifts in terms of creativity.

Is there one constraint or one thing you found during your red zone experience?

You're like, yeah, if it wasn't for that constraint that we faced or that limitation, we wouldn't have succeeded like we did.

I think it's just that it's the fact that we were self funded and debt free and running at a rule of 86.

You think of, you know, when you think of some of these VC backed companies that just get this deluge of money and they don't know how to spend it and so what you end up doing is you build these Frankenstein Org structures, then all of a sudden you're just wrapped up in meeting after meeting internally, trying to explain things to people who don't get it.

But if you get a small team and you put a ton of skin in the game and heavily incentivize them, they're not going to want to grow like that, they're not going to grow an empire, they're not going to want to spend more money there.

So can we just put the money back into the business?

Can we just, let's, let's put the money back into R and D and get, and get more product instead of saying I need, I need more account executives.

So at one point in our growth journey there's like an inflection point is like we could, we could hire double the number of account executives or we could focus on making the current team of sellers 100% more productive.

And we chose to do, to do that.

And, and we told them very transparently, like this is a decision for us.

We could, we could, you know, whittle your territory down to a zip code or we could give you a much bigger territory, a much bigger slice of the pie.

And by the way, if it, if we pull this off and hit this milestone by the state, we'll give you a big bonus.

And brought everyone along on the journey with us.

And that was, that was a Massive lesson for me in keeping it simple.

Yeah.

What's more fun?

Even though it's more work, it's more fun, there's a bigger goal, it's more exciting.

You're kind of relieved, like, oh my gosh, they're not bringing on 50 new people and they're going to make us train them and use our time that we should be selling to train a bunch of people who don't understand what's even happening.

And then retention, you could just turn into an HR machine, hiring and yeah.

You'Re having small extra money on HR and training and onboarding and sometimes that's just not the solution.

So I love that.

So thinking about opera, you know, creating constraints that are going to not limit your, your team but create constraints that enable them, that motivate them, that engage their creativity and frankly, I'm not a Marine, but that sure does sound like the Marines.

Yeah.

I mean to some degree this the smallest branch doing a lot.

I think the, you know, another anecdotal example that would be product management.

You know, do you want to, do you want to hire a bunch of product managers?

Or maybe you could, maybe you could build a pre sales team that come out of industry and structure them in such a way that they can support pre sales and product management during that growth phase.

Because who better to input into the product than the people that are in the field every single day talking to prospective buyers.

Yeah.

And they know the product and they know the industry.

You have a budget like you, you, you, you can get like world class like mega sales people with great relationships but if they don't know the product, it could be sold to the wrong person in the wrong way, the wrong expectations or it might just not drive through.

So that, and I think in a way that's what I mean when I go back to system two, thinking and placing a value on subject matter expertise, placing a value on thinking deeply is the days of like the back slapping kind of gregarious account executive are over.

Like a prospective client's done.

You know, they're 80% sold before they even reach out to you.

So how do you, how do you get them to that last mile?

It's going to be through de risking the investment and showing them the certainty.

Of results and such a fun interview today.

Lance.

So just to put a cap on this, what's your message about Copper Lease that you're leading the organization now?

Like where are things headed with them and what's coming up for you?

Like top of mind.

So Copper Leaf is a Strategic part of ifs.

IFS is industrial AI.

And what we're doing at IFS with our industrial AI is transformational.

We only work in heavy industries.

We only serve the industries that move the global economies, to be.

To be frank.

And what Copperleaf does is make sure that big, complicated capital investment plans get allocated appropriately to get maximum value out of every dollar spent.

Love, that sounds like some good things ahead.

When you say industrial AI, it's to build and you say heavy industries.

Could you give us a little bit more?

Yeah.

Manufacturing, oil and gas, utilities, mass transit, shipyards, those types of heavy, heavy industries.

Real work is happening.

So how do you with industrial AI solutions, How do you make sure that your field service technicians have all the training and the access to knowledge that they need?

How do you ensure that your work is being executed to your standard, to the quality standards of your customers?

How do you ensure that your plans are going to stand up to the uncertainty that exists within the global economy?

Those are the types of decisions that industrial AI is enabling, y'.

All.

It's coming.

It's.

It's here, it's here, it's here.

And how.

So just kind of piecing all together, how does this background in the Marines, you know, your unicorn exit?

How do you see all this in terms of your strategy for your current role in this organization?

Because it's a new AI is relatively new for everybody.

Even though some people say We've been doing AI for 20 years, not like it's being done now.

How has this prepared you?

And I'm thinking about maybe the skills or traits that you've picked up along and along that are preparing leaders to really capture the opportunity of AI.

So I think it's constant innovation and evolution.

The Marine Corps is famous for saying semper Fidelis are always faithful.

But within the Marine Corps, there's a kind of a tongue in cheek play on that, which is Semper Gumby, which is a play on the Gumby cartoon character, which means we're always flexible.

Always flexible.

And I think what the long lasting, enduring businesses are going to be is constantly adjusting to the needs of their customers.

And so you have to stay close to the customers, stay close to the business, and help them solve business problems.

So rather than being precious about this product line or this business unit, thinking holistically about ifs as a company, and ask how can ifs solve the apex challenges of our customers?

So how can we help Boeing solve the biggest existential problems that they're trying to solve right now?

So Semper Gumby.

Yeah, A little, little tongue in cheek thing.

Separate Gumby.

Yeah.

A good reminder.

That's.

I'm not sure that's accurate.

Latin, but it may not be Latin, although Gumby is an ancient cartoon that did inspire a lot of people.

May not be as far as back relevant today, but.

Hey, Lance, it's been a fun one today.

Thanks for coming on.

So many great nuggets.

And I'll tell you what, I expect a lot of waves to be made in terms of thinking about these ideas, the military and through Unicorn Exit, in terms of and motivating teams and guiding them into the future of AI.

Thanks, man.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Ben.

Take care.