Mike McFall - The "Grind" and "Grow" of Leadership
Check out this powerful discussion between Sara and Mike McFall, leader, author, and co-CEO of Biggby Coffee. Mike shares how personal experiences have shaped his approach to growing one of the Midwest's most successful and enjoyable coffee shops. So grab a cup, sit back, and enjoy the conversation.
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here for Mike's book Grind
Click here for Mike's book Grow
Click here for Mike's LinkedIn profile
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
Mike McFall - The "Grind" and "Grow" of Leadership
Original Publish Date: 10/24/2023.
Host: Sara Best
Sara Best: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Bosshole Chronicles. This is your co-host, Sara Best, and I am flying solo this week because my partner in crime and co-host and best buddy, John Broer, is out on the road. He's got a couple of speaking engagements this week talking about reinventing the manager. Wow, I have a great, great episode for you today. It's special. I'd like to introduce our guest. Today. We're going to be talking to Michael McFall. Mike is the co-CEO of Biggby Coffee. If you live in Ohio or Michigan or anywhere surrounding those areas, you probably are very familiar with Biggby Coffee. If you're like me, you've been an avid fan for at least two decades. Biggby Coffee is so great. Mike's written two books, actually. His first book, published in 2019, called "Grind, really chronicled his story about becoming a business owner from a humble barista. It's a great story about what it takes to get a business off the ground the Grind and the Grit and all the things you have to do to get a business going. It creates a great roadmap for that. His most recent book, "grow, which was published in June of this year, is really more about sustainability. Once you've built this business, you're starting to rock and roll. How do you sustain it? His answer to that is leadership. You'll find that he's very passionate about leadership. He's going to share some personal stories, give us some key tips from his book. I think one of the things I took away from today is just how possible it is for us to adapt and adjust our natural drives. Mike's been the kind of guy who could get stuff done. He's been wildly successful from a business perspective, but he gets it. He understands that it's about people and purpose, and there's so much in today's episode, so let's get to it.
Announcer: The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.
SB: So, Mike, welcome to the Bosshole Chronicles. Thank you so much for being with us today.
MM: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the opportunity.
SB: I can tell this is going to be a fun interview. As we know, you are the co-founder, and co-creator of Biggby Coffee, which has been one fastest-growing coffee franchises in the country. Revenues up to north of 350 million, 350 plus locations. I'm pretty sure I visited at least 100 of those. I hope Everywhere I go when I see a Biggby Coffee I'm so there. We have a lot to learn from you today, Mike. You are not only a business owner, a very successful entrepreneur. You're passionate about leadership. You've written two books. There'll be a third coming sometime soon. The first book really was talking about your path to successful business ownership. You did it kind of in a unique way. Would you just give us a couple minutes on how you got started and what was unique about what you didn't do to become a business owner?
MM: Sure, I never really had designs on being a business owner. That wasn't really part of where I was headed. I was at Michigan State University working on a very specific research project. I was headed back to go to school, go back to graduate school and getting prepared for that I was most likely at that point going to become an academic. My mom was an academic. She worked at Michigan State as a professor for many, many years. Then my dad was an entrepreneur. Anyway, it was in East Lansing and working on this project. I just happened to stroll into Biggby and apply for a job because I just needed a little extra money. The research gig was only like 20 hours a week. I got involved with that first store as a barista. My partner and I we didn't know each other. He worked the closing shift, I worked the opening shift. We came together interview style because he wanted to talk to me about becoming a manager in the business. We ended up popping up that afternoon, going for a long walk around East Lansing, like a four-hour walk. At the end of that walk we shook hands, agreed to become business partners and form a new entity, which would be the entity that we would use to grow the brand and grow the concept of Bigby Coffee. I like to tell people it didn't take a rocket scientist to see what was going on in coffee in 1996 when this happened. At the same time, my partner was doing things very, very differently in the coffee space. So, yeah, I shook his hand. I said yes, he and I have been working together every single day since We've been growing the business.
SB: That is incredible. The first book you wrote, "Grind, published in 2019,. It says no bullshit approach to take your business from concept to cash flow, and I think it's really a powerful roadmap for anybody who wishes to own and grow a business of any size. And what's so great about that is you reach tremendous success. It sounds like you have a great relationship with your business partner. You didn't have the guidebook for how to do this. You figured it out as you went along. Is that true?
MM: Yeah, and you know, "grind was one of my anxieties about writing these books or writing any book at this stage is that I worry about advice I give today, based on where I am from a development standpoint, to somebody who's an entrepreneur and just getting started, and so I tried to. My goal was to write Grind from the perspective of startup capture, the startup ethos, the mentality you need, and that was what I tried to do. And then the second book, so that's supposed to get you to positive cash flow, and then the second book takes you into leadership and what I call sustainability. So it was very intentional. The two book series and well, it's going to be a three book series, but the first two books were very intentional why I broke them up the way I did.
SB: Well, I appreciate that, as we this, this review is going to focus more on grow, your second book, which just came out in June. Actually, there, I was up in Northern Michigan on vacation with my family and I stumbled into Biggby Coffee one morning on our walk and I saw your book and I thought, wow, this is incredible. I picked one up, picked up a copy, which you could probably find in any big, big locations and also online and we'll put a link to it in the show notes and I thought, wow, these are timeless principles, and there's a couple I know that you're pretty passionate about. "Grow is about building your leadership skills, and so, if grind is about building your startup business, this, this piece, is so focused on how not to be a bosshole, because businesses can grow businesses can be super successful, but we can hurt people along the way. We can leave bodies in the wake. You didn't, you didn't do that, so let's zero in on a couple that you and I have talked about here that are important to you. The first one has to do with teams. Tell us, tell the listeners, about the way you view teams as a foundation.
MM: Well, I think that that anything that gets done in the world that is powerful, I call it. You know, when you get epic results, it's always from an assemblage of people coming together, unleashing what I call their inner superpowers and and getting, you know, amazing results. And so that is teams, right and powerful. Teams are what impact the world dramatically. I very, very little happens in the world without it being part of a team, right? So so that is that's my emphasis, is that's what we need as we transition out of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurship phase, where we are bootstrapping, and you know it's a very chaotic and you know that. So you transition out of that, out of that moment, and then you have to transition into becoming a leader and and ultimately, at the end of the day, what a leader does is a leader, facilitates other leaders and facilitates a team environment and, at the end of the day, the goal for me, anyway, the goal is, at the end of the day, the team. You can become irrelevant because the team can grow the business and if you get run over by a bus tomorrow, the business will continue to thrive, and that, that, to me, is the ultimate goal that we should all be trying to accomplish in running our businesses.
SB: Absolutely, I agree. For you personally, Mike, you know what were, what were some of the things that helped you be able to focus more on the team? What, what things helped you develop or cultivate teams as you grew into your leadership role?
MM: Well, there was a significant moment, probably 2015, 2016. So that that I realized in a given afternoon in a meeting that the people that were around me in that room, were on that table with me, were some of my primary relationships of my entire lifetime and we're going to be.
SB: Yeah.
MM: And that cracked a huge wall down for me because, you know, up to that point I'd always had this big, you know, like brick wall between me as a person and me as a leader, and I thought there was a certain persona I had to be as a leader, which was this you know hard charging, you know laser, focused on KPIs, maniacal about financial performance, and that was me and that was, and I driven the business I think about as far as I could with that mentality.
SB: Gotcha.
MM: And I think it was probably going to start to. It was started. I think it was even starting to wobble then and so, but then I realized that and it's a long, it was a long process. We're not talking about a couple of days here. I mean, this was a year's long process of me realizing and the importance of the team being that the team is smarter than you are.
SB: Right.
MM: And and you know, you have to recognize it and realize that and you have to step back and then facilitate the team becoming powerful. And it's no longer about you, it's about it's about the team, the team dynamic and what they're creating and what they're doing. That that is. That was a huge transition for me.
SB: Oh it's. It's so nice to hear firsthand, you know, from a real person's experience. You know, I think there are a lot of leaders who can resonate with the driving, the need to drive the results and what we believe and think we should, and even how some people are wired to focus on this stuff, like let's go get it, let's get it across, let's win, you know.
MM: And one thing I would add is that all of the stuff that gets you out of the blocks and into a what might be considered a successful startup - I shouldn't say all of it - a great deal of the stuff that makes you successful in that phase, yes. Is the stuff that gets in the way of becoming an effective leader.
SB: And for many, many small business owners and family- owned businesses and other enterprises that have found their way through the grind you know they've, they've been a startup and they're moving that such sage advice. So so definitely building powerful teams as a foundation. The things that got you out of the blocks to begin with, that then became obstacles or challenges in leadership. What are some of those things and what do we do about them?
MM: Well, I think you know there's there's a lot to it. I think that that you know. One of the things that I think is super important to understand is that you have to begin to understand how you impact. So, so I talk about, like this self awareness 1.0 is being able to run a filter and respond in an appropriate way in a given situation. Right, that's like simple, simple, simple self awareness. Right, self awareness 2.0 is beginning to truly understand who are, truly understand how you're impacting those around you and you, you think you know as a leader, you think you know when somebody you think you can answer that question I promise you you can't and and the only way to get to that information is to ask. But the only way you can ask is if you've built a whole bunch of trust in those relationships where people are comfortable bringing you this type of feedback and this kind of information. And so this trust piece I talk about trust, like trust to me is just like I just wrote this today, "Trust is the sweet, sweet nectar of good leadership, and I think that you know how we get to trust is. You know that's a huge topic, but one of the things is you have to be incredibly stable as a leader, and for many entrepreneurs who've been through the startup phase, stability is a hard thing to get to because we're so used to, you know, letting our emotions run and being super aggressive and powerful and engaged, and you know it's like, but that all of that gets in the way of your people knowing and understanding who they're going to get when they come to you.
MM: I love the phrase, "Your people should not have to figure out the puzzle which is you when they approach you. I love that. Yeah, you've got to be stable. You have to know what they're going to get when they come to you, and to me that's like. That's like step one in this concept of becoming a good, strong, powerful leader, as opposed to a maniacal, controlling entrepreneur.
SB: I think that makes a ton of sense. Don't be the puzzle they have to figure out. Or you said it's something like that, that's huge. A stability, steadiness, emotional management. I think in your book you called emotional stability yeah, and it's not to say that you don't experience emotions or there aren't significant ups and downs, but it to me it means that you as a leader develop capability to manage those emotions, like emotional intelligence, and you dial in that intensity. So there is steadiness and calm.
MM: Yeah, and I think that every interaction you have as a leader, you have to think about what is the ideal outcome for the person you're interacting with, and then you need to facilitate that conversation. So that's the outcome that occurs. It's not about you as a leader. It's about the outcome that that person needs, or the outcome that the two of you think that that person needs, and then your job is to facilitate that outcome happening.
SB: You know and I'm thinking, "Gosh that's not so difficult to understand, but it's hard to do, though it's hard to do for so many reasons, but it's a true test. I mean, if you're going to be a leader and you cannot do that or you're not interested in doing that, it's probably a sign like not a good job for you. There may be a boss hole if you're not interested in the outcome for the other person. All right, we'll be right back.
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SB: OK, let's get back to the program. Ok, so what else do you have? What got you here, won't get you there? What?
MM: Else do we need?
SB: to look out for.
MM: I got asked a great question last week and it made me think really hard.
SB: Yeah.
MM: And that was, "if you could have every leader in America wake up and read two pages of your book every morning before they went to work for one year, what two pages would they be? And it's the two pages in "grow on listening, and I talk about effective communication and I talk about listening and and to me, we cannot lead -there is, you cannot lead if you are not listening to learn and listening to understand. And it is, it is something that I hear people talk about all, all the time in the world and I I see so few people being effective at listening and the reason. You know, we, we listen, we listen to respond. We're letting our own emotions get wrapped up in the listening process If we just sit in. The question that I love to ask or advocate asking is this - "can I repeat back to you what you just said, to make sure I understand that's what you were trying to communicate with me," and then you repeat it back and and oftentimes, at least in my experience, the person will say well, yeah, but there's this one, you know, they'll just, they'll correct some stuff, right? In terms of how you reply, one that makes it the person now believes that you were actually listening to them, which is a huge step forward. Right, yes, but two but two. You're actually getting the understanding of what they were trying to to communicate with you and and so you know. But, but good listening? I also know that good listeners there are long pauses in between conversation when you see people communicating and there's never a pause. Someone's always talking. That is, to me, that's a sign that there's very little listening going on and all we're doing is we're thinking about what the next thing we're gonna say is. Oftentimes probably the next thing we're gonna say to try to impress that person. But when I watch good listeners, there's these long pauses because they're listening to understand, they're thinking and they wanna make sure the person gets everything out. And then they yeah. So when you come out of listening and you go into a pause, you're really, truly just trying to make sure that you understood what the person was saying, but also that they're done and oftentimes people aren't done and then we interrupt and we come back with something, and then that spins the conversation. The thing about conversation is that when you engage, you are controlling where that conversation goes, as the leader, because people are not going to interrupt you and steer the conversation. So when you engage and you say something or you take it somewhere, the person goes with you because they're and so letting. Making sure that the person has been able to get all the way through their thought is so important.
SB: I'm guilty of that all the time. I'm just so eager to keep going, and even maybe I'm trying to affirm what the person's saying, but I cut them off. Like I'm talking. I probably did it to you already talking before you're even done with your thought. But this is really great advice. It takes practice. Have you uncovered, Mike, when it's more difficult for you to listen versus when you find it much easier to say, "et me make sure, can I say back what you just said so I may understand it?
MM: Yeah, this was years of work. So I had a moment where somebody, I coined a command and control and when I went into command and control mode, there was no listening. There was no listening. I was going to, I was putting my hands firmly on the wheel and I was gonna steer and no one was gonna get to say a word otherwise. And so, yeah, the team noted this behavior. We ended up having a long conversation about it. We got all the way through to the point that I began to understand and they began to understand, and when I went into command and control mode, I was scared.
SB: Wow.
MM: Once we uncovered that and that behavior manifested, then it didn't take much for somebody in the group to say, "okay, mike, cool, right, like you're clearly going into command and control mode, what are you scared of right now? What's causing you this fear? Right, and then we could work on that. And, generally speaking, and what we found was, with my experience I mean, I've been in the business forever, right, I just want to be seven years that when I get scared there was probably something there that we should be paying attention to. But when I went into command and control mode, I wasn't getting to the point where we were actually understanding what I was scared of and then letting the team work on that. I was just gonna solve the problem, right, and so fear for me. And, by the way, as a leader, I think it's sometimes difficult to admit you're scared. You're not supposed to be scared as a CEO, you're supposed to have it all under control and you're supposed to be. You know the BMOC, you got it, right? But guess what, we're all scared. We all are, you know, and it's like, and being able to admit that to my team and my group was powerful, but that fear is what got in the way of me being able to listen and we were able to work through that. That was probably a year-long sort of engagement around this idea of command and control which was really powerful and amazing and like I don't go into that state, I don't go into that state anymore. Ever, hardly ever.
SB: Well, and so that gives us all hope that with intentional effort, kind of like going to the gym picking up the dumbbells, if we do the reps, it becomes definitely more of a pathway in the brain than the default, which is that command and control and the fear. Yeah, I think that's such great advice. And, by the way, when our listeners pick up the book "Grow you're talking about pages 164 and 165 in the book where you talk about listening, and those are two pages everybody should read each morning before they go into work Actually goes over to page 166. And what's great is right after that, the next one says asking for help.
MM: Yeah.
SB: And so I'd love you to like even take that one and next step. Okay.
MM: Yeah, I love this one. Everyone, everyone thinks I don't know where I got this to. I should note this because I read it somewhere. This is somebody else's work, this isn't my work, but you think, when you are trying to build a relationship with somebody, that by offering to help them is the way that you build a relationship. And but it's exactly. It's the exact opposite of that. It's actually true. How you build a relationship with somebody is by being vulnerable and asking them for a favor, or being vulnerable and asking them for help, and so you're vulnerable, and then you bring them into your world and then, but then they feel great about being able to contribute and being able to be involved with you and people like if you were to say to me right now, hey, would you, would you be willing to help me with this? I mean like I'm going to feel good about that, like I'm going to feel like, "hey, you feel comfortable enough asking me, like I can come back and I can support you, and that's how relationships work. Sure, and as a leader, I find leaders don't ask for help, especially from the people that work for them. So to say to somebody hey, this is what's going on for me I'm having a real struggle with this. I'm wondering if you could maybe help me with this" by whatever. And then that person then gets to be like, absolutely I'd love to help, and then you're building a relationship together that to me, that is a very effective form of communication.
SB: What I love about the two ideas of fear and asking for help together. I think we are universally joined by lived experiences that have created fear. In our past and, depending on what our home situation was like, people have been conditioned to believe and understand that it's not OK to have an emotion or to feel fear, so they have no awareness of it. Perhaps, and certainly, "I'll give you something You're crying, I'm going to give you something to cry about. There's that For some people, that sense of gosh. I cannot be human here. I cannot be vulnerable because it's unsafe. But all that to say what a great twist on this idea of when we're building relationships. Gosh, I just put myself in your shoes, so if you asked me to help you, I would be thrilled. Of course I'll help you, it does. It makes me feel good. And it's just a great way to engage a person, to understand their gifts and talents, and for those of us that have a hard time delegating either authority or details, that might be a little bit of a challenge, but that's the whole point. You're talking about building people, building a team, getting outside of yourself, and there's a lot more like this in the book, isn't there? There are many other leadership principles like this.
MM: Yes, I hope so, I think so. We've covered two or three smaller pieces and there's just a ton more, but this is everything I've got in relation to leadership is in that book, and so I'm going to be working hard in the coming years to try to help build more powerful leadership teams out there, because I think that if we can do that, then we can start to take on our biggest challenges, and if we have such a dearth in leadership, nothing gets done. That's it, and so, anyway, I'm excited about this work, I love it. It's my passion.
SB: Well, and it's powerful, simple, yet very impactful advice. I love the way you've written the book. It's easy to read, it's easy to digest. We agreed, you and I, before we hit record today, that it's not easy to do necessarily, but we can get our head and our arms around it. Thanks to you for that. And yeah, you're taking what has been an incredible impact, growing this great enterprise called Biggby Coffee, and now you're sharing that playbook, both for business growth and for leadership growth, with the rest of the world. You're doing that through speaking engagements. We'll definitely put a link to your website where people can find your books, your LinkedIn profile. What's coming down the pike for you, then? And we know you're going to be still on. You're out there on the road. You got your show on the road. What might be coming next for you?
MM: Well, I got four kids, so that is awesome. I've got little ones too, so that takes up a lot of my world. But I think for me I really want to be deliberate about getting this message, the message from "Grow out into the world. And then my third book is, okay, so now here we are. We've built our companies to be where we are irrelevant as the leaders, meaning the team's running it, the team's got it. You know, there's an assumption there that it's a pretty significant enterprise. And so now here you are, you're quote- unquote successful entrepreneur and you have all the resources in the world, you have all the connections in the world. You can call anybody and they'll return your phone call. So, like now what? It can't be about your third home in Aspen and a private plane and your four country club memberships.
SB: Right, wow.
MM: It's got to be more than that, and so the third book that I aspire to write is going to be a call to action about, you know, I believe that private enterprise is the most powerful force on the planet, and if we're going to change and improve the human condition, the people that are in the best position to do that are people that are have built successful enterprises and have those resources behind them. And you know, publicly traded companies can't do it because they got a bunch of a- holes looking over their shoulders, making sure they don't spend a dime on anything other than trying to make themselves more rich, more money, right? So, anyway, yeah, well my social commentary for the day.
SB: We'll take it. That's all right. But I agree with you. This is where the leverage is. This is so we'll eagerly anticipate, or anticipate with eagerness, or we'll be excited about your, your next book. And may I just say I know our listeners will want to hear from you firsthand when, when your book is ready to go. If we could extend an invitation, I was gonna say thanks for returning Michael. Extend an invitation to have you back.
MM: That would be yeah, yeah, I'd love it. You know, and it's I mean, it's years out, right, I've got to write the thing and then you know, it's a long process, but I'm really excited about landing this stuff from growing now, you know, for a few years, yes, I will start writing the next one and then we'll go from there, but of course, I mean whenever you want, I'm happy to come back.
SB: Yeah, well, Mike, this has been a really enjoyable conversation. I'm very much inspired by the Biggby story, by your story, by by what you've now put together as a, as a great guide for leaders, a roadmap, certainly for businesses that wish to grow. And also now, hey, if you're gonna, if you're gonna have this establishment, how are you gonna do it in a way that enlivens and engages your people and makes a difference for people? And that's really the focus. It's about relationships with you. I love that.
MM: Couldn't agree more.
SB: So with that, we'll say thank you so much for being here today and, folks, we'll see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles.
Announcer: We'd like to thank our guests today on the Bosshole Chronicles and if you have a Bosshole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. Once again, mystory@thebossholechronicles.com, we'll see you again soon.