employee centered management systems w/dmitriy neganov who heads up vaco's m&a practice

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco, VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email social media at tdssent, d-e-s-s-e-y-n. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. you enjoy the episode. So let's go and dive into it. Give the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do at VACO and we'll go from there. So thanks Taylor. My name is Dimitran Aganov. I currently lead a practice that deals in mergers, acquisitions and business transformations.

So really complex client engagements and well try to help organizations get better, get better in many different ways. I've been in consulting for about 20 years now and really what really excites me and what I'm looking forward to talking about is the topic of management. I mean not sound too exciting to some folks but I do believe how we manage has a profound impact on our lives, profound impact. We're talking about environmental issues these days. It's a common topic. Well, that's a result of how companies are managed. Healthcare issues stress whether it's at work or, as a result later on, passed on to our personal lives.

It is also very, very much the result of how organizations are managed. So that's something I'm very passionate about, that is something I've been studying and practicing for quite a few years now. So yeah, I'm excited to say that my book, String Theory is coming out at the end of the month. So, and String Theory is the name of this new management framework that I've developed. It's a hybrid framework that is, well, it's like a puzzle really, that I've put together over the years and fine-tuned over the years through real life applications with different clients. It consists of certain components of different frameworks. Some are very well known.

Some are rather new and maybe less familiar to folks. But it's like a chemical reaction that had to occur to put all these different puzzles together, different pieces together into this puzzle. And I'm happy to say that the result, I think, is very promising. So hopefully others will share that sentiment. I love that. I love that. So, so, man, let's let's go ahead and dive in, right? And again, I see everybody commenting. It's great to see you all this morning. So, so let's talk, man, your, your management kind of theory at a super high level, right? So I get you an elevator and I'm not really big in the leadership at all.

And I say like, what is it? What would you tell me? I'm going to make an assumption that we're in Dubai, right? And the elevator ride is quite long. So I love it. I love it. Yeah. So as the subtitle of the book says, right? It's an employee centered hybrid management system. And for achieving a cultural shift through really three things. It's prioritizing problems, illustrating solutions and enabling engagement. So the central piece is employee-centered framework. So as companies try different approaches, and these days, gosh, you see all over the place, there are companies trying to adopt agile methods, or combining them with, for example, OKRs or some other management frameworks, yet over the years there have been challenges.

And these frameworks are fantastic. I'm a fan of really all of them, but they all serve a very specific purpose, individually on their own. But what was that missing element? That's something that I asked myself earlier on in my career as I I studied and practiced these frameworks. What was the missing element that time and time again, despite all these efforts, it wasn't quite working as expected. And I believe it's about the fundamental priority, which I wholeheartedly believe that it should be the employees. So interesting side note, In 2019, an organization called Business Roundtable, it brings together the top CEOs from all the biggest companies corporations in the US.

They, as they get together, they come out with certain recommendations, guidance for their corporate world. And for the first time since 1978, business round table issued a statement that the goal or the priority for corporation should no longer be a shareholder value, but rather stakeholder value. And that's a huge, huge leap forward in my opinion, because it really embraces the complexities of our world, all the interdependencies that exist. But at the same time, just from being on the ground for so many years and applying different directions that occur at the CEO level, well, I have to say that when everyone stakeholders basically means everyone, right?

When everyone is important, I'm afraid no one is. And when times get tough, it goes back to share holder value. And really, when it's share holder value, employees become just an expense line item. And we've all heard about layoffs and all the different things that happen quite frequently. So I believe the shift should happen at that fundamental level where a priority for an organization should be employees first and foremost. And then go from there, right? Build build the rest of the system, the decision algorithms, how things are prioritized, build it from that foundational priority. And that's what Stream Theory offers. It's basically a toolbox that is quite flexible.

Sure. It provides that set of algorithms for companies to follow. once that fundamental priority has been made. 100%. So I believe that's my buddy Jonathan Tymond, and as we're in a late capitalistic labor market, where employee labor is categorized and quantizing unit of measure, how do you feel shifting to employee-centric leadership will affect the bottom line? That's a great question, actually. That's a fundamental question. And I think the result, And when I speak of result, I'm talking about the financial implications. These financial implications on the bottom line will only increase when we shift to an employee-centered mindset. And the reason why I say that is, well, when employees, and I don't think I need to convince anyone of that, when employees are happy, let's generalize it that way.

That may mean all kinds of different things. Let's just generalize it. When employees are in a good state of mind, they're excited. They are, well, when they come together towards some purpose, and organizations exist to fulfill some purpose in our communities, in the market. Well, then these employees can create an environment that produces quality products, quality services that address customer needs, customer problems, which ultimately will lead to the recognition to the reward which is the revenue stream for an organization. So I believe it's very much connected and it has been proven. In the book I talk about an example of Best Buy. While I may not currently right now remember the exact quote of the CEO of Best Buy, But at the time when things got quite difficult for the industry, when Circuit City went under.

Yeah, Circuit City. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Best Buy was actually heading in the same direction. OK. But the change that Best Buy made was fundamentally different from what Circuit City attempted. And as the CEO at the time stated that the revenue or the profit for business, it's a must-have, right? It's obvious. You need to have a sustainable business, but it should not be the goal. And what they did, they intentionally aligned goals of their employees, of individual people, with the goals of the organization. And that was a very, at the time, a very different approach. There was some criticism regarding that approach, but it yielded truly impressive results.

And in the age of Amazon and the whole digital age that we're in right now, Best Buy has done quite well and continues to. So, and I'm curious, right? And again, I mean, this is, so this is tough. This is, this is good stuff. I feel like we could unpack each section of your book in 30 minutes and we're gonna try to hit all of it if we can in 30 minutes. Maybe we need to follow up. Maybe we need to follow up. I just, I want to sit on this for a second because I feel like it's easier said than done. Right? I mean we're sitting here talking about, oh, well we got to put it back on the employees.

It's employee focused man. But like how do you affect change from the CFO down? Right? Because I feel like this This is not only this is just a tech thing, this is like an organizational shift in a sense of like, like how do you create buy-in? I don't know, there's just so much to unpack here, but I want to hear your thoughts because at the end of the day, your line managers can be like, yeah, yeah, employees first, but if your CFO is like, no, no, no, cut, cut, cut, it's gonna cost them strife, right? Oh, it's a difficult question. And again, you're looking right at the, at the core of the problem.

A horse is now what they say. It is a cultural shift that's needed. And I think in the 21st century, it is very much time for us to make that shift. One thing that I'll try to answer with maybe some examples and actually some questions that I like to ask myself and I encourage others to do so as well. One specific example is, well, in terms of how do we start that change, we need to start with our perspective on things. So the first thing I'll mention is in my work and people that I've worked with, I'm sure will agree with me on that. But you will not hear me say a resource when I refer to people.

I do not believe people are resources because that's a very outdated term. I like that little shift in words because I feel like that can make all the difference. It can make all the difference. I absolutely can. The success in my career, and I feel I've been blessed with quite a successful and rewarding career is it's not not so much my result but I was surrounded by truly talented people that well they did the hard work and I often ask myself well what value do I add or what value can I add to those people and that's a very very difficult actually question to answer once you ask yourself that and I think many people should be asking that very question when you go into an organization why are you needed or the way I like to put it is if I'm not there what cannot be done so for many years I was consultant and as a consultant I take that term that definition quite seriously.

If I'm not there, what's going to be missed? What's the problem that I'm solving when I join an organization? And unfortunately in the world of management, well, very often, and let me pick on project management specifically, very often the value that people bring, well, it's limited. It's limited. Organizations often see project managers as people that schedule meetings and take notes. There's so much more than a person in that role can and should do. And the question again is well what is that? So and years ago I, as I was asking myself that I was trying to define that value that I can add to a company, I started thinking of my role as more of an architecture role, as an architect of different processes related to whatever project that was engaged on.

My job as I saw it was to connect the different dots. a very systemic mindset. And back then when I first started, and to this day, it is very much a gap in companies that I continue to see is while there is definitely depth in knowledge, but that breadth, that ability to connect the different pieces of an organization into a single organism, into a single system, that's often missing. And I believe that is a key function of management really in different shapes and forms. So ask a different perspective, right? How do you view others? How do you view yourself? And ultimately, going back to the teachings of of the grade Edward's Deming, his proposal was to view an organization as a flow of activities, right, that systemic model.

That also changes your perspective. And I leverage that quite actively in my work, rather than seeing an organization as a hierarchy where it's like a pyramid and one on top of another and top of another. Well, we are all connected through a process, a value stream, right, for which we create that value for our end consumers, for the market and for the community in general. I love that. All right, so let's try to hit. So what's the second bullet point? Well, I think I covered a couple there in my whole answer. But ultimately, I would say starting with the change in perspective, right, a change in perspective, and it takes different forms, different shapes, how you view others, how you view yourself, how you view an organization and ultimately its purpose in the community as well.

And then from the book perspective, you talked about three areas, employees first, so what was the next two? So the three components, basically when we put employees first, the question that I asked myself was what do people need? What are the fundamental needs to truly engage, to play that role in an organization that they should play. Right, so you put the emphasis on the people and then you realize what the people need. What do the people need? And ultimately, I summarized it in three core fundamental needs. A need for purpose, a need for direction, and a need for engagement. And then for each one of those needs, there's a specific tool.

Some are very well known and have been developed quite some time ago. Yeah. And there are different frameworks that address those needs. Some I develop myself through practice and real life application and studying. So those three needs, once we address them, we can truly transform a company into something very different. It can become an entity that functions differently, that sees itself differently. And I don't think people should dislike going to work. There's no reason why we cannot take pride in what we do. Just there are certain things that have to be done and they're not that difficult to be honest with you. They're not that difficult.

But when these steps are taken, absolutely people can take pride in their work so you can see themselves differently and the results will follow. It's inevitable. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, right? So, you know, if managers watch this now or in the future, you know, and they come across this and they're like, I mean, listen, I mean, this all sounds great. Yeah, put the people first, put the people first. I mean, what are some other words of encouragement that you can let leaders know? Because I do feel like, I mean, listen, there's, I mean, all the layoffs are happening, right? And I think, I mean, that could be a whole nother episode in and of itself of thoughts and why it's happening.

But at the end of the day, there's a lot of people I just feel like numbers. It just feel like just, you know, you know, dollar amounts, right? And and obviously the industry is recorrecting right now. But over the next five years, why would you tell leaders to really invest in this model? I mean, one of the things I popped up in my head is retention, right? So, so, so for me, when you make the employees first, when there's an emphasis on priority, the employees and make them happy and making sure understand their needs, that to me signifies retention, which obviously needs to be a focus moving forward.

But what, I mean, what are some other areas that you think this could benefit the business over the next five years? It may sound as a very common sense type of an answer, but sometimes common sense is the best, man. I believe that. I believe that. Again, going back to personal experience, I constantly ask a question why. One of the greatest values that I add to organizations when I go in and work with senior leaders, I challenge them on why they do what they do. When I look at the portfolio of projects, I very much challenge that. I believe less is more. We are trying to do too much in parallel.

So when I ask a question, what's more important? Quality or quantity? I believe 100% of the time, it probably would not be an exaggeration, but the answer is everything. Well, it's not quite that simple when it comes to execution. So there are ways around that. But asking why you do something, connecting everything to the the greater purpose that an organization plays, understanding the different pain points, understanding the user experience, customer experience or customer experience, employee experience, vendor experience, having that deep understanding of an organization, world interdependencies, and constantly asking why we're doing something, not being afraid to ask these questions. That's one thing that I would strongly advise.

in another one. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I just, no, I want to keep going because I have a question. It may be real. That's to keep. So, so, so to keep going. The last thing I wanted to say is when it comes to recognition and that it goes to some of the folks, well, really management and HR functions, when it comes to recognition, it's important that we are sincere in that recognition. And I think that's often missing. It's like a bandaid that we slap on a prom. Well, let's give them a little bonus. Should be good. No, people need more than that.

That sincerity is not an easy thing to achieve, but it's very possible, very much possible. So that's another area where I think people should look at quite closely. How sincere are they in their recognition? Do they realize the value that the other person brings? I love that. I love that. Yeah, and going back to quality quantity, do you, I feel like, I mean, listen, If there's anything that I've learned because of COVID, is that we're all overworked. Right? I really truly, you know, you went from being the office, maybe, what, six, seven hours a day in the office to now your technically can be in the office at home, 12 hours a day.

Right? So I feel like there's a lot of people that have taken on work. Talk to me about the importance of maybe slowing down. Right? Because I feel like right now, like I don't know about you, I'm really big on like managing workloads. right? Like, like if I have a colleague sending an email at 9pm at night, it's like, Hey, let's go over your work. Why is this happening? Right? I'm fine with you. You do an extra work if you want, but is there a bigger issue? And I feel like trying to bring balance back into people's lives, I think could actually make them more productive because I just feel like we're just kind of busy right now.

We are. And I think it's a symptom of all of these problems that that I've mentioned and don't want to sound like a broken record, but I think at least I do that myself. I like to ask, if I didn't do it, what would happen? Was the negative implication of not doing something? So that's one way to look at it. But ultimately, I think it's about alternating. So rather than trying to force doing both, trying to focus on both quality and quantity in the same time, trying to do, it's very much, it's doable, right? It's very possible. But there are certain ways to properly decide what should you do first and what you should do second.

that alternation can address all different aspects that need to be addressed. And you wouldn't be really stressed out to the maximum trying to do everything at the same time. Yeah. So, yeah, there are some specific ways to work around that. I understand James Chimes and I have a staff of Chime my team members to walk off and I see them than working extra hours. And I think, again, right, to me, to me, this is the employee-centric model, right, is taking care of your people, because in turn, your people will take care of you. Absolutely, absolutely. This is a great way to put it. It's very much a step in the right direction.

There are so many different ways to do that. Oh, yeah. The framework that I propose, it's not a set of rigid tools, that this is how you have to do it. Sure. There are some specific tools that I think would very much be useful and valuable, but it's more than that. When we change this mindset fundamentally in our hearts, in our hearts when we change how we see others, how we see ourselves, well, the trickle effect will happen inevitably and there are different ways of doing the right thing. And it's time to do that. It is very much time to do it. And even if you think about the word management, I think it's an outdated word, manager.

It's rude, they go back to some prehistoric times almost. I like to view myself as, well, I mentioned the word architect, but a different word, I enjoy the world of sailing. So a different word comes to mind, a navigator, right? Somebody who is in that role, you should navigate people to some direct, along some direction to some object, to some goal. Sure. I love that. That means a different role, a different value that you had. I love that. I love that a ton. I also love it too. We got Doug going, need this book. So let's go ahead and wrap it up here. So Dimitri, obviously I'll make a post, but when is this book drop?

So it launches on February 28. Yes, and folks, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. You can actually learn a bit more about this framework and the book. I have a website set up at streamtheory.org. So you can check it out. Yeah, it's hopefully you'll find it stream, not stream. Yep. No, it's okay. And hopefully it will be valuable and hopefully triggers other great ideas and other better frameworks that will come along. Who knows? That would be great. As long as we can start the process, I think it will be worth it. I love that. I love that. Also too, if you have any more questions or you wanna have more conversation with Dimitri, definitely feel free to shoot a message on LinkedIn.

I know he'll love to hear from you. Dimitri, as we wrap up, I always ask some questions, just kind of like just high level, sometimes non-business questions. The first thing, we're gonna get right down to it. Since Valentine's Day was yesterday, what is your favorite type of candy? Ooh, chocolate. I'm not gonna be too, you know, just any. Oh, I'm a reasoner. Like dark chocolate or you more of a milk chocolate guy dark. Hey, I knew I liked you man. I knew I liked you Second question, um, you know what trends tech trends. I mean, obviously we just talked about, you know, the book you really seen Um, you know, but is there any sort of other trends you're seeing in the market right now that you want to share and educate others?

Oh, um, I I study and follow economic trends quite closely, but that's a very long discussion in itself. I think we are very much entering difficult times, long period of change, fundamental change in global economy. And this will force us here, especially here in the United States, to reevaluate ourselves, goes back to individuals and organizations. It doesn't matter. And what value do we add on a global scale in a global economy? luxury that our companies had for a number of decades, that's changing. And I would not say that what's happening now is just a quick adjustment in the market. It has some longer term implications.

But like I said, it's a very long discussion, a separate conversation on this topic, but I would be mindful of that. I love that. I love that Fritz In comes in and goes, are there any more appearance to discuss Thomas book? We'll get Demetri on with the book drops and we can have a follow up conversation for sure. Last question Demetri as we wrap it up here and again, thanks y'all for tuning in this morning. Hopefully you learned something. I know I did. This show is called Guidance Council 2.0 for a reason. And that is because I wanna be a resource for people to give back in their careers because we had Guidance Councils in Middle School High School and College.

We don't really have them now as adults. So what would be your greatest piece of career advice that you would tell your younger self now? Math and science. And I think, I've got kids growing, so I think about it quite often. And mathematics provides, and science in general, provide that fundamental knowledge that is gonna be very much needed in the 21st century, especially as AI and some other cool technologies are going to be entering our lives faster and faster. And then art, art, music, it helps with the emotional development, something that is often lacking in our lives. So focusing on these things, I think, would yield solid results regardless of where kids take their lives from there.

But yeah, that would be my guidance. And actually, I think adults, never too late. For fun, I enjoy listening to all kinds of YouTube videos and presentations from scientists, on quantum theories and quantum physics and all that jazz. So never stop learning. I love that. Never get told. I love that. Awesome. Awesome. Well, to meet you, thank you again, my friend. Stay on real quick as we wrap up so I can say bye to you. But y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us today. I'm actually going live twice today. I have I'm going live this afternoon at 2 p.m. on Recruiters Anonymous 2 p.m.

Central with a girl from TikTok She is amazing in the HR space. It's gonna be great. So check so if you if you want to see me again Great if not don't blame you at all, but I'll be live at 2 p.m. On Recruiters Anonymous LinkedIn page And hope you all have a great Wednesday. We'll see you tomorrow For unicorn finders. I'll be live then talking to a startup in the music space So I'm really excited about that. Dimitri, thank you, my friends. I learned a lot. Thank you, Dan. And y'all have a great rest of your day. See ya. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful because you know why?

There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, tailor at vaco.com or at T. S and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.