Encore - The Power of Organizational Entrepreneurship

Ready to redefine your professional journey?

 In this episode John Henry sits down with our Principal Operating Officer, Portia Scott also known as the Organizational Entrepreneur. 

During this episode we discuss: 

1. The innovative concept of 'Organizational Entrepreneurship,' a mindset that has been instrumental in shaping her career.

2.  How leaders can engage organizational entrepreneurs and enable high-performing employees to understand the strategy on a deeper level.

3.  How responsibility, skillfulness and ownership can be a positive game changer for both the Organizational Entrepreneur and the organization.
 
You can register for the "Mindset Mastery for Transformation" Masterclass series.
 
Episode 1: Entrepreneurial Spirit: Taking Ownership of Your Life

Episode 2: Transforming Beliefs and Identifying Your Superpower

Thank you for listening.

Connect with Chart to Heart:
Website: https://www.charttoheart.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/73198543/admin/
Instagram: @chart2heart

Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrjohnhenryscott/
Connect with Portia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/portia-r-scott-7753923a/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the premiere, the debut of the Charter Heart podcast. My name is John Henry Scott III and I am your host. Approximately one year ago, on January 17, 2020, my father, john Henry Scott Jr, passed away, and one of the things that I promised my dad as I held his hand and stood by his side in his final days and moments of his life is that I would do my part to make his name good in the earth by loving and serving people with all that I am. I promised them that I wouldn't allow my gifts and my talents to go to waste, and so this podcast is a small way in which I can do just that honor the legacy of my father while attempting to add some value to this incredible gift of a life and that would include you. So this podcast is dedicated to my dad. I'd like for him to know that I love him, and I know that he'd be celebrating this endeavor with me if he were here today. This is my pause to regroup and three, two, one, let's go. Here.

Speaker 1: 1:09

At Charter Heart, our goal is to provide our listeners with stories and best practices that will inspire us to better connect the dots between the key priorities of our organizations and the people who actually do the work. Here we go with our very first guest today. Our very first guest is someone that I am very closely acquainted with. I've known her for 15 years and I've been married to her for 15 years. She is none other than my wife. I refer to her as the organizational entrepreneur, and I know that's a term that many of you all can probably piece together what that means. But throughout this episode I'm so pumped and so excited to really hear how she came to that and how that mindset and those principles and those beliefs began to really shape her career and a lot of the things that I've had an opportunity to sit on the sidelines of her life and her career and watch her just kill it.

Speaker 1: 2:14

And so she is an Army veteran. She served this country. If you want to know a little bit into our love story, we actually met in Iraq. She was in uniform, serving and fighting, carrying M16s and M4s, and I was not doing that, I was working. By that time I had been out of the military. So, without further ado, I would like to introduce our guest for today, the one and only a leader of Porsche Scott Media. All things excellent and beautiful and smart and intelligent kind Porsche. Hey, baby.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Hey babe, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm excited that I am the first guest, so I get to kick off like the podcast. I'm super excited. So thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Of course, if you weren't, I'm sure I would have heard about it. That is very true, so it's cool. Besides you being my wife, I actually respect very much the professional that you are. I've seen you in your corporate career. I have also seen you, as an entrepreneur, start a business from just an idea. We were sitting those people who had over to your podcast, they will understand the story. We were sitting on a beach in Cape Town, south Africa, and that was the aha moment that really said you know what? I'm going to start a podcast. And then that podcast has since become a viable dun-dun-dun-dun money-making organization. And so I respect the woman that you are and I respect the professional that you are, and that is the real reason why you are the first guest here on Charter Heart podcast. So now that I stop putting my player from the 90 moves out there, I know for a fact that you've got a very diverse professional background and I want to lead in with this question baby, can you share with the audience just the arc of your career?

Speaker 2: 4:17

Yeah. So I think it's so funny because when I graduated from high school, my goal was to become an attorney. That's what I wanted to do and, much like life, it didn't turn out that way, because often we have to put plans into plays for where we want to go. So I ended up working for a corporation so at the time it was Riches, lazarus and Goldsmith so that's where I got my first corporate experience from, and then from there I ended up going into the Army, something I said I would absolutely never do and I joined the army.

Speaker 2: 4:57

And After doing for about four and a half years in the army just due to the, the deployments and so my time, my enlistment, was Extended because of that.

Speaker 2: 5:07

So about four and a half years in the military, and then I came out of the military and I went to work for a real estate investment trust and I started out there as an Executive admin. That's where I was, but then that's where I found my love for project management, and so after that position I went on to work for a health care healthcare company and there is where I really really started to sink my teeth into, you know, being a business systems analyst and project management, and so I stayed with that company for several years, and then the last company that I worked for was a I like to call it a healthcare manufacturing company, because they manufactured devices that were sold to hospitals, and there I was an implementation project manager. So, as you can see, my career has spanned so many different industries that sometimes they don't seem like they were even linked you know, but I'm so grateful for all of the lessons and everything that I've learned, because I do have a diverse background.

Speaker 2: 6:19

I think that it gives me and people like me a Competitive edge when it comes to either working in an organization or going into Consult with an organization. It's that diverse a background.

Speaker 1: 6:33

I agree, baby, I agree. I think that's so good. So we hear about your time in the corporate space. I'm very interested in hearing a little bit about what, what you're doing right now. Right, you are an entrepreneur, your CEO, you're, thanks to coronavirus, you're a homeschool teacher, you know. But talk to us about Porsche Scott media, the Porsche Scott sweet. You've got a lot going on, right, you you're. You're doing some consulting work, you've got your podcast, you have your bill video show and you also help me run a nonprofit. So talk to us about real time, right now, what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yeah, so Porsche Scott media is really my baby. It is, it is my baby, and so I am the host of the wake-up intro, a podcast, as well as wake up well, which is a show that we do that really caters to our mind, body and our soul. I'm a speaker and I'm also a Vision execution partner, and the reason why we say partner is because it's a little different from coach or consultant Is that we partner with organizations and individuals to help them make their visions clear and their plan of actions clearer, so helping them with that strategy to put in place. This is where I want to see our company go, or this is where I want to see my, my life go, or this is where I want to See my business or whatever it is, but I don't really know how to move from zero to one, and so that's when I come in to to help them. So that's, that's like the, the short elevator speech.

Speaker 2: 8:14

What we do at Porsche Scott media but you know, at the core of who it is is that we are just trying to make an impact, one story at a time and each Story, whether that is me hosting a podcast and interviewing someone on the podcast or the wake up well show, or if it's me partnering With an organization or an individual. They all have stories and those stories matter, and so how can we use these stories to make an impact, especially for organizations? How can we use the organizations story as well as the people inside that organization? Let's use those stories to start to strategize and plan around where we want to see our organizations go, how we want to impact humanity. I believe that I was put on earth to impact humanity in my way.

Speaker 2: 9:02

And so I believe that all of us were put on him and put on earth To impact humanity in our way which is why that's that's our tagline is really making an impact, one story at a time.

Speaker 1: 9:16

I love it, I love it, I love it. You know I start in and and I listen to you and I think about that and obviously I'm very closely Aware of what you all do at Porsche. Scott media happened to be one of the initial VCs.

Speaker 2: 9:33

We are so grateful for that To be, so we're.

Speaker 1: 9:43

And being a board member, you know it. Just just what. All the other places that I volunteered myself into the Porsche Scott media, yeah, yeah, but you know I want to try to connect the dots, baby, real quick. Thinking about you Just share with us some of the roles that you've had in the corporate world and you gave us a high-level overview of what it is that the mission and the purpose and the why of Porsche Scott media is, and I see that that is connected to who you are as a person, so there really isn't much disconnect from who you are in your own personal values, your own personal desires and what it is that you are doing.

Speaker 1: 10:26

I want to pivot for just a second with just a small connection there, thinking about what you've done in the corporate space and what you're doing now as an entrepreneur in the ceo. Killing it, by the way, what, in your experience, was an effective way to really galvanize people around? The call to ensure that everyone in an organization really bought into Key business initiatives. Right, because we've got to make money, we've got to be competitive, but also without compromising the uniqueness and the stories of the people who do the work. So which, what, what, what's one key way that you can get by.

Speaker 2: 11:11

Yeah, so I think for me. I tell you that my pivotal point and moment came along around 2014 and 15, when I was switching organizations, and I think it was in that time period, prior to me leaving one organization and going to another one, that I came up or had this idea of an organizational entrepreneur. And the reason why that came up is I realized that I did not want to just have another position, I wanted to be the ceo in whatever area I was in right, not necessarily being the ceo of the company, but taking that responsibility. And when I realized that I was responsible for my career, I was responsible for showing up and being excellent, and it was almost that shift. I'd always felt like I'd been excellent in my positions, but I had not really taken ownership the way that I did when I shifted from one organization to another.

Speaker 2: 12:12

When I, when I had that shift, it was like the, the output, the results of that.

Speaker 2: 12:20

That happened when I was not just another implementation project manager.

Speaker 2: 12:25

But then I took so much ownership in what I did in that I controlled the clients that I had.

Speaker 2: 12:33

I controlled the outputs, the deliverables, how excellent they were, my communication to our clients to ensure that they did, in fact, tie back to the strategic goals right, because if I showed up in all that, I was to my clients, to the hospitals and the staff within the hospitals the way that I was supposed to guess what they do. They talk to other people and so now when they're talking to other people, they're talking about the, the you know, the product that we're putting in, the service that they had, how the implementation was and what does that do. Now that causes another hospital to say, hey, we need that as well. So I think it's very, very important one when we all understand that we may not be the CEO of the business, but we are definitely the CEO of where we are. When I took that approach and started talking to different people about that and saying, listen, there are no perfect organizations because there are no perfect people, but what can you do to make sure that you show up in excellence?

Speaker 2: 13:44

And so when, when we feel like, especially as employees, when we feel like we have ownership, that I mean that causes so much that they want to show up and they want to show up in excellence.

Speaker 2: 13:57

They just don't want to. You know, take the the time tracker to say I've been here 40 hours, or I work this, or I was just working, and now you have one purpose in your work and now you have people that are forward thinking into your organization. So when we care about people and kind of get there and give them that opportunity to be, to have that ownership where they are, to listen to the pain points, because often, oftentimes in in leadership roles, we're not supposed to be in the minutia right and so you may not know everything, but if you understand that I'm giving this, these people, that ownership that they have, they will show up for you and, I believe, in ways that we have not even experienced in many organizations, because we've we've given people, we've looked at people as titles and not necessarily at everything that they are able to to provide and to add value to the organization.

Speaker 1: 14:56

That's so good, baby, that's so good. You know, I heard a couple things. Listen to you. I heard you say you really ship, and I'll summarize. It is, you shifted positions, but when you shift to positions, you also shifted paradigms. You had a different mindset. Right, you took ownership and you started to think about that.

Speaker 1: 15:17

Often, what I've discovered is that there's this chasm, there's this gap between desire and actuality. Right, I know that at a leadership level, we want to see an employees and team members take ownership. We want to see them act as the CEOs of their work. And this, this concept of organizational entrepreneurship, is really around ownership and accountability. Really like treating it like it's your own business, it's your own company and so you approach it differently when you view it that way and that's what I'm hearing you saying, thinking about that right there when, several years ago, you put language to it, right, you just do that. Hey, I'm going to start thinking differently. And when you started thinking differently, how you showed up and I have seen the awards, I've seen the raises, I've seen the bonuses, I've seen the benefits that come from organizational entrepreneurship, which is this mindset, which is this approach that, if we can scale and leverage across our business. I mean that changes the game. That changes the game, and so you've coined that phrase and we give you the credit for that. It's been the catalyst for success in your career, as I was just mentioning.

Speaker 1: 16:42

I would like for you to really kind of break down into some practical anchors per se, some handles, some, some concepts, if you can give us two, three, four, five of them no more than five on the case of time Right If you can give us a couple practical anchors, what does the ideal profile of an organizational entrepreneur look like? And this is something that people at an executive level should be aware of. This is something that if you're downstream and you're a very influential team member or a team member that is, you know, kind of in the middle zone, I can go either way. What's this profile? Look like baby Top to us.

Speaker 2: 17:24

You know, it's funny because I think about EQ and IQ, right, and so often times when we're looking at our employees, when we're looking at people in our organization, I have this Either or either there they have high EQ.

Speaker 2: 17:42

They're very skillful in what they do, but they have no EQ. Or they have EQ, they're great, they get along with people, people love them, but they're not as skillful. And I I Feel like one of the things is it's. It should be both and, yes, one of them is one. You want to be skillful, right, and so the project manager that I was Easily eight, nine years ago is not the same project manager that I am now. Because, why? Because I have to hone my skill. Right, I have to.

Speaker 2: 18:18

I came in, I was learning, I had to take classes, I had to keep reading, understanding what the Pembok was, talking to other project managers having mentors.

Speaker 2: 18:29

So one is being skillful and you're not always skillful right away, but as long as you're doing the work and you have employees that you see Doing the work to better themselves, that you know when you're having that a performance review and they're saying I want to take this class and you see them taking the class and trying.

Speaker 2: 18:48

So skillful is definitely one, it's good. Another one is, like you said, ownership the employee that I see Taking ownership. A lot of times it shows up differently. So as leaders, it is our responsibility to figure out how to Cater that right and how to maneuver the different personality types, because for me, my ownership was this is what I think we should do, or I'm gonna show up and do it, so that I am making an example, but you may have another one that's feisty in the meetings and and saying well, we should do it this way because I'm tired of this, but this way and so, while we could think that that employee is just frustrated, that's really somebody that is taking ownership in the position that they're in and what they're doing, and we just need to direct it.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Oftentimes, if we miss that, we miss such a great Employee in the ability that's so good, that's so good employees, you know, because oftentimes, just because of personality types, so, I think Realizing that, wow, this person is always taking ownership. They always have Something that we can do. They're always thinking of new ways they may push back, but we have to realize is that them taking ownership and and talking to those people is really important.

Speaker 1: 20:12

So it's really taking some time. Instead of just assuming that it's one thing right and taking a A negative view of it, it's being willing to listen and to have an exchange so that we can better Understand it and then we can, you know, use it to make the business better.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 20:34

I like that I think within that is learn the language right, and it's it's, it's this language I used to. I learned this we had a, a leader who was a little passive aggressive, and so when we would have these meetings it would be a little passive, aggressive, and after the meetings we would say, or someone would say I don't, you know, we don't speak John. And I remember saying that one time and I was like but why don't I speak John? Because if in fact, I can speak the language or have this human contact with this person, then maybe we will experience it. So I think, having those, those meetings, you know, I asked if we could have a meeting during our one-on-one time, if I could have about 10 minutes and kind of talk through how we were feeling, without going in With with guns, a blazing, because then people are now they build up a wall, they can't hear what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 21:35

But if I can speak the language and say this is how we're feeling. But you only are able to do that when you make relations, when you have Relationships, and so it's important that we speak the language. That one. We're looking at people as humans, that they have issues going on at home, that they are humans, that they are hurting sometimes, that they have stuff to get over there in the middle of the pandemic, they're homeschool teaching. You know, there it's a lot, and so I think, speaking the language I like to say, of humanity.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Yeah that helps out. So much is really just understanding people.

Speaker 2: 22:12

People, because then, I look at you different one. As a leader, I'm like, oh my goodness, you know, he takes his son to baseball, just like I do. They enjoy that at home. And as an employee, I stopped looking at you as this bad manager that only cares about, about Revenue, and I start to see, wow, john's taking care of you know, his elderly mom or he's taking care of his grandmother. And now I'm empathetic. And so when we come to meetings, when we come to these decision points, you're not a you're not my You're, you're not my opponent, right, because I know you on a deeper level. So I think that's that's very, very important Is to really speak the language, and then responsibility. These are employees and or leaders that show up and say I got this wrong, I did this, but this is the way or the path forward, or I did this wrong and I don't see a path forward, but I need help to to ensure that we are all successful.

Speaker 2: 23:21

I think what I've learned, especially in project management things change all the time Deadlines are missed and, honestly, sometimes it has been my fault and. I have to own up to that is making sure that I I set responsibility for what I when I do, when it's when the team is winning and when the team is losing that I take responsibility. You know, I know you have this thing where you say it's not my fault, but it's my problem. Yeah so these are employees. These the employees that you're looking at to create this organizational Entrepreneur, are looking to see if that's them.

Speaker 1: 24:02

These will be the employees that say it's not my fault, it's not my problem, but it is my problem or they will be the ones.

Speaker 2: 24:10

You know. We have this thing where it's like that's not, I don't get paid for that or that's not, that's not in my purview. But this particular employee will say I know that's not in my purview, but if I do this because I have the skill set and I can get it done, that I can cause a better result. I'm gonna take that on.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Yeah, that's so good, right, If I can throw it in there, really, it's this selfless approach to ensuring that the business objective is met. That's that. That, in essence, is what it is right, and so we're using the skills that we have. And then there's this commitment to Development in this space. This whole concept around ownership, both from a leadership standpoint but even downstream, at every level of the team, is really learning the language.

Speaker 1: 24:56

That goes both ways, because we want to be able to have empathy for our team members who are, I mean, like, knee-deep in getting the work done, but we also need to have empathy for the leaders and and and the executives, because they, too, are humans. Right, it's not like, oh, you get a certain title and you're no longer human. That certainly isn't the case, and so empathy is important, and maybe we'll do an episode around that, right, an episode dedicated to all the senior leaders in an organization that get a bad rap. People forget that they're human as well. Right, you're living through this pandemic as well. You got the challenges, just like everyone else, and I think so important. Go ahead, baby.

Speaker 2: 25:44

Yeah, I was gonna say I think it's so important that relationships right, not even relationships to network, because oh, this is a VP or but Relationships, because then you do build that empathy around people and understanding that the same way you come to work, they come to work that they're concerned about layoffs in the middle of a pandemic.

Speaker 2: 26:07

They're concerned about what the company is doing and how to take care of their employees. And, yes, just like we have bad leaders, we have bad employees. It just is because people are people, correct, I do believe in my own experience is that usually people do not wake up to say I want to be a terrible leader, correct, I want to be a terrible employee. Most people wake up and want to do their best and sometime it's either they don't know how or they don't know the. They don't have the resources to be that way either. So I think it is very important that we really look at people and build these relationships. So, yes, I respect your title and I know who you are, but I also see you as a human, and that is so important.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Necessary, so necessary. Baby, good, good, good. So listen to where we're almost wrapping up, but I want to do something real quick. I've had the tremendous honor of doing work in the culture and engagement space literally on every continent except Antarctica. I said in the previous I think in the trailer that they'll lose.

Speaker 1: 27:14

I had been at Antarctica's because I had been invited there, and so, with that being said, is I've seen tremendous, tremendous strategies and great business objectives, and I've also seen stellar and tremendous employees, and one of the main challenges that I've seen when these coexist in the same space is that their seldom and effective Intersection, in which they meet, so the, the strategy and the employee seldom connect in a way that's really will accelerate business results, and that's what it's about, right? I like to tell people it's not just about the numbers, but the numbers are important because if we don't meet our business results, then we don't have a business, and that's a problem. If we don't have a business, we don't have a job. So we don't want to throw the numbers away. We have to keep our targets and our key results Right in front of us. However, my work has been to help bridge the gap between the two right between our people and our numbers, and so the experience of employees to Influence the strategy has been something that I've seen work, and this is a concept really around Feedback and knowing that if someone's out on the shop floor, if someone is deep downstream Talking to the customers, that they may have a different view from those of us who may be making Strategic decisions, because we understand the financial targets that need to be met, we've got shareholders right, we have commitment so that we can't have a business, and so it's important that we learn to bridge the gap between the two. That's what I mean by taking the chart to the heart in such a way that that the strategy and the employees become sticky, where they begin to connect one with another. And so what then happens is they, the employees, become Internal evangelists when they get it and when they're go, have the space to do all those things you talk about around Responsibility and ownership and accountability and being skillful. They, they understand how what they do ties to the big picture and they begin to act like owners this concept that you've coined called organizational entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1: 29:40

And so here's my final question, and it's twofold, right? First, what would you recommend to key decision makers and any organization to identify and engage Organizational entrepreneurs. That's the first question, and the second one is what actions, what you recommend to those Organizational entrepreneurs, right, what? What should they be doing right now, on a day-to-day basis? So speak to the leaders to recognize the organizational entrepreneur and the organization Entrepreneur and the person that has this skill set. What should they be doing on a day-to-day basis?

Speaker 2: 30:20

Yeah, I think for the leaders it's very important that, wherever you sit looking at kind of that middle manager or looking at however your business is organized, they already know. They don't call it this, but they say this person is high-performing One. You know you're high performers that are not just bringing in revenue, but that they are the morale boosters in your department, that they are the ones bringing in innovative and effective strategies and new ideas. So we already know many of the management. They already know who those people are. I would recommend identifying those people and not just identifying those people, but let them have this opportunity to understand the strategy even more. Because, for instance, you have an employee that's maybe in your call center, but this employee is showing up the S, her SLA is down, you know her, her scores are up for how she's taking calls.

Speaker 2: 31:28

Maybe what you do is now you allow that person to understand the big picture strategy and how it works for the department, so that, as you said, she becomes the internal evangelist, because now she understands it. So when they're saying, well, why do we have to do this? Now she can say, well, the overall organizational strategy is to do this, but this is what it means for our department. If we produce this, we will be able to get that new software. If we produce this, we will be able to get raises. If we produce this, our bonuses will look like this If we produce this now, this department will be looked at as you know, the steamroller for the company, and so it's important that we have those internal evangelists. But it is also an intentional effort to make sure that they know Maybe they're not in those meetings but to really break down with that strategy, because that's what happens is that chasm between strategy and execution. It's the in between of not even knowing. How does that connect to what I do?

Speaker 1: 32:33

Or single. So good, so good, baby, so good. All I was sitting here thinking, you know, I get so jazzed about this or the communication doesn't fit the audience, right, right, is that not everybody understands? You know, if I start, I start to write out certain terms of they're like. What does that mean? And what does that mean to me? To me exactly To make sure that we have those organizational entrepreneurs that are acting like these internal evangelists.

Speaker 2: 33:00

They get the opportunity to break that down. And then for the organizational entrepreneur, I would just say keep showing up being your authentic self and being honest about where you see your growth, where you see you, because if people don't know the talents, we may have just hired you as an HR internalist, but we don't know that you have this background in military and you were a leader in combat. So let us know that. I think having those conversations about where you see yourself, what you want to do, where you want to bring in your value add to the company, that may be a little different than HR, but it still aligns with our company strategy and our company goals. So keep showing up, being authentically you, making sure that people know and the people that matter know your skills and what you are able to do.

Speaker 1: 33:52

I love that. I love that. Thank you very much. I'm Mrs Scott. Of course I'm Scott, aka baby, my lady, my woman. Thank you so much for that, just adding value, especially coming out of the gate as my very first guest on chart to heart podcast, and just sharing your experience, your expertise, your heart. It's very clear that you've got a heart for the work that you do. You're doing a lot of really cool things, and so I would want for my audience to connect with you, so share with us. How can we stay in touch with you?

Speaker 2: 34:31

Absolutely so. As you said, you can go over to the wake up and show a podcast on Apple Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can listen to that podcast to get inspiration and empowerment to make an impact. You can hear stories and interviews of people who are making an impact around the globe. Also, you can always, if you want, to work with us. I'm a host and a speaker. As I said, an organizational entrepreneurship is one of the topics that I speak about, so you can go to our website at PortiaScotcom and you can find everything that we do there.

Speaker 2: 35:07

You can connect with me on LinkedIn at PortiaRScot.

Speaker 1: 35:11

I love it. I love it, I love it. You look so pretty too. Thank you, you look so pretty. This is a segment that I want to just kind of wrap up every chart to heart episode with, and I call it Give you your Flowers. In our community we say, hey, give me my flowers while I'm alive, and those flowers are just. I acknowledge you for the woman that you are, for the leader that you are, for the professional that you are. You add so much value to every space that you operate in and for young men and young women. Who's looking for someone as a picture of what success looks like you would be it. So thanks so much for being our very first guest and thanks to all of those people who are listening and subscribing. I want to invite you to subscribe, leave a rating and then also put a comment. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just search my name John Henry Scott III. Thanks everyone, have a great one. Cheers, Cheers.