Nils Vinje helps CEOs scale by aligning their leadership teams. In this episode, he breaks down how misalignment at the top quietly drains momentum—and what to do about it. Drawing from his time in Silicon Valley, where leadership teams were swapped out like batteries, Nils explains why true alignment starts with shared understanding and ruthless simplicity.

Nils outlines the five principles that power every successful business: People, Purpose, Playbooks, Performance, and Profit. He argues that most dysfunction goes unnoticed because it feels normal from the inside. His job is to bring clarity—often by asking the questions no one else is asking. From working with fence installers to Fortune 100s, Nils shows that scaling is less about tactics and more about mindset and structure.

This episode is a must-listen for leaders who feel stuck despite working harder than ever. If your team is talented but directionless, Nils offers a clear, proven path forward.

Want to learn more about Nils Vinje's work? Check out their website at https://nilsvinje.com.

Connect with Nils Vinje on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilsvinje/.

Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply at https://podcast.allies4me.com/podcast-guest/.

Want to learn more about Craig Andrew's work at allies4me? Check out his website at https://allies4me.com/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• [00:05] Craig’s coma story: leadership revealed in crisis

• [01:15] Introducing Nils Vinje and the 30-Day Leadership Playbook

• [05:46] Nils explains how aligning leadership teams drives growth

• [07:10] The power of repetition in leadership communication

• [08:21] Misalignment: how leadership teams drift without realizing it

• [09:37] Nils' career in three acts: tech exec, consultant, pinnacle coach

• [13:17] Applying core leadership principles across industries

• [14:15] Dysfunction feels normal—until an outsider sees it

• [15:14] Silicon Valley war story: changing leadership teams annually

• [18:29] When the steamroller loses direction: leadership instability

• [20:22] Startup glamor vs. internal chaos: two very different views

• [21:19] First signs of trouble: mindset and willingness to change

• [22:21] Nils’ 5 principles: People, Purpose, Playbooks, Performance, Profit

• [25:26] “Simplicity on the far side of complexity”: why basics win

• [25:35] Where to connect with Nils and how to get started

Transcript

00;00;05;20 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;07
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;14;27
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Nils Vinje. I always get that wrong. I used to live in Sweden and everybody there was Nils, but he's Norwegian and he has Nils, Nils Vinje. He is a pinnacle. Business guide is a bestselling author of the 30 day Leadership playbook. What a great place to tell leadership stories other than leaders and legacies.

00;01;14;29 - 00;01;22;27
Craig Andrews
He helps businesses scale and break through barriers that are caused by structural issues. Nils, welcome.

00;01;22;29 - 00;01;25;17
Nils Vinje
Thank you so much, Greg. I'm not going to hold it against you, but,

00;01;25;17 - 00;01;35;05
Nils Vinje
you lived in Sweden for a long time because I'm from Norway. My family is Norwegian. There's a lot of good fun to be had between the Norway Norwegians and the Swedes.

00;01;35;07 - 00;01;45;27
Craig Andrews
Well, I think I've traveled in your area because you're not far from stolen, right? And for those. Anybody who's followed the Mission Impossible

00;01;45;27 - 00;01;54;05
Craig Andrews
Possible series, if you remember, like this big, sharp cliff, I forget. What am I? Mission impossible. It was in.

00;01;54;07 - 00;01;57;07
Nils Vinje
Yeah, I don't I don't remember either, but I know. What are you talking about?

00;01;57;11 - 00;02;11;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah, that was the. That's the only time I could not walk up to the edge of a cliff. Normally, I walk up to an edge of cliff and look over. Yeah, I couldn't do it there. I had to get on my belly and kind of inch over. It terrified me for a good reason.

00;02;11;01 - 00;02;21;12
Nils Vinje
I mean, that thing is. It's crazy. It's it's absolutely incredible. But. And in Norway and in Scandinavia, as a whole, I mean, the scenery is absolutely unreal. The fjords, the mountains, the cliffs.

00;02;21;15 - 00;02;24;02
Nils Vinje
It's just one of the most beautiful places for sure.

00;02;24;04 - 00;02;27;01
Craig Andrews
So here's what here's something that's funny. I was I was there,

00;02;27;06 - 00;02;37;20
Craig Andrews
I went to Norway over 4th of July weekend. I was, I was working in Sweden, but I was one of the American contract. And so I told the Swedes I was like, hey, it's 4th of July. I'm taking it off.

00;02;37;22 - 00;02;39;02
Nils Vinje
Nice.

00;02;39;04 - 00;02;40;01
Craig Andrews
And,

00;02;40;04 - 00;02;43;22
Craig Andrews
and they said, you know, there's still snow up there in like July.

00;02;43;24 - 00;02;44;21
Nils Vinje
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00;02;44;23 - 00;02;51;23
Craig Andrews
And they said, what are you driving? I'm like a Volvo. Oh you're fine. Like, they have this idea that Volvos can just conquer all.

00;02;51;25 - 00;03;05;17
Nils Vinje
Or camping. I mean, they were they were the indestructible greatest export of Sweden. They just literally, they would run for hundreds of thousands of miles, and they would just conquer all. Yeah, I I'm not surprised by that.

00;03;05;20 - 00;03;09;19
Craig Andrews
I had I was driving the first generation front wheel drive.

00;03;09;21 - 00;03;10;02
Nils Vinje
Yeah.

00;03;10;03 - 00;03;13;00
Craig Andrews
Volvo I remember, had serious torque steer.

00;03;13;03 - 00;03;17;13
Nils Vinje
Yeah. And did you make it to your destination?

00;03;17;15 - 00;03;21;25
Craig Andrews
I made it. It worked out great. It was. I mean, it was amazingly beautiful.

00;03;21;28 - 00;03;23;27
Craig Andrews
You know, I took the ferry from,

00;03;24;00 - 00;03;24;26
Craig Andrews
Helsingborg,

00;03;24;26 - 00;03;30;28
Craig Andrews
Sweden up to Oslo. Yeah. And then just immediately started driving across the country to the coast.

00;03;31;00 - 00;03;31;19
Nils Vinje
Yeah.

00;03;31;21 - 00;03;32;18
Craig Andrews
And,

00;03;32;18 - 00;03;35;29
Craig Andrews
stayed in a little town called Sand or Sands, I forget.

00;03;36;02 - 00;03;36;18
Nils Vinje
Yep.

00;03;36;21 - 00;03;50;01
Craig Andrews
And then I had to park stolen, drove through Bergen and just, you know, just kind of drove around, and it was just it was amazing. And, you know, one of those things where pictures will never capture.

00;03;50;02 - 00;03;50;24
Nils Vinje
No.

00;03;50;26 - 00;03;53;01
Craig Andrews
You can't take a picture to describe Norway.

00;03;53;08 - 00;04;02;13
Nils Vinje
Yeah. No, that's not there in books that it just doesn't do it. It doesn't do it justice. You have to see it firsthand for sure. Yeah.

00;04;02;15 - 00;04;18;00
Craig Andrews
And you know, the other thing that I think surprises people about Norway, you know, the, So I think that last year or a year ago, something like that, there was a deep freeze in Chicago and all the Teslas just came to us. They couldn't even charge them.

00;04;18;07 - 00;04;19;01
Nils Vinje
I remember.

00;04;19;03 - 00;04;19;13
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;04;19;15 - 00;04;29;03
Craig Andrews
And somebody said, well, the Norwegians have figured that out, you know, why can't we? I'm like, well, most of Norway lives on the coast where, you know, in the dead of winter, it's like 34 degrees.

00;04;29;10 - 00;04;39;27
Nils Vinje
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the in the population wise is, you know, more towards those areas. So. Absolutely. And they have the resources to be able to figure out problems like that for the entire country.

00;04;39;29 - 00;04;51;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah. But it's just it's wild to think that you can be inside the inside the Arctic Circle. Yeah. In the dead of winter, it's still like, right at freezing or a little bit above freezing.

00;04;51;02 - 00;05;06;28
Nils Vinje
I agree, I agree. And and within a just a few hours. I mean, Oslo isn't very far away from the edge of the Arctic Circle. Right. And the only I mean, the true downside is the, you know, the endless summer, which is beautiful and wonderful and sun doesn't set until midnight or 1:00 am, but the,

00;05;06;28 - 00;05;08;00
Nils Vinje
the never ending winter.

00;05;08;00 - 00;05;14;05
Nils Vinje
That's a whole different side. And I've never. My family's from Norway, I've never lived there, but I've visited many times. And,

00;05;14;05 - 00;05;18;29
Nils Vinje
we always visit in the summer in August because it's it's absolutely gorgeous. And a family,

00;05;18;29 - 00;05;26;03
Nils Vinje
a family and Voss and Bergen and also. Those are the kind of the three hotspots we we tend to tend to visit if we go back.

00;05;26;05 - 00;05;26;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;05;26;22 - 00;05;29;17
Craig Andrews
It's gorgeous. So,

00;05;29;20 - 00;05;36;27
Craig Andrews
I think the hardest thing I have, the biggest problem I have is in describing what you do. I know what you do.

00;05;37;00 - 00;05;39;01
Craig Andrews
But I have trouble describing it.

00;05;39;04 - 00;05;44;05
Nils Vinje
You're not alone. This comes up from time to time. Yes.

00;05;44;05 - 00;05;44;20
Nils Vinje
Yes.

00;05;44;22 - 00;05;46;24
Craig Andrews
Well what do you do.

00;05;46;27 - 00;06;09;08
Nils Vinje
So Craig I work with CEOs of companies doing more than $2 million a year in revenue. And I help them align their leadership team to accelerate their growth. That's the single most important thing that my clients want is to accelerate their growth. Well, when we get started, you don't always know that it's the leadership team that needs alignment, but in the end, it always is the leadership team that needs alignment.

00;06;09;10 - 00;06;33;22
Nils Vinje
Because when you get that team, all the energy going in one single direction, everything can change, right? And lots of people talk about alignment, and it's a very common, buzzworthy thing. But when you get true and total alignment across why the company exists, where we're going over the next one, three, 5 or 7 years, how we're going to get there, what we're doing this quarter, how are we going to track this measure and all those pieces?

00;06;33;22 - 00;06;47;25
Nils Vinje
When you have everybody on that leadership team, 100% bought in, has created the plan and accountable to that plan, then you can execute, you can accelerate growth to whatever level that you want. That's the fun part of what I do.

00;06;47;28 - 00;06;49;23
Craig Andrews
You know, I used to work for,

00;06;49;26 - 00;07;07;04
Craig Andrews
the company where the CEO, I remember sitting in the meeting and hearing him say the same exact thing for, like, the fifth time. Yeah. And just remember wondering, why is he being so repetitive? And then I realize there's a reason he was CEO and I wasn't.

00;07;07;07 - 00;07;08;07
Nils Vinje
Very good point.

00;07;08;09 - 00;07;10;11
Craig Andrews
So why was he being so repetitive.

00;07;10;13 - 00;07;32;07
Nils Vinje
Oh because if you say things once doesn't really exist except in that moment. If you say it twice, it doesn't really exist except in two moments. If you say it 8000 times, then it starts to make its way into people's brains. Right. We have we are creatures that need more repetition than almost anything else. And this is probably one place that I see.

00;07;32;09 - 00;07;51;25
Nils Vinje
Most organizations fall flat on is their belief that if we set, you know, some course and we just tell people what we're doing, then everybody should be able to figure out where we're going and move along that path. Reality is like if you feel like a broken record with regards to reiterating what the CEO was saying, like in your example or,

00;07;52;00 - 00;07;54;01
Nils Vinje
talking about what we're doing this quarter or

00;07;54;06 - 00;07;55;16
Nils Vinje
what our goals are for this year.

00;07;55;20 - 00;08;17;24
Nils Vinje
If you feel like a broken record, you're just getting started because of what we're doing. From a leadership perspective, is setting the expectations at the organizational level, and then we have to hold people accountable to those expectations. But in order to hold people accountable, we got to reinforce those expectations. And we can never assume that people are just going to take it and figure it out on their own.

00;08;17;26 - 00;08;21;01
Craig Andrews
Is that for and or what you're talking about when you talk about alignment?

00;08;21;04 - 00;08;40;28
Nils Vinje
Yes. 100%. Because here's what happens as soon as I share this. What I want to do this year with you, I'm CEO and you're part of the leadership team and I share. Here's where we're going. This is what we're going to do. Okay. And then you, Craig, see the world through your eyes and your experience and your expertise.

00;08;41;01 - 00;09;03;09
Nils Vinje
And you interpret what I say. And you do make decisions based on what you think is best. And then at a leadership team, member number two does the exact same thing. And leadership team member them or three does the exact same thing. So all of a sudden we have this set, you know, we're going in this direction. And then each member of the leadership team is making decisions based on what they think is best, but they're not all truly aligned.

00;09;03;10 - 00;09;06;13
Nils Vinje
And that's where a lot of misuse, misplaced and,

00;09;06;16 - 00;09;27;00
Nils Vinje
just wasted energy goes is in everybody thinking that they're doing what is best, when in reality what we have to do is bring the entire team together, get complete and total alignment about the entire plan. Then we are all executing from the exact same source and not interpreting and making decisions based on what only we think is best.

00;09;27;02 - 00;09;29;29
Craig Andrews
Okay.

00;09;30;02 - 00;09;33;27
Craig Andrews
That makes sense. The,

00;09;34;00 - 00;09;37;12
Craig Andrews
Well I don't know. Let me come back up. How do you get into this?

00;09;37;14 - 00;09;45;28
Nils Vinje
Yeah. So everything I've done in my career up to this point is perfectly prepared me to do this work with leadership teams.

00;09;46;01 - 00;09;56;27
Nils Vinje
I'll give you the real quick backstory. I can break my career into three acts. Act one was working inside fast growing B2B, SAS technology companies in and around Silicon Valley.

00;09;57;00 - 00;10;04;18
Nils Vinje
I'm talking venture funded. Growth was the only and that was the only thing anybody cared about.

00;10;04;20 - 00;10;33;04
Nils Vinje
Those environments were 24/7, 365 incredibly intense. And I learned so much inside of their got up to the executive ranks, was at the VP level, and I worked myself out of my job because I put the people in the systems and everything in place to the point where I wasn't needed anymore. It could run my department ran without me, and so I decided then to enter act two, which was I was going to go out, become a consultant, and help organizations do the same things that I had done inside of the companies.

00;10;33;06 - 00;10;52;10
Nils Vinje
And I did that for the next ten plus years where I worked with everybody from early stage growth, stage scale, stage, public private PE backs, bootstrapped, you name it, all the way up to fortune 100 companies to help them build these incredible systems and work people out of jobs. And that was a lot of fun and made a lot of progress and helped ultimately help these clients,

00;10;52;13 - 00;10;53;28
Nils Vinje
retain and grow their customer base.

00;10;53;29 - 00;11;02;20
Nils Vinje
And then act three is the pinnacle act. And this is all about taking everything I've learned as a leadership coach, bestselling author on that leadership book. You mentioned,

00;11;02;23 - 00;11;17;23
Nils Vinje
all my work looking outside companies. I work inside companies. And then bringing that with and combining it with the unique pinnacle system in order to help these leadership teams come together, align, and then scale as fast as they want to grow.

00;11;17;26 - 00;11;28;01
Craig Andrews
Okay. And, you know, I have one of the things I heard it had to be at least ten years ago was I heard,

00;11;28;01 - 00;11;41;29
Craig Andrews
Silicon Valley was just like microdosing LSD left and right. And they were doing it not not for enjoyment, but more that they felt like they had to, because I guess it's it's,

00;11;41;29 - 00;11;43;10
Craig Andrews
like some type of amphetamine.

00;11;43;11 - 00;11;58;27
Craig Andrews
It gives you energy. And I just remember listening to that report and just made me so sad that, you know, you have to sit there and you have to do all of this, just not again, not for pleasure, but just for survival.

00;11;58;29 - 00;12;14;28
Nils Vinje
Yeah. Oh, 100%. I never partook in any of that, but I certainly can understand it, given the environment that I saw and was in and the pressure that was there. And like I said, like it was it was a great part of my career. And it was also the reason that I had to move on to the next act.

00;12;15;01 - 00;12;18;21
Nils Vinje
I it wasn't sustainable for me having a family, wanting to,

00;12;18;21 - 00;12;27;21
Nils Vinje
wanting to not be 24, 73, 65 but that was the reality of the world that lived in. And I learned a tremendous amount and take all those

00;12;27;24 - 00;12;33;21
Nils Vinje
relationships and learnings with me and bringing that into, you know, every type of business, whether it's a,

00;12;33;24 - 00;12;34;21
Nils Vinje
one of my clients, the,

00;12;34;28 - 00;12;36;08
Nils Vinje
fence menu, fence,

00;12;36;08 - 00;12;40;20
Nils Vinje
residential fence company, just putting residential fences in homes around homes.

00;12;40;20 - 00;12;42;06
Nils Vinje
And then another one is,

00;12;42;06 - 00;13;02;02
Nils Vinje
doing the heavy duty trailer repair. Right. So there's these. And another one is a digital marketing agency. So there's these vast different disciplines that I get to work with today that I'm able to adapt all the background and expertise and experiences I've had, because the principles of what it means to grow and scale and business remain the same.

00;13;02;02 - 00;13;17;10
Nils Vinje
And that's what I focus on. I focus on the principles and then apply them in a customized way to each of my clients situation. So regardless of what industry they're in, they're getting best in class from a principles perspective, customized to their specific and unique situation.

00;13;17;13 - 00;13;29;09
Craig Andrews
So I'm curious what what are. Yeah. So a lot of what you're fixing is dysfunction. And I'm sure you got like some salacious story of like the dysfunction on steroids. What what's,

00;13;29;09 - 00;13;32;09
Craig Andrews
what's a good example?

00;13;32;12 - 00;13;34;04
Nils Vinje
So yes, there are a great many,

00;13;34;04 - 00;13;36;02
Nils Vinje
stories that have dysfunction.

00;13;36;05 - 00;13;48;20
Nils Vinje
But here's the reality. When it comes to dysfunction, it's only dysfunctional when you look at it from the outside. Right, right. And what I mean is when you're in it day to day, it's just normal. And that's the way a lot of people live.

00;13;48;20 - 00;14;15;01
Nils Vinje
So when CEOs I talked to come and say that they're carrying all the weight of the company on their shoulders, right? Or they're constantly just putting out fires or they, you know, can't believe that nobody else thinks as passionately and drives as hard about growing the business as they do. Right? That's the frustration that exists. And while they might be living in absolute chaos and dysfunction, they just see it as the reality of the day to day.

00;14;15;07 - 00;14;33;29
Nils Vinje
Now you take somebody from the outside, like myself and I come in and I ask some questions about how things run. I might label that is dysfunctional, but they don't. Right. And that's totally fine. It's just my perspective, my opinion. So my job is to see the holes that my clients can't see for themselves because they're literally involved in it every day.

00;14;34;01 - 00;14;48;14
Nils Vinje
You know, the same thing in your business, right? When you're involved in something day to day, you can't see the gaps. But then you meet with a coach and they ask you one powerful question and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I totally how did I miss that? How am I not doing that? How are you going down this path?

00;14;48;16 - 00;14;49;29
Nils Vinje
And so that's, you know, that's

00;14;49;29 - 00;14;54;05
Nils Vinje
how I view the dysfunction piece that nobody thinks it's dysfunctional.

00;14;54;08 - 00;15;07;17
Nils Vinje
But in reality that is wasted energy that could be channeled together into go into one direction to make them help them grow and scale faster.

00;15;07;20 - 00;15;11;03
Craig Andrews
I'm, I'm still interested in,

00;15;11;06 - 00;15;13;14
Craig Andrews
I like salacious stories. Okay.

00;15;13;17 - 00;15;14;02
Craig Andrews
The,

00;15;14;04 - 00;15;25;11
Nils Vinje
I got well, I got, I got, I gotta go in for this is from back in the Silicon Valley days. Yeah. This this is, this is prime time fast growth inside this particular company. We had,

00;15;25;11 - 00;15;28;24
Nils Vinje
I joined them when they had just raised their a round of funding. It was probably,

00;15;28;24 - 00;15;30;21
Nils Vinje
10 or $15 million a round.

00;15;30;24 - 00;15;33;12
Nils Vinje
I was with them for three and a half years.

00;15;33;15 - 00;15;39;01
Nils Vinje
During that time they raised a B round of funding as well, which was in the 30 to $35 million range.

00;15;39;04 - 00;15;55;19
Nils Vinje
They were a darling of the venture capital that funded them at the time because we had some incredible growth. And the organization where every time a startup goes through these stages, going from 0 to 1 million, that's a big shift.

00;15;55;19 - 00;16;16;19
Nils Vinje
Going from 1 to 5 million is a big shift. 5 to 10 is big, and then you get 10 to 20 and 20 to 50. Those are kind of the general big chunks that people go through or you think about. And it's often true that every team and across the company has to evolve significantly, because the team at a million is very different than the team you need at 5,000,010 million, right?

00;16;16;19 - 00;16;18;18
Nils Vinje
So this particular company,

00;16;18;21 - 00;16;45;17
Nils Vinje
we remain we retain the same CEO the entire time who acted also like a CTO. But we changed out the leadership team. No joke. Every August, every and every August for three years, the entire leadership team gone. And I was I was not on the leadership team at the time. I was working inside the company and it was the weirdest environment because, you know what happens every time you bring in a new leadership team, the entire company and culture changes.

00;16;45;23 - 00;17;09;23
Nils Vinje
And we had the same CEO, but they weren't quite strong enough to drive the entire thing. So we, you know, started with the early stage scrappy leadership team. Then they got kicked out and and brought in this other, you know, higher level head scaled businesses leadership team. And it completely destroyed the entire culture. Everybody was a mess right to the point where we eventually only way we exited was through a

00;17;09;23 - 00;17;10;20
Nils Vinje
merger.

00;17;10;23 - 00;17;14;19
Nils Vinje
Call it in quotes, because we essentially got acquired by another company,

00;17;14;22 - 00;17;31;14
Nils Vinje
because we fell apart. Right. So it was such shortsighted thinking on that. Well, we just need a different, different leadership team and everything will be solved in 12 months. And then they after 12 months, they're like, now that we need a different leadership team. And it's like you're looking very far past, you know, this quarter.

00;17;31;14 - 00;17;38;15
Nils Vinje
And and that was one of the most interesting times because it was a whiplash type of environment for us employees.

00;17;38;17 - 00;17;43;28
Craig Andrews
Well, you know, one quote that comes to mind is from General Patton.

00;17;44;01 - 00;17;46;19
Craig Andrews
And when one of the greatest generals in American history.

00;17;46;22 - 00;17;47;25
Nils Vinje
Yeah.

00;17;47;27 - 00;18;09;26
Craig Andrews
And he was he would talk about the difference between strategy and tactics. And he said, strategy, you wouldn't be like a steamroller. You set a direction and you go tactics. You don't want to be like steamroller. You win. Respond to the situation. And he actually said you you want to attack weaknesses. Grab them by the nose and kick them in the pants.

00;18;09;29 - 00;18;12;25
Craig Andrews
Which in the 1940s I imagine was quite vulgar.

00;18;12;27 - 00;18;14;18
Nils Vinje
Yeah, 100%.

00;18;14;20 - 00;18;15;28
Craig Andrews
But

00;18;16;00 - 00;18;29;01
Craig Andrews
the what you're describing seems to violate the whole steamroller thing. If you're checking out the leadership team every year, you have a schizophrenic steamroller that's like on ice and just spinning around.

00;18;29;04 - 00;18;40;05
Nils Vinje
Yeah. And that's why the eventually the CEO head was forced to step down by the board, and a board member stepped in and negotiated the sale or merging,

00;18;40;09 - 00;18;49;18
Nils Vinje
of that company with another company because we, we had they had misplaced so much of the trust of, well, the employees and the leadership and the strategy and the steamroller.

00;18;49;18 - 00;19;11;01
Nils Vinje
There was nothing. And we were just a bunch of people trying to find a way inside of a venture capital funded that wanted more, exponentially more growth. And we were ever going to be able to deliver it because nobody was aligned. Everybody had a different opinion on where we should go and what we should do, and it was an absolute complete disaster and a big waste of close to 50 million bucks.

00;19;11;01 - 00;19;11;10
Nils Vinje
And,

00;19;11;10 - 00;19;18;18
Nils Vinje
and raised capital by that point in time. They went on and they continued. And when they merged with the other company, I left at that point,

00;19;18;21 - 00;19;26;01
Nils Vinje
because it wasn't a great environment and moved on. But it was a it was a significant investment for sure.

00;19;26;03 - 00;19;36;25
Craig Andrews
You know, and it's interesting, you know, living outside Silicon Valley, you look at it is kind of this enchanted place where entrepreneurs go and they and change the world and make a fortune doing it.

00;19;36;28 - 00;19;39;14
Nils Vinje
Yeah. It's it's it's a,

00;19;39;16 - 00;19;59;25
Nils Vinje
it's a great story. It's an incredible story until you've lived it, until you've been in that world and know what it really takes, what it means, how it works. That's the view that most people should probably keep. Yeah. When you've been in it, it's just you see everything through a different lens. And again, very valuable lessons regardless.

00;19;59;28 - 00;20;00;07
Nils Vinje
Right.

00;20;00;07 - 00;20;21;06
Nils Vinje
That was a very strong point of how not to run a business. But from the outside, all that was championed was there around and be around funding. And the fact that if you get that big of a jump on a brand, that means your valuation has significantly increased. So from the outside, it looks magical, looks wonderful, like you're incredibly successful on the inside.

00;20;21;08 - 00;20;22;26
Nils Vinje
Completely different story.

00;20;22;28 - 00;20;29;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, if we dial it back to smaller businesses, you know, my,

00;20;29;15 - 00;20;39;02
Craig Andrews
and I, I'm thinking of a business. I didn't work there, but, you know, I heard some stories of it, and the,

00;20;39;04 - 00;20;52;23
Craig Andrews
The head of HR was, like, sharing people's salaries and other confidential information. And, I mean, I just remember hearing these stories, I'm like, somebody is going to get sued at some point.

00;20;52;25 - 00;20;55;17
Nils Vinje
Yeah.

00;20;55;20 - 00;20;59;28
Craig Andrews
And the, you know, the CEO was just this great guy.

00;21;00;03 - 00;21;06;19
Craig Andrews
But just. You know, one of those, I would say accidentally successful.

00;21;06;21 - 00;21;09;05
Nils Vinje
Yes I understand.

00;21;09;08 - 00;21;19;02
Craig Andrews
And so when you're going into a company what, what are some of the first things that you're looking at to figure out. You know hey we need to make some changes.

00;21;19;05 - 00;21;19;15
Nils Vinje
Yeah.

00;21;19;15 - 00;21;38;05
Nils Vinje
Number one is the mindset first and foremost that there is a desire to change and evolve and improve. And most of my clients get to the point where they've tried a lot of things on their own, and they've accepted and realized and are vulnerable enough to say that I can't do this by myself. I need help.

00;21;38;08 - 00;21;58;04
Nils Vinje
So great. That's that's like checkpoint number one. If I talk to a CEO and they're hunky dory, even if they're in a state of chaos and they, you know, still think they can do it on their own, that's awesome. I applaud them and we'll support them. But there's nothing I can really do because they have to be 100% bonding and saying, you know what, the way we've done things up to this point has got us here.

00;21;58;06 - 00;22;06;07
Nils Vinje
But and the famous quote and the famous book, what got us here is I'm going to get us there. And so then they need to start looking outside. So that's, that's number one.

00;22;06;10 - 00;22;08;27
Nils Vinje
Number two is really looking at

00;22;09;03 - 00;22;21;21
Nils Vinje
well across the these five principles that I was mentioning earlier. So there's five core principles that make an incredible business and will help you grow and scale if you get complete and total alignment of your leadership team around them.

00;22;21;28 - 00;22;22;29
Nils Vinje
Very simply,

00;22;23;02 - 00;22;33;24
Nils Vinje
Jim Collins nailed it with the first one, right? Which is people, we got to get the right people in the right seats doing the right things. Right and good. The great champion that it was, it was just a pivotal point in,

00;22;33;24 - 00;22;41;14
Nils Vinje
in business world books and things. And still is that lasting will be a lasting impression for a long, long, long time.

00;22;41;17 - 00;22;58;00
Nils Vinje
So we get the right people in the right seats. And usually when I ask the question, are the right people in the right seats? The answer is no, either you know, people are in long seats or we don't. People have been in seats for a long period of time, and perhaps they're really strong culture fits and they've been around, but productivity is a little bit lower.

00;22;58;00 - 00;23;22;07
Nils Vinje
So there's assessments and things that we do to understand do we have the right people in the right seats in order to hit the next stage of growth? Right. That's number one. Number two is the purpose. Is it clear why the company even exists without a clear and compelling purpose? Everybody's just showing up for either a paycheck, a job or to check things out the list, which doesn't really inspire a whole lot of motivation, dedication, engagement, etc..

00;23;22;10 - 00;23;43;12
Nils Vinje
So the big risk when companies having to find a purpose because then everybody just, you know, does their job right, as opposed to everybody rallying together around this bigger purpose that they all agree to and all buy into, that's a much more powerful and engaged culture than one where people just show up to get a paycheck. The third one are playbooks.

00;23;43;15 - 00;24;01;23
Nils Vinje
So if we have people in the right seats like I'm them giving them a compelling purpose, then we got to give them playbooks to ensure that there's consistency across the board. So we're looking for a single point of failure within the organization and key people who have been there a long time. And all of the retention, all the information about what's going on is in their head.

00;24;01;25 - 00;24;21;24
Nils Vinje
That is a massive, massive risk to the business as a whole, right? The fourth is performance. And so we got to help them perform at an exceptionally high level. This involves, you know, setting clear targets, having great scoreboards, having ways that we can track and measure productivity, but also coach, enhance and guide the performance of every individual inside the company.

00;24;21;27 - 00;24;39;05
Nils Vinje
And then the fifth is really a byproduct. So if we get the right people in the right seats, we honor them with a compelling purpose. We give them the right playbooks. We help them perform at an exceptionally high level. Then we get number five, which is profit, right? And that is essentially the market's response to how valuable a service you provide.

00;24;39;05 - 00;25;01;17
Nils Vinje
And when I say you, I mean the the company as a collective whole, everybody from the CEO all the way down to the front line, you know, person working phones, that is the ultimate measure of how well or how much the market values what you deliver. So when I'm talking to the CEO, I'm asking questions to understand where they are across those five principles.

00;25;01;19 - 00;25;11;29
Nils Vinje
And then there are gaps in one or more or all of them. And that's okay. And that's what we're going to ultimately do to drive the alignment is fill those gaps.

00;25;12;02 - 00;25;17;08
Craig Andrews
Well that's cool. That's cool. That banks

00;25;17;10 - 00;25;24;28
Craig Andrews
makes a ton of sense. Nails. This just seems so incredibly basic but some incredibly powerful.

00;25;25;00 - 00;25;26;04
Nils Vinje
Yes. That is the

00;25;26;04 - 00;25;30;02
Nils Vinje
I like to call it simplicity on the far side of complexity.

00;25;30;04 - 00;25;34;28
Craig Andrews
Oh I love it. How can how can people reach you?

00;25;35;00 - 00;25;41;17
Nils Vinje
I love to connect on LinkedIn. So my name is pretty unique. So there's only one of me. It's pretty easy to find an eye and spell that.

00;25;41;18 - 00;25;43;00
Craig Andrews
Just spell that just so people.

00;25;43;07 - 00;25;57;02
Nils Vinje
Yeah. And as a nick, I l s as in Sam and then vineyard and Victor I Angie nails vineyard. Find me on LinkedIn. My website is my name nails vineyard.com. Really easy, really simple. And sure it'll be in the show notes

00;25;57;04 - 00;26;03;03
Nils Vinje
as well for them to click through. And yeah, I'd love to connect on LinkedIn. Let's have a chat even wherever you are.

00;26;03;10 - 00;26;29;25
Nils Vinje
Right? Even if you are not running a company today and still have to have a conversation, if you are running a company you want to scale, you want to grow, have an interest in aligning your leadership team. Even if you don't have a leadership team, it's okay. It's never too early to start planning for these things. Once you get past ten employees and once you get past 2 million bucks, and whether you're going to 5 to 10, 20 to 50, right, there are there pathways that have already been laid by others that you can follow?

00;26;29;25 - 00;26;37;17
Nils Vinje
Success leaves clues. And I've got some keys to that kingdom from a success path, and I would love to share them with you.

00;26;37;19 - 00;26;40;18
Craig Andrews
Well that's awesome. Well, thanks for coming on Layers and Legacies.

00;26;40;21 - 00;26;49;25
Nils Vinje
My pleasure. Greg, thank you for having me.

00;26;49;27 - 00;27;11;19
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;27;11;19 - 00;27;13;14
Craig Andrews
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00;27;13;16 - 00;27;36;26
Craig Andrews
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00;27;36;28 - 00;27;45;03
Craig Andrews
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00;27;45;03 - 00;27;55;12
Craig Andrews
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