Dr. Travis Parry (00:01.474)
Welcome to another episode of the Balance Growth Show. I'm your host, Dr. Travis Parry. Today I have with us in studio Mark Marrott. Mark has served as a senior business development executive, notably in HR tech and business management. He is the CEO and co-founder of Veo Hill, a venture created with his wife to launch and scale companies, mentor individuals, and provide consulting services for business leaders.

He's also the host of the Double Helix Podcast. Mark, welcome to the show, my friend.

Mark Marrott (00:36.243)
thank you for having me. Dr. Parry Travis, what I you know what we've not we've not covered what the officials going to be.

Dr. Travis Parry (00:41.983)
Hahaha

No, you're good. If you introduce me on stage, it's Dr. Parry. Otherwise just call me Travis. So great to have you. And I know we've been doing some chatting in the pre-show. It's so fun to find people who are like-minded and really understand the importance of helping business leaders out there in the community. And you are one who's been doing that really your whole life. So talk to us a little bit. How did you get here? Like, what's your story?

Mark Marrott (00:52.599)
Thank you.

Dr. Travis Parry (01:14.766)
brief fashion, give us kind of the update of how you got to where you are.

Mark Marrott (01:20.599)
Well, yeah, it's a interesting circuitous loop or whatever where we ended up where I am today. So my schooling is, you know, I started as a firefighter, wildland firefighter back. My first year of fire was 1988, which was Yellowstone. And so that's where I started, was there. And as time went on, I was still involved in the fire service.

After the great recession, I went back to school and got some more education. And then I received my degrees in emergency management and emergency services and then went on and spent time with different departments, even speaking at the Governor's Public Safety Summit on building resilient communities. And so as time went on.

You know, I use those same emergency management thought processes and techniques into the business world. And so there's a lot of things that carry over. And so it was just an interesting journey to go from that fire mentality then into the business world, being able to run a couple of different companies. And then to where I'm at now, where I spend a lot of time working with senior executives and working through with their HR and staffing needs and things like

like that.

Dr. Travis Parry (02:49.772)
Wonderful. So you've been able to really understand business and leadership and what would you say is one of the biggest issues that these business leaders face, business owners face in trying to grow and scale their own businesses.

Mark Marrott (03:07.863)
I think one of the biggest issues that I see and that I've seen over time is that sometimes, especially if you're trying to scale from, know, if you're a small company or a medium sized company, it's they forget often what it's like on that front line. They don't have that trust level with those frontline employees anymore. They know what needs to get done. So, hey, let's go, let's go, let's go. There's a drive in them.

but it's not often communicated well with the people that are actually doing that day-to-day work. And so there's a disconnect in that trust level from that leadership to the guy who's sweeping the floor so he doesn't understand why he's doing what he's doing.

Dr. Travis Parry (03:53.806)
I love it. There's so much to unpack there. Talk to us a little bit about how you mentor and lead business leaders to reverse that or to solve that.

Mark Marrott (04:06.743)
Well, I think a couple of things. I think the first of all, they really have to, you know, we all have a certain number of people that we are directly connected with.

And that number varies with every one of us. usually and I think every one of us can probably count on one hand how many people are really, really close to us. Right. And outside of that, it gets fewer and fewer time that we spend with them. And so when I'm talking with different business leaders, one of the things we talk about is is being able to first of all, they need to look up.

because we get so used to as business leaders, they're down at their desk, they're at their computer, they're just so focused on their own stuff, they don't realize what's going on around them. So just becoming aware is the first thing, is to look up, to see what they're seeing, see what's happening, right? Get out there. When I ran a construction company, I would go out there with the guys.

What's going on? How are you doing this? Right. And I actually would show up on scene at a job site and go, OK, let's pretend I know nothing. What are we? Why are we doing this?

Help me understand what the why are you breaking it this way or you're nailing whatever it is. What's the purpose behind that? So to look up first of all and the next thing I would say is is that servant leadership when I went out and worked alongside with the guys at each company that I've had an opportunity to be a leader in getting in and not being afraid to get my hands dirty remembering what it's like to be on that front line.

Mark Marrott (05:42.262)
Right. Because that's the hardest part. As one of the leaders in my company, you know, sometimes it's, know, wait, I got to learn how to do this again. Right. Because things have changed. And so you have to have that perspective. And then I think the last thing is we need to leaders need to allow their people to make mistakes, not make mistakes that are going to cost the company a ton of money. But that leader did not get where they are. Perfection.

They went through that themselves. And often what I would do with my people, if they had a problem or a struggle, I often tell them, don't come to me just with the problem, come to me with the problem and let's bring two or three solutions. And then let's talk about that. So they have the best information possible. those are the things that I, right off the top of my head, that's how I like to structure that. And once you get that far, then you find that now you have employees that will sing, I say this this way,

Sing your praises, right? I still, and I'm humbled by this every time it happens, I get calls from certain people that I have not worked with in years checking on me, right? Mark, how are things? You you were this or you were that, and I'm always humbled when someone takes that time to share with me what it meant to work with them along these lines.

Dr. Travis Parry (07:13.442)
You know, something you mentioned there is that proactive way of thinking, right? Of, like you can, you can find a problem, but are you coming with solutions? If not solving the problem yourself, right? I mean, that's always, and we were talking to the pre-show about a funny book now that I'm thinking about it. And maybe you can elaborate on that concept of, the poop experiment. Is that what it's called?

Mark Marrott (07:41.156)
no, the poop initiative. Yeah, the poop initiative. Yeah, that was written by his name is Kirk Weisler. He's a national speaker. He's been a friend of mine for.

Dr. Travis Parry (07:42.69)
Poop Initiative. It kind of reminds me of that. Yeah, why don't you explain that?

Mark Marrott (07:54.968)
20 some odd years, but he wrote the book and it was based off of a real life experience he had where he was an assistant soccer coach, if I remember correctly, and if Kirk watches this, you can correct me later, but he was on the field and as he showed up to the game to help coach this game, one of the parents pulled him aside and said, hey, over in the field over here is a big pile of dog poop.

you want to avoid it over there because the kids were literally avoiding going in that area because there was poop on the field and then the referee came and said hey there's a big pile of dog poop over there so we're going to avoid the area.

Kirk and the head coach of the team looked at each other and went, why are we doing this? So they went over and got stuff and cleaned up the poop and threw it away. And the whole premise of the book is, is to, if we see something, do something about it. We don't just point it out and go, you know, that's so bad. That's a mess over there. I'm so sorry to see that. Right. One of the favorite things that my wife does when we're off and about, we love to go back in the back country and, you know, four wheeling back there.

I always come back with trash because we're driving down the road and she has that mentality says there's a can on the side of the road we hop out throw the can in the back of the truck we drive so it's that whole thought process of why leave it for someone else if we can instill that in the people we work with well then look how much more we get done

Dr. Travis Parry (09:28.046)
Yeah. And you know, this, this, this is a struggle in the workplace where we have kind of this top down, you know, um, system of, I know others have talked about this, including, um, the blue ocean strategy, the revised edition talks about, know, where these officers, these, comes from this vernacular comes from the military. So a lot of our workplaces are militaristic do as I say, not as I do.

Mark Marrott (09:32.0)
It is.

Mark Marrott (09:51.243)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Travis Parry (09:57.641)
or you're fired type of thing. I know you talk about company culture and organization. So that's a struggle, but what you're saying is you gotta kinda buck that, right? And turn around and say, hey, this is an issue, come and let's talk about it, come with solutions. You wanna elaborate on that in any way there?

Mark Marrott (10:03.296)
Yeah.

Mark Marrott (10:15.712)
Yes.

Mark Marrott (10:20.843)
Well, you know, there's a couple of things. What came to mind as you were just talking about is a book called Turn the Ship Around, which was, I don't know if you've read that particular book yet, but it was written by a US Navy sub commander. And I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he talks about that where he shows up into a ship and it is a paramilitary organization, kind of like what we're talking about in a lot of companies where the...

Commander gives the order and everybody else just follows and he actually shifted how that happened on that sub and he went from the lowest rated sub crew in the Navy Which is crazy to the highest rated sub crew in the Navy With most people coming back, know reenlisting and wanting to be there He had the most promotions coming out of his boat because of his shift and what how they did it along these lines, right and so elaborating on

on that culture side of things, you know, and I was hired by a company a few years ago to to come in and run them. It amazed me for the first two or three weeks. I literally had a line at my door of people that would show up, you know, have a problem. Next got a problem next. I mean, it was two or three weeks all day long. And that's when I finally said, OK, hang on.

We're all, and this is how I feel, we're all adults. You're very smart people. You were hired because we trusted you. So what do you think? How do we solve this? And the first time I asked somebody that, it was like hitting the reset switch in their brain, because they totally stopped and they looked at me blank stared like, I don't know how to answer this. Because the culture before was do what I say. And now I'm saying, what do you want to do?

And it was fun to see that it took us a little bit of time, but that slow shift in culture where then they were making decisions because they knew how the parameters were. They could play within this certain field, right? As the leader, I kind of outlined, here's the field we play in. But other than that, as long as we're getting and going the same direction, I'm good. Just keep me informed. And as time went on, that's what we saw.

Dr. Travis Parry (12:44.386)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And that, that will grow the business, right? That that will leaps and bounds company culture is so important. We could spend hours just talking about that at the solution and the framework you've been talking about here. What would you say is, the most impactful point? What would you say is the number one thing that companies, you know, out of the things you've been talking about here to, to, help grow and scale. What's the number one thing?

Mark Marrott (12:50.741)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Marrott (13:16.725)
The number one thing out of this framework, I think, is...

it's hard to nail number one, right Travis? Because I'm sitting there going, yeah but this is important and this is important, right? And so I think...

Dr. Travis Parry (13:26.21)
Right.

They're all important. Yeah.

Mark Marrott (13:38.592)
If we're going to actually grow because my job and a lot of times and this is what I've told my teams is my job is to train you to replace me. Right. I want to bring you in. So if I go on vacation or if something happens to me and I leave or whatever it is, the company does not miss a beat. We don't get hurt as an organization by Mark going on vacation. Right. That's that's the easiest thing. If I go on a week vacation, is it going to fall apart?

Right. That's the worst thing you want to have. So I think the number one thing for me is is allowing your people and teaching them that that learning how to make mistakes, learning how to make decisions so that because if they if they can make those based off of the parameters that we set as leaders, I don't have to be there.

every moment of every day. The other things, the servant leadership comes when I'm there, you know, looking up, all that comes into play. But if I can help them understand how to make a good decision based off of the company values, then we're in a really good place.

Dr. Travis Parry (14:43.47)
Yeah, it's this idea that we're all vested in the greater good. What's the mission vision values of the company, et cetera. But so many people still aren't really in it. They're in it for their paycheck or for their own promotion or their next step. And so a lot of them are vying for themselves. But when they're team players, it really moves the entire company forward.

Mark Marrott (15:05.664)
Yes.

Dr. Travis Parry (15:09.026)
And the irony is they're more likely to get what they want by helping everybody else get what they want, at least according to Zig Ziglar, right? So if that's the most important piece, then tell us what, what, what should we'll take it from two perspectives. What can the business owner do to help create this company culture? Cause that's nice. Like that's theory. Yeah. Yeah. But in reality, like it's always so much different.

Mark Marrott (15:16.8)
Yep.

Mark Marrott (15:24.554)
Okay.

Mark Marrott (15:31.404)
It's easy to say, yeah.

Dr. Travis Parry (15:37.143)
What should or could business owners do to help change this company culture around of let's, let's be business builders together versus individualistic and only care about what you have and not go pick up the poop on the soccer field. Like you were talking about. and then from the perspective of the, you know, those, the employees, maybe even managers, middle managers to the, know, to the newest employee hired yesterday.

from their perspective what can be done. What are a couple things that each can do? So top down, bottom up.

Mark Marrott (16:16.011)
Also for the top down, think, let me think for a second here, because my brain went running as you were talking about the 100 different things that I could respond, right? And so from a top, what's that? So from a top down standpoint, I think, you know, what can they do?

Dr. Travis Parry (16:30.7)
Yeah, no sweat. Yeah, no sweat. Keep going.

Mark Marrott (16:40.995)
I think it really has to start with a conversation. Now often in companies where the culture is fractured or broken or just decimated, right? I mean, because we've seen everywhere in between. think a really great question to start having the conversation because we have to have a conversation. The problem is you can't expect them to believe you.

the first time you sit down and say, all right, we're going to fix our culture. Yeah, whatever. Right. But if we sit down with these individually and we say something along the lines of, okay, I want to try, I want to get better and I want to try something different. Are you in with me to try something different? And that way we start getting there buying. And so this is what I want to do. I am going to...

When you come to me with some struggles, can you come with a solution or two and then we can talk about what works best? Can you, you know, we start teaching them how to do that, but we have to approach that with their permission, because once we have their acceptance, then they have just a little bit of buy-in, right? And I think that's something that leaders have to do, because often what they do is that paramilitary standpoint. New initiative.

We're doing this. And that does not bode well for the frontline workers. They don't care about what Bob the Builder at the top is going to do because it doesn't affect how I'm sweeping the floor as an example. But from the other perspective of what someone can, from that frontline worker, what they can do.

is they can actually start, you know, as as the leader does his step. We all have to do that step, right? And so there's nothing wrong with trying to in Maxwell's book, 360 degree leader, because we all are leaders, right? Being able to help with that process and have those conversations. There's nothing wrong with I love it when a worker comes to me and says, Hey,

Mark Marrott (19:07.371)
Can I throw an idea at you? I'm thinking this, but you only get to that point by having some good positive interactions over time. They're not going to walk up day one. Now, but we have to as leaders be willing to hear that when they come with an idea because you know what? We hired them because they're smart.

And when they're smart, they got ideas. And that can help our business be more profitable, more efficient, and more productive.

Dr. Travis Parry (19:40.336)
Yeah. And what's interesting, I have done almost 250 episodes of this podcast or whatever for years now. And the biggest thing that comes up when I've asked these questions, when I've looked into how businesses grow and scale, a lot of times this D word comes up delegation. You've alluded to it. Uh, he talked about it. Um, he didn't mention it by name, but it, it,

Mark Marrott (20:02.891)
Hehehehehe

Dr. Travis Parry (20:09.259)
It's so incredible that we hire these people to work for us. And the ones that do the best jobs are the ones who are not constantly told what to do all the time. They learn what it is their role is, but they evolve in their role by adding more and more value to the company.

Mark Marrott (20:22.859)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Travis Parry (20:34.735)
And that doesn't mean they take on others roles. It doesn't mean that they, you know, overstep boundaries, but they learn how to be so good at that job that they are what my friend Dave Crenshaw has written a book on called invaluable. When you become invaluable, it's because they don't want to lose you at that point. You do such a good job. Um, and, and you're, you're one of those who helps to solve all the problems. People turn to you for the solutions.

Mark Marrott (20:55.51)
Yeah.

Dr. Travis Parry (21:04.011)
And you know, so what you're saying is create a culture of, those who, who really understand, how to, you know, be essentially proactive and go pick up the dog poop off the field. Like, I love this concept. It keeps coming back to me now that we're having this conversation, but yet business owners really struggle to let go and delegate. Because in past, yeah. In past they've been burned because people don't do, they don't follow through. Yeah, go ahead.

Mark Marrott (21:20.919)
You

Mark Marrott (21:26.855)
a difficult thing.

Mark Marrott (21:33.75)
Yeah, yeah, you know, and I've been with companies where they have that attitude. The owners are like, but this is what this is the way we've always done it. Well, do you want to grow or do you want to stay the same? I'm OK with either way, right? I mean, I just need to know what you want me to focus on, right? Because if you want to grow, I'm going to show you how we do this, right? If you want to stay the same. I'm probably not the right guy. Right. And so, yeah, this it's it's it's fascinating.

from from all different levels within an organization of what can be done when when it just starts going right. To give an example, I've got a huge project today that we got we got dumped on by a client yesterday and it's in another state. And so I can't do it all myself to get all the all the pieces arranged. There are just there's dozens of pieces to make this come together.

And it's great because I can turn around and I started the process and then I'm just getting reports back because my team knows, this is where we're at. OK, Mark, we're on this piece. OK, Mark, we're here. We're there.

This is awesome. You guys are amazing. Right. And I think that the last thing that we need to make certain as leaders that we do is we acknowledge when our team actually does something well, I'm not in to take credit for myself. I will tell you every team member's name who's rocking today, right? Because they're doing an amazing job. But often leaders where they that last piece that they fail is then.

Dr. Travis Parry (22:42.799)
Yeah.

Mark Marrott (23:07.859)
look what we did as a company and because they're the face they're getting the credit and we forget that no you're not an island unto yourself. This whole team was behind you to help make these things happen.

Dr. Travis Parry (23:24.087)
Yeah, and that's the key. That's the key to the culture. All right, so from the bottom up, what are the two or three things that, know, from the new hire to middle management, you know, upper management maybe, what could they, should they be doing that can help start with this change from the bottom up?

Mark Marrott (23:45.26)
Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind, we're going to roll it right back to it. It's the poop initiative, the dog poop initiative. If I see something, just take care of it. Because it's not an aspect of, that's not my job. Well, I'm sorry. There's almost in every job description out there, one of the last lines is other duties as assigned.

Right? And I don't have to wait for my boss to assign me. If I see something that needs to be done, I can assign myself as long as I'm still getting my job done. I can step into that. One of the greatest compliments that I can give someone that I work with is, you are the Swiss army knife of employees. No matter what I throw at you, you're going to get it done. Right? Because they look at those things. So the first thing is I would say is, don't be afraid to, you know.

Pick it up. Do something. If you see that needs to be get done, if it's something way out of your scope in the sense as there's an expertise factor, you see something, then just let somebody know that you trust. Right. Because you can't expect someone to put a fan belt on a car if they don't know how to fan belt goes on as an example. Right. But if they see something's missing, we can say the next thing I think is.

is all part of culture. The only complaining that we do is up. If I have an issue or if I have a struggle, I'm going to go to my immediate manager or I'm going to go to up the ladder and have that conversation. I'm not going to complain and spread that toxicity that goes with that negativity to all my coworkers and everybody down. If I'm a middle manager, I'm not.

it could go downhill, right? And so I think we need to from a from a bottom from the bottom level, that entry level to the mid level, we just have to remember that everything that we say and do has a direct effect on the overall profitability of the company. And so if we're if we're stirring the pot down there at the bottom, it's doesn't matter what I say at the top, it's not going to happen. So

Dr. Travis Parry (25:53.359)
Hey, so we move.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that that's a key component. Like there, there's another great book out there called the complaint free world. And in a complaint free world, he talks about this idea of like, it's actually not a complaint. If you're going to the person that, you know, can solve it. Like it's you're, you're just having a conversation, but what happens is with social media and with texting and everything else, that, know, and

Mark Marrott (26:14.999)
Exactly, You're right. You're right.

Dr. Travis Parry (26:28.867)
Buzzfeed and all these these these blogs and everything other like we are so used to now complaining about everything and everybody To most people that don't even care But for me if the airline loses my baggage and it's their fault I'm gonna go talk to them about it and I'm gonna say hey, you lost my bag. Where is it? How do I get it back?

Mark Marrott (26:58.849)
Right.

Dr. Travis Parry (26:59.629)
That's not a complaint. That's like trying to solve the problem. But if I lose the bag and you know, it's the airlines fault. But instead I jump onto social media and I go live. Hey everybody. Yeah. Look at me. I'm here in the Delta hub and they lost my bag. I can't believe it. Like what's going to happen. I'm waiting for the CEO to like pick up and realize, wow. I know. And I know this happens. This happens all the time in so many different ways, but

Mark Marrott (27:12.055)
and say, my gosh, these people are horrible. They lost my bag.

Dr. Travis Parry (27:28.719)
Um, you know, if, if we can, if we go to who can solve the problem. Yeah. Yeah. But then also being able to say, okay, and here's some solutions here. Some ideas. Like if I lost, if the bag got lost, I'd be like, Hey, here's the number. I here's the bag number. Here's where my itinerary was. And, you know, it's probably here someplace.

Mark Marrott (27:33.493)
Right, I think that's the biggest key there.

Dr. Travis Parry (27:52.464)
Can you guys track it down? Whatever. And this is a really bad example because this is more of a customer service versus internal and inside the company, but it can work. Yeah.

Mark Marrott (27:59.8)
But that's but but but in reality, but in reality, Travis, that that's still the same. Because whether it's a customer service issue out there externally like that or internally, it's the same thing. It's just in a. You know, we have that same aspect in it at our own job, right? Whether it's an internal customer service issue or an external one, it's still all the fundamentals I believe are the same.

Dr. Travis Parry (28:05.103)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Travis Parry (28:25.367)
Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully this makes sense. Well, Well, awesome. Anything else you would add on the kind of the bottom up approach, anything else that they should do or consider doing.

Mark Marrott (28:37.463)
Well, I know while the leader is going through their changes and adjustments to make things better from from from the teams, take a deep breath that that leader is trying to make adjustments and we need to it needs to go both ways. Right. The leader needs to I mentioned early on, they need to allow someone to make mistakes.

Dr. Travis Parry (28:39.695)
Say it.

Mark Marrott (29:05.767)
As we're going through a new culture shift and change within our organization, those people on the front lines need to have a little bit of grace and a little bit of patience. It's not going to be flawless. We need to go, OK, we're going to recognize that something's going to be a bump in the road maybe, but we're going to be OK. We see the direction that we're going. So I think having patience, because sometimes as those on the front line, they're so used to getting walked on, they have so little patience and we have to make

Dr. Travis Parry (29:34.735)
Mmm.

Mark Marrott (29:35.701)
sure that we can stop and take a deep breath and go, okay, let me step a step back and let me look up and see where things are.

Dr. Travis Parry (29:45.85)
Yeah, virtues. They don't go unrecognized when you exercise patience. That's a great reminder. Thank you for that. Well, I've appreciated this conversation. There's so much we could continue to unpack here. But to be able to have this conversation with somebody who's been in business, who understands, worked with so many leaders and to help change these company cultures, this is just invaluable content today, Mark. I appreciate your story.

your solutions here to help solve some of these issues that business owners face and trying to grow and scale and really improve their culture. Anything that you wanna kind of wrap up with or any final thoughts that you have.

Mark Marrott (30:32.065)
Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't. And of course, I grew up in the military, so I'm like, remiss it in my duties. Let's use the paramilitary language. So I thank you very much for having me on. And I would just, there are so many different ways to go about creating a good culture within a company.

Dr. Travis Parry (30:42.645)
You

Mark Marrott (30:58.315)
that I mean, there's as many ways to do it as almost as there are words in the dictionary. And we need to be able to, we just find the way that resonates with us individually as a leader. And then that's what we start and recognize that just because you start down a certain path, doesn't mean you have to keep going down that path. Cause you might get three steps down and go, it's not working the way I want. So we need to have that patience with ourselves and be willing to go, I need to make

adjustment so that we keep going the direction we need to go.

Dr. Travis Parry (31:32.739)
Yeah, I love it. Thanks for the insights. If people want to reach out to you, follow you, learn more about what you do to help businesses, how can they reach you?

Mark Marrott (31:43.681)
Well, they can reach out obviously through LinkedIn. They can reach out there and or, you know, message us through our podcast, which is Double Helix. It's on YouTube. And so, yeah, we'd love to. And I'll make sure that Travis, you've got the link if you want to put it in the in the notes there and stuff. And those are probably the two best ways to reach out is between those those two.

Dr. Travis Parry (32:09.264)
Thanks again for being here, Mark.

Mark Marrott (32:11.605)
All right. Thank you, Travis.

Dr. Travis Parry (32:13.36)
Yes, and if you guys enjoyed this, like, share, subscribe, do all the things to help spread the message of the Bounce Growth Show. Until next time, remember, live life on purpose.

Mark Marrott (32:18.807)
Yes.