Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook. I'm really stoked today because Herman Sanchez is with us today. For those of you who don't know, many of you do know, he's the founder and the CEO of the ASLINOVA group, where he he actually works with a lot of different business owners navigating, helping them make high decisions that they need to make to increase kind of where their clarity is going to be and to increase that you know operational complexity and clarity within the business. With more than two decades of experience across literally Europe, Latin America, the United States, Herman has built and scaled companies, led acquisitions and structured investments across industries, including hospitality, construction, manufacturing. There's really not a sector that he hasn't touched. His work today focuses on helping leaders bring clarity, discipline, persistence, and accountability to the moments when business decisions really carry real consequences if they're not made properly. So, Herman, welcome to the show today. Glad to be here. Awesome to have you. So let's get right into it because when I look at your experience and the wealth of experience that you have, you touch every sector in industry right now. I've looked at your resume and your CV and whatnot, and you're very good at actually being able to take your discipline and your accountability factors and your clarity and provide that with multiple sectors of different businesses. You've said many leaders don't need more ideas in previous conversations. They actually need more clarity. What usually creates that fog that leaders are trying to operate through?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

I mean, normally leaders, I see a lot of that on our client. When they start the business, their business starts growing, they only sometimes can see in how much the business they want to go. And when business starts being, you know, operational and getting bigger and sometimes even throwing the business, they get the fog from making the wrong decision. They forget, technically they forgot what is the reason why they started this business. And shooting too many ideas, too many decisions, chasing the next one they're gonna be the greatest, instead of the focus on what is the core of the business and from the beginning where they started, and what is that idea they're going to revolutionize or going to move the business forward. That's happened a lot.

Jason Taylor 2:01

Do you often have to remind them why they started the business in the first place before they got all this kind of chaos in their world?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

In our consulting company, this is the conversation how we start actually. We started the conversation like why is the reason that you got in the industry? What is the reason you started this business? Because if you don't connect with that, and sometimes, you know, I get the answer, typical answer. I started here because I want to make a lot of money. I started here because I I thought was a good idea. But I mean, it can be solvable, right? Because eventually you fall in love with it. Normally they tend to fall in love, but we help them to fall in love with the passion, what they're actually doing. But we have to look at for that perspective. If you are in an industry or doing a business that you hate, it's like it's become a job. You don't want to, yeah, this is not pay enough for a company to be like a job will be miserable.

Jason Taylor 2:46

Yeah. Once you remind them on why they started this in the first place, is there ever any kind of feedback to you on, yeah, I have to get back there. How do I get back there to loving this again?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, we help them again. We help them to identify the reason to get connected to the company or to connect to why they started or why they got into their dream. We try to help them to go in the past mentally through some of the process to help them to reconnect with the passion and the why, why they continue doing this basically. One thing that I always do when I try to, when I help a client and I put them in the position, I tell my team, you gotta put yourself in the position that you are buying this company and you're buying into this CEO, they're going to run this organization. And sometimes I gotta tell them, look, the way that you're doing things, I'll fire you right now. The good thing is that I don't have the power to fire you, but you have the power to change things, and this is the thing that you need to start moving forward. So, but yeah, it's it's a very interesting one.

Jason Taylor 3:41

How do they react when you say that directly to them? When you say something that says, hey, listen, if it was up to me right now and I was buying this business, I'd fire you. What kind of feedback or what kind of reactions do you get from them when you say stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

I mean, surprisingly enough, the majority of them, they know. Yeah. They agree. I know. I mean, otherwise, why did they start be in front of them, right? They are doing everything great. They wouldn't even call me. This is more like, yeah, I know, but point me out what exactly what I'm doing wrong. It's not about doing something wrong and stuff. Sometimes this part of the conversation, they've just forgot what was the reason they were there.

Jason Taylor 4:11

I love that. Herman, you work with owners when decisions are big and they affect people, capital, and control. What separates, in your opinion, leaders who stay steady under the pressure from those who get reactive to the pressure?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

The big difference, and I know it's a simple answer, but I'm gonna extend it a little bit more, is the focus. Again, that focus to drive the leader who is determined to get into a solution, to expand the company, to grow the company, have more clarity. Even though he don't know all the answers, it's not about having all the answers, it's about to be able to find the answers, right? So that focus helps them to make a determined decision rather than the one that, again, focused, concentrated in their business. They have too much going on in their head and in their life that don't allow them to actually make decisions with clarity. It's funny that you mentioned that because I was having a conversation this morning with my kid. We do morning meditation. My wife and my kid, we all get up at the same time around six o'clock in the morning and talk a little bit before they go to school and the day start. And uh, we were talking about the resiliency and somebody determined to achieve something. It's a story I want to share with you. My wife and I were dating. I was living in Spain and she was from the US and we met over there, and we were back and forth long-distance relationship. I used to come here every six months, used to go there every six months. And one of the trips that I was coming to visit, I mean, that was early 2009, maybe, before all the technology developed it is now, right? Something happened. I remembered something happened. My flight got delayed 24 hours, she was in the airport, then she got come back, and at some point we deconnected with the phone. So when I get to New York, she knows that I would be landing in New York. So she had to find a phone number for the for the airline and get hold of me to let me know that she would be waiting for me in Chicago. So that one, even back in the day, I mean, you had no Google to Google stuff, and she don't know where to find me. She was 20, 20 something. And she found me there. But then I said to my kid, I had to explain my kid what a pay phone was. Unbelievable, eh? So I was telling them what a pay phone was. I remember it was a pay phone in Chicago. Oh, here, obviously, public uh pay phone. And when I got out there, I didn't speak any English in the moment. And she was concerned about that. You know, speaking English. She said, I'm not there, and I'm on my way there, but I'm not there. I wanna I need to talk to him. So she was so determined and focused that she needs to talk to me. We still don't know how she did it, but she called to that payphone. Wow. A payphone is not receiving calls, you're supposed to pay calls. Yeah. So I didn't know how she called to that pay phone. And the crazy thing, though, I was walking back and forth in the airport, try to understand what to go from here, and I heard the phone ringing a couple of times. And the phone keeps ringing, and the phone came ringing, and I'm like, no way. And something inside of me told me, pick up the phone. And nobody was looking at the phone, it was just me. I was looking at the phone and the phone keep ringing, and I'm looking at the phone, and I decide to pick up so and I say hello, and she said, Baby, that's you. And I'm like, No way, how you got this? That's crazy. That's the focus, the determination. When you decide that you're going to achieve something, you don't allow anything else, no excuses to stop you. So this is our approach in business. My wife is also on our business, she's a business partner here with us, and that's the determination that drives any business. That's why I love businesses because of that. You don't know what's gonna be the answer. You just have to pursue what you want to achieve, and eventually you would, but focus and the drive is very, very important. I shared that story with my kid, and I remember, you know, I'm gonna share it with Jason in the podcast.

Jason Taylor 7:42

So yeah, your kid's gonna be extremely well off based on that story, and based on, you know, I love how you start your day with some meditation. I love how you're giving positive messages on just because I'm a big believer in attitude and activity, right? So, attitude, we decide how our day is gonna be. We can decide if it's gonna be a great day or if it's gonna be a not a good day. So let's decide it's gonna be a great day. But then what activity do we need to do to make sure that that day has become a great day, right? And it sounds like you can teach some parenting classes for sure based on that story. That's a phenomenal story. When you work with teams, Herman, and teams that are growing fast, when you grow fast, sometimes that creates complexity, faster sometimes than teams can handle. What's the first cultural crack you see when an organization scales too quickly?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

The first thing that, especially when we come with culture, because if the culture is drived by the leader.

Jason Taylor 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

The leader of the organization, then one has to create the culture, right? As a leader, you have to be more listening than just telling people what to do. You have to listen for the team, you have to listen for what is that that's driving the business, how the best way to communicate with between departments and also be able to communicate to your team that argument or discussion or disagreement, this has to be permitted in the company. Challenge has to be be able to be created. And don't take it absolutely, I say that all the time, do not take absolutely nothing that I say personal. But make sure that our communication, you can challenge me, I can challenge you, our communication comes from a place, not of correction because you're doing something wrong, but because you and I are seeing an object but for different angles. I can look at an a cup mark, right? From my angle, I can see the drawing that's on my side, but I don't see the drawing that's in the other side. You see in the drawing on the other side. So it doesn't mean that my view is wrong or yours not valid, but we have to understand that dynamic to be able to lead an organization with different departments and different leaders in each department. That is crucial.

Jason Taylor 9:42

Yeah, I believe listening is key. And it's so nice when you a leader actually understands if I actually listen more than I talk, I'll get so much more than I already have gotten, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, you have to listen way more than while you speak to the team for sure.

Jason Taylor 9:55

So then as a company grows, you'll see a leader often say, you know, I think I need to hire somebody to solve all these problems and these operational things that are happening in my business right now. What leadership discipline actually needs to be built before adding people?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Before adding people, I will say for a leader that's growing an organization or already have some team. We work with an individual, they already have some people at the team. I like for their business owners to understand the reason why this department has to operate in that way. And sometimes that requires them to get some hands-on so that way they can feel the weight and then understand what is the type of individual they need to find to fulfill that role. I see that a lot in another organization. You know, I need to hire this person because this person has experience leading the same team or the same type of department in other companies. But that doesn't mean that that's the right leader for your organization and for your for what you try to build. Sometimes these people come with ideas, and I'm not saying they're not bad, but also become to with some limitation also of how the market or how the business should be run. And especially for founders and leaders, we try to create something obviously stable, but also something new. And sometimes they come in with the mindset of the old school, the things are done always this way, is actually not beneficial for the entire organization.

Jason Taylor 11:11

Well, let's just state the fact. You you have traveled across many different continents doing your what you do, right? If you could look back and decide, hey, what is the leadership trait that travels well across all cultures and what doesn't? So, what leadership trait you do you see that does well in all cultures and what one doesn't do well in all cultures?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Again, coming back to listening, the listener and the visionary. Okay. The leader who have a vision and listen to people and able to turn that into integration of the team, of the company, of the organization, that's the leader. It doesn't matter where they go, they always sit. The leader who is obsessed and telling people what to do and feeding people in a mold, that's the one that it doesn't work wherever you go. It's always, always, it's a lot of friction or with tension that fail all the time. And I mean, I'm not being a fella, I've been there. I've been in the one, oh, let me tell you what to do, and this is exactly how I want it.

Jason Taylor 12:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

And then wonder why people quit.

Jason Taylor 12:08

Yeah. How young were you when you were like that, Herman, and when you were that kind of leader? Because I find with leadership, we grow along the way as we learn. So, how long in your leadership journey did you say, hey, this isn't working for me, I need to change?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I mean, I started my first business in the early 20s. I was 1920. When I started my first business, I want to say that at least the majority part of my 20s, it was my way or the highway. Yeah. And a lot of stakes and my bumping head and things not working, and things go up and then go down really fast. Until I decided, oh well, no, I didn't decide it. The experience showed me that for me to grow, it's not the people's problem. It's me who I'm the one that has to change, and I'm the one who have to adapt. And when I understood that, it was a little bit, I had to swallow a little bit of my pride. Yeah. It hurts a bit, right? Right. But I realized, right, what do you really want? You want to be a catalyst for success in the organization and your country where you are or from the society that you are in, or you just want to be right because you want to be right. Yeah. You have to give up one of those. So I decided to give up to be right. I don't know anything. I tell people that the more I age and the more I build, the less that I know. I don't know anything.

Jason Taylor 13:13

Yeah. I love your theory on that. I'm a big believer in once you start on the journey to self-aware leadership, you'll get so much more because then you'll make your message resonate with so many more people, as opposed to just, you know, the this is how it should be done. I don't want your opinion. Just do it this way when we actually say, hey, people are different and they might have some valid advice on how we should go about that. It just makes our company thrive that much more. And as a leader, I'm a huge believer that as a leader, you're always on stage. They look if you're rolling your eyes, they look how your shoulders are, they look if you're presenting yourself properly, and they read kind of what you're thinking and what you're doing that day. So as leaders, we can't be part of the chaos. We have to be part of the solution, right? Totally right.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I heard the phrase a lot. I've learned that's when I moved here to the United States. You gotta fake it until you make it. It's not about faking it, it's about understanding and reading the situation in the room. Your team needs to know that you are confident so you can install that confidence on them. Absolutely. You have to transmit that energy to your team. If your team is or the company is going into a cow or a situation, you cannot be the one panicking. I always say you have to share up but not share down. Sometimes some things you don't have to share it right away to the team. Not because you want to hide it, but because you need to understand the situation, the complexity before you actually start taking action. And you have to remain calm all the time.

Jason Taylor 14:32

Absolutely. I spoke to one leader one time and he said, belief fuels passion, and passion rarely fails. And as the leader, it's your job to create the belief. Once they believe, that'll fuel their passion. And once they are passionate about something, then they'll actually go to wherever you need them to go to get that goal, whatever that goal is at the time. Yep, that's correct. Totally agree with that. Yeah, I love that. With all the CEOs and C-suite and presidents you work with and founders, a lot of them pride themselves on decisiveness. Where does decisiveness become dangerous in leadership?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

I'll say, and I don't know if that's why you're why you're asking, but let me say it the other way. Because I actually had a conversation with a founder today about this. He told me right away, I am an overthinker and it's hard for me to make decisions. Okay. So I told him, you need to pass that stage. You have to make decisions. You have to make decisions quicker. And stop worrying about making the right decision. You have to make a decision and then make it right. And I even told him, it's not my quote. Don't go make this. I heard this from somebody else in Chicago last week. But that's exactly what a leader had to make sure. I mean, obviously, it's some decisions that you know they are bad. Obviously, you're not gonna make them, right? But if you are in a position that you need to make a decision, you have to be fast, you have to make it and then run with it. Don't look back, run with it and you make it right. Part of the conversation of that, if you allow me to say this part, it was also what I was talking with other founders in the meeting. It is really hard to make a good decision when you are surrendered or you create a bad environment. Yes. When you surrender yourself in a bad environment, they are not good decisions. It doesn't matter how hard you try, you're not gonna make a good decision.

Jason Taylor 16:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

But when you surround yourself, you're talking about the culture, right? Change the culture of your company, getting the right people, the right team, let me use the word right for now. Then it's really making a bad decision is really hard. Because you have two choices. One that can bring the profit 30%, and one that comes to bring the profit 40%. Big one. I mean, you don't know which one is gonna be the 30 or the 40, but you know that you're not losing. Yeah, absolutely. It's really, really easy to make a decision then. So, so yeah, people overthink too much.

Jason Taylor 16:31

Yeah. I like your thought process on that. You know, it's funny. One of the things that carries through with all the great leaders that I work with and talk to is they say don't try to figure everything out to 100% because you move too slow. If you try to figure out everything to be perfect and we wait, then the market passes us. But if we figure things out to 70, 80% and figure out the other 30 or 20% along the way, we keep up with the market and the pace. And at the same time, we can fix some problems along the way, but at least we're not just sitting there waiting to start. We've already got the momentum and we're actually getting to our goal a little quicker.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, totally agree.

Jason Taylor 17:04

Yeah, absolutely. So if you're talking about decisions, when leaders face high stake decisions that they need to make, what questions should they be asking themselves that they usually avoid?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

I put myself in the mindset when I work with a business owner. Obviously, I run my own organization. I have all the different businesses that I'm I have people managing, things like that. I always put myself in the position of is this decision that I'm about to make, first of all, it's gonna sound crazy, but I I really think about this because of the country that I grew up, Dominican Republic, was very dangerous, crazy stuff. Somebody's going to die because I made the decision. And 99% of the answer is no, nobody's going to die, right? Yeah. Is this decision going to transform the organization in a way that will be sustainable over time? Or this is a decision that is only only for a year or two or a few months? So as you peel off and make yourself those questions and peel off those answers, you realize that I mean a few decisions that you're going to make will really affect the organization for probably the next 40 years. Most likely you're gonna make a decision that will be for a season or two, three years, maybe five almost. You got time to curate them, to make it right, again, to change a pivot. That's the mindset that I adopt. And I told the leaders of organization, CEOs that I work with, that's how you have to think to at the time to become to make a decision. And you have to transfer that to your leader in your organization too. You don't want them to depend on you to make this type of decision and this level. You have to be able to train them to make those type of decisions also.

Jason Taylor 18:31

Wow, what a phenomenal answer, Herman. Let's build on that a bit. So if I'm a leader now and I'm within all my, obviously, my leadership team and my leadership team is misaligned, where does that misalignment usually start? Is it me as the leader or is it the clarity, is it the focus? When you work with organizations, where do you find the leadership team misalignment usually starts?

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Misalignment starts the way we identify that when I come to an organization and I find that in misalignment, the leader normally thinks that everything is fine because those they listen to me or they do what I what I told them to do. And then you separate them from the leader. It's a common theme. The whole team points to the leader. Yes. And the leader points to the team. And then I say, look, you have 10 people here and you are one. The 10 of them point to you, but you're the only one pointing to them.

Jason Taylor 19:21

How do you have that direct conversation with them? What do you say in that situation where all fingers are pointed at them and they're they're not aware it's them, they're pointing to the leadership. Well, what do you say? How do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Well, before I engage in working with them in the company, before we go in an engagement agreement with our our consultant companies, I tell them, I'm going to be brutally honest with you. If you have any problem with that or you cannot change, you get fired. I'm not going to work with you because I'm here to help your organization. Because my belief in your organization is that you are a provider of employment for this individual who provide to their families. If you have no interest in change or adapt, I can help you. So I can be myself. I can be bold and tell them, hey, as a leader in an organization, the boss stops with you. So you are the one they have to look all the time. What is not that I'm not saying? What is that that I'm not communicating? That my team don't have a clear picture of what is the objective of their organization. It's not that they don't understand it in some cases. But normally, 99% of the time, it's not that I don't understand it. It's my way of communicating to the team the real objective, the real focus of their organization. That's my job.

Jason Taylor 20:31

I think it's so powerful when a leader says, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

My favorite thing to say.

Jason Taylor 20:36

When a leader says to their leadership team and says, I don't know. I think that is when you show humility and you're a humble leader and you just say, hey, I can find out for you, but I don't know that answer. I think your team actually respects you so much more as a leader when you say something like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, I totally agree. And to come back to the part of all the chaos, how you do remain calm. I don't want people to think that, well, you're gonna say, Well, I don't know. What would I do? I'm like, I don't know. No, you don't say that. You just calm yourself and say, you know what? That's a great question. I don't know. Let's find out. What happens if we do this? And what happens if you do X? Yeah, let's find out together. And find it out with the team, and they will bring you the answer. That's the cool thing about it, that they will bring you, they know it. They just need to be coach and guide to abstract the answer and they're gonna bring it to you. They'll find it. That's why you hire people.

Jason Taylor 21:22

They know what to do. Speaking about hiring people, and you're excellent at what you do, you don't just talk to leaders about it. You actually lead them through the execution, not just the strategy, which is phenomenal because a lot of people don't do that. What does real leadership accountability look like once the plan is in motion that you've set out for them?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

When the plan is in motion and when we execute our part and the organization is hitting the goal and metric, how they need to hit, alongside with us, we pick individual people in within the organization, not necessarily the leader. Within an organization, they're going to help the leader to carry out the phases of the plan once we are out. Our job is not to. Stay in your company and do everything for you. Our job is to find the individual within your organization that can do this. If the organization is underemployed or need more people or need a specific trade in the individual that you don't have in your organization, we're going to help to find those and put those individuals in place and get them ready to fulfill the plan. Because the plan that we create is not for three months or a year. We're talking about five, ten years of the organization. And you don't want me to stay with you, trust me, for that long. We want to be here and get, hey, Herman, something's happening, it's going to break down. Okay, let's go, let's look what happened. But we want to build a team, make sure that they are confident, that they all follow what is the plan that you agree with us, then we back off and your team takes it from there.

Jason Taylor 22:45

Don't you ever find, too, that it's not always the founder or the CEO that needs to implement the plan? Sometimes they're the innovator and the person that's about agility, but it's somebody else on their team that should implement because they're a little more focused than they are sometimes. Do you find that?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the good CEOs out there, their tray are, at least for the one that I more like me and I like to work with, they are more visionary and they can storytell, they can see it, but they're not necessarily the one capable to execute it. That's the one to get really farted. The CEOs who are capable also to execute, they have to sacrifice. That's what I tell you. You have to sacrifice the execution part to be able to try the thing because you cannot be a single out in one specific position. Then you become a funnel in that position, and then you you forget about nurturing the other ones, the other part of the organization. So you have to be the driver and let everybody else to do the part of the team. It's like a like a coach, right? Like a coach of a team.

Jason Taylor 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

The coach of the team is coaching, is guiding the team, but he's not go there and move the ball too.

Jason Taylor 23:49

Yeah, exactly. He leads, but he doesn't play. Herman, I've got two questions left for you just because you've been so generous with your time today. The first question is because you've worked for so many people. When a leader works with you during a difficult phase of growth, what shift in their thinking usually unlocks the biggest breakthrough?

SPEAKER_01 24:05

It's two things. They normally come to me because the common denominator of the organization is something that is off, is not working properly, they're not getting there, or they want they want to get to a place they don't know how to get there. Sometimes they don't feel confident. That's the bottom line. They confident either with themselves or with their team, or they want to go to a place that they've never been before. So my job and what we help is identify which normally is both, but which one is the one affecting the most in the moment. If the leader don't have the confidence to lead the team, the organization, we have to build up right away and make sure that the trust within the team in the leader is restored again. And then getting them to a place where they've never been before, again, is go with accountability and the reliance that the team inside if it anybody has been there before, they can make it or find somebody there who've already been there or be able to have the capacity to get there. So it is a lot of work, it is a lot of mindset that has to be reshaped and refocused. But uh, I mean, I've seen it being done every day. It's possible.

Jason Taylor 25:06

Really interesting. Last question, just based on you working with so many founders, leaders, C-suite, et cetera. If you were looking at the younger generation today and you were saying, hey, I want to give you one piece of advice on leadership and just how to get there and become a great leader, what piece of advice would you give that young person?

SPEAKER_01 25:23

I'll say the same thing that I said to my kid. And I think it was that conversation about this morning. Be focused and chase that thing that you want to achieve with all your heart, with all your mind, with all of it. Just one thing. Just go after it. And nobody will be able to stop you. Wow.

Jason Taylor 25:39

Herman, I gotta tell you, you're very inspirational. I am so glad we met and we've had conversations along the way. I'm gonna lean on you for some stuff as well. But outstanding conversation, and I and I thank you for your time today.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Oh, thank you. That's been fun. It's been really fun.

Jason Taylor 25:53

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