Over the past thirty-five years, I have worked with hundreds of financial advisors, agency owners, and leadership teams across North America.
People often ask me what I do.
The answer has changed over the years.
I’ve been an executive coach, a leadership consultant, a hiring specialist, a speaker, and today I serve many organizations as a Fractional Chief Operating Officer.
The titles have changed.
The work has not.
Most clients don’t call me because they want to become better leaders.
They call because they want to increase production.
They want to grow revenue.
They want stronger sales.
They want to build a business that no longer depends on them every minute of every day.
Today, my team and I are assisting clients in hiring Wealth Management Specialists, Life Insurance Specialists, Commercial Insurance Specialists, Group Insurance Specialists, and Home & Auto Insurance Specialists. Every hiring assignment has a common objective: helping our clients build stronger businesses that generate sustainable growth.
Sales and production are ultimately what business owners buy.
And rightly so.
Without growth, even the best leadership ideas remain just ideas.
What has fascinated me throughout my career, however, is that production is rarely just a sales issue.
It is usually a leadership issue.
Or a hiring issue.
Or a communication issue.
Or an accountability issue.
Or a structure issue.
More often than not, it is several of these working together.
That realization has shaped my career.
Looking Beneath the Surface
Early in my career, I noticed something interesting.
Two advisors could attend exactly the same sales training.
One would dramatically increase production.
The other would make very little progress.
Two agencies could hire experienced people.
One would thrive.
The other would continue struggling.
Two owners could implement the same strategic plan.
One would create momentum.
The other would remain overwhelmed.
Why?
I eventually realized that most organizations were trying to solve visible problems while overlooking the invisible system underneath them.
For decades my work has centred on helping leaders understand the influence of values, behaviours, and unmet needs on individual and organizational performance.
Long before I began using the phrase Human Operating System, I was helping clients understand that people do not simply perform according to their resumes, experience, or technical ability.
They perform according to how they naturally communicate.
How they make decisions.
How they respond under pressure.
What motivates them.
What frustrates them.
What gives them energy.
What quietly creates resistance.
Those invisible patterns influence every leadership decision, every hiring decision, every client conversation, and ultimately every business result.
Today, I simply have a better name for what I have been studying all these years.
The Human Operating System.
Production Is an Outcome
One of the biggest lessons I have learned is this:
Production is usually the outcome of a healthy operating system.
When the right people occupy the right roles…
When expectations are clear…
When accountability becomes consistent…
When leaders spend less time rescuing and more time coaching…
When hiring decisions are based on behaviours, values, and role fit instead of resumes alone…
When communication becomes clearer…
When the owner is no longer carrying the entire business…
Production usually improves.
Not because people suddenly work harder.
Because the organization begins working better.
That is a very different way of thinking about growth.
Walking My Own Talk
One principle has become increasingly important to me over the past several years.
You cannot improve an organization’s operating system while neglecting your own.
That principle applies just as much inside Leading Advisor as it does inside the organizations I serve.
For example, I have spent considerable time developing what I now call the Leadership Operating System Library.
Initially, I found myself thinking that I needed to finish every article, every framework, every worksheet, and every tool before I could truly say the system was complete.
Then I stopped and smiled.
That isn’t how I coach my clients.
Businesses don’t become exceptional because someone writes the perfect manual.
They become exceptional because they continually improve.
So why should my own business operate any differently?
Today, the Leadership Operating System Library grows through experience.
Every coaching engagement.
Every hiring project.
Every leadership challenge.
Every conversation with an agency owner teaches me something new.
The library isn’t waiting to be finished.
It is continually evolving because the organizations I serve continue evolving.
That feels much more authentic.
Simplicity Is a Leadership Discipline
I learned another valuable lesson recently.
For several weeks I invested significant time developing a sophisticated audiovisual marketing campaign.
The technology became increasingly elaborate.
The process became increasingly complicated.
Eventually I stepped back and asked myself a question that I often ask clients.
Does this actually make the business stronger?
Or does it simply make it more complicated?
The answer was surprisingly clear.
The message itself already had value.
The additional complexity was adding very little.
So I simplified it.
Ironically, simplifying the marketing strengthened it.
That experience reminded me that good operating systems do not become stronger because we continually add more.
They become stronger because we continually remove unnecessary complexity.
Leadership Starts Before the Office Opens
The longer I work with business owners, the more convinced I become that leadership begins long before the first meeting of the day.
It begins with the operating system we bring into the office.
For me, that means paying attention to the fundamentals.
Getting enough sleep.
Beginning the day with a brisk walk.
Protecting time for reflection.
Delegating more effectively.
Creating healthier work rhythms.
Taking care of my own health with the same discipline that I encourage my clients to apply to their businesses.
Those decisions may seem personal.
I don’t think they are.
They shape the quality of every decision I make as a leader.
Our organizations eventually experience the operating system we bring to work each day.
From Human Operating System to Fractional COO
People sometimes ask how my work evolved into serving as a Fractional Chief Operating Officer.
The answer is actually quite simple.
Over the years I realized that increasing production isn’t about improving one part of a business.
It requires leadership.
Hiring.
Team development.
Role clarity.
Structure.
Accountability.
Communication.
Execution.
Commercial growth.
These are not separate disciplines.
They are interconnected parts of the same operating system.
Helping organizations strengthen that operating system naturally became the work of a Fractional Chief Operating Officer.
One Final Thought
If I could leave agency owners with one idea, it would be this.
Don’t just ask how to increase production.
Ask what kind of organization naturally produces exceptional results.
Those are two very different questions.
The first focuses on activity.
The second focuses on the operating system that produces the activity.
After more than thirty-five years, I have become convinced that organizations rarely achieve sustainable growth because they simply work harder.
They achieve it because they become healthier.
Healthier leadership.
Healthier hiring.
Healthier communication.
Healthier accountability.
Healthier structure.
Healthier decision-making.
When those elements work together, production becomes more than a quarterly objective.
It becomes the natural outcome of an organization that knows how to bring out the very best in its people.
Perhaps that is why I still enjoy this work after all these years.
Helping organizations increase production will always be important.
But helping leaders build the Human Operating System that makes sustainable production possible—that is the work that has inspired me throughout my career and continues to inspire me today.