The Uncommon Leader Podcast

The Cost of Chaos: How Ernesto Mandowsky's Six Pillars Framework Systemizes Success

• John Gallagher

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Embark on a journey of transformation with Ernesto Mandowski, the remarkable CEO of CPD Advisors, who recounts his evolution from an aspiring restaurateur to a maestro of tech and systems engineering. Our enriching dialogue traverses his innovative leadership tenets and the birth of the six Ps framework—a blueprint that eradicates inefficiencies and fine-tunes organizational prowess. Ernesto's tale, enriched by his hospitable roots, sings a song of integrated systems, combating operational chaos, and unlocking the full potential of any team. It's a must-listen for those eager to weave hospitality into their leadership style and for dreamers ready to pivot toward their entrepreneurial destiny.

Witness the metamorphosis of Amanda's company as we dissect the practicality of Ernesto's six-pillar system—a real-world case of transformation from disorganized workflows to a symphony of productivity within a unified Notion platform. The conversation veers into the psychology of change, underlining the art of illustrating benefits to overcome resistance and inspire leadership investment. For any professional seeking to champion continuous improvement and technological fluency, Ernesto's alliance with insider communities and his commitment to innovation is a masterclass, proving that the hive mind approach can revolutionize any business.

To conclude, Ernesto stitches a vibrant mosaic of professional and personal sagas, where sharing wisdom and community building amplify brand allure. He paints the intimate picture of how CrossFit and challah baking not only complement but fuel his entrepreneurial spirit, serving as a reminder of the essential harmony between work and life. With Ernesto's insights, you're poised to sprinkle a dash of magic onto your own systems or draw inspiration from a seasoned trailblazer—so tune in, for it's an episode buzzing with the industrious energy of a beehive, destined to charm and enlighten.

Ernesto Mandowsky's website

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Speaker 1:

I think most organizations fall into builder trap and like, like they throw people at the problem, or they start building right away and they're building before. Like build it and they will come. They build it before they come. When people know they're overwhelmed, it's probably time to build.

Speaker 2:

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher. In today's episode, I'm joined by the energetic and passionate Ernesto Mandowski. Ernesto has a uniquely inspiring tale that traces back to his youthful discovery of the world of hospitality, influencing his leadership style and his life's work With an impressive leap from aspiring restaurateur to the CEO of CPD Advisors. His life's work, with an impressive leap from aspiring restaurateur to the CEO of CPD Advisors. Ernesto's transformative approach to system integration has changed the game for growing organizations. He describes the cost of chaos and how he and his team eliminate inefficiencies, preventing burnout and unleashing the potential of the teams with his six Ps framework. Whether it's revolutionizing small businesses or baking innovative chala, ernesto's zest for life and business is infectious. Let's get started. Ernesto Mandowski, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. It's great to have you on the show. I'm looking forward to our conversation. How are you doing today?

Speaker 1:

I am energized, I'm great. How are you, john?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing very well. Also, thank you for asking, and I look forward to hearing more about Energized, but you don't get any free rides, so I'm going to start you off with the first question that I start every first-time guest on the Uncommon Leader podcast, and that's to tell me a story from your childhood or your youth that still impacts who you are today as a, as a leader or as a person when I was 18.

Speaker 1:

Uh, it was my last year of college, last year of high school and, uh, the year the week before graduating, I met a guy who owned six restaurants. And through talking to him, it's like, what do you do? It's like, oh, I own six restaurants. I'm like, oh, you could own restaurants, that's so cool.

Speaker 1:

And uh, three months later, when I was in europe, I on a euro trip, I went and visited one of his restaurants and in that restaurant, you know, he had the special table and I sat down and they started bringing the wine and the cheese and the bread and everything was special. And the waiters like came at every moment just to like check in on you, how are you doing? And that experience left such an imprint on me. One, oh, my God, this is such a cool thing that you could do, you could own restaurants. A cool thing that you could do, you could own restaurants. And two, you could pay. Such you could create an experience where you could take such good care of guests, such good care of people, and use food as kind of a backdrop for that. And so for me, I kind of bring this energy of hospitality and everything that I do still today. It inspired my career in hospitality. It inspired my core value of hospitality, one of my two core values, and yeah, I'm definitely a real foodie.

Speaker 2:

Love that, being energized and being in the hospitality business, if you will, or being good at having this core value those two things have got to go pretty much hand in hand. So tell me a little bit about that journey then that's led you to being the CEO of CPD Advisors today. What does your organization do, who do you help and how are you impacting people today, impacting the world?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so most growing organizations. They don't have time to assess the right way to grow, the right systems to use. Growing organizations are exploding. They're 2Xing, 5xing in customer growth. They're making sure they deliver a great service, which causes a lot of operational debt. Systems aren't connected. People are getting frustrated, burnout is creeping, it's quiet and what we do is we come in and we support teams with setting up integrated systems so that everyone can bring their best self to work, free up time, increase efficiencies, ultimately result in higher profitability and more wins all around.

Speaker 1:

The company started about four years ago during COVID. I reached my dream job. I reached my pinnacle. I created a dream job at the intersection of restaurants, systems engineering and technology through becoming a restaurant analyst at Landry's, which was one of the largest private restaurant groups in the country. Through that experience and creating my dream job, I realized that wasn't my dream anymore. The job part was not really a dream and the dream was to be an entrepreneur and to start my own company.

Speaker 1:

I wrote a book called Newbie, and Newbie is spelled N-E-W-B-E-E, and that was my story of how I created this dream job at the intersection of restaurants and tech and systems engineering, and I realized that actually, we're all inspired by bees. Bees and cross-pollination being the second core value of my business, we're all kind of extracting these insights from different flowers in our lives and creating this unique honey. So when I started my company, cpd Advisors, we help organizations cross-pollinate more effectively, helping their people go from project to project to meeting, to conference, to event, to Google Sheets, to Google Docs, slack, to all these different flowers inside of our space, and facilitate the transfer of information so that everyone can create and improve that honey that every company is building, without the crazy burnout and anxiety that comes with being in a company that's in hybrid growth.

Speaker 2:

Ernesto, I love hearing that and, being an engineer myself, certainly the implementation of systems, whether it be in some of the things you're talking about with regards to how we move information, or in manufacturing.

Speaker 2:

I think the two go in hand in hand, which I've done kind of the system work in manufacturing and healthcare, with the actual movement of equipment, materials and people. And you're talking about doing that in a big way in terms of information, and certainly what we have right now in our work is a dearth over information that can't be used. So I'm looking forward to hearing one how you take organizations through those steps to improve, but even even a story of a victory that you had, because that's what folks want to hear and what I'm. What I'm hearing you say as you go forward, as you're helping these smaller organizations get out of the minutia of handling all the information and giving them the opportunity to focus on really the things they want to as a big business. So you go into these organizations, you take a look at what they do today. What are some of the biggest barriers that you see when you go in that these owners or operations folks are doing in their business?

Speaker 1:

Probably not a surprise, but the resistance to change, the resistance to new tools. Some 32-year-old comes in and starts saying, oh, we're going to optimize everything, just like when I was working at the Palm. I would come in as a 28-year-old with my orange glasses saying we're going to fix everything, and the owner, who was 72, grew it from one to 24 restaurants, saying what does this kid know? But when we start working with organizations, we start to create big wins for them and the, or at least the awareness of what I'm offering is is critical.

Speaker 1:

So very simple question that I ask is hey, what does your customer journey look like? And they start telling me and telling me and telling me. I say great, can you show me, can you show me the steps? Because when you actually map out the steps of your customer journey, you could streamline that to create magic. You can start to identify the potential breakdowns or the manual opportunities that you could use automation so that instead of serving 10 clients you can now serve 50 clients with the same amount of people. So really mapping out that customer journey is the first step that any business at any size can do to recognize oh okay, this is what it looks like. This is how we could start to improve it.

Speaker 2:

When you see that you're pointing something out to them and when you talk about something that you go from being able to handle, in essence, five times the amount of business, if you will, with the same number of people, that's quite a return on the investment that you're, in essence, I'm not not I'm I'll stop short of saying guaranteeing, but certainly, uh, marketing that you can help folks go through. And I think one of the one of the tools that you talk about and I've read it in your bio, you talked about narrowing the gap between actual and theoretical reality. So then their theory, they have this in their mind, but you were actually able to show them and you refer to that sometimes as the cost of chaos. What is this cost of chaos? Because that's another one of the barriers that I think organizations don't even know, they don't even see it.

Speaker 1:

So there's two things. One, there's a theoretical reality that clients don't realize they can serve the 50 clients. They don't think it's possible. But when we show them, when they show me, when we create that map, I straight up tell them like hey, it takes you 14 man hours to serve this one client. Now, if we implement tools like Zapier, we implement tools like Notion, if we connect these different tools, we could actually take that 14 hours and decrease it to as little as six with the same amount of people.

Speaker 1:

Now, that's one side. That's finding some savings, some time savings. The next one is the amount of time that we identify that people are looking for information. And this is what you were referencing the cost of chaos.

Speaker 1:

So if your company has 15 people, for example, think about how many times a day you are searching for information.

Speaker 1:

So if you're 15 people and you are searching for information, let's say, 30 times a day, and each time it takes you two minutes to find that information, and a quarter of the times you have to ask a colleague for the information and then that colleague has to stop what they're doing and spend two minutes to ask for that information and everyone's hourly rate is $50 an hour because maybe you're paying a healthy salary of $100,000 a year that is, over $4 million a year in just like asking questions because you don't know where your data is. And so I mean I literally have a spreadsheet that I show clients, I walk them through these key figures and they can figure out for themselves. But it is insane how many times a day you're looking through your Google Drive for a file or you're looking through HubSpot because you need this contact that it's not on your phone. It's so many cuts that are just killing any organization's ability to execute. It's these invisible costs that never make any P&L that is sabotaging your organization the cost of chaos.

Speaker 2:

Looking for stuff, to your point whether it be information.

Speaker 2:

Again, in the lean world, we teach us the five S's sort it out, straighten it out, shine it up, put a system in place to sustain it and then go back and audit it once in a while. But I wish you weren't looking right at me when you talk about looking through Google Docs and for different information on clients, and so let's talk about that right now. Like you get the chance to sit in front of them. If you're talking to folks on this call, I mean they're small businesses, they're looking to grow their business and sometimes the only way they think they can do that is to hire more people to get more work done. But what you're saying again is that you can help them improve, just in the way they look for things to help make themselves more effective. How do organizations know in their daily work? Tell them, how do they know when it's time to start looking at putting a system like this in place?

Speaker 1:

I think most organizations fall into builder trap and like, like they throw people at the problem or they start building right away and they're they're building before like build it and they will come. They build it before they come. Organizations before like build it and they will come. They build it before they come. Um, organizations, I don't want to say it's never too late, but when people know they're overwhelmed it's probably time to build and with the right consultant, with the right partner, they should be able to help you in three months.

Speaker 1:

Start creating some momentum, some transformative shifts that can start getting you on the path without adding more bodies. Because even even if you find a consultant who's 50 grand, that's still cheaper than the cost of bringing someone onto your organization, waiting three months until they're onboarded and you're probably going to bring two or three people on like that. It's a fraction of that cost of bringing someone onto your organization, waiting three months until they're onboarded and you're probably going to be bringing two or three people on. It's a fraction of that cost. So I would say it's one make sure you're ready to build I don't know like you need these systems and two, finding the right person, because the right person can probably help you score some quick wins pretty fast and then create a full transformation in three months.

Speaker 2:

So tell us two things, ernesto, as you get forward, like you were talking really about the system that you've put in place as you started your organization, the passion you have for the elimination of all this looking around and the bringing of material together. So how do you work with someone? What do you go in and what are some of the first things that you do? But even outside of that, talk about a client that you've worked with, a success story that you really like to talk about in terms of how they've made improvement.

Speaker 1:

Sure, we have a client out in Denver. They're a software development shop, about 35 people and I met their executive team. She actually is a brand builder in our community and when I told her what I was up to she said wow, you got to come in, you got to look at what we're working with with and you got to train our rising operator. A lot of small businesses, they have an operator, but this operator didn't necessarily work in Fortune 500 or work in a startup, didn't necessarily go through that experience of learning the five S's, of learning these principles to keep scores of people on the same page, to keep scores of people on the same page. And so, with Amanda, we put her through our signature framework, and our signature framework is called the six pillar system. The six pillars starts with your priorities, which is about defining what's important for the company, documenting the objectives and the key results. Then it's moving into the people, which is all the relationships that you are managing, your sales relationships, your partnerships, all the vendors that are supporting you, your community, all these people that help you succeed on your priorities. Then the third P is projects, which are all the tasks that need to get done by the organization. The fourth P is promotion, which is all the storytelling, all the content creation that an organization shares with the world to attract new collaborators. The fifth P is playbooks, which are your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, your processes. Everything gets documented. And the sixth P is planning, which is your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly cycles.

Speaker 1:

And so, with Amanda and her team, we did an analysis. We understood where they were at. Of course, they had dozens and dozens of Google Sheets and we got them loaded up onto Notion, which is the primary software that we work with, and we set up the six Ps in her business. And so now Amanda, her CFO and her COO are reinvigorated, because we go back to that cost of chaos. They don't have to search across 10 different Google Sheets to understand the status of a current client or what's top of mind on John's worry list, because every time it's on a different Google Sheet in a different folder. Now it's all in Notion. Everything is exactly where you need to find it. If you want to look at last week's notes, it's all sorted by the date. The projects are tied to every client. I mean everything is there. It's almost like a magical ERP for small businesses, in a sense.

Speaker 2:

Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Speaker 2:

So going in there and looking at those are fantastic outputs. With regards to having that and you mentioned early on one of the biggest barriers that you see is resistance Resistance to change, resistance to something new. Folks get used to and get attached to their Google Docs and their Google Sheets and their Microsoft processes that they use as a small business and they have to learn something new. That's part of the resistance to change. What's some of the advice that you give to leaders small business owners especially that are facing that dilemma as they go in? How do you help them overcome that resistance?

Speaker 1:

Well, one is definitely a show. Show don't tell, definitely show how I use it, show how other people are using it, are using it. At the beginning of the conversation I mentioned that bees are the second half of our core values, of our essence. What we do is when we work with clients, we are taking best practices from how the six P's look in all different sorts of businesses and sharing it with each other. It's kind of an understood practice that, hey, we take what we build of businesses and sharing it with each other. It's kind of an understood practice that, hey, we take what we build with you and share it with other people, because that's just the benefit of knowledge transfer. Everyone understands how the best practice across industries people will get it. The next software developer that we work with they're going to see Amanda's company as a success story and they'll trust that we know with. Like, they're going to see Amanda's company as a success story and they'll trust that we know what we're doing. So it's definitely on the show don't tell and help them score quick wins.

Speaker 1:

And the last one and this is a tough one for people to swallow Leaders are resistant to change, probably out of some self-centered reason. Yes, they have a lot of pressure, but imagine if you help them understand, hey, the 30 people in your company will work more effectively. That's a different conversation versus my own ego and my own fear of change. If 30 people are going to now double their productivity, that's exponential gains at the end of the day.

Speaker 2:

Well, you touched on an ego standpoint. I mean, no doubt these are smaller businesses. It may be that that owner started this company, bootstrapped this company up on their own. They have it working a certain way and if someone's able to come in and show them where they could be twice as productive with the same number of folks, their ego may get in the way and say have I done it bad for so long? But again, what I hear you saying ultimately is that they've just become accustomed to doing it that way and sometimes it takes a different lens somebody coming in from the outside to see things just a little bit different, to help them go forward.

Speaker 2:

I have something, because I've seen like continuous improvement be a part of your journey as well in terms of how you're teaching. So let's talk about you for just a little bit here. Ernesto, how do you stay up on all the different things? You mentioned Notion and Zapier and tools that are being used? Obviously, ai continues to be a big topic of discussion in today's world in terms of making change. What are some disciplines that you have in place to keep you up and keep your product top-notch, to go forward?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I'm personally involved in a lot of the insider communities of the tools that I use. So I'm an Ocean Ambassador and as an Ocean Ambassador, I'm inside the Illuminati group and Slack, where it's all the ambassadors and we're all ping-ponging and sharing best practices and wins and asking each other questions and supporting each other wins and asking each other questions and supporting each other. So I think for all service providers maybe that are listening, like, be part, like become a partner of the tools that you are implementing, because being in those communities really help you stay abreast of, like, the newest features, the latest use cases, the latest results, how these can apply. Secondly, I am a big writer. I like to write and publish work a lot. Through doing that, you're kind of used to sharing your insights. We're both in the brand building community and that's what it's all about Continuously sharing your insights and your lens on things. You become a better speaker, you become a better communicator through that practice and um, it just helps you become a, I think, a more effective professional.

Speaker 1:

Ernesto, who's been a big influencer on you?

Speaker 2:

who the who's been a big influencer on you? Who who's been a big influencer on you in terms of how you've developed your business, maybe your writing style or some of those things? Have you had a business book or a leadership book or an?

Speaker 1:

influencer that you've followed.

Speaker 1:

The Conscious Leadership Group. It's a brilliant, brilliant group. They wrote the book called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, and then more recently I read Reinventing Organizations, which is a book about self-management and how the evolution, like the next generation of companies are gonna be based not on the command and control model that is rooted in the industrialization of society over the last hundred years, but rather the evolutionary consciousness that we're all kind of moving towards, where everyone is empowered to do great work, and so that's really inspiring my work and I view like my systems work as a foundation for to self-actualize, so that people can self-actualize. Okay.

Speaker 2:

When you think about all the things that you do, how do you use, in essence, what you teach to help you improve your business as well?

Speaker 1:

I run on the six piece, my my you see my notion page and I I've been started. I've started to produce videos on YouTube sharing like how I use the six Ps for myself. I am a solopreneur. I do have a team of contractors, but through using the tool and the six Ps and the automation, I am able to have broad visibility across all of my projects, all my podcast episodes, all my courses that I'm building. I see pipelines for everything, all my collaborators that I'm building. I see pipelines for everything, all my collaborators and keeping in touch with over 400 people on a week-to-week basis and I know exactly like when's the next time I'm gonna reach them, what is the next thing? Who was a podcast guest? Who was a host? Who was this? Who was that? I have funnels working in the background. I mean it's kind of crazy when you take your own medicine.

Speaker 2:

I like that when you take your own medicine, work your way through it and you can see it and continuously improve your product by using it on yourself as well. In terms of what's happening, ernesto, we've had a lot of fun. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. I just have a couple more questions for you, and I want folks to learn a little bit more about you. So I read in your LinkedIn profile and one of the bios that you share with me that, outside of all this work that you do on systems improvement and things like that, you are into CrossFit and challah a product that you like to and I'll say I don't know exactly what that you can probably tell us what that means, but let me ask you something here to bring it together, because I think it's a cooking thing in terms of what you do, that you have fun doing. If you were going to bring CrossFit and halal baking into a workout routine, what would that look like for you?

Speaker 1:

Well, crossfit is definitely high energy and we mentioned energy in the beginning. Like I'm very into just like feeling amped and excited about whatever it is that you're up to, and challah baking challah bread is has been such a like a reminder into honoring my heritage, my jewish customs. Like I'm really big on tradition. Uh, not just on tradition, but like modernizing it with a twist. You see challah bread in the store and it's made with sesame seeds and or onion, like traditional flavors. When I make challah bread I stuff it with Kalamata, olives and za'atar or Nutella and banana. I mean I make crazy flavors ground beef onions and banana. I mean I make crazy flavors ground beef onions, like really insane flavors. And so it's kind of like this high, energetic, modernist tradition workout which I mean you could probably see a bunch of studios in New York, these crazy workshop well workout studios that embody all of that.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, yeah, I like to bring kind of that fun energy into workouts or workshops, but for that matter, it's not like some of that bread then and you put in with some of those flavor nutella and and those types of uh flavors, you would need the crossfit workout afterward just to burn off the, the carbs that you have to go forward with all balance, it's all balance make it happen. Right balance. Make it happen right, Ernesto, how do folks stay in touch with you?

Speaker 1:

So people can? I love to connect with everyone in my network. I invite people to go to freesystemscallcom and book time with me. I mean, before working with anyone, I am always giving them initiatives that they could experiment with on their own. I share resources with me. I mean, before working with anyone, I am always giving them initiatives that they could experiment with on their own. I share resources with them. I share YouTube videos I create, I share anything that I've already done just to help them going and to experience the magic of systems. And again, that's freesystemscallcom and just hit the button and let's find time to chat.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. I'll be sure to put the link in there, and I know folks can follow you on LinkedIn and now you've updated your website as well, so we'll put the links to all those things in there. But freesystemscallcom. Ernesto, you've been a fun guest to have on the show. I'm glad we had a chance to have this conversation today. I know it's going to add value to the listeners of the Uncommon Leader podcast. I'll finish you off with the question I always ask my first time guests at the end, and it's something that can be really impactful for you. But I'm going to give you a billboard and you can place that billboard anywhere you want to for folks to see what's the message that you're going to put on that billboard and why do you put that message on there to put on that billboard and why do you put that message on there?

Speaker 1:

without a doubt, it's share your honey and, uh, my, my whole thing, like your honey is that unique essence that represents who you are as an individual, uh, as a company, your honey is that value prop um. You heard hala. Hala is a form of my honey and when I share that with people, they get so excited by the freshness of it, by the deliciousness of it, like that's. That's what everyone has to do these days. To be anywhere the billboard can be anywhere, but the message is is clear share your honey. It's your special gift and do what you need to do to share as much of it as possible love, love, that Well.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate you sharing your honey today with the listeners. Ernesto, I've enjoyed our conversation. Let's stay in touch, and best wishes to you going forward. Okay, thank you, john, and that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends. No-transcript.