In a recent episode of The Inspectations Podcast, CEO of The Aebli Group, Justin Starbird, sat down with Mark Sponseller from Morningside Group, one of the people who does more inspecting and creates more expectations for companies than Justin has ever met, to talk about the importance of putting together a good team.
Morningside Group is a financial and operationally focused business consulting group. They work with corporate entities and private equity banks on many things, including mergers and acquisitions, support, and recapitalizations, but also performance improvement, and crisis and change management. Then, in certain cases, interim management where they may actually step in, take the keys, and make change.
Their team consists of professionals and a select pool of independent contractors from unique backgrounds. In general, this includes consulting and business elements, so they have experience on both the principal and agency sides of the house. The thesis with that, says Mark, “is that it creates a very unique feel to the teams you get if you're a client, and the experience they bring helps you solve problems quicker.”
The reason he started Morningside Group, was really to try to create an organization where people like what they do, where the team is energized by what they are doing, and like who they do it with. That includes clients and professionals alike! Mark felt that if he could accomplish that, then he would really be able to do a lot of good things.
The thinking behind the way they do business is to create smaller, more focused consulting groups, again, is comprised of professionals with diverse backgrounds, across the board, both in experience and the ability to bring something unique to the market.
In creating his teams, Mark says, "The ideal person is someone who has, again, some consulting, possibly some time within an organization behind the scenes to see how things work. Then we also look for an attitude. We try to assess goals. What are they looking for—a job or a career? Also, someone who is introspective, someone who likes to work in teams, someone who is willing to learn, and someone who can understand that listening is as important as communicating or speaking. Those are the things we look for through the interview process. It’s really about a mindset. If we get the mindset and the right background, I’m pretty confident we can bring people up and make them pretty effective in fairly short order."
One of the unique things Morningside does, not always typical of consulting firms, is come on board as part of the team. They choose to work alongside the executive staff, creating a new team to better help solve problems and reach goals, empowering the people that are there and giving them the opportunity to level up.
"I’ve always been a very hands-on partner," Mark says. "My vision for Morningside is that everybody works. When I initially got out of consulting, one thing that I missed was that client touch. As you move up and start running the organization, you lose the opportunity to really touch the client. I think that’s something we want to try to navigate, and as we build, whether it’s myself or new partners, we’re always hands-on. It’s not only that the quality of service the client will receive will be better, which is a fact. It touches back to what we just talked about, training the next level. With this approach, they learn something from you. I have something to give, and the way to impart that is through real-life examples and working side by side."
In working side by side, Morningside is careful not to limit their clients' growth and instead helps to build them up by taking a supportive role and encouraging them to learn from mistakes. Mark says, "I expect people to make mistakes, so I’m going to give people enough opportunity to make a decision. Also, just because someone approaches the problem differently doesn't make it worse. Sometimes I have learned stuff from my team being involved in more efficient ways of doing things. I think by doing that, you really give team members a chance to have the confidence to grow and to know that if they fail, they are not going to fail alone and that you are going to be there, and we are going to figure it out together."
Besides forming teams within themselves and with their clients, Morningside Group has created a team with The Aebli Group. Mark states, "You helped us better understand the voice of the customer, what they wanted, and then translated that into how we fit in there. It felt very natural. For some customers, I think we were a dark horse candidate to win. The structure you brought to the table gave us confidence that we could win. If you’re going to pitch some work, not only is the pitch itself important, but people have to see it in your eyes that you actually feel like you can accomplish it, that you’re here and that you deserve to be here. I think you guys were helpful in building that confidence by helping us manage the process. You would take a view on things and give me your thoughts. It's great to have those relationships, the back and forth. We can level with each other about, hey, does this work? Is this not working? What do you think about this?"
One of the things I always tell my team, Mark says, is, "I don’t mind looking stupid in front of you, but don’t let me look stupid in front of the client because you won’t speak your mind. Feel free to. That openness, that candor, it’s just amazing. When you empower people and when you have that mutual respect, only positive things will come out of it."
To learn more about the Mornigside Group and their team approach to business, listen to "The Importance of a Good Team" on the TAG The Inspectations Podcast. Live now!
The Inspectations Podcast brings together business leaders from all industries to talk about best practices, innovation, leadership, and business development. The concept was born from an internal conversation within the TAG team, which resulted in the realization that processes and systems could be improved.
Make sure to inspect what you expect!
