Outgrowing the Corner Office: Leadership at the Ceilings of Complexity | Brittany Anderson

In this episode of the RevOps Champions Podcast, host Brendon Dennewill Dennewill talks with Brittany Anderson, entrepreneur, business strategist, and co-founder of AlignPS, about why growth stalls are rarely a technology problem. Brittany helped scale a financial planning firm through years of expansion before its 2024 acquisition, and she argues that companies hit "ceilings of complexity" when leadership, communication, and structure stop keeping pace with the business itself, a theme she now helps founders and leadership teams work through every day.

Brittany shares the early warning signs of a misaligned team, the risk of leaders who stay in a role too long, and why matching people to their true strengths matters more than promoting whoever performed best last quarter. She also connects these ideas to today's biggest leadership test: adopting AI with intention and empathy instead of fear. RevOps leaders, founders, executives, and franchise leadership teams navigating a growth transition will find a practical lens here for diagnosing whether their next bottleneck is really about people, not process or platform.

Read the full transcript.

What You'll Learn

• Why growth stalls even with great products and strong demand
• The "ceilings of complexity" that trip up every fast-growing business
• How to spot early warning signs of leadership misalignment
• Why staying in a role too long turns leaders into bottlenecks
• How to match people to their true strengths, not just their titles
• What "Who Not How" looks like inside a scaling organization
• Why leading through AI adoption starts with intention, not fear

Resources Mentioned

•  AlignPS^TM  
• The TrailblazeHers
• "Who Not How" by Dan Sullivan
• Strategic Coach: Business Coaching For Entrepreneurs
• Genius Network® | Joe Polish's Elite Entrepreneur Network

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About the Guest

Episode Transcript 

Introduction

Brendon Dennewill: Hello, and welcome back. Today I'm joined by Brittany Anderson, entrepreneur, business strategist, and co-founder of AlignPS, where she helps founders and leadership teams overcome the people and organizational challenges that often become the biggest barriers to growth. We see that in our work at Denamico too.

She brings firsthand experience scaling a business from the inside. She helped grow a financial planning firm through years of expansion before its acquisition in 2024. Brittany also co-founded TrailblazeHers, a community supporting women entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Through her work, Brittany has found that organizations rarely hit growth ceilings because of strategy alone. More often, leadership, communication, and organizational structures struggle to keep pace with the business itself. She helps founders build the leadership, alignment, and organizational maturity needed to scale sustainably, which is all the stuff we love to do here at Denamico.

Brittany, welcome to the RevOps Champions Podcast.

Brittany Anderson: Thank you, Brendon Dennewill. You are so kind. Love the introduction, and I'm so excited to be here.

Brendon Dennewill: It's really good to see you. There's so much synergy and alignment around what you do and what we do.

Maybe to kick things off: the revenue operations model we use at Denamico to implement for our clients has four pillars, and those four pillars are people, process, data, and technology. What's interesting is most clients or prospective clients call us in to fix or update the technology and data component. But what we often realize is that they're trying to fix their people, leadership, and all the kinds of things you work with by putting in a new revenue operations system or a CRM, which, of course, as we know, isn't going to happen.

This is why I was so excited to have you on the show, because you really go deep into the people component of what we do every day here at Denamico.

Brittany Anderson: Brendon Dennewill, I'm so glad you brought that up. You just made me think of something as you were talking about how you go into companies and often you're asked to come in from the technology side. It made me think about Joe Polish, the founder of Genius Network. He has this saying: sell them what they want and give them what they need. I think so often in business, and I'm sure you've encountered this, you're brought in for one thing.

And as you start peeling layers back and really putting your genius forward, you uncover so much. That framing just flashed in my mind coming from Joe, because I think it's so relevant in business. Sometimes we're too close to our own stuff to even realize what the issue is, or what the true, deeper issue is, as I'm sure you can relate.

Brendon Dennewill: Yes, I mean, you're right. And I'm familiar with Joe's work. I think the challenge, though, is it all depends on where you start, what seat you have at the table. It's often difficult, when a client has offered you one seat, for them to make the mental shift to realize you could actually have a more strategic seat at that table. But anyway, that's maybe a conversation we'll come back to another day.

Brittany Anderson: Yeah, absolutely.

Leadership Lessons From Scaling and Selling a Business

Brendon Dennewill: So let's dive in here, Brittany. You helped scale a business through years of growth before its acquisition, and now you help founders navigate many of those same challenges. Looking back, what leadership lessons from that journey shaped the way you work with growing businesses today?

Brittany Anderson: I love the topic and the conversation of leadership. I can tell you that when you think you have it all figured out, you don't.

If I could go back, I think there are so many humbling moments where I believe truly effective leaders have to be willing to grow, evolve, and change, not just alongside our business, but honestly ahead of our business.

The thing I've noticed, and I don't believe this will ever change, is that as new generations enter the workforce and as times evolve, you look at the major downturn of '08-'09, and then you could insert all these different things, whether related to the markets, the economy, or whatever we've faced. Your leadership has to evolve with those different times of massive change that you have to be aware of from a leadership standpoint.

So when I look back, I think it's important for us as leaders and entrepreneurs to be willing to change and evolve, and I think that starts with a layer of introspection. Honestly, that's been a big catalyst when I compare businesses that are killing it, growing in strides and setting themselves up for scale, versus the ones that are lagging behind and maybe suffering more.

I think it really boils down to one simple thing. You could say it's systems, you could say it's operations, and I think all of those things contribute, but I truly believe it's the ability of the leader, the primary founder or entrepreneur, to go inside and be introspective, to know when to level up and when it's time to change and pivot, so you can show up as the leader your current team needs.

It's just like relationships, in my opinion. You get married, and, Brendon Dennewill, remind me, are you married?

Brendon Dennewill: Yes.

Brittany Anderson: Yes, myself too. I look at the person I was when I met my husband fifteen years ago, all the way to today. I'm a different person, he's a different person. It's no different in your business and in your leadership style.

Brendon Dennewill: I couldn't agree more. Brittany, how does this differ between similar entrepreneurial businesses? Have you seen how that potentially changes even when they're private companies? We work with a lot of franchise companies, for example, where you're getting a little beyond the typical entrepreneurial business. You potentially have a billion or two billion dollars of value across the corporate entity and all the franchise units. Do you think that holds true for the leaders of those companies as well?

Brittany Anderson: Hands down. It's interesting, I've been fortunate over the years to work with all different varieties of businesses, and it's kind of incredible. I believe there are different, what does Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach call them, ceilings of complexity.

Regardless of your business type, there are different milestones that cause you to hit different ceilings of complexity. A business that has just hit a million dollars is very different from a business that hits ten, from a business that hits fifty, from a business that hits a hundred million, all the way up to the billion-dollar-plus valuations.

But I think there's one core theme: what makes a business run, what makes a business deliver, is the human beings who are hired and put into roles and positions to help your business grow.

So, for example, when you look at the model you're talking about, Brendon Dennewill, with who you typically serve, franchisees, businesses that have so many different arms and different definitions of leadership, with people spread out all over the world in some cases, it really comes down to one core question: how are you best utilizing the strengths on the team? How are you best utilizing the strengths of the leadership team to set the tone, set the value structure, and set the culture for the company?

I don't think it matters whether you have a franchise operation or a single entrepreneurial firm, virtual or brick-and-mortar. It all boils down to the people, and it boils down to how you show up as a leader and how willing you are, like I said in the beginning, to go inside and really look at what you're willing to do to grow and how you're willing to evolve and change. It sets the tone for the company's scalability and growth.

Knowing When to Step Aside

Brendon Dennewill: Right. And I guess then, ultimately, it's knowing when you've outgrown what you can do to lead that business, and knowing when to bring the next level of leadership in, correct?

Brittany Anderson: Yeah, absolutely. I can give an example for myself right now. We've been building out our framework at AlignPS, a people system, a lot of what we're talking about here. We got to a point where we knew our technology needed to be enhanced and deployed in a different way. I know I don't have the capability. I might have the vision, but I don't have the capability to get that done, so we're bringing in gurus and experts who can lead in that particular capacity, so I can get out of the way and keep focusing on the bigger picture.

So you're right, whether it's a big initiative that you don't have the bandwidth or capacity for, or you have a constraint that might hinder you from getting there, or you've had the capability to get to the fifty-million-dollar mark but never gotten to one hundred or two hundred million in revenue, you need to bring somebody in. Maybe it's a new CEO, maybe it's a new COO, somebody who's done it before rather than trying to figure it out yourself. I think you get there faster.

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah. As I'm listening to you, it does seem so obvious, yet so many leadership teams, again, typically led by one person, seem to get caught at these ceilings of complexity, as Dan Sullivan calls them. He's also the one who wrote the book Who Not How. Since I read that book, I don't know, three years ago now, it was my favorite book that year. I think about it all the time. Every time we make another breakthrough in decision-making in our business, I've realized it's because we started with the question of who we need, not how we fix it ourselves.

Brittany Anderson: Yeah, that's a great book, number one, and I think every person in business, regardless of business structure, should read it, really anybody in a leadership role. I think about the layers, and talking specifically to your audience, Brendon Dennewill, if you're looking at that franchise model, when you're expanding, building, and branching new arms, all of that.

It can be detrimental if you have a leader who's too fixated on the how versus the who, because they might have that hero complex. They want to be the one to get the credit, to move things forward, to do it all. That can be a major obstacle to scalability. I think that trickles from the top level of leadership all the way down to anybody with decision-making authority in your company. That who-versus-how mindset isn't just important, it's necessary if you want true growth and scalability.

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah. You touched on ceilings of complexity and gave some examples outside the franchise space, even though it's relevant there too. When you go from three million to ten million to thirty million to a hundred million, those are all typically ceilings of complexity. In the franchise space, we're also looking at the number of franchise units. The leadership team might get you to ten or thirty units, and typically, beyond that, though there are some exceptions where the same leadership team can get you to a hundred units or more, it's very seldom that the same leadership team that got you to thirty units will get you to three hundred.

Even if some of the same people are involved, you typically see at least some additional people brought on with expertise in specific functional areas. And even if the ultimate leader stays the same, in many cases that changes too, because they've realized they need to step out of the way.

What we've seen is that the businesses that get stuck between thirty and forty units get stuck because leadership is essentially getting in its own way. It doesn't matter what you do with process changes or data and technology infrastructure. If you don't manage the people obstacles, you're just not going to get past where you want to go.

Brittany Anderson: No, I think you're dead-on with that. It's one of those things I've seen happen before, and I completely agree. There are times when it's time to switch teams. I also believe there are unicorns out there who absolutely can level up if provided the right tools and opportunities, and by bringing in an outside consultant, because honestly, a lot of it has to do with framework and strategy. If you really wanted to simplify it, framework, strategy, and deploying new tactics are what get you to grow and scale in a grander capacity.

There are people on your existing teams, for anybody listening, who are very capable of leveling up in that capacity. The problem could be that they just haven't been given the right tools, or the right people haven't been put in front of them to help them grow, too.

That's a big part of what we often look at in businesses. Instead of going through the headache first, let's really truly look at the intrinsic strengths of the team. I think, Brendon Dennewill, that's one of the things that's often overlooked. People will say, "Yeah, we do Colby, or we do StrengthsFinder, or we do any other great assessment of strengths." They're all good, but they're only as good as what's done with them.

That's where there's a bit of a gap: you have to identify who's capable of helping the business scale and grow beyond who they are today, and who's more stagnant or okay with the status quo. Those are two very different individuals, but that often gets overlooked because you don't have the right tools or the right outside, bird's-eye view coming in to look at it. Again, we're too close to our own stuff.

Why Some Organizations Scale While Others Stall

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah. Okay, so we've been talking a lot about how many companies have great products, talented people, and strong demand, yet they still hit these growth ceilings. In your experience, why do some organizations continue to scale while others seem to stall?

Brittany Anderson: I think it really boils down to a couple of things. Number one, it's doing it the same way you've always done it. That's definitely what can be detrimental for an existing team. If people rest on their laurels or get comfortable, thinking, "These are great growth initiatives we've done in the past," a lot of times that can be your biggest enemy: not being willing to do the next thing that challenges you.

The other thing that stands out with people who are falling stagnant and aren't willing to grow, and I'm just going to say this bluntly and honestly, is that a lot of times the main leaders outstay their welcome. They haven't truly committed to moving into a different role. I liken this to, let's say, big business. You look at either a major corporate structure or a franchise structure. There's a natural progression and timing where maybe a CEO moves out of the CEO role and into more of a board role, where they can still have a level of control and some say in what's going on, but if you stay as a leader too long, you can actually become the bottleneck.

When you're the leader, the main person, you don't really have anybody telling you to get out of the way, because you can override everybody and say, "Well, that's good, but I'm still going to stay here because I'm comfortable and I like where I'm at."

So that's the other thing: really being humble enough to say, "It's time for me to step aside." Yes, it's worked, but it's also time for me to let in the next level of leadership and allow the change to happen, even if it was your baby, even if you were the one who birthed the company and got it to this point. There does come a point, I believe, where a leader, you don't have to go away, you don't have to completely exit, you don't have to completely lose your sense of identity, but there does come a point where you probably need to get out of the way to allow that next level of leadership to come in and take it further. Because you can only see so far, to your own capabilities, and sometimes you need that fresh perspective.

Who vs. How: Building the Right Team

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah. I think for those of us who've been in business for a while, we realize there are at least two, but typically three, categories of people. Most entrepreneurs fall into the first category: they have the vision to make things up. But at some point, you need to bring in people who can make things real and make them recur.

I think most entrepreneurs got into business to solve a particular problem, but they also come to realize that eventually it needs to become real and recurring. Otherwise, what are they really doing? They're stuck at one of these ceilings of complexity.

I think what most of us visionary entrepreneurs forget is that there are actually people who want to be the ones who make our ideas and visions real. We don't have to be the ones who make it up and make it real.

Brittany Anderson: No, I'm so glad you took it in that direction, Brendon Dennewill, because that's exactly right. I've had this conversation with multiple leaders, CEOs, and founders over the years, where they'll have a level of frustration with someone in a producing seat, someone from whom you want that hunger and drive. I've had to sit down and say, "Here's the deal: if everybody was wired like you, first, you wouldn't get anything done, and second, they wouldn't even be here, because they'd all be starting their own companies."

So you need that mix. You need people who, to your point, are the ones who say, "You take the spotlight, you carry the heavy weight of decisions, just tell me what to do, and I'll go do it." You need that beautiful blend. Otherwise, we're all a bunch of squirrely entrepreneurs chasing our tails with great ideas, but nothing ever comes to fruition.

That's part of the assessment we do too: who is, by nature, a visionary in your firm? I've sat in that seat before, more of an integrator, if you use EOS language, more of the implementer role. While I could do it, it drove me bonkers. I hated it. It actually went against my grain.

As you look more introspectively, it's because I'm a visionary by nature. I see possibility, I see strategy, and I'm able to bring it in and make it real, but pass it off to a team that can execute, rather than being the one in that seat. So I know what it feels like to be overlooked in some capacity, unintentionally. That's part of the assessment: you have to find out the true, inherent strengths of the people working with you and for you, because you can go so much further when you actually tap into the genius within the people you already have.

Brendon Dennewill: Right. Which, of course, is the value of using these different strengths assessments: to find complementary strengths, not to hire everybody who has the same strengths as you.

Brittany Anderson: It's so true. I'll add to that too, Brendon Dennewill. What we found is there's kind of a secret formula to this. Like I said earlier, you can do all the assessments, you can do all the things, but if you haven't found a way to make it useful, that's where things stagnate. It just becomes a glorified definition on a piece of paper of what qualities your people have, which doesn't matter if you're not doing anything with it.

So what we've found is it's like a three-layered approach. First, you have to figure out the archetype of the entrepreneur, the founder, the key CEO: where are they the bottleneck, and where are they truly strong, and how does that marry together? Then you identify the gaps in the business. Finally, you tap into the true strengths of the team, not just through a couple of basic assessments, but really getting to the core of where they shine, where they bottleneck, and so forth.

Bringing all of that together is what we've found truly closes the gaps in a business and sets people up for scalability, but by their own unique definition. I think about any founder, Brendon Dennewill, whether they're growing a franchise business, you're not cookie-cutter. The franchise itself may have operational standards that allow it to scale, but the business itself is not cookie-cutter. Otherwise, you wouldn't be an entrepreneur, you wouldn't be a founder.

That's the thing I think is often missing in this whole exploration of strengths, leadership, and growth: you have to make it custom, especially in today's world, especially with the involvement of AI and all of that. It has to be custom to the leaders. I think that's where operating systems have been flawed in the past.

Leading Through Transition and Change

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah. Okay, let's push a little deeper, because we've been talking about the various levels of complexity that happen and the changes that should take place when that complexity arrives. What are the biggest organizational and leadership challenges that emerge during those transitions, as you push through that ceiling of complexity?

Brittany Anderson: You know, the word "transition" can really turn into a swear word in general, and that's true in our business too: "We're going through a transition, we're going through change." What's the most hated word in the English language? It's change. So many people are just like, "No."

I think there's a couple of things here. When you're going through major transition or change, those terrible words in business, there are a couple of things that can stagnate you. One is how you choose to show up as a leader. Let's face it, any major change in business, any time you break through those ceilings of complexity, comes with sleepless nights, anxiety, fear of what if this fails, what if this doesn't work, what if this is all just a facade and I'm an imposter and I can't do it. All those things that come through our heads.

It's the leaders who can find space to voice those concerns, but still show up strong, confident, and with a level of optimism, who get transformative change. The ones who show their frustration and that emotion, unfortunately, that's where things can stagnate.

You also have to have the willingness for that next level of strategic implementation. What I mean is, you have to be willing to break what isn't broken and piece it back together, but have the right people doing it. Because when you break through some aspect of your business, whether we're talking about moving to the next level of franchise ownership or a major revenue breakthrough, whatever that benchmark is, you have to have the right people willing to put the pieces back together. Because any process that worked before probably isn't going to work anymore.

Being able to restructure, get your SOPs back in order, and take them to the next level, if you don't have somebody dedicated to that, solely, as their focus for a period of time, things can get really rocky, because you won't have that kind of scalable effort, for lack of a better term.

Brendon Dennewill: Right, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting, because you talked about the negativity that surrounds change and transitions. Our company name, Denamico, is based on the Spanish, and it happens to be the same word in Italian, for "dynamic." We always like to switch that lens quickly. Instead of talking about change just for change's sake, the reason change happens is typically because you're growing.

If you don't want to grow, you don't need to change. But if you want to grow, then change is essentially part of the mindset you have to adopt. But it is true, and it's probably one of the biggest leadership skills you run into: leaders bringing teams who might be more resistant to change than the leaders themselves through the journey, leading them through the "why," why they're going through these changes, and why life will be better on the other side. Just a side note.

Brittany Anderson: No, I think it's a great side note, Brendon Dennewill, because I think people don't hear this enough. You have to be able to not only paint the picture of why it's better, but to own it until it gets to the better. That's the thing that can often fall apart, because no matter what, when you're going through major change or growth in your business, you're going to have a vision of what it looks like, and it's beautiful in your mind. It's utopia, it's euphoria. As a visionary, you can taste it, see it, feel it. Your team can't.

Combine that with the fact that you also have rose-colored glasses on, because that's what keeps you pushing forward. So you have to make sure you see it through to the end, and that you remain optimistic but real through the challenges and hiccups that come across.

I think of the analogy of building muscle, and Brendon Dennewill, you made me think of this as you were talking about the pain and everything. When you're lifting weights and building muscle, you're literally tearing the threads in your muscle so they can build back bigger and stronger. That's exactly what happens in business: we have to go through pain in order to become stronger.

As a leader, I believe it's our job to articulate that when your team is frustrated, or they're like, "Gosh, another idea," or "Okay, great, we're growing, and what's it for, what's in it for me as a team member," you have to be able to show them the why, show them how to move through that pain, and show them the beauty on the other side, while remaining optimistic, remaining positive, being real when things fall apart, but also not letting emotion overcome you.

Early Warning Signs of Misalignment

Brendon Dennewill: So, Brittany, through AlignPS, you work with leadership teams before these challenges become major obstacles, ideally. You're hopefully working with teams who are proactive, even though they've probably been through a few bumps and realized they need to make changes. What are the earliest warning signs that tell you a company is becoming misaligned, or is already misaligned?

Brittany Anderson: Yeah, there are a couple of different red flags that tend to pop up. Number one is when the founder feels themselves pulled back into the business even more. Maybe you've gotten to the point where you've been working on the business more than in it, and then, all of a sudden, you find yourself working in it even more. That can be a red flag that either you're about to go through a big growth spurt, or something is happening within your team that's pulling you back in. Systems are failing, or maybe client growth or acquisition is stalling.

That's one big sign. Another is when you start seeing a disconnect. This one can creep up silently, if you have one bad apple in the bunch, maybe a bad hire, or a manager who was promoted, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen this. I'll give an example: you have somebody in sales who's killing it, an absolute rock star, so naturally you promote them, give them more money and more responsibility, and now they're overseeing other people. Things start to fall apart. Team members get frustrated, you might see a little turnover. It's because you took that person outside their zone of genius. Their zone of genius was being in front of customers selling, and now you've put them in charge of managing other people, and that isn't always a good match.

When you start seeing that kind of bad move, those little signs of team members getting frustrated, balls getting dropped, things hitting your plate more often, those are a couple of big signs. The third thing I'd say is when you were growing at a consistent rate, and that growth rate stalls. That's the silent one where you might think, "It's just a season," or come up with three different reasons why you're not growing: "I haven't been as invested in the business, I've been with my family more," whatever excuse you want to insert. But when you start seeing that flatline in revenue, a lot of times there are silent killers creeping in, whether it's habits, operations, or people. There's a whole variety, but those are really the three biggest things I've seen.

Identity Beyond the Business

Brittany Anderson: This one is such a delicate topic. A lot of times, when we spend our lives growing something, the business becomes like a child to you. A lot of times, too, when we're growing businesses, the intent is to sell at some point and reap the benefit or reward of years and years of hard work.

If you haven't spent time really getting to know and developing yourself as a person, not as the business owner, not even as the entrepreneur, because that's a slippery slope, when your whole identity is tied up in the world of business, and that business ceases to exist under you, there are so many different cases where the identity of that founder or entrepreneur completely dies with the business.

There are horrible statistics around true retirement for people who've been so ingrained in business, about early death, about literally losing your sense of purpose in life. This is such an important topic. You've got to really understand who you are, what your hobbies are, and what you love outside the business, because business is not a hobby. As much as we tell ourselves that in entrepreneurship, a lot of times we get bored, especially if you throw ADHD into the mix, and what do you do? You start another business, or you partner on another joint venture, and your whole world becomes business.

Having something outside of that, whether it's your family, your friends, joining a community of like-minded people doing all the things, having recreational activities, there are great groups out there where people travel together, it's not just business. It's you as a human. I hate seeing it when the identity of the person goes with the business, because you can tell their soul dies a little bit. What happens after that is not healthy, not good, and often not a good outcome.

Leadership Qualities for the Age of AI

Brendon Dennewill: I can see all of that, Brittany. Unfortunately, we're running short on time, so I'm going to wrap things up. You've already touched on this once: looking ahead, one of the biggest additional complexities so many leadership teams are facing today is connected to their mindset and their strategy, or lack thereof, around AI.

Looking ahead, technology and AI will continue changing how businesses operate. It comes back to the conversation we were having about change and transitioning to what's next, because what got us to where we are isn't going to get us to where we're going. We like to say, if you want to keep growing, you need to stay dynamic. So, going back to the core question: which leadership qualities do you believe will become even more important as organizations continue to grow and evolve?

Brittany Anderson: A couple of things immediately come to mind: ingenuity, flexibility, and a level of empathy. I think you're right that it's inevitable, technology and AI are changing the way we do business. But if left untethered, it can take the humanity out of your business.

As leaders, we have to be willing to be flexible. We have to be willing to change and sometimes pivot on a dime, very quickly, but also maintain a level of understanding for the humans who are running and customizing the AI for their business. I was actually on a call earlier today with a brilliant woman entrepreneur in the legal space, and she made a comment about how AI is being portrayed right now, with a lot of masculine energy around it. It's, "You adopt it or your business will die and fail, and if your team doesn't embrace this, they're stupid." It's crazy what's being put out there, and I think it's fear-mongering and unnecessary.

I think as leaders, we have to be able to take that bird's-eye view, come out of the business, and say, "Here are the gaps, here's where things are slow, here's where we're not delivering at the capacity I think we could." Having that level of awareness and flexibility, being able to say, "This is how AI is going to work in our business, and here's the problem I actually want it to solve," versus creating problems for the AI to solve. I'll use Dan Sullivan's term here: a lot of entrepreneurs are arsonists. They start fires so they have a purpose in putting them out. That's not what we want to do.

I think it goes back to flexibility, it goes back to empathy, and it goes back to really keeping the humanity in your business, so we can use AI and technology properly. It's not going anywhere, but it's also one of those things that can create distraction versus growth if you allow it to.

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah, and you're so right. You mentioned something that made me cringe a little, because we've done this so many times, pivoting. Of course, you touched on the '08-'09 financial crisis earlier, which impacted a lot of people, and there was a lot of pivoting going on then, and then, of course, a lot of pivoting during the COVID years. Now, the pivoting is happening primarily because of AI.

This comes back to what we were talking about earlier: it's a time for transition, a time for change, but again, it's often so hard without the right leadership to bring people through it. To your point, I think "pivot" might be even more hated than "change," because it seems like a change that has to happen even faster. So, what are the skills you need to bring teams through this? Literally millions of businesses right now are having to pivot in one way or another, some more than others, depending on the industry or the types of services or products you provide. Is there anything you'd like to add about the change and transition happening right now with regard to AI and leadership?

Intention, Alignment, and Defining Success

Brittany Anderson: Yeah, two words: intention and alignment. Here's the thing, and I think you're right, Brendon Dennewill, "pivot" can be an even worse word, because in the world of entrepreneurship, or squirrely visionaries, you say the word "pivot" to your team and they're like, "Oh my gosh, another distraction, throw the squirrels back on the hamster wheel, here we go again."

I think what really becomes necessary in a rapidly changing space of business and leadership is being super clear with your intention, being focused, which in turn is also focusing on alignment. When you look at being intentional, here's what I mean: it's so important, now more than ever, to have a clear path and clear vision of where you're trying to go.

Here's the deal: not everybody wants to scale their business to a billion-dollar valuation. You might have been told somewhere along the way that that's the next step, or that's the thing to do, but if you don't truly want it, or you don't have a "why" behind it that's motivating enough, you don't have to do that. There's nothing that says you have to grow to the next level, nothing that says you have to move beyond where you're at, or that you have to grow or you'll die. You don't have to make these quantum leaps if that's not truly your vision.

I think where teams start to fall apart is when the leader doesn't have clear intention for where they're going, where they want to end up, what the ultimate goal is. There are essentially three paths you can take in business, which supports this idea of alignment: you can continue to build, and build, and build, maybe it goes to the next generation of leadership; you can start buying, acquiring other companies; or you can sell.

If you don't know which path you're headed toward, it can lead to poor decisions that create a lack of trust among your team, because they no longer trust that you, as the leader and visionary, know where you're going. The minute that starts getting sniffed out, that's where things fall apart, because that level of trust is gone.

Having alignment among your team goes back to what we talked about before: making sure everybody's on the same page, that you're a calm, clear, concise leader moving things forward, that you're there explaining when things are hard, why they're hard, and what the goal or vision is on the other side. That's where you truly start having alignment, trust, and intention toward the future.

So just get really clear on your end goal, so you're not distracted, because there's going to be even more coming that gets you excited in your business, in AI, in technology, in marketing tactics. All of it is not going to slow down, it's going to speed up. So we just have to create really clear intentions on where we're headed.

Brendon Dennewill: Yeah, I think that's really good advice. Something I could add, and I heard this a few days ago from Dan Sullivan and many other smart people who help entrepreneurs figure this stuff out, is that defining success for yourself is so critical, because if you're trying to live your life according to other people's measures of success, that can be a very miserable life.

In fact, I just heard Ray Dalio say this on a podcast recently, and I know he says it a lot: if you don't know what you're going to do with all the money you make, whether you're an entrepreneur, a franchisor, or a franchisee, all of these people went into business to make a certain amount of money, but if you don't know what you're going to do with that money, you need to figure that out quickly. Because that's when you start becoming misaligned, first with yourself, and therefore misaligned with the people you're hoping will get you to where you're going, which you're not quite sure where that is.

Brittany Anderson: Yeah. The bottom line is there's a lot you can hire out, but you cannot hire somebody to give you the vision of where you want your life to be. You can have coaches, you can have people to help you gain clarity, but that's ultimately a decision you have to make for yourself. Nobody else can do that for you. Ray Dalio is so brilliant, and that's perfect advice: you've got to be clear.

Closing and How to Connect With Brittany

Brendon Dennewill: Yes. Brittany, thanks so much for joining me today. What's the best way for people to connect with you?

Brittany Anderson: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, so that's a great place. Otherwise, if you go to brittanyanderson.com, that's really the hub of all the work we're doing with AlignPS and our TrailblazeHers community. Everything's centralized there.

Brendon Dennewill: Awesome, and we'll put those links in the show notes as well. Again, for leaders potentially wanting to have a conversation with Brittany about AlignPS, and for women leaders and entrepreneurs who want to check out TrailblazeHers, we'll put that in the show notes too, for all the amazing women who want to continue growing in their careers and their lives. Brittany, thanks again for joining me.

Brittany Anderson: Thank you, I appreciate it.

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