5 Lessons Learned on my Journey from Executive Leadership to Independent Consultant

BY ROBERT KELLEY

There are three decisions I have made which completely changed my understanding of who I am and what I can achieve in life.

The first was when I decided to marry my wife and discovered all of the possibilities that go along with being a husband.

The second was when we decided to have a child and I learned that I was capable of more love than I ever imagined possible.

And the third is what I am bursting at the seams to share with you today.

After over 30 years in executive level leadership roles with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, I recently left the comforts of a steady paycheck for the adventure of running my own consulting business.

The thing is, I have nothing but love and respect for Disney. It was the place where I realized my passion for operational excellence and building operating platforms that can support environments of all types. It’s where I discovered how to monetize not only products, but more importantly, experiences. It’s where I learned how to inspire, motivate, and lead teams to achieve results far beyond anything they could have imagined. And, most importantly, it’s where I met my wife!

With these skills, I led incredible transformations of the guest and employee experiences across the entire resort. In most cases, this work touched multiple departments and involved partnerships and collaborations at every level of the organization in order to achieve the company’s very challenging goals and objectives.

With all of this success, you might be asking yourself “why”? Why leave the comfort of my high-level, well-paid, executive position to enter the completely foreign world of consulting. I know, crazy, right? Why would I give that up to start such an uncertain chapter in my life?

The bottom line…because I wanted to do more.

More control. Greater impact. Success on my own terms.

Even though I had never consulted before, I knew I could figure it out. And I did.

So, today, I am excited and proud to announce the official launch of Robert Kelley Consulting!

WHAT IS ROBERT KELLEY CONSULTING ALL ABOUT?

It’s simple. My mission is to help hospitality companies of all shapes and sizes scale and apply the Disney principles of performance, leadership and operational excellence to their businesses in a way that propels them to #1 in their industry.

Since leaving Disney, I have helped clients such as Puerto de Cartagena, ICON Orlando, Give Kids the World Village, and many others build and grow their operating platforms and businesses to make them much more efficient, significantly more profitable, and a lot better equipped to support future growth and expansion.

LESSONS LEARNED DURING THE BIG CHANGE

This has been an amazing adventure for me personally and, during this process, I have uncovered what it REALLY takes to transform a career into a business. Here are 5 lessons I have learned while navigating down this path and how each of my lessons learned might help you as you think about your own journey or business.

  1. In order to get to the next level, you have to let go of what you currently have. For me, I had to let go of my title as an executive with a Fortune 100 company and all of the perks that go with the title. I had to accept that I was no longer leading people and businesses in the traditional sense and, instead, needed to shift my thinking and my approach to that of a consultant who can inspire and influence clients to act upon my ideas and recommendations.  What about you? Are you thinking about taking your company to the next level? If so, you might need to let go of your old ways of operating, cultural norms, and expectations so that you can advance and expand your business. It isn’t easy, and you will likely get some rejection, but it’s the only way to go from good to great. Remember, comfort breeds mediocrity. Leaders and companies that become comfortable in their environments tend to lean toward a mediocre level of performance.
  2. The fastest path to success is through processes and systems. After months of trying to grow my business on my own, I chose to work with a mentor who had a process and system that I could follow which reduced the cycle time to achieving my goals and enhanced the quality of my results. No doubt, without my mentor pushing and challenging me throughout this journey, I would never have reached this stage of my career. How are your operational systems and processes? Are they able to support the demands of your business today and in the future? What about organizational structure? Do you have the right people in the right roles? Are you structured for success? How about internal and external audits? Do you have these in place to gauge compliance against your expectations and to hold people accountable? These things are absolutely critical components of a successful and thriving business.
  3. Your strengths aren’t PART of the strategy, they ARE the strategy! After years of leadership courses and assessments, I knew where my strengths lied. My challenge occurred when I realized I didn’t know how all my strengths and experiences could weave together to create results in this new phase of my career. I needed to understand that leveraging my strengths in a corporate environment looks a lot different than doing so in the consulting world. I had to change my approach and I had to think about this very differently. Do you know the kinds of strengths (and opportunities) your individual players possess? Do you know how to leverage tools like the Gallup Strengthsfinder Assessment to understand individual strengths so that you are able to create highly dynamic, well-blended teams of individuals where each person’s unique set of assets compliments the others? This is how you build incredibly successful teams. It’s all about right-fit-talent. You have to have the right people in the right jobs in order to create an environment that is solution-oriented and teeming with people who are motivated and inspired to be best in class.
  4. Going slow to go fast is the only way to avoid false starts and wasting time and money. When I first started to work on my business, I spun my wheels for months. I was in a hurry and didn’t have a grasp on how to strategically approach the situation. I would take two steps forward, then one step back. It was frustrating and it demotivated me. When I finally realized that slowing down, building a strategic roadmap, then methodically connecting the dots was the right way to approach this, I had great success. Simply put, when I took the time to do the right work in the right order and completed each phase with excellence, I gained extraordinary traction. I know, I know…we all want success right now! Sometimes it’s because our leaders are pushing us hard. Sometimes, it’s because of incredibly challenging corporate goals. Sometimes, it’s even our own internal competitive drive that makes us want to be the best. In many cases, snap, short-term decisions are made in an effort to achieve immediate results. While this strategy often times yields quick wins, they are not sustainable over time. Taking this angle can kill your business and stifle any chance of you moving it to the next level. It can also create frustration and anxiety among your leaders and employees which will suffocate morale. I have seen this phenomenon throughout my entire career, both in corporate settings as well as with clients.
  5. You can lead your own changes or business improvements, but it will take a lot longer and be more challenging without help. I learned this the hard way. After several months of trying to “figure it out” on my own, I finally made the very wise decision last fall to hire a mentor who could help me build the foundation I needed to get my business off the ground. I reached out to a former Disney colleague who now owns her own firm which helps others just like me get started. Betsy Jordyn owns The Consultant’s Institute and she has been an amazing part of my journey. She’s helped me identify and articulate my strengths in a way I didn’t think was possible. It’s the process, combined with the outside perspective, that got me to where I wanted to go faster and with greater clarity and excitement. Are you trying to “go it alone” and take your business to the next level? Are you challenged with getting your teams aligned because the individuals in those groups can’t see the forest for the trees? Do you or your employees have the “nose to the windowpane” syndrome and can’t see the big picture? If you want to get solid traction and set yourself up for future growth and expansion, you’ll get a massive ROI by hiring an external consultant or mentor. Putting a fresh set of eyes on your business to come up with new, creative, and dynamic recommendations for improvement is a slam dunk for taking your company to the next level.

HOW I CAN HELP YOU

Are you an operations leader who wants to turn lukewarm customers into raving fans?

Do you want to effectively monetize your existing products and services, then grow them exponentially to send your profits soaring?

Do you want to transform your operational silos into synergistic teams of highly motivated people?

What about your organizational design – is it built to support your current state and your future growth?

If this sounds intriguing to you, I’d love to be your consultant and mentor. I invite you to learn more about me and my programs at RobertKelleyConsulting.com.

While you’re there, don’t forget to download my complimentary Operational Scorecard. I developed this valuable tool while working at Disney to enable my leaders to quickly assess the effectiveness of any operation, regardless of department. I hope it will help you do the same thing for your business.

Of course, if you need help, or would like to chat about how I can help you achieve extraordinary results with your business, please use the contact link on my website to reach out.