A Conversation with: Adi Klevit
The Profiles in Leaderships series features conversations with organizational leadership experts to discuss important lessons they have learned and what “Hiring for Good” means to them. This series helps us better understand the role leadership plays in positive transformations and growth for people, organizations, and the world we live in.
This episode features a conversation with Adi Klevit. Adi is the leader and visionary of Business Success Consulting Group. Her twenty-five years of knowledge and experience as a trained Industrial Engineer, management consultant, and business executive give her a unique understanding of the challenges businesses face. Adi shares her practical know-how and wisdom to successfully help organizations and companies dramatically improve their efficiency and performance.
Adi’s Contact Information: Adi@bizsuccess.com|503-662-2911|bizsuccesscg.com
“You have to nurture your team and you have to provide excellent training and you have to be patient and really care about them and identify the problems or what they’re running into and help them. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to just let go of people that are not the right fit. I think we all learn that, you know, we all sometimes hold on to people that we want to see do better. But you really have to identify when is the time to let go and when is the time to invest and train and make sure that they are successful.”
Transcript:
Suzanne Hanifin: Well, welcome. I am Suzanne Hanifen, the CEO of Acumen Executive Search, And I am so glad you have joined us today for a podcast, Hiring for Good, which is Best Practices in Leadership. And today I'm super excited to have my good friend and a phenomenal consultant, Adi Klevit. Adi is the CEO of Business Success Consulting Group, where she helps all sizes of businesses achieve consistencies and efficiencies by documenting processes and procedures. Adi is a process engineer and an efficiency expert. Now Adi also has her own podcast called System Simplified, so you need to make sure you tune into that because there's a lot of great tips and tricks on that.
So welcome, Adi, I'm so excited to have you with us.
Adi Klevit: Thank you, Suzanne, I'm so excited to be here and thank you for having me as a guest.
Suzanne Hanifin: Absolutely. You know, we're kind of about five months, six months into hiring for good and we, you know, it's all about lessons learned and how we have grown and you've been a business owner for a number of years. So kind of talk to us and share with us your journey and how you got where you are today.
Adi Klevit: Sure. So yes, I started my company, my current company about 13 years ago. So it's been quite a while, but it's great. And you know, it, it was a jump, but I decided to do it. I decided at that point in my life that it's either I'm going to do it or it's now or never. You know, it's either going to happen or not going to happen. And it's been an adventure. You know, it's, it is, it is an adventure, but you learn so much and you develop and you grow. And I really love it. You know, I love helping people. love helping our clients. And I love also helping my team develop, my team, grow my team, and work together and really solve those challenges that you face every day as a business owner.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah. And most of us have had whether it's a mentor or somebody, some formative experience in your career that really has helped shape your approach and your values. Share some of those formative experiences.
Adi Klevit: Yes. So I first of all, I learned a lot from my previous experience when I was working at a consulting firm. So I definitely brought a lot of my experience and how from the business owners of that firm and what I learned there. You know, I learned a lot from you. I learned a lot from my colleagues. You know, we were both part of Vistage for years and I learned from my peers. That's why I joined groups like Vistage or other mastermind groups, because there is a lot to learn from other entrepreneurs. And I think that that is very, very important experience because why reinvent the wheel? I mean, we all face the same problems, the same situations and learning from others that experience that or that have insight into such situations makes the journey much easier.
Suzanne Hanifin: Oh, absolutely. And because you work with really all industries, all sizes, and again, you're going deep into their operations and really looking at how they're doing their business. What advice would you give a startup company on processes and procedures?
Adi Klevit: That's a good question. You know, when I and the startup, I always tell them that they have to do marketing, you know, they have to market, they have to prove that they can actually be a business. And we all know that without clients, customers, patients, whatever, whatever it is, you can't really be a business. You have to get clients, you have to get customers. And that's the first advice is go get your customers and do it. You know, just develop the processes, figure it out and just do it. Once you have you reach a point where now you're ready to scale, to grow, to achieve that consistency, then start working on your processes.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, that actually makes sense. You know, it goes back to the my old days in consulting and we always talked about the three legged stool people, systems and processes. One of those are broken and that stool is rickety.
Absolutely. When you look back again 13 years, you now have four other consultants working with you. You're growing and scaling today? What do you wish you would have known back then for your business?
Adi Klevit: You know, I wish I had my own processes developed earlier, because that is really what allowed me to scale is realizing that I have to create my own processes because I had the same malady, if you would, that every other consultant has in terms of like, oh, it's me, it's my style, It's what I know. I developed it. How am I going to ever teach others? But then I realized, you know, I have to actually, I guess take my, the, my own medicine that I tell my clients to take, right? Or my own, the same advice I give to my clients and really develop those processes, really figure out what is our secret sauce, why we're so good at what we are doing and not because of me, but what do we actually do? What is the process? And once I figured that out, then I could pass it on to others and then I can get uniform results because I'm consistent results because it's not about me and my personality, but it's about the process.
Suzanne Hanifin: But I do think that as a leader and especially a manager of other people, we do have this core sense of values that we bring into our business every day. What are some of those values? And more importantly, how have you operationalized those?
Adi Klevit: Yeah. So some of the values, you know what our values are basically we are competent, we are driven and we are intelligent communicators. So when I have our processes developed was really around that. You know in terms of the products that we give to our clients that has to be with intelligent communication. They have to be, it has to be show competency. It's the way we train our people, the way we select, the way we hire. You know it, it's driven by that. You know, we are, we are looking for people that are driven, that are competent, that they're willing to show that they are competent, and they take pride in what they do and that that those will be some of the examples. You know, it's definitely you have to do it in everything that you do. You have to show your core values.
Suzanne Hanifin: Oh, absolutely. And they show up in so many different ways. And, and it's funny, we've reached this sense of success and you've been around for a long time. There has to (have been learning), you've fallen, it's scraped knees. Learn from those mistakes. What are some of your key learnings over the years?
Adi Klevit: Yeah, the key learnings is, you know, let's take the people processes, you know, equation, right. So with people, you know, one of my key learnings is that you really have to care for them and you have to provide really good training and not assume that people know or they can guess or just leave it for them to figure it out. You really have to nurture the people that you hire. You have to nurture your team and you have to provide excellent training and you have to be patient and you have to really care about them and really identify the problems or what they're running into and help them. But also on the other hand, don't be afraid to just let go of people that are not the right fit. And that's, I think we all learn that, you know, we all sometimes hold on to people that we want to see do better. But you really have to identify when is the time to let go and when is the time to invest and train and make sure that they are successful.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, absolutely. And being a process engineer, I don't know if everybody really understands what that is. Can you share with us what you do?
Adi Klevit: Sure. So you know what, we basically, to put it in simple words, what we do is we create, we document, we improve, and we implement processes and procedures. So we identify the processes. If they don't exist, we help figure it out what the processes are. If they do exist, we document an existing state and then we figure out some improvements. I mean, sometimes big improvements, small improvements and sometimes it's OK as they are, depends on the success of the business and where they're at. So we also optimize. So that will be the optimization stage. And then we make sure that those procedures are being followed by everyone in the organization. They actually, people actually studied, they understand it, they applied, they use it in day-to-day management. And we also ensure those procedures are being kept current and they never become obsolete, but they're actually part of the living, breathing Organism that is the entire company.
Suzanne Hanifin: And so knowing that, who are your ideal clients? Who, who do you go after?
Adi Klevit: You know, it's yeah, it's a fast growing companies that are lacking consistency because we help them get the consistency. And it is also business owners that want to exit, that they want to get out of the day-to-day operations that they feel that they can't really extract themselves out of the business. So we extract that knowledge we codified so others can follow as well.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And so here you are, you're very successful, you're growing and scaling your business. What advice would you have given your 20 year old self?
Adi Klevit: You know that it's OK that it's really worthwhile to be an entrepreneur and chase that dream. You know that that is really that it's OK Everything will be OK. Don't worry about things. You will figure it out and it's worthwhile figuring it out.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, I, I love that. So the podcast Hiring for Good has a lot of different meaning to different people. What does Hiring for Good mean for you?
Adi Klevit: For me is that you are hiring people that are on the same page as you are hiring people that you can empower and they can empower, empower you and hire people that are there to make this a career and they want to be part of your group and you're creating this really strong team.
Suzanne Hanifin: I love that. And then, Adi, really again, I cannot thank you for your time. All of Adi's contact information is at the end of this, so reach out to her, especially if you're scaling, growing or you want to step away. So there you go. Thank you, Adi, so much for your time.
Adi Klevit: Thank you, Suzanne.