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More than a decade ago, Joseph Machicote was giving a keynote address to 750 people in New York City. The speech was called “Extraordinary.” It went fine, but he doesn’t remember anything particularly remarkable about the day. Two months later, Machicote got a message about that speech. It wasn’t from anyone in the audience. It was from a security guard who had been standing around the corner, unable to see Machicote, but his message was crystal clear.
“This woman wrote to me that I had inspired her to change her life. She’d left her job as a security guard and was working on her bachelor’s degree. She ended it with “‘I’m planning to live an extraordinary life,’” Machicote remembers. “That is what gives me continuous energy. A moment like that makes it all worth it.”
That is why, after “semi-retiring” after thirty-five years in HR, Joseph Machicote is back at work with Transformational Leadership Solutions Group, and why he’s gone on to write the bestselling Own Thy Stuff: The Continuous Improvement Journey to Becoming an Extraordinary Human Being. The founder and CEO has so much more to give, and the self-described “organizational culture engineer” wants to help bring alignment to organizations that may have all the hallmarks of a well-functioning machine, but need an outside perspective to help make good intentions a reality.
“What makes me unique is that I’m not here to sell you an ERP or give you a bunch of physical tools and technologies,” Machicote explains. “I’m going to take what you already have, because the work is already there. The only thing that’s missing is the alignment between words and behaviors. How do we create accountability around that?”
Finding Alignment
The CEO says the services of TLSG aren’t the most expensive option on the table, but he believes they can be the most transformative. It can take a lot of different shapes, but all stem from the desire for Machicote to help people become their best, extraordinary selves.
“Our coaching encompasses a lot of things—it’s leadership, it’s executive, it’s neuro-linguistic programming, and it’s career coaching,” the founder says. “I always start with the individual. For organizations, I start with executive teams, typically starting with the CEO.”
Machicote starts with the premise that if leaders don’t believe in the cultural pillars of their organizations, they can’t teach it. If they don’t believe it, they can’t practice it. It’s not intentional. It’s simply a misalignment of actions and behaviors.
“Once words and behaviors get in alignment, those executive teams can bring trust to their wider organizations,” the CEO says.
One of the telling signs, Machicote says, comes via a conversation he’s gotten used to having with CEOs. He’ll ask, “How is the culture here?” Leaders will typically respond that company culture is great.
“Then I ask, ‘How are you sustaining it?’ For organizations that typically need help finding that alignment, that question always stumps a leader. Culture is one of those unintentional things that we write as words on the wall and believe our headlines, and yet people can tell you where every gap between words and behaviors lies. That’s where the real work is.”
Finding Joy at the Hardest Moment
Writing Own Thy Stuff is a reflection of decades of HR expertise, behavioral alignment, and thirty years of Machicote’s own journaling. It’s essentially a leadership journal of everything he has learned in his career. It’s also the result of Machicote having to ultimately face himself in the most trying of times.
Machicote lost his first wife, Rona, over a decade ago to liver cancer.
“It turned my day into night,” the leader says. “I wasn’t my best self, and I was just owned by the experience. I found myself angry at my wife, my children, and the world.”
On the phone with a friend, a grief coach who had experienced her own profound loss, Machicote asked, “Why her?”
“And Holly, this wonderful person, said she was going to tell me something that she told her own husband when he was dying. ‘Why not you? Why not us? Has God created a different plan for us because of who we are?’”
That was the moment everything changed for Machicote. It was a wake-up call, and the moment he remembered his nights becoming days again. His wife’s prognosis of four months of life turned into a miraculous eighteen. He was able to bring her light and be the kind of supportive partner he wanted to be all along.
Following a long grieving process, there was more light to be found. Machicote and his friend found solace and love in their own relationship. They are married today.
“Holly understands that I feel it is my duty to keep Rona’s memory alive,” Machicote says. “She understands because she’s been through the same kind of grief. I keep Rona’s story alive as part of my story and tell it whenever I have a chance. That is how I create alignment in my own beliefs and actions. Because even in grief and growth, that alignment is so necessary.”
