Against the Ordinary: Redefining Leadership for True Success with Isabelle Fortin

Freddy D: 00:03:03

Isabel Fortin's journey began in the Royal Canadian Air Force, where she spent a decade honing her communication and leadership skills, including training at the prestigious Royal Canadian Leadership School. When she transitioned to the corporate world, she quickly noticed a stark contrast.

Where teamwork had been the foundation of success in the military, the corporate world often operated with an every person for themselves mentality. She knew that kind of environment wouldn't lead to real success for herself or anyone else.

Determined to create something better, Isabel founded Against the Ordinary, a company built on the belief that putting humans first is the key to building stronger organizations. Today, she empowers human centered leaders to tap into the unique strengths of every team member.

Because great teams, great aren't just formed, they're built one person at a time. Welcome, Isabel with Against the Ordinary to the Business Superfans podcast. How are you this morning, Isabel?

Isabelle Fortin: 00:04:06

I am fantastic. So happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Freddy D: 00:04:11

Yeah, we're excited to have you. So share with us a little bit of your background and the story of how you came about with against the Ordinary.

Because I like that name and I think that there's a message behind there. Let's go down that road.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:04:24

There absolutely is a story behind the title and I'll tell you all about it. So I joined the Air Force right of a high school and I really, it was the family business.

I really thought that was what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

And after a decade, although I loved being in service for my country, for my countrymen, and I loved being part of the military, my day to day job was beginning to be a little bit boring. And I really didn't see how I could grow within the organization.

Even though there's lots of room to grow in the military, I didn't see anything that truly tickled my fancy. So I decided to release in the Canadian Air Force. It's called a release and not a discharge.

So I released and joined corporate America and figured, hey, you know, 80% of Canadians, that's how they make a living, why not me? And the first civilian job I got, I was dumbfounded by the lack of leadership skills. And every single boss I had was like that.

And I thought, more than likely it's just the company culture of this particular company. So I changed jobs and it was just more of the same. And I would change jobs again. It was still more of the same.

So it took me a little while to understand that what I had known as far as leadership was concerned in the military did not apply in the corporate world, I began to ask a lot of questions about that because the leaders, the bosses, I had no leadership skills. And you would think that in the military it's extremely command and control. And to some degrees it was.

But what the military was extremely good at doing was, was tapping into the uniqueness of each team member. And it took me still a long time to understand that where that came from was two things.

The first one is in the military, every leader gets leadership training and in the corporate world, not so much. Still to this day, not so much. And leadership is a skill.

nies that I know and still in: 2025

So that was the first thing that really came to me that said, okay, so these people don't learn how to lead, so they become extremely bad managers because they don't know how to. They, they haven't learned how to walk yet, so they can't run. And the other thing is in the military the mission comes first.

So it's not about putting the people down. It's actually quite the opposite. It's about using the unique abilities of each and every single team member and put it in service of the mission.

So putting egos aside, not abilities. So what that accomplishes is that every single team member know exactly what they bring to the table.

They know exactly how they contribute to the greater good. What does that do for self esteem, for engagement, for participation, for wanting to do more.

When you feel like you are seen, heard and valued because you actually are these things, there are no limits to what you are willing to do for the team.

Freddy D: 00:09:02

Oh absolutely. I can absolutely agree with that. Let me just share a quick story because you remind me of something.

t into the tech world back in: 1980

So I really didn't have people skills because I just was basically go in do drafting, design stuff and hang out with the people from the work and that was it. When I got in the computer industry, I eventually had to go out and train people and stuff like that.

But we would also do presentations to make sales. And there was one manager that had Excellent management skills. I still remember his name.

,: 11:30

zza and beer in the office at: 11:30

And he goes, all right, I know you guys are going to work late, but don't stay up too late, but I know you guys will and keep up the great work. Appreciate you and all that stuff. Next day we did the presentation. We killed. It was Thursday morning that we did the presentation.

After the presentation, he came in, said, all right, looks like it went all well. I'll see you guys Monday. Get the heck out of here. We would all do anything for that guy.

He would throw house parties and he would invite all the team members to his house. That's an example of a great leader. I still remember that today.

And I've learned some things about leadership which was acknowledging the team, empowering the team, and appreciating the team.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:10:48

Yeah. One of the slogan of my company is great teams are built one person at a time.

Freddy D: 00:10:53

Yep.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:10:54

Because great teams are built on the backs of individuals. That's how great teams work. And the on a great team, you see three things. The first one is people can admit they made a mistake.

The second one is they can ask dumb questions. And the third one is they can share crazy ideas.

And the first one is they can admit mistakes because if they feel they can't admit their mistake, then growth is over.

The second one is they can ask dumb questions because if they can't admit that they don't understand exactly what you want, either you're not expressing yourself properly or you're not being clear. You don't bring clarity to your message.

And if you don't answer and I use dumb questions, even though I truly believe there are no dumb questions, no, no dumb questions. I use that just to prove a point. If you can't ask as a team member, if you can't ask what you consider to be a dumb question, then learning is over.

And if you can't bring crazy ideas as a solution to what ever, then innovation is over.

So if you don't allow these three things without shaming the team member, the the boss, and the rest of the team without shaming that person, if you don't have these three things, then you don't have a great team and you will never. Because you need these three things in order to grow, in order to keep learning and keep being an innovative.

And to this day, Freddie, there's still the misconception that leadership is about making, getting things done. That's not what leadership is. Leadership is about taking care of the people who do the job. That's what a leader is for.

And if you don't understand people, you don't understand business because 100% of your employees are people and 100% of your clients are people.

Freddy D: 00:12:59

Yep. No, totally agree. Because I was fortunate. I went through management training and went to the Dale Carnegie management training and stuff like that.

So I did some, some high end management training classes. And one of the things I realized was my job wasn't really to manage people. My job was to empower people.

And so basically I became the conduit for them to the owners of the company as an example. So my job was to make sure that, okay, Isabelle, do you have the tools to do your job? How can I help you accomplish what you need to do?

That was my job. My job was making sure you could do your job. And if you were doing your job, I didn't have to worry about mine. Because you'd take care of it.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:13:45

Exactly. That's exactly what leadership is supposed to be. That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

I think it's Richard Branson that said, I don't take care of my customers. I take care of my employees and they take care of my customers.

Freddy D: 00:13:57

Exactly. Yeah.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:13:58

And that's what it is. It's not like he failed at his businesses. He's extremely, his businesses are extremely profitable. And that's because he takes care of his people.

Freddy D: 00:14:08

Really. He's empowered his people. And how do you think he can go hang out on his island?

I tell people he's not checking to making sure the airplane's got gas in it and pilots are properly trained. He's out there playing a flight attendant and serving people drinks because he's empowered people to make those decisions to handle that stuff.

He's on his cruise ship, not to pilot the ship. He's out there to just entertain the people and be the brand of the business. So he's working on his business.

He's not working in his business because he's empowered everybody to run his business.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:14:46

Yes. And between you and I, Freddie, if you hired somebody that you have to look over their shoulder.

And I'm not talking about the training, the beginning and the showing the ropes to a new employee, that's something entirely different. But once they know, or they're supposed to know their job, if all you do is look over the shoulder, obviously you hired the wrong person.

Freddy D: 00:15:10

Right.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:15:11

So if you hired the right person and they're a right fit for the job, they have the skills for the job, they. They're supposed to know how to do the job, then let them do the job. But the thing is, people hire for skills, but they fire for attitude.

So when you hire the someone, you would be better hiring someone that has a little bit less skills, because skills can be taught. But the rat, the attitude fits with the company culture because if the attitude is right, the skills will be developed. People still get that wrong.

tly. I think it was Gallup in: 2023

Freddy D: 00:16:06

Sure.

Because if you think about it and previous shows, we've talked about this, but I'm going to bring it up again because it's important is people don't realize just how much they lose. So I'll just make it really simple. You hire somebody, okay. You got to take somebody away that's being productive to train that person. Okay.

So now you've got two people that are really unproductive. So you've got work that's falling a little bit behind because that person can't do their job and train somebody.

Then once that person is trained and it falls apart because of what you just said. They don't fit into the culture. Because that wasn't even looked at. You got to do all that over again.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:16:50

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:16:51

And there's some companies that have turnover. I worked with one company, we talked before the show, where they would have turnover every 90 days because they didn't hire for culture.

They hired the cheapest person. Then they gave them a crash course, verbal training. No written training, no SOP protocols verbal training.

And then they would chastise them for making mistakes a week later, after they were trained, supposedly in front of everybody. So that created a toxic culture for the entire company. And people would just say, okay, I've reached my limit. I'm out of here.

And then it be rinse and repeat, same mistakes.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:17:34

oo. So I think It's Gallup in: 2024

So take the annual salary and just multiply it by two, and that's how much it's costing you. So why not hire a better person.

Freddy D: 00:18:06

Exactly.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:18:07

And give them 1.25 if you really want to be cheap, give them 1.25 what you're initially offering. Because great talents know their worth. And great talents have option.

Freddy D: 00:18:21

Correct. Yep.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:18:22

To have options for that.

Freddy D: 00:18:24

More importantly, they know what they bring to the table.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:18:28

Yes.

Freddy D: 00:18:28

And you get the right person that fits into the culture, has the drive, has the skill set. And as we talked earlier, they may not have all the skill set, but that's trainable.

But if they have the right mindset, they can help that company just accelerate very quickly because they can bring another equation to the table that wasn't considered in the first place.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:18:52

Absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:18:53

It's.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:18:53

Business is all about people.

And if you don't understand that, hey, maybe you're gonna be somewhat financially successful, but you're losing money and you're leaving money on the table.

Freddy D: 00:19:04

So, Isabelle, let's go back to against the ordinary.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:19:08

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:19:09

How did that come about?

Isabelle Fortin: 00:19:10

Oh, my goodness. That's the, the greatest story of my life anyway. That's the greatest story. So the last corporate job I had, I worked for the worst boss ever. Ever.

Everything, every leadership, bad management, everything bad in the leader he would do. And at that particular time in my life, you're going back almost 20 years now. And at that particular time in my life, I did not think, I.

I thought that lead, not leadership, but entrepreneurship, was a God given talent. I truly thought that.

I thought that entrepreneurs had something that I didn't have because I did not know the first thing about what starting a business would look like. And I didn't know where to look. I didn't know where to develop these skills and where to learn how to do this.

It wasn't until I work for this particular man and who was already in his late 60s and who had made his first million in the 80s when he was in his 30s. So as far as money was concerned, he had figured out how to make money.

I looked at him and I had an aha moment and I thought to myself, if this man is successful, there is no way in hell I'm going to fail. I all of the sudden understood that being an entrepreneur can be learned.

And there are tools out there, there are coaches out there, and there are people Here in Canada and in the province of Quebec where I live, there is even training that you can get from the government to Learn how to build your business and be accompanied by people who have built businesses before.

So when I had that aha moment, I'm extremely intolerant for bullshit when it comes to my personal life and professional life about me, not with other people, but from. For me. So when I realized that there was. I. I just could not work for this man any longer. I went to his office and I resigned.

He gave me a whole spiel of how bad of an employee I was, the best sales rep he ever had, but how bad of an attitude I had and how bad at this and bad at that and bad at this. All my numbers showed the opposite. He looked at me and he said, you will never be anything but ordinary.

And out of that was born against the ordinary, because none of us are ordinary. Being a human being is extraordinary. When you look at the sheer possibility of you being born as you is extraordinary.

So that's how the company was literally born.

Freddy D: 00:22:19

Wow. What a great story that.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:22:22

I thank him.

I think he's passed away now, but I thank him and I'm eternally grateful for him being such an ass because it gave me the push I needed to realize I did have what it took to become an entrepreneur.

Freddy D: 00:22:38

Right. So it basically became a transformation.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:22:41

Yes, absolutely. Did. We all have areas of our lives where our mindset is a little bit lacking. Some people it's money, Some people it's love.

Some people it's relationship or whatever. Me it was, I come from a military background. Both my parents served. When I joined, my brother was an Air Force pilot.

In my family, there were no entrepreneurs, so I didn't have a role model. I couldn't go to Uncle Tom and say, hey, Uncle Tom, how did you start your business? How did you go about it? I can do that.

So everybody was an employee and went for security, which is fantastic because as an entrepreneur, I do need employees. So we can't. We're codependent. We're dependent on people who needs the stability of having a job.

And the people who prefer that need people like us to just say, no, I'm going to put my neck on the line and I'm going to build something. So I have nothing. I have the utmost respect for people who want to be employees. It didn't fit me anymore. And so that's it.

I started against the ordinary and I never looked back. And I more than likely never will.

Freddy D: 00:23:52

You're empowered. So let's talk about the importance of culture. We talked a little bit about it.

I know your area of expertise is helping businesses Create a cohesive culture. What happens to a company that actually has an invigorating, positive, energized culture versus one that is toxic?

Isabelle Fortin: 00:24:16

Well, everything increases. Efficiency increases by up to 80%. Profitability increases.

When you show empathy, when you show adaptability to your employees, Profitability increases by 86%. And these are verifiable data. Everything. It affects your bottom line and affects, it reduces employee turnover, which is extremely costly. It's.

There's nothing bad about it.

When I work with a company, I always, I tend to work with companies that are a little bit smaller, let's say up to about four or 500 employees, because I want access to the CEO and I demand it. And if I don't have it, I refuse the contract because I need to know how that person thinks in regards to their employee and how coachable are they.

Whenever middle management come to me and they want to hire me, and let's say they even have the financial ability to take their own decision, or some companies, they can't even spend a dime on training if the CEO approved. But if middle management do have. What's the word?

Freddy D: 00:25:34

The authority.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:25:35

Yeah.

Okay, so let's say the authority to manage part of the budget and the CEO doesn't approve of what I'm going to do, then it's going to be a fail long term. So the best way that I found to explain this is when you go to the fish market and you buy a fish, you bring the fish home.

If you don't want the entire house to smell like fish, you need to cut the head of the fish. So if the CEO of a company, their attitude is people are people and they're all replaceable. I can't do anything with that.

So that's the first thing as far as changing a company culture. You need the leaders to want to learn.

You need the leaders to be humble and look at their past behavior and admit that perhaps what they did wasn't the right thing. Ironically, the businesses who need the kind of service that I provide the most are the least likely to hire me or anyone that that does what I do.

Because one of the first, I send the CEOs a very, an extremely long questionnaire and one of the questions is, how much is a gallon of milk? If the CEO doesn't know he's disconnected from the salary he pays his employees.

Freddy D: 00:26:59

Correct.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:26:59

I once worked with a CEO. I strongly recommend I can't force anybody to do what they don't want to, but I strongly recommend he goes to the supermarket himself.

And in Our next meeting, he came to me and he had an extremely difficult life experience that had nothing to to do with his business.

He had lost his wife extremely suddenly, and it devastated him and it made him humble because now he was realizing how bad he had treated everyone in his life. And when he came back from the supermarket, he called me and he said, isabel.

And he had tears in his eyes and he said, isabel, I saw one of my employees at the supermarket and she was doing her grocery with a calculator. And he said, obviously, I'm not paying this woman enough.

So if you're disconnected from life, if you're disconnected from how much things cost and how much inflation is affecting their lives, then you're disconnected from your team. And if you're disconnected from the people, you can't get what you want from them.

Freddy D: 00:28:15

Sure. Because it all starts with the leader. Yes, Everybody looks up to the leader, especially the owner of the company.

If they lay out proper environment where it's about appreciation, gratitude. You see, these businesses just explode because the whole team is energized or empowered.

I just interviewed a company called the Spaghetti Shack here in Tempe, Arizona. They've been in business three years and are now at the point where they're going to look to expand into franchising.

But one of the things that they've done from the get go, they were all about community, they were all about the team. They've expanded, they've got a couple store locations and they've got a superfan following, which is elevating that whole organization. And it just.

Four guys had started this thing three years ago, and it's exploding as a business. You're right. Culture is everything in a company.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:29:15

Yes.

Freddy D: 00:29:15

That's why we're both passionate about what we both do. Because I wrote the book, as I mentioned earlier, creating business superfans, which is really transforming all stakeholders into brand advocates.

But I prefer superfans because it's cooler, actually. Thank you. But business super fans are out there promoting that business. And this is where people miss the ship, is you get your team energized.

That tonality comes across to when you're talking to prospective customers, it comes across to existing customers, it comes across to suppliers, distributors, the whole ecosystem.

So, you know, you got a supplier, you're in a business where you're dealing with suppliers and you're in a crunch and you've not taken care of that supplier. I'll get to it as when we can get to it because we got other priorities. The opposite happens. You've taken care of that supplier.

Oh man, Freddie D's calling. You know what? We got to take care of him because he takes care of us. And boom, you get your stuff.

It's just those little things become the big things.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:30:22

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's exactly what I said at the beginning of this recording. A hundred percent of your employees are people and 100% of your clients are people.

If you don't know people, you don't know business. You can't.

Freddy D: 00:30:36

And your, and your suppliers and your distributors, everybody, the whole ball game is people.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:30:42

And even, you know what, even the UPS guy, if the receptionist of your business is extremely friendly with the UPS guy, when she calls with a last minute emergency, he's going to show up for her.

Freddy D: 00:30:56

Exactly. 100%.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:30:59

It transparent. It's not transparent the word I'm looking for, but it's everywhere. It affects everything. As a human, we're the same way. We're the same way.

If my spouse comes home and he's in a bad mood and he hardly looks at me and he sits at the dinner table, he expects dinner in my house. He's gonna wait a damn long time.

But if he comes home, even if he had a bad day, if he comes home, he gives me a hug and a kiss and he says, isabelle, I've had such a bad day, I'm going to get up and make him dinner.

Freddy D: 00:31:36

Yeah, or you give him a space.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:31:38

Whatever he needs.

Freddy D: 00:31:39

Yeah, yeah. To just decompress. It's the same thing with me.

Times where I've come home, where my now wife, we just got married recently, been together for 12 years. Thank you. And Thursday she's on the phone all day. And some Thursdays I come home and. I want to yak.

And she goes, I've been talking all day, I need some time to myself. Yeah, okay, fine, I'll go do something else. Because she needs to decompress.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:32:04

That's right. That's right. We are all unique. We all have our quirks and our ways of looking at the world, but we all have similar basic needs.

Freddy D: 00:32:18

Right. So let's get into some of the programs that you offer for companies so that people can understand the services that you offer.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:32:27

Well, thank you for that. The first thing, everybody that I work with, and that's everyone involved, the first thing they do is an assessment.

So I use a tool from Switzerland that's called Nova and it's a behavioral, cognitive and motivational assessment.

So it's a questionnaire, it lasts about 20 minutes and it's going to shoot out a between 25 and 40 pages report on how your brain is wired, basically. So what are your preferred leadership style? What are your preferred communication styles?

What should we absolutely avoid to do with you or around you? How is, how is it that you show up in the world?

Then I have a 90 minute debriefing for every single person and I tell the leaders when I'm hired, I tell the leaders whatever is shared, whatever your employee will share with me will stay between then the employee and me. Because it's very important for every team member to know that they had a safe space with me.

However, the outcome and how to better empower that person, that will be extremely public. I will share that with every single team member. So that's the first thing that I do. And it starts with the leader.

If the leader isn't willing to do the assessment and have the 90 minute debrief on a personal level with me, then I can't work with the team because it starts with the leader.

Freddy D: 00:34:00

Yeah, just like we talked.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:34:02

Exactly. Then the second level is I will do a debrief and then there's no lapse of time because it depends on how many people there are in their teams.

But I will do a resume, if you will, or summary of every single meeting that I had with the team and I will have what I call the leaders debrief. So I will sit with the leader and I will tell them, okay, this is so. And this is how they function in the world.

This is how they operate, this is how they see the world. This is what they need, this is what you should avoid doing. And lastly, I do a group debrief. And I call that my prenuptial agreement.

That's how I call that. So it's a workshop. Depending again on the size of the team, it's usually between half a day or an entire day.

If there are like 20 people, it needs to be a day. And that's when we all come together, the entire group, including the boss.

And I'm, I always tell the, the leader in this particular moment, you're not the leader. I am. This is my workshop and we come together and then we look at everybody. Not in details, I will never share whatever they have confided in me.

But just so that every team member understands how every other member of the team, how they act in the world and what they need. Then the last part of that workshop is we are together. I accompany them, but they come up with their, the way that they're going to do this.

And so we're going to come up right now with how we are going to deal with one another, in one another, when there are conflicts. Because conflicts are unavoidable.

Freddy D: 00:35:57

Yep.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:35:58

So that's the prenuptial agreement we are going to right now, once when we are all calm, when there's a coach involved, and where everybody feels they're in the safe space, and we're going to come up with the right strategies to resolve conflicts.

As far as the psychometric assessment is done, that usually gives me a very accurate image or picture of who is going to have conflicts with whom and why.

Because if somebody is extremely data oriented and extremely cognitive and factual and task oriented, more than likely the people that they're going to, quote, unquote, fight with are the people that are a little bit more people, are amiable.

Freddy D: 00:36:53

They call that an amiable personality.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:36:55

Exactly. So we know pretty much ahead of time who they're gonna fight with.

Freddy D: 00:37:01

Right.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:37:02

So we come up together, I guide them and I give them suggestions, but they come up with, how are we gonna deal with one another when we're in crisis? Because when you're fighting with someone, this isn't the time to do this and you need to have the strategies in place.

And lastly, all of that depends on what I was hired to do.

But lastly, then there's coaching with the leader for several weeks or several months, depending on what they want, so that they can keep developing their skills and keep tapping into the unique abilities of each and every single team member. And once in a while, I'll have a team that I worked with for a couple of years or a couple of years ago. And then there's a new person.

And so, okay, we don't know how to bring them to the team. So how do we do this? So we. I will offer some additional services to that. Well, that's basically how I do things.

Freddy D: 00:38:07

This great. We've had a great conversation.

I think our listeners getting a lot of insight on the importance of culture and the importance of recognizing people as people. And so how can our listeners find you?

Isabelle Fortin: 00:38:22

Well, there's two great ways to find me. The first one is my website and it's againsttheordinary.org and the second place I hang out is on LinkedIn.

So Isabel Fortin, and there are several of us. Look for the. The lady with the purple hair, and that would be me.

Freddy D: 00:38:40

And do you have anything for our listeners?

Isabelle Fortin: 00:38:43

Anybody who wants to do a nova assessment with me with the code Freddie will get a 15% discount.

Freddy D: 00:38:53

Excellent. Excellent. Isabel. It's been terrific having you on the Business Superfans podcast show.

We had a great conversation, a lot of great nuggets for our listeners on the importance of really recognizing people. Repeat that again. Recognizing people, empowering people. And collectively, that's just going to help your business explode.

And you're going to create business super fans of everybody in the equation.

Isabelle Fortin: 00:39:23

Absolutely. And Merc Beaucoup.

Freddy D: 00:39:26

All right. And we look forward to having you on the show down the road anytime. Okay.