Tiffany Sauder - On Her Agency's Comeback Through Vulnerability and Decision Making
Key Takeaways
- Being vulnerable about business problems creates psychological relief and enables others to contribute solutions
- Effective change requires transparency first, then clear decisions, then thoughtful implementation
- Committing fully to one operating system outperforms attempting extensive customization
- Difficult personnel decisions, though painful, may be necessary for long-term organizational health
- The Understand, Agree, Like framework helps teams process challenging changes at an intellectual level
- Financial transparency builds organizational trust and accountability across the leadership team
In this episode of the Agency Breakthrough podcast, Tiffany Sauder of Element Three tells the story of how her agency pulled out of a difficult period through a combination of radical transparency, disciplined decision-making, and what she calls “90% execution” - the belief that consistent, committed implementation of a sound plan beats perfect planning every time.
Tiffany’s account is unusually candid. She speaks directly about the moment she stopped pretending the business was fine and started being honest with her team about the challenges they were facing. That shift, she argues, was the beginning of the turnaround - not a new strategy or a new hire, but a change in how she showed up as a leader.
The Power of Vulnerability in Leadership
Tiffany describes the relief she felt when she finally acknowledged the business problems openly - to herself, to her leadership team, and eventually to the broader organization. She had spent months managing perceptions and protecting people from bad news, which she now sees as a mistake. The energy that goes into managing the narrative is energy that should be going into solving the problem.
Her advice is direct: tell the truth about where the business stands, even when it is uncomfortable. Leaders who do this consistently build organizations where problems surface early, where people feel safe raising concerns, and where the team collectively owns the outcome rather than waiting for someone at the top to fix things.
The Understand, Agree, Like Framework
One of the most actionable frameworks Tiffany shares is what she calls Understand, Agree, Like. When rolling out difficult changes - restructuring a team, shifting compensation, changing how work gets done - she separates three questions that people often conflate. Do they understand the decision? That is a communication task. Do they agree it is the right call? That requires explanation and dialogue. Do they like it? That is often irrelevant to whether the decision is right.
By working through these layers explicitly, Tiffany’s team is able to move forward on decisions that not everyone is happy about, while still maintaining trust. People can dislike a decision and still commit to executing it - but only if they feel heard and understood in the process.