High-performing groups and teams are fixated on one big thing – understanding!
The key to understanding is one simple, but not always easy activity – asking questions.
Being high-performing isn’t easy. Ever. It takes hard work, dedication and know-how. It also requires discipline to engage in continuous activities that will foster high-performance. Most teams or groups lack the ingredients, but it’s not technical prowess, or proper structure or even good intentions that are missing. No, the missing ingredients are the things necessary for improved understanding.
High-performing groups or teams lean into the areas of activity that foster great work. And it’s far less technical than most think. Instead, it’s social. It’s about people.
It’s human interaction and our ability to improve those interactions.
Mostly, it’s about our collective ability to have productive discussions. If we’re unable to do that, then it’s over. Any chance we have to be high-performing is out if we can’t have profitable conversations that foster deeper understanding.
High-performing teams.
High-performing groups.
High-functioning relationships. Including marriages and families.
They all depend on understanding.
The quality of our questions determines the quality of our understanding. And the higher our understanding the more likely we can have high-performing groups or teams made up of high-performing individuals.
What happens when you don’t understand?
You have a few options. You can make something up. Assume meaning. Think you know. Don’t work to find out. This is the option taken by many people (which is, in part, why high-performing groups or teams are so rare). The gaps in our knowledge – those things we don’t know or the things we don’t understand – get filled in with what we think or assume.
You can ask questions. You can seek understanding.
Why is that so hard? A few reasons. For starters, you have to admit you don’t understand. Many people would prefer to feign understanding. But that doesn’t work at any level. Pretending you understand is about as effective as pretending you’re a high-performing person. Imagining it won’t make it so.
It’s also hard because we’re human. We have emotions. We react to things. Including words others say.
We can get defensive and combative. Understanding isn’t the initial instinct for most people. Fighting back is. Or running away. Fight or flight. The space between the two is mindful understanding. That just means it’s intentional. We set our minds to understand ahead of time, knowing that during the conversation we’re going to likely be sparked to feel like fighting or fleeing. Special, high-performing people determine in advance to pursue understanding. They can check themselves in real-time to behave in ways that foster understanding instead of conflict for the sake of disagreement.
It’s hard. Very hard. Which is why it’s so rare.
Your team is meeting. The conversation is perfectly fine while the topics are easy, but suddenly a difficult conversation begins. At some point somebody says something that causes another member of the team to bristle. They blurt out, “I completely disagree.” That can derail the entire discussion…or not.
What’s going to happen next? I many cases it turns into a fight. A he-said, he-said ordeal. No increased understanding. No improvement in the discussion. The productivity falls like a rock. The conversation either ends or quickly moves to safer topics. It’s evident the team isn’t going to be able to discuss this tough subject. It’s the mark of a low-performing team. They just can’t handle hard discussions.
What if instead of blurting out, “I completely disagree” the person remained quiet, listening with the intention of understanding the speaker? It doesn’t mean there’s going to be agreement. But it does mean understanding has a chance!
Then, at a proper time, what if the disagreeing listener asks a question without any intention of inciting negative emotions. “Can you tell me more about why you feel the way you do…so I can better understand?”
By asking the question we’re omitting our favorite thing to do though. The thing that fosters nothing productive. We’re not telling that person – or the team – that we disagree. Instead of drawing a line in the sand we’re working to understand.
Very few people can do that instinctively. The fact is, I’ve never seen it, but I’m supposing such people may exist. Maybe there really are unicorns in the wild. Somewhere. I don’t know. But I do know we can make up our minds to behave like that because I’ve seen it in every high-performing team or group.
Questions. Not statements. That’s the key.
Curiosity. Not judgment or reaction. That’s also a key that precedes the questions.
Reaction is easy. We hear something that irks us. Or something we disagree with. Before we can even think we’ve blurted it out. “I completely disagree.” We’re not trying to understand anything except our need to be heard. We must voice our disapproval. Right now!
Why? Where’s the value for the group or the team? How are we pushing understanding forward when we do that?
We do it because we’re selfish.
We do it because we’re judgmental, not understanding.
We do it because we think our view matters more than anybody else in the room. So we MUST speak up.
There is no value for the group or the team. There’s no value for the person voicing the objection either.
A Better Option: Ask Questions Aimed To Increase Understanding
The questions can be statements. It’s important they be candid, but safe and non-threatening without your insertion of opposition.
“Tell me more.”
“Explain more about why you feel that way.”
“Tell us why you see it that way.”
Sometimes people technically think they’re doing good work, but they’re only behaving in a passive-aggressive way to appear like they’re doing good work. They’re really behaving poorly and not helping the group better understand.
“I’d like to know why you feel that way because I don’t see it like that at all.”
“Please enlighten us on why you see it that way.”
Tone matters. It’s communication so it all matters. Facial expressions. Body language. Pay attention to all of it.
Fact: We overvalue our intentions by thinking our intentions are always good. We undervalue the intentions of others thinking they have bad, even nefarious motives.
That’s why we have powerful angry reactions to people who cut us off in traffic. We choose to believe such a person thinks their time is more valuable than ours. They think they deserve to be ahead of us. They’re jerks.
Nevermind they could be rushing to an emergency. We’d rather not think that. Instead, we prefer to think they’ve wronged us. But they’re unaware of how we feel. Our emotions – the ones we choose to embrace – impact us, not them. Why don’t we choose emotions that better serve us? Mostly because we react without pre-thinking. Such an event might ruin our entire day.
That’s the high price we pay for failing to understand or see things in ways that better serve us and the groups or teams of which we’re a part.
So here I sit. In this moment listening to somebody say something that I completely disagree with. I can immediately object. Or I can turn my emotions in a different direction toward curiosity thinking, “I wonder why they feel that way?” Only one way to find out. Ask. But do it in a way that fosters a candid reply. That means it’s on me to do it in a way that won’t make them bristle, shut down or be tempted to be combative.
Because the performance of our group hinges on my performance and everybody else who is a member of this group. My poor behavior doesn’t help. My provoking them to behave poorly doesn’t help things either. How can we ALL benefit? By deepening our understanding.
Stop filling in the blanks with assumptions that may be false. Instead, find out. Seek understanding. Learn how to be part of a high-performing group or team by first learning how to be high-performing yourself. Get busy doing great work to deepen your understanding of others. Until you do…you’ll never be able to leverage the power of others.
The power of others is most evident when we get into trouble. The trouble that we create through our own foolishness, negligence or stupidity. I know you don’t want to admit it, but we’ve all experienced it. Nobody is immune.
All of us have written awful chapters in our lives. Hopefully, we didn’t make them the longest chapters of our lives. Worse yet, let’s not make them multiple chapters that end up defining our whole story. The most wasted lives in society are lives like that – lives devoted to ongoing, constant foolishness (or worse – evil and wickedness).
Most of us are guilty of youthful indiscretions and idiocy. Sometimes we weren’t so young when we did it, but if we’re surrounded by people who care about us then we can more quickly course correct. That’s why our associations are crucial for our well-being.
The wrong people can influence us to extend our worst chapter. They foster the continual writing of a bad story.
The right people can influence us to shorten our worst chapter by helping us get on with writing a much better story.
We’re responsible for our own story. This isn’t about diverting the blame onto others. It’s our life. Our story. And our decision on how we write it. And our decision on who we’ll surround ourselves with.
Being responsible means it’s up to us. It doesn’t mean it’s solely up to us. It means we can decide to silo ourselves and go it alone. Or we can decide that’s stupid and we need help.
Why struggle alone?
Lots of reasons. None of them very good. But there are reasons why we do it.
We don’t trust anybody enough to be fully candid. Or vulnerable.
We don’t think anybody can help. Or is willing to help. We think people need some special skills or knowledge to help.
We don’t want to impose on anybody.
We don’t think we need help.
But here’s the thing…when we’re struggling we may not be at our optimal self. Remaining in the struggle – going it alone – prolongs the chapter. Not likely our best chapter either.
Read any biography of a successful person and you’ll read about failures. Sometimes lots of them. Sometimes long periods of failure.
Do you feel like a challenge? I’ve tried this numerous times and the results are universally true (so far). Think of the times you’ve struggled. Times when you were failing.
Think of how you escaped it. When you found your way out and began to succeed.
Was there a person involved in your turnaround? One person who showed up at just the right time? A person who gave you a helping hand?
I’m guessing there was such a person. I’ve not yet met a person, who after just moments of sober reflection, could say they dug their way out of the abyss all alone. People tell stories of a friend, some stranger, a relative…somebody helped them get to their feet. Without that assistance, they admit their struggle would have continued. For who knows how long?
In retrospect, people tell me about the bad chapter of their life. Some had a few bad chapters. But everybody happily admits those bad chapters were not their whole story thanks to the people who provided just what they seemed to need.
I’ve never talked with a successful person – measured just about any way you’d like to measure it (financial, accomplishment, achievement) – who claims they were able to do it alone. They were able to write better chapters, to craft a better story by leveraging 3 basic behaviors:
They figured out what they were good at (which in most cases, wound up being the things they most enjoyed doing). They devoted themselves to doing more of that.
They were relentless in pursuing their goal. This was made possible because they figured out a goal that was congruent with their natural talent.
They were able to move forward because somebody helped them. In some cases, they found help to achieve 1 and 2.
Better stories are always written by people who had collaborators. People who didn’t hesitate to help them. Not people who wanted to write the story for them, but people willing to help them create a better story. People willing to be part of their success.
What if we could be more intentional to craft a better story? What if we could take serious aim at writing a better chapter…after chapter…after chapter?
We can.
The goal or pursuit doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to do…it can be greatly enhanced by finding the right people willing to help. Help is all around you. There are three basic steps you can take.
Realize there are many people capable and willing to help. This continues to be THE hurdle for most people. They disbelieve this fact. They convince themselves all those idiotic sentiments that sound so wise. Such as, “If it is to be, it’s up to me.” Meanwhile, the most successful people understand that the fastest path toward a better story are people who can best help them write that story. The story they most want to write.
Get past your fears. Whether your fears take the form of insecurities or feeling like you’re imposing…get over them. They’re in your head. They only exist because you choose to believe them. Keep telling yourself the truth: the world is full of people who will help. People who can help. Fears will prevent you from finding them. Mostly because your fears will paralyze you from even looking for them.
Act. Make choices that are congruent with the story you most want to write. Think of yourself as the main character in the story…because you are. If it helps, think of yourself not as yourself, but as that character. Visualize what the story will be when it happens as you’d like. What’s the ending going to be? Now, work your way backward and reverse engineer the story so you can make it come true. Your character will have to do certain things and avoid doing other things if the story is going to play out the way you want. Get busy behaving in ways so that story will be YOUR story.
If you’re currently stuck in a bad chapter, don’t despair. Commit to get past it. End it. Fast. Solicit help. Or refuse and extend the chapter to last much, much longer.
Last week I read yet another article about the dangers of executive coaching. One of the dangers listed was the morphing of the relationship into a friendship where the coach is no longer pushing or challenging the client. Over time they’ve become friends and now things are different.
It prompted me to go back and revisit some earlier articles, especially some appearing in the Harvard Business Review where there’s been a considerable disdain for executive coaching prompted largely by charlatans and poor practices. I read articles I’d never seen before. I revisited other articles I’d seen over the years. Perhaps I was looking for a theme, but in none of the pieces did I see myself and how I’ve worked for the past decade in helping leaders move forward.
Page after page of advice-giving, expertise, and imposing beliefs sounded nothing like how I view the process. And missing in almost every article was the first of the things that are foundational for what I’ve learned to be most effective. Compassion.
Five C’s are all part of the biggest C of all – challenge. Not adversity. Not an obstacle. Challenge in the sense of pushing, nudging and helping people see things they may not otherwise see. It’s about improved performance. It’s not about keeping a client for life. For me, it’s always been about moving forward to a place where the work is complete (at least this stage of it).
I admit it’s not an ideal business model – at least not the way I approach it. But it’s also why I’ve been compelled over the last 4 years to learn so much about the power of others. It’s the power of US. When we’re surrounded by others – multiple people – then we can better leverage the individual and collective insights, experiences, wisdom, and counsel from people whose value will grow over time. Now that’s a very different value proposition because time forges the compassion so vital for each of us. Instead of “coaching” that should likely have a necessary ending, these groups increase in value year after year where members can do for each other what nobody else can.
I start with compassion because we find it difficult to find value in the challenges of people who don’t care about us. It’s possible, but we have to work very hard to use it for our benefit.
Somebody challenges your idea or thoughts. You know they don’t care about you, or for you. Fact is, you don’t much like them either. How does that challenge work out for you? Not well. Because you both have a bias that prevents you from seeing value in each other’s opinion or feedback. The challenge may be perfectly valid, but the person isn’t valid. Not to you anyway. Nor you to them. The value proposition is extremely low because the negative emotions are in the way. Where no compassion exists there’s little or no value. So it begins with CARING.
Why should we care about others?
Maybe it’s a philosophical or religious question, but permit me to make a statement that I’d like you to consider. We should care because it’s good for US. Yes, there are plenty of arguments for how it’s the right thing to do and how others are benefited, but I know we’re mostly interested in ourselves. It’s good for us to care about others. It comes back toward us in major waves of good as others reciprocate. It eliminates jealousy and bitterness, which never serve to make us achieve more. Or perform better. It deepens relationships with others who will help us when we need it the most. There are plenty of great reasons why we should express compassion and care for others. And why we should put a premium on it when others give it to us. Somebody has to start this. It may as well be YOU.
I agree with the articles that warn how coaches can grow too friendly where challenges don’t happen. Whether that occurs because the coach is fearful of losing the client or not, I can’t say. I can only speak for myself. I’ve never entered any coaching engagement with the thought that it’d last forever. In fact, I push rather hard to establish an endpoint so clients identify what they most want to achieve. Sometimes after reaching that milestone, new milestones have been established. No problem. Sometimes new clients within an organization emerge. That’s why it’s not uncommon for my engagement to last a few years (or longer). But I’d be hard-pressed to tell you about an engagement with a single client that lasted for years without an adjustment in the goal. It’s just not how I work.
Questions. Helping people figure it out for themselves.
These are the 2 key elements to my view – and my approach – for executive coaching. It’s both practical and effective.
The high value of caring challenges emerges when you don’t climb on the pedestal thinking you’re better than others. Not only do I think I’m not better or smarter, I know so. But I also know I have strengths that I work hard to leverage. One, I listen. I pay close attention. That makes understanding a priority in communication. I seek understanding. I want to see it correctly. Two, I ask good questions. Occasionally, great ones. Mostly, they’re born out of curiosity. And a quest to more deeply understand. Three, the objective isn’t for me to come up with the right answer because honestly I don’t always know what the right answer is. But I trust my clients to put the puzzle pieces together so they can figure it out. Afer all, they’re the ones who have to implement the solution. Not me. What might be ideal for me would be very unideal for them. Maybe they’re extraordinarily extroverted with very different skillsets than me. That would influence the solution that’s most fitting for them. There’s tremendous power in the phrase, “To each his own.”
The burden is on the caring challenge. The proper communication of the caring challenge is incumbent on the challenger. Yes, I understand that people can be overly sensitive and think any challenge is uncaring. I also understand that people can resist and resent the most caring challenges because of their own head trash. But if we assume responsibility for the delivery, then we can likely increase the odds that our well-intended challenge will result in helping the person.
A big part of the problem is challengers often spend more time on the challenge and not enough time on the caring. We get focused on the thing. The solution. Or the problem.
In order to get to the heart of the matter,
you first must get to the heart of the person.
I’ve been surrounded by older, wiser counselors all my life. I’ve sought them out. I’ve fostered deeper relationships with them. Over time I know they care about me. I care about them. It’s the foundation for all the benefits they provide me (and hopefully, my benefits to them). I’ve leaned on them for their wisdom, insights, experiences and willingness to challenge me because they seek my very best. It’s not about them. It’s about me and them helping me figure things out.
Caring challenges aren’t about anybody except YOU, assuming you’re the one being challenged. It’s about helping you become better.
Challenges aren’t always critical. Sometimes they’re just questions. One of the most powerful and caring challengers in my life would ask, “Are you sure you can do that?” That simple question would often stop me in my tracks and make me think – which was precisely the point of it all.
Other times the same challenger might ask, “Are you sure that’d be right?” That was more critical, but not harshly so. Nothing that would make me bristle. Again, it forced me to think.
Before you act, you must think. But not too much.
The high value of a caring challenge is to think through something so you can figure it out. Figuring it out is useless without actions. We all need to figure it out so we can take some meaningful action.
Leadership is about people. Management is about the work.
When you engage in leadership then you’re influencing people by helping them. You’re serving people. Bring higher value by first caring about people more deeply. Deploy compassion so you can build on top of that to establish the culture necessary for high performance – and helping people to become the best versions of themselves.
Do for people what they need. Caringly challenge them to improve, grow and develop. It won’t always be easy or painless, but you can do your part to make it more profitable. It’s about them. Benefit them. Help them. Serve them. Care about them. Enough to challenge them to be better.
It’s THE job of top-level executives and business owners. The higher up the food chain, the more critical the decisions and solutions. Lower level or mid-level decisions have an impact, but they’re not as high risk as those made in the C-suite. Even so, it’s important for an organization to help leaders at every level make wise decisions. Leaders can learn how to do it better. Organizations benefit when leaders advance based on their ability to make great decisions and effectively solve problems quickly.
I often use an index-card illustration with clients.
An index-card illustration of the power of others
A car accident happens at an intersection. Four different witnesses, standing at each corner, saw the whole thing. As you investigate to figure out what happened, you have options. You can survey the scene and deduce what happened without talking to anybody. You can speak with the witness standing on corner 1 and draw your conclusions without hearing what witnesses 2, 3 and 4 have to say. You can single out any of the other witnesses to the exclusion of all others, or some of the others. It’s up to you.
The smart investigator will leverage the power of everybody who saw the wreck, including the drivers and passengers of the vehicles involved. There could be lots of people to listen to and understand. The investigator will find great value in anybody who can add credible testimony to help him figure out the truth. We’d consider any investigator who didn’t to be a poor detective.
Unfortunately, some organizations don’t see problem-solving or decision-making inside their operations the same way. Too frequently leaders arrogantly figure they’re the smartest person in the room, fully capable of making the decision without any help or input from others.
The combined insights gained from the four witnesses at the intersection provide the investigator with a more complete picture of what happened. It eliminates potential blind spots that could derail the investigation.
I intentionally titled today’s show using the word “creative” because creativity is a differentiator in high achieving organizations. Yes, they execute better, but they don’t follow the throngs in how they do things. Groupthink doesn’t tend to produce innovative, creative solutions. Of course, groupthink is easier because you simply have to copy cat what others do. Every industry has it and most organizations do things pretty much the same way others in the industry do. Don’t do it. Brace yourself to put in the work to be more insightful and creative. It’s going to require you to learn how to better leverage others.
Step 1 – Commit the time required.
Using my index-card illustration, the investigator could more quickly walk around the scene and decide what happened. He would likely get it completely wrong, but he might get it right. He could save a lot of time.
Taking the time to speak to every witness and carefully surveying the scene will take a lot more time, but the odds of him getting it 100% correct soar.
Realistically, sometimes time isn’t on our side. Sometimes an event or circumstance hits causing us to act now. This is when we have to quickly weigh the consequences – the risks and rewards – of taking more time. In decades of running companies, I’ve almost never been faced with a decision or problem that didn’t allow time to leverage the perspectives of others. I’m a speed freak, but there’s a big difference in being quick to act responsibly and being careless. Don’t be careless. Reckless problem-solving will create more problems than it solves, but I see it happen time and again as executives reach for that box of bandages to temporarily fix some nagging problem…when thoughtful minor surgery might fix the problem once and for all.
Make time to leverage the experience and insights of others who can help you figure out the right move.
Step 2 – Avoid conclusions until you’ve gained those insights.
It drives me crazy to hear an executive speak with somebody on their team prefacing the conversation with the opinion or conclusions they’ve already drawn.
Executive: “I think we should move forward on that, what do you think?”
Team member: “Sure.” (even though they have a very different opinion)
Don’t ruin the testimony you can gain from your team or anybody else who might help you see things more clearly. Open up your mind and you’ll make better decisions faster. It helps to leave yourself open to the possibility that you may not always be right and that things may not always be what they seem. It also helps if you give enough consideration to others, assuming they may know more than you do. Don’t you want to be surrounded by bright, smart people? Then view them that way.
Step 3 – Clarify what you’ve learned and rehearse it with your team.
After the individual talks get your group together – the people who have particular helpful insights about this issue – and rehearse with them what you’ve discovered. Confirm what you’ve learned and see if anybody corrects something you may have misunderstood. Again, it’s important that you avoid reaching a conclusion (or at least that you avoid sharing your opinion). This is where you want to distill what you’ve learned. It’s also smart to ask the group what solution they think they be best. Let them debate it. Facilitate a productive but candid conversation. If you can work to consensus, that’s great – but it’s not always possible.
Step 4 – Don’t assume there’s only one right answer. Put the top ideas on trial for their lives and let the best ones bubble to the top (hopefully, clear for everybody to see).
Make the decision and gain a commitment from the team to help execute the decision. Many a good (or decent, perhaps even great) decisions have been foiled because a team member knowingly or unknowingly sabotaged the decision. Allow no saboteurs on your team. Ever! Not once the decision has been made. This is easier to do when you’ve allowed time for debate, even vigorous debate. Team members are like disgruntled customers. They sometimes just need to vent. Don’t rob them of that opportunity. Sometimes out of that venting come some creative solutions.
Step 5 – Fix it and move forward. Don’t fix it only to revisit it constantly.
This is where creativity really earns its keep. Sometimes you must bandage something to buy yourself more time, but more often than not I see organizations patch up a problem that needs more serious attention. Why? Laziness. They don’t want to devote themselves to the issue long enough to fix it so they can be attentive to other, perhaps more important, things.
If you don’t have time to do it right, then when will you have time to do it over?
Everybody knows that question, but sometimes we still claim we don’t have time to do it right…or time to fix it permanently right now. We’ll get around to it later. But we never do. Meanwhile, the wound starts bleeding again and we grab more bandages. Sometimes I sit down with a CEO who confesses he’s got specific challenges that have gone on for years using that exact strategy. If he’d only dug deeply enough to commit the time and resources to figure this out years ago, the organization would have been further up the road to greater success.
When possible, look for a permanent (I know things can change) solution. A great long-term decision. Don’t add to your daily fires by performing a half-hearted fix.
Refuse to leverage the power of others at your peril. Your competitive edge lies in listening to, understanding and accepting the collective experience, wisdom and insights of the people around you. If you can’t do that, then my question remains, “Why are they surrounding you?”
2020 is getting a lot of appropriate buzz as a year for clearer vision. It remains to be seen if we can leverage it the way we hope. According to U.S. News & World Report, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by mid-January. Other surveys report that well over 90% of all resolutions fail somewhere along the way as the new year progresses.
Due to the vast distinctions of resolutions, it’s tough to determine why they fail, but there likely are some general truths we can consider.
For starters, many of us decide to do something that we’ve never done before. Well, never successfully. Or to any degree. Even more so, we likely don’t alter our behavior. Doing the same things. Remaining in the same habits won’t result in a different outcome. And habits are very hard to change.
The old year ended professionally with a focus on disagreement. I had a number of clients who wanted to enter the new year with a focus (for some, a renewed focus) on crafting a culture devoid of blame. “That’s not our department’s responsibility,” isn’t something the leaders at the top want to continue to hear. But the blaming game isn’t limited to that phrase. Disagreement takes on many forms and faces.
I bring this up right here in the initial episode of The Power Of Others podcast because it demonstrates the point of this podcast so well. This is a podcast about how we benefit from who surrounds us. And yes, that can include those who disagree with us.
Benefit. That word is intentional.
I know we could easily focus on the negative side of the power of others. Bad company corrupts good morals according to the Bible. We’ve all seen it. Maybe even in our own lives. There’s positive power in teaching such lessons to our children and to ourselves. Be careful who your friends are. It’s wise advice.
I’m optimistic though. I prefer to lean into the sunlight of what’s possible if we just put our minds into active work. Benefits are possible – far more probable – when we put ourselves in the company of people who can help us grow.
The first disagreement that may serve us well is to disagree with ourselves. To question things we’ve long thought were absolutely true. To seek productive disagreement in our lives. Most of us will do everything in our power to maintain the status quo, even if the status quo isn’t working. We tend to hate change. Growth and improvement are often the most powerful forms of change.
It’s not about conflict. With yourself or others. It’s about learning that not everything is worth fighting. Not because we’re apathetic, but because life is more complicated than we first think. We like neat tidy packages of our assumptions and beliefs. But life is messy.
Culture is steeped in an “I’m right, you’re wrong” way of communication. It stems from the notion that we all feel completely right. We know, with great certainty, that the other person is wrong. Look inside yourself though and you’ll quickly see how complex it all is. You believe what you do for very complicated reasons. Even simple positions are fraught with complex drivers. Why don’t we ever assume it’s the same for the other side? Because we don’t want to make that assumption. It’s easy – and makes us feel better – to simply think they’re idiots who don’t know. They’re just wrong. And we’re right.
So much of our disagreement stems from the craving to feel better about ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s too often at the expense of others. That’s not a positive leveraging of the power of others. That’s leveraging the power of self-delusion, which never works to help us grow or improve.
I’ve long used the scenario of a favorite milkshake flavor. What’s yours?
Mine is going to be chocolate, sometimes. Vanilla at other times. I’ll never pick strawberry. But I love strawberries and I love that flavor.
Why do you prefer one over the other?
You don’t know. You just do. So do I. We like what we like.
I could easily judge you and think, “You’re crazy for picking vanilla when chocolate is so good.” You might think the same about me.
For you, there may be deep memories you’re not even aware of. Times when a grandparent took you to get ice cream and you wound up with a vanilla shake. Vanilla shakes have been the choice ever since, but you’re not consciously thinking of your grandfather. If you’re not aware of it, how can I be aware of it? It just is what it is.
It’s easy to think the flavor of a milkshake is stupid. Maybe…until you have to order one for yourself. Then you care which one you get.
Disagreement isn’t about caring less, but it’s about caring more. Caring more to understand. Caring more to give grace because a time will arrive when you need and want grace. It’s about leadership. Your leadership. Somebody has to start it. It should be YOU.
When we shut down disagreement or we amp it up so nothing ever gets accomplished, we stymy growth and improvement. We dedicate ourselves to being stuck. And remaining stuck. Or we go backward. We regress.
We like to believe that most disagreements are important, but they’re not. Review your arguments with your spouse. Were they really large, important issues at stake? Not likely. More likely you argued over a chore, a meal, a relative or something rather small in the grand scheme of things.
We can get amped up over very small things because we rarely give thought to the prospect of being wrong. Alone all day every day with our thoughts, we know what we know. We think what we think. It’s all been worked out in our minds for as long as we can remember. Then somebody – anybody – takes a counter position and we react. Not with understanding. Not with the curiosity to understand, but with ferocity to defend what we think.
What if we put pressure on the truth? What if we put pressure on understanding? Instead of putting pressure to defend our being right?
What if we’re wrong? What if we could be more right?
Do we seek affirmation of our correctness over our growth and improvement? Of course, we do. Too often. But is being right worth that enormously high price? Our personal development pays the price for our hardheadedness. It’s time to ditch our stubbornness and a refusal to leverage the power of others.
Stop battling everything. Approach the fight with a different mindset. Decide to seek victory for understanding. It will change everything. I know there are people in our country who actually believe some politicians want to destroy America. It’s a viewpoint. I don’t agree. I don’t agree with the approach some people take. I have a viewpoint, which is largely determined by being a capitalist. I’m fond of free and open markets. But I quickly acknowledge I don’t know enough to be a policymaker. I’m simply not interested enough and my overall viewpoint is, whatever happens in our nation’s capital or our state’s capital — I’m in control of my future. I choose to not blame my situation on our government, the economy or anything else. I could be wrong, but I choose to believe this because it serves me. I don’t struggle judging others who see it very differently. And I certainly don’t battle them. I know where my viewpoints come from and I’m happy to learn where others get their viewpoints, but it doesn’t impact my life really.
There are other things where I’ve sought greater understanding because my mind isn’t fixed and I’m curious to know what I don’t. So I surround myself with people who will question, challenge and share insights. In many instances like that my mind is changed. Sometimes completely. I went in thinking and believing one thing, emerging believing something very different. In short, I was far better for it.
Personal growth. Improvement. Those are the desired outcomes. For each of us.
I’m choosing to not be a victim of the politics that are clearly part of my life. None of us can avoid the governments where we live and operate. I believe my best play is to do what I can with my own life no matter what the politicians do or say. And honestly, I’m less interested in what they do and far more interested in what I’m able to do.
Facing a decision – sometimes a very big decision – I surround myself with people who I know want my best. People who love me enough to be truth-tellers. People capable of making sure I have no (or limited) blindspots. I often go into it thinking I’m going to do one thing, but after hearing their insights, questions and experiences…I often make a very different decision. Because I don’t resist or disagree with their efforts to help me.
I think it has much to do with our view of vulnerability. We too often hate being vulnerable.
Being vulnerable doesn’t mean what you may think. It’s not weakness. Rather, it’s courage. It’s not putting yourself in an unsafe position. Rather, it’s making sure you’re completely safe. It’s not surrendering the fight. Rather, it’s taking the fight to where victory is most meaningful.
In a word, it’s about being PRODUCTIVE. Another word, GROWTH. Yet another, IMPROVEMENT.
These are all positive, forward-moving things. Made possible only when we give ourselves permission or allowance to let others help us.
Here’s The Plan
The podcast is going to change. Translation, grow and improve.
For starters, I’m planning on a weekly show. Once a week. I may do more. I may do less, but my goal is to bring you one show each week. I’m not sure what day of the week, but it may be Tuesdays. Why not?
I’m going to bring you stories and insights from others who have figured out how to leverage the power of others in their lives. By sharing their stories I know you’ll be able to better figure out your own forward progress.
I’m also going to bring you the insights from people who have spent time studying and looking more deeply at topics that are congruent with the power of others. Some of these will be folks who specialize in studying communication, leadership, group behavior and whatever else fits our theme.
I’ll continue to share my own insights and my own journey as I try to better leverage the power of others in my own life. All areas of my life: spiritual, personal and professional.
My plan for you is simple? Not easy, but simple. I want to help you figure out how you too can leverage the power of others so you can make better decisions faster and figure out how to grow and improve your life. Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Cue Tom Petty’s classic hit song from his fabulous Wildflowers’ album, Time To Move On.
Tom’s singing about divorce, but if I were singing the song it’d be about my long-last professional shift. Today, I hope you get some value as I rehearse with you the general angst and execution (or lack) of the past year. As we near the end of it and stare into the face of 2020 it feels right to craft this final chapter of the Grow Great podcast.
I’m hoping you’ll stay along for the ride because my intent on continuing to provide high value – in fact, I’m making this change because I want to up my game in bringing you HIGHER value.
For over 4 decades I’ve been immersed in business. All my activities have been focused on the business of building and growing business. I’ve spent most of that time leading businesses. And I’ve loved almost every mile along the journey. But it’s time to move on.
No, I’m not leaving business behind, but I am changing direction. More accurately, I’m changing my focus and going singular rather than being as broad as I’ve been over the past decade.
When I entered the professional services arena a decade ago it was real roll-up-your-sleeves-get-your-hands-dirty consulting work. I was intent on helping business owners shore up operationally. Quite often it involved retooling sales processes, too. It was the under-the-hood stuff that every business requires.
Over time it morphed. Quite organically. It ended up becoming coaching, which I found suited me unlike anything else. I’m ideally wired for it, as I had discovered when I was in my early 20’s. I enjoy communication, learning, discovery and my natural curiosity drives me to ask questions seeking understanding. In short, it was right up my ally, suited to my strong suit because it was all about PEOPLE. It was about me doing whatever I could to help people figure it out for themselves. I loved it because everything about it felt right.
There’s a character strength assessment that I’m fond of. A buddy – Joe Bacigalupo of AlliancesHub International put me onto it. I knew something of the folks behind it because I had read (years ago) a book entitled, Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. He’s one of the people behind the VIA Survey, the folks leaning hard into character strengths (which differ from talent or skill strengths).
That assessment is meaningful because among my core character strengths are things I’ve long known about myself. Things like forgiveness are big things for me. And easy.
My passion to go deep with people in an effort to serve them has always been strong. It’s been growing stronger and stronger over the past decade. I’m naturally bent toward being a person with whom others can feel safe. Confidentiality isn’t hard for me. Not judging people or telling them what they “should” do it’s either. I’m happy to give people my opinion if they press, but I mostly am geared to asking questions so they can figure out for themselves what is best for them. This is all in the context of business or organizational behavior. So candor is up near the top of things I cherish most.
What I’ve learned the past 4-5 years is that this is woefully lacking in the world. But not really. Let me explain.
Talk with 10 people and I guarantee if you direct the right questions toward them you’ll discover each of the 10 was powerfully impacted by somebody. Likely a number of somebodies. In other words, they leveraged the power of others. We all do it, but most of us don’t do it strategically or even tactically. It just happens organically. Or not.
I began to look more closely at the people at the bottom of the achievement pile. People who suffer all sorts of challenges that I have never faced. Many of them lacked good influence from others. The child who grows up abused and neglected may lean into poor and foolish behavior. Devoid of having the power of others, that child can develop into an adult lacking the necessary wisdom to navigate life successfully. Yes, there are outliers — those who grow up like that and in spite of the horrific odds, they choose to lean hard into wisdom opting to make the best choices possible so they can escape the dungeon of despair.
It’s not so shocking to me because as a man of Faith I’ve long known what the Bible says about such things.
1 Corinthians 15:33 “Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals.”
The converse is equally true. Surround yourself with good people and it can foster higher behavior. In our organizations, it produces higher human performance. Just take a close look at any group or team that is high achieving and you’ll see it. The power of others.
Four years or so ago things took a professional turn for me. I was given an opportunity by a very forward-thinking City Manager looking for an executive coach for one of her Directors. Thrust into an organization whose goal was to deliver superior service to a demanding city population, it was quite different than my typical trifecta of business building stuff: a) getting new customers, b) serving existing customers better and c) not going crazy in the process.
I found two of the three were still in place though. Mostly, I found the focus was solely on PEOPLE. It was a complete focus on PEOPLE. People working well with other people. People struggling to work well with others. People unable to accurately read a situation. People struggling to communicate effectively. People finding it hard to lead. People finding it hard to follow. A lot of culture stuff. A lot of team stuff. Chemistry stuff. Emotional intelligence stuff.
My eyes were opened. This was my niche. Not serving city government, but focusing on PEOPLE. It felt right. Everything about it felt right.
While I’d been an “operator” all my life and I still immensely enjoy strategy and operations…nothing trumps PEOPLE. For me, nothing trumps being able to go deeply enough with people where real help, support, and service can happen. It fueled me, unlike any work I’d ever done.
I pushed a bit harder into the PEOPLE side of things. It wasn’t easy. I was too reluctant – now that I look back – to let go of operational stuff. When you’ve so embraced being an operator for so long it’s a tough thing to shed. But slowly I began to intentionally work on it.
Then there’s the reality of client services. You do what you must to get clients, serve clients and keep clients. It wasn’t always the direction I wanted to go, but I did it anyway. Increasingly my heart wasn’t in it. But a clean pivot didn’t seem possible. Besides, now that I’ve got clarity I didn’t have in real-time.
Along the way, I reached out and made a connection with Leo Bottary. Leo had co-authored a book, The Power Of Peers. We started a podcast, which I produced, The Year Of The Peer. From that podcast, Leo wrote a second book, “What Anyone Can Do.” After that, I joined him as a cohost of our current podcast by the same title.
Associating with Leo was very intentional because I knew he was a smart guy about peer groups and peer advantage. I wanted to learn all I could about peer advisory groups. Why do they work? Why don’t more people take advantage of them? What makes a great peer advisory group? Why do people join them? Why do they leave? I had many questions. I knew I wanted to operate in that space. In fact, three years ago I knew I wanted Bula Network to be a peer advisory company operating virtual or online peer advisory groups. I also knew the first group needed to be SMB owners. Entrepreneurs operating companies doing a few million bucks to companies doing in excess of $200M. I’m an operator and I was driven to build this first group of people who make the decisions, and who are close to the customers and the employees.
It takes time to figure it out. It took me too long. Proof that no matter how smart you are, figuring it out is hard work. 😀
2020 is a fitting year. A fitting number. 2020 provokes most of us to think of VISION.
My vision is clearing. Well, not physically. I need reading glasses, but professionally, even personally, many things are getting clearer. It’s been a long journey, but I rather think things happen in due time. I suppose things happen in a timeline that CAN work to our advantage if we’re wise. I’m trying hard to be wise.
Over the summer I really started trying to build The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. I had figured I could get it up and running by the late fall of this year. It didn’t happen. And it was entirely my fault. I didn’t give it the focused effort it deserved. I had so many irons in the fire because I said YES to too many things and I wasn’t discriminating enough. Learn from my errors.
“If everything is important, then nothing is important.”
That’s my quote. I first said it when I was a teenager as I observed the insanely erratic behavior of a business owner I was working for. He taught me a lot because he was a jerk and not very smart. I learned early on what NOT to do to succeed at business. He was second generation and dad had built a good business. So good that even a moron son couldn’t quite ruin it at the time. 😉
Here I was being my own jerk and being stupid. “Who’s the moron now?” I often thought.
I’d have conversations with people about peer advantage. Most had no idea about it. It was so far beyond the realm of anything they’ve ever experienced that they struggled to see how it could help them. I searched for language to help convey it. I’m good with words. And have never struggled to find ways to connect. But that wasn’t really the challenge.
The challenge was like a hydra – a monster with many heads. I had too many irons in the fire. I wasn’t focused. The Peer Advantage wasn’t’ seen as solving any one problem. Customers want solutions and a generic solution – helping you make better decisions – isn’t nearly precise enough.
Leo is an adjunct professor and he was conducting a master’s level online class for a university. He thought it’d be a good exercise for his class to do a project on The Peer Advantage, this new initiative I was planning to launch. Bright people from all over the globe devoted themselves for 2 weeks to develop a brilliant strategic communication plan to help me. I interacted with the class via a video conference twice. Their work resulted in a brilliantly constructed slide deck and advice that my brand should become The Peer Advantage by Bula Network.
They did great work and I did very little with it. Again, too many distractions. Too many irons still in the fire. Saying YES too many times and not saying NO nearly enough. Nobody to blame but myself. I simply needed to make up my mind. I needed to draw a line in the sand and fully commit. But I was reluctant.
Belief. It Matters.
True confession time. I *strongly* believed in the service. I knew the power of, “Who you surround yourself with matters.” I also knew from experience how tough it is to help other people see the value of peer advantage. I was suffering the symptoms of it myself. Vulnerability. Courage. Those are big issues. They impact belief and belief drives everything. Without belief, there is little confidence and without confidence, there’s never success!
But I did believe in THE POWER OF OTHERS.
I did believe in how dramatically it could positively change the lives of anybody who dare join themselves to THE PEER ADVANTAGE.
I did believe in my ability to have the necessary conversations to find and select the best people. I even believed in my ability to convey the benefits of it to prospective members.
What I didn’t believe in was the sales conversation.
What I didn’t believe in was my ability to make this singular focus work, to the exclusion of everything else. It was scary. Deep down I knew I could, but at a surface and practical level, it was frightening.
Along the way, some personal challenges erupted that changed my life. No, I didn’t get a divorce. I’m still married to the girl I fell in love with when I was 18. In January we’ll hit our 42nd wedding anniversary. But life throws all of us curveballs and we’ve experienced our own. So have you. I’m not claiming mine are special because they aren’t. But you know that personal challenges, especially those that deeply affect us, are impossible to compartmentalize. Our lives are our lives. We’re not just podcasters, or business owners, or leaders. We’re people. And there it is again. PEOPLE.
More and more I was falling in love with what I deemed, “leveraging the power of others.”
Emotionally and mentally that was my focus. I couldn’t get my mind off of it, but I was still distracted with too many other activities. They were robbing me of any opportunities to succeed at what I most wanted to achieve. I was my own worst enemy but didn’t fully realize it.
I was isolating myself. How ironic, right? The guy falling in love more and more with THE POWER OF OTHERS. And he’s not availing himself of the power of others. Not professionally anyway.
During my personal crisis, I was fully leveraging the power of others. Four men served me. Three old men and one younger man. All of them gospel preachers. We all share a common faith. I’ve known each of them for a long time, three of them (the old men) all my life. They helped me in ways that even a wordsmith like me can’t properly express.
One of them, the youngest of the eldest, was 75. He’d been battling health issues, but nobody was expecting a hospital visit end with his sudden death. He was a big figure in my life. A man who loved me enough to challenge me. And it was terrific because I knew he cared deeply about me. Suddenly, I was without him and I’d never been without him.
A week ago the eldest of the eldest died. He was 88 and had been fighting his own health challenges, but none of us expected him to go to bed and not wake up. Another major void in the great men who have surrounded me all my life.
The last of the eldest is 83, a man as special as any man in my life. This week he’s prepared to enter hospice. And while I know he’s ready, I equally know I am not. I’m not ready to press on without access to his wisdom. He’s been a brilliant guide of unparalleled importance in my life always.
Thankfully, my fourth advisor is in his mid-40’s so I’m hoping to have him around for a while. 😉
All that to help you better understand my context and my struggles. You can relate, right? I know you can. It’s how life happens. It’s the struggle of our lives. And sadly, I’m confessing that professionally I’ve struggled because I’ve failed (woefully) in leveraging the power of others.
I know, I’m a hypocrite. Here I am, the guy harping at you to leverage the power of others. To be courageous enough to be vulnerable so you can achieve more. And do it faster. And as much as I know that’s true. As much as I believe it. I’ve failed to do it myself. It boils down to just one thing, a dreadful lack of courage. My belief hasn’t been strong enough. My fears have been too big.
Fear. It’s real. And it destroys all of our dreams.
My fears were real. And many.
I was fearful I’d fail. Fearful I’d look stupid. Fearful I’d be judged.
All of which is true. I will fail. I will look stupid. People will always be judging. Nothing I do is going to help me escape any of them. Those things and many other fears will happen no matter what. Don’t we all know that? Surely we do — logically anyway. But not emotionally.
Something happened to my fear when my 88-year-old mentor died a week ago. Something clicked as I sat in that funeral service. Something happened as I put my right hand on the rail to carry his casket as a pallbearer. Something happened as I sat there and wept at my loss. Something happened as I surveyed having done the very same thing back in 2013 when I helped carry the casket of my lifelong best friend, Stanley. This 88-year-old man was Stanley’s dad. Something happens and it’s up to us to leverage it. To make the most of us.
A flash of insight overcame me. As if somebody had reached deep inside me and flipped a switch helping me see things more clearly than ever before. Instant feelings of stupidity and hard-headedness quickly gave way to more positive thoughts. “I don’t care anymore.” Cue Phil Collin’s hit song. It’s another song about divorce, but like Petty’s “Time To Move On” I applied it in a very different context. (I don’t know what there is with me and divorce songs!)
We buried Johnny (Stanley’s dad) this past Saturday. So it’s not even been a week. And I don’t want you to think that I trumped all this up in just a week. This has been brewing for years. I’ve been thinking, making notes, vetting and dissecting all this for going on 4 years! All the while not doing what I know now I should have.
Let me share the sad truth. It’s a truth that isn’t unique to me. It’s true for you, too.
We have failed to achieve the things we most want to achieve because we’re afraid. Who cares how illogical the fear is? It’s still real for us.
Listen, I’m closely associated with Leo Bottary who wrote the book, What Anyone Can Do. I’ve already told you that book was the result of a podcast Leo and I did, Year Of The Peer. We kept hearing stories of people who didn’t do extraordinary insanely super-human things. They were driven (and influenced by somebody who expressed belief in them). The title of Leo’s book comes from what a running coach said back in the 1970s about track champions. They mostly don’t do super-human things. They do the things most of us could do but don’t.
We fail to do the very things we could do. I had failed to do the things I could. The things I had claimed I wanted to do. Fear prevented me. Isolation helped fuel my fear. What helped me was finally seeing how intentional I had been in this personal part of my life. I had leaned heavily for over a year on four men, two of whom are now gone and one who is ready to go. And as I looked in retrospect it dawned on me, “What if you had no relied on them? What if these men had left the planet without you reaching out to them to help guide you through this?” What a loss! I couldn’t get my head wrapped around it.
Barney was 75, months away from turning 76. What if I had not confided in Barney about my challenge? What if I had not spent the hours on the phone (he lived in Ohio) getting his insights and fielding his hard questions?
Johnny was 88. Just days earlier he had celebrated that birthday. What if I had not leaned on him about my issue? What if we had not spent hours wrestling with the issue together? What if I had not gone to see him and spent a few hours with him (he lived in Oklahoma)?
Ronny is 83. I’ve spent the most time with him. He’s been my most trusted advisory. What if I had not had him in my life to see how he saw things? What if I had not been courageous enough to share my vulnerability with this most respected hero in my life? What if I had not spent hours and hours on the phone with him? What if I had not spent hours and hours in person seeking his input? He lives in Missouri.
Kevin is 46. I met him when he was 14. I’m well his senior, but he’s a close friend and like the other men, I love him very much.
The epiphany arrived. Finally.
I’m sitting there weeping at Johnny’s funeral and realizing that I had personally done what I had failed to do professionally. It was driven entirely by gratitude. Only weeks ago we celebrated Thanksgiving Day. I was overwhelmed with how thankful I felt for having these men in my life. And how thankful I was that I had formed relationships long ago with each of them. Mostly, thankful that I had such talented, insightful and caring men with whom I felt safe enough to share such important matters. It was so blindingly obvious how special and priceless these insights had been for me in my personal life.
“This is exactly why I want to get The Peer Advantage by Bula Network going,” I thought in the car ride back home. Of course, that was after a few hours of thinking, “I’m an idiot.”
No, I’m human. I’ve got the same fears and issues you do. I lost so much time because I was isolated while being surrounded by people. I didn’t lean on people as I should. It’s not their fault. It’s mine. I had intentionally put myself in the presence of people like Leo Bottary. But I didn’t want to bother people. I didn’t want to impose. Maybe I didn’t want to share my fears.
When I got back home I wrote down, “This is exactly why a paid peer advisory group is THE answer to better leverage the power of others. When we’re paying to be part of a safe group of peers we can more easily shed our fears and reservations of imposing on others. It’s the reason we’re paying to be part of the group – so we do exactly what we need to grow and advance our goals.”
It was a Homer Simpson DOH moment.
Look at your life. Look closely. Honestly.
Think about the fears that have long stood in your way. It doesn’t matter how reasonable or unreasonable they are. Or have been. They’re real because they’re yours.
What if some people had been gathered around you to help you through them? What difference would that have made?
Think about the lost time. Think about the lost advantages of having reached a goal that you’ve yet to reach.
Think about how much further up the road you’d be enjoying the achievements and success you’ve most wanted?
This isn’t a guarantee for success, but it’s absolutely the closest thing I know to it. It’s a sure-fire way to accelerate growth and your ability to figure it out.
Logically I’ve known all my adult life that it’s about making good decisions. It’s about finding out how we can make the very best decisions. Then, it’s about how can we execute those decisions? That’s it.
I don’t care what you want to accomplish. I don’t care what specific thing it is to which you aspire. The path forward is to make a good decision, then act on that decision. It’s how achievement happens in your life, my life and every other life.
Why don’t we do it better?
Because we’re afraid. Fear is the killer.
The antidote is the power of others. But that creates its own fear. Deep fear. Embarrassment. Looking stupid. Looking like we’re incompetent. Not wanting to be vulnerable. Not wanting to show our underwear even though we know everybody else feels just like we do.
We lose sight of the truth of our collective and common humanity.
Your Instagram moments feel real to me. So does my lack of Instagram moments. But you’re fronting. Hoping to fool most of the people into thinking you’re fearless. I get it. I’ve been doing the same thing, just not on Instagram. 😀
Friday the 13th, December 2019. The day of reckoning. The day I say, “Good-bye!”
First, good-bye to Grow Great, the podcast.
The podcast, starting in 2020, will be re-branded The Power Of Others. I’ve wrestled with other names, but that’s the one that best describes what I most want to do for the rest of my life. I want to evangelize the message that there’s enormous power in seeking and accepting help from others.
Everything will remain right here on this website. GrowGreat.com will still bring you right here. So will all these other names:
I didn’t want to rebrand the podcast The Peer Advantage because leveraging the power of others is bigger than peers. Look at my story of the four men I leaned on the past year or so. These men have been in my life a very long time and none of them is really my peer demographically. We all share faith. That’s our commonality so in that way we’re peers, but not in any other way.
Think about your life and the people who have heavily influenced you. It’s likely it may have been a boss. A parent. A grandparent. A co-worker. A spouse. A close friend. A teacher. There are lots of OTHERS out there who help us. And who can help us. I didn’t want to limit the podcast to just peers and I absolutely didn’t want the podcast to be some device to simply schill my work. And I wanted the podcast platform to be large enough to satisfy my curiosity for a long, long time. The Power Of Others will do that. I have no doubt.
Grow Great is under the business category. The Power Of Others will go into Society & Culture.
This my final episode of Grow Great. Starting in January each episode will be about the power of others. It will address whatever curiosities I have satisfied and the ones that remain. It will include business and organizational viewpoints. It’ll also include personal ones, too. It will include leadership, but it’ll also include elevating our game all along the way toward leadership if that’s something to which we aspire. It’ll take aim at leveraging the power of others no matter our circumstance or situation. Age and situations don’t matter — we all need others to help us along the way.
It’s not about promoting The Peer Advantage by Bula Network although I will shamelessly do that (but no more than I have in the past). It’s about influence and persuasion. Namely, convincing you and all of us, including myself, that we’re leaving so much potential behind. We’re wasting so much time. We can be further along in our success journey if we can find the courage to get past our fears. I hope to be just one voice evangelizing the message and helping show the way. Not because I’m an expert. Not because I’m a “thought leader,” but mostly because I care. And because I believe.
Professionally The Peer Advantage by Bula Network is going to get my attention and focus, finally at long last. No more consulting gigs. Any engagements I say YES to will be because it speaks to my desire to help companies and organizations (this includes city governments) with PEOPLE. If the issue isn’t directly related to PEOPLE, then my answer is, “No thanks!”
I’m doing some collaborations with people like Leo and Joe Bacigalupo who are also focused on people. But my focus is on my own company, Bula Network and driving the launch of my first group of The Peer Advantage. That charter group will consist of 8 (originally it was 7) SMB owners from around America. I’ve settled on and given formal invitations to just two so far. Quite a few others just didn’t feel right, which is fine. It’s not for everybody. For starters, it’s not for CEOs who aren’t owners. And for now, I’m not building a group for CEOs who aren’t owners. I may the next go-round, but not right now. It’s not for number 2’s. That too is an appealing idea and I’ve talked with lots of number 2’s, but this charter group is only for number 1’s. See, this has been just one of my problems in forming this first group. Distraction. Not being clear enough to say NO more quickly (albeit politely).
I went to 8 from 7 because I want to increase the value. The value proposition was already very high, but it was important to me to increase it even more for this charter group. And it was also important to me that the room have sufficient power to leverage the power of others to a level that’s as high as possible. Eight feels right on many fronts. First, it allows me to lower the cost to everybody in the group. That price reduction isn’t going to make a bit of difference in somebody saying YES, but it feels better for me. I didn’t do it for the members. I did it for myself. The members will benefit, too though. And I wanted to increase it by 1 because I know there may be times when not everybody can attend each meeting. It happens. We’re all busy. But I think over time the attendance will be near 100% every time. Even so, things can come up. With 8 I’ve convinced a majority of members showing up will provide sufficient feedback and insights to bring higher value to every single meeting.
I’m now diligently looking for 2 more charter members so we can begin. When we have half our members we’ll start meeting regularly. Monthly membership won’t begin until we have all 8 members at the table, but we’re going to get underway as soon as I get 2 more (four total). Those 4 will have paid their one-time enrollment fee, which is an important emotional tool more than anything. Yes, it’s the proverbial skin in the game and it’s non-refundable, but it’s such a ridiculously low sum of money it’s not going to make any broke or rich. What it will do is serve to overcome that fear I had – and that everybody has – to lean on others. It makes the group PROFESSIONAL. Yes, it will all be very personal, but the professional part is very important so we all feel comfortable and confident to bring whatever problems, challenges or opportunities to the group without any reservations.
So if you own a company doing in excess of a few million bucks a year I hope you’ll apply so we can discuss it. I only want you to have a company of that size because I don’t want the $800 monthly membership to be any kind of hardship whatsoever. My two members right now are over $50M each, pushing their way toward $100M. So don’t let the size or scale of your organization prevent us from talking. All the details are at ThePeerAdvantage.com.
So there it is. I feel better for having shared the gory details with you. It’s been a long, arduous journey to reach a place where I feel I have it figured out a bit better. I still have much to learn, but we’re in this together.
And when I think of what’s driving me mostly it’s significance and meaning. It’s impact. I believe each of us matters (as Angela Maiers is so fond of saying). And I believe each of us has a strong, innate desire to matter as much as we possibly can. Further, I believe we can achieve that best when are helping each other achieve those goals and ambitions that are so uniquely our own. It’s not about me deciding for you or you deciding for me. It’s about a mutual respect and care where I want you to achieve what you’ve set out to do and I need your help so I can hit my own targets.
The sign off won’t likely change because I’m rather fond of it. And along the way together we’ll figure out the things we’ve not yet figured out. I hope you’ll stay on the journey with me and I hope you’ll invite others…because it’s all about The Power Of Others.
