5 Ways Peernovation Drives Better Business Results

You say the game is getting old. Monday morning and your coffee's cold. Life is not what you wanted to be.

Hello everyone and welcome to A New Direction. My name's Jay Hissoe and man, we got another great show for you. Leo's laughing because it's been 5 years since he's been on the show and he probably doesn't remember the opening so much, the Good Morning Vietnam openings. But I am excited to bring him back. His name is Leo Bottary. He wrote this great book called Peer Innovation. Is the book. It's the second edition. If you joined us about 5 years ago when he wrote the first edition of this book, we had a really fruitful discussion, and then he rewrote this book, added about 5 chapters. But it's more than the 5 chapters. There's so much more additional information. And what I think what he does here in Peer Innovation this time is he adds so much more clarity to peer innovation, and he pulls in some other areas that I think we really need to pay attention to because here's the deal, folks, this is inarguable. I don't— we cannot— it's impossible for us to argue this. We all have to agree that we are far smarter when we come together collectively, right, as a group or as a forum or as a team, and we're going to have Leo kind of parse that out for us a little bit because there is some terminology we have to do here. But we are far smarter. We're better at making decisions when we do it collectively. We could probably become— well, no, actually, we do become more profitable if we will do this all together. And yet we give it a lot of— Leo said this before the show— we give it a lot of lip service. But we're not necessarily doing it. And there is power in peer novation. And listen, we're going to talk about this and you go peer novation. Yeah. Just break the word up with me together. Can we do it together? Let's do it. Let's do it kind of like Mr. Rogers would have done it. Okay. Together. Let's do it. Peer, colleagues, people that are equal to us, right? Peers. And then novation. Oh, oh, you mean innovate? Yes, yes, yes, yes. We're going to talk about innovation, right? Creativity. And what have we learned over the course— if you listen to the show over the course of the last, I don't know, 8 years, what have you learned? There is no problem that creativity cannot solve. Fact. I didn't say that, by the way. By the way, Nir Eshran, who is a author, been on the show. His book, The Creator Mindset, said it. There is absolutely no problem that creativity cannot solve. Well, do you want to solve the problems in your business that requires innovation and creativity? That's pure innovation. And, uh, Leo and I are going to have this really great discussion. So as everybody's tuning in and as people are, if you're listening and driving down the road, yes, I do. I want you to take notes, but not while you're driving. So for the love of sanity, please don't do that. But here's what I tell my clients to do. I'm going to tell you to do the same thing. If you're listening to the show while you're driving down the road, always have with you some sticky notes. See these sticky notes, right? And then when you have the 3 things or a couple of things that you have in mind as you're listening, write them down. And these are the things you're going to take action on that you've heard on the show. That's what I'm asking you to do today. All right. So all that said, let me introduce to you Leo Bottary because he's outstanding. Leo Bottary is the founder and managing partner of Peer Innovation LLC. He's a sought-after thought leader on peer advantage and peer innovation, emerging disciplines dedicated to strategically engaging peers to achieve personal and organizational excellence. He is a very popular author, keynote speaker, and workshop facilitator. As a matter of fact, he's, he's in Sacramento right now doing that. He also serves as an instructor for Rutgers University. Yeah, go Garden State University. Love that. And as, as an opinion columnist and advisory board member for CEO World magazine, he, he wrote his first book with former Vistage CEO Leon Shapiro, The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership Growth and Success. He then his second book, What Anyone Can Do, How Surrounding Yourself with the Right People Will Drive Change, which by the way, it's a great book too. I've actually read that one as well. Um, and then he wrote Peer Innovation in 2020 and then this is his latest, um, the second edition of Peer Innovation, um, Leverage Peer Wisdom to Create Team Excellence. Um, he's outstanding and he joins us today. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show and welcome my friend, uh, and, uh, someone I'm always excited to be with. Leo Bottary. Leo, welcome back to A New Direction.

I am so excited to be back. I can't tell you. It's been great. And we're really looking forward to our conversation today. So let's have at it.

All right, let's do this. Let's just start with the peer innovation thought process. I open the show with— there's no challenge to the fact that we're smarter, we're more creative when it comes to being together as a group versus being siloed, which is kind of how you talk about books, because oftentimes leaders make a decision a lot of times in silos. Why, if this is such an important thing, what is the mindset shift that really has to happen for leaders in order to embrace this idea of peer innovation?

It's a great question because it can be different for everybody, right? You know, one of the things that— so CEOs, I think by nature, when they are communicating, they think they are doing so with clarity. And the thing about communication and communicating clearly is that Receipt of the message as intended is up to the sender. It's not up to the receiver. And so what happens is CEOs tend to believe they're being clear. People don't ask questions of the CEO oftentimes because they want to pretend they actually know what's going on. And then the next thing you know, you have breakdowns in communication. And because you don't have clarity in communication, or you have systems that are probably layered on top of one another as people can tend to grow, You then start having collaboration issues. It strains your organizational capacity. It gets everybody stressed out, and people start thinking, well, we're not hitting our numbers, so we're going to press on this, that, and the other, as opposed to addressing the very core communication problem that exists, you know, in many companies today. So that's one big culprit, I would say, in terms of why, you know, it can be problematic.

I want to— you said something that I think we may have heard, but I don't know that we have it sunk into our soul. And that's this. It's not the— it's, it's on our part as when it comes to communication. It is the sender's responsibility. Right?

Absolutely.

Not the listener's responsibility.

That's right.

And I— this is, this is so critical, people. I want you to hear this so, so carefully. I think as leaders, and I've seen it with companies I've worked with, leaders I've worked with too, they make an assumption that they're clear already.

Right.

And I don't think that there is this piece of— to the listeners of their, their employees or their direct reports or whoever it may be. Are we clear? This just happened to me, by the way, where I heard something different. I was, I was getting ready to do a webinar. And they brought me in to bring through this webinar. I heard something completely different than what they said. And then, you know, it became this little bit of an argument of, well, that's not what we agreed to. Well, that's what I heard. So, so I was, I was at a loss. I think that is a huge part of this is the communication aspect of it. But there's another thing I want you to address because there's, it's something that we don't talk about very often. It's called naive realism. Yes. You know, the idea that people are so locked into their own perspective, they don't appreciate the perspective of others. And I think it's related to this. Let's talk about naive realism when it comes to trying to adopt to a peer innovation strategy, how that maybe prevents us from wanting to do this with groups or with groups, focus groups, teams, um, or whoever. Talk to us about what, how naive realism plays that role.

You know, it was interesting. Uh, as you know, um, naive realism is a term that I really picked up from, uh, David Brooks's book. And David Brooks talks about it, you know, he tells that story about when he's— the woman yells, "Hey, how do I get to the other side of the river?" And the guy who's on the other side of the river says, "You are on the other side of the river." So it's all about perspective. But I think, you know, all in all, it's really being truly open to listening for understanding. We listen oftentimes to— because we're in debates with people and we're, as the other person's talking, we're thinking about what it is we want to say. We're not always locked into trying to get to the core of what it is we should be talking about, which is why very oftentimes you could have two people arguing about something and you realize that they're about two or three conversations away from the conversation they're even having. Because of where their starting points are on either side. And, you know, when you bring up this issue of, you know, the communication being up to the sender, some people are kind of skeptical about that. And yet it's interesting because the first time I actually learned that— and I'm not happy about the fact that this happened, but it was probably the greatest communication lesson I ever received— was I was 15 years old, I'm in the 9th grade, I'm asked to fill in on the relay team. And 1-mile relay, you run your quarter mile around the track. I was the third leg of it. I run my third leg. I've got the lead. I'm about to pass the baton to what's the fastest kid in the city. Our relay team was undefeated that year. I passed the baton. The baton hits the ground. Game over, right? So we lose. We're done. Undefeated season over. We lose to— in a meet we never should have lost. The coach at the time, in no uncertain terms, shared with me it was absolutely my fault. And if you think about it, he says, you never let go of that baton until you know it's within their grasp, and only then can you let them run with it. So if you think about that, and now over time that has played out in other fields. You know, I saw a painting at the National Gallery of Art where there's this There's this story about a general who was relieved of his command, not because he gave them a wrong order, but because the order was misinterpreted. It's when a doctor— you've got a surgeon, right? Whoever's assisting the surgeon, that scalpel is right in their hand. He's not tossing it over an open wound in the hope he catches it, right? So everything about it has to be about the sender assuring that and being open to listen and being open to the fact that what they said could have been heard in another way. And they need to be able to reconcile that.

I, I, and I don't know what the disconnect is. I did a show last week talking about the disconnect between the leadership disconnect because Leo, can we, can you and I agree on this? Maybe you might. And it's okay if you don't, but can we agree on this? If leaders were really doing what they should be doing, there would be no reason to write somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 leadership books a year.

Oh, I think that's a fair point.

I just think, I'm like going, there's between 1,000 and 3,000 leadership books written every year, probably more in the US. I'm just talking about the US. And I'm like, and I was saying, well, if we're writing that many books, what are we, why are we writing them if leaders are doing everything they're supposed to do? And it's because they're clearly not. Doing this. And this is a concept that you've written, peer novation, right? That you go, this is something you should be doing, but it's not practiced often. And if it is practiced, it's not practiced in the way that you're proposing it. And that leads— yeah, go ahead.

No, no, no, please finish.

Well, and that leads me to this. When, when you're proposing for the listener, when you're in the leaders that listen to the show, when you're proposing peer innovation to them, right? What is either the challenge that you face and what is, when do they accept it?

Yeah. So there's two things. Um, and this kind of speaks to the leadership example you gave. Same holds true for like team building. How many things are out there that we've seen on team building and building teams and high performing and all that? And it's not like we don't see them all the time. We see them in sports, we see them in the military, we see medical teams and all of that. Sometimes a book will come out and it has a point of view that just clicks, right? Like they've read all these books about it, but this spoke to me in some way, which is the only reason I wouldn't say 1,000 to 3,000 books or 2,000 to 3,000 leadership books are necessary. But different ways of expressing where oftentimes, that oftentimes lead to the same conclusion, can resonate with some people and not with others. And I totally get that. So the two things that I try to use to resonate is this: one, this work walks through the door of what the highest-performing CEO peer advisory groups have been doing brilliantly for decades. These are proven principles and practices that you can bring to your team. That's number one. Second is one of the big difficulties with any kind of executive development or employee training programs and anything. Content's great, the experience is great and all that, but all too often there's not a mechanism to be able to operationalize that learning. So Peer Innovation was designed specifically to say, hey, we've got A, we're walking through a door with proven principles and practices, and B, we come at it in a way that helps you operationalize it so that we don't have an event, if you will, and then we're all just talking about it for a month and then it goes away.

You, you mentioned, uh, I found when I read this edition again, and I know you probably said it in the other edition, but it resonated with me a little bit more. You kind of make a distinction between groups and forums and some other gatherings. Help us understand what you're trying to get at in trying to adapt peer innovation into these. I don't know if it's different subsets of groups, but you do kind of make a distinction here between groups, forums, and teams. Can you kind of help me understand and help the listener understand what we're trying to get at between adapting peer innovation to those, to those different types of gatherings?

Yeah, so the reason I made the distinction between groups and teams was actually me trying to eat my own dog food a little bit, right? Because now, right, because I've got to create clarity. I want the reader and I not to be speaking different languages.

Okay.

Because you can ask some people, okay, what's the difference between a group and a team? And you'll have people say, well, they're a group but not really a team. You know, they regard a group as somehow lesser than. What a quote team would be. And what I wanted to make clear, just so that it was my, you know, attempt at creating that clarity, was they are equally powerful and effective, but they're formed fundamentally for very different reasons. A team is formed largely to create a shared work product or achieve a shared goal that, you know, only a collective can really pull together. A group comes together when you think about CEO peer advisory groups and forums and groups like this for other business leaders and all, they effectively come together so that the people in that room can walk away themselves with something that will help them be a better leader or something they can bring back to their organization. And in turn, they are contributing to the education of others so that everyone can do the same thing. So that was important, at least to make that distinction. What's interesting though, is in large part, And of course, there are some nuances to it, and you had mentioned this to me before, but in large part, the same things that make for a great group also will make for a really high-performing team. I think one of the things that comes up though is psychological safety. Psychological safety in a group is different. They're all peers, for example, and that's a very different experience from kind of a hierarchy and consequences and some of the things that are different when you're inside a company, which makes it not impossible by any stretch at all, but it's just different. It's just a different animal in terms of the, I think, requirement almost, if you will, of the CEO, of the direct reports, and everyone really understanding what creating psychological safety is all about and what the true advantages are. Because the point should never be that we create psychological safety for the sake of it. We're actually doing it because it helps us be more productive, because it helps us create a healthier culture of accountability. It relieves stress. It does all of these kinds of things that create a workplace that I think is kind of what really great teams are seeking.

I want to dig into psychological safety, but I don't want to cut us short. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a break right now and we're going to take a quick commercial break and then we're going to dig into the psychological safety thing here because I have a lot of problems with the term psychological safety, not because I have a problem with the concept itself, but how it's approached. So, Leo, let's do this. You're listening to Leo Bottary and his Second edition of Peer Innovation. Insightful, clear, powerful, making the case that I don't care what size your organization is, you need to have peer innovation as part of your company and organization. It doesn't matter the size of it. I don't care if it's profit or nonprofit. And there are ways to do it and there's the right way to do it. And that's what this book is about. You're listening to him here. On a new direction. Hey folks, sponsors, Zoundi, ultimate game changer for authors, publishers, and professionals in the audiobook space. I use Zoundi. I love them. I am on a lot of audiobook platforms, but here's the difference between Zoundi and the other audio platforms that I'm on with my books. It's this. I actually can be in contact with the people who listen to my book, and that's powerful. I, I know who's downloaded it and I reach out to them and say, what do you like about the book? What do you not like about the book? How could I improve the book? What would you like to see me write next? Is there, is there a topic that you could see that I could branch off from that you would like to see in my next book? That's what makes Xoundi so powerful. So listen, if you're trying to— you got your book out in the audio space and you want to leverage it, maybe do better marketing, understand how you can be a better writer, Zoundy simplifies the process and then unlocks unlimited opportunities. Visit zoundy.com, Z-O-U-N-D-Y dot com. Now, special savings if you use my code. Just go to zoundy.com, Z-O-U-N-D-Y dot com, forward slash J, J-A-Y, and use my promo code JAY25. you will unlock special savings. I'm telling you, publishers, authors, professionals in the audiobook space, check them out. I really— you're going to be so glad you did. And Linda Craft Team Realtors. For more than 40 years, they've helped people transition in life. And you say, I thought they're real estate. What do you mean they transition? Think about it. Every person, every place you've ever lived, right, has been a life transition. They know how to take the stress out of that. And they've been doing that successfully for 40 years, helping thousands of people all over. They'd love to help you too as well make that life transition just, just that much more smoother without the stress. Check them out. LindaCraft.com, LindaCraft.com. And we're back here on A New Direction with my friend Leo Bottary. His book, Pure Innovation: Leverage Pure Wisdom to Create Team Excellence. Outstanding book. It's, it's— he added 5 chapters, More so, I would just say that beyond the 5 chapters that he's added, he's added material in here and examples that just give so much more clarity to peer innovation. And I have found that this edition is absolutely outstanding. I thought the first book was very good, but I think this is— I think he's made even greater improvements on the book. And I will say this, this is the first time in the history of A New Direction that I've been around long enough to actually have an author come on with a second edition, which says something too as well. So Leo, let's talk about psychological safety. It is a very hot term. I, it's hard for me to read a leadership book on this show without somebody mentioning psychological safety. I have a little bit of a problem with it because it, again, I think it's one of those things that we give a lot of lip service to. Where I think a leader will intuitively say, oh no, no, my people can say whatever they want to say. I mean, this is an open forum. There's no judgment, but that's not how the employee receives it.

No.

Um, so how do we really do— what does it require on the leadership end to really ensure that we have psychological safety in these peer innovative groups?

Well, first of all, it requires some emotional intelligence, right? Because if you're not aware of the difference between you being in the room and you're not being in the room, that's, that's a start, right? It just is, you know, that's, that's kind of the reality of that. Um, but, you know, it's, it's fascinating too, uh, in that I had a CEO last year, I'm giving a talk And he came up to me afterwards to say, by the way, you talked about psychological safety in a way that I've finally accepted what it's all about. Because when you mentioned the term today, I did what I typically do is I threw up in my own mouth, which is basically literally his words. Now, I'm not trying to give myself any accolades here for how I explained it to him to alleviate that issue for him. But What I mostly thought was amazing was the fact that despite the fact he felt that way, he remained open enough in terms of the way he listened that he said, you know what, maybe there's a different way to think about this. So rather than shut himself down and close himself off, he was that person who was open to really listen for understanding. And that is a huge step in terms of if you're a leader creating psychological safety, and the people around you believe that you are leaning into your curiosity when you ask questions, right? That you don't make assumptions that you use to jump to conclusions or rush to judgment on things. And also, if you can communicate a bit of your own vulnerability and communicate, you know, the fact that, hey, I don't have all the answers. This is why I've got a whole team here. You are all experts in so many different areas, and I want to learn from you just as I want to play my role and be as effective as possible. And by the way, as you all know too, for a leader, there is no greater gift for that CEO or that leader of a team to have a free flow of information where they actually know what's happening, like really happening in their organization in real time in ways that, you know, can benefit everyone. Because if you've got people not asking questions and proceeding without clarity or making mistakes and then burying those mistakes, So that's something that could have been solved with a phone call today becomes an issue for you 6 months ago, 6 months from now. And you may find that in that 6-month period, you don't even know where the problem originated. You know, that becomes a huge issue. So the psychological safety piece, I think the biggest part is don't ever look at psychological safety as something we want to create for the sake of it. It is really important to see the relationship it has. And I think specifically to creating a healthy culture of accountability, because accountability has basically become a four-letter word in so many organizations. And the reason for it is, you know, as I mentioned in the book, nobody's celebrating out there, number one. They hit their goal, they're on to what's next. They're not really, you know, stopping down to say, you know what, look where we were a couple years ago and look where we are now. It's pretty great stuff. As a means not of just expressing appreciation, but inspiring and instilling confidence in the team that, by the way, whatever we got ahead, we got this. We're built for this as a team. And that becomes, you know, just really super powerful. So, I mean, there's just so many elements to and advantages to being able to do this. And not to mention, when I mentioned about being a 4-letter word, it's because people feel that because we don't celebrate, right, this is just a— this is just an opportunity for me to get in trouble. I can't tell you the number of CEOs that talk about accountability from a standpoint of, hey Jay, I'm going to make you responsible for this so I have one throat to choke. That's what accountability feels like to people. When you see it practiced well and people say, you know what, um, Jay just gave me responsibility for something. Why? Because he believes in me, because he believes I'm here to make a difference, not just to fill a role. So all of a sudden now I matter. Now that's pretty cool, especially if you're in a situation where you actually have a team where, hey, you run into an issue, you run into a problem, you're going to help each other out and you're going to help each other do those kinds of things. So when we can start seeing accountability as mattering as opposed to accountability as playing defense when I come into work every day, That's a big shift. And it's psychological safety that helps drive just even that dynamic, not to mention the other benefits to it.

I love what you're saying here, and I agree with you 1,000%, if that's even possible. I know that's not. So I guess I can't really go over 100%. But I'll say it anyway. Here's where I I want you to kind of walk me through this a little bit. When I think of psychological safety in terms of peer groups, right, where we're going to be and where we're trying to be innovative, right, there has to be a level of self-awareness on behalf of the leader. This is my opinion. This is Jay Izzo's opinion. You can push back on it if you like, where that the leader has to be self-aware enough to know Am I, in either my stature or in my whatever my level is, am I intimidating just by my presence where people aren't feeling free enough to bring up an idea or to bring up a topic or to bring up an issue that I am not going to shut it down right away. I will add to that because you talk about sometimes there's peer-to-peer toxicity where we have ringleaders that can also within the group— you're laughing, right? Because you can't believe I actually pulled that out of the book, can you?

I love it.

But there is also— there is the part of psychological safety, I believe, as I've put it together in your book, is that there's not just the leader, you know, have I created an environment that allows people to be open with ideas and whatever is said is without judgment, but are the people who are within the group or within the team or within the forum also in that same alignment that says, okay, this isn't, this is, we're just trying to, we're just trying to innovate, innovate, create, and make better decisions that will lead to higher profitability and better growth in the company. This, this to me is where it starts to fall apart. Did I miss it?

No. So here's the thing. You can create an environment of psychological safety. And the reason that most CEOs and most leaders of forums believe their environment to be more psychologically safe than it is It's very well intended. In fact, it's really aspirational. The problem is that you have different individuals on that team, right, or in that group. Now, some by nature may be a natural sharer, right? They'll share their life story with anyone who will listen. Then you've got on the other end of the spectrum someone who's private and they feel they kind of tend to keep things close to the vest. That could be very well how they're wired. It could be because they grew up in a household where it's like, oh, we're not sharing stuff with the neighbors and we don't want them knowing our business. Or I had a guy tell me that he had this Irish father who just beat on him, that, you know what sharing means in our household? You're either complaining or you're bragging. So he had a little tough time shaking that one for a while, right? So the point being is that this is where, let's say you're a leader of a team of 8 and you have one-to-ones with these folks. You have meetings that come together. What tends to happen in meetings? You have voices that tend to dominate those conversations. What you want is every team member participating equally. So it's a matter, and sometimes it takes a little time, of coaching some of the people on your teams to say, you know what, we need your voice, especially, especially when it comes to these particular subject areas that come up in the meeting. We can't have you be the silent one. You know more than anyone in the room about this. So, and try to help them come out of their comfort zone a little bit, realize, you know, the gifts that they bring, and the fact that when they don't bring those gifts, everyone loses as a result. It comes down to how do you create an environment where people at least feel comfortable enough? It may not be their natural thing to do, but we don't lose their voice. The more that people engage in that and the more they see others do it, the more that gives them the tacit permission that it's okay too. It can't always be, driven by the leader, they can help, but the other peers reinforcing one another that engaging in these conversations and doing so, you know, openly and balancing that curiosity and candor that Craig Weber talks about, that that's kind of what it takes and that's kind of how we're going to roll as a team. And that starts to create a team culture around that.

All right, I'm going to ask a question here that that I didn't see necessarily addressed in the book, but I think it's a practical piece that puts this kind of together. How do you get leaders to build these groups or these teams or these forums practically? How do we, how do we do this? I mean, do we just wake up one morning and we go, hey, we're going to develop a group? I mean, how do we, how do we do this in a way that makes sense? To the organization that would say, all right, we're going to build this group or this team or this forum. What's the practical— what's the practical way we put this together?

It's a good question. So there are groups that exist outside of companies entirely, right? Whether it's Vistage groups or YPO or EO or REF or a whole host of organizations that run them. There are also groups that exist inside companies. So I'm working with a company, actually have been for about the last 3 or 4 years, And they set up groups inside their company, and we've had several of them. The first one was designed for plant managers, and these plant managers ran plants in 3 different regions in the country. So we set up 3 different groups because of the commonality of the challenges they face and ease of time zones and things like that. And we would run virtual group meetings that would get these plant managers to come together, learn from one another, develop relationships, not only during the meetings but in between, and we did that for about 18 months. And so there were two things there. One, they all had exactly the same job, more or less, right? And we had a very specific reason we were trying to bring them together. So that's number one scenario. The second scenario is a group that started with them very recently that is a cross-functional group. So now you've got people from sales and IT and customer service and operations and the plant and all of that, because you have people running really hard, really fast, all in their various directions, right? Someone makes a change in one department with having no idea that it has a ripple effect in 2 or 3 different areas. So unless you're bringing these people together to try to have them understand, A, what do we all do, what is your role here, and what are some of the priorities and things you're thinking about, how are we connected, and where are the opportunities for us, A, to collaborate, realize synergies, make sure that we're touching base with each other so that we don't find ourselves doing something detrimental that was completely, you know, unintended. So it's— and selecting those people who we believe can be open, positive contributors, and, you know, just again, setting those groups up in a way where we have clarity of purpose, with people in a room where the ground rules are set right out of the beginning. In fact, when I do these groups virtually, I use a Circles platform to do it. So I don't use Zoom or Teams or Google Meet or something like that. All terrific in their own right. But when it comes to group meetings, there are some tools that are kind of more conversation facilitation tools that Circles has. But probably the biggest advantage of it from my standpoint is that it's such a visually different experience. That you know when you're in that particular forum that it's ground— the ground rules are different. It's a different game. It's a— I'm not going to show up at this meeting like I do all my others. And because confidentiality is sacrosanct in those meetings, people are free to vent and talk and do things that, quite frankly, you'd rather have it happen there than happen and have it spreading all over the company. So there's a lot of really amazing advantages to it, and Again, selecting people who will be solid, trustworthy, active participants and making sure that you've got real clarity on why we exist and what the metrics are to show that we're making a difference in the organization.

So what I'm hearing is, just, this is just so that the listener is paying attention, you may already have groups that already exist that we may need to establish new ground rules for. We may want to develop a group to handle a specific issue and again, set the ground rules for it because it may be just a particular issue that we want to deal with. But then it may be an ongoing leadership team where we're really focused on the direction of the company and what the company wants to do. And that group may, may exist. It may be a board of directors. But again, it sounds to me like what you're saying, Leo, is that we've, we've, we've got to make sure that we've established these ground rules up front. If you were to say these are the most important ground rules, I know you're going to say psychological safety is one of them, but if you were to say what, what are some of the other important ground rules to make sure that peer innovation is really working at its best? What are some of those ground rules?

Yeah, so I wouldn't even necessarily— you don't have to use psychological safety specifically. In fact, it's really interesting, as you well know, there are a lot of terms nowadays that people really don't disagree with the idea, but they've come to disagree with the term. They've come to have the term politicized for them and ruined and that kind of a thing, right? Or they have connotations with it that don't align with what you're really trying to make happen. So when we think about, you just want to create a situation where people can truly be free to speak their mind. I love actually Timothy Clark's construct for this. He wrote the Four Stages of Psychological Safety. He basically said that you want to feel a sense of belonging. Now, when we are included, we're invited. When we belong, we're accepted for who we are, really truly who we are as a person. We don't have to try to conform to anything. We, you know, we have a way we roll as a team, but the individuals can be themselves. Second is they can ask questions and admit mistakes, and it's absolutely against the rules. You don't, you know, try to vilify someone for asking a question or making an error or something like that. We just lean into it, help each other learn together. Third is you can contribute ideas. No matter where I am on the totem pole in an organization, people want to hear my voice. They want to hear what I have to contribute. And last but not least is that, and this is a really important one, when you have the level of safety where you can challenge the, the process and even challenge the leader, if it's in service of what we've all agreed we're really here to do together, Now we're talking. You know, then that's what becomes— it becomes a transition from not who's right, but what's right. And in cross-functional teams in particular, when you get people together, oftentimes the difference between this cross-functional team and what they're all too often called dysfunctional teams, right, is that, you know, you've got someone from marketing or someone from HR or someone from sales, and they walk in and they get their marketing hat, sales, and they're like, okay, Here are my priorities, here are my pet projects, here's my budget, here's all this, and the people, and they're all about how do I be the king or queen of my department. The great cross-functional work teams have leaders who recognize that, you know what, I'm not on this team because I'm great at marketing or sales or finance or whatever it happens to be. I'm at this table because I have the ability when I walk in this room to put my enterprise hat on and put my marketing hat over here, for example, right? I want their perspective as a marketing person, but I need their enterprise hat on. I need them thinking about the— to be business people, not be marketing or finance people. And I think when you do those kinds of things, that really starts opening up, you know, a great deal of possibilities, and you can really start Leveraging all that intellectual and emotional capital that you're paying a lot of money for in a company. And I think it allows you to access it that much more effectively.

That's it. I love that. His name is Leo Bottary. The book, Peer Innovation, Second Edition, Leverage Peer Wisdom to Create Team Excellence. Absolutely outstanding books available everywhere. Just, just find it and just get it. It's just that good. You're listening to him here on A New Direction. Hey folks, I talk about Xoundi a lot. It's a game changer. If you're an author, listen, publishers. Also, let me just say this. PR people, I know you listen to this show, right? The public relations people who promote books. And if you've got an author or you're an author and you're in the audiobook space, Xoundi is the game changer. It's because other than, unlike any other audio a platform, I can actually be in contact with the people who download the book. I know who they are. I know how to contact them. I love the ability to be able to interact with the— with— I mean, listen, we, we, we write books like Leo and I, we write books and you know what happens? We don't know necessarily who's read our book, but with Zoundi, I know who's listened to the book. And what's cool about that is interaction with them. So listen, I got a special, offer here on A New Direction. It's zoundy.com/j. Zoundy is z-o-u-n-d-y.com/j. Use my code JAY25, uh, it will unlock special savings. Uh, it's an absolute— I just love it. I just think it's a game changer for the audiobook industry. I think for the book industry, period. Check them out, zoundy.com/j. Use JAY25. And Linda Craft Team Realtors. Listen, a lot of real estate websites out there. I'm biased. I admit it. I am not going to even— I'm not even about to deny it. I just think it's the best real estate website out there. And I'll tell you why. Yes. Can you find listings of houses and things? Sure. Can you find some other information? Sure. Here's what makes a difference. They interviewed a child psychologist, how to move with children. They interviewed a veterinarian, how to move with pets. They have their own podcast called Real Estate Right Now, where they bring people into studio talking about real real estate matters that matter to you. Everything from appraisers to commercial to you name it, if it's in the real estate, they're interviewing those people who are in the know. It's absolutely outstanding. So listen, check them out. I really believe that if you're listing or buying a home, you cannot go any better than with Linda Craft Team Realtors. Check them out, LindaCraft.com, L-I-N-D-A-C-R-A-F-T.com. And we're back here on A New Direction with my friend Leo Bottary. I love being with him. He's just so cool. He's just a cool dude. Peer Innovation, Second Edition: Leverage Peer Wisdom to Create Team Excellence, available everywhere. Make sure— get yourself— pick yourself up a copy, because I'm telling— let me just say this to you, listener, viewer, people watching. Let me say this: your teams could be better. Your groups could be better. This book will help you make them better. And ultimately, when they're better, guess what happens to your organization or your business? It's better. And so check it out. Peer Innovation, second edition, absolutely outstanding. I'm going to jump over here to part 2 of the book because you did this time. You divided the book up into parts. And so we have what makes peer innovation possible. And chapter 6 is called The Right people. And I thought that was an interesting thing because you kind of alluded to it in the last segment about the right people. When we talk about the right people in peer innovation, right, what are you really trying to get people to understand when it comes to the right people?

Well, first of all, do we have all the right skill sets, mindsets, and everything in the room? You know, that's number one. And do we come to agreement on what matters to us? You know, I don't go into any group or team and talk to them about what they should or shouldn't be doing. All I do is provide them a lot of the models and frameworks and help them make decisions for themselves about what's best for them and what's going to be most effective. So, you know, when we talk about having the right people, you know, because, you know, the funny part is there's— when I talk to any CEO or any business leader, you can't find anybody who won't admit that they've made a hiring mistake or 2 or 3 or 4, right? Because the difference between hiring good people and hiring the right person for your organization is night and day. And having clarity around that starts to be, you know, really, really important. Um, you know, I shared an example, um, I believe I shared it in the book, um, of, um, you know, uh, Gina Auriemma. When all of a sudden University of Connecticut, right, really starts to blow up, right? Now you've got all the top high school basketball players from everywhere that want to come play there. Well, when you can only take a handful of players every year, how do you choose? What does that look like? Because, you know, you've got all of this incredible talent that you're with. But over time, they tried to— they really started to figure out that as they were scouting players, they would watch not only what they did when they were out on the floor, but they put took particular notice of when they came off the bench, you know, had to sit on the bench for a couple of minutes and get a breather. And they basically said there's two kinds of kids. There's one kid, throw a towel over her head, get herself rested and ready, and get back out on the floor. Then there's that second kid who we said is far more rare than you could possibly imagine, who, you know, is continuing to yell out encouragement and instructions to the teammates, right? That person is committed to being a great teammate. And talent and all of other things being equal, I'm picking the great teammate all day long. That's the right person for us. If you want to be successful in our program, commitment to being a great teammate is at the very top of the list. And it's hard to argue with the results of that. And I think when people can find the it factor, and by the way, you can ask this in your own companies. And it's fabulous when, you know, I've had many CEOs do this where I'll ask them to say, hey, ask your employees, what's the difference between the person who makes it in this company and the person who doesn't? And without getting personal and getting into different, you know, examples or things like that, your people will proudly say, hey, let me tell you what, I'll tell you, here's what it takes to make it in this organization. They'll proudly kind of espouse all the things that they know that really matter to being a success here. And oftentimes through those conversations, there will be that "it" factor that will emerge, and then people will start experimenting with that and thinking, "Huh, how do we interview for that? How do we make sure that our assessments give us a lens into what that might be for that person?" And that is actually, you know, proven over time to be a really successful, um, you know, strategy for folks to kind of do that, to make sure that we're not just picking people who are good We're people who are the right fit for us.

This is where I think it leads into where you start talking about shared values and behaviors, I think is what you're talking about. Just because I think what we do, and help me if I've got this wrong, but I think what we do is we put up our values on our wall all in our businesses about this is our core values, right? But I think, I don't know that. I don't, I think we want to believe everybody shares those same values and behaviors, but I don't know that's necessarily true. But in these where we're trying to innovate with colleagues, I think that becomes even more critical.

True. No question. So, and here's the thing. I encourage companies to say, okay, if you're a company that has 4 core values, right? Let's pull those, let's start there. Now I want the people on the team to find what does that mean to you? I guarantee you, you have a team of 10 people and you say, hey, I want you in a couple of sentences to tell me what it means to display integrity, for example, right? Or adaptability, or whatever the value may happen to be. You'll get all kinds of different answers. So then there's a question now of how can we create clarity about what integrity looks like? What does it mean to us? What does that feel like? So now when you have the team take a company value, but in fact make it their own in terms of how it needs to be exhibited, that can be really helpful. And then on top of that, we can say, well, you know what? These are core of our values. What else do we expect of ourselves and everyone else on this team in terms of how we show up for each other every day? Again, now you kind of raise the bar at another level where, you know, people— you try to put them in a position where it's about everyone else making everybody better. It isn't about, again, the leader barking orders from the corner office and telling people what they should or shouldn't do. It's people being able to own what they believe is going to help them and their colleagues be successful at whatever you've, you know, agreed to do, you know, at your company.

I'm going to be really unfair to you here. But you did add something into this book that I'm very fond of. That's the power of the servant leadership triad that we did, that you did not have in the first book that is in this book. Why is this so powerful to peer innovation?

Basically, because it suggests a few things. One, that it's a fundamental difference in, as a leader, asking yourself, am I a part of the team or am I apart from the team? And what would the team say? Are you a part of this team or you're apart from it? That's number one. Because when team leaders tend to be apart from the team, so what happens when things start to go sideways? Leader starts blaming the team, team starts blaming the leader. You've got this blame culture stuff going on. And it can become really toxic in a hurry and very difficult to resolve. Servant Leadership Triad suggests that we are all in this together, that we've got the leader at one corner here, we've got an individual team or group member in the other, and we have the group or team as an entity in that third corner with that triad in the middle being whatever it is that we're actually trying to accomplish together. So it could be anything from a certain goal we're trying to achieve to how productive you are, to what our healthy culture of accountability looks like, how much fun we have, whatever. But everybody owns a piece of it with also the realization and recognition that if I'm an individual team member, I may not be the leader of the team, but chances are good that over the course of the year, there's going to be many occasions where I will be a leader in that team. My subject matter expertise will come to the forefront or something will come up where I've got to step up and be that person, and we're all going to be there for each other in that way. You know, again, it's, it's everybody pulling from one another. It's when things get tough, we lean into each other, we don't blame. And when things go really, really well, we celebrate those wins and we do that together and we inspire one another to even greater heights. And so it's anchored by your purpose and values with a servant leader, right? Again, who's not seeing the team as an instrument for their own self-aggrandizement, but they're seeing the team Their role on the team is, I need to set this team up for success. I need to make sure that this team has whatever it needs to truly be successful. And so I think the Servant Leadership Triad plays a big role. And in many cases, all of these models that we brought up, whether it's the learning achieving cycle that's in the book or intentional and collateral learning or Servant Leadership Triad, the 5 factors, most of the questions— the reason why these interviews, in many respects, because I'll get a lot of questions, and particularly from you because you read this book carefully. But in my head, I can go to any one of those models and the answer, I can pick the answer right out of them because it already exists right there for me. I wish I could say I was smart enough to do that by design, but it's worked out that way. So I'm extremely grateful for it.

So that's beautiful. Aliya, we've done our hour. It's gone so fast. It always does when I'm with you. I feel like we could go on for another hour. Tell people how they can get a hold of you.

Sure. Connect with me on LinkedIn is a great way to get a hold of me. Also go to peerinnovation.biz. You'll get a really great sense of what we do and what it's all about. And I do, by the way, want to give a bit of a special shout out to Amy Edmondson, who, as I'm sure all your listeners know well, that she coined the term psychological safety in 1999. I served on a panel with her and somehow later got the guts up to ask her to see if she'd be willing to write the foreword. And I think she thinks a lot of CEO peer groups. She sees the connection to teams. Obviously, I knew that psychological safety was going to play such even a more pivotal role in the second edition, and I thought what better way to I think double down on that is to have the woman who coined the term write the foreword, and she was generous enough and kind enough to do it. And she actually read the audiobook, by the way. And I am going to— I've got my J25 code, and I'm going to make sure, you know, I check things out here.

Zoundy. All right, we'll do it. Leo, thank you so much. Stay with me, will you please? Folks, this is the show. You know what I say to you every week? You're in control of 3 things: your attitude, your effort, and your resiliency. Fact of the matter is life doesn't always give us what we want and sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances we didn't ask for. But you know what? The truth is you're in control of your attitude. So you know what? It's not easy, but take control of it because that's yours. And then your effort's tied to your excellence. We don't always have the same amount of energy in the tank, but whatever you have left, how excellent will you choose to be today? And we all get punched in the gut and punched in the teeth and get knocked down, but it's up to us to get back up again. Why? Because you're worth it and we want you on the team. You know what? You had a lot of choices and you chose us. I thank you for that. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube. Wherever you're listening to the show, will you please give us a 5-star review? And I ask you from the bottom of my heart, tell your friends, right? And even the people you don't like, tell them to listen to the show too. As I say to you all over the world, you know what that is. Ciao, everybody.

You can find the strength to go a different way. Yeah, the time has come. Your dreams will take you places you have never been before. Find your passion, find your strength. Don't worry anymore. A new direction, a new direction, a new direction, a brand new day, new direction, things are gonna change. You can find the strength to go a different way. Yeah, the time has come for a new direction. Yeah, yeah, a new direction. Whoa, whoa, new direction. Yeah, yeah. A new direction.