Building High Performance Teams – Peernovation – Leo Bottary

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

Hello everyone and welcome to A New Direction. My name is Jay Izzo and oh my gosh, do we have a great show for you today. Holy cow, it's a great one. Here's why it's great, right? I talk about it all the time, right? You know, you— well, Jay, your shows are always great, but why are— why is this show great?

What?

Oh, Okay. You know, I have friends. I know it comes as a shock to many of you, but I do have friends. One of them has returned back to the show, Leo Bottary. He wrote this book, Peer Innovation. Oh man. Whoa, Nelly. I'm going to tell you what, if you want to know how to build a high performance team, you are going to want to read Peer Innovation. And you go, I don't even understand what peer innovation is. That's why Leo Bottary is with us today, because he's going to tell you what peer innovation is, and he's going to teach you the secret sauce behind the awesomeness of creating an amazing high-performing team. You're going to love him. You've had it. We've had him on here before. You've loved him then. You're going to love him now, I promise. But before we get to him, let's do what we do every week, right? I walk you through the growth of your 4 areas of your life, right? How are you growing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? How's your growth going, right? And the reason I talk about your growth is because, right, we know Fact, if you're not growing, you're dying. Just the truth. Matter of fact, Leo Bottary is going to talk about that. If you want to maintain psychological safety, you know what? You got to think of it as a garden. You have to be able to maintain it. You got to water it. You got to do the things if you want to maintain it. The same thing is true of everything. It's true of everything in your life, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If you are not constantly trying to grow it and nurture it and build it and water it and feed it, you know, and fertilize it, you know what the truth of the matter is? You're going to die. It's going to wither off the vine. This is why it's so important that, you know, you check in and go, am I really growing? Are you better today than you were yesterday in these 4 areas?

Right?

So what do I mean? So here's what we do on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being my growth is— I'm not growing at all. Matter of fact, I may have gone backwards. 10 is, man, I'm growth. My growth is off the chart, right? 5 is somewhere in between. So here's what I'm going to ask you physically. How are you doing with exercise, eating right, getting enough water, getting enough sleep? You know, you know, maybe doing your doctor check-ins. How are you doing? Right? How would you rate your growth from one week ago to now? How would you— what number would you give yourself? Right? Right. Whatever that number is, it's okay. All right. We're not trying to get you from a 1 to a 10. Or a 5 to a 10. We're just trying to get to the next number, right? Because we just need to make progress. Listen, no matter how small the step is, as long as it's in the right direction, it's progress. Okay? So it doesn't— don't, don't beat yourself up. That's not what this is about. This is about checking in and then determining what can I do to grow more from that point forward? All right? And then working on it every day. All right? So you got your physical number scale of 1 to 10. Second number is the mental number, right? What do I mean by mental growth? What I mean is what are you doing to learn, actively learn and participate in growing yourself professionally, personally, right? Relationally, right? Mentally. What are you doing? What are you reading? What are you consuming? Right? I had somebody who said, you know, I don't really like to read books, but I love listening to books. And I have a client, a coaching client, and she loves listening to books. And I said, you know what? I don't mind you listening to books, but do yourself a favor, take notes. Right? And then what I want you to do is not only take notes, but what can you apply from what you're listening to? Because it's not enough just to listen or read a book like Peer Innovation, right? It's not enough. It's— if you want to grow mentally, it's taking what you've read, taking what you're listening to, and then applying it, actually doing it, executing it, right? Following through. Leo's going to talk about that too, by the way. Follow through, follow up. Right? Right. Holding yourself accountable, right? That's, that's, that's the mental growth. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you say your mental growth is? Okay, so you got 2. Third one is emotionally, right? What do I mean by emotional growth? Well, we've been in this pandemic for a while. I know like here where I live, they've lifted a lot of the, you know, a lot of the rules and regulations here. And so we're pretty free to do what we want to do pretty much. You know, but it's still, you know, not everything is 100%. And so we've been living under a lot of stress emotionally, right? So, you know, we've had to learn to be patient. Some of us, some of us have not been very patient, right? Some of us have had to learn to control our emotions. Some of us refuse to control our emotions. That's emotional growth, being able to control our emotions under stress, being able to tap in and understand the emotions of other people, even if we don't agree with them. Even if they are, have a different set of beliefs than we have. Right? Can you tap in? Are you willing to tap in? That's emotional growth. So on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you give yourself there? And then finally, there's the spiritual area, right? And what is the spiritual area of growth? Well, spiritual area of growth looks like this, right? First of all, we're all spiritual. Whether you want to believe you are or not, because we all have faith in something, right? When, when things go bad, we turn to something, even if it's ourself. We believe that we are our own god, and so we believe that we will somehow figure it out. Or, you know, we believe in— we believe in God, or we believe in nature, or we believe in meditation. Whatever it is that brings us back to center, or in the midst of our chaos, that gives us a sense of calm and peace, right? That's the spiritual aspect. It's more than that, of course, But there's two pieces to that. One is, how is it working? And is it working? Right? Right? And then, you know, would you say you're growing in it? And maybe another question is, what do you need to change? Right? So what number would you give yourself in your spiritual growth? Right? So you have four numbers, you got to think of those four numbers like the legs of a chair. Right? And, you know, because You know, if the chair is uneven, right? Those 4 areas, those 4 numbers, if they're uneven, right? Well, you know, you sit in that chair long enough, you know what happens, right? You know, you get uncomfortable and your posture goes bad. And then at the same token, if the chair is too low, right? And you do that long enough, what happens is you can't really, you know, give yourself the nutrition that you need in those 4 areas. You can't feed yourself well. So what we want to do is we want to bring up all the legs Right? We want to bring them up evenly because we want to be in balance because balance, it means everything. And speaking of someone who is completely in balance and is awesome, his name is Leo Bottary and he is the founder and managing partner of Peer Innovation, which is a limited liability corporation. He is sought after, a thought leader on peer advantage and peer innovation, emerging disciplines dedicated to strategically engaging peers to achieve personal and organizational excellence. He is a popular author, keynote speaker, and a workshop facilitator. He also serves as an instructor for Rutgers University and opinion columnist for CEO World magazine. Leo and Randy Kottrell co-host a podcast, by the way, that I've been on and it's great. It's called Peer Innovation. Leo's first book, which he wrote with former Vistage CEO Leon Shapiro, The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth, and Success. He wrote a second book, which we actually have had on this show, and how I first met Leo. Um, What Anyone Can Do, great book by the way, how surrounding yourself with the right people will drive change, opportunity, and personal growth. His current book, right, Peer Innovation, uh, what peer advisory groups can teach us about building high-performance teams creates a new narrative to guide team building and the power of we begins with me and that's you. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show and welcome back to A New Direction, Leo Bottary. Welcome back, Leo.

Awesome to be here. Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this for months now. So really excited.

You know what? I have been too. And because we were supposed to do the show, but I had COVID and so we couldn't do the show. So we had to put it off. But you know what? Everything works out for a reason. And I really believe that. I'm a firm believer. And I think the timing could not be perfect. And because we're dealing with a lot of unique things when it comes to teams and high performance teams and team building, especially because we're kind of in this limbo of we've got some people who companies who want to stay remote. We got companies who want to bring people back. And so now building high-performance teams, probably with this, some sort of hybrid, is going to be more critical than it has ever been. And so we need to, we need to dig into this because you've done a lot of work and a lot of research in, in this area. And I, I have to ask you, because the first thing is in your introduction, And we have to kind of have a— you talk about this, a shift in mindset because we, we tend to live in silos anyway, but because of the pandemic, we probably even lived in more silos. So what do we need to do in terms of changing our mindset around to kind of wrap our minds around peer innovation?

Yeah. Um, you make a great point regarding silos. I think it's been very difficult when we're at home. It's very easy to kind of get insulated and focused on the task at hand. In many respects, it's among the reasons that productivity went up in many cases, to much of the surprise of many CEOs who never would have chosen to have their folks work remotely, but who were incredibly productive as a result. And it's just when we think about, I think, the choices that we have to make going forward regarding what we do, how we stay productive. You know, it's really going to be all about having intentional conversations about what's next for us as a team, right? Whether that's whether we stay remote, whether there is some hybrid, whether we're headed back to the office, and if so, what's that going to look like? And either way, no matter what you choose, part of what we have to do is expand our lens back to looking and seeing the entire organization. And I think this is specifically important for cross-functional work teams who, you know, for the short term, hey, they dove into their specific areas and, you know, it kind of served us and got us through a crisis. Over the longer term, we're now going to have to, I think, you know, increase our span of vision regarding what's going on in the entire organization so we can recognize how we work together, how it fits together, and how we can grow, you know, in what's going to be continuing uncertain times.

You, you talk about that there's this lingering impact of a limited perspective and, um, that we have this need that we should really be examining our own beliefs. You talk about terms, echo chambers and confirmation bias. And I think this is really interesting because, um, what I have noticed, not just, uh, because of the pandemic, but really over the course of the last probably 4 or 5 years, we've kind of created our own echo chambers, which can be a terrible thing in terms of creating high-performance teams to get along. Talk about this, our limited perspective and how we've got to move beyond that if we're going to be successful as a team.

Yeah, this has really become more of a challenge in recent years. You know, we even had— somehow we even were able to— we managed to politicize a pandemic, you know, unfortunately. And, you know, I think we've got to be in a place where instead of just looking at very specific sources of news and information, we've got to try to broaden that perspective a little bit and listen for understanding, as opposed to just trying to listen to what makes us comfortable. And it's, it's a It's a tricky one. I mean, there's no question about that. You know, I think people right now are really struggling because, you know, by the way, it is even, you know, infected, if you will, even CEO groups, where because people are in such conflict over everything all the time, and every— everybody's on a hair trigger with arguing about this, that, or the other thing, that when they get to their CEO peer group, they just want to keep the peace. So now what does that do? No one really challenges one another, and it can be kind of, you know, a little too nice and actually compromise the efficacy of the group. On the other hand, there have been cases where there have been just all-out brawls, basically, that have happened because things ratcheted up so badly that they couldn't even have, you know, civil conversation about what's going on in the world. And we've got to figure out how to dial this back a little bit, right? And not be on this hair trigger. And it's difficult because, you know, we make choices about where we, you know, consume our news. Edelman recently in their 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer talks about a concept called information hygiene, which I thought was really interesting. So it's this idea that even though sometimes we don't trust institutions or where we're getting our information from, and where we typically look to one another, We're now even starting to question that as well, because people will hear something, they don't always vet the information. And they don't do it to be mean or destructive or anything. But they're just spreading information about things that they don't really know if it's true or not. They think it is, but they're just going out and spreading the information. And this becomes, you know, dangerous in and of itself. So actually, what the study also said is, interestingly enough, with less of a trust in media and government nowadays, people are actually looking to CEOs to provide clarity around things. We're seeing more CEOs now signing letters for various things regarding social justice or climate change or things like that, really coming based on pressure from their employees that we need some leadership around these important issues and we don't know who else to turn to. So now CEOs are actually becoming, you know, taking on a whole new responsibility, you know, largely because of everything you just mentioned.

Yeah, it's incredibly interesting, the changes that we're seeing in this. And it does affect— all of it affects teams. All of it does. Every piece of this is affecting teamwork on several different levels. You have done, you've done a lot of research. You and your colleagues have done a lot of research here on this. And you said that you've created what is called, I think you've created this called the Achieving Cycle.

The Learning Achieving Cycle. Yeah.

That the Learning Achieving Cycle, which is kind of the foundation for me, at least this is how I interpret, correct me if I'm wrong, but I saw this as kind of the foundation aspect of having a successful team. Can you talk us through the learning-achieving cycle?

I will, and, but I'm going to do it in the context of exactly the way you opened the show.

Okay.

Everything, what you did opening the show with where we are physically, mentally, you know, emotionally and spiritually, right? Speaks to a daily commitment to getting better each day, right? As you know from the book, when we look at the best teams in sports, The best teams in sports aren't looking at the championship as the goal. They're looking at it as the reward for that daily commitment to just setting that new bar and to setting that new standard of excellence. And that's really what the learning-achieving cycle is designed to do. It's what peer advisory groups do so incredibly well. What we know is we learn better when we learn together. Social learning theory has been teaching us that for decades now. And the thing about it is that, you know, consider, for example, there was a study that Josh Burson did in 2019 that talked about the fact that when we review a piece of material one time, we're likely to remember it for— 28% of it for about 24 to 48 hours, and then the number plummets from there, right? If we review it a second time, it goes to 46%. Engage others in conversations where we share experiences and we grapple with that content a bit, that number now goes to 69%. And what makes groups really work so well in this area is they don't come together just for knowledge acquisition and just so they can understand concepts better. They actually give one another the courage and the encouragement to apply that learning. And when they apply that learning, even if there's some trial and error, once they start achieving some real benefit from it, this is a cycle they want to repeat. And when you get great peer advisory groups and great teams committed to this cycle of learning, sharing, applying, and achieving, and ultimately growing, Right. This is what puts them in a position to either make great products, provide great services, or win championships.

You know, I, first of all, I love, I love the learning-achieving cycle. I just, it, to me, it, I mean, it fits so neatly with what I try to do here on the show and even my coaching and even when I speak, right? I mean, there is just, I just love that, the learn, the share, the apply, the achieve, and then repeat the cycle because You know, I think learning is, is something that can be done on your own, but sharing requires another person and then applying changes us, right? And then there has to be something that, you know, that we are accomplishing in all of this, both individually and as a group. And, and then that in turn should be a learning process in and of itself. And, and again, the cycle repeats. And I found that fascinating because I, I started looking at everything that I do and where I am the most successful personally. As an individual. And I started to realize that, you know, the truth of the matter is I become the best student when I'm teaching. So I can learn, but when I share, I actually— you know this, you teach, you and I both have taught college— when you and I are sharing information, we actually, even though we're teaching, we're actually learning more than the student.

Yep.

Right. But then when I take something beyond that and I actually apply it to my life, well, now it becomes solidified, right? Well, then, then, you know, if that, if that creates achievement or if it creates a success or a result of some sort, it's just, it's really, really a powerful cycle. And I don't know, you know, but I want people really to grasp onto this idea because you could see it in your everyday life that, you know, if you're doing these things, you are going to inevitably achieve. And you just, but you gotta keep the cycle going. Go ahead.

And to your point though, doing it together really matters. So I think for many of us, we probably have experiences no matter what we are doing or leading or whatever that looks like for us. And I can tell you that in most cases for me, I've read a lot of really great things in books. That doesn't mean I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna tend to take the next day and apply that in my company the next day. It's just not typically how we're wired. But it's true that when we share that learning and we become comfortable with it, we give each other that comfort level with it, and we provide each other that little nudge, that extra little bit of courage and encouragement to actually put it into place and give it a try and see kind of what happens with it. That's really where the, where the magic is. And again, once we get the positive reinforcement of like, wow, that really worked, I want to try that again, you know, with something else. And, you know, this is, you know, again, what I see time and time again from high-performing groups and with high-performing teams who are just— have that culture, have that winning culture, have that culture where they just set their own standard of excellence and they continue to raise the bar all the time and they use the Learning Achieving Cycle to do it.

His name is Leo Bottary. The book is called Peernovation: What Peer Advisory Groups Can Teach Us About Building High-Performance Teams, available everywhere that books are sold, including Amazon and other places. And you're listening to him here on a new direction. Hey folks, listen, I have these two great sponsors. One of them is Epic Physical Therapy. I go to them. They are my physical therapists. I, I just, they're just unbelievable. And I, I'm going to tell you something. It doesn't matter if you're just a regular person who's recovering from surgery or an injury, or you're a professional athlete. It doesn't matter. They work with them all. I have seen professional athletes literally from all over the world. Come into Epic Physical Therapy in all varieties of sports. I've seen them in hockey and golf, tennis, volleyball. I've seen it all. And I gotta tell you something, what they do with every individual is unique to that individual because they make a customized treatment program for you specifically. It's not, it's not therapy in a can or a box. It is specifically designed for you. And They are so certified and so well trained. They are awesome. So listen, when you want your epic relief, when you want your epic recovery and you're looking for epic results, do not look anywhere else. Go to Epic Physical Therapy. That's epicpt.com. That's epicpt.com. And Linda Craft and Team Realtors, you know what, for over 35 years she's been helping the world in selling or buying homes and helping the world. How does she do that? Well, she's independently owned and operated. She doesn't belong to a national corporation or company, and so what she does is she made relationships all over the world to find the best real estate professional regardless of where you may live. And so what she can do is she can help unbiasedly recommend you the best agent in your area so that you can sell your home or buy your home with the best expert. She's done that for over 35 years, and she maintains those relationships just like she does with her clients because she understands that the power of of real estate really is in the relationship and that it's all about people, right? Because at the end of the day, P&Ls aren't profits and losses, they're people and lives. And that's what she believes about real estate. So when you're ready to sell or buy your home, don't look any further. Start with, start with, with people called the legend of customer service. Start with Linda Craft and Team Realtors. You can learn more by going to LindaCraft.com. That's L-I-N-D-A-C-R-A-F-T.com. And we're back here on A New Direction with Leo Bottary and his book Peer Innovation. And, uh, we're going to dig in. We're going to jump a couple chapters ahead here. Uh, gave you kind of a nice little foundational, uh, there are 5 factors, um, Leo, that you talk about, um, for peer innovation really to occur if we're going to have really high performance teams. And I'm going to just jump right into these 5 factors. Are we good with that?

You bet. All right.

So the first factor that you have is having the right people in the room who share a clarity of purpose. So let's— that's the first factor. Let's talk about the right people, because this is, this is becoming more and more of a common theme. And the more I, the more I talk to more leaders and, and people like you who are experts in this area, let's talk about the right people, because you actually have a great story. Uh, you were, you were working for a company and you got this great big contract. I think it was GTECH. And you discovered in your own experience that there were a number of common attributes that you found when it came to teams. What do we need to be looking for when it comes to the right people?

It's a great question. So when we think about it, I'll translate it from when you look at a CEO peer advisory group, for example, there are kind of 3 factors involved in making sure that you've got the right people in the room. One is, as CEOs, they all share this common challenge of what it's like to sit in that chair and have to make decisions for an entire organization. There's a level of empathy and understanding around what that looks like for them. That's number one. Secondly, there has to be some shared understanding of the values of what it takes to be a really great contributor to the group. What does that look like? It's being curious, it's being open, it's being nonjudgmental, it's being any number of things that kind of create that culture around what it means and what it takes to be a really great contributor to the group. And third, there is a diversity factor to it, right? You want different voices around that table who can contribute all of their experiences and ideas that are able to really lend to a really holistic conversation. So when we think about it for our companies, it's very much the same thing, right? We're looking at the role and we're looking at a commitment to whatever, you know, our company does, right? We have some shared values around what it takes to be really successful, not just anywhere, but successful in this organization. And as you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is asking your current employees, hey, what does it take to be successful here? What does it mean, you know, to be successful here versus maybe the people who don't make it? What does that look like? And you'll get a lot of people who presumably are there because they're really good at their job, right? Who are going to be like, well, let me tell you what it takes to make it in this organization, you know, and they'll talk about it with some real pride in terms of some of those little it factors that it takes to be successful there. And I do think that obviously diversity plays a huge play in this as well. You know, we want people from different walks of life, different experiences, different backgrounds, so they can really, you know, contribute to a team in a way that's really powerful. We all, I think, have unique gifts to bring to the table. And as long as we look to one another and recognize those gifts, see them as special, and get to know, I think, one another and trust one another for those gifts, there's no telling what a team is able to do. So having the right people is foundational to it.

So I want to talk about some of these things here because you made a quote about teams, and I'm just going to quote you from page 24. You said, teams are like snowflakes. No two are the same. By the way, I think that's funny. No two are the same, so having the right people on the team who will get the job done matters. While you need people with the right skills and work ethic, they also have to be the kind of people who understand that the team is bigger and more capable than any individual. In a nutshell, based on my research with groups and teams, then we talk about these three categories: common purpose and then shared values and behavior, and then diversity and inclusion. I thought this was kind of interesting because you gave us some other little— in all, in that little quote, you gave us some other things: get the job done, right skills, work ethic, understand that the team is bigger than any individual. I thought these, I thought these were some really unique characteristics and qualities that you kind of pulled into that little quote.

Yeah, well, think about what teams are capable of, right? One of the exercises that I mentioned in the book that I've done at keynotes, for example, is I'll ask someone to stand up and, you know, ask them about their favorite sports team, and they'll tell me who it is. And I said, all right, let's pretend that, you know, we'll call it the Boston Red Sox, and pitch in the bottom of the 9th, they win the World Series. I want you in real time with the count of 3, 2, 1 to behave as you would in that moment that they win the World Series, right? And so you go 3, 2, 1, and they clap and yell and scream and everything else. And it's fun because no matter how extroverted they are, they're going to feel pretty self-conscious in that moment doing that in front of a bunch of people. So we have everyone clap for that person and all that. But then we get everyone involved and we say, now pick the team in your mind, that same kind of scenario, 3, 2, 1. And of course, when you have a whole hall or a room full of people, they'll blow the roof off the place. And there's two things that I think you get. One is the exponential result of what we can do together, right? Too often we try to fill the room with sound all by ourselves when if we just ask for a little help, see what we can accomplish. But I think the second part of it also is that, you know, that first person, as I mentioned, who's doing it alone, it feels pretty uncomfortable to do that. Yet when everyone does it together, nobody cares. Everyone just really lets out and really lets go. And it just shows you that you're unlocking and unleashing something that a group or a team of people can do that no individual is really going to be able to accomplish on their own. So I think once you start getting your head around what a team is really able to do, and then you start harnessing that and channeling some of that power against some of the specific objectives that you're looking to achieve, I don't care if you're trying to win a championship in basketball or whether you're trying to create the best advertising in the world, whatever it is that looks like. I think teams are capable of just incredible things.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, try basketball. I know that you're a basketball fan, especially a UConn women's basketball fan.

That's right.

And I know that, try playing one on five, right? I mean, a lot of people want to go it alone. Well, try playing the basketball game alone. And then the other team has a full team. How's that going to go for you? Right.

Right.

It's not going to go well. It's not going to go well. Right. I mean, it just, I mean, it just, it just makes sense. You're going to, you can't, you can't score and you can't defend. It's just not possible. So, um, you know, it's, it's just your success is so much more limited. This is the thing though, you know, and of the 3 little areas that you gave us and, you know, I want to look at shared values and behavior because I was reminded I read a lot, and Tony Dungy was a head coach, a bowl coach, and of course now retired. And he talked a lot. He talks a lot that, you know, he would pass on talent to recruit character. Because he said, you know, even if a guy was more talented, he may not have had good character because we had a certain set of values and beliefs and behaviors that we wanted on our team. And I thought it was interesting, this idea of shared values and behaviors, that because that really is kind of a fundamental piece, isn't it?

You know, I hear that from coaches all the time. You know, one of the— since you had mentioned UConn women's basketball, one of the things that Geno Auriemma found when he was trying to look at what is that it factor in his team, who makes it and who's successful at the University of Connecticut. And obviously there's a lot of talented players who would love to be there. But one of the things in recruiting that they look at is they look at those few moments when that player is put on the bench for a couple of minutes during the ballgame to get a breather. And there are two kinds of kids, he said. One that'll throw a towel over her head and she gets herself rested and ready to play. And she just wants to get called back out on the floor and she goes and plays, right? The second kid is the one who remains on the edge of her seat, yelling out encouragement and instructions out there and stays involved in the game even while on the bench. He said the second kid is much more rare than you would think. And that being committed to being a great teammate among all the other things that you've got to do, you've got to be talented and competitive and do all those things. But if you're committed to being a great teammate, that's the difference between the person who's going to play at UConn and the person who's likely to play their college ball elsewhere. And he will pass on that player depending, no matter their talent, when he— if he recognizes that that person's really not committed to being a good teammate. And, you know, it's one thing to recognize those things. It's another thing, like you mentioned with Tony Dungy and with Geno Auriemma, to have the discipline to pass on that player that everyone thinks you're crazy to pass on, right? But you know they're not going to work in your program and your system in a way that's going to help your team be successful.

Yeah, and it's critical if you want to have a high-performance team that you, you have to— you've got to be clear on these values, and then you've got to have the courage to follow through on them. I think that's the other piece, right? I mean, You know, and, and then you got to be clear. You say something in your chapter summary, and, and I love this. This is what you— this is one sentence that I think sums it all up. It all starts with having the right people who have their expectations of their goals and, and how they can add value. If you, if you can give them the expectations, understand the goal, and give them that clarity and make them understand how they add value, that's a huge deal too.

It is, you know, and it speaks to a theme. You know, another guest on our podcast one time, woman whose name is Angela Myers, and she runs an organization called Choose to Matter, and she teaches kids about mattering, right? Which is really a cool concept for kids, right? But for adults, think about how important it is when you just recognize how much I matter. I'm not here to fill a role or to fill a seat or do something like that. I'm here to make a difference, and I can make a difference, and I want to take ownership of that. And that's where this whole concept of the power of we begins with me really comes from, is to first of all just really reflect and think about the gifts that you have to bring to any team and own your ability to be able to be a really great contributor. And by learning, right, sharing, applying, and achieving, and continuing to try to grow and be better as an individual as well as a team, you know, that's where there's a lot of magic that happens. And, and why I think in many respects It can be incredibly powerful when companies have groups and teams working side by side, right? Because now you're not only building great teams, but you're also really investing in individual contributors who can actually matter more to their team and to their organization as a whole.

Let's move on to Chapter 3, Psychological Safety, because this is another area that we talk about a lot that's been much more popular than it has been in years past, is the idea of psychological safety. First of all, define it. What do we mean? What do you mean when you say psychological safety when it comes to high-performance teams? And so what might that look like?

So imagine hiring the right people, right? And we hire these great people. The last thing we'd want to do is put them in a box, right? We don't want these people afraid to be able to speak up and speak out or take risks or learn and grow. So psychological safety provides an environment where people can do that. And that's essentially what we're talking about. If you don't have psychological safety, you know, you're hampering all this incredible talent you have, not to mention it is really what unlocks everything else, right? It's what unlocks true productivity, whether it's a group or a team, is the ability for people to be able to engage one another in a way that's open and with true candor. And one of the things over time that we've certainly looked at, and of course we talk about in the book, is the relationship between psychological safety and accountability. They really run hand in hand. Psychological safety isn't about everyone being nice to one another and all that. It's actually an incredible opportunity for people to be comfortable challenging one another. I talked a bit about my time at MullenLowe. I was there actually for about a year or so, largely because I think I took one too many agency gigs at the time, and I was just a bit burned out. But the company was unbelievable. And one of the things they did was they had an incredible culture of people. If you look at the logo of the company, it's an octopus with boxing gloves. That's exactly what it's like to work there. It's like this really high-intensity kind of competitive thing. But what happens is if you're outside the culture, you think these people are fighting against one another. The reality is that they have incredible mutual respect for each other. And because of that, they challenge each other in a big way. They're just fighting for the best idea. That's what they do. And it's an extraordinary thing to watch when you have people who kind of give up this notion that this is personal, this, that, and the other thing, and we're going to engage and we're going to challenge one another because we love and respect each other. And if we do that and we do it really well, we're going to create the best advertising in the world. And it's really a remarkable thing to watch. And it's what psychological safety unlocks. When you have that ability to really engage one another in a manner that allows for that openness and allows for that not so much accountability like I'm playing defense, but accountability as in accepting personal responsibility for being my best and bringing my A-game all the time, that's a game changer.

You talk about this. This is actually hitting. Talk to us about the value of the honest conversation.

Yeah, um, I'd love to know what the value is of anything other than that, right? Right. We have to know what's going on. We have to just, you know, there's kindness and clarity. I mean, there really is. There is an aspect of just being open and knowing what is happening so that people know what they're dealing with and we're not, you know, chasing shadows and not trying to address one issue that we think is going on out there when in fact it's something else entirely. So the honest conversation obviously allows for everyone— I think it's freeing, right? It's this idea that we can all sit and again, if we have a conversation where let's talk about what we're talking about, right? Which isn't about personal feelings, it isn't about— it's trusting the intent that we're going to have an honest conversation about something that's only going to make ourselves and make the team better. And I think when we're willing to do that, we can get to the heart of any kind of issues that we're dealing with, any problems, any challenges that we have, and really and truly be able to address them in a way that's really effective.

You talk about here in this chapter that there are certain conditions and behaviors that members of groups and teams bring up most often regarding what it takes to experience psychological safety? And you list 4: mutual respect, familiarity, learn, not judge, and modeling shared sharing behaviors. Do you find anyone to be more important than the other, or is there one that's more difficult for companies to achieve, teams to achieve?

Being good listeners. That's the big one. If you think about it, that's what makes an environment psychologically safe. You know, I compared it to kind of when you go to the spa, right? And the water is gently rising off the spa and we can either immerse ourselves in it and know we're going to have the most unbelievably restorative experience in the whole world, or we're going to sit next to it and read a magazine, or maybe we'll dangle our feet in the water. You know, it's this idea of, do I have the courage to actually immerse myself and get the full benefit? Of it. And, you know, when we think about that pool of water, right, we are the pool as listeners. We're the ones that make the environment safe for people to actually bring something to the table. And that level of listening has to match the gravity of the moment, you know. And when that happens, we can start creating that psychological safety. We can give people the comfort level to know that they're being heard. And I think that's ultimately what matters most. We could look at all the other stuff. Clearly, modeling sharing behaviors helps. When you see that someone shares and not only was there no penalty for it, but they got great advantage and maybe some other people did as well, fantastic. But at the end of the day, it starts with really being a great listener. It's an unbelievable skill that none of us probably work hard at, hard enough at, but I think if we did, it would make a pretty huge difference because it's only going to help us ask better questions and do the kinds of things that again unlock real potential.

His name's Leo Bottary. The book, Peer Innovation. Oh man, it's good, right? Isn't this good? Isn't he good? He's really good, isn't he? He's really awesome. What peer advisor groups can teach us about building high performance teams. You're listening to him here on A New Direction. Hey, everybody, listen, new to, you know, my sponsors, Epic Physical Therapy, which is one of them. You know, not only do they have some of the most cutting edge equipment around when it comes to your physical therapy, you know, Normatec sleeves and the compression sleeves, and then there's a Normatec compression and ice, and then, you know, the GameReady, and then there's, you know, like dry needling, and they have it all, right? They have it, and they're certified in all these treatments too. That's the other thing. But what's really cool is they know what the right treatment is for you. That's what's cool. And whether you are a professional athlete, whether you're a wannabe athlete, or whether you are an everyday person who's just trying to move better or feel better, and you know, just maybe just not sure what you should be doing and how you should do it, Epic Physical Therapy does all that. That's why they are so good at what they do. It's because they really handle everyone and they care equally across the board. So when you're ready for epic relief, epic results, and Epic Recovery, start with epicpt.com. That's epicpt.com. And Linda Craft and Team Realtors, right? So she has been around for over 35 years. You know that, right? I say that every week. But here's the other thing that you may not know. In that 35 years, her very first customer still comes and sees her from 1985. Yeah, her very first customer. How does she— why do her customers still come to see her? Well, I'll tell you why. Because she maintained those relationships over the course of time. Because they were that important, right? It wasn't a matter of just selling a house or getting them another house. It was maintaining the relationship, watering that relationship, growing that relationship. And that's what her team does, because it's more than just selling it. It's about the people that lived in it, because the memories are so powerful. The memories in your home are going to be with you forever, and so, so should those relationships. That are part of them. And that's what Linda and her team tried to do. So when you're ready to sell or buy your home, don't look any further. Go with the pros. Go with the people who care. Go with the people who want to maintain and create a relationship with you. Go to Linda Craft and Team Realtors. You can learn more by going to LindaCraft.com. That's LindaCraft.com. And we're back here on A New Direction with Leo Bottary and his book Peer Novation. I see, I want to say Peer Novation. But I know he's got this upside-down E thing that's going on there that makes it peer-novation, right? So it's peer-novation. It's P-E-E-R-N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N. The book is a great read. I'm just telling you, whether you're CEO, whether, whether you are— and I know that I've got so many people who are founders, owners. I got people who I know that are out there that are regional managers, district managers. You manage small teams, big teams. I'm just telling you, if you want a high-performance team, start with peer innovation. It's, uh, it's just really, uh, it's, it's a great read and there's a lot of application in here for you as you can hear because we're helping you understand how to do so much of that. At least Leo is. I'm just actually just kind of asking some questions and he's just kind of knocking them out of the park is what he's doing is in reality. You know, you talked about listening before we went on break. I find it interesting about listening because We have two ears and one mouth, but most of the time we act as if we have several mouths and one ear. And, uh, it's such a hard skill. It is a skill, but it's one you have to be so intentional at. And, and if a team is going to be effective, suspending that judgment, uh, which is the third thing that you talk about, suspending the judgment and be willing to be open and learn from somebody. Is, is critical. That listening piece becomes critical, isn't it?

It's huge. I mean, it's, you know, it's really everything. And, you know, whenever we start, I mean, think about the number of times that people, they'll be kind of listening, but what they're really doing is forming their response in their head. And they're really not paying attention to exactly what you're saying. They're just ready. They're just biding time for their next turn to talk. And so if this idea, if we can kind of keep ourselves out of that mode and really try to be listening and try to be truly receptive and try to really receive what is going on, as opposed to always feeling we've got to lean in with our own opinions, and, you know, we actually might learn something. And oftentimes if someone does pose an opinion that's different from your own, about anything, I don't care if it's about business or politics or whatever, instead of kind of retorting with your point of view on it, start asking them some questions. Tell me where that comes from. Tell me, I'd love to hear more about that. Tell me kind of what, you know, why you believe so strongly in that. And just at least understand, doesn't mean you have to agree with them, doesn't mean anything like that. But the only way you're ever going to get to a point where you can actually have a real conversation about this is that if you really do start probing, and asking the kind of questions that can actually foster a real dialogue, as opposed to people just making speeches at each other.

You know what? I'm reminded of an old acronym that I remember from being in groups a long time ago. Don't be a PAT. Preach, Advise, or Teach. Right. Because those are all things that open your mouth. So don't be a PAT. Just keep your— listen. Because we so often want to preach at somebody when— because we want to have a retort, or we want to advise somebody because we want to tell them what to do, or we want to teach somebody, right? So don't be a Pat is basically what I'm hearing, because if you're not a Pat, you can shut up, right?

Yeah. You know, when you think about whether it's The Power of Peers, What Anyone Can Do, or Peer Innovation, um, this isn't stuff that came out of my head that I'm kind of spewing into a book. This is a lot of listening to a lot of members, a lot of— and both in terms of groups and team members, a lot of CEOs, a lot of leaders, and a lot of people who've imparted a lot of incredible thinking and ideas and stories that kind of find its way into a narrative and into a system that I think is not informed by just me by any stretch of the imagination. Really informed by the wisdom of thousands of people. And for me, that's why peer innovation holds up as well as it does, you know. And it's why that now, as of yesterday, as I mentioned to you before we went on, I've conducted over 200 workshops just with Vistage peer advisory groups alone. So you can only imagine in 3-hour workshops where I'm working primarily with CEOs and some key executives, that this content's been pressure tested 6 ways to Sunday with all of those groups over now nearly 5 years. And again, the reason it holds up is because of where it comes from. And I think that's what I really feel best about. And it's certainly been a product of a whole lot of listening, that's for sure.

Let's jump to accountability because you kind of led in with accountability and psychological safety kind of connected. It here. And I want to just say, read something. Because here's the connection you gave in the book. You said, if you can't truly leverage psychological safety, you will never feel comfortable enough to challenge each other or hold each other to account in any serious manner. And you go on to say that when it comes to accountability and personal responsibility, coaches and peers can push you, but you have to want to be great. And so let's talk about this accountability thing because I think we make a huge mistake when we use this word accountability, like we have to hover over somebody's head. And I don't think that's what you're talking about here. As a matter of fact, I know that's not what you're talking about here.

So let's work through it. The opposite. Exactly. You know, the last The last thing you want is to try to set up a system where everyone feels like they're playing defense every day. That's not really what that's about. I'd mentioned the book. I'd read an article a number of years ago in Atlantic Monthly of Pasi Sahlberg, who was the former director general of the school system in Finland, one of the top secondary school systems in the world. And here he's being asked about accountability. And he basically said, you know what? We don't even have a direct translation for accountability in the way you've talked about it here. In the Finnish language. He said, for us, accountability is what you're stuck with after someone's sense of personal responsibility gives way. So if I go back to the example I gave about being at MullenLowe, okay, people at MullenLowe considered their personal currency at that place being about bringing my A-game all the time. And I did that only just so I could hang with in the conversation with all these other really smart people who came prepared all the time, were ready to go. So The accountability wasn't about me trying to impress my boss or trying to hit KPIs. It's about one another and being personally responsible for bringing my best every single time that I came there. And with that, it was through that commitment and that understanding about bringing our best and challenging one another that we put ourselves in a position to do what we wanted to do, which was create the best advertising in the world. And, and that takes a lot of effort and a lot of accountability, but not the accountability that makes everyone feel like they're playing D. In fact, I really regarded it as we were all on offense. You know, we were all just bringing our best all the time. And it was the expectation we have of ourselves because we knew everyone else around the table was going to bring it every single day. And it was really exciting. And when you talk to leaders about that, they're thinking, man, would I love to have that. In my organization, but I love for people to take ownership in that way. The thing about it, though, is you will never get people to take ownership over what they want to do if they can't feel psychologically safe doing it. Right? What would happen if you said to someone, yeah, you go own that, you go do that, and then, but you make one move that someone doesn't like, and the next thing you know, you're called out on the carpet for it? Why? Because there's no psychological safety. So you can't have that. Part of what we set up, and I think this is fundamental to it, is if you remember the leadership model that is in the book with the triad, right? The idea of the leader, the member, and the team itself as an entity. And it's this idea, this is a shared responsibility for whatever it is you want to put in the middle. It could be your productivity, it could be your profitability, it could be your joy, fun. I don't care what it is. Everybody plays a role in that. So it's that power of we begins with me, that is a team member. I've got to do my thing. As a team together, we're going to bring our very best. And as a leader, they're going to provide both the challenge and support that allow for that to be possible. And so this is where all of this really comes together when you consider being a leader, being a part of the team, not apart from it, right? I'm in it with you. We are in this together. We're going to win together, lose together, laugh together, cry together, whatever that happens to be. It's not me on one side of the desk blaming the team on the other side of the desk. We're saying, you know, here's what's going on, you know, here's what you need to do for me today. It's how are we all in this and how are we together going to achieve the results that we're looking for? And that to me is where all of this ties together when it comes to psychological safety, productivity, and accountability. And, and I think that model really paints a picture for what I think a lot of teams and a lot of organizations would love to have.

You make a quote, um, kind of in the middle of this chapter where you said, I have found that people who don't accept personal responsibility for their work and own their goals tend to believe that they don't matter much. And I thought that was a really interesting statement. And can you expand that a little bit more? Because I think some people would go, what do you mean? If I don't accept personal responsibility for my work and my goals, I may not matter?

It means that you may not realize how much you can matter. So the example I gave of this happening, and think about this from a chief executive officer, right?

Okay.

Who's in a peer group, who when we have this conversation about attendance and how important it is to be there all the time and have that consistency of being together. Well, apparently the CEO who was sitting right near me here started getting agitated with the conversation. And he's like, "Okay." Finally, he stands up and he says, "Look, I'm here when I can be here. I pay the dues, blah, blah, blah." He goes on and on and on. Next thing you know, just before he sits down and he said, "You know what? And when I'm not here, I'm the one who loses." And he sits down and that was that in this kind of, "Okay, now what?" type of moment. So we'll call this guy Richard, which I think is what I named him in the book. So then in that moment, I just looked at the member next to me on the other side of the table and I said, "Hey, would you mind giving me one minute?" to talk about what's lost when Richard can't be here. And that person was like, oh my God, you know, when Richard's not here, you know, he gives us this perspective and that perspective, and that's lost, you know, when he can't make the meeting. Then a second person around the table mentioned— then I went to a third. By the time I got to the person, Richard was welling up in tears. And I looked at Richard and I said, look, I didn't do that to show you up. If I asked that question about any one of you around this table, you all would have responded the same way. Why? Because everybody brings unique gifts to the conversation. Everybody matters. This CEO who knows damn well that he matters in his own company but had no clue how much he mattered around that table. If you have a CEO who doesn't even realize how much he matters in a group like that, you can only imagine that for typical employees to actually take ownership and recognize how much they matter so that they can and should accept personal responsibility for bringing their best, and that when they do, it can make an unbelievable difference for everybody around them. You know, that's a powerful idea. And I think that it may just surprise and shock some people that— and I used the example of the CEO just to make that point— that if he's feeling that way, you can only imagine how for many of us that's a pretty prevailing sentiment. Is not to realize how unbelievably powerful we really are and to try to own that. And that's not easy for a lot of us to do.

That's beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. We've been on an hour.

Yeah, I know. Time flies when you're having fun. By the way, I want to give a little nod to your sponsors because as you were describing those sponsors, it makes me think about people, relationships, peers, teams. Both of them have it all going on there. And that's why they're as successful as they are. So, I'll give them my nod in that regard too, because it was very evident in your description of who they are and why they're so great.

So, they are great teams. I'm just telling you. And, you know, I know Linda really well. And I know Heidi and Andrew, who own their company as well, and Epic. And, you know, I got to tell you something, it really They really are great. Their people are amazing and their people work together. That's— they play together, they work together, and the conversations are open. That's— that's— they have a lot of psychological safety. They both do. And they're all willing to be held accountable. You know, that's— that's— it's— it's amazing how it works. So you're proof of the pudding. So, you know the drill, right? Show's called A New Direction. We try to help people find a new direction in their career, life, business. based on peer innovation, which is fantastic. What would you leave folks, uh, as their new direction?

Your new direction is to recognize that the power of we begins with each of us. And I want you to really think and reflect upon, you know, the unique gifts that you, uh, have to bring to the table, uh, try to recognize, uh, the best in others and see if we can't, uh, cooperate and collaborate in an all new way going forward.

His name is Leo Bottary. He's such a good friend and I love him. I really do. The book's called Peer Innovation: What Peer Advisory Groups Can Teach Us About Building High-Performance Teams. Folks, that's the show. You know what I say every week, right? Be inspired because when you're inspired, that means you will inspire others. And when they are inspired, that means they will inspire other people and that can make this world a great place. I'll be back next week with another great guest, another great book. It's going to be another great show. As I say to you every week, ciao everybody!

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. Whoa, whoa.