Leo & Randy On CEO WORLD Magazine

Welcome to Peer Innovation, the podcast with Leo Bottari and me, Randy Cantrell. Building on our previous shows, The Year of the Peer and What Anyone Can Do, we turn our attention to helping business leaders build high-performing teams. We'll talk with a diverse group of thought leaders who will share stories and insights that will help you and your teams achieve new heights. If you believe there is strength in numbers and that meeting the challenges of the future can only be achieved if we do it together, then join us for the conversation. Welcome back to another episode of PeerNovation, the podcast, the website peerinnovation.co. PeerNovation's spelled just like it sounds, dot co. I'll just, I'll leave, I'll leave it at that. Leo Bottari, that's his name. And, uh, his, his domain, same one, leobottari.com. That's L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y dot com. I've been absent a couple of weeks, Leo. You've had some You've had two great conversations. I hate that I missed them, but like the audience, I got to— I got to go watch the replay. So good job.

Tell you what, no, I— you know, both of the guests were, um, phenomenal. And, you know, of course, uh, you and I got to speak with, um, Jen Thornton, and she introduced us to, um, Jacqueline, of course. And then, um, you know, I was on my bike. As I posted a thing on LinkedIn yesterday, because I'm now doing, uh, between trying to ride the Peloton during the day, but I'm trying to actually do something while I'm doing it so I don't feel like I'm completely breaking away. And, and it gives me time to, you know, it's kind of like when I was on the podcast with Jonathan Rivera, and we've talked many times before that if I feel like I'm, you know, writing and doing interviews and things like this more than I'm reading and listening to other people's content, then that's gets out of balance, you know, and we're not bringing a lot of new stuff to the table. So getting on the bike and getting some physical exercise and at the same time being able to take in, you know, like, that's how I— Anna Oaks, you know, I'm like, podcasts were great and they were right up, you know, our alley in terms of what we love to talk about. And, you know, she was really terrific as well. And, um, you know, I'm reading another new book now. And so it's fun, you You know, it's been good to kind of catch up on that content. And of course, next week we've got Larry Robertson joining us, which is really exciting. And I'm really excited about his book and, you know, what he's got coming. So, but hey, for this week, you know, we can probably catch up on some things that we've, you know, wanted to cover over the past few weeks. And, you know, I know when we were trying to think about, exactly what do we want to cover today? It kind of came down to, do we do this or this? And then we decide, ah, let's do this and that, right? Because I think both are, you know, both worthwhile, um, but different. And they basically revolve around two CEO World articles that I put together over the past several weeks. And one of them looks at kind of inside the Five Factors, where we talk about this kind of killer app, if you will, but the app being an an acronym for accountability, productivity, and psychological safety. And then of course, a piece that, as we're recording right now, that came out this morning that really talks about, you know, of course, and we've had Angela Myers on the show as much as we've had anyone because we love her work on what it means to matter. And coming right off the holidays, it was kind of fun to tap into people's probable recent experience with, watching "It's a Wonderful Life" again, you know, starring Jimmy Stewart. And, you know, some of the lessons around that whole story and how it related to her story I told in the book. And I think how instructive that can be for us. So yeah, so I think that's what we'll play around with that today. And, you know, we'll go roll from there.

Does Peloton play any role in your inspiration with these articles? 'Cause I know you're, I mean, you're up to, 50 articles over at CEO?

Yeah, it'll be close to that. In fact, um, you're getting pretty prolific over there. I don't know, but you know, at least they keep, they keep posting it, which is good. At least they don't say this sucks or this is not what we're looking for here this week.

And for our audience, if you haven't gone over there and checked those out, these are, these are short, these are very succinct to-the-point, you know, kind of pieces. I don't know what the word count is, but you would know. But these are short articles.

I'll park at 800 to 1,000 words in most cases. They're, you know, they're not tiny, but they're a quick, like, 3-minute read, you know, kind of thing, 3, 4-minute read at the most. And they do kind of take a deeper dive into some of the things that we talk about. So I think that it gives a really great opportunity to kind of explore those areas a little bit, and it helps me bring things into my workshops and into my work with organizational teams. And yeah, just, yeah, I like it. It's a great, uh, and I love reading the other articles by so many of the other people who are also, you know, writers and opinion columnists for CEO World. And, you know, I would really Um, you know, it's a good resource, everyone, CEOWorld.biz. So it's, yeah, just check it out.

We've got links up in the show notes to all of those articles and yeah, you should browse it out. Well, we're only about a month where in fact today is January 26th, 2021, as we hit the record button. Um, so we're only about a month removed from the holiday, you know, Christmas and I know today's article that you published kind of uses a bit of a holiday take on Angela Meyer's whole thing of do you matter? So, let's dive into that one.

Yeah. So, if you all remember It's a Wonderful Life, right? And Jimmy Stewart plays this character of George Bailey. Now, George Bailey was this guy that growing up, all he wanted to do was travel the world and he was going to go to all these places and do all these amazing things and it turns out that there was always something going on in town or at home or with family that was kind of calling him back. He was always needed there. And as it turns out, he lived his life there and yet made an unbelievable difference, obviously, in so many people's lives. If it weren't for George Bailey, you know, we all know that the likelihood of Bedford Falls being called Pottersville would have been really high, right? So at least he saved the community from that. But there was a point You know, as we go through the ups and downs of life, and as his character does in the film, he literally asks the question, or makes the suggestion, "I wish I'd never been born." And his guardian angel, if you recall, is trying to earn his wings, you know, he's trying to figure out what he can do here. And so actually, he gives George this rare look at what the world would have been like if he was never born? And all of a sudden he's talking to him and the door blows open and the wind comes in and you're, you know, kind of made to believe and transported that all of a sudden now we're in a different time where we're going to see the world without George in it. And he goes to this area that's supposed to be the housing development, Bailey Park, right? And of course Bailey Park doesn't exist, it was actually a cemetery. And he's looking around saying, where are the houses? And he said, well, you weren't here to build them. And then he sees the headstone and it's his brother, and he's looking at the years. And his brother, um, um, of course would have, had George not been around, died at the age of 9 years old, because it was at that time when George's brother Harry fell through the ice that he, that he rescued him and saved his life. Years later when Harry was in the military, he actually saved a whole, you know, group of men as part of a military transport that earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. And of course, that never happened, and all those men died because Harry wasn't there to save them. So you start getting this ripple effect, and his whole recognition that, wow, you know, that he really did make a difference in people's lives. And, you know, we don't always get that kind of a window But as I mentioned in the article, I kind of begin with a little intro. We talk about George, and then I pivot to a story about Richard. And Richard is a member of a CEO peer advisory group who I talk about in the book. And he didn't quite have his guardian angel show him what the world would look like if he weren't in it. But what happened one day was we're in this workshop and we're talking about the 5 factors. And we're getting into this conversation about the right people and the right behaviors. And obviously part of the right behavior in being part of a group is making sure you show up, you know, you're making sure you're there. Attendance is important. You need that consistency of time together. And as this conversation was going on, Richard, you could see, was getting a little agitated. He was literally right next to me, you know, I'm standing up in front of the room, but he's like right there down on my left. And you could see he was just getting a little bummed about the conversation. Other people start keeping it going and talking about some things. Well, apparently Richard's attendance wasn't great, which is why he was feeling really self-conscious in this moment. And anyway, it got to a point where Richard literally stood up and he makes this, you know, rather grand speech about, hey, I'm the member, I paid the dues, you know, um, goes on and on and on, says, you know what, I'm the only one that loses when I'm not here, and that's that. And he sits down. As— and looking at me like, all right, now, now what are you gonna do, right? So of course the opening he gave me was, I'm the only one that loses when I'm not here. So I took a second and I looked over to my right and there was a member sitting there, and I said, if you wouldn't mind, could you give me one minute? Could you tell Richard, um, in, in one minute or less what's missing when he's not here when he's not able to contribute to the conversation. So this member is like, oh man, when Richard's not here, and it goes on and on and on, right? Then I ask a second member, then I go over a third. Now I'm looking over at Richard. Richard is literally welling up in tears, right? This is a guy who's a CEO of his company who knows damn well that he matters a lot as the head of his company, but had no clue how much he meant to all of the people sitting around that room in terms of, you know, his presence and how much it mattered to everybody. So he looked and he looks at the third guy who was finally saying something and he said, I had no idea. He said, I really didn't. And he said, you know what, I'm going to do my best to try to never miss another meeting. And then I turned over to Richard and I'm like, look, I didn't do that to show you up or anything like that. I said, truth be told, if I asked that about any one of you in this room, you all would have responded in exactly the same way. And you and I, we talk about music and things like that, right? This is like a jazz ensemble. You know, you can't just yank instruments away and hope and imagine it's going to sound the same. So it was kind of a big aha moment for Richard. It was an aha moment for everyone in the room. You know, that, that meant we need to be here. We need to bring our A-games. We need to demonstrate the kind of commitment to one another that is really going to make this group successful. Obviously that's crucial in high-performing teams as well. You need everybody there who's really not just committed to the goal, but truly committed to each other. And with that, and again, I think I tried to punctuate the article by giving where credit is due here in terms of Angela Meyers and her work on mattering, right? And she has a nonprofit called Choose to Matter. If you go to choosetomatter.org, where she does this incredible work with kids and other young people, it's a really great reminder about how we need to accept responsibility for the gifts that we bring to the table and recognize, you know, our part in that and in the collective success of any group or team. So yeah, so that was kind of fun. It was interesting because it's getting a lot of, you know, attention on LinkedIn right now. And it's largely because I think anytime you tap into a story that is so well known that people can immediately connect to, but then maybe not make the leap. This was a guy, as you know, in the movies, he's contemplating committing suicide. He was like, he was really in the depths of despair. He had too much to drink. He was just not in a good place. So, we didn't always, you know, equate that to our daily lives. But I think there was certainly something there. And when I thought about Richard's story, and how it was only about one step away from what George experienced, in many respects. It was a good reminder, I think, about the difference we can make, for sure.

Well, the last few weeks, the theme of the show is— and I think the theme of this podcast always has a high humanity factor. And these conversations about our shared humanity, it's not kumbaya, frou-frou, rose-colored glasses kind of stuff, even though I know some people I think incorrectly, inaccurately view it that way. But I mean, look at the power that happened in that CEO. And this is a peer group that Leo's referring to where everybody in the room is a CEO. And so these are, these are, these are very, you know, top line, bottom line kind of folks. And yet, I mean, there it is. It's, it, it's where we all live. But you take that mask down and boy, there's a— there's— I think there's a lot of power in just the, the gift that— the gift that that was, that he had no way of knowing when he stood up to kind of get on his podium, you know. I mean, what a gift that meeting was that he— that he was there and did that, you know.

And it was a gift to him and it was a reminder for everybody else also about what that mattered. There was also kind of a similar story that I tell in another part of the book that again, it's a little bit about self-awareness, right? Where, um, so I do this workshop and as you know, these workshops are designed to really help groups maximize the investment of time and money they're making to the peer group. So they're really squeezing every ounce of value possible out of it. And we go through conversations around this Five Factor Framework in order to help them get there. So anyway, there was a member who we had no idea at the beginning of the meeting. He's sitting there, and in his breast coat pocket, right, he's got a letter to the leader of the group saying, I'm out after today. Okay, so now, to his credit, here we've got this workshop, he's gone in his mind, I'm out of here, and yet he participates in this workshop. You'd have no idea that that was his mindset. Anyway, we go through all this and everyone has the conversations about everything, which of course, so much of it becomes a recognition about how much each of these individual members own in terms of their own experience and the value they get, right? So it's the power of we begins with me, you know, and without even uttering those words, you know, that's kind of where that goes. Well, sure enough, we get to the end of the entire thing. And everyone's talking about, well, what their takeaways were and all of that. So anyway, this guy, again, he stands up, you know, this moment, pulls the letter out of his pocket and explains to everyone what is in this letter and says, it's this very— he said, if I might say, eloquent letter, you know, written about how I'm not getting any value from this group anymore. Only for me to learn after participating this morning that this is entirely my fault. You know, you got to love that. Well, first of all, it was great for the group not to have to lose this person who, by the way, promised everyone there that he's going to be a lot better member going forward because he realized that maybe this is not a spectator sport, right? I can't show up here and just sit back and expect like content's going to wash over me and I can just do whatever. You actually have to play and participate. All those members represent that intellectual and emotional capital in the room, right? So But I have to tell you, to this day, I think about the mindset he was in and the fact that he, to his credit, played and participated in that workshop fully despite the decision he believed he had reached at the start of the meeting. And then on top of that, instead of just keeping that out in his pocket and keeping his mouth shut and just, you know, go from there, stand up and flat out admitted, you know, the fact that he hasn't been a great member. And I know that, and I know it's not only caused me not to have value, but clearly I'm not bringing value to you folks either. And so he copped to that and said that, and I just had an incredible amount of respect for, you know, all of that on every front. And how can you not? Again, You know, there was, there was this recognition of how much everybody matters to me, how much I matter to everyone else, and the fact that I've got to show up and play and participate in order to do that.

Can you, can you share, like, like that group, and then as we're calling him Richard's group, what then post this event what that looked like? Got any reports?

So sometimes, um, it depends kind of on the relationship with the leader of the group and all that as to how much I'll get in terms of follow-up or what, what contact, um, happens afterwards. I, I don't know in those particular groups per se. I know that there are there were many groups that I obviously keep very much in touch with because I obviously want to have some good random sample of how things are proceeding and, and how people are doing and whether they're growing. Um, there was a group that, um, you know, I spoke to. Here's an interesting story. So it was— I don't want to get into the geography of it because it'll give away, but suffice it to say it was a retreat. And I show up to the retreat and of course we all know what the workshop is about. And I'm there and I'm talking to the leader of the group and I said, oh, this will be great. He said, yeah, I just want to let you know that we plan to disband after this retreat's over. I'm like, all right, so what are we doing here exactly? I mean, should we just go spend 3 hours and just go up to the bar and hang out, you know? Or I said, but so if we finally joked about it a little bit and I finally just said to him, I said, do you want this group to work out? Would you like to see it stay together? And he said, you know, I really would. He said, I'm just not sure they're in the place. And I said, well, then if you'd like to see it together, and here we are, let's make one, let's use this workshop to be this last effort to see if we got something to save here. Well, sure enough, we go through this whole thing and a lot of amazing conversations happen out of it. And a lot of things come out. One thing leads to another where the group by the end of it says, You know what, we, we do, this has been great. And we, there's no way we should not be together every month. There's no way we should disband this group. Um, and so it was probably 4 to 6 months later that the group was not only healthy and that every one of those people were still there, but they had more than doubled the size of the group because the group realized we need some more voices. We need some more diversity in this group. We need things that will help. All of us deliver even greater value to one another. And they did that. So whether you're— it's an individual member who's saved in the case of the second one, who knows with someone who's not attending very well how long Richard would have lasted in that group. Let's face it, right? Or you get a group together that just something wasn't right, something wasn't really clicking, but all of a sudden now in a way that organically, if you could have those conversations, they're probably not going to just happen in that way. You've got to be intentional about them. And this is what this program does. It just gets people intentional about talking about what matters to them. You know, and I've said this many times, I don't go in there talking to people about what you should or shouldn't do, what's right for you, what— this group's really good, you should be more like them. You know, I mean, you get to be your thing. You get to figure out what that looks like for you on every front. What you value, what your psychological safety looks like, what productivity feels like for you. How do you want to use those sessions where you really have time together working and helping one another? What your culture of accountability should look like. How far do you want to take it? And in what way do you want it to go? And the same thing with the leadership. Right? The role the leader plays in helping make the group successful. But so once you can work with a group and they can find their own way around that, and they can have clarity about the expectations they have for one another and how much they own and what the whole deal is here, then you've got a real shot at, you know, not only relying on assumptions, which in the past, that usually doesn't work too well, right?

So Well, and it speaks to your other article where you use APP as the acronym. I mean, those are 3 really important components as we talk about getting to our humanity. And certainly I would assume nearly all of us, probably all of us, I would hope that we have experienced some kind of a breakthrough, whether it's a family, whether it's a friendship, I mean, in some relationship where we stepped out or somebody else, the other person or someone else in the group stepped out and just exercised some tremendous courage in being vulnerable in that moment. I mean, these are game-changing kind of moments. You know, you're talking about professional peer groups, but And even in other contexts in our life, that's the case. But yeah, kind of pivot to that article that you wrote using APP.

So if you look at whether it's in articles, you'll see it in the book, you'll see that when we talk about the 5 factors, they're essentially expressed as a reinforcing loop now. So it starts with the right peers who create psychological safety with one another. And with that, they drive a level of productivity. That puts them in a place where they start feeling and recognizing how accountability can drive productivity and really drive their psychological safety as well. And we'll get into that in a moment. And then what it means for the leadership. So if you take right people in leadership out of it just for a moment, because rather than only this being a reinforcing loop, you actually have a lot of feedback loops that operate within what I refer to as kind of the killer APP, but the APP of course is just an acronym for accountability, productivity, and psychological safety. So when you think about the relationship between psychological safety and productivity, it's pretty obvious on one hand, right? That if you are not psychologically, feel psychologically safe, it's not likely that you're going to bring any big things to the table because you're just not going to feel that level of comfort to to do that. On the other hand, if you're not productive, meaning that even if you feel psychologically safe, if you don't feel there's any efficacy there, that, oh yeah, I feel comfortable sharing, but you know what, not going to help anybody. It's not going to help me. It's not going to do anything, right? So the productivity drives this belief that bringing something forward to the group could actually matter, could actually be consequential for me and for the other members in the room. So you start getting some of this relational relationship that goes between that. When we think about, you know, the psychological safety and accountability I'll go to next, because one of the things that became apparent early on, because you'll ask groups all the time, hey, how would you rate your psychological safety, right? Your safe and confidential environment on a scale of 1 to 10. They'll all be like, oh, 9.5, 10. It's awesome. Now you'll go through the rest of your time with them and feel like, I'm not sure that level of candor is quite at a 9.5 or 10, but who am I to challenge that in the moment? However, over time, I started to ask a second question. So I'd ask the group kind of a consensus of what they felt their psychological safety was, and they would still ask 9.5 or 10. But then I go around to the individuals one by one and say, how well do you think you leverage that psychological safety? How well do you think you take advantage of it? Well, that number now goes down to about a 6.5 on average. And the reason I ask individually is because they'll call each other out on it. If someone says, oh, I'm a 9, and it's like, no, you're not, you're like a 2, you know. And really, right, there's, there's a bit of that. Now granted, and I always mention to them, you know, not everybody is going to quite share at the same level. Some of us are by nature more private and others more open, and we get that. The point is that how can you take yourself out of your comfort zone? How do you recognize that here's this environment I have here that I likely don't have anywhere else in my whole life. And how can I make sure that in this moment I'm truly accessing all that's available to me? So that's really all we're talking about with that. But when you see the fact that if the average on someone's ability to leverage psychological safety is a 6.5, it is very likely that in that same group, when later when you ask them to describe how they would rank their culture of accountability on a scale of 1 to 10, it'll also be at 6.5. It's fascinating. It's like eerie almost how the number almost hits exactly every time. You know, they recognize if they're not safe, they're not going to feel comfortable challenging each other. And, you know, And so it's very difficult to drive any kind of— and if they're not challenging each other and constantly pushing that psychological safety, it's never really going to push past anything and never going to grow. So you just don't ever advance. You don't move the ball down the field in that regard. And then when you think about productivity and accountability, We talk about accountability both from the perspective of what it takes, kind of the behaviors necessary to bring your A-game and keep the group really healthy, but also to kind of do what you'll say you will do, you know. So if I want something that I've already expressed I want for myself, I say, here's what I'm going to do. Maybe people have helped me come up with some ideas that have resonated with me to help me make those commitments going forward that I'll want to make sure that I'm following through on those things, which speaks to both the accountability and the productivity aspect of it, right? So, you know, all of these things, when you kind of look at inside the 5 factors, is where this app lies. And there's various feedback loops and relationships among all these that are just super important to recognize. And this, in many respects, is such a big part of the leader's role, right? To make sure that the right people are in the room with the right behaviors, but that this inside the 5 factors, these other 3 areas I'm talking about, that leader is really being a steward of those factors and making sure that the group is really fully functioning in that regard and just simply living up to the promises they've already made to one another. It's just some of that reminder, some of that role that I've mentioned where the leader doesn't play the enforcer of those things. It really just plays the backstop, just as the one that reminds them, remember what you guys talked about? And just gives them the gentle nudge, which is most of the time is all you need. But I think this is when you get all these 5 areas really working together, what do they do? They drive that learning-achieving cycle that we talk about is so critical to both high-performing groups High Performing Teams. You know, the more that I've worked with groups and teams, the more it always comes back to, yes, we have these 5 factors, and yes, we have these promises we make to one another, but it's all about how do we drive a strong learning-achieving cycle? How do we make sure that we're constantly learning and growing, that we are giving each other the courage and the encouragement to act on that learning, and that we are celebrating and reaping the rewards of the results that we've achieved in, in a manner that inspires us to do more of it more often. And yeah, so this is, this is where, you know, it becomes fun. And, you know, so much of it is the same framework, yet it plays out differently for every single group. Which makes it interesting. That's why it never feels like I'm doing the same thing with any group or team, because it's really, you know, it's their deal, you know, and it's a lot of fun.

Yeah. And not to, not to twist the knife in you, but, you know, Tom Brady— so this past Sunday, you know, Tom Brady, you know, your, your expatriate leader. I mean, so here's, you know, and everybody's talking about it, and rightfully so, you know, a real lesson in leadership. Starting with probably that post-game celebration and the handing of that trophy, you know, and him telling the reporter, hey, get some other people up here, talk to some of these, talk to some of these other folks, you know, even though admittedly he made an enormous difference. And I would, I would presume that, that your, your app application here, pun intended, He played a big part. We're obviously not in that locker room, but when you see, when you see the difference that a leader like that makes on a team like that, that had skill at every position, clearly needed an upgrade at his position. But, you know, forgot they were saying here on talk radio, after the age of 35, he has more playoff wins than any other quarterback. Period, you know, in their career after the age of 35. You know, it's just, it's pretty amazing, you know, example of that kind of leadership.

Yeah. Um, so I have a nephew that's really into football too, and I was texting him because I was wanting to know, so how do you feel about this whole thing about Brady? Do you want him to go to the Super Bowl or not? And as he, I thought, well, this is how he first responded to it. He said, you know, I don't root for my ex-girlfriends either. And I'm like, okay. I get that. Yeah, there he is. He's right in there, right? Um, you know, he, he's not on the team anymore, so I, I really have no attachment to— I would have just as well, um, seen Green Bay, you know, win. I would have loved to seen it, actually. And Brady did throw 3 interceptions, if I'm not mistaken. And I don't know how many interceptions you— I mean, he— I mean, how could you do more to give it to the Green Bay Packers possibly than, than they did? And the Packers still lost.

How bad does Aaron Rodgers feel? The two articles I think are really, really good. You know, you're— but I'm a, I'm a homer, you know, so I'm a, I'm a fanboy. But the two articles, yeah, we'll, we'll link those up in the show notes. Um, good stuff. And I think our audience members, you're, you're smart enough. You're plenty smart enough. You can make application to these things. The great thing. That I really love about the framework and particularly about this last book is the application that it has internally, the application that it has to groups and teams and organizations. And it's not just, you know, these paid peer groups, which we're both big, big fans of and would encourage anybody in our audience seek one out, see if it's something that's viable for you, but it's got application internally. So I don't know, let's touch on that before we kind of wrap up here. The internal application of some of this kind of stuff for people inside a company, inside an organization?

Well, it would reference another CEO World article where, again, it's fun to kind of crawl inside this idea of how the teams of the future will likely need groups and teams inside their companies. And it's mostly because we don't really have a very good mechanism inside companies to take take all the great things they learn and help them apply those learnings, right? They're so busy and there's so, you know, so much pressure to do so much work in less time with fewer people. And to be able to really have the time and the mechanism to take even some of the few nuggets that they know would help their individual and their team performance and actually put those things to work. It's very difficult to do that. And I think we have, you know, we talked about this before. I mean, you know, if you Google practice in golf, you'll get all kinds of videos that teach you how to practice your golf swing. You'll get all kinds of tools that you can buy and gadgets and all of the other stuff. And practice in business is like business practices, best practices, things like that. Because game day is where every day is game day. In business. And so we need a place, we need a practice field to hone our individual skills so that we can bring that, so that we can be stronger individual contributors and better team members. So I, I think once we get our heads around the importance of that and value of spending time doing those things, the more we're going to realize like, wow, this is a real great investment of time. You know, you look at all this stuff around productivity, you know, you see— I don't care, people are working from home, in the office, or whatever— productivity in 8-hour days is what, like 3.5 hours or something, maybe if we're lucky, right? So I'm thinking, all right, you got an hour, you— we can bring a group together, you know, every couple of weeks, you know, to stay on top of some of these things and to embed this learning and and to, and to really start getting things done in organizations and having a mechanism for that. So, you know, I don't think there's really any particular excuse for it. It's just a commitment to it. I think it has to start with the leadership. So I do like to work with the leadership teams and the cross-functional work teams to really get them to stick their hands in the clay on this stuff and recognize and realize, you know, How to really think from the perspective of what's best for the enterprise and working together to make that possible.

And, um, yeah, so my takeaway from the two, you know, was in addition to everything that you said was that not only do you matter, whomever you are, but they do too. Right. I mean, the other, the other people in your team or in your group or as both of your stories illustrated, it could have been said about any one of those. You know, the guy who stands up and says, I'm done. You know, I haven't— I don't want to be— I'm not going to be here anymore. The same comments that were made about him could have been made about anybody else. So there's an—

but yeah, and with a little self-reflection, by the way, we all might maybe admit to ourselves, I'm not mattering as much as I can. I'm not mattering as much as I should. How do I raise my game? Not how do I retreat, or how do I not show up at the meeting, or pull back in any way in terms of a team in my organization, but how do I step that up and accept personal responsibility for bringing my full gifts to the table, you know, every time? It does, you know, speak in some respects too, and this is I think most of us would consider this fairly unrealistic in our normal worlds, but it's something I think aspirational, and that was the whole story of Geno Auriemma taking his players pre-COVID to a Broadway play where he would have them watch the performance, and the next day at practice he would ask them, "Hey, what'd you think?" And they were like, "Oh my God, the performance was unbelievable. It was amazing." He said, "Well, you know, they did that the night before last, right, and the night before that, and then on Wednesdays and Saturdays they do it twice. Um, he said every time they perform before an audience, they recognize that that audience will— that's the only time they're ever going to see that performance, and they bring it every single time with that in mind. And, you know, if we could ever even come close to approaching our work and with that same mindset, think about what a game changer that would be. But in the meantime, if we have a commitment to team meetings, group meetings, whatever that is, once a month, once a week, twice a month, whatever it happens to be, I think we can summon the resolve to bring our A-games for that and to pretend that this is the only We will never get this hour back. We will never get this morning meeting or this full-day meeting back. So time to show up and make the most of it. And so I think that's how we should be thinking about that.

Yeah, that's a powerful place to, uh, powerful place to end. We appreciate the audience. You matter to us. Um, otherwise we're just two guys having an interesting conversation. So, and we hope what we hope we matter, we think Yeah, we think we matter and we're not too high-minded to think that we matter more than we, uh, more than we really do, but good stuff. Uh, we're going to, we're going to put links in the show notes. We always do. You can find links to Leo's social media profiles, mine. There are always links to the latest CEO World articles there and any other links that we've talked about in the show. You can go there by finding peerinnovation.co. LeoBottari.com takes you to the same place. That's L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y.com. We appreciate you listening. Until next time, everybody have a safe one. Thank you for joining us. To subscribe to the podcast and learn more about how you can engage peer innovation for your organization, contact us on the website at peerinnovation.co. Till next week, remember, the power of we begins with you.