Leo & Randy On Groups as Team Labs

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 Peer Novation, the podcast. It's been a while since it's just been you and me, Leo.

That's right. Well, we've had a lot of amazing guests and we're about to have more amazing guests, so we figured we'd try to sneak in a, a show together where we could, uh, chat a little bit and update on some stuff. And, uh, you know, and I think in particular what I'm excited to talk about is I just got back off the road And it's kind of funny, right? Because I was in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and then to spend time, you know, in Tennessee, Ohio, and actually do a virtual back home here in California to a group in Texas, where I think I got in at like probably about 10:30 last night by the time I got everything kind of settled and had to reset up everything here because I had to start at 5:15 in the morning, uh, my time. And of course, here we are, it's a little after 9 on, uh, Thursday the 22nd, and I already have a 3-hour workshop under my belt today. So, but it was good. But the reason I bring it up is that I did a very kind of different type of session, um, with a Vistage group in Ohio. And it was basically, you know, a lot of times I go to peer advisory groups, whether they're brand new and they're just getting started and they want to really get off to a great start. So we kind of set that foundation for them at the beginning about, you know, expectations and what do they want to be when they grow up, what do they want to look like in a year. And then there are other groups who I work with who have been together a long time, maybe some new members, some founding members, some whatever, but they're pretty experienced at it. But what they want to do is take where they are against what they believe could be ideal. We create a gap analysis around that, and then of course we come up with action items that kind of help them really just raise their own standard of excellence with regard to the group. I've also done this with teams where I've gone to teams in the USA and Canada. A lot of times it's cross-functional work teams, and I'll take all of these principles from groups, which is kind of what peer innovation is all about, right? It's what peer advisory groups can teach us about building high-performing teams and apply it to teams for people who may necessarily not necessarily ever been in a group before. So they get kind of familiar with these practices. Uh, yesterday's session in Ohio was with a group, but we didn't talk about their group and how to make their group better. We talked about how to take these principles from peer innovation and make their teams better. But what ended up happening was, of course, as you might imagine, because they have familiarity with the group experience, every time it came to how they might think about or execute something against each of the 5 factors, they could go back to their experience as a group because this is their laboratory. This is kind of how they make these things possible, and they use that as a resource for how to apply all these really cool things to their teams back at the company. So it was a lot of fun, you know.

So what What was the, uh, I got questions. What was the, so what was the, what was the genesis of, I mean, I know you and I have talked about this and, and both of us out here in the real world, clearly seeing the need for internal teams to take the whole peer advantage thing and bring it inside their company. We— you and I have talked about this for, for a long, long time, but so, so this approach with this particular group, I mean, was it— was there a reason for— was the group— did the group play into your decision to kind of go this way, or—

so this is a Vistage chair who has 5 groups. Um, I visited his 5 groups a few years ago and we did the whole group thing. He wanted me to come back now that peer innovation is out. But, and we decided together that we would have the focus really be on teams exclusively, not just to work on their group and at the end talk about how they can apply it to their teams, but really make it the central focus. Was all about how everything functions, work, how do they decide who the right people are, do they have psychological safety at all, if so, do people actually take advantage of it, right? How productive are they? And we look, we talk about their team meetings and all. And as you might imagine, you'll have some people talk about their team meetings are awful, other people talk about the team meetings are amazing. Hey, if you're doing it amazing, what do you do that makes them amazing, right? And we— so when you've got all these diverse players in the room, there's a lot of amazing idea sharing around that. And same thing definitely goes for culture of accountability, where you went from some cultures in the room who were very much about we're we're all in this together, um, to other cultures where they admitted like, yeah, no, our employees are playing defense, you know. I mean, that's kind of what accountability looks like for us. And then on the leadership front, um, it was basically challenging them in two ways because this happened to be a key executive group. Uh, it was— so these are people that may enjoy a VP or director-level role or something in their company. So they have people that report to them and they report to people also. So asking them the very simple question What is one thing you believe your team would ask of you that you could do to support their success even more than you are right now? And, and conversely, what would be something you would ask of the person you report to that they could do to help support your success also? So, you know, again, um, just really good conversations. You can take advantage of the fact that instead of everyone all being from the same organization, you've got everyone off me in different organizations. You can facilitate, you know, breakout conversations among people from different companies where they share all these things. And it was actually quite remarkable what they were able to do.

What were some— I'm assuming there were probably many, but what were some of the, for you, some of the big aha moments that it was clear that really resonated with the group where they thought, okay, we really know we can jump on that and take advantage of that?

Well, a few things, and, and one of them of course is they were all sharing in the idea that they all had, um, you know, the similar challenge to deal with with regard to COVID, right, with remote teams and all that kind of stuff. Um, and that was, I think, really enlightening. In fact, there was a particular, um, story that came up that was interesting, and that was someone who was the leader of the team basically working from home, but because of the nature of the work the team did, they had to be on site. And kind of little resentment levels around like, why does the leader of my team get to work from home and we have to be on the job site every single day still? You know, at a time basically early on where there was still great uncertainty about, you know, um, how, how contagious and how deadly and how all of these kinds of things.

So very interesting You know, that's a common scenario that a lot of folks are wrestling with.

Yep. But I do think that what was common was everyone did recognize this idea that we started looking at each other more for our shared challenges as human beings and not just looking at each other as coworkers. I think that was clear almost across the board with everybody yesterday and that that played into it. They talked about the fact that, especially for team meetings, there was kind of the distinction between project meetings and team meetings. Project meetings tend to be, okay, we're getting together because it's like we have some very specific things to deal with, where team meetings certainly have their own agenda. But at the same time, there's also something to be said for— we talked about how do you begin the meeting, right? Whether it's how are you doing versus what are you doing. You know, that kind of thing. Or as someone made a suggestion yesterday, we basically just go around the table and say, share, you know, a big win, you know, one business and one personal, just so that people can share a little something about their life as well as something about that. And, and beginning that way not only sets a positive tone for the meeting but also lets people know that you care about the people first, and then we'll talk about what we need to do. You know, um, and, and I think as more people recognize the value of people wanting to be recognized in that way, while a lot of companies were already doing it, there were certainly other companies that said we need to do more of that. We need to make sure— we also need to figure out a way to identify, capture, and reward and perpetuate some of the incredible attributes and values and traits that people have exhibited throughout this particular crisis so that we could bring those forward as our culture continues to evolve. So I think those were, you know, certainly a couple of big ones. Um, you know, psychological safety was a big one, um, because, you know, and, and, you know, what's nice in a group like that is people readily admit in that session, yeah, we don't have a lot of psychological safety and we're not sure how to deal with that. Or people will feel very open to talk to like a supervisor about something, but then they stop because the supervisor will never do anything about anything they talk to them about. So yeah, they feel open to share, they do. After a while they just give up because it doesn't, you know, there's nothing comes of it. Um, yeah, so it's, um And you start looking at accountability as a real two-way street and not just simply something that flows upward.

And now that we're kind of emerging from all of this over the past year and you've begun in the last number of weeks to kind of pick up your travel schedule, I'm curious, what are you finding, especially as it pertains to teams? Being siloed and the impact that the pandemic— my conjecture would be that siloing is even worse now than it was before, but I could be completely wrong.

No, you're right. It didn't get any better for sure. And oftentimes it is getting worse because people tend to be so deeply focused on their area. They just don't have a wide lens into what the company is doing. They're also, in addition to what people talk about regarding being burned out, they also feel really obscure. You know, it's like, hey, wait a minute, look at me, you know, I'm doing stuff here at my house, you know, versus sometimes people have a hard enough time believing they get noticed when they show up to work every day, let alone, you know, feeling like they're working at home. And that— so it just shows as leaders, we got to work extra hard at making sure that people are seen and that they're heard and that they're appreciated. And You know, and rewarded, quite frankly, for, you know, the incredible work that everyone's been doing together in the face of some pretty incredible personal challenges, by the way.

You know, in the last 2 weeks, I've said this to more people than I remember ever saying it to before, but, and for whatever reason, I've used a fictional character named Marge, Marge in the accounting department. You know, and Marge in the accounting department is your bottleneck because you're not friendly to her. You never smile. So, you know, your stuff kind of goes to the bottom of the pile and no MBA program teaches you that, you know, and I think it's systemic of this whole siloing thing. And we're, we got our team, we're in our space, we're doing our stuff and that's them. The problem is. They have an impact on you. They can be a gatekeeper to some of your projects going on. But you and I've talked quite a lot offline, especially about these, the whole, you know, the whole cross-functional work teams and our ability to just work together better. Go ahead.

Well, one of the things you just mentioned is really part of psychological safety. It's giving people the benefit of the doubt, and it's not making assumptions about what their attitude may be on a given day or something like that. And then all of a sudden, people make assumptions, they don't ask questions, they don't inquire, they don't do anything. And over time you get these relationships that start to just atrophy, right? They're going nowhere. And next thing you know, every time you approach this person, you're like, oh, they always have an attitude. No, no, maybe just, you know, they have— or they have something going on in their life that if you ever heard that story, you'd be like, oh, got it, sorry, you know. But we don't. And it is that kind of untold story piece. But giving the benefit of the doubt to people in the workplace, recognizing that everyone's got a lot going on and we're all doing our best, you know. And sometimes we'll come across and, you know, we can put on that smile and, and do what we need to do because it's important to the people we're engaging with. And at other times it can be more difficult, and understandably so. And so, you know, I think the other thing that came up yesterday, since you mentioned about cross-functional work teams, was the importance and the value of when you're a member of a cross-functional work team, right? So I'm sitting around the table, let's say I'm in marketing and somebody's in sales and finance and legal and HR, and you just kind of go around the table. It's too often the people who show up to those cross-functional work team meetings, which is why Harvard Business Review labels 70% of these teams as dysfunctional, um, has to do with the fact that it's very difficult to get trust among one another when it comes to various recommendations when people show up as the king or the king or queen of their department, right? I'm there to protect my people, to protect my budget, to protect whatever initiative that I want to push forward next year. And if everyone around the table has that particular agenda, how can you possibly be a CEO who is trusting that people are doing and making recommendations that are best for the enterprise? This is why CEOs have to be part of peer groups, because they can't sort that out oftentimes on their own. They clearly can or should be part of peer groups anyway. But the point is that you need that cross-functional work team to walk into a room like that and they leave that leader of their department hat right outside and they bring their, what can I do for the enterprise given in my lens, which is marketing or HR or sales or finance or whatever, not that I'm taking ownership of the department in a way where I'm protecting my assets, resources, and initiatives. And if you can get people to actually work together that way, recognizing sometimes you're going to take a hit this year, you're not going to get to do exactly what you thought you were going to get to do, maybe resources are going to be put in another area. Well, that can and probably will shift over time. Doing those and making those really good decisions that benefit the enterprise as a whole with everybody's input and everyone buying makes a huge difference versus all the territorial nonsense that takes place and just erodes trust and creates that dysfunction that HBR is talking about.

Well, and the leadership to step out and be the first in your cross-functional work team to do that. It takes a tremendous amount of courage. I mean, I have encouraged a number of people, you know, that there's a space that I serve, and many of them are in the throes of budget right now, of budget preparation, and don't want to lose, you know, don't want to lose dollars that they had on the table going into the year. Certainly don't want to don't want to lose them next year. But to your point, but everybody in the room is like this, right? I mean, they're all wrapped in their own little blanket of whatever comfort and success that they, that they want. And to let go of that is really, really difficult. Are you finding, are you finding now that you're getting out and about and traveling more, and, and you were doing a stuff virtually, but I know that there's a difference when you're physically there in the room. Are you finding that— is there one factor that's kind of bubbling to the surface, especially now that we're kind of emerging from this pandemic, that you're finding is particularly challenging for people, or not?

I think the I, I think the challenging part is the what's next and how do we transition to that. I think for a lot of organizations, they're not feeling like, yeah, we're not going to stay totally remote, that's not going to be the way we'll do things, but we've got to do something that keeps people together, allows us to grow, allows us to build a culture, um, you know, even if it's, uh, people coming in 1 or 2 days a week, or people, you know, whatever that may look like. Everyone's trying to figure out what's best for them. And also, you know, trying to just, you know, follow guidance for what's safe, you know, out there right now too. And some are a little faster, some are a little slower coming back. And this also can depend on what state you're in and a number of, you know, factors there. But I think people are most certainly just trying to figure out what the next 3, 6 months, year, is going to look like. There's no question in my mind that now that it's— I'm going to more and more, and it hasn't been to a lot quite yet. I'm still obviously doing a lot of virtual, but when I do go to meetings, it's surprising how the number of people— and it really shows the efficacy of this effort over the past, you know, many months now— of people either having been fully vaccinated or have one shot of the vaccine. And you can tell what a— even though people are masking and all of that, certainly, but once they get in the meeting room, masks are off, and now they're, you know, everyone's socially distancing and they're trying to practice that as best they can. But by and large, you can definitely feel a kind of a bit of a loosening of that environment and people welcoming that. But I think people are really struggling with What, what steps to take?

The best news about that is there's, there's, there's— it seems to me, and maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see, there's, there seems to be a heavier emphasis on the humanity, you know, our shared humanity about all of this coming out of the pandemic, when before that may not have even been remotely, remotely top of mind. So now at least there's some consideration about other people, which I find kind of refreshing coming out of this. That's a bright side.

And by the way, for those leaders who didn't behave in that way, they're going to pay for it in the back half of this year. Think about the, the research and statistics that are already coming out about the number of people that are going to be like making other decisions with regard to where they're going to be working. They believe that the job opportunities are going to be abundant for them. They don't believe they have to stay at a place that, you know, basically, you know, drove them to the brink without really taking care of their people. Yeah, and I think that a lot of those companies, I think it's going to really cost them this coming year. They're not going to feel it maybe just yet, but I would say third, fourth quarter of this year when people start really walking out the door, it's going to be— or who knows, or walk into the next room, and then maybe they're going to work out of their living room now instead of the dining room, but it'll be for somebody else. You know, that kind of thing. So I, I would really be— and I think a lot of— and I will say this, very early on I was really impressed with a lot of the CEO groups I was with. And this is where these CEOs really gave one another a good gut check around all of these things, recognizing things like in the early months, right, oh, productivity's up. And they're all on one hand happy about it because it's nothing they would have ever chosen for themselves, and then here they are doing but at the same time, they all looked at each other and said, yeah, but let's pay attention to the longer-term impact of this and how important it is to let our folks know that we care about them, to give them permission by example really to take breaks. The CEO who may get on and communicate even more frequently with their people than ever before, asking them how they're doing, but also saying, Hey, I'm going to go take my dog for a walk right now. I hope you're doing things like that in the middle of your day to make sure that you're getting time, not hunched over a laptop and just driving yourself. So I think those companies are going to be rewarded. And I think those companies that didn't treat their employees well during a time that was enormously stressful, not only for the organizations, but for what was happening in individual employees' lives. Yeah, I think that's going to be a challenge.

Cycle back around to your meeting with this group in Ohio. Were there any specifics that came out, particularly as you got to the— anywhere during the meeting, but particularly at the end where members said, man, when I get back, to my organization, I got to do this. Epiphanies like that for the group that you could share.

Psychological safety was everybody's top of mind. Even people—

And what were they going to do about it?

What they were going to do about it was be more intentional about it and more mindful about it. So in other words, we talked a lot about self-awareness. We talked a lot about we can sit all day long, like you and I could be leading a team. And we can be in a meeting with a group of our peers and they'll say, you know, how does that go with your team? You're like, well, they can talk to me about anything. You know, I would certainly entertain that. Now that in your mind, that may be true. You may be very open to all that and feel all of that. Now, if you asked your employees, hey, are you all willing to like step up? And they're like, no, I don't want to do that because he'll think less of me or he'll think I'm stupid or he'll think that, you know, maybe I'm not as much of a contributor as I should be or whatever. This could be all conjured up in their own mind, for all we know. It may not be the person's fault. The only thing that's their fault is that they've got to somehow tap into what that sentiment is. So if people aren't actually sharing, um, I think there's a couple things you need to do. One, usually there's somebody in the team who you can ask. So, you know what, I really— there's never been a more important time for us to kind of really be one here and to be open with one another about exactly what's going on so we can all work on this together, I don't always feel I'm getting that level of candor. What could I be doing that might help make that easier for everyone? Or anything like that is certainly one way. The other is to, in your team meetings, keep asking, keep asking, keep asking. Obviously very famous, everyone's told it a million times and I included it in peer innovation only because it is so powerful. But when you really think about the Alan Mulally story at Ford Motor Company, where he had to take an environment that was not psychologically safe at all and completely turn it on its head when it came to that topic, he, he— part of the way he did it was he asked and he asked and he asked, and everyone said no, everything's good. Like we said, if, if you're losing $17 billion and you're running around to all your direct reports and they tell you that all their dashboards are green, there is no worse news than that, right? So you've got to have people tell you what's going on, because only when you know what's going on can you work together and do it. This is why this leadership model that I talk about all the time with the triad becomes so important. It's the difference between the leader being, again, apart from the team and looking at them and evaluating, judging, and looking for the throat to choke. As a lot of people, that's how they frame accountability, versus we're all in this together. And for us to really operate as a team, that's a very different ballgame. I think this is why that simple model not only drives the possibility that you can get psychological safety in an important way, but also that you can create a culture of accountability that doesn't make people feel like they're playing defense. As we know from groups, psychological safety and accountability, they go hand in hand in terms of how they work together. You know, I think psychological safety by far was the big one. I would say accountability was next, but again, for the very reasons that I'm talking about, right? Because they're so incredibly linked. Um, and then I think too, um, for the people in that room, they were being really reflective and they were thinking about what could I be doing more to serve my team. And by the way, in their situation, what could I be asking of my leaders so that we have clarity about expectations here because it's very likely that what you're looking for, your person who you report to is more than happy to give you that little extra support. I think it also became clear with everyone that psychological safety is not about everyone just being kind and lovely and all that stuff. With psychological safety comes conflict and comes people challenging one another. Doing it for the right reasons and doing it for— in a way that doesn't, doesn't feel personal and doesn't feel all of that. But it's, but it's about how do we get better. And once everyone trusts intent and again gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, makes all the difference in the world. So if there were, you know, some areas that really kind of, um, dominated the conversation, I think for people both during and then after our session was over, I I think they're still thinking now about psychological safety, accountability, and leadership.

Well, and you and I both know, at least when you start thinking about it and you start focusing on it, something's way more liable to improve than if it's completely out of mind. Okay, not to hijack the conversation, but I got to bring it up because you wrote a piece in CEO World a couple of days ago, and I'm a fan. Of your work, as you and the rest of the world know. But, uh, this one was particularly poignant, and I don't know, kind of in the wheelhouse of, of how I roll. I'm a big heart guy. And so, uh, yeah, I was, I was touched by it. So there's the death of a 90-year-old, a 90-year-old person that, uh, had some meaning to you. And, uh, yeah, I want to— I want the audience to go and read it. We'll put links to it in the show notes. there's links to all of Leo's, um, his books as well as the articles at CEO World. But yeah, share whatever you care to share with the audience, and we'll, we'll kind of tease it.

Yeah, I'd like him to read the article. It's about a gentleman, his name is, um, Paul Epstein. He died, um, just, uh, probably a month ago or so, within the last month, I believe, and, uh, 90 years old. When you look at what he accomplished in his life and what he did and what he did for people just on the professional front. You know, you could pick any 2 or 3 people you can think of and maybe they might together, you know, do what this one man did. And yet the reality was that how he was remembered and, and how people think about him has very little to do with these incredible things that he invented and, and brought to the world, but But the way he cared for others, you know, his curiosity, his empathy, his just absolute ability to be present and feel joy and bring joy to others was remarkable. Remarkable. And just reminds you every time about what is really important. You know, it's like I said, these are all the things you'd never find on his LinkedIn profile, right? And yet it's all the most important stuff. It's about not what he did, but who he was. So I think for people to, uh, read that story and have that be a reminder, you know, I don't care how old you are, I don't care whatever, you can start today kind of focusing on all these incredible people that I have around me and how I can bring joy to their lives and how I can be present for them, uh, in a way that I think represents what's really most important. And so yeah, that, that's really for me, and I hope for others, what that story is about, and that there's some takeaway there that gets you to reflect even just a second, you know, about how we can all— you know, we're all a work in progress, we're all trying to figure it out. I don't care how old you are or what that looks like. Um, and yeah, so that would be kind of what I have to say about that. But yeah, I There'll be a link in the show notes there. And it was a really good piece.

It was a really good piece. And yeah, all of this is congruent. If leaders, bosses can't care about their people, and if we can't deal with each other at a human level, I mean, the whole podcast reeks of that message. I know our audience, our audience gets that. Um, yeah, it was, it was a really good piece.

A piece like that writes itself. I mean, it really did, because that just was his life. It would just— that's how I felt about it anyway.

Yeah, and I, I get it. But, but yeah, you were, you wordsmithed it pretty, pretty stinking well though. So kudos, kudos to that. Hey, the website is peerinnovation.co Leo, we appreciate you, the listeners. We hope that we're making some impact in helping you in your leadership and developing your own career and your team, your group, your organization. Find out more by going to peerinnovation.co. That's peerinnovation.co. You can also go to his name, Leo Bottari. That's L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll get back to the interview schedule. After this, and I'll give you the last words, Leo.

I just think, uh, what you said is great. I love it. We'll see you guys next week. See ya.

Thank you for joining us. To subscribe to the podcast and learn more about how you can engage PeerNovation for your organization, contact us on the website at peerinnovation.co. Till next week, remember, the power of we begins with you.