Leo & Randy On The Birth Of A Book: PEERNOVATION

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. We welcome you back to another episode of Peer Innovation. PeerInnovation.co is the website. This is, uh, I don't know, we'll call this the book launch.

It's like a book launch.

It, uh, it's, it snuck up. It snuck up on me. I don't know about you, but we've been anticipating. It's kind of like the birth of a child. You're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting and suddenly you're off to the—

yeah, exactly. So no, actually what happened was, I mean, I knew at the end of last week that it was going to be available on Archway's website, and it was supposed to be a week or two before it was available on Amazon. And I don't know what made me look last night, and I was checking out actually just for, um, looking at some other websites from other countries, right? I started, I was in the UK, and I went to the UK site just looking and seeing how my stuff was listed there or whatever just now. And there, all of a sudden Pure Innovation is there, and I'm like, whoa. And then I started checking other sites, and it was about an hour later actually before it got up on the US site. But it's, um, now it's only the hardcover and the softcover right now. The ebook will be, you know, to follow soon. And, you know, one of the things that I did on purpose with this was really priced, made sure the softcover was available with the hardcover. And also is the, the ebook is really priced well. So the softcover is only $12.99 and the ebook's $3.99. And the real idea on that for me is I just want to get this in people's hands. I want team leaders to feel like this is an affordable thing to do, to buy a copy for every one of their team members so they can dive into it, understand it, really embrace it, and not have it be just something else that other people are talking about. I think it gives them another tool to do that. So, um, you know, I think by doing that for whether it's peer advisory group leaders that want to provide copies for their members, then it allows their members if they want to buy it for their employees and their team members because of the group and team aspect to this. Um, you know, I just think that that's the way to kind of, um, you know, really extend the reach of this content, which is the whole purpose of doing it. You know, you can You know, and so that's, that's kind of the deal.

No, it's, uh, it's exciting. And I wanted to kind of lead a conversation. This is going to be a little bit different, um, episode in that, you know, kind of going to be interviewing you a little bit. And, uh, and I'll go ahead and hawk, we're going to do another deep dive, a little different direction in my solo podcast that I do, The Power of Others. And we plan to do that later in the week. Today is Monday, by the way. So this is October 19th, 2020. So that gives you some frame of reference if you're listening to this at a latter date, but the book is entitled Peer Novation and it is, it's an outgrowth of Leo's work over the last number of years, particularly with professional peer advisory groups. And really that's, that's where I'd like to start with just kind of this. I don't know, this arc of your journey, not only as an author, but just your interest in and your work with professional peer groups.

Yeah, and I think it really precedes my joining Vistage. I worked for Vistage between 2016 and 2010. But prior to that, I was in a master's degree program, and I talk about this, you know, in the book, where I was part of a a cohort at Seton Hall University, and it was really the first time that I was involved in real group learning, in real social learning. Learning in so many respects for me much earlier in my life was such a solo pursuit, you know, as you take in from the teacher, you do your test, you write your paper, you do whatever, but there was very little group work, and I was really excited to watch how people collaborated, how to build muscles around that, how to build skills around that. And then I was very fortunate after being a student in that master's program at Seton Hall to be an instructor. I was an adjunct faculty member for 7 years teaching there, and it was really during that time where you get to lead these groups that you really get a sense of how powerful they can be and all of the elements that I talk about in peer innovation that is important to actually professional peer advisory groups for CEOs and for teams of companies, you've all got the same things working. It was always fascinating to me. So by the time I got to Vistage and people were saying, oh, this peer advisory thing isn't always easy to grasp, I felt like I got it right away. I felt like I had been involved in it already for many years prior. And but to watch it take place in circumstances where people who were running companies had other people to work with to help themselves and help their organizations grow, and the impact that had on them and their employees and their families and their communities and everything was so profound that, you know, I always felt like when I was at Vistage, it was like being at a not-for-profit organization except it was a for-profit entity, but it was very mission-driven in that regard, and I really, you know, enjoyed that aspect of it. And so much so, I think, that during my time there where I was heading up, you know, corporate communications and brand communications at the time, and there was an aspect of the process we went through when we did a brand refresh, I'll say, in late 2012. And during that time conducted a lot of focus groups with CEOs and key executives and all. We would ask them all the time, hey, how do you learn? How do you grow? How do you bring new ideas into your company? What do you do when you don't know the answer to something or when you're afraid of something or whatever? And they'd say, well, you know, I read books, I hire coaches, we get consultants involved when we need them. I might go to executive development programs at Harvard and Stanford. But they never even had part of their consideration set being part of a peer advisory group. And here I'm watching these groups and seeing they're so unbelievably effective, and yet so few people were really taking advantage of them, which just kind of astonished me in so many respects. So it was in 2015, probably early 2015, when I had first spoken with the CEO and we approached the board about the idea of, look, Here you are at Vistage trying to sell a Mercedes to someone who doesn't even know what a car is. So why don't we take it upon ourselves as thought leaders, you know, in this space and step back for a moment and not write a hardcover brochure for Vistage, but look at this entire category. So I spent a good year and a half, and you know, again, Leon Shapiro, who was the CEO of Vistage, was working with me on it, of course, at the time. But we looked really hard at everybody at YPO, at EO, at TAB, at, you know, Renaissance, at different peer groups here in the US and around the world. And it was really during that process that we found two things that were really important. One was what we coined as the learning-achieving cycle. This is what I think is absolutely the centerpiece of what makes great groups and great teams really successful. And it's really about learning, sharing, applying, and achieving, and having a robust cycle of being able to do those things, recognizing that we learn better when we learn together. When we do, we give one another the encouragement and the courage to act on that learning. And then when we act on that learning and get great results from it, it's something we want to repeat. And I think great groups and teams are committed to doing that. Of course, what you know, doesn't take rocket scientists to figure out is you can't just throw a bunch of people in a room and have that happen automatically in some way. So this is where the 5 factors came into play, where we really learned that it really takes the right people. It requires psychological safety. It has to be a focus on productivity because if people don't feel they're being productive and getting great results, it's not going to be something they're going to see as worthwhile. Accountability became a huge part of it, and not accountability to the leader in the group, no matter what group we studied, but it was accountability of member to member. And then, of course, it really came down to also having leaders who were servant leaders, who in addition to being there to support the success of any group or team, they're also there to be a steward of those other 4 factors. Because it's not like psychological safety is some kind of destination. You know, you don't get there and check off the box and say, oh, we got that, now we can move on. That's not how that goes. It goes. You have to be constantly attentive to it. So I, I think once we got to that place with the work and really were able to kind of place a narrative around it and even codify it a little bit, I think it brought some clarity to some things. And again, it's not like we were the only book that's ever been written about peer advisory groups, but to the extent that we contributed to the body of knowledge there, I think was really worthwhile. And, you know, obviously from there I spent 4+ years having developed a workshop, you know, based on a lot of our findings in the book to pressure test that, to watch those findings evolve from the perspective of how valuable this learning-achieving cycle and these 5 factors are to a group. But also to see their incredible relevance to high-performing teams. And that was the big aha from the perspective of, wow, if we could actually take this formula, if you will, this framework, not a prescription, because it's very much about providing people the tools and the space and the ability to talk about what they want for themselves, what's best for them, what's best for their organization. And I think that's what makes it work so well and why It's been so effective for the teams that I have worked with on it.

Before we hit record, we were talking about the popularity of the Five Dysfunctions of Teams. And I guess that's, I don't know, for lack of a better phrase, kind of a yin and yang approach here. As you think about that work, which is you know, a seminal piece of work, and The Five Factors? Or what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I think in some respects the comparison begins and ends with the number 5. Um, and by the way, I have that book. I read that book quite some time ago. Patrick Lencioni, um, signed it, and I hope to sell as many books as he has. You know, I mean, it's a, it's a really, it's a good piece of work. And I think at the end of the day we would probably disagree very little in the scheme of things, but the approach is really different. I mean, if you think about Five Dysfunctions of a Team, of course it was— they painted the picture through the idea of the fable, you know, which he's really great at doing. But then you look at those five dysfunctions, it really starts there when it's kind of what's wrong, right? What goes wrong when you don't have trust? And when you don't have trust— and by the way, that trust he talks about is kind of this vulnerability-based trust. Which is really what we would absolutely call psychological safety today. I think there's very little difference between what he was referring to then and what we speak of today with teams. But then when you don't have trust, then all of a sudden you have a fear of conflict. Then when you have a fear of conflict, you don't always get the commitment you want. When you don't get the commitment you want, then there'll never be any accountability. When there's no accountability, then no one even cares what the results are. You can imagine the shit show that becomes. And I think he shined a light on how important all those things are to a team, which I think is great. Our approach tends to just kind of walk through a different door. This was looking at processes that peer groups have been using for a long, long time and figuring out what relevance do they have to high-performing teams. And I think what is really valuable about our model is that it is a reinforcing loop. I'm not criticizing the pyramid, you know, that was used obviously in that book to paint the picture of what they were trying to show, what Patrick was trying to show, but this is a bit different in terms of, I think, not only a focus on getting it right, but continually setting a higher standard of excellence as you go forward and ways to go about doing that together. So I think that Anytime anyone writes anything, I don't care who it is, and you know, we read books all the time and they don't always tell us things that we've never heard before and are like, it's like boom, you know, we've never heard of this concept of this. Most of the time it is often someone who just frames things in a certain way where someone who's reading a book or seeing it on film or video or whatever they've heard it a thousand times, but it just happens to connect with them in just the right way. And I think anytime anyone can do that, that brings real value. So some people will definitely go through, you know, peer innovation, and they might say, ah, well, I've heard about this and I've read about that and all that. So I would say two things. A, you're not doing it, chances are, because that's why, you know, you're kind of struggling to do whatever. But also, I just think there's, um, just a real perspective on this that, you know, is about what resonates with you. And if it resonates with you, if this is something you think at the end of the day you can commit to and you'll do and you'll believe in and make it part of not what you do but out of who you are and how you see things, then you've got a chance, I think, at, you know, again, another conversation we've had many times is talk about this idea of habits. You know, people can be great at starting off things, but how do you really embed it, you know, into habit in your life? I'm actually working, um, with a great firm, you know, out of the Netherlands who's developing something with me right now, and we're actually really close to the end of it, which allows for people really being able to create the kind of habits that keep that reinforcing loop going in a very powerful way. And so that, I think, is really exciting. And by the way, on the front end of that, I'm working on being certified in Squirkl, which we had Frances Scholl as a guest on our show. It's a very new type of assessment. But for me, it does two things that really complement the work around peer innovation. One, it gets us thinking beyond just looking at data and not recognizing everything else around us when it comes to our intuition and our instincts and our willingness and ability to deal with ambiguity and to be adaptable and all those things. But also, I think SQUIRREL helps us appreciate one another well. We know that great teams are also a product of really great relationships, and that's another factor that's part of it. So, you know, as I think, see things going forward, I see taking this amalgam, if you will, of SQUIRREL, of this peer innovation framework, and this idea of habit building, and really creating something that's sustainable. Because the last thing you want, in doing a workshop on peer innovation is great, and it can be really helpful, great start, and if we continue working together, that works out well. But I'd love to be able to do something that someone doesn't feel like this is a one-and-done, that this is like the thousands of workshops out there where there's no mechanism for being able to have it continue. So that's really important to me, that people just don't do this and then I walk away and I never hear from them again and get paid and whatever. I really want to make sure that we're making a difference in their organization. And quite frankly, we're just trying to put everything in place right now to do that. And I'm really feeling great about what that looks like right now. Yeah.

Well, you and I have talked away from the show about just my coaching practice and some of my frustrations when an engagement ends and it's not the money thing. And it's not so much the client relationship, but it's, to your point, it's wanting their success, wanting their growth to continue. And I think that is the valuable— it's a super valuable journey as I've watched, from The Power of Peers to What Anyone Can Do to now this book, Peer Innovation, of being able to give people, to your point, not a formula, not a recipe so much, but a framework that they can incorporate and make their own And with a little bit of front-end guidance, you know, it's, it's very much kind of a, kind of a coach the coach or, or train the trainer so that it can be incorporated. I read The Power of Peers and had no involvement at all at the time, but as a person who had run companies, one of my first thoughts was, why, why couldn't this work internally? You know, the professional peer group, and it's great and it's wonderful, and I'm hoping to get my feet wet in that arena with some groups. But my first thought was kind of, I think, largely your aim here of teams, high-performing teams, teams that want to be high-performing teams, of the internal incorporation of these methodologies and this framework for people to bring into companies. What's the hurdle there, to be blunt?

A couple things. One of the things, and it's why— and maybe we can add this to the show notes too— the piece that I did recently for CEO World on why the companies of the future will need groups and teams. And in large part, you know, fundamentally, and this is not going to be a shocker to anyone, you know, when we're in sports, we have practices and we go to practice and we work on our individual skills, we work on our team skills, and then we go into a game situation. In business, it's game day every day. You just show up and you're there and you're playing all the time. Rarely do you get better doing that. Rarely are you going to learn and grow and add new things. If you don't have a mechanism of some sort to bring that forward, if you don't have a practice field somewhere. And I think that to the extent that organizations can get some discipline around practice and having practice fields, which I view in the form of groups where individuals can help each other hone their individual skills so they can be stronger contributors to the team and where they can create greater alignment and they do things like that, um, then you can get a team that's really functioning where trust is built because you know people are bringing their A-game. You know they're students of their craft. They have a commitment to excellence about what they do. It creates an entirely different, you know, I think mindset and finally different culture for a company. But until we kind of embrace the idea that maybe we can't just show up every day to work and wing it, you know, some having some practice fields and having some, and look, it's not like people aren't committed to learning and growing. You know, these numbers are a couple years old, but the last I had seen was the spend on learning and development and corporate training was about $360 billion. For my money, that's got to be— I would imagine, I certainly don't have any facts and figures on it, but I can't imagine anyone getting a worse ROI on a spend than that, you know. And it's largely, again, it's not the quality of the content or the trainers or the programs or anything. I'm sure it's all excellent. The fact is, though, that you cannot get individuals and teams to be able to really make it part of how they work going forward without having a mechanism to do that. Otherwise, it just becomes training and you just get sucked back into your— whatever you missed while you were gone at training, and then you're— those good ideas start to just, you know, go off into the ether. And, you know, it's a real problem. I think we've got to make some commitments around that in terms of how we spend our time and how we be smart about spending our time.

From the genesis of The Power of Peers until now, whether it's about the 5 factors or anything else related to this whole notion of high-performing teams, high-performing groups, the 5 factors, whatever it may be, What kind of eureka moments have you had along the way that stand out?

Well, one of them certainly is a leader being a part of the team, not being apart from it, and recognizing that that was more than just a good-sounding line and just semantics. It really matters. It changes everything in terms of the way a team wins and loses as one, or it's the leader on one side of the table with the employees and the team members on the other side of the table. And where its biggest impact, I think, is in the nature of what accountability looks like. So if the leader considers themselves a part of the team and all of them are equally accountable for doing whatever role they have, whether it's me as the leader or someone else with another specialty, someone else with something else, or whatever, that we recognize that our currency with one another is everything and that we are committed to excellence. We're committed to doing great work. We're proud of, you know, the contribution we make. We know that we matter, you know, as Angela Myers would say, right? And I think when you have those kinds of circumstances with a team, I think it makes all the difference.

The challenge of a leader to take on that mindset is what?

Oh, some real humility, number one, and some real courage. There's no question about that. Yeah. You know, the other thing that makes me think of an aha moment that came through a lot of this research when we were talking about when you ask people to assess their level of psychological safety, I thought it was really interesting that the levels were so high, and yet oftentimes as group meetings would continue after people self-assessed their psychological safeties to be 9.5s and 10s, I wasn't feeling that level of candor in the room. And which got me to ask a second question: How well— and you'd go around the room as individuals and say, how well do you think you leverage that 9.5 and 10 environment that you've just described? Well, now that number goes down to 6, 6.5. That was an aha moment. That was, okay, having psychological safety is one thing, being willing to take yourself out of your comfort zone and actually use it is quite another. I think the added element to that with teams is that in a group situation, you don't have the same consequences. You're in a group, there just aren't, you're not really, You're not getting paid, you know, you're gonna, you're not gonna lose your job. They might fire you from the group, but it's, it is what it is, right? It's not exactly losing your job. It's not exactly feeling like you're doing something that could stunt your promotion or your growth in the company or anything like that. So I think the whole extra layer of commitment around that has to be more than just lip service. It has to be more than this is something 'Oh, we'd want to do it, we'd like to be someday.' You really need a commitment at every single level in the organization who buys into this idea of how important it is. Because if you don't, you know, it's a little like the triangle leadership model that, you know, we use in the book. You know, unlike the all-powerful leader with all the little minions underneath, it's a triangle where— or a triad, I should say— with the leader, the team and the member. Recognize that everyone has their own responsibility. And in fact, I believe equal responsibility for whatever that piece we want to put in the middle is— our culture, our results, our accountability, our joy, whatever it is. You know, we all play a part in making that. We know that, you know, one toxic employee can ruin, you know, a whole team. We know that bad leadership can ruin teams. We know that bad teams are just bad teams. You know, we got to figure out how to rectify those things. So, It really starts with, you know, having the right people and recognizing, you know, why you're there, what it's all about, how you are different, you know, so that you can bring different perspectives to the table. But also, what may be even more important is what you share in terms of your commitment, your values, your standard of excellence, all the kinds of things that make for a good contributor on whatever particular team it happens to be on, which is why having the right people on one team may be really different from having the right people somewhere else. And what accountability looks like on one team may look really different from somewhere else. As long as I believe it's agreed upon by the members and it works, it's good with me, you know what I mean? As it should be. I mean, it's there It's their team. And a lot of times it's kind of a real heuristic approach to this whole thing where all I do, or all anyone would do who's leading this workshop, is help people discover their own answer for themselves. And we know that when we do, we're far more likely to own it and implement it successfully.

In the, in the not sure even how to word this so that it even makes sense, but from a top-down versus a bottom-up approach when it comes to all of this. I'm thinking of people who say, yeah, but I'm not the leader. I'm not an authority figure. So what can I do to even get the ball rolling? Versus it clearly seems to me easier for someone at the top who has the authority to kind of push this agenda. If you think about it coming from both of those directions, what are your thoughts?

So first of all, I think people have to adopt a mindset that when they are hired at a company, they're not there to fill a position. They're there to make a difference. I think that's number one. I think you have to adopt that mindset. You're there for a reason. There's a certain specialty, there's a certain work product, there's a certain thing that you're responsible for that you know has to make a contribution to the team. And I think that's, you know, super essential, and you have to recognize that that's the situation. And, and I also think there's an aspect of this where people have to recognize that just because you're not a leader of the team doesn't mean you can't be a leader in the team. You know, there are times where things will come up where You know, something— I mean, let's face it, we've all been in meetings, particularly cross-functional meetings, where the topic will go somewhere and I just think, yeah, I'm not going to be much help here, or at least very little compared to some of the other talent and expertise that's in the room. However, in other situations, people are going to look to me and say, Leo, we need your thoughts. What they're asking for is my leadership, my understanding of things to help guide, you know, our team. So I think once we recognize that we're not all going to be the leader all the time, and that it's including the leader of the team, then we recognize I'm going to make whatever contribution I'm here to make so that I fulfill the responsibility I have to make a difference. The—

let's talk about just some of the some of the value propositions with the book and some things that you would want prospective readers and, and buyers of the book to know, and some of the things that I know you and I are working to try to, to help supplement those people that make that investment. And, and the real investment that I know you want people to make is not in the book, but is in putting this stuff into, into action. Give this a go, give this a try. But let's talk about some of that, some of the things that, that I know you're wanting to do to really to make this movement more sustaining over the long haul.

Well, you know, you remember, of course, we've had Ryan Folland on this show many times, and, you know, he and others who I think subscribe to, you know, a lot of way he sees entrepreneurship and all, is that we've got to look at this from a perspective— I don't care what size company you are, but when you look into, okay, peer innovation, what's it going to do for me at the end of the day? Yeah, high-performing teams or whatever, but to what end? And I think that this is where, you know, I want people to understand that there's some very specific contributions that can be made here. You know, I think one of them, for example, you know, we talked about it already, is learning and development. I think if you actually want to take that huge spend you're already making in learning and development and actually get some value from it, I think adopting the principles that we talk about in peer innovation would be hugely helpful. I think if you want to get strategic alignment or alignment behind any strategic initiative, which depending on the research has a failure rate of anywhere from 65% to 90%, not because people are stupid or plans are bad or anything like that. I feel like Mike Pence. I have a fly on my head. And I'm going to stand up actually.

Yeah.

Rough here. So when we think about strategic alignment like that and we imagine, well, what can we do to really create that kind of alignment in a way? And again, I think the principles in Carnovation can help us doing that. You know, everyone's doing a lot talking right now about, as they should be, the value and importance of diversity and inclusion. You know, for a long time we've gotten the diversity part and made great strides there, and yet the inclusion part not nearly as much. So again, this helps us because, you know, if you think about it, it's all about how to leverage the diverse perspectives in the room. That's what great group work does, and this is what we can bring to Teams in a way that can help us really access the incredible ideas and power of the thinking that our diverse teams can have. And, you know, so we talked about alignment, we talked about— help me here— alignment, learning and development, diversity and inclusion, and there's one other and I'll think of it in a minute. As I'm walking around here dodging.

Yeah, it's all right. You're distracted by the flies.

I know, it's terrible.

It looks gorgeous though. But you know, hey, welcome to the Groundhog Day that is San Diego, California, where every day is beautiful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's awesome.

Yeah. Oh, the fourth one, by the way, is if you're looking for a culture of accountability, that's the big one. And it's a big one too. Yeah, yeah. You know, if you're really trying to set a culture of accountability, That's where I think these concepts really shine. So, you know, shame on me for forgetting that one out of the four.

Well, me too. I didn't help you at all.

No, it's a huge one though. And, um, so I think that that, you know, becomes really, you know, essential as we start looking at a lot of this work. But I'm really excited about it. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm excited to do your, um, podcast on, um, you know, Friday. I'm actually doing two more podcasts tomorrow. I've got some others scheduled, um, for November, December. There's a number of our, you know, great shows that are on C-Suite Radio that, you know, I'm looking forward to being, you know, a guest on a lot of those programs. I think they have audiences that are really super interested and super engaged when it comes to this particular subject area. So it'll be a lot of fun. I expect a lot of really great questions and a lot of good, you know, dialogue with it. So it'll be awesome.

Yeah, it's, no, it's exciting. We've been anxiously kind of anticipating all of this for, it seems like, for years. But the whole pandemic thing seems like for years. So the timing, the timing is good. And my advice to people in our listening audience that may be interested in this, it doesn't matter whether it's remedial or you're already high achieving. In my own personal practice, I have found that this is probably no shock to anybody, but the high achievers are the ones that tend to look for these kinds of resources and tools and put them to use. And so there's, I don't know, there's something to that. It's kind of amazing to me that people that are often in trouble, they're, they're not even looking for the lifeline that, that could potentially help them, but it's the people that are already swimming pretty well, but they just want to go a little bit faster.

Those people are swimming pretty well, usually got some help along the way. And some of the people who aren't swimming so great, sometimes they've been trying to do it on their own the whole time. You know, there's a lot of also, when you think about this habits piece that I'm talking about, this is where What Anyone Can Do, the second book, kind of contributes to that. When it comes to looking at successful people and saying that they're not the folks that can leap tall buildings in a single bound, they're the people that do the things that anyone can do that most of us never will. But it's fine to say that. It's another thing, again, to have a real mechanism and, and way to make sure that you can keep those habits going and part of your life. Part of it, I think, in some respects was addressed with the idea of people plans, and I think it's only going to be augmented further by the work that we're going to be adding to it over the next month or two. So I'm really, really thrilled about that.

If you are in the audience and you have interest in Leo's work, it would help if I turned my phone off, wouldn't it?

I thought that was perfectly timed though.

That was awesome. Yeah, if I would have let it go a little bit longer, you would have known it was a Tom Petty song. So that's my ringtone. Apologies to our audience, but between the SWAT teams flying around Leo and here in Dallas, my phone going off. Oh, what I was gonna say is the website is peerinnovation.co. LeoBottari.com takes you to the exact same website, so I'm gonna hawk your name today, Leo. So it's L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y dot com. If you, your company, have any interest in whether it's a keynote speech, whether it's workshops, and whether it's any other kind of facilitation that Leo and the company Peer Innovation can help you with, Please go check it out. A lot of resources over there, a lot of, a lot of perfectly free stuff. We include links to Leo's writings, his articles over at CEO World. The article that he referred to earlier in the show, we'll link that up as well. And we encourage you to go to Amazon, wherever you, you like to buy books. And right now, uh, softcover only, hardcover and softcover available, and hardcover are available.

There's just not, for whatever reason, the artwork for the hardcover isn't there. So it's got a little thing on on it. But again, it was posted last night. The ebook should be coming soon, or, you know, Kindle version, of course. And one thing to keep in mind too, at the end of the book, I do have a URL that when you get to the very end of the book, there's actually a 30-page PDF that's available for you for free. So that if you read the book and you're feeling like, hey, I'd like to kind of stick my toes in the water and run a program with my team, there's a handbook that helps you and walks you through exactly how to go about doing that. So, you know, I like to think that, you know, again, it's really about trying to get this content into as many hands as possible. It's not about me having to go to all these places and do all that kind of stuff. I mean, certainly, you know, I can envision either people deciding, hey, I just want to do this on my own, and we want to give them tools to do that and be successful at it. And, you know, on the other hand, people may decide, hey, I've stuck my toes in the water here, and I'd really like to take this to the next level, and then we can talk about doing that too. But either way, I'm just really— it's, it's available for them. So if nothing else, at the end of the book, you not only get the book, but you get that 30-page, you know, handbook basically that'll walk you through, you know, leading a peer innovation workshop in your company.

Well, good stuff, and congrats on the publication of a third book. It's a big, it's a big milestone. So congrats to you. I'm happy for you. Yeah.

It's still probably fewer pages than even one of Tolkien's trilogy, but you know, what can I say? It's all right. Yeah. Yeah.

There's that. We appreciate the audience. Go to the website, LeoBotari.com, and you can find all kinds of ways to subscribe to the podcast. You can watch us over on the YouTube channel and find out everything you need to over there at LeoBotari.com. Till next time. Thanks everybody. See you later. 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. Until next week, remember, the power of we begins with you.