Leo & Randy On Virtual Meetings (Season 2020 Episode 14)

Welcome to the What Anyone Can Do podcast with Leo Bottari and me, Randy Cantrell. This show picks up where our previous show, You're the Peer, left off, highlighting the simple truth that who you surround yourself with matters, and that if we enlist the support of others, give back to those who give to us, and pay it forward for the next generation, we can do anything. Author and keynote speaker Leo Bottari and I talk with a diverse group of thought leaders who will share stories, and insights that will help you succeed in business and in life. How? By doing the things anyone can do, but most of us never will. Welcome back. Another episode of What Anyone Can Do, the podcast. Here we are in the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Today is Friday, April 17th. We've gotten off schedule, but us and the rest of the world. I mean, I'm hearing everybody, everybody's waking up wondering even what day of the week it is. But it's Friday.

I think that was our big problem this week. I think we were like, holy smoke, it's Friday already.

Exactly.

You know, I think everybody's going through that. It's kind of like everyone just talking about it. It's this day, that day, and the next day. We just don't know what day it is. And I figured just be able to sit outside and, you know, kind of take a break from wearing a mask and get to talk with you and share some things that we've chatted about, of course, before we get on today with our listeners would be really, really fun. So for those of you who are watching this in video, I am outside and it's bright as all get-out, which is otherwise I wouldn't be having sunglasses on here. But anyway, what we did want to talk about today, because this speaks to personal challenge that I had recently with regard to, you know, I'm getting a lot of requests, as you might imagine. I don't mean it from my standpoint. I mean, everybody's getting requests for, you know, to lead virtual meetings. And, you know, you can have the greatest content in the whole world, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if it's mine or anyone else's or whatever, but there's such a need to rethink everything about how you deliver that content and from so many different perspectives, you know, not the least of which, of course, you get the difference between being on this platform versus being live, right? I mean, that's one, and it's a big difference and it has to be acknowledged in terms of how you connect with an audience and how they connect with you and what does that look like. The other thing though, and I would say this recently, I had to do a workshop for a Vistage group and we, you know, compressed the time and we did it online for a group in Denver. And I'm not going to say personally that I was that wild about my own performance in that and how that went. And I think in large part it really had to do with two major factors. One, is that I hadn't really, as much as you think you do, you know, I hadn't really given the level of thought to the wide range of experiences different people in that audience were having. I mean, some were kind of just getting through and getting by and others were in real distress. And, you know, I think when we're presenting any type of content, what we might present in normal times is we're trying to learn and get better and grow. Is different from what we put out there and how we frame it when we're in the middle of something where we need help right now, where we need real relevant input and content that can help us today. In addition to, of course, getting us thinking about setting ourselves up for the future and what our new normal will look like. Because if you think about it from a CEO perspective, That is what you are paid to do. That is what you are there to do. You know, you clearly have to manage, you know, much of what's going on with the task at hand, but you also got to be looking forward. And I think providing a balance between really addressing what is right now versus setting them up for the future, not only for, in the case of my stuff, for their group, for themselves, but also what that looks like and means for their company. But I also think that, you know, so for example, I was on Zoom and you got a bunch of slides and all of that. And what happens, of course, is that I really can't see all the audience members when I'm doing a share screen on Zoom. So that clearly creates a problem because normally if you're in front of an audience and you can read an audience and you know where to pivot, where to spend more or less time on things and all of that, Well, when you're kind of delivering this into a screen and it's just dead from that standpoint, it makes it extremely difficult to connect. And I'm, in all likelihood, I've got a session I'm doing next week and I've actually made a lot of calls and consulted with people with regard to what have they found as a member, as a recipient of different presentations that are online like this as being best practices. In that way. But I think for this meeting I'm going to do next week, I'm going to ditch most of the slides. I'm going to make sure all of us are up on screen. I want to be able to see everybody. I want to be able to talk with them. I want it to be highly interactive and let them know right out of the gate that this is what this is all about. How this is what we usually do, but this is why we're going to do it this way today. And at any point in time where we've got to pivot, we've got to move and just make sure that we're staying relevant. That's going to be just critical. But, you know, I'd love to get— I don't know what you're hearing from people on that or what you have thoughts about that, but I think it's a big challenge. I mean, if you care about your audience and you care about, you know, what those takeaways are, it seems to me you just have to figure out a way with all of the challenges that I had mentioned to deliver on that.

As you've picked these brains of people to find out from, from their perspective, I'm curious, have you found out, or what have you found out if you kind of reverse engineer this, some of the things that absolutely colossally aren't working that maybe we should refrain from even thinking about?

Well, refrain from taking your content, no matter what it is, and how you deliver it in real life during normal times, to how you take that same content and how you deliver it in a virtual world in very challenging times. So that's what I was, you know, there's just, and then it's figuring out best how to go about that. And so that's a, it's a big one.

It's not, well, an understanding that all of us, including the presenters in the room, we're all, we're all under the same stress. We're all experiencing the same thing. Maybe not, obviously not in the exact same way, but the elephant in the room is the same elephant for all of us.

No question about it. You know, And yet what's interesting is for me in that moment, I am delivering a presentation that I am getting paid for and I am working. And we know that a lot of people aren't necessarily being afforded that opportunity right now. I mean, just look at the unemployment claims, just look at a lot of things going on right now. I'm unbelievably grateful that I have the opportunity to not, you know, I don't— just because travel is basically, you know, practically prohibited, if you will. I'm— and certainly people aren't gathering in one place anyway, so you're doing it in a virtual situation, but I'm incredibly grateful that I can even do that, that I get that chance. So So with that, you know, to me, I guess one of the best ways I can try to express that gratitude isn't just to dial it in and say, all right, here's this content that I've delivered, you know, 100-some-odd times, you know, to different groups, you know, in North America and Europe, and say, all right, well, I know this works. I know, you know, well, it doesn't work, you know, the same virtually, and it sure as heck doesn't work the same when people are burdened with all kinds of other stresses that are— that they can be anything but what we're talking about. But I do think that when I— if I take some of what I've done with Tech Canada, for example, with the webinars, and then I combine it with some of the workshop stuff, it's easy to be able to create a relevant message around the importance and value of depending on one another during times like these and how to go about doing that. How to bring your group together, how to leverage one another, how to see that whole activity as not something that is peripheral to the task at hand, but actually central to the task at hand. You know, that it isn't about, oh, I can't spend time with my group because I got to do this. What you do is say, hey, I'm going to take my group and we're all going to go do this. You know, we're all going to It's all hands on deck. And you help each other do the kinds of things you— and even these groups are meeting differently. They're not— while you look at a lot of groups and they meet for full days or half days, and there's a reason they do that. There's something about getting away from their office environment and getting in a place where they can really just take a deep dive into things about their business and what's going on. And I think in large part, That's a really good exercise and a really important exercise for leaders. Problem is now people can't take a whole day and things are moving too fast. Once a month for a whole day isn't going to cut it. For most, or for at least many peer advisory mastermind group leaders I'm talking to, they are, you know, several times a week or sometimes even daily check-ins or sometimes an hour here, an hour there, 2 hours here, whatever. But it's quick and it's moving, and they are recognizing that to be relevant to one another's day-to-day needs as they try to get through the situation without any real resolution how long this is going to last, they need each other more than ever, but they also need each other differently. And, you know, so when you see groups recognize that, you see members know that they've got to engage one another differently than If as part of that value proposition for them, outside people bringing content, then I've got to think about it as any other speaker would or any other presenter or thought leader. You've got to have the same considerations in mind. There's no question.

I have found, and we are into, well, at least here, Week— I guess we're finishing up week 4. This finished up a full month of this whole stay at home, you know, or safety at home. They're calling it around here.

So that's how long our adult children have been in our house. Nice. Excellent. No, it's been good actually. Yeah.

You know, but I'm, I'm finding that empathy, which fuels compassion, especially when it comes to others, which is, I guess, should go without saying, but that's, that's the result of our empathy. Compassion toward others is even more critical during times like this. I give you, I'll tell us, uh, a tale on myself. A social group, I would get this group together about once a week. There could be anywhere from 20 to 30 people on a Zoom call. It's just kind of checking in with people and they're, they're people that are mostly here in the DFW area, but some, you know, some are in Nashville, some are out in California, some are in Mississippi, you know, they're, we're scattered around and there's some young people and there's some young couples and there's some babies and there's, and I just kind of go around the horn and I'm just checking in with people. And I'm the one that facilitates the meeting. It's not my meeting, but I just, I just happened to be proactive and started making it happen. And I got myself in a little bit of hot water. I had one on Tuesday and we hung up and I immediately— there's a young lady, a college-age young lady. And, you know, people are in and out, people are turning their cameras on and off. I mean, these are the practical realities of a Zoom or any kind of a video conferencing platform.

Sure.

And now with the security stuff, for those that haven't used Zoom, I can't imagine who hasn't at this point, but you know, the waiting room, you, you know, click to let people into the meeting, which is a security measure that Zoom installed. And so this was the first meeting that I had done with a bunch of people where I was having to manage that. And people don't all show up on time. You know, some people are coming in and I'm having to constantly look over the right hand and just approve to let, let people in. This, this, this young lady, I overlooked her. And it's not like I have to call on anybody, but you know, like, like if you're on there, well, hey Leo, tell what's happening with you, you, uh, Southern California, how things out there, you know, that's kind of how it goes. And I just kind of work my way around. I overlooked her. It was completely innocent, but it hurt her. And I felt that tall when it was over, and I apologized profusely. But it's that kind of stuff that's difficult even for those of us that I think are naturally wired with high empathy and high compassion There's just some distractions to your point. You know, guys like you and I, we pay close attention to audience. We, you know, micro, micro body language can make a difference for people like us. And when you've got any other distractions, and Lord knows we're filled with distractions now, uh, in a platform where we're having to kind of be the ringleader, you know, I don't have somebody sitting over here working another monitor helping me. It's just right. This is just us, but I felt, I felt awful. And so all of this week, I've just, I've thought about this very topic and we didn't plan this, um, so much, but of that outward facing, whether you're delivering content or whether you're a participant, it's just, these are, these are really difficult times, I think, where we can really climb inside our own head and we see it from our vantage point. And we just— and for me, this was a 30-minute Zoom call and I overlooked a 20-year-old young lady and it didn't go well.

Well, and it's true. I mean, the level of sensitivity on those things is high. Um, and it makes us feel terrible because to your point, it was completely unintentional. I had, you know, The Power Appears, there's an acknowledgement section in that that missed one person. Now you're in a 30-minute Zoom call and it happened that fast. I had all kinds of time to catch this and I did not, and did not catch that this one person was missing out of the acknowledgements. And I actually fortunately noticed it before they even did. And I literally went to them and I said, look, This book's going to be coming out in a few weeks, and I got to tell you, there's nothing I can do about it now, but you are not listed on that thing, and it is totally my fault, and I feel awful about it. And I said, I swear to God, I will write a second book just to make sure I throw you in the acknowledgments. And as it turned out, that's what happened a couple years later, and she was in it. I did not forget the second time. And, um, but yeah, I mean, it feels terrible, but I, I do think that, you know, and especially we're feeling isolated, we're feeling alone as it is, right? We don't— the last thing you want to do is feel that you're being slighted in some way. And I'm sure, you know, obviously I, you know, hope she— if even if she voiced it in the moment, which it's good that she did, you know, we always want to hear that because we want to know, um, but I hope over time she grew to maybe, or has come to understand that, hey, that wasn't great and it made me feel bad, but it wasn't like he skipped over me intentionally, you know.

Oh no, she, she, she knew, she knew better. And, and it wasn't anything that happened in the moment, you know. This happened within 5 minutes of it being over. And I apologize, you know, I text her and I know, sure, she knows how I feel about her. But my point is, even though us in this podcast You and I both realize that if we aren't delivering something of value to those people that are listening, those people that are watching, and we're mindful of that even under normal circumstances, doesn't mean we always deliver any more than, you know, so you made an omission in that book. I made this omission in a Zoom call. We're human. We don't always hit it, but we're still trying to. Times like these, I think, more so than normal, and it's difficult. It's hard.

So I was talking to a Vistage chair from Oklahoma today because I was trying to, you know, I've been making a bunch of phone calls to people who are doing a lot of virtual meetings right now and just getting input and all. And it was funny because, so first of all, the conversation goes from that where I got some really, you know, interesting, you know, thoughts from him. But then he was telling me that, uh, he said, yeah, by the way, oh, cause I was telling him some story and he said, oh yeah, you mentioned that on your podcast. And it's one of those things that I don't know, every once in a while it's like you in the abstract, you feel like, okay, you hope and know people are listening. But then when someone says to you, oh, you know, I heard your last show or the one before that or whatever, what immediately goes to my mind is, Huh, all right, what was that show and what was it good? Was it like— because obviously we do, you care, you really care about the audience. It's why you do it. And it's— and if you don't care about your audience most, then there's not a lot of point to any of this. But it was so funny just to— so obviously, He said he listens to us, Brené Brown, and someone else, and he kind of rotates, goes through the cycle. I said, well, isn't that great? Obviously, I was very appreciative of that, and nice to know that he's out there listening. He's a good guy, a great chair, wonderful family, and just appreciated him kind of when I said, hey, can you spend 15 minutes with me on the phone? And of course he did, and then some, in a pretty short period. So, you know, it's nice. You know, I said you got to surround yourself with good people, and they always— they never disappoint, I don't think. You know, I think about the people that, you know, you just ask them. And my usual criteria for asking someone to do anything for me, no matter what it is, is if they called me would I think anything? Of course, you know what I mean? If it's— if the answer, of course I would, then I don't feel, you know, like I'm imposing on them to do it. I know I need them, I want their input, and of course 99 times out of 100 they're more than happy to provide it no matter what's going on in their life, which I think is pretty remarkable. And I do think that these times are showing us, you know, actually one of the things that George and I were talking about today is on one hand you'll have someone who will get online and complain that they had to cancel their vacation, okay? But I think in that moment, sometimes that person will admit it online, sometimes not, but they also have to recognize, "But I didn't get the coronavirus," or, "I don't have a family member that died from it." I don't have, you know, and it's kind of remembering a lot of these things that You know, I think we are incredibly resilient and yet incredibly fragile when it comes to us as human beings. And we are both. And, uh, you know, just to be able to kind of recognize, you know, it's like we talked about, um, you know, one of the last shows where this is not easy on a lot of different levels, and yet at the same time You know, we've got our adult kids at home and we sit around the table and have dinner every single night. You know, that, that just doesn't happen if not for this situation we're in right now. It just, it just doesn't. And because they're all adults and grown up and living in other places around the country and everything, and the idea— if you ever said to us 6 months ago that you're all going to be living in the same house and, you know, having dinner together every night, no TV, no phones, just like real conversation and people home cooking meals and trading off doing that and everything. It's pretty incredible, you know. And so, you know, part of— and maybe if to circle around this whole conversation, we talk about virtual meetings, we talk about what's going on in our lives, is whatever is— how do we identify the good? How do we identify the opportunities, you know, in challenging times, right? I can't meet with these people in person and I, and I don't have them as an audience the same way I might if we're under normal circumstances, but I've got to figure out what are the opportunities in there, you know? And I think every one of us, no matter what we do, are challenged to do all of that, whether it's in our personal lives, whether it's something, you know, as simple as virtual meetings or, or even, you know, people who are running businesses right now who have to figure out What can I be learning? How can we be growing? What can we do? As tough as it is right now, what are we going to take from this, you know, in the months and years ahead? So, you know, let's hope, I think, for everyone who's listening that as tough as it is, you know, that if you have your health and you are not sick or not caring for a loved one or worried about a loved one who is, be thinking about how best to be leveraging this time in any way possible to do what you've got to do for your, for your family, for your life, for your business, whatever happens to be.

And I know that, and I'll let you tee up who we're planning on having next week, but kind of as a, as a setup to help you do that, you may have seen there was a, there was a tweet and, and I, I I saw an ABC News snippet, Gravity Payments, which is a payment processor, really focuses on small business and their CEO, Dan Price. He made the news back in 20— now don't make me lie, 2015, give or take. It was a few years ago. You know, he gave up a million dollar plus salary. He wanted everybody in his company. Now his business model afforded it. And the way that the talent pool works for him, he wanted everybody in his company to make 70 grand. And so that's when he came on my radar. I didn't know anything about this guy. Um, he, he gave up pay because he wanted to make sure that everybody, he just felt the disparity between his pay and his workers' pay was disproportionate. So during this time, he's been losing $1.5 million a month. And figures he can do that for 3 months. Um, but because he was, he, he had about a 55% drop in revenue. He went to his workforce. I don't know how big his workforce is. And he asked them what they thought he should do. So you talk about a CEO leveraging the power of everybody in his company, 98% of his workforce, he reported volunteered to take a pay cut. In order to reduce the burn rate. And they went from $1.5 million loss monthly because his business is predicated on the revenue of small business. Small business is virtually shut down. So you can see the problem that he's got. So zero layoffs and the burn rate is now, it's not $1.5 million a month, it's $500,000 a month. And so it obviously extended the runway for his company with 98% of the people saying, this is what we want to do. This is what we think we need to do. And as a result, he's reported that they've collectively, they've come up with some creative solutions, some other things that they can do, some other business offerings that they can make right now. And he's up to, I think the last count was 6, 6 new, new forms of of revenue stream. And his advice on ABC News was, you know, fight for the small wins. And you talk a lot about that. Fight for that small win, that, that just that next place, that next mile marker, and just try your best, you know, to reduce the burn rate and don't hurt people and don't hurt your community and think long-term.

So, and celebrate that win and celebrate the people who made it possible. And those are the kinds of things that sustain us for sure. If I'm not mistaken about that too, it also was done on another level that I thought was interesting, which was it wasn't simply some kind of across-the-board percentage cut or something like that. I mean, it was literally, from what I understand, and if it wasn't this particular example, it was one very much like it, where the people actually, you know, if some people could take a bigger hit, they did. If other people, you know, couldn't quite as, much, then, you know, and everyone understood that. Everyone respected the integrity of everyone else there that they were doing— everyone was doing something, and everyone, but everyone was doing as much as they could based on their circumstances. And, you know, talk about building a level of trust, you know, among your coworkers and your peers and the integrity that's around that, I think is— and again, these are the kinds of things when we go through This kind of adversity, it only makes us that much stronger and better. You look at any group, team, company that comes out the other side of this, they're just going to be, I mean, they're going to be loaded for bear when this, you know, economy starts to get back into full swing. So, you know, you really applaud those kinds of efforts and that understanding that, you know, we're a team in good times and bad times. We're not just a great team when it's all good and the sun's shining and everything's great.

Well, I know our guest next week is going to be able to give us some.

Yeah. So I'll kind of tee that up before we break for today. But Phil Holberton actually leads Vistage Groups in the Boston area. And he was really eager to get on and talk about— I think he's really seeing some extraordinary things out there, both in terms of what these business leaders and CEOs are going through in terms of all the range of challenges they have, but also I think very importantly how they're helping one another. So I think for this podcast next week, if you're not part of a group and you're not always getting all of those different perspectives and the broad range of ideas that many of Phil's members and other members of CEO Mastermind groups and Key Executive Mastermind groups all over the world are getting, this may be a week next week where you can kind of get some of the benefits of that just by giving up 30, 40 minutes of your time to hear what's going on out there and maybe some creative solutions about some things next. So with that, I'm just going to spend— I am inside the final 2 weeks of this book getting done. I'm really seeing light at the end of the tunnel now. Really happy, you know, with it. And, um, you know, uh, again, in some respects, this was time where I was put in my own lockdown to sit in front of my own computer with not a lot else to do and make sure that I, that I, I got this done. And, uh, you know, so, uh, it's all good.

But anyway, looking forward to it. The website is L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y, leobotary.com. You can also get there by going to peerinnovation.co. Peer Innovation is Leo's company. If you and your organization, even in this new virtual world that we are currently in, and I don't know about you, but this week kind of, kind of picked up. I mean, I found as far as business goes and people that are, people that are able to deliver content like you and I can and able to deliver service virtually. I think for the first 3, 4 weeks, there was just such a stunned shock. And I get it, completely get it. We were all in the same boat, but it seems to me I've experienced this week. I don't know what you've experienced this week. Is there, there's been, okay, if this is how it's going to have to be, we got to fit. We got to figure something out. So, you know, I've been afforded some opportunities and I know that you have, and So yeah, we're hugely grateful for that. But PearNovation.co, you can find out all about Leo and the work that he does.