The Gift Of Feedback Leo's UK Workshops, Part 2 #WACD1025

Welcome to our new show, What Anyone Can Do Podcast with Leo Bottari and me, Randy Cantrell. Our new show picks up where the last show, Year of 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 will interview 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 to another episode of What Anyone Can Do, the podcast. I am Randy Cantrell. He is Leo Buttari. He is back from his UK trip where he did slightly more than a handful of workshops. And we talked a little bit about that last week, Leo, but now that you're back, and really, I guess the theme is kind of going to be the power of feedback because, well, you were, in your words, you were given a gift.

Well, no question about it. Um, you know, as I mentioned, it's, you, you, you prepare for something like that. And by the way, I did all the things in my view, right, to prepare for that. Right. I spoke in fact with a, um, um, a Vistage chair who led groups in the UK for a number of years, knows all the people there, went through the presentation, for example, talked about, it from the standpoint of that audience and any nuances, differences, all these kinds of things, you know, so you feel like you go into this, you know, super prepared. And yet, you know, every audience is different, you know, whether you're here in the US, whether you're in the UK or whatever it happens to be. And I feel very good about all 6 workshops that I did there. But at the same time, you know, there could have been one result, which is, uh, I delivered 6 workshops and when they completed their evaluations, you know, at the end, which they always do at the end of these meetings, that they would have said, hey, this is the greatest workshop I've ever been in in my whole life and great and all of that kind of stuff. Um, that would have been fine. Um, and at the same time though, I think that these groups, um, that there was a bit of a disconnect in terms of what the takeaways were supposed to be and what the outcomes. So they go in with one set of expectations and maybe I delivered on something a little different. Um, so that can always be, you know, a bit of a problematic issue. Um, I think though that, you know, as you and I talked about many times, I think when you think about it, the effective delivery of any message as intended, is 100% up to the sender, not the receiver. And, you know, as you know, and people who've read What Anyone Can Do, or I think I've written about it in blog posts or whatever, I kind of cite this story about when I was in junior high school and I had to fill in on the relay team and I was running the third leg of it. We were undefeated at the time and it was our last meet of the season. And, you know, I was just supposed to run my part, pass the baton on to kid who was the fastest kid in the city basically at that point. And this should have been a breeze for us. Um, so sure enough, uh, the, the race gets going. I run my part. I'm exactly where I need to be. I pass him the baton, baton hits the ground, you know, the guy flies by, you know, we lose and all of that. Right. So coach of course made it clear to me and everyone else, by the way, in no uncertain terms that that was my fault, period. You don't let go of the baton until that runner has it in his grasp. Um, and it wasn't until years later that I thought about this from a standpoint of communication and talked with a number of people about it where the metaphor is similar, you know, that when you're talking about delivering a message, you have to make sure that the person truly grasps, grasps the message as intended before you can relax and let them run with it. And so I think in this case, when I was getting feedback about, um, so for example, we do a lot of work in this group shop, in this workshop that is group dynamics essentially. Right. Um, yeah, I was going to say, paint a picture and give it to the workshop that I was doing for these Vistage groups in the UK was basically how to take your group as it is. Right. And squeeze even greater value of it. How can you be higher performing? Performing. And we use the 5 factors from the Power of Peers as a framework for doing that. What I do also in that is show them that each of these 5 factors and how they relate to the group are also the same 5 factors, you know, that really work for high-performing teams. And to look at— so that if you can participate with this in your group and you can do what Linda Darling-Hammond has said to us is true in education, business, or whatever, that when you actually participate and collaborate yourself, you will actually be able to lead more collaborative environments in your companies, in your classrooms, whatever. So even though I did cover both, for this audience, they were feeling like, yeah, we worked on the group, but I didn't feel that I walked away with what I needed to translate this to my teams. And while I think I delivered that, that's really not important in this, in the scheme of things, right? It's, uh, their feedback, their, um, experience is indisputable. There's no argument about that. It is what it is.

So it is what it is.

Yeah. So I had to— exactly. So I had to, you know, basically figure out how do I make that connection and drive that home more clearly. So I would say that was one of the big things. And I actually did make a change in one of the subsequent workshops where I took a PowerPoint deck that I actually was giving to them at the end, which they could use to review with their teams. But I actually went through that deck with them at the end of the workshop so that it really drove home precisely how to use it. And I think that was helpful. But again, I don't think the groups were always excited about working on their group. They truly wanted to spend the lion's share of the time You know, on the team piece. So then for the very last workshop I did there, I remember talking to the chair in advance and he said, you know, this is a really great performing group. They play at a high level. They're excited about what's going on today. They're definitely looking for takeaways for their teams. And in that moment I said, I'm not running the workshop that I did for everyone else. And I totally made like a, called an audible on myself basically. And you said, okay, Here's what I'm going to do then. Instead of, uh, doing a workshop where we self-assessed the group, essentially what I did was went through all the group dynamics stuff. And then we, uh, went through the questions that I had in the deck for them to review with their teams, but asked them to anticipate what their teams would, how they would answer each of these questions. And they had conversations about it and where each of the group members were from different organizations, they could share. How they each saw that in their own companies and what that looks like. So for example, uh, one of the questions, you know, if you look at the 5 factors and the framework becomes, you gotta have all the right people in the room. You gotta start there, you know, with the right people. So the question I had for, uh, the members as it relates to their teams was what would happen? Like, what would your team members say if you asked them, What is the difference between someone who is successful in this organization and someone who just doesn't make it? What does that look like? And, you know, I use the example, and I think most of us have experienced it, where we will look at a great resume, we will interview them, we think, wow, this is a really great, you know, prospective employee. We hire them. 3 to 6 months later, we're wondering what is happening? Why is this not working out? And so I think a lot of times, you know, your employees can really have great insight. Well, I'll tell you right now what it was, and without getting personal to different people or, you know, in that way. But, but the point is that when there are certain attributes that aren't shared, right? We think about employees and how important it is to have diversity. And at the same time, it's really important that you're the same in some really key ways, particularly as it relates to values and, you know, some work ethic issues and things like that where you've got to be on the same page or you will not survive. You know, in the book I talk about how head coach of the University of Connecticut, Geno Auriemma, you know, over the years has found that one of the key things he looks for in his players, right? It isn't enough to be able to score a lot of points. You could be the best high school player in your state and whatever, and you want to play at UConn. But one of the things he does is when he's scouting players, uh, they will go to their high school basketball game and inevitably, you know, some point during the game that player is going to be taken out, have a breather for a couple of minutes, get back out on the floor. He said there's two types of kids. There's one kid who will kind of put a towel over her head and just kind of, you know, get her breather, you know, and wait to be called back out. And then there's the other kid who remains engaged in the game, yelling out instructions, you know, to the team or, or, calling, being encouraging and doing all that stuff, really leading right from the bench. And he said, that's the kid who's committed to being a good teammate. And no matter how many points a game you score, how competitive you are, whatever, if you fundamentally aren't the type of person who can be a good teammate and is wired that way, you need to probably go somewhere else. You'll have a successful career at another university, but it's not gonna be at UConn. And I think having— it's one thing to understand it and know it. It's another thing to have a discipline to let a really good candidate go, to let a really good player go somewhere else. But once you do, you find it very, very powerful, right? So these are the kinds of things. And we go through this for each of the 5 factors when it comes to exploring teams during the workshop. And I think that although it probably could have been a little gone more smoothly, if you will, because I was kind of having to facilitate these questions, um, you know, in a manner that was rather unrehearsed to say the least. Um, I felt really good about it. And to the point where, uh, when I got home, I not only, uh, created a Harnessing Peer Advantage to Your Advantage, which is the peer group assessment workshop, and created a 2.0 version of it that really, I think, is much stronger now, captures, I think, a lot of the findings from having done nearly 100 of these now that brings it into this new workshop. The second one was one for brand new groups. Like, could be their first meeting, their second meeting, or whatever. So now instead of kind of self-assessing kind of where we are today and where we'd like to be, this is very much about we're just forming this group. We want to make promises to each other about the value we want to get out of this group experience. Who do we want to be when we grow up? You know, what, what is this going to look like? And set those expectations for one another. And it also sets, I think, some really good guidance for who gets invited to enjoy the privilege of being part of that group someday, assuming that you're going to, you know, add members over time. And then the third one is really kind of a bit like I described where Instead of working on the group, uh, we talk about the group dynamics that feed into what makes high-performing teams, but we, um, look at the questions squarely from a team perspective and spend time on that. And I think it's a great opportunity for people to learn from one another and their other companies and, and, um, you know, go from there. So, um, so the, so the good news is that It was, I think people got a good experience there in the UK. I think all 6 groups got value and enjoyed it and all, but at the same time, I appreciate the fact that they kind of dug deep and were extremely transparent and honest about, you know, their experience in a way that I could now take a look at and create a 2.0 on the self-assessment where I could, um, have something that I think is specific to new groups. And then third, uh, completely have a brand new offering with regard to, uh, the team piece that I'm really excited about because that particular presentation will not only be good for peer groups who want to take it back to their own companies, but if you're a team inside a larger organization and you want to look at group dynamics, you want to look at high-performing teams in business and in sports, and you want to be able to take your game to a completely different level, this is, this is absolutely, uh, the kind of workshop that I think could be extremely powerful, uh, for groups and excuse me, for teams like that inside, you know, mid-sized to larger organizations. So, um, so it was a, so from that standpoint, a really super week and one that, um, anytime you can get the gift of that kind of feedback or feedforward, as Marshall Goldsmith likes to think about it, it can be a game changer and it can be really great. And I'm just really grateful for it.

Let's pull back from a more macro level and not so granular. But so you get this feedback, you fly over there, from the West Coast of the state. So, you know, big time gap, big jet lag— not to excuse, just to paint some context here for the audience. And so you, you get over there and, uh, and you've done all this prep work, you know, you're prepared to hit the ground running. You're not a rookie at this, you've done this many, many, many times. And so you've done all the homework and now you get You get this, this blow, you get this, you get this engaged in the moment, seem to be enjoying it, seem to be getting it. But then after the fact, you get this feedback. And so frequently we get, we get feedback like that and we end up being the player that Gino talks about that's on the bench with a towel over our head versus the one who's like, Oh, okay. Well, I can do something with this. I don't know. Walk us through your, your emotions, you know, whatever your head trash was in the moment.

Well, one of the things that, um, Gino Ariama talks about, and I'll go back to him just for a moment, and I'm not going to put myself in this category by any means, but what he says is great players love to get coached. You know, he said, you look at the best in the game. It isn't the coaches have a hard time coaching the great players. All the great players want to be coached. Um, so I at least aspire to be a great player. And for that, um, and, and in any other sport I've ever played or whatever, I, I've always enjoyed being coached. I want to learn, I want to get better all the time. And I think if we're going to, you know, raise our game, I'm not going to say that I wouldn't have on some level preferred, oh yeah, you know, like I said, greatest workshop of all time. But at the same, but as a practical matter, um, what I got, you know, I kind of took a breath a little bit and I said, you know what, I need to, I need to really look at this as, as, as a coaching moment, you know, from these members and what they were doing there. And I think that, that being said, I was really super grateful for it. And, and again, it got me thinking, you know, and it got me not only thinking about it, but acting on it. And I acted on it in the moment there. I made kind of adjustments along the way throughout the workshops that I was putting together. And then at the same time, when I got back here and you're kind of going back to the West Coast and you're waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning because that's kind of what you do when you're traveling that far east to west, then I get rolling on creating new stuff and really paying attention to the kinds of things that I was hearing back from those audiences. And I think it's fair. And I think, by the way, that you can enjoy something in the moment. When I think about those groups, I thought that we laughed together, we learned together, there were a lot of great questions, there was a lot of good engagement, there was good conversation. Among the groups. At the same time, though, that doesn't mean that at the end they can't evaluate that and think, hmm, yeah, it was great, but we spent our time on things that I wish we had handled it differently or whatever. And I think that's kind of what happened. So it's not so much that it was a disconnect or they were acting one way in the presentation and told me something different at the end. I just think that upon reflection, you can have an experience that you feel good about in the moment, but upon reflection you're thinking, hey, um, maybe the takeaways weren't, um, quite, um, you know, what I thought. Now, one of the things that did come up, which I always think is interesting, and I think this is, and I've always said this, it doesn't matter if it's me or any speaker, anything you read, whatever, Um, I think we can set unrealistic expectations oftentimes for when we go hear anybody speak. So as you and I have talked about this kind of offline, right, we all read books, we go to conferences, we hear speakers, we, you know, there is very little that you or I are going to look at and think, oh, this is an all-new, never-revealed concept about something that represents some magic bullet on something. I mean, it just isn't happening most of the time. It's usually, Yeah.

Profound is really hard.

Well, but not just that there can be profound, but it doesn't have to be so brand new. The profoundness of it isn't so much that the lesson is different. It's how someone gets you there.

Right.

So you, let's face it, we, we get these, like when someone says to me, hey, I've heard that a thousand times before. And you said, well, you know, you must be not only doing it, you must be amazing at it. Right. And well, of course the answer to both those questions is oftentimes no, you know, I've never quite adopted it, you know. Um, so, You know, I think it kind of comes down to the fact that there's unbelievable value in the fact that if someone can come at a particular challenge or opportunity for you and do so in a way that resonates with you and inspires you to act on that and even maybe adopt something as habit where you've never done it before, just because of the way they talked about it and the fact that it just press some buttons for you and connected with you, that's huge. I mean, that's super powerful. And if you can leave with that one thing, I don't care if there was a 3-hour workshop or a 20-minute keynote, that's extremely powerful. And I think to myself, when I go hear any speaker now, I'm not asking them, entertain me, educate me on all new stuff for the whole time. I want to be able to leave with at least one thing. That I didn't know before, or one thing that will make me look at something a little differently, or, or, um, that I think is, uh, that all of a sudden, you know, clicked.

Yeah.

Just clicks with me and gets me, you know, uh, thinking. And I think if we all looked at, um, speakers that way and really were there to learn, not to judge from that perspective, you know, I think that that's, that's really powerful. So Um, so I would say in some respects that the only piece of feedback I think that, you know, cause again, people will always say, oh, nothing new here. You know, I've heard that before. And it's like, well, yes and no, you know? So there, there is, um, there is that. Um, but, uh, but I think there's value.

I mean, even if the feedback is feedback that we disagree with, You know, not to fixate on this point, but come on, we all get criticism or feedback and living in this day and age of Twitter wars and everything else, even if we can just extend enough grace to the other person to see what value we can derive from it, whether we agree with it or not, and whether we think it's valid or not, I just, I personally just don't see, and I guess this is a philosophy and a viewpoint. I'm not trying to convert anybody. I just, when it comes to our own value, so the people in your workshop that you wanted to connect these dots for, and you own it because you're the facilitator, you're the workshop leader, coming on you to make sure that they grab the baton. I, and I get it. And I think our audience does as well. But then for them to level whatever criticism they level, give you whatever feedback, now it's incumbent on you. You've got a choice. You can either hate them for it, resent them for it, get angry about it, or you can do what you did. You can make it something positive. You happen to see the validity of it, but I'm wondering, okay, what if you didn't? What if you didn't see the validity of it? It's still Aren't we still infinitely better off to own it as being valid, to leverage it for our own benefit?

Yeah, I mean, a couple things. One is, first of all, all the feedback is valid. There's none of it that is invalid. However, that doesn't mean that if one person says one thing that I'm going to react to that one person and make changes to sweeping changes, right, based on one, unless Unless it's, you know, like I said, unless it connects with me in a way that that's like a kaboom, like some aha moment. For the most part though, because let me just share this with you and as you're probably not surprising, right? So I've had, um, a lot of these speaker evaluation things you get, you'll get number rankings, right? But then they'll ask for, you know, certain, uh, you know, qualitative feedback. So during the same presentation, Right? I've had one person say, uh, he spent way too much time on such and such. One line below it from another person, he spent way too little time on the same thing. I'm like, okay. So, so once you kind of understand that you will never please every single person in that audience, um, that, that's, that's just a fact. That's just the way that's, that is going to go. However, I think you can always listen, always learn, always adjust, always try to make it better. You know, when we look at, you know, we talk a lot about, and we have many times, right, about people look to one another, right? It used to be years ago, they might get in, they might see a TV spot and go out and look at buying a product. And all of a sudden they wanted to read Consumer Reports about it, right? Then that evolved to, I want to talk to other people like me who've driven that car or sent their kid to college or read that book or whatever. You don't know these people from Adam, but you will often take the prevailing sentiment that you see, not any one person's opinion, but the prevailing sentiment there is pretty powerful data for you to make your decision. And with all of the information that you have in front of you, I think in many respects, getting feedback, um, on talks, workshops, or whatever is exactly the same thing where you really want to look at If you have prevailing recurring feedback that something is wrong, you better address it. You know, pretty much no question about that. And then I think in, in other ways, um, you know, you just have to figure out based on your own, because again, that piece of feedback isn't the only information you're working with in terms of what might inspire me to make changes or adjustments or whatever. Right. Um, so, But it's, um, but it's really great. And, you know, people who spend time and actually give real thoughtful feedback as opposed to pretending it's Twitter and, and, you know, they throw, you know, darts just to be, just to do it. Um, I mean, you can tell the difference between that. I think when people are being really considered and being thoughtful and trying to give you information that is designed to help you for next time, which I think is a pretty incredible gift. Because that talk you just gave, that's over for them, you know, they will never get that 50 minutes of their life back or whatever, however long the piece is. So when someone takes the time after it's all over to tell you some things, positive, negative, neutral, whatever it happens to be, that can give guidance to you for next time, I think that's really how to think about it. And that's where I, Even if it's given as feedback, I try to take it as Marshall Goldsmith has described it as feedforward. What do I do with that so that I can make a positive change that can make a difference for audiences in the future?

For entrepreneurs and leaders in our audience, which is obviously a big segment of the people that even listen to this podcast, and we thank you, by the way. So take some takeaways for leaders. Not a workshop leader, but a leader in a business, a leader in a city government, a leader of a nonprofit, and the value of feedback, this gift, which is how we started the show, this gift of feedback. I mean, what are some things that people can do, especially as it pertains to their direct reports, to get positive, honest feedback? I don't mean positive, but just honest feedback.

Yeah, I'm gonna cover it both. I'll just broaden this a little bit, not just talk about it in terms of feedback, but just in terms of communication, you know, in general, right? Because that's what we're doing here when we're doing that. So one is I think leaders need to understand again that, um, the effective delivery of the message as intended is up to the leader. It's not up to the sender slash leader versus the employees slash recipients. Right. Um, and to really take responsibility for that, for their words, their action, the way they repeat it, the way they get, the way they ascertain the understanding of their audiences before they go forward, I think is really essential. Second is to communicate things completely and in as real time as humanly possible. We as human beings are terrible at having gaps in information and communication, right? Because what will happen is we will— so let's say you're meeting me for lunch somewhere and you're supposed to meet me at 1 o'clock. Okay. By 1:15, 1:20, you know, I've heard nothing from you. You're still not there. So now I start making assumptions about you forgot or you did this or whatever. And, and you know, all this other stuff. Who, who the heck knows what's going on and why you can't reach me or whatever, but I am going to be inclined to, you know, guess it all, you know, and create this narrative around why you're not there yet, you know, and it's going to be bad.

It's going to be negative.

And it's going to— and the longer the time period goes, the worse it's going to get to the point where, you know, he's always late and, or whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just, that's how we work. Yeah.

It's stupid. Only, you know, so, and then, you know, you've got people who will call and leave someone an ugly voicemail about the fact that, and then only to learn later that, you know, you had to rush your mom to the hospital or something like that. And maybe our little lunch meeting at 1 o'clock wasn't the biggest thing on your mind in the moment. So, you know, we're not good at that. So, um, I think understanding that when you're communicating to audiences and they have information that isn't complete, they will fill in the gaps. And it mostly won't be good for you when, when they do that. I think with regard to leaders and feedback, leaders need to ask, and they don't need to ask in the form of creating a suggestion box or doing things that are completely— they need to try to figure out a way, how do we create honest dialogue with one another so that the people who I'm working with as part of a team, right? That as a leader of the team, I am a part of the team. I'm not apart from it. And, and because of that, we need to be able to have healthy, open dialogue, you know, with one another about how in my role I can provide the level of support that helps us all be really successful. Um, and I think those three things kind of in the context of what we're talking about today, I think are really essential for, you know, any leader who's going to be, you know, effective at leading their teams and leaders who, um, you know, most of the time employees just like to be asked. They really do. You know, they, they want to know that they're being heard. Um, and as you well know, it isn't always that you have to act on every piece of, you know, feedback or information or comments that your employees make. But to be in a workplace where you have the permission, you know, you're allowed to make those comments and that you're heard and that you're respected. And that now you then have to trust and respect the leader that they're going to make the adjustments, um, they feel necessary because maybe they just have a little more information than you do about a lot of other things that may be going on.

Um, and you know, what's the difference in the employee feeling as though they matter versus feeling as though they don't matter?

Sure.

This is a big, big difference.

Oh yeah. No question about it.

You know, so, and then the leader, the recipient, then now the leader is the recipient of the feedback to the point of this whole podcast episode and the lessons that you learned in the UK workshops is you gotta be willing to accept it and accept it as valid, whether you agree with it or not. And now what are you going to do with it?

Well, I just don't know what the alternative is. You know, the alternative, you're going to be bullheaded and you're going to keep doing what you're doing and basically You know, it's just going to get worse. You know, you're going to become an exaggerated version of the bad things that you have out there. And, uh, you know, that's not going to help anybody. So, you know, I just think that these things are, I don't care how good you are, how long you've been doing it or whatever. Anybody I think who is really a good presenter, good speaker, good workshop facilitator, whatever, is constantly staying in touch with. They'd be as prepared as humanly possible. They try to make sure that the expectations of what value is going to be delivered are clear with everyone. I could have done a better job of that going forward, and I'm trying to put mechanisms together now for myself that when I speak to groups in the future, that there is real clarity before I ever step in the room about what we're doing today and why and what they can expect to leave with, and that we all can look at one another at the beginning and say, We're good, we got this, this is what we're doing today. And everybody's all in. And I think right there, that's gonna make certainly a big difference in terms of what I think I'm gonna be doing in the coming months, both most of what I'll be doing for the rest of the year will be throughout the US and Canada. But I expect that this is not a thing where you get to a certain place and you've just got it now. Like no further adjustments, no anything, no whatever. I mean, you just don't. It's a constant journey, a constant, you know, um, I try to figure out at the end to feedback notwithstanding, let's add in here any feedback so much, but I try to write down at the end of every session that I've I've had, like, all right, what did I just learn from this group? What did they say? Um, you know, so for example, I'll tell you real quickly if I hadn't mentioned this, um, you know, before when we talked, but, um, I thought it was fascinating when we talked to the groups in the UK about what it means to have the right people in the room. They tended to take the conversation in a very different place than the US groups do, which I thought was really kind of Fascinating, right? So when I talk to US groups about, let's say there's a group of 8 to 10 members and they're thinking, okay, a lot of times when we're having conversations about certain subjects, we lack a certain industry expertise, we lack a certain practice area, like someone who really knows HR, for example, or people, you know, or digital marketing or whatever it might be, where they feel that, boy, if we could have some people fill in those gaps for us, that would lend to the kind of diversity we need that would give me a little more of a complete value proposition here. Um, so they focus a lot on how people are different in terms of the way they can add value. In the UK, it was much more conversation about how they need to be the same, meaning that it was a, it was more about shared values. It was like, yeah, you could have somebody from, uh, bank or someone who has a certain practice expertise, but if they can't be these things that help them be a good member and help bring value, that's— so they tended to go there first before they started talking about, uh, the other thing, which I thought was really, um, really interesting. Um, I think both thought both were important. I'm just talking specifically that the conversation had a natural kind of arc to it and they were different in both situations, which I thought was really fun. So, you know, again, you know, there's just so much to learn from every audience, every group, you know, every team that you might work with and it's pretty fun stuff. And, you know, one of the things that we probably should have done at the top of the hour, although we've talked about this before, but Just to— the difference, as you know, I've defined it for these groups, um, the difference between a group and a team is basically a group is, you know, a collection of people who come together that help one another accomplish their individual goals, right? Um, and the team is basically working together to achieve one collective goal, right? So when UConn wants to win a national championship or At MullenLowe, they want to produce the best advertising in the world. That's what they do. And they do that together and they create something together that not one of them could ever do by themselves. Um, and yet in the group situation, you've got an incredible diversity and yet an incredible sameness that exists among all these group members. And because of that, they can help one another be successful, not only as individuals, but as leaders back and the impact they can have in their organizations, I think is extremely powerful. So, you know, that's, I think, really how we look at the two, and it's why they're so aligned. And it's why I wrote in the thing, I kind of do feel like that group dynamics is like the big sister of team dynamics. And once we really understand how group dynamics works, we can bring that You know, we kind of walk through that pathway to creating better teams. Um, and again, am I the only person to ever talk about teams and how to make teams work? Of course not. You know, hopefully though, if it's done in such a way that can inspire someone to, you know, it just, something clicks with them because of the way it's talked about, then I don't think it gets any better than that. That's a kind of a fun experience. And, and if just even a few people in every audience can kind of adopt something you know, as a habit and make it as their own and be the better for it, then that's, that's, that's cool stuff.

Well, it's a living testimony that who you surround yourself with does matter. So thankfully you got to surround yourself with some new folks that, uh, they gave you the gift. It's great.

No question. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And, and, uh, you know, it's fun to be able to really sit and talk about this you know, very openly in that, from that perspective too, so that people get a sense. Cause I, you know, we all as speakers love to, you know, you know, let's face it, you're the person on stage and you're, you're, you're putting on a show, you're doing all that kind of stuff. And at the same time, it's important that there isn't—

So you're telling us you're not living the Instagram life?

There you go. Yeah. Highlight reel.

Where every day is perfect.

Everything's a highlight reel.

Yeah, exactly.

Or there isn't, you know, a lot of learning or a lot of things that don't go on behind behind the scenes that, um, that's right. I think when you look at any speaker who's really good, um, they are a product of every other audience they've ever spoken to. Um, there's a little piece of that that goes with them and they learn and they get better and they improve. Um, some of it, um, very consciously, some of it subconsciously, but, um, uh, you know, that, that speaker is really good because of, you know, arguably thousands, tens of thousands of people that have contributed to that person's ability. And it's fun stuff. And it's why if we can just work at that and keep getting better at it all the time, then we can hopefully deliver growth.

Growth.

Yeah.

I'm not his agent, but I'll hawk him. Uh, he's, he's, he's available. He's available for, uh, for workshops. And for speaking engagements. You can find the podcast and all the stuff about Leo at his website, Leo Bottari. That's LeoBottari.com. We encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. We thank you for listening. And that's all I've got, Leo. I'll let you say goodbye and wrap it up.

No, I just want to, you know, like I said, I enjoyed our podcast from the UK last week. I think it was great to really be able to kind of wrap up and, and talk about some, some lessons learned. And, um, you know, I think if we can all kind of approach everything we do that way, no matter whether we're a speaker, whether we're a manager or a director or a CEO or whatever, is it's really about constantly staying in touch with the people around us, constantly listening, and, um, always knowing that We can get better, you know, every day, no matter who we are, how good we think we are. We can always keep improving. So with that, yeah, we're good for today and we'll see everybody next week.

Thanks. To learn more about our show and what we do, to submit questions to us, and to subscribe to What Anyone Can Do Podcast, please visit our website, whatanyonecandodo.com. What Anyone Can Do Podcast is hosted by Leo Battari and me, Randy Cantrell. Music provided by Kevin McClatchy. Is Vibe Ace, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 license. Thanks for watching or listening. We hope you'll share the podcast.