CB Bowman LIVE! Challenges of the C-Suite Guest: Peter Winick, Episode 47

Hello everybody, welcome to CB Bowman Live! And you know it's Tuesday, so we do Challenges of the C-Suite. And you know what, I forgot to put my special banner up, so let's see if it works while we're live. Which— oh, there it goes— which talks about the upcoming ACEC conference. If you haven't registered yet Shame on you, because we just negotiated a special deal with Methods. Now don't tell me you don't know about Methods. Methods is the online learning platform for business. It's like MasterClass, and they're offering a special deal during the conference. I mean, can we keep a secret? You know, I always do my secrets secrets. It is truly special for those that attend. So look at the scroll at the bottom, go to the ACEC website and register. You will be so excited. Okay, so I think that next week we're not doing a show because the conference starts. We're not doing a LinkedIn Live show because the conference starts. So just check, you know how you can see if I'm having the show now? LinkedIn Live. LinkedIn is on top of it. You just go to my profile in LinkedIn and the show airs on my header. Could it not be easier? Kudos to LinkedIn, we gotta love them. So, all right, with that, let's talk to Peter Winick. Peter is a hoot, and he's handsome. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but he has the same color eyes as my husband, so I have to say that. And he is smart and so, so filled with information about leadership. We're gonna go crazy today, so write in your questions. I think I have it set so I could see them. And if by chance you have to leave before we're finished, which I hope you don't, it's on YouTube. Remember that we have a backup plan. So let's get started with Peter. Peter and I were just reminiscing about where we used to live and eat, and it is so funny because we were in the same place. He's older than me. So I was younger at that same place. I'm just saying, right? So, Peter, thank you for coming today.

My pleasure.

Oh, gosh, introduce yourself. Tell us all about you.

Sure. So I'm Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage. And I've got a podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership that I host. And You know, I work with all sorts of authors, speakers, consultants, academics, thought leaders, as well as organizations that are looking to scale the impact that their thought leadership has and increase the velocity by which they can monetize it. So small company, 10 people, and laser focused on thought leaders, and, and been working with them for quite some time now.

So can you tell us who your thought leaders some of the thought leaders you're working with?

Oh man, well, that depends how far we want to go back. I mean, we've worked with academics at Yale, Wharton, London School of Business, New York Times bestsellers, a lot of folks that we both know in the MG100, a lot of folks in the Thinkers50, a lot of folks that are coming from the business world. So former CEOs that are moving into the space. I mean, it's been a pretty long list over the last 13 years or so.

And you know, just as we were talking, because we are both part of MG100—

that I'm not part, I'm not part.

Yeah, we'll get you in. You know, that list has gone from 100. You know, my friend, your friend Marsha, we have to let them know you're almost at like 500 people, right? But, um, and we welcome everybody, but we still like the name MG100. It implies that we're just a special family, which we are. So now, Peter, Peter and I were reminiscing about where we used to eat. We both loved restaurants in the Lower East Side of New York.

Yeah, exactly.

And I couldn't remember the name of the place that I used to go for the most outstanding knishes in the world. What was the name of it?

I think it was the one I was thinking of, Yonah Schimmel on, on the Lower East Side, which was about the size of a closet.

Yes, that's the one! That's the one! It was owned by a woman back in the day, and my God, oh, you guys—

and I think someone borrowed her broom in 1936 and never gave it back, I think so.

Oh, you could smell those knishes for the entire block. And I tried so hard to make them myself and disaster, disaster. I could still taste it just thinking about it. It had that sort of oniony garlic with that wonderful crust and oh my God, oh my God. I am starting to salivate at the thought of it. And I think down there I had the most wonderful egg creams. Oh, you know, I tried to have one here in Colorado. It—

oh, stop, don't, come on. That's like going to Einstein's for a bagel. What are you doing? You don't, you don't do that. That's, that's a recipe for disappointment. You wouldn't do it.

It just didn't quite make it. So listen, Peter, I want to talk about your work, but here's the question. We like to ask people. This is the Insider Scoop. Our format is like we're sitting having a glass of wine, cup of coffee, learn and laugh at the same time. My question going out of the box is, what do you see are the challenges that leaders are facing? It could be today, it could be yesteryear, it could be a comparison between the two. What do you got for us, the top 3?

Yeah, so I think that one, thought leadership always runs in parallel to the business cycles, right? So if we were to go back and think what was, quote, in vogue at the beginning of 2020, it's almost laughable today. The employee experience, the war for talent, right? Like, you know, work-life balance. Work-life balance is I've got my laptop balanced on my knee in the, you know, in the ladies' room or something. So now, you know, however long it's been into this, like too long, there's a couple of things that have risen to the attention of leadership that weren't before. So the first one is diversity and inclusion. So directly as a result, my humble opinion, of the horrific murder of George Floyd last year, almost a year now, what happened was for the first time, or at least the first time in my recollection, 3 very important constituencies said enough at the corporate level. Number 1, the employees, the frontline employees said, what are we doing about this? The customers said, where do you stand on this issue? And then that elevated it to board to go, oh crap, you know, what are we really doing? And if you go back to your history and say, well, what, why, and what were companies doing in the D&I space prior? It didn't come out of a place of benevolence. It came out of a place of prophylactic litigation, whatever. So old school D&I was, you had to teach people that look like me that they have to hire people that don't look like them. That's 1970 whatever. And what's the cheapest way to get with that? Oh, put Peter through a half, you know, 2-hour program. So if he does something stupid, we can say, well, we didn't do it. That's not gonna cut it anymore. And I think that's number one, leaders need to understand sort of where, what is their position, what they're doing. And how are they addressing those issues? I think there's a whole struggle that we're seeing now around what does culture mean in this new work, new normal, whatever we're calling it. But we're working differently today, right? We're not all going to an office from 9 to 5 or 9 to 7 or whatever, sitting side by side and ignoring each other. And there's an impact on culture, right? Where for the first time in as long as I can remember, we're recruiting We're onboarding, right, folks that we've never physically met with or had a meal with or looked in the eye other than, you know, across a screen here. So I think there's a cultural piece. Then the last one I think is we're redefining at the leadership level what is our responsibility as a company around mental health. So it used to be, with the exception of really, really, really extreme things like if you have addiction, or, you know, someone's coming to work with a weapon. We had ways to deal with those things. But now we have everybody at the same time going through stress, stress that we don't know about, right? It used to be, if I'm the typical manager with 10 employees, and CB's having a tough time, she's going through divorce, or a parent with Alzheimer's, we'd have a little conversation, we'd cut you some slack and figure out how do we work through that together. I don't even see you anymore, right? And I've got 12 people I'm working with. Everybody's stressed out. Work from home for some people is a blessing. For others, it's a curse. Having a partner that's in healthcare might be an additional stress, financial stress, worrying about the health and wellbeing of your family. So I think there's a redefining where those lines are. I mean, when I was coming up 30 years ago, the mantra was check your baggage at the door. We don't care. We're here, we own your, right? Remember that? Now it's like, now we're bringing the baggage in the door, but how many bags per person is sort of the question, right? That we're allowed to bring in. And I think it's just, we're redefining what those boundaries are.

So I want to take that one first because, uh, you're right, it was check your baggage at the door. Oh God, do I remember that so well. It was like when you walk into a company, you walk in as a zombie. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, just do your job, right?

Right, right.

Um, and, and the law actually supported that because anytime—

well, the law, the culture, the norms, the management styles, it was all Command and control. And yeah, yeah.

I mean, I remember just 2 years ago, 2 and a half years ago, when I left New Jersey, right? Costco is one of my favorite stores, Costco and Apple. So I got to know the manager at the Jersey store. Actually, I watched him grow up, right? And one of the members that I— one of the people that worked there, I remember, was out ill. And I said, "How's she doing?" Because I mean, I literally knew everybody in the store, right? It was within walking distance of my house. So instead of hanging out at a bar, I hang out at Costco. What could I say? You know, you could eat there, have fun, whatever. Anyway, I said to him, "How's she doing?" His answer was, "I don't know." And I said, "What do you mean you don't know?" And he said, TB? We're not allowed to ask. Right. I'm like, yep, she's one of your top people. Yeah, I know. And I would love to know, but I would get in trouble if I asked. So it was that sort of sanitation— not sanitation, sterilization of emotions, of relationships. The law said, don't go there. All right, now we move into COVID. How do you not ask, "How are you doing?" if somebody has COVID who works for you? How do you not— how do you put on the blinders on Zoom if you see somebody's leg is in a cast? Do you just— and if you don't say anything, the employee says, Damn, that person was hard. A-S-S. But the law still is in effect. You can't ask, how you doing? So what do leaders do? I, you know, I really feel so sorry for the leaders of today, because it's so confusing.

Well, but I think, but I think the other side of that, from a thought leadership perspective, is we're now theoretically fluent in emotional intelligence. We're now theoretically fluent in empathy, in listening skills, in questioning skills, et cetera. So we've got all these other skills. There's a little bit of tension between sort of what's allowed. And I think any of those sort of, you know, when the gentleman at Costco said to you, we're not allowed to ask. I think the real question is, well, where did that come from? It probably came from a time where maybe somebody took a sick day off and you had a manager asking too many questions. Well, how sick are you? What's your temperature, right? Whatever. So it didn't come from the— I always— what was the origin story there of why that came to be? Is it the intent? You know, it's sort of the— there's always this concept of the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

Yeah. Yeah. But when you're running a company the size of Costco, you have to go by the letter of the law.

It appears to me theoretically, that's why you and I don't work for big companies.

But yes, I did. And you're so right. It was— I remember being ill and having to take off for some time. And it was a nightmare. It was like you felt that you were being spied on and there's no way that you could get better.

Right.

Then the law came and said—

Yeah, and it's like, listen, there's people that ask for permission and people that ask for forgiveness. That's just the way it is.

Exactly. So what advice do you have for leaders then? And back to the emotional intelligence and the empathy and the listening I'm going to get lots of calls on this one, but I don't think that leaders are fluent in it. I think they may be knowledgeable that these opportunities exist, but this is where the rubber is not meeting the road. They don't know and they're questioning empathy. And in fact, some people have termed it the feminine— feminizing of leadership. Leadership right now? Because it's not the same as our parents even, or Colin Powell.

But I mean, I think that, I think that's a broad brush, right? So I don't think that the old school command and control model is still in place at, at too many organizations. Even the military now is teaching everyone emotional intelligence. So the ultimate place where— because there are still places where you need command and control. Like, we don't want to talk about how our feelings are if you and I were firefighters and I was asking you to pass me a hose as a building's burning down. I kind of don't care about your feelings at that point. It would be ridiculous. But I think there's a difference between awareness at the theoretical level— people get it intellectually— and struggle with at the applied level. That's where it's hard.

Yes. Yes. And what's your advice then?

Well, I mean, my advice would be like, it's like anything else. You're not going to learn by being passive. You have to try and find a low-risk situation to develop the new capabilities and build on it. The biggest, highest-stake, bet-your-career move, probably not a place to try out a new skill that you have. Right. So you do it in tiers and manage the risk accordingly.

Yeah. You know, when I, when I think about, um, and I don't know if this is on topic or off topic, but the young lady, part of this has to do with staying to your true north, right?

Yep.

And so when we look at people that, um, the young lady who spoke up, I think it was at Google, who spoke up in defense of AI and the fact that it did not— am I remembering the company right?

I think it was Google. I'm not positive.

This is after Google had just signed last year a pledge for diversity equity, and inclusion. And then they turn around and they fire somebody who points out that their AI supports white people more than it does Black people.

Mm-hmm.

How does that fit into any model? And how does it allow a company to develop trust? And how does it allow them to think about thought versus apply. I mean, it does get quite confusing.

Well, but again, you can interpret that story in a couple of ways, right? One implication is, well, Google is a racist company. That's probably not so, right? So why did the AI learn to be more Caucasian-friendly than not? Well, maybe the data set— I mean, AI doesn't have emotions, doesn't have bias, doesn't have feelings, so it can't feel one way about one group or another. Maybe somebody fed in too much data from white folks and not enough from Black folks. That, okay, and therefore the outcome is going to be pretty bad. There was another one. I don't remember if it was a Microsoft product or a Google product or something, an AI product that they released 2 years ago, and they put it out on social media and within hours, because kids were fidgeting with it, It was spewing forth antisemitism and racist stuff. Well, that was a garbage in, garbage out problem. So again, I think you have to look at the root cause. Is it an actual bias or an outcome of biased data?

Well, I think you have a really good point. I was talking to somebody in the medical field, I think it was this week, who's a thought leader in the medical field. And he said to me, I have a problem with all the testing that's being done on medicines. I said, why? He said, it's done on middle-aged white men.

Right.

And I said, and does that make a difference? In my naiveness. And he said, Sibi, let's just take COVID, for example. The J&J products were tested on middle-aged white men. The people that are getting, um, clots are women. So is it not possible that they should have tested this on women and people of all different backgrounds that might cause the the virus to spill out its venom differently. I have to tell you, Peter, that was an aha moment for me as I think about different medications I take, ones that my husband takes.

Yep, yep.

What does that mean for us? I never ever questioned something like that. Now I want to go to a doctor and say, is this for Black women? Of course he's going to look at me like I'm crazy, right? But where do we go?

No, you're right.

I mean, what, what does your company advise?

Well, that's not our space. I mean, we're in the business of supporting thought leaders to get their message out, to get their work out, to get their impact out. So yeah, that's outside of our area of expertise.

You know, what's interesting is I have a company called Workplace Equity and Equality, and we have a conference coming up. And it's funny that you're saying— not funny, haha— um, that your space is working with thought leaders to get their message out. How does that affect inconsistent messages? So in other words, if a person is working for a company and they're getting their message out, and you and I just talked about one of the issues the D&I space How does that message get presented so that it's consistent with what they're saying? And let me give you a really good example of what I'm talking about. I'm not into football, but there was a football game, and in that game there was a commercial put on by Jeep. And Bruce Springsteen was in that. You saw it, right? And so it talks about coming together of America and, and yeah, we are one.

By the way, it was the Super Bowl. It wasn't just a game. It was kind of a big football.

My husband is not here. He didn't hear that, right?

Okay, well, I won't tell him if you want.

Please don't. Um, but so it was talking about coming together, basically, right? In that commercial, there was not one person of color, right? So if you're the CEO of Jeep, how does that present itself as a thought leader?

Well, there's a lot of places where that should have been caught, right? So I don't know, is Jeep's customer— and so let's play this out. Maybe Jeep, one hypothesis is maybe Jeep's customer base is 90% white. I don't know, I don't drive a Jeep, right? Like, I don't think that's true, right? Maybe the agency that they worked with didn't think about it. So there's like, it's not like that's one person that made a stupid comment. To produce that commercial with Bruce Springsteen, who I'm sure they paid a ton of money, right? You had the top of the top of the top. And why was it that not until it was broadcast, several people scratched their head and go, oh, shh, ooh, we missed one there, right? Probably speaks more to the culture of the organization and the agencies and everyone in that sort of supply chain. I mean, I'll bring it back to sort of my world, thought leaders, right? So if you were to go back even 10 years ago, So forget COVID for a moment. When keynoting, you know, everybody's out at events all the time and most of my clients speak professionally and blah, blah, blah. I was always standing in the back of the room and I've been to hundreds and hundreds of events watching great people speak. And I'd look at the stage and I'd look at the audience. I look at the stage and I'd look at the audience and I'm like, hmm, the stage, heavily weighted, middle-aged white dudes, right? Navy suits look like they came out of the annual report board of directors. And those are both the executives and in many instances, is the keynoters. Then I look at the audience and I'm like, hmm, this is interesting. This industry, it's 30% female, 50% female, this percent diverse. Why doesn't the stage look like the audience? You know, why doesn't your leadership team look like your customers? And I remember even 30-something years ago, the Benetton ads were the first ones to show diversity in that space. And there's been a huge push right now in the thought leadership industry to say, wait a minute, And I, you know, they might not use this language, say, I don't want another 55-year-old white dude, right? Like, I need someone that represents us, whatever us means. Us could be generational, us could be ethnic, us could be LGBTQ. You know, what does that mean? And you're seeing more and more of that. Now, there was a pipeline problem because someone doesn't become a world-renowned keynote speaker, bestselling author in 5 minutes. You can't say, give me another one. So there's a little bit of a pipeline problem, but I know that On the keynote side, maybe 20-25% of keynoters at the highest levels are female. 60% of our clients are female, right? So we're inversely going in that way, not necessarily intentionally, it's not unintentionally, but it's in response to where the market's going, right? And I think that's really the issue because until you have the, and it's somewhat a metaphor, the stage looking like the audience, there's a disconnect.. And I think that's whether that's your frontline employees and your customers. You know, think about it, you mentioned Apple before. I know I love Apple products, right? And I know that when you go into the stores, their product, you know, the stores, forget the physicality, but the people there look like a diverse set. They tend to skew maybe a little bit younger of everything imaginable in this country in a good way. And they tend to be really passionate. I mean, I would imagine if you were a 26-year-old techno dork, that would be the crème de la crème to be working for Apple. And they might have— now they might not make it at some other retail, Tiffany or something that's a little bit more obnoxious, pretentious or whatever. They've got tattoos, they've got earrings, whatever, but they know their stuff cold and they are the embodiment of the brand and the products.

Absolutely. And I love it. It's funny that you bring up Apple because I just had a situation where my husband gave me for Christmas the new iPhone 12 Pro. And I'm not a fan of it, I have to say. And then on top of it, I dropped it. And the look on his face was priceless. What the hell? And so I put it off and I put it off, and it looked like the The screen was cracked. And so finally I got up enough nerve yesterday to call Apple and I said, "Here's what's going on." And they said, "When did you get it?" And I said, "Christmas, it was a gift." And they said, "Ah, Ms. Blumenthal, send it back to us, we'll replace it." Right. What, are you kidding me? And they said, "No, and you have several options." for replacement. And they went down the list and they said, and by the way, do you have AppleCare? And I said, I actually don't know. We bought it through Verizon. They said, oh, what's the serial number? And I tell them, they said, oh yeah, you're good. You have AppleCare. I'm thinking this would have been a pain in the you know what with another company.

Right.

No way on this earth would I get Oh yeah, we'll replace it. Who does that? Right, right. So yeah, they have me at hello. I'm never going to any other product, right? Um, I want to go back to something. We jumped in and we started talking about, you know, the 3 challenges, uh, that you see. But I want to go back and talk about your company. Mm-hmm. Your company focuses on thought leadership.

Correct.

You explain to our audience, what does that mean? What does thought leadership mean?

Yeah, so that's a great question and a somewhat loaded question. So, um, when I started the company 13 years ago, the term that made me cringe was guru, right? People would be calling themselves a guru and Unfortunately, to an extent, thought leadership is almost at that place. It's an overused term a little bit. And I think the biggest struggle with it today is that if you and I were talking about a balance sheet, we both know what we're talking about, right? If you and I were talking about the next time I'm out in Colorado, we're going to have lunch together. We know that's the meal in the middle of the day. Right. So thought leadership, everybody throws this word around, but we don't stop and say, hey, CB, when I talk about thought leadership, let me tell you what I'm talking about, what this means to me. You might have a different definition. Let's calibrate to make sure I'm not talking about apples and you're talking about pickles, because that's not an intelligent conversation. So for some, they're really talking about content marketing. There's a place for content marketing. Content marketing is great if I sold diapers. I would put out a lot of content marketing to teach new moms things they can do to avoid diaper rash, but I wouldn't ever confuse that with thought leadership. So to me, getting back to your question, what is thought leadership? So I break that up into two— it's two components. Number one is thought. So it's got to be thoughtful. Thoughtful could come from research, it could come from academia, it can come from the experiences that you have in the field as a consultant or a CEO or an expert or whatever the case may be. That's one thing, because if it's not thoughtful, then why spend time on it, right? If it's pithy or silly or, you know, cat memes aren't thoughtful. You know, most things on TikTok aren't thoughtful. Doesn't mean there's not a place for them, but let's not confuse ourselves. And then the other piece is leadership. And the leadership piece is, do you, or are you willing to have the courage to take a discipline, take an area, into a different, potentially different direction, maybe controversial, maybe on the edge. It's not just regurgitating the best practices in leadership, management, sales, whatever, but you're leading the conversation. You're leading the discipline to a place that you believe in based on your thoughtfulness. And when you combine those two, great things happen. So we look at a lot of things that are out there and say, yeah, that's cool. The Kardashians are lots of things. Thought leaders, they're not. They're influencers. If I was in the perfume business, I would do anything to get one of them to spray my perfume on them because you could bring the register from there till tomorrow. That's influence, right? Influencer marketing is not thought leadership, but thought leadership is a thoughtful application of a discipline, and you're being courageous enough to lead it into uncharted territory or fairly uncharted territory. And also acknowledge that you are more than likely standing on the proverbial shoulders of giants. You're not the first one to have a thought on leadership or management or sales or resilience or innovation or whatever it is. So you have to sort of acknowledge those that are current practitioners or came before you and say, and here's where I agree and here's where I see a little different, or here's what I want to add to the soup.

Can anybody become a thought leader?

Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think theoretically anybody can. But it's like YouTube, just because everybody could shoot a video doesn't mean they should shoot video. Just because the downside of the internet is we're now drowning in information, but we're starved for knowledge. Just because everybody could— you look at Instagram and it's like, how many people are posting a picture of their lunch? I mean, really, do I really care that you had pea soup for lunch?

Who cares?

So yes, I think anybody can, but it's about separating the signal from the noise. And now more than ever, there's more noise out there. So it's harder and harder to really separate it. And I think the market's smarter. You can fool some of the people some of the time, not for long anymore, not in this market.

Can you make somebody a thought leader? Can you personally? Peter Winick?

No, I can't make anybody anything. What I can do is, and my company can do, is accelerate through proven methodologies and processes and trial and error things that they can do to increase the odds of there being a success. But I can't start with a blank slate. Like, if you're not coming to the table with a thought, you know, we could go into your kitchen and empty out the cupboards and say, oh, what do we got here? Let's be experimental and bake something or cook something. I, you know, I can't rattle your brain and hope that there's a rock in there that falls out, and from that we have to make something. So you've got to come to the table with something, and then we can help you shape that. We can help you figure out where there's a market for it, help you figure out how to monetize it, how to get more impact from it. But, uh, you got to come to the table with something.

So, uh, the other day on Clubhouse, we had a discussion, uh, about thought leadership. And it started with a poll that was taken online in LinkedIn.

Okay.

And the question was around, do you think that you are a thought leader, or do you want to be a thought leader? 57% of the people that answered no or with another question were women. So it occurs to me as I look across the horizon that— and this may be more so before COVID or it may have a date attached to it— that the people that rose to the top of the list of being a thought leader were men. Is that still the case? One, and why?

Well, first, let me go back to your root question. I don't think anybody has the right to call themselves a thought leader. I think if you do, it's a signal that you're arrogant, narcissistic, and quite frankly, a jerk. I think thought leader is a title or something that's bestowed upon you. By peers or others that are regarded in the field that you practice. Because I go out there and call myself a thought leader. That's like, really? Who am I to designate that to myself? Right. When others say, you know, CB has expertise in dot, dot, dot, great. You can stand on your head and say how great you are, but it actually means a lot more when others around you or others that I admire and respect say she's the one. Right. So that's the first thing. The men and women thing, I think it is a deeper issue than that when you look at the research. Men tend to— and this isn't just the world according to me, there's research underneath this— overreach. If there's a job out there, and a man knows that maybe they've got a little bit less than the credentials, they want 5 years' experience and the guy only has 3, or they want this, they want that, men will stretch a standard deviation or two. Women, even if they have everything they're looking for, go, "I need a little more." So I think some of that is more, I don't know, psychology, traditions, whatever, whatever. I can't tell you how many female clients we've had over the years and say, "Oh, so let's talk about your business. I'm a keynote speaker." "Yeah, yeah. What do you charge?" "$10,000." "Why do you charge $10,000? There are people out there," and I don't even look at it male, female, "that are charging, you know, 3 times what you're charging or half as good." Oh, well, I, you know, I, you know, I don't want to, you know, like, there's, I think women, and again, I don't want to paint with a broad brush, have a harder time asking for the value they're worth. Oh, and men have an easier time overvaluing what they are actually worth. And somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

You know, absolutely. I totally agree with you. I want to go back to something you said. And I really took a smile to that. People who call themselves thought leaders. Not so much, maybe. But yeah, here's something I was challenged with by Marshall. Should we not position ourselves to be thought of as thought leaders?

No, absolutely. But there's a line, right? So there's, there's things that How are you perceived as a thought leader? Well, it could be the people that you're hanging out with, people that you're creating content with, the events that you're speaking. I mean, there's your brand, the clients that you serve. So there's a lot of things that you can do. The line— again, this is the world according to me— is once you cross the line and say, you know, and I am the esteemed thought leader, all the audience here is pompous ass. Uh-huh.

Okay.

So you can do anything you want. And listen, there are people that make a brand out of wanting to be sort of out there and overboard and, oh, I'm the greatest and, you know, whatever. Ali could get up there and say he was the greatest because guess what? He got in the ring and knocked the other guy on his butt, and he was the greatest.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I guess the question is, if you were of mind to position yourself as a thought leader without acknowledging people calling you that by saying, I am a thought leader, where do you take yourself? How do you begin?

Well, it starts with strategy. So to me, you know, and this is how we work with our clients, it starts with what is the strategy underneath it? Because a lot of people dabble in thought leadership or serendipitously become thought leaders or whatever. And I think, listen, it is a business like any other business. And in order to succeed in the business, you have to have a solid strategy. And know where you make your investments, know who the markets are that you serve, know how those markets will pay a premium for what you've got in what format and what modalities, know how you're gonna sell it, market and distribute it, right? And know the problems that it solves. So, you know, there's a slice of the thought leadership world that's purely entertainment, right? So sort of the keynoting for the sake of keynoting motivational, and a lot of that has gotten really, really hurt by COVID. But you have to figure out what business I am. Am I in the keynote business? Am I in the business of developing capabilities at scale at Fortune 1000 companies inside of their leadership group? And I think those are all strategic issues. And the more strategic and less impulsive and personality-driven you are, the more likely you are to succeed in the long term.

So, okay, so you start with with a strategy. And I guess the basic part of that strategy is what is your why? Does that make sense? No.

Well, I would say I don't really care what your why is. I mean, the why is why you do what you do is why you do what you do. And to some people, that's, you know, some people spend their lives figuring that out. It's almost a Buddhist quest for them. I'm looking at it purely from a business standpoint, a business strategy standpoint, to say, okay, so you're a thought leader in the space of X, whatever, resilience. Let's say that was my thing, you know, resilience. So I'm the resilience guy and I've written books and articles, whatever. Great. Okay. Well, what's the business you're in? Who's going to pay the most for resilience something? And what is that something, right? Is it domestic? Is it international? Is it resilience for salespeople? Resilience for newly minted managers? Resilience for leaders in technology? I mean, there's a bunch of clicks that you got to put on it. And we We live in the age of the long tail, and that's a blessing, right? So the days of one-size-fits-all, this is leadership training for everybody, are kind of over. So you can find your niche, dominate your niche, figure out how do you sell, market, and distribute in there, because to be a successful thought leader, it's not just the heavy lifting on the research and the writing and the authorship and the speaking. It's what's your sales, marketing, and distribution model? And most people, Marshall being an exception, are pretty crappy at that as thought leaders. They're really, really good at creating amazing stuff, really, really bad at getting it to the end user that will pay the highest premium for it because they're totally different skill sets. If you think about— put on a piece of paper, what does it take to be an awesome thought leader? What does it take to be a great sales and marketing person? There's very few places of overlap. Maybe communications, critical thinking. But other than that, maybe 20% of those skills overlap.

Okay, so, okay, thank you for that, um, appreciate it. I want to go back to the, the, um, points that you see that are— represent challenges from— oh, I know there was a question I want to ask you, um, before I ask you this question. Would you say that all heads A Fortune 500 companies are thought leaders?

No. So let me— it's an interesting question, and there's a couple of questions there, actually. So number one, many organizations today, not people, but organizations, are making very big investments into thought leadership. So particularly in high-tech. Professional services, financial services, not exclusively those areas. And the underlying reasons is, listen, everything's being commoditized. I don't care if you're Fidelity or T. Rowe Price, it's a commodity. I don't care if you're Accenture or Deloitte, you're interchangeable. So one of the ways to stand out is through the use of thought leadership, right? And it is a very cost-effective way to show the world you're smarter than your competitors, you're better than your competitors, This is your framework. This is your knowledge. So there's really two questions in your questions. Organizationally, what are you doing about thought leadership? That's one question. A separate question that's sort of connected to that is, should our dot, dot, dot CEO, CFO, whoever be a thought leader? And, you know, we have instances where board of directors voluntold their CEOs that we would like you to be a thought leader because we think it would position us and give us some competitive advantage, et cetera. And that's okay. And there are other cases where there are plenty of CEOs out there that actually have a perspective, have a point of view, and then actually have the scorecard to back it up. Because, you know, like, do I want to listen to some academic from Iowa that's never left the ivory tower, or do I want to listen to a business leader that's actually been there in the trenches and gotten their nails dirty, you know, and had experience running a business in 5 continents or something like that. So I think some CEOs would love to fancy themselves thought leaders and should, but I don't think it should be manufactured. But I think more organizations today should be thinking about their organizational thought leadership strategy and then institutionalizing who owns it. Yeah. And who is not one person.

And could— this is going to— let me see if I could get it out. And I'm thinking about about somebody specific, and I can't remember his name because I'm horrible at names, but the CEO of Bank of America has made a clear—

Moynihan. I think it's Moynihan.

Moynihan.

Yep.

Uh, has made a clear mark on the D&I space that is spectacular, right?

Mhm.

I probably, like Apple, Costco would not think to go to another bank because of his commitment and execution of projects, people, processes, and procedures in the D&I space for Bank of America.

Okay, but stay there for a minute. So whatever, wherever you bank today, bank is, I mean, the ultimate commodity, right? A bank is a bank is a bank is a bank today. And there aren't that many to choose from at the highest level. If you've been banking with whatever, JP Morgan, and you just continue to bank with them, and you never really gave it any thought because there's always a convenient branch and it works and direct deposit and all this and that, and then you realize, wow, Bank of America is more aligned with my values, more aligned with how I look at the world, then you go, now I actually have a reason. It's not because their fees are $1 less, or they're paying me 10 basis points more or whatever. I want to move my money there because I want to— I I want to vote with my dollars. That's interesting. And that is a long-term competitive advantage to them.

Yes, exactly. You got it. And so my question then becomes, is he a thought leader in banking or is he a thought leader in the D&I space? Or is he not a thought leader? Now, I could tell you from people that I've spoken to in who head up their D&I space, to them, he is a thought leader. So there's that internal respect as a thought leader. And then you have people like me that are—

Yeah, so I would say, I would say from what I know, or what I, which is limited in this instance, more of a thought leader than a thought leader in banking. A thought leader in banking might be Elon Musk who invented PayPal. That was a massive innovation that changed the way that we move dollars around, versus what Moinahan is saying is like, listen, he is not saying Bank of America has got a better mousetrap. They got checking accounts and savings accounts and car loans and all the stuff the other do. They are using the diversity inclusion piece as a strategic competitive advantage, the way they see the world, and the way they apply it to their customers and the way they apply it to their employees. By the way, they are not broadcasting that now for their health. They are broadcasting that because they want to use that. They've made those investments, they might as well get a return on.

Yes, absolutely. So, okay, so that's interesting that you could in fact have— be a thought leader on two different levels and then take that and use it to increase profits, right?

Yeah.

And I think not to split the hairs, increase profits doesn't have to be individual, it can apply to an institution.

Correct. I just want to go a half a step backwards. So there is this line between thought leadership and subject matter expert, right? So, for example, I was in supply chain, you know, of frozen products logistics or something. How do you get frozen chicken from the plant to the supermarket? And I've got— I'm the expert in that stuff. That's not thought leadership. That's subject matter expertise. It doesn't mean it's less valuable or less important, but it doesn't have wide-scale application other than to technical people or people specifically in the industry. We tend to think of thought leadership having a broader application, broader reach, broader impact, and more people.

I think I'm going to push back a little bit on that.

Okay.

Because if in fact somebody, for example, deliver created a new delivery system. There was a special, a series of specials, um, I, I guess it was on the History Channel or Science Channel, uh, that was called, um, What Made Food That Changed America, something like that. It was wonderful, actually, and it talked about brands that made a difference, and the one that they talked about was Hydrox cookies versus Oreo cookies, right?

Okay.

And how they had to create a cookie that held up to bugs and humidity and, and had a set cream filling and the shipping and all of that stuff. So all of it goes back to brand new technology. The people that created this kind of are they not thought leaders? Because the tech—

I mean, I think that's more innovation, food science, packaging. You know, I think it's more domain expertise than thought leadership. But the trick is, I mean, to me, the litmus test there is what is it about what they did? They had some sort of a breakthrough. I'm not discounting the breakthroughs that they had there, but what about that is, can be transferred to other people? To develop capabilities in themselves, right? So if they had a methodology around innovation, here's how we looked at the cookie problem. We broke it down into this, this, and this, like, oh, I could use that in the jewelry business. I could use that wholesale. So if you have more of a framework that would help me do something I need to do better, then I would say yes. But I'm, you know, to some degree it's an intellectual debate, you know, I love this.

I love this conversation, and we're almost running out of time.

Um, we didn't get to the talent portion yet. Am I supposed to juggle or something, or no?

Go for it.

I don't have any talent other than this.

Yeah, God, I want you— I was hoping you would start dancing on the table or something.

No, no, nobody wants that.

Nobody wants that. Um, I want to go back to culture. Because that's an important piece of a shift of how often we communicate with each other that's creating a new paradigm in culture. Tell me your thoughts about what's going on in leadership and culture shift.

Yeah, that's— well, there's a lot going on there. So I think—

We've got 10 minutes.

Yeah, well, I think that Things that we didn't have to think about before, we have to be deliberate about. So right now, most people are working remotely, right? And right now, what does that mean? Right? That means that you're probably going from Zoom call to Zoom call to Zoom call to Zoom call. So back in the day, let's call it Q1 of 2020, if I was in my office and had 8 meetings in a row, there's different conference rooms. I'm getting there 5 minutes early. You're getting there 5 minutes early. You and I are catching up. Oh, let's talk about the other thing. Thing, or, oh, what are you doing for lunch? The Zoom world hasn't accommodated that yet, right? Like that randomness, what happens after the meeting? Oh, everybody walks away, or those two go walk, come back to my office, I want to show you something, right? So we have to go out of our way to find these opportunities to connect both on a personal level and to have agendaless interactions, because that's where some magic happens, right? And now we're all talking about Well, what does it look like when we go back? Well, I think we all agree nobody's going back, or most are not going back to what was. It's going to be some blended hybrid, different version. You go back on Monday, Wednesday, I go back on Tuesday, Thursday. And I think it's going to increase our awareness of what we do and where we do it, right? So most people were doing the 9 to 5 thing. They got to their desk or their cube or whatever, got in front of their computer, put on their AirPods and continue to ignore everyone around them for 8 hours. Now it's like, okay, if I'm only gonna go to the office 2 days a week or 5 days a month or whatever it is, I want to make sure, geez, okay, the day I'm there is a day CB's there and I need to grab you for half an hour. I'm not exactly sure what, but I know I'm gonna need a half hour of your time on a gen— you know, without an agenda. I know that that's probably not the days that I should be focusing on doing work where I just need to be alone and be left alone. Like, I where— how do I take advantage of the space, the physicality, the collaboration, the creativity, and all that stuff? I think just gonna raise the awareness of the impact on, uh, environment to task to outcome to creativity and collaboration.

So what are leaders thinking today? How are they going to respond to this? Are they still trying to figure it out?

Yeah. Oh no, this is like the biggest A/B test we've ever been through. So, you've got one end of the continuum looking at the economics going, geez, if we can get rid of 40% of our office space, holy cow, how great would that be? And then you have employees going, geez, if I don't have to commute, wow, look at all the money I save. I can get rid of another car. I'm not spending all this money on transportation, dry cleaning. I don't have to buy $18 turkey sandwiches in Midtown. I can work out more. I can get get more done. I mean, I think the dirty secret is out of the bag that most people, most of the time in the workplace, were not as productive as they could be. And that's a general statement. And I think people are finding now, once they've got into a routine and once they have the right hardware and the right, you know, sort of setup at home, I can get a lot more done, you know, in a lot less time. And I think that's great. So I think smart companies are thinking about how do we take the best of what we've learned and make it permanent? You know, and does that mean we have to trust people more? We have to monitor how they work differently? Is it different for people at different stages of their careers? I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of unknowns right now.

I want to talk about your thoughts about— you mentioned hiring people without having the face-to-face and having to use, I guess, Zoom. And I noticed that in Indeed now, and I don't know if it's for every job, they have assessments that you have to take.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's imposed by the potential employer or if that's an Indeed type of activity that's been imposed on job searchers.

Well, I think there's going to be a whole suite of new tools, because what do I want to know if I'm hiring someone I've never met? Like, so what were the things that, that I found out about someone when we met face to face? I already knew where you went to school, your credentials, where you work. It's probably that social piece, you know. And IBM used to be famous, and some of these other large companies, for executives taking executives out for a meal and staging. And so remember the waiter stories at IBM? They would, they would, you know, the execs would take out a potential junior executive candidate and set up the waiter as a bit of a shill to be, you know, and see how they treated the waitstaff or the guy that opened the door or the coat check lady or whatever it was. And they judged that pretty, pretty stringently. If you were a jackass to a waiter, you weren't hired. So what are the, you know, and then you can say, well, maybe that guy was having a bad day. Does it really impact his job? I don't know, but it was, it was something that they did. So the question is now, how do I How do I really get to know you in the Zoom world? And people are coming up with ways to do that and tools to do that. And I don't think— I think if nothing else, COVID taught us that we shouldn't be thinking in binary terms. The only way to hire someone is to look them across the eye. Well, maybe it's better, right? Maybe it's not. Maybe it shouldn't be one-to-one interviews. Maybe it should be 5 interviews with people on my team. And then we all sort of hand in a standardized report of what we all thought about CB. I mean, there was a study that they did on orchestras, and orchestras were underhiring female professional musicians. And they— there's a research study on this. Why were they doing this? Well, a lot of this was old-school orchestra conductors, and they'd see a woman violinist and a man violinist and just assume the man was better. Then they went to the screen. So now what they've done is most of them have moved to It's important if you can play a violin, if I'm going to hire you to be the violinist, right? Like, that's important. So how do I get that without the bias of, oh, you know, Peter's a white guy and CB's a Black woman? I put you behind a screen and it's silhouette, right? And it increased the hiring of women and minorities, which is kind of interesting. And most of those people wouldn't say, I'm biased, I would never, you know, I'm not biased, of course I'm open-minded. Well, You kind of were. And maybe, you know, this is the difference between explicit and implicit bias. So I think there will be new tools and tests to figure out how to, how to de-jerkify someone or get jerk radar early.

Well, one thing's for sure, if they don't have a green screen, you know, and a fake background, you get to see what is it that they're living in. Are they living in chaos or, you know, you—

Well, but stay there for a moment. So, I mean, it's an interesting point because I was talking to a head of HR about that. So HR in most organizations are really good at coming up with, here's no, here's the things that you can't do. So a year and a half ago, if I was to hire you and say, hey CB, who do you live with? How many people live there? Can you walk me around your home? Like, you'd be like, whoa, back it up, Jack. But now as an employer, without getting creepy, if I'm hiring a 25-year-old in New York that's got 3 roommates, is it quiet where he is? Is his background professional? You know, do they have the right bandwidth and Wi-Fi? Right? Do they like— so there's a whole set of questions where, yeah, there's some questions about your—

allowing us to interview them from their bedroom. Yeah. Okay.

Right, right. And I think what happened is in the very beginning of COVID everybody's, ah, I don't know. Now it's like, okay, it didn't take long to figure out, I don't want to see your laundry, and pop a green screen in there. But, but in the beginning, we got it. There's no Nobody gets a pass for that anymore, right? It's been, it's been long enough. But I think these questions of what's home life like, not, you know, what are your sexual preferences, you know, so any of these sort of things, but like, do you have a quiet place to do the job up to the professional standards of this company? Do you have the tools that you need? Do you, do you, what would get in the way? Is there a screaming baby? And like, I've been on calls with people where there's, you know, a cat running back and forth across their desk. And if it's not someone I know, it's, oh, I got little kitty here. Like, okay, that's a little odd. Like, that's just— that's strange. And maybe I'm old school, but it's like, you're not expecting that. But maybe it's a generational thing. There's a— do we need to have a big— Peter, right? But does HR need to have a pet policy and say you shouldn't have pets on screen? No, seriously, you should have pets on screen. So, so I think it opens up a whole new set of standards that we need to create.

Well, you remember the famous story of a news newscaster who was on Zoom and, uh, a woman walks in the background with children and—

oh, the BBC guy, and he like shoved the kid away. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, that was pre-COVID though. But he— the kid went flying 100 miles an hour and the woman I think was a nanny or something. He was like, you know, like ready to throw a shoe at her head or something ridiculous. Now, early COVID, we had those issues. Right? And it was sort of like, okay, hey, we're all in this together, you know? But we've had enough time to figure out how do I do what I need to do professionally and quietly and all that.

Yeah. Peter, we're out of time. This is not fair. Oh, I enjoyed this. I've had to try— my mind had to keep up with how fast you were talking. It was a challenge.

Well, you've been out of New York for a while, while, right? So yeah, I have the altitude, the altitude and the oxygen, right?

You're terrible.

There we go.

I have to get back to New York and get my New York on again.

Yeah.

I was warned when I would— I told people I was moving out here, they said, CB, you're gonna have to drop it down several notches.

And I'm like, take it, slow it down, sweetheart. Right? Let's slow it down.

And what— I'll tell you what drove me crazy. Everyone here, every store you go into, how's your day going? What business is it of yours?

None of your— I mean, the New York answer is none of your effing business. Yeah.

And the other one on Fridays, have any plans for the weekend?

I'm like, none of your goddamn business, right?

Oh my God, it's such a different culture. And you know, you go to the store to buy something like Saucy Susan, and they look at you like, what are you talking about? So the product is completely different. How could they not— how could they not have Poland Springs water? Oh, I tell you, you know, I thought I was sophisticated. Not so much when you move to a different state, and you're not even in a different country, so there's no excuse.

Exactly, exactly.

It's been such a pleasure to get to know you. You know, guys in the audience, guys and gals, I didn't know Peter before this meeting, and so when we went on Prezoom, I said, Peter, I don't remember how we met. What do we— what What are we doing here? And Peter says, I think it was 6 months ago. This world, this new world is so amazing to allow us to meet exciting, interesting people as we were just talking about. And Peter is one of them. I'm so happy for LinkedIn Live and for the new normal, not for COVID because I went through that. But our new normal that shook us up and allowed us to forge relationships that we probably would not have had the opportunity to do. So with that, we're running a little bit over time because Peter was so fascinating. So I'm going to blame him.

Ah, no worries.

We will see you soon. I don't remember the schedule, but check me out on LinkedIn. In, and we will see you soon. And don't forget to come to the conference, which you'll see me before then, and it starts next week. So for that, have a great day. And what's my secret for the day? My secret for the day is think of yourself as a thought leader, but don't say the words because that could get you in trouble. Okay, bye for now, and we won't be on this Thursday or next Thursday, but we'll be coming back shortly. So again, follow me and let's see where we're going. Have—

thank you, month.

Bye everybody!