How to Open a Peer Group Meeting Effectively for Both You and the Members

Hello and welcome to Mastermind Mastery, the podcast for professionals who want to create and run successful peer advisory councils, or as we call them, PACs for short, or they're also known as peer groups or business mastermind groups. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, founder of Elixir Council, where I've been in the industry running groups since 2005 and now help those like you with education, certification, and support wanting to do the same. At one time, I ran 10 groups, nearly 100 members, and sold my groups For a Good Multiple and recently released my second book, Your Seat at the Table: How to Create and Run Your Own Peer Advisory Councils, published by Forbes, and grateful to you that it's an Amazon bestseller. I invite you to join each week where we share strategies and techniques to successfully launch and become a master of running your PACs. You'll hear insights, perspectives, do's and don'ts, learn from my and my guests' mistakes successes, and get the inside track to key takeaways. Each time we have a guest, we'll be having a bit of fun. There'll be an intro song that means something special to the guests regarding their journey in running PAX.

So are you ready?

Let's get going and dive into today's episode. Hello everyone, it's Tina Corner Stolz. We have a special event coming up in November in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's the first ever national open conference for anyone wanting to run and already running peer groups or mastermind groups. Join us for 2 days, VIP reception with the keynote speakers, and a full day of upping your game and running groups with peers like you who are experienced or just want to get more knowledge before starting their journey and creating their first group. This conference is for you if: 1, you're already running groups and you want to be better. Or you want to be the best, you want to learn from other experienced moderators and get inside tips to the latest meeting techniques, or two, if you're thinking about creating and running groups and want all the knowledge on how to do it right and learn from veterans, then this conference is for you. But time's running out. There's only a few VIP tickets available and the conference has limited capacity. So as soon as we hit it, we're going to have to close registration. So join us in downtown St. Pete, November 9th through 11th. It's the best self-development gift you can give yourself. And don't you want to be the best at running groups?

See you in November.

Open it, ran upon a must too many times, too many times. My body makes all decisions for itself. No telling, but my body—

What a great song. So that is an original that you just heard. Yes. So welcome everyone to the show today. And we have the guest Henry Bass, who's CEO of Automation Creations out of Blacksburg, Virginia. And Henry has been leading two CEO peer groups in Blacksburg since 2013, which is when he and I got connected. And he also is CEO of Automation Creations. And that's a little bit, I think, what's behind the song. And the last thing I want to say before Henry tells us about that song is Henry also participated as a member in a peer group for years. So he has experienced both as a member in a group, running a company, and now actually moderating a group. So, Henry, tell us about that song. I love that song.

Oh, thanks, Tina. Thanks so much for, for having me on, on your show. Um, the, the song is, is not an original. I'll, I'll say immediately that it's a derivative. We, uh, we took Dua Lipa's, uh, New Rules, and, and, uh, because I coach a competitive robotics team and AI is such a hot topic. We did a parody on New Rules for Isaac Asimov's 3 rules of robotics, that a robot will not harm humans and that sort of thing. So found some talent to read off our sing, our parody, and we're enjoying putting that together. And stay tuned, we're gonna— our team, the Red Beard Pandas, are going to release a music video to that here later this summer.

Really?

Wow. Okay.

Yeah, that's pretty good. Very timely with AI being such, um, a topic on everybody's minds, right?

Isn't it? Yes. And so these are middle schoolers who are using artificial intelligence to program robots. So yes, that's pretty cool.

That is pretty cool. Well, and that's another side thing that, that you can learn about Henry is all of his, um, work in the robotics field. So we'll save that for another day, but it is amazing, you know, um, how you've been involved with that and all the great success that you've had with your, with your kid teams, you know, and all the competition, right?

Well, thanks, Tina. Yeah, it's a, it's a passion project, and, uh, and I can certainly say that moderating for LX Council is a flexible, uh, enjoyable thing that lets me pursue things like this.

Yeah.

Well, so today's topic is, uh, wrapped around the one word I always call this— what's the one word you need to know to open every meeting and successfully. And so we're going to talk about that because it's going to take up the entire show today because there's so much nuance. It's, it's one of the key nuances of how a moderator can kind of have some insight into what to expect and navigate the rest of the meeting with the members. So that one word is— it's not what you would maybe typically think of out there is it's not good morning, which is two words, good afternoon. It's not hello. But the one word is what, Henry? What is that word?

Mindset.

Mindset. Exactly.

Right.

So mindset is why we're going to talk about this today is how critical it is for the benefit of your members participating in the meeting, but also for you as someone running the meeting. And we have something that we call at LFC Council My Transition. And My Transition came about for many, many reasons that we saw in order to how to incorporate members into the meeting quickly. So the whole point about My Transition is it literally is from the perspective of the member, right? Their transition into meeting, hence the word my. And how do you do that in an effective, efficient way? And so, Henry, with my transition, and mindset is just one piece of the pillar of the whole my transition concept, is when mindset occurs, why do we even open up with mindset? Why do you do that?

Yeah, good question, Tina. I think Uh, first off, it's— it is a harder question. So, um, we ease into the mindset question first. Tell me how you're doing. How's your personal? How's your health? How's your business doing? Okay, now give me your, your one word for mindset. And this is, um, part of the whole process of transition to, to get someone ready to, to think strategically. But, but I do spend, when I'm onboarding a new member, a little bit of time talking about What is mindset? How do we get there? So don't think about it. Just tell me how you're feeling right now. Is it— and we get words like optimistic, cautious, I'm overwhelmed, I'm focused. And we want to hear what— how are you? Are you with us? Are you ready to grow and learn? Are you completely wrapped up in some client problem that you got a phone call just before you got, got here to the meeting and, and you're going to have to leave the meeting. So you're not focused and with us, you're distracted.

So exactly right. And distraction is a big part. I mean, right, no matter when you have your meeting during the day, whether it's first thing in the morning or it could be towards the end of the day, there's still, no matter what, the owners— if you're leading a CEO, right, peer group The owners have already looked at email, right? They've already probably talked to team members, et cetera. They're probably handling issues already. You don't know. And so they already have that chaos mindset happening right before they get in the meeting. So they're in kind of what kind of amount of work can they get done before going in and sitting down for X number of hours, right? And sitting still and trying to be present. And So what we found is typically, right, that if you don't do this, the members were preoccupied, right, for some period of time trying to settle into the cadence of the meeting. So how do you get them to shift, right, their thinking and being present in a very quick, efficient way in order to get the most value, right, out of the time they're spending and being in their strategic meeting for the day? Right? Yep. And so one of the other, you know, key factors of the, of mindset is what do you think happens when you actually ask the question to the member when you're saying to them, what is your mindset?

Yeah, right. So, um, our typical member is not one who's, um, done a lot of homework before the meeting. They've scheduled the meeting, they're at the meeting, they're there and maybe they've thought a little bit about it, but that moment when their pen goes to the whiteboard to write, my mindset is, you know, they've mentally paused a little bit and stepped back to take stock of where are they right now, right? I think that's such an important mental shift to get them where we want to be more strategic.

Right. Because a lot of times nobody asks them that question. Right. And so when they're there, there's, there's someone within our community, Jorge. I remember him saying this once. He said how he described it. It's the opportunity to clean up your mind. And before getting in the meeting, because once they acknowledge where they are now, they've suddenly become focused and present, and they take stock of, do I like where I'm at? Right? Because, you know, if it's a really positive mindset that they're coming from, they might— they're like, oh, I'm in a great place. I love that. If they say something that's not so great, then it gives them recognition of like, hmm, what do I need to do to shift that? Because I don't want to be in that mindset at the end of the meeting. Right?

Exactly.

So that helps them take stock. So what are the other things that it helps them do, you think, by stating mindset that helps them kind of get ready for the meeting? Does anything else come to mind?

I think one of the key things about mindset is when I put down that I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed or something like that, I can see on the board that 6 of my other peers are feeling something like that as well. And I'm not alone in this particular struggle.

Yeah, exactly. And speaking of that, how does it help the other members when they notice others' mindset? We've talked a little bit about the benefit of the member putting a mindset up there, but now let's flip it. It's like, what does it do with the rest of the members in the group when they see each other's mindset? What do you think?

Right, for sure. Yeah. Well, they need to know who— because this is their circle of friends and people that they care about. So they want to know if somebody's going through something and has something tough that they're dealing with or Or that they're just not able to, to be fully present. Hopefully not. But, but more importantly, are they there to be inspired? Are they optimistic? Are they ready to think strategically? And there's a little bit of peer pressure that comes. Okay, all right, we're in a group and we're ready to, to be inspired. And that, that helps.

Yes. Right. So it lets them kind of know where everybody else is. It's usually like a really great way to get a quick update. Right. You understand where everybody is at. So now that, you know, the other thing is, is how does it help all of us that are running meetings by asking that question, that one word, how does it help us moderate now that moment, but also the rest of the meeting? So what is it? And from your perspective, as everybody's going through and they've written their mindset word up, yeah, now what do you do with it?

Well, certainly as the moderator, we're looking at the overall pulse of the room. How are we? But also we're looking for those exceptions. You know, did somebody have a really big life event happen?

Right.

Loss of a loved one. Key, key leader left the group. Left their business, or they got that phone call that we all dread that suddenly makes your business pivot and you're left scrambling to know what to do. So as a screening criteria, that can affect how the rest of the meeting goes. There are some of those mindset events that can cause us to put the agenda aside and focus on helping that member with whatever's in front of them. At the moment. But then there's also plenty of good, good things too, where, where, you know, it's, hey, there's, there's something to celebrate right here. We've, we've just shipped our, our millionth product, or we've, uh, got a work anniversary or something like that, right?

Yeah. So do you remember a time when somebody's mindset wasn't great and you had to shift the meeting?

Yeah, I think there have, there have been a number of those. and they, they tend to be the same type of big life event we would all go through, except it's magnified because they're a CEO. Someone, uh, announces that, um, their, their wife has asked for a divorce. Um, right. Yeah. Um, loss of a business partner has happened before, and I, I think, um, yeah, and at least Once or twice someone walks in and said, I got that call. Somebody wants to buy my business for more than my dream price. So what do I need to think about here?

Right. Yes, I remember. So yesterday, just as soon as yesterday, I was sitting in a meeting. This happened.

Oh my goodness.

So what happened with mindset? It was This individual never ever puts up really anything negative. Everything's always kind of positive except for yesterday. And yesterday, yeah, it was, um, a pretty kind of strong word. And the, you know, it was, um, devastated was the word. And so when it came around, the whole bottom line is, is that they and their business partner, who's a brother, have just experienced multimillion-dollar embezzlement. Yes. And so literally just happened days before and was devastated because usually the stats are it's somebody close to you, you know, in business, and which was the case. And so the point being is that as a moderator, you kind of have to, you can't just carry on the meeting because everybody's just, what, what? And you kind of have to throw the agenda a little bit out of whack of what you would normally do. Right. And which at that point, literally an hour and a half spent, 2 hours just understanding situation and you, right. And, and you, you pivoted. So complete pivot. But when those moments happen, you have to recognize them as a moderator and know it's okay. You have to go with the flow, right?

Not only is it okay, it's exactly what's needed. And I think in those cases where we've had to pivot to work with somebody, no one leaves that meeting saying, boy, that wasn't a good meeting today. I didn't like that. The group bonds better around something like that. And, and how cool is that, that you— not, not that you'd lose that money, but that in the face of an epic crime like that, that person still said, you know what, I need to go be with my CEO group.

And yeah, yeah, right, because really it was and is the only place that they could have that conversation, right, to just voice, you know, really he was And, you know, they were going through what I would call the 7 stages of death because there were so many things that, you know, anger and grief and sadness, you know, all those things were happening for so many reasons. So, but the other thing is, is that, you know, to your point of just being surrounded by people that support, show up love, you know, and compassion and, um, but also has their back and giving them some really good insight. So yeah. And when you have to pivot like that, one of the other things is that you let the members fill the gap, meaning let the members kind of dictate, we do need to stop. We do let silence happen in the meeting to acknowledge whatever that member needs at that moment. Sometimes you can have, like, for example, many years ago when I was running a meeting, there was a very stoic member. He didn't show emotion much at all and wasn't real talkative. Extremely smart, successful man, kind of intense. And he came in one day and he was visibly upset. And so when we came around to talk about mindset, Um, he taught— he didn't even— couldn't even say anything. He broke down.

Oh my goodness.

Emotionally and cried. And so at that moment it was like, okay, I don't know. Does he want to talk? Does he not want to talk? Does he want to talk, but maybe later he wants to talk about it? So as a moderator, not my decision, it's the group's decision, right? And it's his decision. And you go from there. And again, same thing. We focused on what his main issue was, which unfortunately was suicide. So, um, and spent that time because he was then ready to talk about it. But if he's not, sometimes you do have to say that's okay too. And you just move on. And the group is, they're just not ready yet. Right? Yep. So one of the other, um, things as we kind of come to a close here is that examples of words that you hear. Yeah, right. So especially when groups are together for a long time, right, they get creative on what they, what they talk about. Um, so what are some fun words that you've heard?

Wow. Okay, so, um, some of the fun words— I, I do try to collect them, and I, I, uh, At the end of the year, I kind of put it all together in a word cloud to let the group kind of reflect on the year of where they've been. And it's not unusual for optimistic to be one of the great big bold words. And that's cool. You want your CEOs to be optimistic and busy, thoughtful, focused. These kind of things come up, but then overwhelmed. Is there, that sort of thing. And this constraint of having only one word has led to some creative solutions. We have one member who, uh, at one meeting he was pissed about an event that had happened and upset, and at the same time he's very religious and is very appreciative of where he is in life. So he put the word together, pissful. He's pissed and he's grateful. Uh, that was one of his Uh, we had, uh, that's how they get around just having to say one word, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny.

So I— you just mentioned something that you do, which is at the end of the year. So tell everybody what that is.

Yeah, well, um, we, we— as, as we've done this, uh, this dashboard of my transition, um, I'm a data guy, right? So here's all this data. Let's, let's do a roll-up and look at where we are and that sort of thing. And so the numerical indicators, we can kind of plot those by person as well as by group and, and, you know, look at the trends that happened during COVID or the business cycles. We can look and see that Elliot is, is, his norm is a 5 out of 10. And so you're never going to see him much over a 5, whereas the rest of the group norm might be at an 8 or 9 out of 10. Um, just cause we, we depends how, how much of a scientist you are. If you're gonna say I'm, my needle's right in the middle always. Yeah.

Yes.

Um, but, but in the word cloud too, to, to kind of think about where they've been that year and, and then look back and say, oh yeah, look at those low points. I remember what was happening there and we did good. And look at those high points. Those were great. That's, that's always the, um, the lot of the CEO is that, that we're focused on the next problem and we don't remember those great events that have happened, uh, over the year.

So it's a good reflection.

Absolutely.

Exercise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take stock and then think about planning for the next year, right?

And one of the things you do, one of the very last things I want to talk about as we wrap up here in the next minute, is you have them come into the meeting and write it up on the board versus prior to the meeting starting, right?

Right.

Instead of the meeting starts and you just have them go around the room and verbally say what their word is.

Yeah.

Right? So what do you think is the value of them writing it up on the whiteboard?

I think there's a real tangible feeling, to going up and publicly writing down a statement that says, I feel this way, right? And, and then, um, as we go around the room to get each person's update, that's also a prompt to help them put their notes and thoughts together so that what we do is we get better and shorter updates so that we can move on to the real meat of the of the topic in the event, right?

It's very intentional.

I think it causes them to be more intentional and thoughtful about—

thoughtful is a great word. I like that. Yeah.

Yeah. So what really is going on? It makes them really do introspective, right? This really is my word, right? And be more vulnerable and honest, ideally.

Vulnerable, honest. And as the group has grown over the years, that just becomes a habit. When they get their coffee, they go up to the board and write how their feelings are, and they police each other. So it's a great tool and just a part of catching up with each other. How's it going? I'm going well. Let me put my notes on the board, that sort of thing.

Well, as we have talked about how to open the meeting with mindset, which is part of the whole transitioning the member into the meeting, It really helps identify and put an exclamation point on. It's the official point that the meeting is starting, right? It's the official entrance. Now the meeting is starting. So it gives everybody that, what I call, signal. It's like, time. And this is the— what I also think of it is it's kind of the warm-up exercise. We always talk about CEOs are the athletes, the professional athlete of their business, right? And so every professional athlete warms up prior to competing. And so asking their mindset is kind of the warmup. It gets them warmed up, gets them ready to go into that strategic mindset and this meeting that's so important to the health of them as the leader of the business. So, Henry, thank you. It's been great discussion on this one word to open every meeting up and the importance of it. And just appreciate your time and you're doing great work there in Blacksburg. There's some really phenomenal businesses in Blacksburg. And if nobody's ever been to Blacksburg, they need to go visit.

Exactly.

Beautiful country on top of it all. So, all right. Well, thank you so much for joining.

Been my pleasure.

Right.

We'll talk to everyone soon.

Thanks.

Hey, moderators of groups, thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. To get access to today's show notes and exclusive content and resources, visit TinaCornerStolz.com/podcast or LXcouncil.com, where you can also become part of an exclusive online community, attend our academy, or get free resources courses, templates, checklists, and more. And you can even contact me there as well. So if this episode resonated with you and you know someone who can also benefit from listening, please share with them by taking a screenshot and even posting on your social media. I also love reviews and appreciate hearing from each of you, those actually doing this wonderful work. Please tune in next week for another episode of mastermind mastery. And I'll close by sharing something my mentor did after every learning moment. He shared a shiny pebble from his pocket with anyone he passed knowledge to and asked them to forward that pebble knowledge on. So now I encourage you to go pass on a pebble, the takeaways you learned today, to either your existing groups or fellow peers. Now, go make it a great one.