The Power of Change Management in Mastermind Groups with Tim Rhode

Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. This is the podcast for you if you are wanting to create or already running peer groups. It's what we call PACs, Peer Advisory Councils. They might be known as mastermind groups, CEO peer groups, all the same. But this is the podcast if you want to run better PACs, that you want to be better at being a moderator, you want to up your game, learn advanced techniques, hear from myself as well as guests, what works, new concepts, trends, techniques. Also learn content, things you could take back to your meetings, different ways to do different things to solve problems that we all have when we're running groups. It will increase your retention, reduce your attrition, get you more members, make you more money. This is the podcast for you. I'm Tina Corner Stolz. The host. I've been doing this since 2005. I built a territory of 10+ groups, sold for a multiple, started Ellis Council, Leader Exchange Council, in 2012. We are a licensing model. We are the leading educator in the peer advisory council space. We have the podcast. I have a licensing program with certification. I've written 2 books. So today, when you hear this episode, each and every week it's a new podcast where we dive deep into a topic for 15, 20 minutes. One week it's me doing a deep dive on all the experience and insights from not only today with our entire licensed partner community or the past, what I've learned along the way, but we also have guests that are out there doing groups today that share their insights and new concepts. So let's get started with today's episode. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, and we have a guest today. And this is a guest that is part of the Elix Council community and like to welcome Tim Rode to the show today. Hi, Tim.

Hi, Tina. Thanks for having me.

Of course. So Tim has a great background in the fitness, and I'll let him explain that, in the whole fitness industry and is currently running groups. And he is in Baltimore, Maryland. So everybody knows where he is. But Tim, how about sharing a little bit before we get into our topic today, which for those of you listening is a very important topic, particularly when you are already running groups. So this is about helping your members make change impactfully. And if your members are being involved, obviously in your group, they are making progress. And progress a lot of times requires change. And how do they do that? We've seen so many times members who can't make change happen in a positive way, if at all, and how that will hinder their growth and their progress. So, Tim, we are so happy to have you today to talk about this in a little bit of detail to help everyone that is running groups. And if you're not running groups yet, it will help you in regards to your own business as well. And so how about telling the audience a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today?

Sure. Well, I can tell you that it wasn't a straight line, but, I'm not sure that it is for anybody, right? So, correct. I spent, close to 4 decades in the health and wellness industry, helping people become healthier, helping people change, right? To get from where they are to where they want to be. And while I didn't always realize it at the time, and we had a very specific mission, there were a lot of lessons learned during that process. I started out running businesses for under other people, typically in, in what I would say challenging circumstances where they would bring in management, or I launched a consulting firm about 35 years ago to help people succeed in that industry. And then after close to a decade of that, I met my wife and we decided to open our own operation and design as many of the, the, like, industry flaws out of it as possible. And for more than 20 years, we ran the Maryland Athletic Club and Wellness Center in Baltimore, which became one of the one of the leading industry leaders, not just in our region, but, but globally. Right? We had, we broke some records for the industry in helping people get healthy and fit. And we exited that business in 2015. We grew it from 1 to 3 locations. We were doing just under $15 million a year. We had more than 10,000 memberships, which was close to 15,000 people. We'd see 500,000 visits a year. We had a whole process for making sure people actually made progress and actually achieved their goals. And so we were a big student of that. I believe my own personal belief is what drove that business is that if you come to us to get healthy and fit, that you actually should get healthy and fit, right? Not just leave your dues and then maybe it works or not. So we spent a lot of time working on that and helping people to become successful. After exiting the business in 2015, I went back to consulting and have been advising and leading coaches and other business leaders ever since then, first in the fitness industry and now in probably two dozen different industries.

Yes. And so now today you're running a CEO group in Baltimore. Talk a little bit about just the type of group that is. Sure.

Well, this group has a majority of its members come from family-owned businesses in manufacturing and distribution. And it's a group that I, I took over. They had actually been self-led and then found LX Council and worked with a moderator for several years. And then when, when he exited, that's when I got the call and you and I met and we took that over. I should add that prior to that, for the 2 decades I was— we owned our own business in the health and fitness industry. We were in a peer advisory group ourselves. And so I had decades of experience being on the member side. You know, I led a few meetings, but mostly on the member side and the experience of what it took to keep you engaged and help your business improve. And my own personal experience with it was that there's an absolute correlation between my membership in that group and the success of our— and the progress of our business. So I was a believer. So when I got the call for the opportunity to work with the group here in Baltimore, I jumped at it.

Yeah, well, we are glad that you did. Yeah, absolutely. And I can relate to your story about your MAC with Maryland Athletic Center that you had your business. I was a member at one time when I was back there. So explain why you're in such great shape. There you go.

That's it.

That's it. Good habits started way back then. So you have now written a book. And tell us a little bit about that. And we're going to transition into then how important this is for when you are a moderator running groups, how you can help your members, right, change. And if you're not watching this but you're listening, unfortunately, you won't be able to see behind Tim is his kind of picture there. It says, all progress requires change. So, which is, which is very profound from that statement of what is required for change. So tell us a little bit about what prompted the book and why you're so passionate about it.

Yeah, great question. So there, if I showed you my list of book ideas right now, we'd be on here for hours. There's over 40 ideas that I have for books that have dawned on me over the last decade and a half or so. And I finally started keeping track of them. And when I, it came time to actually write the book, which was sort of pre-COVID, I started, I got the inspiration, it was time to write. I went back and I combed through all those and I distilled it down to like my top 10, my top 5, my top 3. And the one that kept coming back to me that was maybe not the shiniest object in the bunch, but it was the one that, that seemed like it would make the biggest difference in, in people's lives and business leaders' lives was this revelation or this awareness that all progress requires change. When I look back at my decades in business, I didn't always know it at the time. A young manager just trying to fix stuff and make it work and make things better. And, you know, you get so wrapped up in it that you don't realize that what you're really doing is you're leading change. Yeah, we started to research it, and what I found that Forbes, McKinsey, and Harvard Business Review all report that more than 70% of change efforts in business struggle or fail. Yeah, I mean, that, that's awful. I mean, maybe in Major League Baseball that'll get you to the Hall of Fame, but not in business, right? And it explains why I had struggles and other people had struggles, and I'd started to figure this out in my career and actually had a solution. I mean, our business was helping people change, and we applied that not just to their health and wellness, but we also applied it to our own business with great success. I thought, what if there was a simple way to lead successful change, to put this fire out, to solve this issue, right? The revelation is that all progress requires change. I don't care if you want to lose weight, you want to live longer, you want to You make more profit, you want to launch your business more successfully, you— something has to change, right? You've got a team that's underperforming. What's got to change and how do you do that? So just knowing that you're dissatisfied with something doesn't mean that you've got the chops to fix it. You just, you can be dissatisfied with it. You can take run after run at it and it can still exist. I don't know about you, but if anybody that's listening has ever had a problem that outlasted your solution, The problem was how you approach the change, right? So that's what spawned this inspiration to write the book. And I actually took two cuts at it. So when I started writing the book, I, I, you know, we've all read dozens and dozens of business books, right? So I started writing a business book and about a third of the way into it, it dawned on me that there was a better approach. And so I backed up and I turned it into a parable and I wrote the book as a story about a an exasperated business leader who's frustrated with his company, his department, his team's underperformance. And it really, the book really merges about 3 dozen real-life situations that I've experienced and some of my clients have experienced, and it merges it all into this tale. So that's the backstory on the book. It's called Changing Lanes for Business, and the metaphor is that leading successful change doesn't have to be hard. It's something you already know how to do. And so the analogy just carries on from driving to how you can lead change successfully in your life.

OK, great. A couple of questions then around that. One is, can you give maybe— I know the book is a parable like you just talked about, but maybe a short story about how you've seen this impact a business? And particularly if someone is in a peer group, right? And so we're going to get into a little bit about what, as a moderator, you can do to help the members do change. But first, maybe give the audience a little bit of a quick story about how this has impacted somebody that you know that did change successfully.

Sure. One of the, one of the stories that's sort of wrapped up in this is actually from somebody who went through one of my coaching programs, was running a brick-and-mortar business that focused on retail sales and training. And they were just in the process of finishing the program when legislation changed and it was going to influence significantly the volume of business that their that they were— that was available to them. Right. And there was no way they were going to be able to handle it. No way. So they took the 4 steps from Changing Lanes, assembled their team, and in a matter of hours got everybody on board with the new approach they were going to take, which involved bringing in outside contractors and jeopardizing their culture, helping put them in position to capitalize on this new wave of business that was coming at them. And the next day they opened in retail and did $100,000 in found business in one day, actually in 5 hours, and went on to do $1 million in additional business over the course of the next 7 to 9 months. That was all found money that they would've never done if they had stayed in their old lane. So they used the approach to be nimble and check the boxes and do the things that they needed to do to change lanes. Successfully rather than missing the opportunity or worse, you know, changing haphazardly and getting into a wreck or somehow following things up.

Absolutely. Great. Good story. And so now you've been involved in groups in the past as a member and now you're running one. So how about sharing a little bit about why is this important for the moderators to understand? This whole concept? Because some might be listening going, you know what, that's the responsibility of my members. They need to figure this out. My job is not that. So what thoughts do you have about that?

Yeah, that's a great question because I, I, A, I use it all the time, and B, I think it could be one of the most valuable tools a moderator has, right? So if you take a look at what, why are Why are we doing this? Why are we moderating this group? And why are these, why are these members in these groups? Well, they, they sign up to these groups to accelerate their progress, right? They want to do better than they were doing before. They want to do better than their competition. All progress requires change. Yes. So why not be good at it? And why not have a simple way to do it well? So one of the things that a moderator can do, whether it's covertly or overtly, is help each of their members get good at change, at leading change. First, realize that, you know, it's, it's, it's not just, it's not just doing business. It's not just going to meetings and implementing your strategic plan. You're actually leading change. So when you're, you're not— so when there's a difference between driving and changing lanes when you're driving. When you're changing lanes, you need to be aware that that's what's going on, and there's 4 or 5 things you got to do to make it safe. And here's, here's the thing. You only change lanes to do better, right? So that's the link to the analogy. So the moderator can help their members to lead successful change, but the moderators themselves have to get those business leaders to change. You have to get them from, you know, in some cases they think they know it all, in some cases they think they can't do it, they're insecure. So What can a moderator do? What questions can a moderator ask to, I guess, get the attention of their leaders? And it's like you say, it's the $100,000 questions. The whole book, the whole premise of the book, actually the delivery system of the book is all about asking questions. What questions do you need to ask yourself? What questions do you need to ask your team in order to get the answers that will lead to successful change? The doing is the easy part. It's knowing the questions to ask at the right time and coming up with the right answers that gets the job done. So helpful for moderators, because you not only can, can share this with your— the people in your group, but you can use it with them to get them to change from being— you know, we've all got flat spots in our wheel, right? So how can you turn all of your members into successful change agents?

Right. You talked about questions and so forth. So I'm putting you on the spot a little bit. And that is, what questions come to mind that are great questions to ask either yourself, right, if you're wanting to make change? But I'm also really thinking about the moderators running the groups. What questions could they kind of pose? Like, 1 or 2 questions that would help the members understand, oh, I need to really think this through about making this change successful now that we're going to go down this path. So are there any questions that come to mind?

Oh, there's a bunch of them. So how long is this podcast?

2 hours? I know. That's OK. You go for it. I'll just tell you, hey.

So there are questions for the business leader. And some of those we would already use. Like, it starts with this. Like, where are you now? What is it that you're dealing with? What's the problem? What are the symptoms, right? And then what's the real cause? A lot of times we're putting out smoke. We either fail to make a decision because we don't see something or we make an erroneous decision because we don't look at it. See, you know, the analogy I use in the book is that there isn't a navigation app in the world that can get you where you want to go without knowing your starting point. The next question is, what's your goal? And are there any objectives with it? Okay, so those are all, like you don't get this far in business without having asked and answered those questions, but they're, they're sort of self-effacing. So when you look at them, you've got to fill them out and answer the questions. Chances are they reveal a few things, right? There's a question about what do you think is the first solution, which is rarely the right one, but get— let's get it down. The questions really get meaty when you get into step 2 and step 3, which is where you look for options and risks. And that's where we tend to run afoul as business leaders. We don't We go in half aware or unaware, and then we run into resistance or we get stalled. We struggle. Like I said, you start becoming part of that 70%, and it's because of something we didn't see, typically because of a question that we didn't ask. Some of my favorite questions are in a section I call Resistance Busters, right? So there's like, change comes with resistance. Let me just be honest, right? It's out there. And the one of the ways to overcome resistance is to ask yourself questions that I call resistance busters. Like, if we don't make this change, if we don't succeed with this change, where will we be in 6 months? Where will we be in a year? Where will my business be in 5 years? And you can use that not only to drive yourself and say, holy cow, I better, we better get this right, right? But you can use it to get other people on board to overcome their resistance or My preference is to avoid resistance to change. One of the, one of the things that I've created that accompanies this book and the coaching stuff is that is a piece called Five Solutions to Overcome Resistance to Change, and it'll be available on the link that you have for people at the end of this. It's something you can just take a look at it. But, but when you go through that, there are questions that you can ask yourself, and there's questions you can ask your team members to reduce or even eliminate or avoid resistance to change. And these resistance busters are, are some of them. And there, there's some pretty heavy questions in there when you ask them. Like, could you, um, you know, will you, will you still reach your goal but way behind schedule or way over budget, right? Or, um, could you be, could you be at risk of losing your job if you don't do this, right? Even CEOs get replaced, right? So the resistance busters is an important section.

Sure.

One piece that's prominent in the book, and I make this point over and over again, is that people support what they help to create. Is it— the book itself is really about human nature. It's about what, what it takes to change, to morph yourself, your business successfully, and help to get others on board. People support what they help to create. So when you get your team involved with the change, Doesn't mean that they get to decide that we're changing, but you can get them to contribute to how we should succeed with this. So one of those questions— I make a big deal out of this— is that it's not that they get a say in the question. It's how you ask the question. Like, so I would say, so Tina, we got to make this change. Who do you think we need to involve to make sure this works, right? And, and then most importantly, what, what can you do to help it succeed? So I'm not asking you whether we should do it. I'm, I'm assuming you're going to be on board, and then the only ideas you give me are those that are going to contribute to its success, right? Those are, those are some of the questions at the very— when it's time to actually make the change, what's key is to plan the start so that you get off to a good start, and then plan to finish. How many people that you know have something they want to change and improve and actually have a plan to start and a plan to finish? So often one of the reasons that these, that 70% of the changes struggle or fail is that we don't finish. We get going, but then we don't take the time to actually finish the change and make sure that it becomes part of our culture and we never have to go back on this again. So that's, that's a big part of succeeding with it.

Sure. And what you're also speaking about as a moderator running a group, part of how you can help make sure there's change is the accountability part of asking what the progress has been between meetings, you know, and over the course of the next meeting, etc., giving updates, but also just asking sometimes these questions when you know your member might have difficulty or you're not sure they've bought in completely. So some of your questions like, are you committed to making the change? What do you need to do to make the change, you know, successful? And, and having an explicit conversation around it, I guess, right?

If you were going to do an abbreviated version of this, because our meetings, you know, don't give us a ton of time with the people, like quick questions you could ask are, okay, so it sounds like you've got this commitment, you're going to make this change. What are the first 3 things you're going to do to launch that change? And you'd get them to go on record, or maybe get everybody in the group to contribute to it, right? And then you could ask them before they leave, so, okay, now that you got that, you're off to a good start. What, what 3 things is it going to take to finish this change, and when's it going to be done? And it really gets them to realize that there's a beginning and an end to this change, right? There's when we decide to leave this lane, and then there's when we're finished in the other lane. So what has to get done now? And at its essence, it's 4 simple steps to lead successful change.

Yep, great. Well, we are— time flies. We're already here towards the end, and I, um, know you have a lot of resources, and we're going to get into that because everyone that's listening, all of this will be in the show notes. Um, but Tim has provided a lot of great resources that can help you get started with this with your groups. And, um, as we close out every time, though, Tim, what piece of advice would you give our listeners today? It could be anything wrapped around this with moderating or just anything in general with your experience in being part of the whole peer group space.

Well, again, I wish we had more time, but fundamentally, it's to realize that all progress requires change. So if that's the case and you want a new lease on progress, find a simple way to lead successful change, whatever it is, whether it's the one I'm professing or one that you've got. But find a way to lead successful change. Realize that people support what they help to create. So get your team involved with that process. And I think my own personal observation is that leading successful change is the most the most valuable skill in business today. And so if you're going to be good at one thing as a moderator or one thing as a business leader, it should be leading successful change. That will allow you to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Yes. And one thing we did not cover today is— and maybe this can be another episode— which is, as moderators, there are things sometimes you need to change with your group. And so you yourself as a moderator have to implement change for the betterment of the group's progress. And so this can help you do that as well, instead of not making the required, the necessary changes, lack of a better word, that you need to make for the group to be at its highest level. So you have lots of resources.

Yep. Download the worksheet. And if they're coming to the If you're coming to the, to the seminar in Sarasota, right, or in— I'm sorry, St. Petersburg— there's going to be a workshop there where we can walk through those 4 steps and figure out how to lead the change with your group.

So you've got your book, um, which you can get where?

Well, uh, there's a link at changinglanesapproach.com/resources. And you can— there's a link to the book, there's a link to the 5 solutions, and a link to the worksheet that you can walk through. So to answer your question, if you wanted to make changes with your group, you could answer the— ask and answer those questions and create your own roadmap to success.

Great. And again, all of that and the link will be in the show notes. Um, how to get a hold of Tim will also be there. But Tim, how about sharing your email if somebody wants to reach out to you?

Sure. My email is tim@rmcmail.net.

Excellent.

rmcmail.net, right?

Yes. All right.

All right.

So with that, some of the big key takeaways hopefully you're getting is the importance that change— there is a process to do this. And all progress requires change. You've heard Tim say that a zillion times. And of course, his kind of tagline why not be good or even great at it, right? With a lot of resources to make it happen. So, Tim, thanks for joining. Appreciate it and sharing your good work in the book. And to everyone else out there, thanks for joining on this episode of Mastermind Mastery. And until next time, go make it happen. Thank you, everyone, for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. And to get access to today's episodes, not only the show notes, but any tools and resources encourage you to— not only will you find them in the episode show notes, but also you can go to the website www.lxcouncil.com. So, LXCouncil.com, and you will find a plethora of articles and content and tools and resources and worksheets and things like that that can be helpful to you in creating and running successful PACs. I want to leave you with one thing that we end and teach to do in every single meeting, and that is the very last thing is to ask, what is your takeaway from today's episode? I encourage you to give that thought. Take advantage of the time you just invested in listening to the episode, and what can you do to move one step closer to the vision that you have and the goals that you're trying to achieve with your groups. So again, take a step back. What's your key takeaways? What can you actually act on? And I leave this with one note, and those of you that have read my book, Your Seat at the Table, you know that I ended the book with a story about my mentor. He always, when he met people, had a pebble in his pocket that he passed to them when there was knowledge shared. And so I ask you today to think about that pebble concept and to pass what you learned today on to someone else, which could be your members, or take it internally to yourself and act on it. So now go do something with those takeaways.