March 2017

Bri Seeley and Thaís Sky: Talk About Un-Networking!

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Our guests today are Bri Seeley and Thaís Sky, founders of The Amplify Collective, based in Los Angeles. As life coaches, writers, speakers, and entrepreneurs, they founded the company because even after Bri had lived in LA for 4 years and after Thaís had been there for a year, they were struggling to make authentic connections in the city while working to get their businesses off the ground. Desperate for the connection of an authentic, tight-knit community of women, Bri and Thaís created a sisterhood for themselves and countless others -—not to trade business cards and false platitudes, but to communicate, collaborate, and support one another on a deeper level.

Next week’s guest: Renowned leadership coach and best-selling author, Lolly Daskal.

Stuck in the shallow end of the pool?

If you’re trying to get your entire body wet, staying in the shallow end of the pool isn’t going to get the job done, no matter how long you stand there. Nor will showing up to participate in your CEO or executive peer advisory group without being completely open and willing to be vulnerable about issues pertaining to your life and your business. If you go into it halfway, you’ll never realize the full benefits that come with being a group member.

Since late last year, I’ve been conducting workshops with peer advisory groups across the country, working with CEOs, small business owners, and other senior leaders. During these workshops, I essentially facilitate a group self-evaluation using the five factors from The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth & Success. From there, we develop an action plan for driving even higher group performance. (I also encourage the group members to facilitate a very similar exercise with the teams back at their companies).

The five factors or conditions we found to be common to high performing groups and teams include: 1) selecting the right people, 2) having an environment of mutual respect and trust (one that makes personal vulnerability possible), 3) fostering valuable group/team interaction, 4) inspiring a belief in the power of peer-to-peer accountability, and 5) having servant leadership that cultivates the other four factors.

When it comes to peer advisory groups, members typically score “the group” high when it comes to creating and sustaining an environment of mutual respect and trust. They understand that without it, nothing else in possible. What some members admit, however, in a moment of self-reflection, is that just because the water is warm and inviting, doesn’t mean they aren’t more comfortable in the shallow end of the pool.

For those members, I would say three things:

1) Cut yourself a break. At least you’re in the pool. At least you’re part of a peer advisory group and on the path toward going deeper.

2) Growing as a leader and as a person involves stepping outside your comfort zone once in awhile.

3) Take it one step at a time. Challenge yourself to reveal a little bit more of who you are during each and every meeting. Follow the lead of those who are more comfortable talking about sensitive issues and see the value they receive from having deep exchanges versus surface ones. Notice how much easier it is to identify the root cause of a challenge when someone is being completely open in describing it.

Stand alone in the shallow end and you’re far more likely to drown there than if you go to the deep end. Why? Because your members are in the deep end waiting for you, and they would never let that happen.

Leon Shapiro on The 1 Year Anniversary of The Power of Peers

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Leon Shapiro is the coauthor of The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth & Success and a director at The Advisory Board Company, a global research, technology and consulting firm that partners with more than 200,000 leaders in 4,100 organizations across health care and higher education. He also is the former CEO of Vistage Worldwide, an organization that assembles and facilitates peer advisory groups for CEOs and business leaders in the U.S and around the world.

Next week’s guests: Bri Seeley and Thais Sky, co-founders of The Amplify Collective.

Peer-to-Peer Snow Removal

Talking about the value of our peers in business and in life can be entertaining as well as informative. Enjoy this short video and then tell me that who you surround yourself with doesn’t matter! 😉

A Simple Idea, but Not a Small One

Later this week, I look forward to having my coauthor Leon Shapiro join me as my guest on the Year of the Peer Podcast with Leo Bottary, as we mark the one-year anniversary of the launch of The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth & Success. When I think back to how much we were anticipating the release of the book, it’s hard to believe how quickly the time has passed.

Leon will share much of what he’s experienced over the past 12 months during our upcoming conversation. For me, it’s been the learning experience of a lifetime. I’ve enjoyed the privilege of speaking to business leaders, scholars, and students, both here in the U.S. and abroad, sharing key concepts from the book and being fascinated by countless stories that people, from all walks of life, have shared with me about the power of peer in their lives. No matter where we live, none of us achieves anything entirely on our own.

In the end, we wrote the book because when you look at the positive difference peers and peer groups have made in the lives of CEOs and business leaders all across the world and then realize how few of them avail themselves of this powerful resource, it’s hard to square.

How could something that is so simple and works so well, be so underutilized? In a world where, all too often, we don’t give peer influence a second thought, what if we did? What if we could transform peer influence into peer advantage by simply being more selective, strategic and structured about how we engage those around us? The good news is we don’t have to guess. We know what happens, and I believe if more people reached out to one another more positively and purposefully more often, the world would be a better place.

That’s what makes every minute I spend writing a blog post, preparing for a podcast interview, or speaking to a live audience so worthwhile. Who we surround ourselves with matters. With a little effort, we can make it matter even more.

It’s not unlike the premise of Drew Dudley’s famous TED Talk, where he described leadership, not as an ominous concept, but as making a difference in the lives of those around us, one person at a time. He closed by saying, “It’s a simple idea, but I don’t think it’s a small one.”

He’s right.

Linda Darling-Hammond: Learning How to Learn Together

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Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Emeritus Professor of Education at Stanford University. Last year, she became the founding president for the Learning Policy Institute, which conducts and communicates independent, high quality research to improve education policy and practice.

In 2008, she served as director of President Obama’s education policy transition team. Among Darling-Hammond’s more than 500 publications are The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (winner of the coveted 2012 Grawemeyer Award in Education). Her most recent books include Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: What Really Matters for Effectiveness and Improvement (2013) and Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning (2014).

Next week’s guest: Leon Shapiro, coauthor of The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth & Success.

Are You Inspiring Leaders or Creating Ringleaders?

One could argue that the most recent findings of the Edelman Trust Barometer suggest that our peers have never mattered more than they do today. The growing influence of our peers has been evident since Edelman reported that trust shifted from authorities to peers in 2005 and, a year later, revealed that “a person like me emerged as a credible spokesperson.” According to the 2017 installment, we trust our peers as credible spokespersons as much as we trust academic and technical experts. Consider also that employees now trust one another more than they trust their CEO or other senior executives. This is powerful information for business leaders – especially those who understand how much culture matters to leading a healthy organization. Harnessing the power of peers properly can mean the difference between inspiring employees who want to be leaders and those who seek relevance by being ringleaders. Let me explain.

Several years ago, Paola Schifino, principal at Florida-based advertising and branding agency Schifino Lee, told me a story about her daughter’s soccer team I’ll never forget. Turns out, there was a girl who wasn’t very happy with the way the coach was leading the team. This girl shared her feelings with her teammates in an effort to build support for her point of view, which then triggered a groundswell of negativity. Upon learning what was happening, Paola gently offered the girl a piece of advice. She said, “Be a leader not a ringleader!”

I’m not sure I can recall hearing a sentence that was so short, yet communicated so much. We’ve all come across ringleaders in organizations where we’ve worked, right? Peers wield enormous power when it comes to influencing their fellow employees. It’s power that can be a force for good (leader) or one that can breed negativity (ringleader).

What do you do to recognize and leverage the power of peers in your organization? How do you approach inspiring leaders as opposed to perpetuating a culture that breeds ringleaders?

Laura Goodrich: Work With Others and Get More Of What You Focus On

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Laura Goodrich is an internationally recognized expert in workplace dynamics and relationships. Her global perspective on business and change has earned her the reputation as a “team fixer” and as someone who can create positive outcomes in any workplace situation. Laura is also a popular keynote speaker and the award-winning author and producer of the book and film Seeing Red Cars: Driving Yourself, Your Team and Your Organization to a Positive Future.

Next week’s guest: Linda Darling-Hammond, Emeritus Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Education and Faculty Director, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Is good the enemy of great? Or is perfection the enemy of good?

A number of years ago, I saw Cirque du Soleil perform Ka` at the MGM Grand. I didn’t know a great deal about the show until reading about it after the performance. The LA Times review confirmed my belief that it “may be the most lavish production in the history of western theater.” I thought, “Yup. That’s sounds about right to me!” I’ll never forget it. I reflected on how this amazing ensemble comes to work and performs this show twice a day, five days a week – knowing full well that for 95+% percent of the people in the audience, it will be the only Ka` experience they will ever have. They have to “bring it” to each and every performance! No show ever gets “phoned in.” Together, performers and crew members alike are committed to WOWing every audience that walks through the doors of the $220 million theater specially created for this show.

In my post, Peer Group Accountability: Who’s Responsible?, I essentially mentioned that it starts with each of us holding ourselves to high standards and modeling that behavior to inspire and motivate others. In researching and writing about peer advisory groups, I’ve talked to countless members and group leaders who extol the virtues of their culture of group accountability – saying by comparison, that individuals, left to their own devices, primarily dare to be average. I’m sure you’re bristling at the mere suggestion, but ask yourself if you’re doing everything you can do to be at the top of your game each and every day. Do you go to work with the same commitment to excellence as the team at Cirque du Soleil? If you do, you’re a rare bird.

Contrast Jim Collins’ explanation of “good being the enemy of great” (where good is too often good enough), with the concept of perfectionism and the familiar quote from Voltaire, translated literally as “The best is the enemy of good” or more commonly expressed as ‘”The perfect is the enemy of the good.” The quote references the paralyzing effect of the pursuit of perfection. It’s where the hope to implement the perfect solution can result in no solution at all. So is good the enemy of great? Or is the pursuit of perfection the enemy of good? Seems to me, they are two sides of the same coin. Neither is an excuse for mediocrity.

Understanding these dynamics is just one of many ways being part of the right peer group or high performing team will help you discern the difference and inspire you to achieve more than what you could ever do alone. What’s more, it will help you bring a little Ka`into your own life.

Peer Group Accountability: Who’s Responsible?

In workshops I’ve been conducting with CEO and executive peer groups across the country recently, group members are challenged to assess their overall performance (and develop an action plan for improvement) using the five factors common to high performing peer groups as described in The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth & Success. The five factors are 1) having the right people in the room, 2) promoting a safe and confidential environment, 3) fostering valuable interaction, 4) practicing group accountability, and 5) having excellent servant leadership. You’ll find brief descriptions of each of the five factors here.

The richest conversations in these workshops tend to focus on how to create and sustain a disciplined culture of group accountability – what many group leaders regard to be among the most important, if not THE most important, of the five factors. This essentially means that group members hold one another accountable for doing what they say they will do (DWTSTWD) to achieve their goals. It’s not about accountability to the leader, it’s about accountability to one another.

Yet, to address weaknesses in this area, which are quite common, the tendency of some members is to offer recommendations and action items for the leader. Of course, this is antithetical to what group accountability really means, right?. While the leader can set the tone and serve as a backstop when necessary, the leader should not play the role of implementer and enforcer. If the group wants to practice what it preaches, it can’t cede its responsibility to the leader. It’s up to the individual members and the group as a whole. Unless they take the lead, it will never take hold, nor be very effective.

Let me illustrate the point. If I, as an individual member, bring up an issue or opportunity for discussion with my group and take 45-minutes of their time, benefiting from their experiences and guidance, and declare the action(s) I’m prepared to take based on the conversation, isn’t it my responsibility to offer a status update at the next meeting? Shouldn’t I be the accountability driver? Isn’t that the least I can do for the gift I received from my fellow members? Group accountability has to start with me.

Now, let’s say the next meeting comes along, and I don’t volunteer a status update. It could be because I didn’t do what I said I would do at the last meeting and maybe I’m a bit embarrassed by that. I might not say anything in the hope I can slide and no one will notice. Not a good strategy because it only negatively impacts me and, worse yet, eats away at the culture of the group. The right thing to do is for me to own up to it and say I’ll do better next month. (It’s not the end of the world and at least I’m being honest with my group). Or, it simply slips my mind to report on my action items from the last meeting. In that instance, the next line of defense rests with the group. After all, the other members, all of whom are committed to group accountability, should be interested enough in my progress, given the valuable time they spent helping me at the last meeting, to say, “Hey, Leo. Tell us how your new initiative is coming along?”

If neither I, nor the group, offer an update or fail to ask about it, it would then be up to the leader to ask me why I didn’t initiate the conversation and then to challenge the group by asking, “How is it that not one of you thought to ask? You can’t have a culture of group accountability unless everyone in the group is committed to it.” This is what I mean by the leader serving as the backstop.

For group accountability to become ingrained in the group culture, the individual members and the group as a whole have to accept it as their responsibility. If this is not the dynamic in your peer group today, give it a try and, over time, watch peer group accountability improve and see how everyone starts to achieve even better results.