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The Beyond High Performance Podcast is brought to you by the coaches and friends of the executive coaching firm, Novus Global, and the Meta Performance Institute for Coaching. Join us for intentional, vulnerable, thought provoking conversations that illustrate the life-shifting power of coaching. In order to adequately share the breadth and depth of the firm’s insights, this podcast consists of three unique shows. The Meta Performance Show, will bring you unflinching interviews with top industry leaders on their paths to success. Next, we explore with the show called On Coaching, which pulls back the curtain on the intricacies of life as a Novus Global Coach. And finally, Your Finest Hour, which explores the unique dynamics between a coach and their client by bringing both on the show to unpack their coaching experience together. This podcast was crafted to help you grow as a coach, leader, employee, and human being, inspiring you to go beyond high performance and explore what you are capable of. Note that this podcast is not for those who are committed to mediocrity.
# Swell AI Transcript: Pat Lencioni - Meta Performance (Second Edit).mp3
SPEAKER_04:
Welcome to the Beyond High Performance podcast featuring content and conversations from me, Jason Jaggard, along with our elite coaches at Novus Global, their high performing clients, and the faculty of the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. On this podcast, you'll hear some of the world's best executive coaches and high performing leaders, artists and athletes discuss how they continue to go beyond high performance in their lives and businesses. On this episode of the Metta Performance Show, I am joined by founder and president of the Table Group, Patrick Lencioni. Pat is in the business of building better leaders. In 1997, he helped found the Table Group as a consulting firm for small Bay Area companies to improve their organizational leadership. Today, Pat and the Table Group are leading a movement to make strong organizational health a reality in companies everywhere. Through his work, Pat is a best-selling author of 13 books, including his newest, The Six Types of Working Genius. Collectively, his books have sold more than 8 million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages. The Wall Street Journal once called him, quote, one of the most in-demand speakers in America. He has addressed millions around the world at leadership and development events and hosts the podcast At The Table, where he sits across the table from some of the foremost experts in leadership and business. In our conversation, we discuss the early days of the table group and how he turned Steve Jobs down to work at Pixar so he could instead start his own venture. Later on, Pat walks us through his six types of working genius as outlined by the term widget in his newest book. There's a free assessment to learn which letters you are, by the way. We highly recommend it for you and your partner at work or your partner at home. And we also dig into my favorite book of Pat's, The Motive, how to deal with the drift in and out of reward centered leadership mindset, and the five behaviors you need to change to level up your leadership. But before we get started, we want to celebrate a huge milestone. The Beyond High Performance podcast has officially been downloaded over 100,000 times. We couldn't have done it without you, our listeners. So we want to thank you for continuing to tune in to go beyond high performance.
SPEAKER_02:
The wait is finally over. Our new book, Beyond High Performance, What Great Coaches Know About How the Best Get Better, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. This USA Today bestseller is more than 250 pages of expertise, anecdotes, and insights from Novus Global coaches, as well as faculty from the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. We are so excited to put our proprietary framework that has helped thousands of leaders achieve more into your hands. And we can't wait to see how you'll use the book to enhance your life and leadership. To learn more and obtain this essential resource for yourself, visit novus.global.com.
SPEAKER_04:
All right, Patrick, thank you so much for being on our show. I've been looking forward to this. And how are you doing?
SPEAKER_03:
I'm doing well. Thanks. It's fun to be here. I can't wait to talk.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, I'm excited. Patrick, prolific is a very easy word to use for you. The amount of books you've written, I mean, millions and millions of copies sold. I promised that I wouldn't do the whole intro, so we'll say they've already heard that. And it is impressive to see your output and your team's output and the way that you serve people. And so we have a lot to talk about. So I want to start with 1997, and I believe that's when the Table Group started. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03:
Yep, that's right. October of 1997.
SPEAKER_04:
Perfect. A lot of our listeners are either running small companies and or one of my clients just exited his company, so now he's starting companies again. I'm always really fascinated by the origin story of how companies started. Also, Patrick, I think a lot of people, if they're listening to this and they were excited about this, almost everyone who knows you knows you as a writer and who knows you as a speaker. I've seen you speak in front of half a million people. You're an amazing communicator. We'll talk about that. But I don't necessarily think that oftentimes people think of you as a leader. And you've been leading a company, like a real company, for many decades. And so, I'd like to talk about Patrick Lencioni, the leader of a boutique consulting firm for a while. But first, can you tell us, why did you start the company? You were working at a tech company, I think. Tell us the origin story of how that all got started.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, so I was the vice president of organizational development or organizational strategy at a software company called Sybase. And interestingly enough, Steve Jobs had just offered me a job to go to Pixar to run HR there. And I said, I don't want to be the head of HR. So I turned him down. And he was coming to pick me up to convince me to take the job the day that he got rehired at Apple. So that was an interesting moment. And then I had another job offer from a big tech company. And suddenly I realized I was driving home thinking about it. I thought, wait a second, I have these, you know, five people that work with me. and I love what we do, we should start our own company. And so we got together and decided to do that. And of course my dad, God rest his soul, was like, but you had benefits and you were an executive, you know? And I said, no, I really wanna, I just wanna work with people I love and I wanna do something that's meaningful. And so we started a little consulting firm. I had no books, I was not a speaker. And we thought for the rest of my career, we were just gonna drive around to small growth companies and help them get healthier. And that was fine. And the interesting thing is people often say, how did you guys get to where you're getting? And the answer is we just enjoyed every step thinking this is enough. So it was never like, well, we're going to do this and one day we'll have this. And so we had this little company and we liked working with our clients. Six months after we started the company, though, my wife had twins. You know, we had our one of whom you just met and the other lives in the city in San Francisco and does sales and marketing. But we had our twins. And so it was crazy. We bought a house, had twins, started a company all in the same six month period.
SPEAKER_04:
Okay, so I want to double-click on three or four things here, if you don't mind. One is, I don't want to move past where one of the most iconic leaders of the 20th century offered you a job and you turned him down. This is an uncomfortable question because you have to brag about yourself a little bit, but what were you doing in the software company where Steve Jobs would have noticed you, pursued you, tried to court you, especially with Pixar and everything, even though Pixar probably at that time... Actually, at that time, Pixar was just crushing. Toy Story 1 and 2 had just come out. They were huge. So then, what do you think that he noticed about you in terms of talent identification that led him to want to have you be a part of their teams?
SPEAKER_03:
Well, I'm glad to say I don't think he knew that much about me. A headhunter found me. And so I'll tell you a story. I think that's OK to tell this because I think it's actually kind of smart in some ways. So I went to interview with him. And so I'm kind of like, hey, this is interesting. I'm going to meet Steve Jobs. And I'm sitting there in the waiting room at Pixar, which was about 10 miles from my office. And he comes out and says, hey, are you Pat? And I said, yeah. And he goes, hey, I only have five minutes. So why don't you come to my office? I'm sorry I don't have enough time to talk to you today, but let's go spend five minutes together." Well, we spent an hour together and then he came to the next interview with me that I had and spent another hour. And I heard that he did that so he could gracefully exit an interview if he knew it wasn't right. He didn't have to say, hey, you're wasting my time. And I enjoyed talking to him. And we talked about the importance of story and how important Pixar was in society. And it was really a fascinating conversation. And the reason why I turned the job down is because I didn't really want to work in HR. I'm not really an HR guy. I'm organizational strategy and organizational health. And everything, comp, benefits, all that other employer relate, that kind of stuff is not my gig. So I turned him down. I said, yeah, that's not really what I want to do. And then the head hunter called the next day and said, he's coming to pick you up for lunch because he's going to talk you into doing it anyway. And thank God. But he got distracted by Apple. And that's the rest of that story.
SPEAKER_04:
So, oh, I love that. And then with the five friends, like, how did you meet them? What was it about them? Was it now? And we'll get to working genius here in a second in terms of how teams fit together. Was that a serendipitous team that just fit together or were you already lopsided? Like, talk to us about the anatomy of that first team.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, I was an executive at this software company and I had this team around me of people that did essentially internal communication and strategy and consulting to the company. So when I decided all these people were hiring me and I was thinking about leaving, I thought, I don't want to leave this team I have and I don't want to be part of just one company. I really wanted to serve many companies. So I said to them, what do you guys think about starting a company? And over the course of the next month or two, we started meeting at one another's apartments at the time. And every meeting, one of us would get kind of sick to our stomach thinking, oh my gosh, we're actually going to do this. So we launched in October of that year. The next week I found out my wife was pregnant and then it just went from there.
SPEAKER_04:
So then in terms of logistics with the off-ramp from that, was there a runway for you? Was there startup capital? You know, talk to us about kind of the architecture of that. And again, obviously having a kid or was it the twins? That's when you had the, you got pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Pregnant with twins. That's a thing. So like in retrospect, was that a responsible decision? Would you, how would you recommend people architect that for themselves?
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, I would not recommend it. By the grace of God, we got through it. But not only did we have twins, but she had a very difficult pregnancy, and she went to the hospital for a month, and then she had the kids really early. So we had premature kids in the hospital for a month, and we just started a business. I mean, literally, in those early days, I would go to a client when the kids were born, and if I got there 15 minutes early, I'd find a quiet room and sneak under somebody's desk and take a nap. before the event started, because I was that tired. But as far as startup capital, when you have a services business, it's not too much. So my wife, we had $20,000 saved up for a house. She gave it to us and said, here, buy some tables and chairs and an office. And that's all we had. And as far as runway went, one of the tech companies that was going to hire me said, we'll take you on as a client. I mean, you can be our client. We'll be your client. And so we had two clients out of the gate, but not very much money. So it was a risk. You always have to be able to take a risk, but I probably wouldn't recommend doing it when you buy a house and have twins prematurely.
SPEAKER_04:
And then did all five of you quit your jobs at the same time or was there like a gradient?
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. Nope. And that's the other thing my dad said. He said, Pat, you can't take them all at once because you don't have enough money. You know, you're going to have to pay for the whole thing. Go out on your own. And I remember I said, Dad, and this gets right to working genius. I said, Dad, I'm terrible at half the stuff we're going to need to do. If they don't come with me, I'll never do anything. And fundamentally, I'm absolutely convinced that I could not have done that because they were good at things that I wasn't. I was good at things they weren't. And that's why it worked.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, there's a brilliance there. And actually, that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you was I will get to sports here in a second because there's a podcast. We put this in the show notes. There's a podcast I found of you where you're just like royally geeking out for like an hour on your encyclopedic knowledge and strong opinions. of teams and coaches. It was really interesting. It sounds like you and Matthew, your son, created an assessment or something to gauge different athletes or different coaches.
SPEAKER_03:
Is that right? Yeah, and my son Casey, too. We all worked on this thing where we have evaluated teams in the NFL based on their leadership. Not their skills, but their leadership. It became a predictor of success. We think it was an accurate predictor of how they performed on the field.
SPEAKER_04:
And have you monetized this at all? Are you taking this to market?
SPEAKER_03:
No, I'm the king of not monetizing things, as my wife and my staff will tell you. They're like, you know, you could make some money on this. And I'm like, I think it's just let's just get it out there and let people play with it and see what happens.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, that's fun. So then, okay, so then the reason why I brought that up was it seems as though you are, I feel like this is something that I resonate with you around, but you love teams. Like you just love teams. And the evidence of that is, I think a lot of people, you know, this is the era of solopreneurship. You know, if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone quitting to become a coach or becoming a consultant or whatever is really fascinating. You started from the very, very, very, very beginning with a team. I'd like to hear a little bit about where your love of team came from. And maybe the role that that's played in your success for the last 20, 30 years.
SPEAKER_03:
You know, it's interesting. I think that my love of team and that's why I started the company because I had a team and I wanted to keep it together. But I think my love of team came from the fact that I played sports as a kid and in high school and I loved the dynamics. I think it also came from some childhood wounds. that I think that in my immediate family, it wasn't very team-like. And when I finally, like whenever I got on a team, I thought, wow, this is great to actually have people that love each other and care about each other and can be vulnerable with each other. And so I only realized that in these last few years that I think it was a need I had to belong. And so I think it had to do with that. Also, boy, my first job out of college, I went to this management consulting firm in San Francisco that was all very sophisticated, but they didn't address team issues at all. And I saw so many companies that were not team oriented, that failed with all this intelligence and all this data, and yet they didn't want to work together and they failed. And then other companies that worked together succeeded. And I thought, how come people aren't really getting their head around this? And so I decided I wanted to do that.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, and then in regards to Table Group in the first few years, was it mostly exporting what you as the five of you already did? Or was there research for that? Or did it even start with the kind of team consulting? Because I think your first book, the first book was in 1998. So a year after you started, you wrote The Five Temptations of the CEO. That's pretty fast after starting a company.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, that was an accident. So I was writing a book for fun because before I started my own firm, I was doing some work with pro bono for some small companies in San Francisco. And one of them said, I came up with this theory and they said, you should write a book about that. And I said, I'm not going to write a book. And they said, somebody else is going to. And I said, well, maybe I will. So I decided to, on my own, without any expectations that it would ever get published, I was literally going to take it to Kinko's and make copies of it, I wrote this fable called The Five Temptations of a CEO. And so when we started the company, we were like, we should do something with that book. And a woman that worked for me, her sister-in-law's best friend worked for a publishing company and we showed it to them and they said, yeah, we like this. So we were like, hey, that's great. They published it. We thought, hey, we can give something to our clients. So it was totally an accident. And it wasn't really about teamwork. It was about leadership. But most of the stuff we did was about, and then that actually, that book became the precursor to the team book because it was just its application of the model to groups of people rather than just leaders.
SPEAKER_04:
What was the source data? Was it intuition? Was it your experience having been in larger companies for a long time? Was it the people that you were working with immediately?
SPEAKER_03:
Yes, yes, and yes. When I first got to know Jim Collins, I was speaking at a conference with him really early on. And Jim is like a primary researcher. He likes to go up in the mountains with a few people around to do research, and his cat is sitting on his lap like, Dr. Evil, you know? And he's a great guy. But he's a researcher, right? And I said, Jim, I work in the field, and I notice things, and I come up with theories, and I test them. He goes, that's just as valid. He said, face validity is everything, and field research is real, which made me feel really good, because I am not a data guy. I'm an intuition, instinct guy. And so that's how I did it, based on the CEOs I'd worked with in the past, based on the ones I was working with currently, based on my own experience, on my own team. That's how I wrote my first book, and pretty much everyone since then, largely working with clients and watching them. That's kind of how these ideas come about.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, and if people are new to your books, all but one is written, like you called it a fable, like a story. And by the way, I do want to give a shout out to the Global Leadership Summit and the Global Leadership Network. That's how you and I met. And I got to interview you for their podcast. And we'll put that in the show notes as well, where we talk about some of this. So most of this will be new. And it's actually really interesting that you were able to geek out with Steve Jobs around story because you had taken some screenwriting classes, like story has been a part of your background.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. When they first encouraged me to write a business book, that client said, you better write this. I sat down and I thought, you know, all the business books I have, I've not finished any of them because I start them and I get the first few chapters. I'm like, I think it's, I think I got it. And I remember thinking I, I was a screenwriter. I had written five screenplays for fun. Nothing ever made it into a movie, but I got a studio to look at one or two. And I said, why don't I write a book that the people will want to finish just because it's a good story and afterward they'll go, oh crap, I just learned all that stuff. And I think I was pretty early in recognizing attention spans were diminishing quickly. So I said, I'm just going to write a fable. But again, since I didn't think it would ever get published, I wasn't worried about whether that fit in. I mean, Ken Blanchard, who I got to know later, had written The One-Minute Manager, and there was a couple other books like that. But I decided, hey, I'm going to write my book like a screenplay. And so my books today are much more like screenplays than novels. Not super detailed about what it smelled like in the room when they came in or exactly what people are wearing. It's really just about moving the plot and letting people dive in and get going. So yeah, story is really big. And Steve Jobs said, it's not the technology. He told me this. He goes, Pixar's genius. He said, it's not the technology. Because at the time, remember, it was like, oh, it looks real. It's this. He goes, no, without story, it's nothing. And I totally resonated with that.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, another time, so Ed Catmull, I've gotten to know him a little bit. I don't know if you two have been around each other much, but just real briefly, one time someone from our team reached out to him and she had worked for Jeffrey Katzenberg and they had some mutual friends. And so she asked on my behalf if I could fly up to San Francisco and like hang out with him for an hour. And it's a similar thing to your Steve Jobs story. So, I flew up there. I was so nervous. This is like a little over a year ago. And we got to hang out at a coffee shop near where he lives for like three hours. And it was like Christmas time. It was one of the highlights of my whole life. But talking with Ed about story for three hours is just about as good as it gets. And I imagine talking to Steve Jobs about pretty much anything is probably a fascinating experience.
SPEAKER_03:
And you know what's neat? It's not about the person. It's the subject that you share, you have a passion for in common, you know? Because like you could meet, it's not because people think it's about famous people. No, it's about people that have a common interest. And like the story is fascinating to me. It has been since I was a child. And so when you connect with somebody on that, I love talking to Steve Jobs about that because it surprised me. It wasn't about the money. It wasn't about strategy. It wasn't about technology. He said, these movies are going to be around for a long time and they're going to impact people's lives. And they do. So that's really cool. They do.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, and what's fun about your books is, so, if anyone's listening to this and they don't like the fable structure, first of all, give it a chance because that's actually how the mind learns. And so, I think it's worth it. I was actually, I recommended one of your books to my wife and she, at the beginning, I didn't prep her well. I didn't say, hey, it's going to be written like a story. And so, she's like, what is this? And I said, hey, bear with me. I said, first of all, at the end of every one of Patrick's books, there's a thing that says the model and you can just go right to the end and you can just get the dirty data. You can do that. I said, but don't do that. go through the process of the story. It'll be like a karate kid, like wax on, wax off, paint the fence kind of thing. And then you'll pick up the stuff as it goes. So again, if you're listening to this, you can technically skip the story and make it even a shorter read and get to the end, but we don't recommend it.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I write the fiction first, although in my last few books, I've tried to front load a little bit more of the back of it. And I would say 85% of my readers prefer the fiction. But there's 15 that are like, dude, I don't like that kind of stuff. Just tell me what to do. And so really what I write is some pretty short books about a theory. I don't make it too long. And some people just go right to the back. And then if they don't quite understand it, they read the fiction to kind of see how it comes about. But when I wrote The Advantage, which was my first nonfiction book, so many people said, please write fiction again, because I try to keep the characters going. You know, there's always a little bit of a reference to a previous book. And so I love that I get to do both. I do love that I get to do both.
SPEAKER_00:
Hi, my name is Mike Park, and I'm a proud graduate of the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. The faculty of the Metta Performance Institute not only provided the training, tools, and experience to learn how to coach people toward powerful growth and thrilling results, but also advocated for that kind of growth and results in my own life. I had the unique opportunity to have world-class executive coaches invest in my development, both professionally and personally. It's a privilege to be part of a tribe of coaches fiercely committed to exploring what we are capable of together. If you're looking to become a coach or to set up your coaching practice to reach the next level, I highly recommend the certification from the Metta Performance Institute for Coaching. To fill out a free assessment of your abilities as a coach and to connect with someone to find out if the Metta Performance Institute is for you, check out www.mp.institute.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, so then let's go ahead and jump into Working Genius for a second, because I think we're going to reference it as we continue talking about different parts of your leadership life. And then, of course, the other books you've written. So I've heard that the origin story of this was where you were like a little grumpy at work. This is in the last five years or so, a little grumpy at work. You couldn't figure out why. So if anyone's listening to this or watching this and you've ever been grumpy at work and you can't figure out why, tell us why you wrote Working Genius.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, I'm going to tell you an interesting story about another person first and I've never done this before. So recently I was giving a talk about Working Genius and there was a woman in the audience and as I was talking about it and talking about how grumpy I was and why I wrote it, she took out her phone, downloaded the assessment. which takes like 10, 12 minutes to figure out, filled it out, got the results in the audience, and was like, holy crap, now I get it. She was about to sell her company and bail because she was frustrated. She figured it out and decided, no, I'm not gonna sell it, I'm gonna change the way I go about doing it. And that's kind of similar to my story, is that I was frustrated, I wasn't gonna sell my company, but I'd come to work every morning, so glad to see everybody, because I love the people I work with, and really excited about the work I do. And I would be like, why at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. or sometime in the middle would I suddenly kind of go grumpy? And I thought, what's wrong with me? And finally, one of my colleagues said, why do you do that? And I said, I don't know, but I want to figure it out. And that's where this model came from. That day, over the next four hours, I had a pen and a whiteboard. And I was like, what is going on with me? And that's how I figured out, oh, wow, there's actually six different kinds of work. that I have to do, that we all have to do here, and I'm doing some things that I'm not good at and I don't like, and it's robbing me of time to do the things I am good at and that I do like, and it changed everything about how I saw work, how I saw my team, and how we went about getting things done. Well, hell, I thought it was just something for me. But right away, we shared it with a couple other people, and they were like, oh, that helps me. And we said, this is universal. And so three months later, we introduced our assessment. And it's growing faster than anything I've ever done, including the five dysfunctions of a team.
SPEAKER_04:
It's very exciting and I can't remember if we started recording but your team graciously gave our team some assessments and we took it and we've been talking about it with our executive team and it is so, so helpful and it does take a very short amount of time to fill out. And there's also certifications. You can get like a two-day certification or like two half days. It's very efficient. There's all sorts of things we'll be touching on. Before we do that, though, I want to back into this because you talk about the three phases of work and I think this I find that so interesting to help people understand how the six different working types fit into just productivity in general. Would you mind talking about what the three phases are?
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. And in fact, we discovered that first in that day, and then we broke it down. So the three phases of work, our first is ideation. And by the way, you are an ideator, right? I'm looking at your results. You're two geniuses because out of these six things, two of them are geniuses. You love ideating. So, you know, just head in the clouds. What could we do? Why is this the way it is? I have an idea. Ideation is the first phase and it's critical. And I'm going to jump to the last phase, which is implementation. And that is getting things done. Well, there's a middle phase that people, I think this is one of the discoveries we made, that people often overlook, which we call activation. And that's the period where you take the ideation and you say, is this good? Is it ready for prime time? And how do we get people excited about it before we ask them to go implement it? And we had a guy from Nike who took this in the earliest days of us developing this. And he said, oh, no, our product development team is going from ideation to implementation. We come up with an idea. We throw it over the wall and tell those people to go out and build it and sell it. And they're like, well, this needs a lot more work. And they're saying, why can't you sell the stuff we have? And they realized they weren't doing the middle stage. And so many times, companies aren't good at activation, which is that in-between stage before you go to implementation.
SPEAKER_04:
So OK, it's the great. And then now, so that's the kind of three big parameters for just how work happens at all. And then you broke it down into six subcategories. So go ahead and walk us through those.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. And we settled on six because we think that's all there are. You know, like, why six? It's like, because we don't think there are seven. That's great. And the beauty is we didn't come up with this because we wanted to come up with a model or sell anything. We were just trying to explain what went on in our own company and in our clients' companies. So there was no like, ooh, this would be cool. And so the first genius that begins any project, any kind of work, whether it's a work project, whether it's designing a house, whether it's planning your family vacation, it doesn't matter what kind of work it is, it starts with the genius of wonder. And you have that genius. The genius of wonder are people that look around and go, why is the world like this? Is this really the best we can do? Is something missing? They ponder and they ask questions. And that my friend, is really a working genius. Most people who have that, though, are not congratulated for it. They're often told, why are you still asking questions? You know, why is your head up in the clouds? And without people whose head are in the clouds, nothing new comes about. So that's the first genius, the genius of wonder.
SPEAKER_04:
I remember in elementary school, my teachers would actually put me apart. They would like put me in a corner by myself. If you put me by myself, I didn't bother anybody. And I would just like, they would describe it like, oh, he's just in his own little world. He'll still get good grades or whatever. But if he's with everybody else, he'll distract them. If you put him by himself, he'll be fine. And I was never happier than when I was in a corner. with a desk by myself where I could just do my own little wonder thing.
SPEAKER_03:
You know, we've developed a student assessment for teenagers because so many parents have taken this in the workplace and said, we want our kids to because kids, when they're in educate with wonder are not rewarded. It's not something that when you're in third grade, when you're like, oh, you're staring out the window, you know, in a perfect world, the teacher would come along and say, hey, what's in your mind? What are you thinking about? Let's entertain that. They're like, listen, you forgot to put your name on your paper and you didn't turn it in on time. And kids are like, I know, but I have this idea. And they're like, no ideas, finish your work. So wonder is a genius. Yeah. And then what's the next one? The next one is invention. And that is the genius of taking that question that you're asking and actually coming up with a new thing from scratch. Like somebody says, I wonder if there's a better way to operate on a person, or I wonder if there's a better way to come up with a shoe, or I wonder if there's a better way to, have a vacation and somebody goes, oh, I have an idea and it's out of nowhere. They like to generate new ideas, fresh ideas without any context hardly. And it's just a skill. Now, most people think that's the definition of a true genius, but they're all geniuses. It's just a different kind. And this is one of mine. You and I share this one. I wake up in the morning and I'm naturally inclined to think about new things. And when somebody in my office comes to us, we have a problem. We have no idea what to do. I'm like, Ooh, can I invent something? And I do it for fun.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Recreational. You'd have to like pay. I would pay to do it. I would pay. Exactly. Yes. How would you make a distinction between wonder and invention? I'm still wrestling with that.
SPEAKER_03:
Wonder asks the question, but doesn't have an answer. But they're identifying the something's missing. Invention comes up with the piece to put in the missing place. You happen to do both. So, you're asking the question and coming up with the answer. So, it almost feels fluid to you.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Well, that's actually super helpful because in a second, we're going to get into something that my wife is and we're newlyweds, right? We got married in October and I had her take the assessment as well. And so I can like put them next to each other and trying to figure out how do we team.
SPEAKER_03:
Oh, we think every married couple should do this. This came out 29 years into our marriage. And we looked back and realized how much stress we had in not understanding where we were different and where we were similar. And we would argue about things instead of giving each other grace because we didn't know we were just acting out of how we're wired. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to have some marriage counseling questions here in a second, but let's move on to the next two. So you've got the, you got, and it spells widget, right? There's that's the acronym we're walking through. There's wonder invention.
SPEAKER_03:
And then D D is discernment. And by the way, we did not intend for it to spell widget until we got to W I D G E. And I said, okay, we're going to have a T word. Cause this is going to be cool. This is going to be widget, but we didn't set out to do that. So the third genius, and this kind of goes in sequence, right? Somebody asks the big question, somebody comes up with an answer. The third one is discernment, which is the use of instinct, intuition, gut feel, multivariable analysis, like people that can look at things and say, I think I see, they can evaluate things really well. So you come up with one of those ideas, And someone with discernment goes, that's a fantastic idea. I feel it. Or, oh, no, no, there's something missing. I don't think that's quite right. Or, oh, here's the problem. And it's not because they're an expert. It's not because they have detailed data. There are people that just see things. They have great pattern recognition. and they know how to evaluate an idea or a proposal or a plan and find the missing part or confirm that it's good. A guy on my team, when we came up with Working Genius, he was out on, his wife had a baby and he came back and he saw it and he goes, this is going to be bigger than the five dysfunctions of a team. And because he has discernment, I was like, okay, this is real.
SPEAKER_04:
Oh, that's interesting. So they're like the smell test. Like if it passes the smell test, then you can trust it's a good idea.
SPEAKER_03:
You know, that's one of the things a lot of people in our office have. But I like to talk about this one woman, Tracy, who's actually and had never done book editing before. She's edited, you know, like 11 of my 13 books, like the last 11. Tracy has extraordinary discernment. And she said even as a kid, her friends would go ask Tracy, what should we do? Ask Tracy. Well, today, when my wife says, We're like, should we refinance our house? We'll say, ask Tracy. You know why? Not because Tracy's a finance expert. She just always looks at a situation and goes, I don't think so. Or, yes, this would be a good idea. Where should we go on vacation this year? We'll be talking about it. We'll go, let's run that by Tracy and see what she thinks.
SPEAKER_04:
One of your books is on, I'm going to say the title wrong, The Three Questions of a Family. Did I say that right?
SPEAKER_03:
It's The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family, a terrible title.
SPEAKER_04:
I mean, not that I couldn't remember, but I remember reading it and I like how you, if you're listening to this, I do want to give a full-throated endorsement of exposing yourself to the kind of the repertoire of all of Patrick's books, because he does a great job of targeting different, somewhat overlapping models to every domain of life, whether it's work or family or nonprofit. By the way, if you're listening to this, Patrick is a devout Catholic and he's got podcasts where he targets these brilliant things that could be taught at Harvard Business School towards parishes and clergy and the nonprofit space too. So I really appreciate how you do all that. You reached into your network, you and your spouse reached into your network to pull in a talent that maybe you and your spouse didn't necessarily have.
SPEAKER_03:
Yes, because that's the thing getting into the marriage stuff. It's like, she's a WI, she's the same as you. I have I and D, so we have the first three. There's three more that we don't have hardly any of. And so we really need help from other people to get things done. She and I both are inventive and creative and, oh look, a new idea, a bird, you know, which is wonderful. But then when it comes to actually rallying to get things finished, We fall short and it's not, it's just how we're wired, which is not an excuse because we still have to feed our kids and we can't send to school naked and all that stuff. But, but we don't necessarily have to do everything ourselves. We need people to step in and God made us to need one another. And it's wonderful to understand how.
SPEAKER_04:
There's a story I heard a long time ago of you talking about, uh, like bills getting paid or electricity bills or something. Can you, can you tell us that story?
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, and my wife is now comfortable with this because she understands that it's in love, I tell this story, because it could have been me. So she is less practical than I am, which is frightening. So we get married, I love her, I'm so glad I'm married to her, but from a practical standpoint it can be quite a challenge. So one day I came home from work, And I walked in the door and I turned on the lights and the power didn't go on. I said, hey, Laura. And she said, yeah. And I said, the power in our neighborhood is off because that happens a lot out here, you know. And she's like, nope, the power in the neighborhood is open. And I looked outside and I could see some lights in the neighborhood. I said, oh, you're right. She goes, it's just our house. And I said, oh, should I check the circuit breaker out there? She goes, no, no, no, that's not it. I said, what's the problem? She goes, yeah, they cut off our power. I said, wait a second. They cut off our power. She goes, yeah. And I said, don't they usually send you a notice telling you that a warning? And she goes, oh, no, they send three warnings and they're around here somewhere. And you tell that story to someone with different geniuses and they will say that I would be mortified. That would never happen to some people. But in my family, You know, I'm sure my wife was working on her musical that she's writing for moms and I'm working on a book and we forgot to pay the power bill. So.
SPEAKER_04:
So I love that and like the process of learning and to be like, it's okay. And then of course we've got to figure out how to navigate that, but let's be with who we are and then figure out how to work from there. And so just to be clear, so your wife is a W-I and then you're an I-D, is that correct? Yes. Okay, perfect. So I'm gonna have questions about that, but let's keep moving. So we've got W-I-D and then what's G?
SPEAKER_03:
So after that's been evaluated by somebody with discernment or the team, then it gets to the G, which is galvanizing. So the idea is a good one and everybody says, yeah, this is a great idea. Somebody has to pick up the ball and say, OK, I'm going to get people rallied around this. I'm going to motivate people. I'm going to remind people. I'm going to sell this idea and get people excited. I'm going to galvanize people so that they say, yes, let's do it. Now, I'm not terrible at that, but it's not one of my geniuses. It doesn't feed me. It doesn't give me energy. And every day I was coming to work and I had to galvanize and galvanize and galvanize and it burned me out. And after like 20 years of galvanizing, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And I didn't realize that that's what was happening to me. That's why I was getting grumpy. I was like, I thought we agreed yesterday we were going to do this. Why do I have to get people excited over and over and over again? And we realized it's because galvanizing matters. And it just wasn't one of my geniuses.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. And that was a big aha for us, by the way, when we looked at so as, as companies, I'm I want to check this with you. As companies grow in sophistication, the more galvanizing matters because getting one person to do something is relatively easy. Getting 30, 40, 50, 100 people to do something is harder and requires a lot of that. I noticed that me and Tricia, neither her nor I, had galvanizing in our top two, but then David Miller and Joseph King Barclay have it in their top one and two. I want to brag on him for a second. taking like when our book came out, you know, we would not have hit the USA Today bestseller list if it wasn't for David. We were kind of struggling. It's a big project. It's a hairy project. There's all these moves. So many, you know, there's so many moving parts and we had to bring in David like as a fixer. He's like a Michael Clayton. Like he's going to come in and he will drive things. He will break through whatever wall needs to be broken through and he will rally the troops to accomplish a thing. And it was exhausting for Trish and I, but for him, it's like recreational. It was like, You'd have to pay him not to do it.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, and that's the thing. I like to say one man or woman, one man's trash is another man's treasure. And he gets excited. If you say to him, hey, get up and rally the troops. He's like, this is what I live for. And another person would go, that exhausts me. And that's the thing. I found a guy in my organization who loved to galvanize and he hadn't been here that long. And I said, hey, Cody, you're going to be the new chief galvanizing officer. That doesn't mean I'm abdicating it. Don't get me wrong. My job is to galvanize him and to do some of that myself. But he loves it. And he was like, but I haven't been here long enough. I'm not old enough. And I said, no, no, no. It's a gift. It's a gift. I want you to use it. His job satisfaction went through the roof. Mine went through the roof because I didn't have to do all of that. We were getting more done in less time because we were both able to lean into our geniuses rather than so many CEOs, so many leaders force themselves to do the things they don't like thinking that's what a leader does. And it actually crushes their motivation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
So, okay, so then let's do E and T and I'm noticing it's easy to spend time talking about the ones that you have. And so I want to give some like really valuable time to the enablement and tenacity because, and by the way, those are like really low for a lot of the people on our team. Not everyone, there's some real gems and diamonds on our team that have that higher, but explain what enablement and tenacity are.
SPEAKER_03:
So that's implementation, and those are your weaknesses and mine, or our frustrations. And without enablement and tenacity, nothing gets finished, nothing lands, nothing gets done. And I see this in the Silicon Valley, like these startups, where they have these brilliant people that come up with new ideas, and then they don't appreciate and celebrate and acknowledge that you need people to do these last two, and they are absolutely geniuses. The first one, the E, is for enablement. which most people go, oh, that sounds like giving somebody drugs or alcohol when they're an alcoholic or drug addict. No, no, no, you're not enabling. It's good enablement. It's like, these are the people that come alongside when somebody galvanizes and said, I'm in, how can I help? And it's an absolute genius. They're the kind of people that when you pull them into a room and say, we need to do something and I need a volunteer, I need somebody who will do this. They are the kind of people that say, I just want to help. And these are gold on a team. And it's not just because they're nice. These are brilliant people too. But their brilliance is manifest through coming alongside and saying, yes, I will do what you need. And it feeds me. It gives me energy and joy to do that.
SPEAKER_04:
And there's one distinction that I've heard you make where some people are helpful, but so long as it's on their terms, you make a contrast. Go ahead and explain what the contrast is. So, that's not enablement. Enablement is something else.
SPEAKER_03:
Right. So, I am one of these people, like, if my wife says, Pat, I need your help this weekend, right away, I go, ooh, what do you need? Because I'm wondering what it's going to be. And she says, I need you to help me clean the garage. And right away, I'm wilting. And I'm like, so the first thing I say is, okay, can I design the way the garage is going to be organized? And she goes, no, I don't want your invention. I'm not asking for your eye. And I'm like, oh no, I want to do what I love. And I'm like, okay, tell me why you think we need to do it. Is this really the right priority? She goes, no, I don't want your discernment. I've already decided. I want you to stand in the corner. And when I bring you something, I want you to put it where I want you to put it. Now, she has friends with enablement who are like, that sounds great. I just want to help because I love being the person they're doing. That crushes me. And it makes me feel guilty before I understood this because I thought, why am I not a nicer husband? but it just doesn't feed me to come alongside and do that. I wanna use the geniuses of IND, and other people are like, no, no, no, whatever you need from me, I actually get fed from just helping. These are the people that are quick to volunteer, they're loyal, and let me tell you, they are worth their weight in gold in an organization. Yes. Because I've worked with teams that don't have any, and people are like, why aren't people more helpful?
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Because then it is that moment when you say, OK, this needs to be done. Who wants to volunteer? And there's crickets. And that just kills the momentum of anything. Right.
SPEAKER_03:
And if you don't celebrate these people and celebrate them for the genius they have, it's not like, oh, you just do whatever we ask you to do. A lot of times people that have this, they actually are in the early days of this. The people that had it were kind of embarrassed, like, oh, that just sounds like I'm compliant. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. This is so important in any endeavor at all. And then the last one, the T, is tenacity. And that's, we said there's gonna be a T word, and it's the people that have tenacity as a genius, they love to finish things. They love to blow through obstacles, get it done. They don't necessarily, it's not necessarily through rallying, they just, they're like, it's on my list, I love to check things off, and a great day for me is having a list of 12 things to do, and getting them all done, and meeting my standards, and making my number, and I love that. I have none of this, you know. I don't know how to count the number of books because I've written different, I think 13. I would have written zero if people with more tenacity than me hadn't been around to make me finish. So tenacity is not helping necessarily, but finishing. And these people on a team are critical.
SPEAKER_04:
So make a distinction then, because I may have misdescribed my buddy David. Actually, so David Miller has tenacity. I was just looking at his results in the middle. So he's got galvanizing number one, and then he's got other ones as well, but then tenacity falls in the middle. How would you make a distinction between galvanizing and tenacity?
SPEAKER_03:
Galvanizing is getting others engaged. So it's a similar motivation, like let's move forward. Tenacity, if you didn't have galvanizing and you had tenacity, you would be like, I'll just do it myself.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Interesting. Makes sense. It does make sense. Okay, great. So then one super selfish question. So my wife has, uh, ID and she's like you and I am, have WI like your wife. So just real quick, one selfish question around, do you have any marital advice or we can make it more general. So it's not just about me and any team advice for that kind of pairing, anything that you've learned that could save us a whole world of hurt. Cause right now we're really in the beginning stages of figuring out how to work together.
SPEAKER_03:
Yes, so a WI is a fountain of new ideas. And in fact, in the middle of describing one idea, they'll move on to the next one. Oh, but what about this? And what about this? Because she's an ID, her discernment out of love is going to be to evaluate your ideas and say, well, I don't, wait a second, wait a second. I don't know if that one's going to work. She's going to be doing that as an act of service, but it's going to feel like she's raining on your parade. and telling you, no, no, no. And it's like, and she's not against you, but she's applying her gut feel because a WI will come up with 10 ideas and three of them will be fantastic, but somebody's going to have to give you feedback about which ones to leave behind. And that can feel like, aren't you rooting for me? And it's like, oh, yeah, this is how I root for you.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Yes. I'm sure she'll love that. And then to state the obvious, both her and I are low in tenacity enablement. And so what I imagine is we got to figure out ways to team and work with other people who are good. And it's also funny when her and I have like errands or things, we're very independent. So it's like, oh, you just take care of that. Neither of us are like super excited to help anybody on their own terms.
SPEAKER_03:
Here's my advice on that one. Everyone has to do all of these things sometimes in their life, right? And so when you're doing them though, be upfront like, hey, today it's Saturday, we got a bunch of ET work to do, you know, and say, let's just grin and bear it and recognize for the next four hours, we are going to be grinding but don't feel guilty. Call it out for what it is and then say, and afterward we're going to go to the movies or do something that we love. But let's just both grind because like my son, Matt, who works here, he doesn't, he doesn't like tenacity either. So he'll be walking into a conference room and go, Hey, I'm going into the tea cave. I'll come out in three hours. And we know that he's in there doing something that's hard. And so, so allow yourself to say, I don't like doing this. I know it's necessary. And wait till you have kids. There's a crap load of ET work. Literally. Yeah, literally. But yeah, changing diapers is T-work, E-T-work, but don't feel guilty for not loving it.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, that's good. Well, even I noticed like with my, so, okay, I'm low E, low T. My assistant, we call it babysitting. It's like, there are things that I just don't want to do that need to be done. And she will literally, we'll be on a Zoom call and she'll just, she'll be doing something else, but I just need that social accountability to babysit me while I empty my inbox or do that, send that email or write that proposal, whatever it is that I've been procrastinating on.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. You know, when we came up with this, the highest level reason to do this is to eliminate guilt and judgment in life. Because for years, I'm going to tell you, when I was a kid, I didn't like getting up in the morning and mowing the lawn with my dad and I felt terribly guilty for it. And he loved it. And I would it was so painful for me and I loved my dad but I didn't realize why and for years I thought what a horrible son I was. I should have been like jumping out of bed and like I'll help you dad but I realized he wanted me to be an ET when I when I muddle on. He didn't say like hey look at the yard and come up with an idea or go try this. He said follow me around and I'm going to tell you exactly what I want you to do I'm going to rake the leaves, you're going to pick up the pile, and if you leave any leaves behind. So he wanted me to do what he asked me and to do it perfectly and thoroughly. And that is literally the definition of terrible work for me. And I didn't realize that until here, you know, 50 years later, that I was like, oh, no wonder I hated that. Well, the first job I had out of college, I did not succeed in. I survived, that's what I would say. And I thought I was just stupid or lazy. And I looked back and I realized when I took the job, I didn't realize it was going to be mostly, we're going to tell you exactly what to do, we're not interested in your judgment or your ideas, and just do it perfectly, don't make any errors. Well, that was a recipe. for failure for me, but I didn't go into it with that in mind. Looking back, I would have turned that job down, even though it was supposed to be the best job around. I would have said, no, that's a great job for somebody, but not for me. And now that I know that, you know, I want everybody to give themselves a chance to succeed and not to feel guilty for what they're not great at and not to judge others Because like, you know, you and I could be working with somebody and we're like, hey, we need a new idea. And they could be like, yeah, I can't come up with one. And we're like, gee, you're not. Oh, really? You can't. Come on, be creative. And it's like, no, they just don't have that gift. Just like later in the project, they're going to just finish that, Jason. And you're going to go, oh, it's killing me. And they're going to go, well, you're lazy. And it's like, no, he's not lazy. He doesn't have T. So when we understand this and have this language, it's amazing how much more we can get done and avoid the guilt and judgment that breaks teams apart.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Well, and the same is true because I could imagine people erroneously thinking, oh, widget, there's an order. Therefore, people at the beginning are going to be in levels of senior executive leadership. But you actually, you gave a story where you talked about a senior level executive of a huge company who had, I think, enablement and tenacity, my bottom ones, in their top two. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like as a leader when you're in executive leadership and the last two letters of widget are your first two?
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, and I like to say, we like to say around here that the best type to be as a leader is the self-aware type. Because like, so this guy was an ET, right? And he was leading this big company. He was like, oh, okay, so I'm the guy. I was just talking to the coach of a college lacrosse team yesterday, and he's an ET. He's the head coach. So he's the guy that's like, the trains are going to run on time. I'm going to do anything I can. I'm going to support my players, support my coaches and make sure we practice and get everything done. And this guy was, we're going to hit our numbers and we're not going to be bad about spending. And he's going to have us on track. He goes, but I don't have invention or discernment, for instance. And so I need to ask my teammates, When I make a decision based on the numbers and the data, I'm going to say, can you check this against your gut? Because my gut is not terribly reliable. I'm looking at a spreadsheet and everything I'm seeing says we should do this. But you see things that I don't see, you know. And when you can do that, that's why a team is more important than an individual leader. And if we look back in time at all these executives, Steve Jobs included, you probably know, you probably see that they're surrounded by people who fill in their gaps. And it doesn't matter what those gaps are. It matters that they're wise enough and humble enough to recognize what they're good at and what they're not good at and celebrate and allow other people to do what they're best at.
SPEAKER_04:
So then going way back to the beginning of the conversation with the table group, looking back now, was that fully orbed all those years ago? Was it lopsided anywhere? And then how did that affect the trajectory over the last couple of decades?
SPEAKER_03:
Oh, I love it. OK, so here's what it was. We had tons of discernment because we're kind of a consulting firm think tank, you know, all these different things. So we're good at like talking about things and making the right decision with limited resources. What we didn't have is tenacity at the very beginning. But you know what we did have? Remember that Tracy woman I talked to you about? And there's another woman named Karen. Tenacity was in their secondary thing, what we call their working competencies. The problem was we were relying on them to do all the tenacity work even though it wasn't their genius because they were the closest one. So we were burning them out because it wasn't feeding them, but we were relying on them. Just like I didn't have galvanizing, but I was the closest thing to a galvanizer. So we're like, let's make him do that all the time. So one of the things we were doing is burning people out by borrowing from stuff that wasn't really their genius. And we had to, over the years, start to think about maybe we need to hire people. that are better in those areas. 25 years later, we're like, ah, the next time we hire somebody, as long as they're a cultural fit, we really hope they have tenacity. Because we need somebody that loves to get things done. By the way, Jason, I want to stop and say this. The best way I can describe the difference between your working genius, which are your two favorite things, your working competencies, which are your two middle things, and your working frustrations, which are your two bottom things, is to compare it to a cup of coffee and how it holds its temperature. So like, if you take hot coffee and pour it into a Yeti mug and screw the lid on really tight, it's going to hold its heat forever. That's your working genius. It's like you can hold that energy for all day long. And when you work in your area of genius, you can work for 12 hours and go home and be pretty excited. Your working competency is like getting a Starbucks cup and pouring coffee in it and putting a plastic lid on it. It'll hold its heat for a while. That's your working competency. I can do it for a while. It doesn't feed me. It doesn't give me joy and energy, but I can hold on. I don't hate it. Your working frustration is the cup of coffee that you pour into and it's got a hole in the bottom of it and it leaks out over it very quickly. None of us, God did not intend us to live on this earth to work in our areas of working frustration for too long. That's where burnout and bitterness and family problems and relationship problems come in. And people think, I'm burning out, I should just work less. And it's like, no, you should work in the areas that feed you. People can work for 12 hours a day and be fed and people can work for three hours in their area of frustration and be burnt out. So it's not that you need a vacation necessarily, sometimes we do, but it's you need to do things that give you joy and energy. And that's why when we ask people what their geniuses are, they're pretty good at figuring it out on our assessment. It takes very little time because everybody knows what feeds them joy and energy. Some people will go, I'm great at that and I hate it. And I want to know that because if you're great at something you hate, you're really going to burn out because people are going to keep asking you to do it.
SPEAKER_04:
Oh, that's really, that's, and actually I just want to highlight that nugget. That's brilliant. What are the things it's in general, it's fun to ask, what are the things that you're really good at that you hate doing? I remember I was offered years ago, I was good at a thing. I was young in a company and they said, Hey, we're going to hire you. I was doing a part-time like we want to hire you to do this full-time. And I said, Hey, I will do it for 365 days, but not 366 because I'm going to hate it. And the people who are working with me are going to hate that I'm hating it. And by the way, I actually promoted myself without telling them. They didn't have very well-developed, I guess, accountability structures. And so, I had my annual review and they said, Hey, how's it going? I said, It's great. And I said, I haven't been doing it for the last year. I gave it to somebody else. And they said, Hey, next time, let us know. And I was like... They're all cool about it and everything, but I got the hell out of there. I knew that if I kept in that space, it was going to kill me. And not everybody has the freedom that I had in that organization. On the good side, they had a lot of freedom to do whatever you wanted. But I'm thinking now in my company, how many people are being asked to do things that they're good at, but they hate? And that's a good question for anybody to be asking.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, and I will tell you, I grew up with a lot of wounds because I felt like I had to please everybody, coaches, teachers, parents, everybody else. I was really good at stuff. I hate it. That's how I got that job. But I didn't want to do it anymore. And so I love what you did. And I think it's better to ask for forgiveness and permission sometimes. It's like, next time, tell us. Yeah, there won't be a next time because I won't agree to do that for 365 days. You know, I had a story of a guy that was going in for his performance review and he knew it was going to be bad. He'd had a tough year and he was struggling in his job. And so the night before his thing or two nights before he took the working genius assessment, he was like, oh, wow. So he goes to his performance review and hands them his results and says, hey, before we talk about my performance, can you guys look at this? And they looked at it and they were like, well, you're in the wrong job. No wonder you're doing terrible. This is a horrible job for you. And then they were like, we have this other job in this other department. You'd be great at that. He goes, I got promoted even though I had a bad, because my boss realized it wasn't that I was not trying. It was just, I was in the wrong job. We like to say, get the right people on the bus in your company, as Jim Collins says, but then get them in the right seat. And this guy was just in the wrong seat. And most managers, worth their salt, can see when somebody's in the wrong seat. And they're not going to blame them for that. They want to find the right seat for them.
SPEAKER_01:
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SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, that's right. Well, that dovetails nicely. And you've touched on hiring a second ago. But, you know, when it comes to hiring, I'm curious. The question I wanted to ask you, which is a little bit of a left field question, and I want to step back from working geniuses for a second. I'm curious, just in general, in what ways do you think people who are hiring get in their own ways? And we can certainly we can go down the working genius route in the general way that people get in their own way.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, the first thing we have to do when we hire people is just, it's all cultural fit. I don't care what their genius is, I don't care any of that stuff. If they don't belong, if they don't have a cultural resonance with the organization, with the core values, it's a bad decision, right? And so sometimes we over-index on skills. That's how we get in our own way. And we're like, have they done this before? Well, even if they have, if they're not going to love being there and people aren't going to love having them there, none of that matters. I'd much rather, you know, I don't know who said it, train for skills but hire for fit. That's got to be there. This, the working genius, is just about once you know they belong there, then help them get in the right job. So right after the working genius got invented, one of the first clients that saw it had a woman on his team. He was a CEO and she was the head of sales and she crushed her numbers and her staff loved her and the customers loved her. But the market changed very abruptly, and he said to her, you need to come up with a new sales strategy, given our market. And she couldn't do it, and she struggled. And he goes, I was about to let her go. So she belonged at the company, she had a track record of success, but the new role needed her to come up with a new strategy. And she took the working genius and she was an ET, which means whenever a customer needed something, she was really quick to help them and she always delivered. When they needed to make their numbers, it was all about, let's make our numbers. And she was great with her salespeople. She was a wonderful, stable person. She just said, I don't have invention or wonder, like she wasn't you. And so he goes, wait a second, they brought in a guy from marketing who had wonder and invention. In three hours, he helped them come up with a new sales plan. He goes, I almost fired one of my best employees because she wasn't everything. I don't need her to be a wonderer and inventor, but three hours a quarter. So we're going to borrow this guy to fill in her gaps. I need her to be who she is. And he's like, he said, I almost let people fire great employees because they're like, well, if they can't do that, I guess they're not the right person. And it's like, nobody can do everything. That's right.
SPEAKER_04:
That's right. Well, and okay. So I want to make a hard pivot with the remainder of our time, because my favorite book, because working genius, you actually came up with the assessment first and then wrote the book. That's the first time we've done something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes sense to me because it really was the model first and the book is like really accessible. Like the chapters are super short. All your books are easy to read, but that one particularly is very short. The motive is also a shorter book. And you almost didn't write it. So I want to I think this is so rich. If you listen to this, for sure, take the assessment for working genius. And then also, I really recommend you buy the motive and give it to your teams. So talk about why you almost didn't didn't write it. And then I want to I want to spend the rest of our time unpacking that together.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, the motive we didn't even understand, you know, so all of my books are about leadership, how to be a better leader, what to do and how to run a company and how to run meetings and run a family and all those different things. But one day I realized, and I remember Karen, a colleague of mine and I were in Palm Springs at an event for CEOs and I was in a room with a CEO answering their questions. It occurred to me, some of them were like totally rejecting my advice. And I thought, this is weird, I wonder why? And I don't mean like, how could they reject my advice? But I mean, I was telling them some pretty basic stuff. And I realized a few of these CEOs They thought the things I was saying didn't make any sense because their underlying motivation for being a leader was fundamentally flawed. Their motive was, hey, I'm the CEO and this is a reward for a lifetime of hard work and I'm supposed to serve myself. I want to feel rewarded. I want to do what I like to do. I want to maximize my income. I want to maximize my fun. I want to avoid the things I don't like to do, do the things I do like to do, and if that doesn't work for everybody else, hey, that's too bad. I'm the CEO. And I thought, wow, if your motivation for leadership is yourself, You're never going to want to do the things that a leader has to do. The right motivation is, I'm here because this is a responsibility. In fact, it's a burden that I'm taking on. And the best leaders, in fact, I think the only good leaders at all, realize that I'm kind of the low person on the totem pole in terms of suffering. I have to be willing to suffer for the rest of the people in my organization. That's what makes me the leader. And if you don't go into it understanding that, the worst parts of your job, you're just going to abdicate. You're going to go, I'm not going to do that. And I'd seen that over the years and I never quite realized it. So I thought this is so obvious. Well, so I wrote the book and COVID broke out five days after the book launch and everything just shut down, you know, and so it kind of got lost. And I have to tell you something, Jason, in the last two months, I've had more people coming to me and saying, hey, this motive book I think is the best one you've written. And in fact, I can't remember the guy's name. He's a fairly famous podcaster and he's out there now. We saw, I don't have, I don't use TikTok, but somebody sent us, showed us a TikTok thing where he came on and said, I read the motive. I was the bad character. He goes, I was doing all the wrong things as a leader. It completely convicted me. I was totally guilty and I'm changing that because I don't want to be like that anymore. And that was like, wow. So people read it and go, I'm at fault and I'm going to change the way I lead now. So that's the best recommendation anybody can make.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, and that's been my experience in terms of it's convicting. I think the reason when I was reading it, it was so convicting because I think that there's, there's like motive drift, you know, it's never like binary, it's never black and white, but reading it and why I like recommending it to people, especially leaders, because when you get leaders together, they let their hair down and then they complain about their organizations. And that's revealing, right? Like one of my favorite quotes is when you turn on your followers, you've abdicated the right to lead. And so, your book is like a gardening tool to help kind of pull up the weeds of reward-centered leadership. And you mentioned, I want to dive in because you mentioned the thing, so when you're reward-centered, you tend to avoid really key important things. And each of the chapters is about five important things that leaders tend to abdicate when they're coming from a reward-centered place. And can you walk us through briefly just what each of those are? Because it is so relevant to so many leaders. There's not a single client I've ever coached who doesn't struggle with the reward or the mode of drift into reward-centered.
SPEAKER_03:
And I have too. And I wanted to make that very clear. It's like, I look back at times, it's like saying, are you a good husband? And I'd be like, yeah. Were you a good husband this week? No. Or the last six months, gosh, I really don't think I've been a good husband. I need to go back and recommit. And it's the same thing with leaders. I've had periods where I drifted hard and you realize it and you're like, the most important thing you can do is go, wow, hey everybody, I have not been doing my job. And it's because I've had the wrong motive. So here's the five most, And it depends on who you are. But these are the five most common things that leaders will abdicate because they don't like it. Now, if you happen to like these things, you might do it because it's entertaining. And by the way, I will tell you something, Jason, this is really important. I don't think fame, power, or money are the most common motive drift problems. I think it's actually, I would call it enjoyment. It's like, this was my biggest one. I would come to work and decide because I'm in charge, I get to cherry pick what I work on based on what I feel like doing. Yeah, that's good. And most people can go, oh yeah, I've done that before too.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, and so two things. One is if you're listening to this, grab a pen or get your note file out or whatever, buckle up, because this is rich. And also that, I just want to say that resonates with me, Patrick, because When you get tired, when you get burnout, you just want to feel good. You know, that's where like addictive behaviors and everything. And so, the best way to feel good is to stop doing all the stuff that's hard. And these five things you're about to share are hard for most people. They're hard. They're not fun.
SPEAKER_03:
Right. And some people go, I'm two for five. In fact, I've just written down the four. I'm going to remember the fifth one before we finish because it's been a while since I wrote it. I've got you. I got you. I got the five here. Oh, you got me. I love it. I do. So the first thing that I find a lot of CEOs, and I've seen this for years, don't like to have difficult conversations with people. Don't like to sit down with somebody and say, hey, listen, your behavior during meetings is distracting, it needs to change. And it's like, I've said this to CEOs, why don't you tell that guy? Like, oh, you know, I don't know. I'm busy. It's like, no, it's going to take you 30 seconds to sit down and go, hey, in meetings, when you don't ask questions and you're always talking about yourself, it really frustrates people. I need you to change that. And nobody said when they were coming out of college, I want to be the CEO of a company because I want to have difficult conversations. Now, a few people in the world are very comfortable with that. Most people are not.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. And even as we walk through each of these, the question that I have in my head is, so what hard conversations am I currently avoiding? Right. Because there's always something, but like you can give yourself even like on a scale of one to 10, how well are you doing at initiating quickly, not letting it fester, not letting it go underground, but in some ways your skill as a leader is your capacity to have hard conversations quickly.
SPEAKER_03:
Alan Mulally, the guy who ran Ford, you know, turned Ford around, he was very good at this. He didn't seem to bother him at all. Many people don't do this because they think they want to be nice. And so they're like, oh, I don't want that person to feel bad. But really, when you look at it, and this was my problem, it's like, that's not nice to withhold that because those people are suffering and eventually they're going to get surprised. So do have that difficult conversation and tell yourself, actually, I'm probably being selfish if I'm really honest with myself for not doing that. Okay, so having difficult conversations. Another one is building a team. It's taking responsibility for building a real team around you. Now, this is not a trust fall exercise or going out into the woods and hugging each other and any of that kind of stuff. But it's like taking time to collectively have honest conversations about what we need to do to become a better team. And many CEOs will go, I'm just going to outsource that to HR or I'm going to hire a consultant to do it because I don't really like that stuff. It never works if that's the case. You're the leader. It's your team. You have to go first and take responsibility for entering the muddy water and building that team. You can't delegate that.
SPEAKER_04:
Can we double-click on that? When you say that, is that hiring? Or just the large-scale curation? How would you define team building?
SPEAKER_03:
When I think about it, hiring is definitely part of that. You've got your team. We are literally going to go into a room and collectively get naked about this stuff. We're going to talk about our behaviors. We're going to talk about what we're trying to accomplish. We're going to call each other out on things. It's going to be messy. It's like the difficult conversations, but that's a one-on-one thing. This is a, we're going to wade into this pool together and do the heavy lifting, which is uncomfortable, that's going to make us a great team.
SPEAKER_04:
So, then would the question be for that? Like, in what ways am I avoiding my team? In what way? Because I can imagine sometimes, especially as a WI, you set the team up and then you can go hide so you can do your WI thing versus embedding yourself being integrated into the team and taking responsibility. Am I close or is that something else?
SPEAKER_03:
Yes, I would say that's definitely it. And I think the other thing is, it's really what I would say is, are you addressing the behavioral challenges and opportunities? Because teamwork is a behavioral thing first. And are you willing to talk collectively about behavior and about attitude and about how you're working together cohesively? It's the five dysfunction stuff. as opposed to just a personal conversation about how a person can improve their performance. It's about, am I going to go out there and make us all get together and address behavioral stuff as a team?
SPEAKER_04:
That's really good. That's very helpful. That's very clarifying. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:
Number three. Number three is, is running great meetings. And so many CEOs will say, Hey, you know, if I didn't have to have meetings or manage people, I'd really like my job. And if you think about it, it's like, well, what is your job? Running a great meeting is one of the most central activities of a leader. It's like, we're going to get in a room, roll up our sleeves, and have hard conversations, make decisions, make adjustments, and run the business. And when a CEO says, I hate meetings, that would be like a surgeon saying, I hate operating on people. Or a teacher saying, I hate students in the classroom. It's like, this is what we do. And I've seen CEOs go, I'm not going to go to that meeting. That's boring to me. It's like, no, you're the leader. You're the leader. It's not whether you're entertained. It's whether or not you're making sure that the right conversations are being had and people are holding each other accountable and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. And by the way, so with that, Patrick's got a fantastic book called Death by Meeting. It's another one of my favorites. It's so, so good. And also, if you're thinking, how can I upgrade my meetings? EOS has a pretty good platform in terms of how to structure. Our meetings have gotten substantially better using EOS's guidance. And also, Patrick, just to say this, our company works with professional athletes a lot of times. And it's interesting where when you're coaching a professional athlete, They know when their big games are. Dan LaFleur leads that division and he knows to check in before the game. He knows to check in after the game. You're watching tape. And I remember a couple of years ago, I was watching Dan and I was thinking, man, I want to coach executives the way he coaches athletes. And I was thinking, well, what's game time for an executive? And I had a hard time answering the question. And then I was looking at your stuff and I was like, the light went off. And I was like, oh, game time for an executive is meetings. As boring as that sounds, that's game time. That's it. That's that's it. And so if you're an executive leadership and you're not thinking how to lead the best meetings in the history of mankind, you're missing it because that's that's if you can conquer that, that's everything.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah. I mean, what else would it be? Ringing the bell on the stock exchange, being on TV? standing up and giving a big speech at an employee meeting. No, your meetings with your direct reports are not fantastic. And what I mean by that is compelling, exhausting, honest, and there's not angst about, let's make a great decision. And at the end of it, you're not like, you should walk out of a meeting like you're walking off the field, like we put it all out there.
SPEAKER_04:
Yes. Yes. I love that. That's a fantastic vision to cast. Yeah. All right.
SPEAKER_03:
Number four. And this is a weird one, but it's so true. Great leaders have to repeat themselves constantly. They have to constantly remind people of things. Like I say, if you're the CEO of an organization, and that could be a pastor, a principal, or a head coach, you're the CRO, you're the chief reminding officer. And so many leaders, and I worked with them before in my other capacity before I started my company, I would say, you gotta go get up in front of people and deliver that message again. And they're like, but I'm bored with that message. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. They have to hear it like six or seven times before they believe it. And they've heard it once. Like, yeah, but I put it on the, you know, I sent out that memo. I'm like, no, no, no. The best leaders constantly go into a room or in front of a bunch of people or when they send an email or in a meeting or in new employee orientation are telling the stories and keeping people focused on here's what we're about. They never get tired of over communicating. And, you know, I'm a, like you said, I'm a Catholic Christian. You know, I don't think Jesus was like, hey, I already told that parable. I think I'm going to skip over that. And I'm kind of bored with that one. It's like, no, my goal is not to entertain myself. It's to help people understand what I think is important and to keep them focused on what matters most. And too many leaders are like, I'm bored. And that's where, again, entertaining and enjoyment is often one of the greatest temptations for people whose motive is incorrect.
SPEAKER_04:
That's so good. And just about Jesus specifically, historians think that probably the gospel sermons weren't just the only talks that he ever gave. It was the ones he loved to give over and over and over. That's how it made it into the Bible was the fact that Jesus was repetitive. Now, Patrick, do you have any thoughts on what leaders should be repetitive on? Like, is there a heuristic or a rubric or something, a matrices of you want to be repetitive about these things?
SPEAKER_03:
Yes, and that's the other thing. It's not just communicating all the time. It's about constantly reminding people of why your company exists. Remember why we're doing this, you guys. That's the first question we teach in organizational clarity is you have to have a story about why you started this business. Why does it matter? Okay, and that's often a very simple thing and an obvious thing. In many companies, it's not. Remember, we exist, like if Steve Jobs, it's like it's all about storytelling to improve people's lives at Pixar. And you can never say that enough. Nobody quits a company by saying, be like, oh, the leader kept telling me why we exist. It was driving me crazy. Yeah. The next thing is, how do we behave? Never get tired of reminding people. Remember, these are our three core values. And let me tell you great stories about how I saw it and what it means and why it matters. And it's not that you're using the same words and reading from the same scripture, just reinforcing the message. Right? And going to Jesus, it's like, love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything fit within that. And he was constantly reinforcing that. That's what we believe. Okay? And I think those are the two most important. And then after that, it's reinforcing what we call your strategic anchors. And that would take too long to describe. But like, what are really, what's the filter through which we make decisions? And at Southwest Airlines, it was always like, remember, Make your customers loyal. Do things to wow your customer. Keep the planes on time. Anything we can do to make them on time. And the other thing is don't add cost that's unnecessary, because we want to keep the cost down. And so if you can say, remember, if it's not adding cost, if it's not frustrating a customer, and it's not slowing the planes down, then just say yes. Find a way to do it. So simplifying those messages and repeating them over and over and over again, I think that's the most important thing that any leader does. But you know something? It's not very sexy.
SPEAKER_04:
No. Well, even the question might be there, you know, scale of 1 to 10, how dialed in are you into the things you must be repeating? That's part one. And then part two is what are the things that you're tired of saying and how can you double down on those? Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:
Exactly. Until you've said it so much, CEOs go, I think they already got that message. I mean, I'm that way in my speeches. I'll go give a speech and five years later, I'll go back to the same organization. I go, oh gosh, I'm really worried. And I'll do a similar talk. I always mix it up a little bit and people are like, oh, I needed to hear it again. We're so afraid of somebody saying, yeah, because we have kids, when you have kids, they're like, I already, I know dad, but that doesn't mean they don't need to hear it again and again.
SPEAKER_04:
No, that's good. All right. So, then the last one I got you because by the way, this is my favorite part of the book, this particular chapter and it's the thing that I struggle with. This is one of my main Achilles heels and it's managing subordinates. There's probably another way to say that, but managing subordinates and then in parentheses you have and making sure they're managing people. So, it is like a, it is the like the quote dirty work of management and I'm so terrified. I'm a very laissez-faire guy. I'm so terrified of quote micromanaging that I don't, I tend not to manage at all. And so I'd love to hear you, you know, talk about what that means and why it's so important.
SPEAKER_03:
Well, and given the fact that we're similar in their working geniuses, which is kind of up there in the idea space, managing people is not naturally our favorite thing. Like, let's go over your goals and how are you doing and how can I? We're like, hey, we generally have the right idea. Go do it. You can do it. Figure it out. That's not how to manage people, even though I think, well, that's how I'd like to be managed. It's like, that's not how to manage people. And so you're exactly right. And you know what happens, Jason? A lot of people early in their career know they have to manage and then they get to the top and they go, and I hear this from CEOs all the time. It's like, listen, these people don't need me to manage them. They're adults. This woman, she's been an executive for a few years now. She doesn't need me to do this. Every human being in the world at any level needs to be managed. And that's the hardest thing about being the CEO is you don't have a manager. And it is like walking on a tightrope and it's very hard. And that's not something you should replicate in the organization. The reason why being a leader, being a CEO is such a burden is because you have to do this without anybody telling you if you're doing the right thing. And so when we abdicate that, and when we say, oh, he doesn't need me to manage her, I don't want to micromanage, really what we're saying is, I don't want to manage. Because if micromanaging is like, I know what their goals are, I know how they're doing against those goals. I know when they need a little bit of advice or coaching. If that's micromanaging, then the whole world, we should be micromanagers, but that's not. And we use that term to justify being laissez-faire, which is how so many leaders prefer to be. And, you know, managing is a lot of work. And so they're like, I don't really want to spend my time having a one-on-one with somebody and pouring through their stuff. I'm just going to trust them, which is, you know, in that moment of truth, we realize that's kind of an abdication.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, and it's not kind. There's a theme in all of this. It's to not manage. Then you laissez-faire, and then you have to come in, and then you have to hyper-manage, and it's like whiplash for people. Patrick, I'm curious how would you make the distinction between managing and micromanaging? How does a person know? Because there are micromanagers out there who are listening to this thinking, oh, I crush this. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You're a little too in the weeds there. How would you make that distinction?
SPEAKER_03:
I would say that micromanaging is what you do after you've given them clarity around what they're doing. If you're not then trusting them to have a chance to get it done, but you're checking on them as a sign of a lack of trust, That's my, and it's a fine line and it's an important one though, but our fear of micromanaging will keep us from even coming close to the line. I would say if you're a manager, manage, do all the managing you can and if they say, hey, hey, hey, I think you're now crowded, then be like really okay with going, oh, I'm sorry, I went too far. Most leaders though are so afraid of even being accused of being a micromanager that they'll stay so far away from that line that it becomes non-management. Absolutely, I'm convinced that at the highest levels of organizations, I see far more what I would call irresponsible laissez-faire management than I see micromanagement. The micromanagement stories are more fun to talk about. You know what else is similar to this? It's like everybody thinks like I talk about conflict. You need conflict in an organization. And everybody wants to know the stories when conflict goes too far. Well, for every story of conflict going too far, there's 99 stories of people not having conflict. And because they're so afraid of, well, I don't want to step over the line, they won't even come up to the line. And the same thing is true in micromanagement. I don't want to be accused of being a micromanager, so I won't even get close to the fact where that will happen. And you have to get close in order to do it well.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. And by the way, you have a great tip. I can't remember if I heard this in the podcast or if this is in the book, but you have a great tip on how to downshift into hard conversations. There's like a little like a like a phrase that kind of greases the skids a little bit. You mind sharing what that is?
SPEAKER_03:
Well, I think what it was is saying, hey, I don't like to do this. This is going to be difficult. This is not something I'm good at. I want you to know that, but it's the right thing for me. And you know, sometimes I don't do this because I'm being selfish. So I'm going to do something that's not easy for me. Suddenly they're like, oh no, no, tell me, tell me, tell me. Yes. They're rooting for you and you're being vulnerable enough with them so that they're like, okay, this is something we're doing together. To pretend that it's comfortable for you when it's not is only going to make everybody, everybody, I tell this to people that are public speakers too. I said, if you get nervous, go out on stage at the beginning and say, hey, I'm kind of nervous and here's why. I have to talk about this. A lot of people are out there, this, and sometimes that's unnerving for me. Suddenly the air is out of the balloon. And people are like, oh, that's all right. And now you're just you're into the topic. So, you know, be vulnerable enough to let people know where you're at.
SPEAKER_04:
That's great. So then I'm going to wrap some things up even more than gracious with your time.
SPEAKER_03:
This is so fun. You're a great interviewer. That's not I'm not kissing your bottom. I'm telling you, this is really fun. You know, your stuff.
SPEAKER_04:
I appreciate it. I know your stuff. That's what makes this so much fun. I really have benefited and will continue to benefit from your work. I'm really appreciating that. There's another story I heard you tell. This gets more into ideal player conversations. Patrick wrote another book called Ideal Player where he talks about the three things that make an ideal player. I highly recommend it. We may touch on it a little bit here.
SPEAKER_03:
It's ideal team player. I'm not worried about that or insulted. Ideal team player, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
Thank you for the correction. And by the way, that only goes to speak of, again, your passion. You could have written a book called Ideal Player. And, you know, and it'd be like with all these high maintenance, you know, athletes who want the world to revolve around them. And it would've been just fine about how to perform. You wrote The Ideal Team Player.
SPEAKER_03:
Wait, before you say anything, Jason, I want to say this. I always forget the title of that book. In my own office, I'm like Ideal Team Player. It doesn't I don't recall it very quickly. So you're not the only one.
SPEAKER_04:
That's great. Well, and it speaks to your passion for teams. I heard a story where it was an NFL player, an NFL coach, or maybe a GM or something, where one of your clients, I think, gave him one of your books, and the guy was like, don't send me another book, go find me... What did he say? I'm kind of butchering this. Do you remember the line?
SPEAKER_03:
He said, I don't need a book, I need an effing wide receiver! To the general manager.
SPEAKER_04:
And I think that speaks to maybe an example of what not to do. By the way, if you're listening to this and you're a leader, there are an endless amount of resources out there to help you win. And I'm always flabbergasted when I find leaders who don't... One of my favorite questions to ask is like, what's your favorite way to learn? And they don't have to be readers, there's no problem. But that statement shocked me. It speaks to the antithesis of what an ideal team player is. Can you do this real quick as we round up? Tell us what the three things are. We won't dive into them this much. Just give us an across-the-pond of what the three traits are.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, you know, there's three things that when you're interviewing, if a person has all of three of these attributes, they're going to slide onto your team and work well with others. And it's a huge advantage. And I know companies that use this for hiring now, I know coaches who say this is how they evaluate players. I think, you know, the NFL draft is coming up. They'd be so smart to do this because it over and over again, it bites us in the butt if we don't do this. And that is look for people that are humble, which just means they're not ego driven. others, not themselves. They're more comfortable sharing credit than taking it. They are hungry. They don't wanna do the minimum. They're gonna go a little above and beyond because they're really hungry to work hard. And they're smart, but not intellectually smart, but interpersonally smart. They know how to say something to somebody without pissing them off or without ruffling everybody's feathers. Humble, hungry, and smart. It's so simple, but the power isn't in those words. The power is the combination of those things. If a player coming out of college or somebody you're thinking about hiring to be an executive or a student coming out of college is coming to work for your company and you believe they are humble, hungry, and smart, let me tell you, the chances that they're going to be successful are so high. And if they're egregiously missing even one of those, egregiously, nobody's perfect, it's going to be a problem. And so that's a book that somebody encouraged me to write that I wasn't going to write. And it has more legs than we ever anticipated. So many people are using that for hiring now.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, so, so helpful. And just kind of put a bow on things. The Five Temptations of a CEO came out in 1998. This is going to be a weird thing to say, but I was 17 years old in 1998 and I bought that book. And Patrick, I do want to say thank you. So much of what you do is service-driven, it's values-driven. And, you know, again, you're a great friend of the Global Leadership Summit. And I remember in 2001, seeing you speak for the first time. I wasn't at the conference, actually. I bought the DVDs. I couldn't go to the conference. But you were 20 years old. I was 20 years old. And it was my first job. I did my best to get out of college early because I was not enjoying that experience. And, man, just I'm so grateful for you and thank you for using your gifts. We even talk about, this is the tip, ladies and gentlemen, this is the tip of the iceberg of Patrick, like we didn't get into his speaking and all the other things that they do at the table group, but I really am grateful for you and the way that you seek to serve and model all this stuff. So thanks for being on the show. Where can people find you or can people, we'll put a lot of things we talked about in the show notes, but where do you want to point people to?
SPEAKER_03:
You know, for Working Genius, you can go to workinggenius.com. So two words, workinggenius.com, two Gs in the middle there. And there's all kinds of resources and thoughts and things as well as to take the assessment. And then our table group website, tablegroup.com has all kinds of stuff around what we've done and why we do it and where to get things and to learn more. And so those are the two best places to go. You can find out about podcasts and all that other kind of stuff. But I want to thank you. I think it's just so ironic that I wrote the book when I was 17 years old and you read it that year.
SPEAKER_04:
So we're the same age. Isn't that miraculous? It's wonderful.
SPEAKER_03:
It's fortuitous. But congratulations on your marriage too. That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_04:
Thank you. Yeah. Well, we, we got married and you know, we're both in our forties and so it's not a startup. It's a, it's a, it's a merger and, and it's a, we, we could use all the prayers we can get. We're really excited to build a life together and thank you. And, uh, thanks for being on the show, Patrick. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_03:
It's been truly, truly my pleasure. God bless.
SPEAKER_04:
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