Deep Dive with Patrick Lencioni

Speaker A: Welcome to the Daily Bolster. Each day we welcome transformational executives to share their real world experiences and practical advice about scaling yourself, your team and your business.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Daily Bolster. I'm Matt Blumberg, co founder and CEO of Bolster, and I'm here today with Pat Lencioni. Uh, Pat is the, uh, founder and CEO of the Table Group, uh, consultancy around organizational health. Uh, he has a great podcast called at the Table. He has written 13 books. I have read all of them. I have read many of them multiple times. People who have listened to me or read my blog or read my books over the years have probably seen me quote all of them, uh, many times. Uh, it is a real honor to have you, uh, on the Daily Bolster. Pat.

Speaker A: It is a real pleasure. It's great to be here, Matt. I'm excited.

Speaker B: So I love doing these, um, uh, sort of arc of your career interviews. And uh, this one is going to be, um, a little different than some of the other ones. Um, because I want to blend in some questions I have, uh, about the substance of your work as well as how you got from first job to second job, et cetera. Um, but I'll just start with, um, what did you do before the Table Group? I think you were a management consultant, which actually was how I started my career too.

Speaker A: Really.

Speaker B: But I'm just curious, like, what were the real quickly the things you did before the Table Group and what was the origin story of the Table Group?

Speaker A: Yeah, so, so at a college, I became a management consultant with Bain and Company, a, um, management consulting firm. And I thought that would be a great job because management sounded interesting and consulting sounded interesting, but I was a data analyst. And, and, but here's the origin story of the Table Group. I was at Bain. I went to one of our clients and I did all this research and we presented it to them. I didn't, the partners did. And I realized that the client was using our work in a political battle between the strategic planning department and the marketing department. They weren't really interested in the, in the outcomes. They were just like, who had the power? And I said at that time I was the junior member of the team. I said we should help them with that because we're wasting their money. And they said they don't pay us to do that kind of work. And I thought, oh my, I need to help companies with that. And it was that early in my career I said, you know, all the smart part of business is really interesting, but the human side, the healthy side is what's lacking. And so that's kind of where it came from. But then I went from there to Oracle, which was a relatively young company at the time, and I learned some things there. And then I went to another company called Sybase, a database company, and. And it was from there that I actually had a job offer from Steve Jobs to go to Pixar to run hr. And I got a job offer from Eric Schmidt At, who was at the time at Novell, to. To do organizational development. And I remember thinking, I had this wonderful team. I have this powerful. These ideas, and I have a powerful passion for this stuff. So I started my own firm, the Table Group. Had no idea I would write a. I would have a book or I would do speaking or anything else. I was just going to go consult to CEOs. And by the grace of God, a lot of good things happened at the Table Group grew. And we're. We're, you know, 30 years into this now and, uh, having a great time.

Speaker B: That, uh, that's fascinating. So you turned down Jobs. Yeah. Um, what was that conversation like?

Speaker A: It was fascinating. It was in so many ways, because when I went to interview with him, so a lot of people want to interview with him. He's a. He was a busy guy. He was at Pixar then. And, um, he came out into the lobby and said, hey, are you Pat? I said, yeah. And he goes, I'm Steve. Um, we're supposed to interview, but I only have 10 minutes, so come into my office. We'll spend 10 minutes together. And I was like, okay, that's okay. And we ended up spending an hour together. And then he went and spent another hour with me after that. And I get. I heard that he did that in case he was bored, he could opt out after ten minutes. Uh, and so we had a great talk about film and about life and about organizations and everything else. But I didn't want to work in hr. And frankly, I thought working for him might be flying a little too close to the sun, so I turned him down. The next day, the headhunter called and said, hey, Steve Jobs doesn't get turned down. He's going to pick you up and take you to lunch. But that's the day that Apple fired their old CEO and brought Steve Jobs back.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: And I was like. And so I fell off the calendar, which is great, but that's kind of how that happened. But it was a really interesting conversation, and, uh, I won't forget that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I bet. And an interesting technique. I only have 10 minutes unless it goes well.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Um, all right. I'd love to ask some questions about your books. And the first one is, um, for people who are, uh, listening or watching and have never read one of Pat's books, uh, I think all of them, other than one, the advantage are in the format of a fable, a business fable, which makes them incredibly approachable and really easy to read. How did you get to that? Especially because your first one was one of those. Also, it's not like you did boring business book and someone steered you to it.

Speaker A: So as a kid, I always loved writing, and I came from a pretty poor family, uh, not college educated, and. And so being a writer wasn't going to be my thing. So I went to college and I studied economics, and I, uh, I. You know, I was going to get a business job, but I always wrote screenplays for fun. I mean. And I took a screenwriting class in college and a journalism. I loved writing. So when I was in my business career, I came up with this theory around leadership by working with these CEOs. And I was like, man, that CEO does this wrong, and that CEO does this wrong, and then this one does this wrong. So I had this theory, and I just would share it with people, and somebody finally said, you have to write a book about this. And I said, no, I don't think I have time. And they said, well, somebody else is going to write that book. Then I said, okay, I think I just found time. And I sat down and I thought, man, I have business books on my shelf that I never finish.

Speaker B: Yeah, because read the books. Most business books should be 25 pages long.

Speaker A: Right. And mine really are. But what the. So the back of the book that I write is usually about that long. And I explain the theories, but the fiction is about helping them understand how it plays out in the real world. Now, when I wrote screenplays, dialogue was. I love writing dialogue. So what I found is that I liked writing books. I like writing books that are where the dialogue is realistic. M. Okay. And I. People will call and they'll say, hey, was that book about my company? Did you do some? And I'm like, no, it's not. It's. And, uh. Because it sounds just like us. And so. So that's why I did that. And I found so many people will say to me, I don't read very much, Pat, but I read your books. And it's. It's because they're. They're interesting. Like, I want. My kids will read them now, and they'll go, wow. I couldn't put it down because I try to get them to go from one chapter to the next, like, what's going to happen next? And, um, so then I wrote the Advantage, which was my only nonfiction book. It's like the textbook of everything we do. But, um, but most of the people say we love the fiction, so keep writing that. It's hard. Writing fiction is really hard, but it's fun.

Speaker B: Well, it's a different art. For sure.

Speaker A: It is, totally.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and, you know, I should say most, most people, you know, most of what we're talking about here is business. Um, I, I would venture to guess that most people who read your books haven't read the one book that's not strictly about business, which is, I believe it's called Four Questions for a Frantic Family.

Speaker A: Yeah, the three big questions. The three big questions for Frantic Family. Yeah, it's the least selling of all my books. And probably the people who do read that one probably use it the most.

Speaker B: It's really good. Uh, and it definitely inspired, uh, some, uh, some practices in our family that my children may or may not appreciate me for at any point in time. Um, but. Okay, so that's, that's interesting. That's a question I wasn't going to ask you. But that's the least beneficial best selling book. And I can understand why it's not business and you're a business author.

Speaker A: Well, you know what I think the reason is, is because the publisher decided that it shouldn't be in the business section. And this is when bookstores actually were still a big part of selling. And so they put it in the parenting section right next to breastfeeding and like education. And the thing about it is it really is a book for people that work. Uh, that say, what I said to my wife is like, man, if, if, if we, if I ran my company the way we run our family, we'd go out of business because we wing it at home.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, and so I actually think it's a business book for the most important organization in your life.

Speaker B: Yes, I, I agree. That's a better way of thinking about it. So, so anyway, well, so the question I was going to ask. So that's your least selling book. What's your best selling book? And then, and then the, the, the companion question is, which one is your favorite and why?

Speaker A: Yeah, that last question is a hard one. Um, so the best selling is the Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Speaker B: That's not a surprise.

Speaker A: Which still crazily sells like A thousand copies a week.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Which is just like. We're like, wow, who? And we hear people all the time, but we just don't know where. Lots of people still buy that and use it on their teams. But the Ideal Team player, which was like the sequel to that in terms of what it's about, that actually sells a lot of. Also the ideal Team Player. But then we recently. My most recent book is called the Six Types of Working Genius, uh, which is a whole new book. And I love that in the executive search business, it's about really understanding people's gifts and how it relates to work, and that the assessment and the book are selling a lot right now. We think that that will be bigger than the five dysfunctions of a team.

Speaker B: Um, so I got a bunch of questions for you about Working Genius, but. Oh, cool book. Is your favorite book. Is it Working Genius or. Or one of the other ones?

Speaker A: No, no. Uh, I kind of think it's. It's my book. The. The Truth About Employee Engagement, which. Which we actually retitled. The original title was the Three Signs of a Miserable Job.

Speaker B: And was that ever the published title or. No, it was. And then people said, here, I think I have one of the. Wow, look, I do. I have the three signs of a miserable job.

Speaker A: Well, and we love that. And people would call us and go, I can't take the book to work because my boss is going to say, are you unhappy? And we were like, oh, uh, we kind of whiffed on that one. So we changed it called the Truth About Employee Engagement. But I love that story because it's uniquely human. I think it comes from my, like, the genesis of it was my dad's job as a kid that I knew that he was frustrated at work, and I never understood why. And so I really want people to get fulfillment and dignity and work. And that book gets at the heart of that, so. And the fiction I kind of like, and it's kind of more inspiring than the others. I mean, so anyway, that would probably be my favorite, but I like every. It's like my kids. I do not have a favorite kid.

Speaker B: Right. Uh, all right, so I don't know if this is an easy question or a hard question, but what is your favorite, uh, business book written by someone else?

Speaker A: Oh, I love that question. I would say that there. I think I would say that there are. There's probably two or three. One of them would be Moneyball, straight up. And I think that's a business book.

Speaker B: Yeah. Michael Lewis, like, is half business all the time. So.

Speaker A: Exactly. And I actually. Billy Bean's son played on my son's lacrosse team this year. And so I got to sit down and talk to him because I did the score book and I. And he helped out a couple times, so it was really fascinating. And that's just a fantastic book about how to look at things differently. Um, and then I love Good to Great of Jim Collins, Built to Last, his version. And then John Gordon has written a number of great books. He has a new book out called the. The. The One Truth, which I. I'm a big fan of his stuff and I like his stuff. So those would be three different ones. And I love to talk about other people's books a lot more than to talk about mine.

Speaker B: Uh, well, those are all good ones. Um, uh, so thank you for that. So let's dive into working genius a little bit.

Speaker A: Oh, great.

Speaker B: So maybe take a second to just describe the instrument first. Um, and then maybe put it in context, uh, for CEOs who've done things with their organizations like Myers Briggs or disc or StrengthsFinder, um, or something that has its roots in industrial psychology.

Speaker A: Right. And I love all of those tools, by the way. I was a junkie for those. And we've. For years, my wife was a Myers Briggs person and taught it to me in our firm and we've been using that for 25 plus years. And, um, so I love Myers Briggs. I like disc. I like all of those things. I've done them all. The one thing about them is we never found one that was connected to the actual tasks of work. Like I'm an ENFP in the Myers Briggs. And it's like, well, but what do I like to do every day? And we didn't think we were going to ever solve that problem because that wasn't the business we were in. But less than four years ago, I found myself at work grumpy one day and. And I was consistently or sporadically grumpy, even though I love my job and I love my company and the people I work with, and I love what I do. But I would come to work excited, and I would. During the day, I would find myself kind of frustrated. And finally one of my colleagues said, why are you like that? And I said, I don't know, but I want to figure it out. It'd been going on for years, and by the grace of God, that day, with a whiteboard and a pen, these six circles emerged. It was originally three circles and with a line drawn through, but we realized there were six different activities that work entailed. And I was constantly being dragged into the kind of work that I didn't. That didn't give me joy. And so we came up with this model, and only to, uh, to understand myself. And I thought, okay, there it is. But then other people saw it, and they'd share it with their clients. And like, literally the day after I came up with it merely to explain myself, one of our consultants took it to a CEO, and the CEO had tears in his eyes, and he was like, well, this is why I'm so frustrated, and this is why I'm struggling. And we were like, really? And so, and in the next few months, we realized, wow, there's universal truths in this. So we launched the assessment. About a million people have taken it now it's growing like crazy. And it's based on this premise, Matt, and that is, we believe there are six basic activities involved in any kind of work. Starting a company, launching a product, planning a family vacation, building a house. Any endeavor undertaken by a group of people involves six different activities. But only two of those activities match what we would call our unique working genius. So two of the things of those six give us joy and energy. We wake up in the every day. We could do it for 12 hours and never get burned out. Two of the six are, uh, we would call our working competency. Like, I'm not bad at that, and I don't hate that. I'm pretty good at it. If I have to do that quite a lot, not all the time, I can do that. And two of them are what we call your working frustration, which is not only do you not get joy and energy from it, but it drains you of joy and energy. Well, spending three hours in your working frustration can leave you burnt out. You can spend 12 hours a day, and you're working genius and love it. And here's the thing. No two CEOs are the same. And any combinations.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, yeah.

Speaker A: And the only thing that matters is that you know who you are. You surround yourself by people who are good at and love the things you don't. And then you go about doing your job as CEO in the way that you're best suited for. We just don't believe God put us on earth to do things we hate. I just don't believe that we have to do some things we hate.

Speaker B: Right. But, but, but minimizing them and partnering for success is, uh, is certainly a way better way to go through life.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Um, so, so let me, let me poke on that a little bit.

Speaker A: Please, please.

Speaker B: Please, I want to ask a question about, about me and my working genius and about my team and my team's working genius. So I took the assessment. I think I was one of the first people who took it because Matt, when I was talking to Matt in your office about this, I sent him the report and he's like, oh, this is, we do this totally differently now. Um, um, so mine came out, uh, as uh, galvanizing and enablement as, as uh, the working genius. Invention and tenacity as competencies and uh, discernment and wonder as uh, what do you call the other ones? Weaknesses or not weaknesses? Uh, uh, working frustrations. Working frustrations. So my view of that is like, okay, that's directionally correct, but I feel like I have elements of all six in me.

Speaker A: You do.

Speaker B: The trick for me is sort of knowing when and how to exercise each one of them, not just how to like slough off the, the frustrations to other people all the time. So I'm sort of curious how you think about that for an individual CEO.

Speaker A: Yeah, we like to say every job is a six letter job. Every job you have to do some of all of these things. But if, if the proportion is, is out of alignment with what you love and once you know what that is, what we realize is not feeling guilty or judging yourselves or others based on this allows you to do the things pretty well that you, that you don't love. Michael Jordan was like not a great outside shooter when he came into the NBA. Most people would go, after your first year, it's like he could play great defense and dunk the ball and go to the basket. Most people would go, well, this off season you better go get good at shooting. So you should go. And in the games you should feel really and a lot. That's how we destroy people. And what they said to him is, no, no, no, no, no, keep doing the things you do well.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: It'd be great if you got better at shooting, but even if you didn't, you're okay. And that allowed him to get better at shooting without feeling like his whole identity was, was at stake.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So yeah, you need to do the things that you don't love. But if you know that, like, I'm not meant to be the best at that, then you can do it without this sense of guilt and pressure. Right. Because everybody has to do things that they don't love sometimes. And when you do it without guilt, you can go, yeah, I can do this for a while.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's Interesting. And it is true. I mean, every job is, is all six.

Speaker A: Now, here's the thing for you. And, uh, we always say every assessment is ultimately qualitative.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You know, you, you fill it out and then does the quantitative answer match everything that you know? But so I don't. I think some people take it. We think about an 85, 90% of people get their results back. Oh, this is absolutely me. We think it's really high every, all the testing we've done, but everybody can look at it and go, gosh, when I was filling it out, maybe I was thinking this or thinking this, but your type is what's called the enthusiastic encourager. That's who you are. So, like. And you're the person.

Speaker B: I can take a poll back at the office afterwards, but I'm, I'm. That I'm going to guess that resonates, right?

Speaker A: And you're like, come on, you can do it and I will help you. You know that you love to encourage people to take action and, and then you're, you're there to support them if they need help while they're doing that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Well, now, just, uh, with any of these tests, what's really important to realize, like, you, the, your, your enablement that. The E that you have. I have none of that M. And so it's only when you realize, because a lot of times people look at their thing and they think it's like, uh, a. It's like the, the, uh, what do you call it? The astrology. And they're like, oh, yeah, that sounds obvious. But it's like, no, no, I am not like that. And when you realize that one man's trash is another man's treasure and the very thing you love to do, that we assume everybody else does, it's like, oh, no, that other person, actually, that would, that would drive them crazy if they had to do that every day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's where the beauty of this is, because you need to surround yourself with people. Like, here's in my case, I'm what's called an inventor discerner. I'm what's called the discriminating ideator.

Speaker B: Well, that's a good combination.

Speaker A: It's an interesting one. Well, they're all good in their own way.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: But I cannot follow through on things to save my life. Is that an excuse? Like, do I go, well, I don't have to follow through. No, I better surround myself with people. Like, people go, how did you write your books if I have no tenacity. Tenacity is M.1 of my lowest ones, which means follow through and finishing things. Well, how did I write 13 books? I tell you how is because there's people around me that have a lot more tenacity than me. And when I finished the book and handed in the last three chapters, which sucked because I was ready to move on, they were like, get back in the room and finish this and we will let you know when you're done.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So we. None of us can be good at all of it. We need to put people in our lives that round out our rough spots.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right, so let me ask a question now about the team. Uh, so we had our whole team do this, do, uh, working genius. And what was fascinating is our team assessment revealed that nobody on the leadership team Zero had a working genius of wonder and two people had a working genius of invention. And by the way, those are two people that I don't think of as innovative. And we are a disruptive startup. Um, and we're doing nothing but inventing and wondering as a company. But when you look at the, the amalgamation of the people on the leadership team, it wouldn't pop off the page. So I guess my question is like, does context matter? I mean, we. So we are in the role of disruptive startup. Um, so, like, does that just sort of make us more naturally inventive or so.

Speaker A: Well, what's interesting is this, and gosh, I would love to go into. And I'll see if I can describe this here, but creativity and disruption. So I love this. So there's three of the, of the geniuses which are, in which are, um. So. So we haven't established for people what the geniuses are. It's the wonder. The kind of people that say, like, why is the world like this? They ask questions, this doesn't seem right. And then, then there becomes invention. They're like, I have a new idea. And then comes discernment, which is like my gut field tells me that that's a good idea. That one's not. This is what we should do. And then galvanizing is like, come on, let's go. And then enablement is like, I will help. Tell me what you need me to do. And tenacity is like, we're going to finish. We're gonna, we're gonna get. Meet the goal. We're gonna do whatever we have to to get it done. Okay. And it kind of goes from 50,000ft in the clouds down to 5ft landing the plane. And interestingly enough, the word you used Your disruption. Three of the geniuses, which are W, D and E across the top are what we call responsive geniuses. Those are, they wait for other people to initiate things. The three at the bottom, which are I, G and T, invention, galvanizing, tenacity, are called disruptive geniuses. Disruptive geniuses cause change to happen. And so most people that are in disruptive industries, it's not just that they're inventing a new way of doing things, they're actually saying, we are going to convince the world that this needs to be. And you have one of the most disruptive geniuses there are, which is galvanizing. See, the world is full of people that go, well, I've identified a better way, but am I going to tell people about it? Um, am I going to sell it? Am I going to inspire people about it? I'm going to find a way to break through, or am I just going to put it on the shelf and hope people notice it? Right, so the disruption part of the business for you, people will think it's all about wonder and invention. It's just as much about discernment, galvanizing and tenacity.

Speaker B: This is so the last like 120 seconds here, huge unlock for me. But also, you know, a lot of the people that, that follow Bolster and the Daily Bolster are entrepreneurs doing disruptive businesses. Right. Those two minutes are going to be hugely impactful. Uh, in general. So I'm seeing some pull quotes and snippets already on, but that's great.

Speaker A: You know, um, but let me tell you a story. I worked with the executive team of a like multibillion dollar technology company that's been around for a long time, but they hadn't had a new. It's not so much that they weren't disruptive, they weren't innovative. They hadn't had a new product in years. What they were really good at is executing on their legacy products. But nobody had put them in the quadrant of the magic quadrant. They call it, um, Gartner, which is like we have, they have the newest, latest thing that's more about invention. But they looked at their team map and they had no wonder and one person with invention. And this is a technology startup that's supposed to be coming out with new products.

Speaker B: So this is, this is us, this is my question about.

Speaker A: Right, but, but, but you can still be disruptive if you, if you figure out how to make the, an already existing idea implementable. Right, but in their case, they couldn't invent anything. Well, they had one guy on the team that had invention. And this gets to what you were saying. And he was their lawyer. Wow. And they were like, oh, so we do have an inventor in amongst us, but he's the lawyer. And so they actually reorged it that day and they gave him responsibility for new technology acquisition. And he was like, but I'm the lawyer. And they're like, yeah, but you love this. He goes, I do love it. I would love doing that. And they're like, you're really good at that. I checked on them like a year or two later, he was no longer their lawyer. He'd full time in technology.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because the job of the lawyer is like be the restraining force. Exactly. That's so interesting. Talk about someone miscast.

Speaker A: And we like to say that we think working genius will change the emphasis that people put on job descriptions. And, and it'll be more like you. I was just with an executive team the other day, and it's like, take off your hat that says you're in charge of marketing, sales, engineering, and put on your hat that says the company name. And then let's look at your working genius and then let's use each other across disciplines based on what's needed in that moment.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And, and this, this team application of the working genius CEOs look at this and go, hey, I don't have any discernment. I, I, I do everything based on I power through and have data. I need a discerner around me so I can check them and go, hey, all my data says we should do this. But what is your gut telling you?

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: That. And the gut is the discernment. Then there's other people that go, I have great discernment. I can't finish anything to save my life. It's like, well, then you better hire a coo. And one of the things that we're talking about here is we're working with. I can't wait to talk to you more about this. About when you hire, when you're doing recruiting, it's one thing to say you need a head of marketing. Okay, I'll find somebody who's been ahead of marketing. But what we say is, you, no. What kind of head of marketing do you want? Do you want one that's about wonder and invention, where they're coming up with a new strategy? Or do you want somebody that's going to execute on a strategy and get more leads and get them into salespeople's hands so you can drive the bottom line? Well, those are Two different candidates.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Uh, and too often when we're, when we're hiring, we do it based on their resume and not based on the person, the unique person they are.

Speaker B: You're. You're preaching to the choir.

Speaker A: Yes, exactly. I, I, you guys already do this, which is great.

Speaker B: Uh, all right, let me ask a couple quick questions about, um, things you've learned from clients.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Then we'll wrap up by asking some questions about the table group. So, um, you talk a lot in your podcast about Southwest Airlines, right? The paragon of getting things right. You talk a lot about United and about Hertz as the paragon of getting things wrong. By the way, I'm, um, I'm in on all those assessments. Um, when you pull up and you think about the contrast, not just generally between getting things right and wrong, but like, those companies, because those are companies that everyone knows and has interacted with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the biggest difference you can point to between the, between, you know, Southwest and, and United or Hertz?

Speaker A: So I, and this gets back to what we talked about before you and I were talking, and that is humility. Um, the one thing about the greatest companies, and it's not enough, because it's not like, well, it's just humility, because then you have to execute on. You have to build things. You have to build a good culture. But I can tell you, the best companies I work, we're talking about Southwest, but there could be dozens of others that I've worked with, some that are famous, some that are not. The leadership team doesn't think it's about them, and they want to do the best thing they can for their customers and their employees, and they don't want attention or credit for that. They just want to do the right thing. And one of the things that I've always found interesting about Southwest Airlines is, and granted, it's 2024. They're struggling like so many other companies are, and they've had some setbacks, but they were like, if you think about Sensei, they were the most profitable people didn't leave there. People love that company, Loyal customers, everything else. If the CEO of Southwest Airlines walked in your office, you would not know who he was, and he did not care. And I would visit with these guys, and I, uh, say these guys, because Gary Kelly was the old one and the new guy, Bob Jordan, is, and they really don't want attention. The heroes of their businesses are out on the front lines, right? Uh, they celebrate their customers and their employees, and they have no interest in getting attention. Now contrast that with the Silicon Valley, which is my least favorite place to work, where half of These are young CEOs who are, who want to be the coolest guy in the world. And it's it. And that permeates everything that happens in the organization. So I would say what is it that makes Southwest or the other great companies, some which are famous, some not that it. When, when you're in the room with the executives, there's no sense of ego, there's no sense of credit. They're, they're, they're, they really are humble to what the truth is and they want to figure out the truth and act on it. And the other companies, it's usually pride. Pride is the root of all sin. And humility is the anecdote for that or the antidote for that antidote.

Speaker B: Uh, that is a great encapsulation. Um, all right, so here's another question. Um, lessons from the field. I know you work with a lot of corporate clients, but you also work with some non corporate clients. Um, I know you've talked about working with different, uh, parishes and churches. Presumably you've worked with sports teams. What is, what's a lesson that you've learned from a non corporate organization that you wish more corporates would get?

Speaker A: So I love this question, um, and I didn't know you were going to ask me this question, but so my answer is right off the top of my head. And it's something I'm kind of, I'm pretty passionate about. And I don't know, I probably heard this from somebody else or I don't know. But the best nonprofits operate like a for profit in that they, the, the results matter. And, and I always say if you're a non profit, whatever you're trying to accomplish have the same level of accountability, clarity and rigor as though you had to answer for your bottom line. Now, in a non profit, whether it's a church or whatever sports team, they so be, be just as rigorous. And if you're a for profit, have the same level of idealism that a nonprofit has. And I like to think about like, like treat your employees in a for profit as they were, as if they were volunteers, where you had to appeal to their sense of wanting to do a good job as though they weren't even getting paid. Okay. And if you're a, uh, nonprofit and you have volunteers, for instance, treat them with the same level of accountability as though they were getting paid. I was on the board of directors of the Make a Wish foundation years and years ago. And I was always so impressed because they would hold their volunteers to higher standards than most companies held their employees. And uh, and as a result, really great people wanted to volunteer there. And, and people that wanted to volunteer but really didn't want to have to work that hard would run for the hills. M. And I thought what a great thing. Because they were like, no, what we do is so important that even though we're not paying you, we're gonna hold you to a high standard. And they liked that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So I think that I've learned a lot from the non corporate clients that, that have the same level of standards, rigor, and expectations of people as though they were paying them top dollar.

Speaker B: Great, great, great, great. That is so interesting. Um, lessons that, what you just talked about were lessons that each side can learn from the other.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right, I want to ask you a couple of questions about the table group. Um, and I'll start with a couple questions about, um, not about sort of what, what you do for clients, but about actually the organization that you run. So, um, so first of all, like, how, how, how big is the firm? And you are, you know, how much of what you do is. I'm the CEO that runs the firm. How much of you do is, uh, what you do is work with clients, uh, speaking, writing, et cetera.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so it's, People are going to be. Most people are pretty shocked to find out how big we are or, or not how not big we are. We have 15 employees.

Speaker B: Ah. Uh, okay. I'm shocked. I am shocked.

Speaker A: I know. And, and, and here's why. Now we do have 50 consultants around the world who are, who are not technically employees.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And they aren't, but they're, they're like family. We treat them like family and they, they do our stuff all over the globe. And we, we get together with them twice a year and we know them and we love them. So, so our footprint is bigger than that. But we've always been we. From the very earliest days, Matt, we said we want to be small, but we want to have a big footprint. And the only way to do that is to give our stuff away and enable other people to use it in their work, whether we get paid for that or not.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So we, there are so many people out in the world that use our stuff and, and, and they'll, I'll meet them sometimes in an airport or, uh, someplace and they'll go and they'll look a little sheepish, like, you know, I just want you to. I've been using your stuff with my clients for years. We're like, good for you. We knew that we could actually have a bigger impact on the world if we, if we let people be their own heroes.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Rather than making it all about us and us controlling things. And so we have 15 employees in our corporate. In our office, not in. I mean we're spread around. That's the number of employees we have. But we have so many people that we call our cousins that, that make a business, make a living and are part of our ecosystem that um, that it feel. It's hard to say how big our company is. I would say if you added up all of the people that were like cousins, we probably have 300 people that work for us.

Speaker B: Yeah. Interesting. It's almost like that like online marketplaces like Etsy or ebay. Like there are.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Ecosystems of sellers, uh, who don't. Who aren't employees, but they make their living uh, in the ecosystem. So that.

Speaker A: And they're. And we love on them.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, okay, so 15 person organization and cousins. Um. Is there some piece of being the CEO that um, you struggle to get right? Like when you think about all your frameworks, right. Presumably they're up on a wall somewhere or they're certainly internalized and you're implementing them and you got your meeting cadence, you've got your five dysfunctions. Is there some piece of it that, that's a tough one for you?

Speaker A: Most definitely. There's a, there's many because of uh, of who I am, because of my personality and my wounds and all that other. Every CEO has those things. But I am, because of my working genius. I am not good at follow through. So I tend to manage by, by like, like my, my favorite book, the the Truth about Employee Engagement or the three Signs of a Miserable Job. The first thing is you gotta know your people. You gotta really. And I love the people that work for me. I care about them like family. Um, and so that's. I'm good at that. The next one is you got to remind them why what they do matters. And I love that because we were passionate about what we do. The last one is you got to help them understand if they're doing a good job or not. Which is more of the blocking and tackling of management. And I'm terrible at that. And I, and I, if I were, if we were a 1500 person company, that would be a real problem. As it is, I can't just go, well you guys, I don't do it. I try to. And we try to overcome that in the way we run the business. But I'm not good at like formal structural follow through on things.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And so I surround myself with people who are better at that than I am. And we do a lot of over communication to make up for that. And I think, really, Matt, as you asked that question, I think that's why I wanted to keep it small, because I know that I'm not a professional manager. And that's okay. If you have a small company with, uh, with a big footprint, that does it in other ways. But some people say, wouldn't you like to be the CEO of a 500 person company or of a 5,000 person company or a 50,000 person company? And I love on the people that are good at that. And I think that's not me.

Speaker B: Not you?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's not me.

Speaker B: All right, I want to close with. If I can borrow this from you, I'm going to close with an unpaid ad.

Speaker A: Okay. Oh, I love that. I love that.

Speaker B: But I got to tell you what it is. Uh, you can't make it up. So the unpaid ad I would like you to do is for the Table Group. So, uh, you know, the audience of the Daily Bolster is almost entirely CEOs. I'm kind of curious about this myself, but you're talking to a concentrated group of, of, of people that could work with the Table Group. Uh, how, how do you work with clients? How do you start an engagement? Who's an ideal client?

Speaker A: Oh, that's great. Okay. So when it comes to those 50 consultants around the world, and I did this for years, and we, some of the people here at headquarters do it too. But we look for leaders who are, who are capable of being vulnerable and building trust on their team. In other words, they're not afraid to go. Yeah, I have, I have faults, I have problems. I'm good at certain things, I'm not good at other things. If they, if they're not vulnerable, that's a real problem. But then what we do and we have the. I wrote, uh, one of my other favorite books is called Getting Naked. And it's about service. It's really about my experience as a, as a, as a management consultant. And what we do, it's the way we work with clients. We say this, let's meet with a client and let's give away as much as we can to them right away and say, here's what we do. Here's here, here's a.3 tools. Uh, a Few tools. And then we say, why don't we spend, uh, uh, two days with your executive team and get as much done as we can. We don't want to build a dependency relationship with you. We want to transfer as much of this as we can. And maybe you have people in your organization that can carry this forward. Maybe you need us to help you get your sea legs. But what we say is, let's get together. Let's give away what we do. Let's spend a couple days working with you, uh, in a regular engagement, a paid engagement. But not. But it's never about the revenue. We want the relationship to not have to exist. And. And oftentimes what. What clients say is, well, we want you to stick around until we can do this for ourselves. So I guess what I would say is, if you're this kind of CEO that's not afraid to be vulnerable and really wants to have a healthy organization, call us, and we will never sell you an engagement if we don't think you need it. We love to talk people out of paying us. And, um, I am the world's worst salesperson. But we. But. But we've taught our people how to have really sticky relationships with our clients, because they never think we're doing it for ourselves. It's always about what's in their best interests. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, the worst thing you can do is sell a client something that they don't need.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Or keep them around longer than they need you just to pad your revenue. And. And. And the thing is, sometimes that's painful, and it's always the right thing to do.

Speaker B: What a great note to end on. Um, Pat, it's been an honor and a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much, uh, for joining the Daily Bolster.

Speaker A: It's been a true pleasure for me, too, Matt. Thanks. God bless you.