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BNI & The Power of One
BNI 798: Business Matters 116 - A New Leader to a Group / Team
00:35:06
In this week's Business Matters episode we answer a submitted question about being a new leader in a group.
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- [00:28]
A
Welcome back to BNI and the Power of One. Back with our Business Matters episodes. Michael Martin, how we doing?
- [00:36]
B
Good morning. It feels like spring.
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A
It's getting there. We had a tease and then it went right back down a little bit.
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B
So it's gonna be pretty warm this weekend. So I'm excited.
- [00:46]
A
I'll be in dance competition indoors, locked indoors all day. Yeah.
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B
Well, spring. With spring comes spring renewals. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like I always feel like there's something that wakes up in spring or should wake up in spring.
- [01:02]
A
100 we're in the midst now of our member extravaganza Drive. Like in my regions, we do it March, April, May. Most of the country does April, May. And that's one of the main reasons I tell everybody, like, we're in the most opportune time of the year for people to be expanding their networks because for that very people are back out. Especially up north, especially. But even in the case in the south because you haven't hit the crazy heat yet. So it's still nice out, but people are re engaged. Like you said, there's something about spring. We're back to being active. Like, you know, and so spring markets pop up around, real estate gets busy and all these things get busier. And so that's like, now's the time, like expand, expansion later.
- [01:44]
B
People are going out, networking opportunities explode.
- [01:47]
A
You know, and we haven't hit the distractions of summer months. Kids are home from school, all that stuff that happens.
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B
Right.
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A
So, yeah, so it's definitely in the air. We're excited about it. We have a question that was submitted and it's really. I'm going to read the question and it's very B and I specific in its wording, but I don't think it's a B and I specific question. Which is why we'll talk about it here. It says to keep anonymous. So happy to do that. Says I'm moving into a leadership position after only six months of BNI experience. While I'm honored to serve, this process has revealed a large portion of our results from tenured members is essentially on autopilot. These members aren't reaching out for one to ones or even completing CEUs. Looking for some thoughts on reengaging these tenured members from a place of BNI youth. And I took that as obviously it's a very B and I specific. But it's. It's not. It's really about just, you know, you're new into a leadership role anywhere you and I have both faced it where you come into a role that now you're, you're. You've got a title or whatever, and there are people who have been there longer than you, maybe more tenured than you, who have their ways or stuck in their way. So for me, big time, when I was national, I've done it in every level. When I was a member and I was a leadership team role, I mean, I was 20 years younger than the average member of my chapter to. When I became a managing director, same thing. I had directors who had been around longer. When I was national director, I had to work with executive directors who had been in BNI even more years than I had been. Even though it was a huge chunk that I had been in longer, there was still the really influential ones, quote unquote, had been in BNI longer, you know, I mean, than I was.
- [03:31]
B
So.
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A
Yeah, and I know you have similar experience, I believe, right?
- [03:34]
B
Yeah, yeah. And sales. Sales leadership, sales management, all that fun stuff.
- [03:39]
A
So let's just talk about. Let's talk about general leadership. We can give some, you know, pretty specific examples in BNI too, but I think it's more of a question of how do you establish your. Establish yourself as the leader when you're first getting in, and how do we. How do we work with people or, or motivate those who might have some pretty senior tenure, who might be, you know, like he said, kind of just on autopilot or stuck in the ways that they're doing right now that are producing results, but maybe not to the full extent that they could be.
- [04:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's. There's that old maxim, complacency kills. Right. And, and even if it seems like by being quote unquote on autopilot and your results on the surface seem good, at some point, there's usually a precipice where it kind of falls off because you get so completely unengaged from the kind of fostering, developing and maintaining a good relationship, which is a nice back and forth between, you know, two parties. You kind of fall away from that. And I've seen it in sales where, you know, people come in the sales management roles and then there's some, you know, I'll say, grizzled veterans that are there and they're telling you how it's going to be and all of that. And it can be a challenge, especially if you're a new leader and you uncover these things and you kind of go, why this? Why that? But I think it's okay in Your role to make sure that you ask a lot of questions. So when you're in this case, they're uncovering kind of, hey, you know, something doesn't. Something seems a little out of whack. Number one, be certain that what you think is going on is actually going on. Now, I don't know. I'm not looking at this person's, you know, data set or any of that, but you might think that they're not doing certain things. They may be doing them and not documenting them the right way.
- [05:30]
A
That's a big thing in bni. There's a lot of people who do that. Or I will just push back on one click. I hear that a lot. My brain sometimes goes to. That's bullshit. Because I hear the, oh, we're doing it. We just don't enter it. Oh, really? Why? Like, why not? Why not? Why are you not in? And, like, why are we still having this conversation? It becomes an easy thing to say at 2. So you have to really get a sense of, like, are they really doing it but not entering it? Or are they saying they're doing it but not entering it? Which is a totally different thing.
- [06:01]
B
Right? But I think you can find that out, right?
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A
You get. But it takes so long.
- [06:05]
B
And I think you find that out by very respectfully asking a lot of questions, right? And then. And saying. And you can pepper in the questions, not just like, well, are you doing it this way? Are you forgetting to do it? Like, you know, it's. You have to be able to tell the story of why it's so important to actually do, hey, we want to give you the credit for this. I mean, you need to, you know, this only helps you, you know, if you're doing your CEUs, all that other type of stuff from a B and I perspective. But from my perspective, you know, we've had metrics that we try and measure, and we're trying to measure activities so that we can see what kind of activities are more successful than others and we can share those strategies out in the world. Right? So, you know, we want to make sure that the. The people that are out there assigned to a task. In my history, it's been sales are following certain steps so that we can see what steps can be improved, not just for that person, but organizationally, what steps can be removed. Are we doing things that add no value? Or what steps are we missing entirely that we should be doing? And, you know, and if somebody has kind of a good way of doing something, I want to spread that around my Organization.
- [07:21]
A
Right.
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B
Because if other people replicate that, you know, maybe you get a different result, but you certainly won't get worse results.
- [07:28]
A
Right.
- [07:30]
B
And you know, and I think it is important to do so in this particular person's case. Let's just say that they're absolutely sure that the people are not doing the things they're supposed to be doing. They're just not doing it. I'd be, I'd be curious how anything is happening. Like, are they getting continued business? Even if they're not doing one on ones, are they continuing? You know, and that's BNI language. We have the same thing. We'd say client meetings or something like that. Like, if you're not doing those steps, how are you even making business? And I'll tell you a funny story about how precipitous it can be. Just as a little bit of an aside, I flew down to a state that I had a sales rep in, and our largest client in the country at the time was in that state. And I get picked up at the airport and the sales rep didn't know where the office was for the client. And we just drove around and drove around and drove around and it's like, take me back to the airport.
- [08:43]
A
I mean, we had that happen even in ours. We had a meeting. I had somebody who was in charge of like startup groups and stuff, and we were meeting, talking about the different ones, and I was like, I had to ask the question about their meeting location. I was like, are they still meeting at such and such? And they, they were like, yeah, why is it a bad place? And I was like, why do I know that that's a bad place and you don't. Same kind of thing. Like, how do you not know? You've never been, you haven't been there an entire year. You haven't even shown up once. Bye.
- [09:14]
B
It was like, like, but, but that's the risk, right? Because when things seem like they're going well, I always look at it and say, well, what's the lost opportunity? You may, you may think it's going well, but you might not even understand that it could have been 50% larger, right? In terms of the amount of closed business, it could have been 100% larger. You're. You'll be unaware that there may be problems brewing. And then you find out there's a problem, it's usually too late. You know, like the problem comes and smacks you in the face. So I, I think it's important as a leader to be able to kind of articulate Ask a lot of questions.
- [09:53]
A
Well, let's start, let's start here, though, Mike. So you, you get in this leadership role and, and you, you, you're new, and then you've got these seasoned people. What is the first thing you're trying to figure? Take out, like, the data of, like, I don't think they're doing this. Or I got to find out if they're doing this. Literally, what is. Because I have my answer. What's the first thing you're really trying to figure out, though? Like. Or establish.
- [10:15]
B
I'm trying to figure out if there is unrealized opportunity in the areas that this person is servicing. So I'm looking at where they are. I'm looking at their actual numbers, and I'm looking at the industry's numbers for that same region. You know, and in the places I've been, it's been pretty, pretty kind of standard all around. Like, you know, territories are territories and there's some variation, but largely they're kind of the same, at least in my experience, on a state by state basis. So I would peg that to what the industry metrics are. And you, you know, we would subscribe to data sets, so I'd be able to say, okay, well, you know, in area, in territory A, they're doing this level compared to the industry, but in territory B, it's. It's some other different thing, which one's better, which one's worse. And then I try and start finding out answers. So I'm doing a lot of info gathering, not only about the performance of our people directly compared to the whole company, but also how are they comparing to the industry in that region?
- [11:19]
A
Now, let me take it from a different point. So you've got these season, you got a group of salespeople, so. Or in bni, we've got a group of people. And in bni, when I was national director, it was franchise owners. So this is a group. And you've got these longstanding tenured people on that team who may not be doing all the things that they should, like they're on autopilot.
- [11:39]
B
Yep.
- [11:40]
A
But you're looking at the overall team. Is there anything that you're trying to figure out from a team dynamic right away? Are you. Are you first just going individually? What are they doing versus what they could be doing?
- [11:50]
B
Well, I mean, the thing about it is you're typically, when you're new in a leadership position, you're. The way you're looking at things as a team is also evolving. Just like your role Changed where you came into a company new, you got to spend a little bit. You can't just come in and go, oh, I see where this is.
- [12:06]
A
Right.
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B
Like immediately. Right. You gotta kind of learn the stakeholders. You gotta meet all the different people. So it's like there's a bit of a time coming up. Certainly personality ends up having a lot to do with decisions that get made going forward and. But, you know, at first I'm looking at what are they actually doing.
- [12:25]
A
Yep.
- [12:26]
B
And then, you know, as time goes on, a lot of the people I've worked with, they've been outside salespeople. So, you know, when we don't see them in a team dynamic setting, unless we're having sales meetings and group gatherings, things like that, where, you know, you can learn a lot, you know, by watching how they act with you one on one, versus when you put all your salespeople in a room. What are the behaviors? But you may not know that right away, but what you do know is the data. And the data doesn't lie. It's just math. It's just numbers on a page. So you can start building a foundation for the questions you want to ask. And in this case, it sounds like the person's kind of done some data gathering and collecting and is now seeing that something's not right.
- [13:10]
A
Well, I don't. Yeah, I don't know how much data they've. Actually, the good thing with BNI is there's constant access to. Everybody sees it. Right. So we have the power of one. We've got like the problems, reports all that. If I was in this situation, and I did the same thing with, when I was national director and I was doing. The good thing with me when I came into that role was I wasn't new to most people. So a lot of the people that I was then in charge of knew who I was or at least like there was some level of visibility and credibility just from being a franchise owner for so long. But, I mean, but I knew that there were some really influential potential influential people. And in this chapter, I think that's what he's talking about too, is, you know, I've got these seasoned members and they're kind of on autopilot. How do I re engage them? My first question to all of them, or what I was trying to figure out from all of them was what did they want to get out of this? And I was trying to get a sense of were they going to be an asset or a liability for me to make any changes at all? Meaning a lot of them were willing to do stuff if they, if they could feel like there was buy in from the leadership on what they were trying to accomplish. Right. But some of them were just like, there's not, it doesn't matter what I say or what we do. This person's not going to do it or they're going to be a problem. So I was trying to identify that first. So my first question to all of them is, hey, my job, and I would be doing the same thing if I was president of a chapter. I'd say my role is to help leave the cumulative group to new levels of success. So tell me, like, how would you define that for the group? You've been a member for this long, you're a member longer than I have, you've seen a lot of things like, what do you want to see the group do and what do you want to get out of that? Like, and just get them talking about that kind of stuff. Because for me it was like, okay, I would do that same thing that you said. Get all the people to say that. And then, and then, and only then can you come up to the whole group and be like, listen, I've met with all of you, the facts that I've gathered say this. We, you know, there was. Everybody said they wanted to grow. Some people have different definitions of like, how much, how little, where, all that kind of. But we generally want to do this. Everybody wants to see X amount of return on their investment. Everybody wants to see these kind of things, which is great because we're all aligned that we want to move forward. And then you can roll out a plan to say, this is how we're going to move forward.
- [15:32]
B
Yep.
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A
So that was the first thing I was trying to figure out, like, who do, who can I move? Because maybe they're autopilot. Because it's just been a culture of complacency and, and they recognizing it. Some people just like, I don't want to do anything. And I know that that's probably a person we're going to have to replace down the line.
- [15:47]
B
Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, that's the thing. You have to do some initial gathering before you can start asking those questions about what do you want to get out of it? Or what are we doing? Or how do I even approach this group? Yeah, because you need some foundation. Because the worst thing you can do as leaders kind of go in and just be like, we're changing and get it wrong. And then people Feel like, oh, they're just throwing their weight around in this new role and then you've lost respect and you're going to spend a lot of time trying to re. Earn it, if you even deserve it. So by.
- [16:14]
A
You don't have a lot of time, right? They're, they're year long kind of. But like you have this opportunity. My big thing too was can I get, can I gain allies by the influential people? Right? Like I, because I had tough conversations with some really influential eds and I would just be like, listen, we all want to move forward, but the way we're trying to do it right now is going to be really ineffective if, if you're not, if we can't work together, neither one of us succeeds. So, you know, and I would have like, I remember this one. Ed is not with us anymore. His name was Chick Gallagher. He was like probably one of the most influential. This guy was ex Delta, a founding member of Delta Force. Like you talk about, like advise multiple presidents in the White House on anti terrorism stuff. This is an intimidating dude. And luckily he liked me. But the, you know, I would tell him the same thing. Be like, you and I might not always agree on everything, but I promise you that what comes out of my mouth will be 100% the truth. What I need from you is to tell your friends that that's the case, that even if you disagree with what I'm saying, you know, that I'm coming from a good place or I'm coming from the honest truth of everything. Because. And one advantage I had, which this member has, is while I was national director, I was also an executive director. And I would tell them all, everything we decide to do impacts me directly. Like, not, oh, we're a team. And if you don't succeed, I don't succeed. Like, no, literally, like, if there's some kind of policy change that comes out, know that I've gone through the, the discussion myself of what does this mean? Because I'm the, I was like at the time the second largest franchise owner. I was like, I'm gonna get impacted just like the rest of you. And it's the same in bni. Anything that they're changing in there impacts the whole group. Like, it's not this new leader in a BNI's chapters goal or hope that, oh, I'm just going to eliminate all these members because that means my network just shrank. My value just shrank. Like, you know, I mean, it has to be the right decision. And so I would want to see that too. Like who? All right, who can I play with? Who can I not? Who can at least. And I would placate to their ego a little bit, be like, chick, you're the most influential guy we got. What you say will carry more weight than anything I say. And I know that. And I know that. And so it's not my job to fight with you, because I don't think I'm going to win. I want to get on the same page, right?
- [18:36]
B
And there's that, there's. That's tact, right? That's having tact and a sense of who people are and their personality. But again, you can't get that unless you know a little bit about them. And if you're new, you got. You got to ask questions and, you know, but. But nobody has an incentive to help you succeed unless they believe in you and trust you, right? So, you know, to your point of saying, hey, at least if you know it's coming from me, it's going to be the truth. He doesn't know that right away, right? You demonstrate that, you know, hey, you said you were going to do something and you did it. You start building trust. And if you have to focus on a few key people, that's great. The challenge, though, is, I don't know, the ages of people, I don't know the longevity of anybody in the sector. But in organizations, a lot of times when you have people who have been in it for a long time, their life priorities have changed. The amount of work they're willing to do is changed. Not. Not always. There are people that, like, go all out until they drop dead at 80 years old. And that's awesome, but that is a rarity. Most people, they have life changes. They get families, they get stuff. They have outside things taking their time. So it's not an incentive for them to work hard when they have made a decision in their head that everything's going great. My numbers are still really high, and it's because I've been a member of this and I've networked through bni, and it's great, but there's still not a lot of incentives to really move forward. You can change that perception through using tact, through asking questions, figuring out what it is they want. And, you know, I've always said, though, that you. You may not be serving your company's interests. You know, again, from corporate perspective, by keeping people on that are not engaged and aren't going to get engaged because you've tried to engage them, you've asked them a Lot of questions you've, you know, if. And if they can't really answer the question of what do you. What are you trying to get out of this position? What are you trying to get out of your. In your case, out of your seat. In my case. What are you trying to get out of your territory? What are you trying to get, you know, like, out of this job representing our product? If they can't answer that quickly, you've gotta. Especially if they're been at it for a long time. You've got to really do some work in that territory.
- [21:05]
A
Oh, yeah, no, 100%. BNI has definitely gone through that too. I mean, there's no question.
- [21:08]
B
And, you know, I don't expect younger people to necessarily have those answers or even if they have a ready answer, that it's actually the right answer. So you have to, again, as a leader, kind of juggle that a little bit. You, you know, you don't know. And they don't know, as a younger person, necessarily where things are going to go.
- [21:26]
A
100. I think in BNI, that's all part of that conversation, right? So my approach, if I was a member, leader of a member, and I'm having a conversation member who's been there for 15 years or whatever, my questions would be around again. Like, I would even ask, like, what keeps you here? Like, why are you still here? You know, I mean, just like, see them, get them to think about, like, why are you spending the time. Part of the leadership is to almost see if you. Like, sometimes people just need somebody to give them the okay to leave, too. Like, they've been doing it for 15 years, 20 years, and they're like, what's my. This is what I do on Thursday mornings. It's like, but do you need to. Because that could be holding things back, right? They could be ultimately, because in that conversation be like, what are you trying to. Why are you here? Well, this has really helped me grow my business. This has really been like, a key part of my thing. That's amazing. What are you hoping to get out of it? I'm really, like, pretty good with what I'm getting out of it. Then I would say, well, that's amazing. A lot of our chapter, though, is not where you are. They're in the early stages where you were 15 years ago, and they're trying to really grow. And the only way that we as a collective can do that is if we're all engaged at at least certain minimum levels of activity to assist. Like, we have to be doing one to one, you, a lot of members will look at as like, I don't need to do one to ones anymore because I'm getting what I want. But it's like, yeah, but by not doing it, you're not helping the next person get what they need and so forth and have that conversation around, you know, do you agree with that? And get them just to think. A lot of times I just think members don't think of the other side of the equation, which is natural. Right. They think like, if I do this, I get that I don't need to do this because I'm already getting that. It's like, right. But you're, you're not giving on the other side either, because you're not engaged. Right. Your autopilot is not just affecting your results now, it's affecting everybody else's results. And see if you can eat. And some of them will re engage. Some of them will be like, you know, you're right, I'm going to commit. And once they say, I'm going to commit to it, then you can hold them accountable to it. Some of them might say, yeah, you know, you're right, and I don't want to do that. And they'd be like, okay, like it's okay to leave too. Right.
- [23:33]
B
And now do you have someone else in your organization and come in because you've got other priorities and that's fine.
- [23:40]
A
Right.
- [23:40]
B
You know, I learned a saying a long time ago about, you know, so, so in your case would be like, how do you go through your membership process? But, and in my case, how do I go through a hiring process or how do I go through a termination process, or when I think it's time for the person to go. And there's, there's different scenarios that you're going to do that in. But the saying was, first of all, hire slow, do your homework, make sure you're getting people who have the best odds. Now, you may make mistakes, whatever, but hire slow and then fire fast. Right. And that seems cruel, but it really isn't. But the other one is you got to help them out, which is your guidance. And you're asking questions and do you really want to be here? And then, and then you got to help them out. Sometimes, like, it's okay to go.
- [24:25]
A
Yeah.
- [24:26]
B
And, and sometimes they got to go for performance reasons, sometimes they got to go for attitude reasons. And sometimes they got to go because you as a leader might have the experience that says this person needs to be taking their next step, but they're not Doing it right for some reason. And so you kind of help them out the door so that they get their next step done and then they become a much better business leader down the road.
- [24:52]
A
We saw that even in BNI in particular because we had a lot of long term franchisees. And a big part of them not wanting to leave was lack of preparation. So even part of it was like, hey, like, what does that look like? You know what I mean? And they haven't thought of it, they are not prepared for it and that scares them. So they stay. But then they're being ineffective. So they're under all this pressure because they're ineffective. So their life is super stressed. And it's this like catch 22 of like nobody's even talking to him. What, you know, you're hearing like, these people need to go. It's like, yeah, but nobody's talked to them about like how to do that or what that even looks like or answered any of their fears around what that looks like. BNI in particular, at every level becomes, I'd say less. Maybe at the corporate level now, but in the past it definitely was. But it, franchisee level, director level, member level becomes an addictive thing. Meaning, like it. Because of its, you know, cadence, you're just, you just, it becomes the thing that you do. Like these 20 year members, 30 year members, which is amazing. Often most of them are still amazing. But it's like, it's almost what do I do on my Thursday mornings if I'm not doing this kind of thing right, or as a franchisee that you've done it for 20 years. It's like, well, what do I do? I know I would even have that, like, okay, if I were to sell, like, what would I. It's been my entire adult life. Like, what does that mean? Like what? I don't know, Life without this. So there was a lot of that in that situation of people just not knowing or having a conversation with a leader who could say, like, what does that look like? You know, I mean, to get them to make the right decision for them. Because staying wasn't at the time and it wasn't right for them or the organization. But the, you know, the lack of leadership, I would say at certain levels was just like, push them out, push them out, push them out, push them out.
- [26:38]
B
It's like, you know, and it's interesting too because like, if you're, if you go in, just say you come in as a newly appointed leader to a toy, a group or a company and you look at the numbers, you go, ah, numbers are pretty, pretty darn good. Everybody always wants to grow. But you know, sometimes the numbers are really good and you figure, okay, everything must be fine. The trap of that is you, you, you might have a really high performing member.
- [27:04]
A
Yep.
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B
In your case. Or a really high performing sales rep. In my case. And you think everything's fine. But there might be somebody way better that you don't even know about because you're not willing to kind of go through the process of saying, eh, you know, it's time for a change, which can be hard. Jack Welch, you know, who ran GE and it was infamously called Neutron Jack. He went into all of these organizations and he basically downsized them. He downscaled a lot of the employee bases and things like that because, because they were operating very inefficiently. But he had a thing about sales. Is the story of him going into, I believe it was a tailor in New York and this guy owned a, they sold really high end suits. And you know, he was saying, you know, what do I do for my sales? How do I, you know, make sure that everybody's going? He says, you have to get rid of your bottom 10% every single year.
- [28:01]
A
Yep.
- [28:02]
B
Because that keeps the top group continuing to go because they don't want to be on the outside looking in. So, so, you know, sometimes you have to, you know, you have to get, if you're a leader, you can't have this fear of action. That's not leadership.
- [28:17]
A
Right.
- [28:18]
B
Like you, you've got to get over it. You got to go seek a mentor to get over it. And I think really there, I mean, I don't know if there's many better opportunities than a BNI membership because you, I know you have access to your kind of home club, but there's got to be a lot of people in BNI that can help you, that are good leaders and have done these things with their chapters that can help you in your chapter, make sure you're asking the right questions, especially if you're new. How do you go and change people's mindsets to the proper one? How do you get them back on track? Especially if it's like, and I know you said a few minutes ago, you got to be doing the bare minimum. And it's like, I, I, that's just like, that always drives me nuts when people actually just do kind of a bare minimum.
- [29:10]
A
Well, but when, but when I tell you the average member does, if you're.
- [29:16]
B
Doing the bare minimum, you're going to get Minimal results. I mean, because, you know, you're not really doing it. And, and you know, I, I know the best salespeople that I've ever worked with. They are constantly, constantly calling their clients over and over, checking in all the time.
- [29:40]
A
Right.
- [29:40]
B
They're on in my case because it was in a lot of wholesale sales. They were visiting all the time, going to the shops, going to their clients all the time. It never ended. They didn't take, I mean, took a vacation here and there, but they were on it and you know, there. It's no surprise that they were always the top performers.
- [30:01]
A
Right. I think the bare minimum is probably the wrong term a little bit. But there's like, you know, I would.
- [30:10]
B
Say from what I've heard from you.
- [30:12]
A
Yeah.
- [30:13]
B
Sorry to interrupt, but what I was gonna say, what I was trying to imply is that it doesn't seem like the kind of the required activities of a BNI member. It doesn't seem like it's all that intrusive.
- [30:26]
A
It really isn't.
- [30:26]
B
No, it's not a, it's not a stretch. Right. You got, you got to show up for the meetings.
- [30:31]
A
Right.
- [30:32]
B
You know, you got to make a few phone calls, you got to ask for a few one on ones which you should be doing anyway, whether you're in BNI or not. If you have a service business, you need to be doing that anyway. So it's not like you're asking anything out of the ordinary. You're just asking to have it documented. And that documentation is for tracking data, but it's used for improvements and accountability. Yeah. And that helps everybody in the group. And if you take those practices, say you're a business owner or manager, you're going to bni, bring those back to your business.
- [31:09]
A
Right. I think you hit on a couple things. One, intrinsic value, B and I talk about all the time. This is the beauty of the organization. You nailed it. There's always somebody who's gone through what you're going through in your region. Directors reach out to directors, managing directors, executive directors, other presence of other chapters. Always somebody who's gone through it. And that there's 40 years of experience to be tapping into. So you're not alone. Yeah, we have these like, you know, the power of one. If you just score 100, it's not really that intrusive, but most people don't. And so it's about really, you know, one of our core values is accountability. And again, a lot of people look at, well, my activity drives, my results, which is true, but it's not just your results, like I said earlier. So we know, like in the Power of one, somebody who scores in the green on this report passes passive, gives eight times more than somebody in the red. And so most people will look at it as like, oh, if I'm in the red, but I like my results, I'm good. It's like, no, no, no, no. You're leaving eight times on the table.
- [32:03]
B
You could be giving them opportunity I was talking about.
- [32:06]
A
So. But it doesn't directly impact them. So it's like a different stat. So to summarize. Right.
- [32:13]
B
Yeah.
- [32:14]
A
For this question and anybody who's coming in, I think we both said the same thing. The first thing you need to do is spend time meeting with everybody one on one, get to kind of understand where they're at, why they're there, what are they looking to get out of it, and try to see if you can get a sense of are they going to be somebody who's going to be an ally in achieving the group goal or not.
- [32:37]
B
Yeah.
- [32:38]
A
And, but you can only do that through that one on one. If you just go in and like, I'm the new president and this is what we're going to do as a group now, and this is the expectations. And if you don't do it too bad, get out, watch out, things are gonna fall apart fast.
- [32:52]
B
Yeah, you're just, you're, you're building a brick wall in front of yourself and running into it.
- [32:56]
A
Right.
- [32:56]
B
This is kind of.
- [32:57]
A
Right.
- [32:57]
B
Kind of. But I think one, one thing is sometimes I, I've seen this, I've seen this a couple times. And, and I think it's the wrong way to do it. A lot of times you, as a leader will come in and, and kind of look at, and say, okay, well, you, here's my group of performers here that I really need to work on. And then you meet with them together.
- [33:19]
A
Right.
- [33:21]
B
Not good. It's so critical when you're saying one on one, because one on one also demonstrates the one to ones that you guys are supposed to be having. So you have that first and you will learn a whole lot more not only about the person you're talking about, but what's going on in that organization by having one on ones as a.
- [33:41]
A
Pro, as opposed to, I would even ask questions like, if you were in my role, what would you change?
- [33:47]
B
Yeah.
- [33:48]
A
Right. Get that feedback. Just ask a bunch of questions and then you compile that data and then you can do a group presentation. Right. Then you can stand up and say, okay, here's where we're going. Based off all my one to ones with everybody, here's how we're going to do it, and then you hold people accountable to it. And again, some people might the best decision for the group is they got to go, and that's okay. But what you're trying to avoid is a bunch of people going because you pissed them off because you just walked in and said, it's my way or the highway and. Yeah, Jesus, man.
- [34:16]
B
And you know, to that point, Tim, you know, we talked very early on in our podcasting about the number one rule of leadership and people get it wrong. It's not about telling people what to do and being the boss. It's leaders listen. Yep, 100 leaders listen. So do a lot of questions. Listen a lot before you decide to opine.
- [34:38]
A
100. Very good. All right. Well, as always, we hope you found value. Leave us a review, a comment, go to bni Power of one. Leave a topic if there's anything you'd like us to talk about. And Michael, good to see you. We'll talk to you soon.