Strategic Leadership and Personal Wellness with Rich Horwath

Unlock the secrets of strategic leadership and personal wellness with Rich Horwath, CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute, who joins us for an insightful conversation on how leaders can refine their strategic acumen. From the intimate connection between self-care and peak leadership performance to the art of fostering a team culture primed for success, Rich draws on his vast experience and passion for coaching to illuminate the path for outthinking the competition. His personal stories, intertwined with a love for sports, provide a unique lens through which we can understand the nuances of executive development and the symbiotic relationship between strategy and well-being.

Embark on a transformative journey with us as we explore the behaviors that catalyze innovation in leadership, inspired by a healthcare company's executive team's quest to reshape their attitude towards risk and failure. Rich delves into the power of embracing missteps, the significance of after-action reviews, and the essential shift in mindset required from senior leaders to cultivate an environment where innovation thrives. By championing open dialogue and adaptive interpersonal interactions, leaders can unlock new levels of success for themselves and their organizations, paving the way for a culture that celebrates learning and growth.

The episode culminates with a deep dive into the complexities of leadership development, team dynamics, and the strategic fitness necessary to navigate the ever-evolving business landscape. Rich introduces us to the Strategic Quotient and his 'contextual radar' exercises, tools designed to help leaders stay agile and ahead of the curve. We wrap up with a spotlight on Rich's latest book and the Compass Framework, offering a holistic approach to the leader's toolkit, encompassing strategy, leadership, communication, and organization. Join us for this enriching discussion, and walk away with actionable insights that will bolster your leadership fitness in mental toughness, time management, and self-care.

You are invited to join Leadership Vision Online, free to the next 150 members! This new community allows you to connect with like-valued individuals, network, and learn from others while elevating your leadership skills through exclusive resources, live events, Q&As, workshops, and member-led discussions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I was talking to senior leadership teams, we were having trouble getting to the strategy and setting direction because there was dysfunction in the team itself and a lot of the dysfunction was due to people not in an optimal state for performance. Strategy is important just from a pure setting direction standpoint, but also we need to be, as leaders, strategic about all the things that we're doing, whether it's emotional, intelligence, setting, culture, presenting. If a leader is going to perform optimally in serving others, they do need to serve themselves first. So you know, covering things like sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, exercise, I did think was important We've got to take care of ourselves first and it's got to be the whole person emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically before we can serve others.

Speaker 2: 0:50

That is Rich Horwath, author and CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute. Rich is a best-selling author of eight books on strategy, with his latest work, Strategic, being recognized by Inc Magazine as a must-read book for 2024. Rich has appeared across a bunch of major media networks to discuss business strategy and today he's a guest on the Leadership Vision podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Rich is a former chief strategy officer and graduate-level strategy professor who has worked with over 250,000 leaders with his strategic thinking and planning insights, His mission To teach the world to think strategically, and today in the podcast, Dr Linda Schubring and Brian Schubring and I talk to Rich about his background, what makes teams more strategic and how anyone can practice becoming a more strategic and successful leader. My name is Nathan Freeberg. This is the Leadership Vision Podcast. Let's jump in. Oh, there they are Now we got.

Speaker 3: 1:48

Okay, what's that?

Speaker 2: 1:49

Hello Rich how are you?

Speaker 1: 1:52

Excellent. Thank you for taking time to chat with me today. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:55

The feeling is mutual. Rich, tell us a little bit about who you are. We've got your bio, which I'm going to use in a second here, but just tell us a little bit about who you are, besides kind of your wishy-washy Chicago baseball allegiances.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Well, I'm a born and raised Midwesterner, so there's pros and cons to that, but I'll always be honest with you. I think that's part of the fabric of our Midwest upbringing. So I've been doing this for 22 years on my own, and it really started with a question I was doing strategic planning, I was working for more strategic how do I do that? And at the time, you know, going back roughly 30 years ago, most of the books on strategy by people like Michael Porter out of Harvard or CK Prahalad out of Michigan were really on corporate strategy, international strategy, business unit strategy. There really wasn't a lot for the individual leader on how they can be strategic day in and day out. And so that was my epiphany, my light bulb moment to say, Brian, similar to you, hey, this is something I'm really passionate about, I really want to find out about this.

Speaker 1: 3:17

So started doing research, started doing some writing to try to crystallize my thinking and then, like I said about 22 years ago, I said this is an area where people do need help to navigate their day in and day out and to do it strategically, versus running on an activity treadmill, trying to be all things to all people and really being able to step back, elevate their thinking, understand where am I today, when do I want to go, how am I going to get there?

Speaker 1: 3:43

So I've been really blessed over the last 22 years to work with folks in lots of different industries, lots of different companies, lots of different levels, so anywhere from individual contributors up to the C-suite. And over the last 10 years I've done more executive coaching, as I've found I really love the facilitation of workshops with executive teams to talk about their direction, to be that unbiased third party in the room who can challenge people, challenge the sacred cows that they have. But I found that afterwards people were saying you know, Rich, I need to talk to you about this. And so to your point again. Brian didn't really have a plan about executive coaching but did some classes on it, got certified and moved forward with that as well. So that's really my long and short of it, but my passion is really on helping people think strategically and really do so both professionally and personally.

Speaker 3: 4:38

Did you have that before, the light bulb moment, that desire to help people think strategically? Or was that moment the catalyst where you realized, oh this, I need to go after this.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Yeah, great question. So I would say, no, I didn't really have that part of it figured out. I've always loved to compete, and when I say compete, you know, I think of the Latin word competere, which means to strive together. So it's not I've not been just about winning, but really pushing ourselves, working with others, to be the best that we can be. So I always loved competition. I grew up playing lots of different sports and then, after that light bulb moment, it was really okay. Well, I can take this love of competition and this idea of thinking and blend those two together, and that's really what strategic thinking I think is is how do we outthink the competition so that we can provide greater value to those that we're serving?

Speaker 3: 5:36

Oh man, nathan, you ready to start, or can I just keep going?

Speaker 4: 5:39

I want to know, like what were the sports? I see a? Did I see a soccer ball in the back?

Speaker 1: 5:44

So you know it's funny. Back, you know, when I, when I was growing up in the in the early mid eighties, you know we did everything. We played football, basketball. So I played you know three sports. In high school I played college soccer, I was a goalkeeper out at UConn on the East coast and then, since then have you, I've done marathons and things like that. But I've always loved to compete in lots of different things and, as my family will tell you, sometimes I can keep that within the guardrails and sometimes I get a little crazy, but I do my best. I think I understand.

Speaker 2: 6:15

There's a great Bluey episode about that, brian, do you want to? Just, I mean, we've got a list of questions prepared, but we typically don't follow those. So, ryan, you can keep going if you want to.

Speaker 3: 6:26

Because here's my first question is based upon what you've said so far. Through your origin story and through the work that we do, there seems to be these moments where people have these experiences that bring together circumstance and, like this inner purpose or something that they didn't know their life was about and it sounds like you have that and you experienced it a while ago. Do you find that in your work with executives, that something that you're doing is helping them understand that they're merging a couple of things together? Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 7:01

Yes, absolutely so to your point. Does that make sense? And when I think about purpose, it's really about what are the gifts that I have that I enjoy practicing, using and getting better at. You know, you all have done a lot of great pioneering work in strengths, and I always find it interesting that people will tell me, well, I have a strength, I'm strategic, or I have great emotional intelligence. And then I'll always always ask them how do you continue to build that strength, how do you practice that strength?

Speaker 1: 7:48

And oftentimes people say, well, I don't really practice it, it just comes naturally. And sometimes, if I dig a little deeper, they'll actually give me some ways. They are practicing it, they are using it, but they've never really connected the two. So in my world, one of the things that I'm really really feel strongly about is that we need to practice in order to build our purpose, our passion and our strengths, and I think if we do that intentionally, then that gives us a greater platform to serve others. We're going to serve others more effectively. Others, we're going to serve others more effectively, and we're also not going to spread ourselves so thin, trying to do lots of different things that don't really add up at the end of the day, to truly serving the purpose that we have. So I do think it's a combination of strengths, purpose and passion and really bringing those things together in that sweet spot.

Speaker 4: 8:41

So give us some examples of how you've invited leaders or teams to practice, because we were of the same sort. We think that hope is not a strategy, but we really believe that practice is with some great intentionality. And so are there some examples where the light bulb has gone on for either teams or individuals, where it's like, oh, they're stumbling into how to deliberately practice better.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Yes, absolutely. The first thing I like to do with leaders is I like to whether it's a group of leaders as an executive team or an individual is first think about what are the specific behaviors that we want to become better at that are really important to us being successful, because if we don't identify behaviors, I think we can spend a lot of time spinning our wheels on things that really aren't going to add value. So, for instance, I was working with a leadership team for a mid-sized healthcare company about $3 billion in revenue and with the executive team, one of the areas that they were talking about getting better at was innovation. You know a lot of people want to be more innovative, so they said we need to be more innovative. You know, things are starting to contract in our space and we need to find new ways to generate revenue and profit, and so we said, okay, well, let's talk about what are the behaviors specific to innovation, and one of them is risk-taking. And I said, well, how do you all do when it comes to taking risks? And they said we do great. I said, okay, well, I'm going to chat with some of the vice presidents that report to you and we'll come back in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 10:21

So long story short. I chat with the vice presidents and they said well, we don't really like to take risks because Sue, who took risks three years ago, is no longer with us. And so I came back to them and said look, I understand, innovation is important. You said we're risk takers, but what I'm hearing from your people is that there's a different lens that they're seeing innovation through. So we talked about how do we become a more risk-taking organization, and so we talked about let's celebrate failure.

Speaker 1: 10:49

And so one of the things we said was each month we're going to pick one idea that was executed. It didn't quite reach the level of success that they wanted. We're going to do an after-action review, so we're going to understand why wasn't it successful? What could we do differently in the future? And that's what we're going to celebrate each month. And so what we had is we created short videos. So the person who was involved in that incident would do a quick 30 to 60 second video to say here's what I tried to do, here's what didn't work out, here's what I'm going to do differently in the future. And so they started celebrating that. And so to your point, linda, that was just one example where we took innovation, which is a big, broad category, said let's break it down to behaviors and then let's get specific about celebrating that and do it through video so that we can communicate it throughout the organization.

Speaker 4: 11:38

Oh, that's a great example. It reminds me of a couple of companies that we know that they have funerals for ideas.

Speaker 1: 11:48

I see how it's similar.

Speaker 4: 11:49

So you can take that and run with that.

Speaker 1: 11:51

But no, but it's those tangible examples.

Speaker 4: 11:53

You can be really aspirational to be innovative but, like you were saying, if the risk taking isn't there, that that is one of the behaviors. I think we use that a lot.

Speaker 1: 12:56

When you begin to name the behaviors that people's attitudes or like their emotional disposition is quick to align, or do you feel like there's also some hesitation or reluctance on the attitude side, defensive initially and a little bit skeptical and a little bit not fear, but trying to wonder what is really going to be the outcome? Because a lot of folks at a senior level have risen to that level because they're in control, and I think part of what I'm seeing these days is the best leaders understand that I can't control everything, but what I can control is my emotion, the way that I interact with other people, the way that I manage that interaction, and part of that is being a good listener, part of that is asking good questions. So I do think the attitude is important, and the main way I see people adapting their attitude is through conversation. I think that we have to have an open dialogue about what are we doing well and what could we be doing differently or better in order to serve our people. And I usually finish that sentence with serve our people.

Speaker 1: 14:03

It's not just about you being better, it's how are we serving our people? By being better, and so that I think, once we talk about serving other people and we get the group understanding that that's really the end game for a leader. When I think of leadership, I think of it as setting direction and serving others to achieve goals. So really you have three components setting direction, serving others and achieving goals and I think of those three things are in place. Then, as a leader, we're doing the things that are going to drive the most fulfillment for us and success for the organization.

Speaker 3: 14:38

Now, rich, as you're working with an executive team on that. On just that last point, there I'm thinking of some of the experiences that we have where you're working with the executive team and the senior level person isn't always the first one to embody any of those three characteristics. I mean, that's just our experience, but there could be someone that does take the lead. Have you ever had a situation like that?

Speaker 1: 15:05

Yes, absolutely. And so, to that point, one of the things we talk about is the importance of assessment, and you know, obviously you all have done a lot of great work with StrengthsFinders in really getting people to understand where are we today, individually and collectively, as a team perspective as well. So the strategic quotient is a good assessment tool that I think really gets people to understand. You know what? I'm probably not as good as I thought I was in one of the three areas, whether it's acumen, the thinking part, allocation, the planning part, or action, the acting part of being strategic. So, typically, if we can start the engagement with getting people to baseline, that now, all of a sudden, we can start the engagement with getting people to baseline that now, all of a sudden, we've taken the titles out of the equation. So whether you're a chief operating officer or you're a first-line leader, that doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Where are you on your strategic quotient assessment? So, typically, if we can get people to do that, then to your point, brian, if we've got somebody who's a high potential, let's say they're a director, but they are highly strategic, they are a great leader. Now we'll talk, we'll bring them to the session and we'll talk about what. We'll ask them what are some of the things that you're doing on a regular basis? I'll also interview their direct reports beforehand to get some quotations, to say here's some specific examples, some comments that they have. So what that does, I think, is it does create an awareness from the other senior leaders that, hey, there are some things we can learn from people at all levels in the organization.

Speaker 3: 16:39

So Rich when teams are moving into this opportunity of really changing behaviors and attitudes, what's happening among the team members, as you're with this team? What's going on between them as they're realizing something's about to change?

Speaker 1: 16:54

So there is definitely a chemical shift. You can feel in the room when you're going through this, and the way I would describe it is there's a catalyst that triggers it. So typically it's a comment, it's an example, it's an idea that somebody has about doing something differently or doing something better. Again, we talked about the specific behaviors, so what I'll try to do in those instances, then, is ask questions and obviously you all are great at asking questions with your podcasts and your consulting work, so you understand the importance here. But what I'll typically do is try to bring in people who aren't in the conversation currently. So there's some people who are in that cultural stew happening and some who aren't. So I'll try to bring in some people and say Roger, you've been listening to some of the comments to this point. How would you interpret what's being said and what are some of your observations to this point? So I won't put Roger on the spot, but I'll look for observations, and then, typically, roger and some other people will come forward and say you know, I can see why Sheila has been so successful you know, at her level doing this and then I'll say are there things that we can learn as a team, collectively, from what Sheila, who is a director level, has told us so far. And so I'll go to the whiteboard or flip chart and say what are some of the takeaways. And I'm a big believer that in these sessions, as we get to these turning points, we need to call out the insights. And when I think about an insight, I think about it as a learning that leads to new value. So I'll walk up to the whiteboard and I'll say, ok, let's talk. I'll write down insights and I'll say what are the insights that we're taking away from this conversation? How is this impacting us individually, collectively, from a business perspective, as well as from a cultural perspective? And so, again, that'll take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how open people want to be.

Speaker 1: 18:50

The other part, brian, to your point, is so that I think, gets us about 80, 85% of the way, most of the time. But then there's always a couple people who you're still not quite sure have bought into some of the changes. To chat with them a day or two after the session individually, especially at the senior level. I find that some people, no matter what happens, they're not comfortable being vulnerable in front of the group. So I'll talk with them afterwards to say you know what were some of your observations. Do you think some of what we heard from Sheila is applicable to you and your team? How would you suggest that we could integrate this into the group? So now I'm trying to get them to buy in by sharing their observations, their ideas on how we might implement some of the things that Sheila shared with us in that session.

Speaker 4: 19:38

So I love it. So, when you're having those day one, day two after the event or time with them, when you're having those specific conversations, is it because some of them are introverted? Is it because some of them just don't have a comfort level with change? Is it because their face and their actions and their words aren't all matching up? How is it that you kind of dial into what you are sensing from some of those?

Speaker 1: 20:11

Yeah, it's a really important question, linda, because I think too often we categorize, we think of people as introverted and extroverted.

Speaker 1: 20:19

I still have to work at this sometimes when I'm in these sessions. What interesting what I find is that the introverted people if we get to this point, to Brian's point earlier, if we get to the real stirring of the stew at this point, I find the introverted people who have ideas and want the team to get better will come forward and talk. What I find is the people who are less confident in sharing responsibility and sharing their power, their accountability with other people are the ones who are less likely to talk in the bigger session about some of these more vulnerable issues of betterment, development and so forth. So those are typically the folks I find that I'll need to work with afterwards and oftentimes, but not always, it's people that have had the most tenure, they've been in the job the longest and I think sometimes they feel they have the most to lose. They've got a lot of resources, they've got a lot of people, and so I feel like sometimes they don't want to extend themselves because they feel like they might lose some of that business profile they've built.

Speaker 4: 21:33

Sure, and I think, well, I wonder, as you're talking, if what you're offering to some of those leaders is an upskill, like I want to upskill in growing your adaptive capacity. Is that what I'm saying?

Speaker 1: 21:46

Yeah, that's a great way to phrase it is that upskilling and that's the thing I think not enough leaders are really focused on is how do we upskill? Again, you know, I always think about experience and expertise, and when you look at the data, over 80 years experience is only the fifth best indicator of someone's performance on the job. Fifth, and so I'm a big believer that even though you've been in a role for a long time, it doesn't mean we're getting better. It's not like fine wine. We don't get better with age. Naturally, you know there has to be work put in, and so I'm a big believer in this concept of strategic fitness. You know, it's interesting because the average CEO exercises 45 minutes a day, which I think is pretty impressive because of you know her responsibilities day in and day out. 45 minutes a day is a lot, but I'm not finding people practicing or building up their fitness or their skill sets in other areas nearly as intentionally as they work on their physical fitness.

Speaker 3: 22:50

And Rich. I think that's a great segue into your book because we didn't cover my background. But the fitness metaphor for all of us that's in like fitness is important to all of us 45 minutes is an easy day.

Speaker 3: 23:03

That's what Brian's trying to say he's causing a warmup he's caused out of warm-up. Um, the whole idea of strategy and fitness that that you are speaking about in your book, that obviously got our attention. Um, and so one of my questions that I brought to this conversation was why the intentionality on choosing the word fitness? You just alluded to it. Would you mind sharing a little more on the importance of that word in your new book?

Speaker 1: 23:34

Whether you play golf, the guitar or Saturday morning pickleball, you know, if we only do something once a year, we are not going to be very good at it. And so I think people understand very easily you know, if I lift weights once a one day out of the year, I'm not going to be strong. If I run two miles a year, I'm not going to be, you know, cardiovascularly fit. So I think it's it's it's common sense, but I think what? What? What happens is people haven't taken the time to sit down and think about this is my role. Here are the five activities that really comprise the 80% of what I do as a leader, and now I'm going to break these activities down into the behaviors that drive that. So what are those key behaviors? And then let's develop a practice plan. You know, brian, as a lead athlete, you know you have a practice plan.

Speaker 1: 24:26

Probably most times when you're, you know, training for one of your competitions, you've got some type of plan. Again, if we think about a professional football team, you know they've got playbooks, they've got hundreds of plays. They don't just go out there and say, well, you know, let's see what happens today, but again, a good leader is going to go into their work each day, both from a physical and mental perspective, saying how can I be better? And I'm a big believer. Also and you all have seen this as well whether it's an Olympic athlete or professional athlete, oftentimes the mental game is just as important or more important at the very elite levels of competition. So I work with executives all the time to say let's build a mental workout for you each morning, and that mental workout really is comprised of three things. It's what's your performance statements. So let's pick three things that you want to be good at today. Pause for five seconds after every comment in a meeting before I respond. So that could be one performance statement. I'm going to read that each morning so I get better at my interaction with people.

Speaker 1: 25:35

Then visualization Again, a lot of Olympians talk about the importance of visualization. Well, if you've got a meeting with your board of directors, spend five minutes and let's visualize that meeting. You know who's in the room, what are they wearing, where are you? Are you presenting slides? Are you asking questions? How are you responding to objections? So visualize yourself in that situation and then finish that mental workout with an identity statement. So an identity statement is reaffirming who you are as a leader, so I'm a servant leader and I'm here to bring great value to my team. You know, simple as that, so that that mental workout will take three to five minutes each morning and maybe% in competition and with business leaders it's almost flipped.

Speaker 2: 26:36

What are some other examples of I guess we can call them workouts or how? Maybe not a different percentage, but what are some other things that leaders can do kind of along those lines of training, of workouts? I mean, you're just talking about going to conferences and reading books, or how do know if I'm trying to develop a specific skill as a leader? How do I, you know, design a eight mile tempo run, equivalent of that?

Speaker 1: 27:06

Right, yeah, excellent, nathan, and I love the fact that you use the word workout, because that's the word I use too. I've developed a strategic fitness system which is comprised of 50 workouts. It's an online platform, but you don't need that. You can work out in other ways, and one of the things I'd suggest is pick contextual radar. You know we all understand the importance of really understanding our situation. Where are we starting today? And so a contextual radar just draw a circle with a line down and a line across. So you've got four areas and put company in one area, market in a second, competitors in a third, and then customers. So you've got those four areas on the radar and then take all the things that are top of mind for you in those four areas. So what's happening within your company? What are some of the key activities of your competitors? How has your customers' thinking and behaviors changed? What are some patterns or trends you're seeing in the market? So that's a workout I would consider. I have that in my strategic fitness system.

Speaker 1: 28:18

Anybody can do that, though, on a piece of paper, on a PowerPoint slide, because that, again, is going to make you more in tune with what's happening around you, so you can be more proactive and less reaction. Again, you know I always make the the the analogy of a, of a doctor. You know, if you saw your doctor because you hurt your ankle training for the marathon, you go into the exam room. She comes into the room, she doesn't ask any questions, she doesn't take any. We oftentimes don't do a great job of diagnosing, we jump right to the prescription what's the solution, what's the tactic, what's the project? So again, the contextual radar, to your point, nathan, is a good example of a workout. Do that once a week, once a month, to build that strategic thinking ability to understand your situation better.

Speaker 4: 29:17

Rich, I love your answer and your ability to just give us some tactical measures to even to practice. My question is and I'm thinking about some of the leaders that we work with they would maybe do that contextual radar and then say, well, I did that once, I already did that, so how? No really so. How do you invite them to keep it fresh? Is this like get a new piece of paper or use a blank screen? How do you encourage the true workout or practice nature of doing some of these mental workouts, that's?

Speaker 1: 29:52

good, yeah, so it's a great point, linda. One of the things we talked about earlier was this idea of insights, learnings that lead to new value. So, whether I'm doing a strategic planning session with an executive team or you know, linda, you're doing your contextual radar workout. You know, on Monday morning, the thing I'm always going to ask you is what were your insights, what were your takeaways from that exercise? So, in addition to doing the workout, you should also have two to three bullet points on here were my takeaways from that workout. So, on the contextual radar, it might be.

Speaker 1: 30:25

You know, I looked at the competitor area. I don't have anything new. I need to find out what competitor X is doing in the market. So I'm going to talk to some of my key sales managers who can share with me what's happening there. So, to your point, not only are you going to do the workout, but what are the insights or the learnings from that workout?

Speaker 1: 30:45

And then, with something like the radar, what I'm going to ask you to do is I want you to show me the last quarter each month. So you're going to have three radars for me. And then I want you to tell me how is your market changing, how is your business changing? Because everyone will tell you oh, there's so many things changing in the business, but what exactly is changing If you're doing the radar each month or each week? Now you start stacking them next to one another and now you can tell me predictively what's changing in the business before other people can. So you're really making yourself more valuable as a leader because you're able to spot situations and trends before other people can.

Speaker 4: 31:23

So good.

Speaker 3: 31:24

Thank you, rich. My curiosity is this for you what did you learn about yourself after the book was published? You get the research done, you push this thing forward, then you kind of lean back for a second, take a deep breath. I'm not writing anymore. Was there something that you learned about yourself through the work that you're doing? Because through the writing that we're doing, you're learning about yourself all the time. Because that's a curiosity for me, because I know that once the information sinks into someone, you could also be experiencing some of the same challenges and illuminations that people that are reading your book are going to go through. So my question is what did you learn about yourself?

Speaker 1: 32:03

So self-reflection is probably always the most challenging things. You know, if any of us have done presentation skills training, where you have yourself videotaped and you watch yourself speaking on videotape Wow, it's a, it's a scary thing, you think about all the ums and the uhs and the likes that that you're throwing out there, and typically when I write a book, uh, that usually is that self-reflection time afterwards. And so one of the things that stood out for me is the idea of the business model, and how does that apply to me and to what I'm doing with my company? So, again, when we think about the business model, it's simple. It's how do you create value, how do you deliver value, how do you capture value?

Speaker 1: 32:46

And I realized in stepping back, brian, that I wasn't doing a good enough job in the delivery of value. I think, both from a live perspective there's things I could be doing differently and then from an online perspective, I said to myself you're not really providing as much value as you can because you're relying too much on your live events, the being with senior teams, live coaching, live. You've got to find ways to do more things that don't involve your live time. So that was the thing I really learned and took away from this book is I need to be more focused on how do I create greater value for others without me being physically involved day in and day out, and so that's what I've been working on, obviously, with AI now there's some ways to use AI to create content and to take content that's been created in the past, so I'm working on several streams to do a better job with that.

Speaker 2: 33:47

So, rich, the first question that I had for you that we were going to like I told you we had some pre-canned questions, just depending on how chatty we all were. So this might get moved to a different part of the conversation, but your bio says that you are a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of eight books on strategic thinking, including your most recent work, strategic the Skill to Set Direction, create Advantage and Achieve Executive Excellence. So my question eight books on strategy. People read this eighth book here. What are you hoping that they're going to pull from this book? If people can walk away with one thing after reading it, I hope it is this.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Yeah, it's a great point, Nathan.

Speaker 1: 34:29

One of the things I considered as I was doing coaching the last few years and doing it virtually because of the pandemic I typically recorded the conversations with permission and would go back and look at the transcripts, and the word that kept jumping out to me from the transcripts in talking with senior leaders was the word navigate, and a lot of leaders saying you know, I'm having trouble navigating this part of the business, I'm having trouble with my team navigating the culture that we're in right now, and so one of the things I realized was strategy is important just from a pure setting direction standpoint, but also that we need to be, as leaders, strategic about all the things that we're doing, whether it's emotional intelligence setting, culture, presenting, and so this is really, yes, it's a book about strategy, but it's really a book about how do I be strategic in all areas of the business, and so that's why I came up with the Compass Framework, which has the four areas of strategy, leadership, communication and organization, and so I really designed this book to be really a catch-all for executives to say, look, if I need almost a checklist to make sure I'm not missing anything big in the business, what would that checklist look like?

Speaker 1: 35:47

So, looking at basically these 64 ideas, I started to whittle that down to 16, and that became the chapters then in the book. So things like resource allocation, decision making, emotional intelligence, executive presence all of those things are covered, because I felt, if I was still just talking about strategy, executives would need help in other areas as well.

Speaker 2: 36:11

And it seems like, with the kind of focus on this fitness idea or using this metaphor, there's very much a personal element to this that leaders need to focus on. Like you said, a bunch of different areas of life, like the whole. I think is it part two, but yeah, the leadership fitness section on, like, how are you mentally tough, how are you managing and being strategic about your time and energy? Talk a little bit about that, because sometimes I think that leaders we focus so much on all this other stuff that we forget about. If I forget to eat lunch or I'm not well-rested, I'm just going to be a mess doing all of this other stuff. So talk a little bit about, maybe, where that came from. I don't know if that was a personal aha you had of, like, whoa, I'm lacking in this, or yeah, speak around that a little bit.

Speaker 1: 36:54

Yeah, what I was finding, nathan, is I was talking to senior leadership teams.

Speaker 1: 37:04

We were having trouble getting to the strategy and setting direction because there was dysfunction in the team itself and a lot of the dysfunction was due to people not being not in an optimal state for performance of their regular jobs.

Speaker 1: 37:13

Some of that was due to coming out of the pandemic, but some of it was due to also just people's work ethic you know, being a workaholic, being burned out, a lot of the classic things that we hear about. So I did realize that if a leader is going to perform optimally in serving others, they do need to serve themselves first. So, you know, covering things like sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, exercise I did think was important. I'm not an expert in those things, in those areas, so I did obviously reference a lot of experts in those parts of the book. And, brian, certainly we could reference you from a fitness standpoint as well and you could probably write the forward to the next one on that. But I do think to your point, nathan we've got to take care of ourselves first and it's got to be the whole person emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically before we can serve others.

Speaker 3: 38:04

What I value about what you're saying, Rich, is that there is a it's not just a thoughtfulness that you're bringing. You know, we've talked to those people. There is an, a deep applicability to what you're talking about, but in between those two, there's a conviction that you bring to what you're saying that is authentic, and that authentic conviction to your message is what I'm responding to and it aligns to the work that we do. So there's a lot of synergy there?

Speaker 4: 38:36

No, it's because to me it sounds very invitational. Rich Like that you are not just saying here it is, go follow this checklist. It's no, I want to invite you to be a better leader, a better navigator, a better team member, even member, even, and it's just. It's a pleasure to hear your snippets, because it just we're putting faces to some of your examples.

Speaker 3: 39:01

I think, oh for sure, and there are just several things that you've talked about. This is not gonna be the podcast that just align with our with our knowing nathan.

Speaker 3: 39:08

Yeah, knowing nathan there's just several things about what you're doing, rich, that aligns with our practice. And, specifically, like, I have a list of p words in my life that matter to me a lot and one of them is practice, so I'm always going to respond to that. The objective insight that you intentionally seek by outsiders, that strategy, I think you know you're throwing strikes every single time. So I love your approach to that because I also know, as an expert yourself, it also opens the aperture of your understanding what's going on in the executive's mind and in the organizational culture. Your understanding what's going on in the executive's mind and in the organizational culture. So that practice also shows me rich, um, your level of curiosity, you know, and ability to, or willingness to, be, inspired by other people, cause that inspiration can then awaken pieces of your wisdom to apply. So that kind of zooming in, zooming out is something that we really value and I can hear it in your language, because you're not just driving down the center lane, you're providing perspective from other lanes um of your experience, and that dimensionality, I think, is extremely important what we're saying is thank you oh yeah thank you

Speaker 1: 40:30

thank you yeah, it's funny. The one other thing that I didn't mention, uh, you talked about, you know, what did you learn through, about yourself through this is the whole idea of non-judgmental observation. Uh, you know, and again, in sports, you know, if you hit the ball in the net in tennis you don't go oh you idiot, you just hit the ball in the net that that doesn't help. So again, you know, you know I need to put more top spin, you know, on on the shot and get the racket back quicker. That's what we want to get to.

Speaker 1: 40:59

And again, we are so quick to judge and it's something I've got to work on. I work with my, my leaders on it. I actually just last week I sent one of the leaders I'm working with a judge's gavel and block and he put it on his desk because he said, you know, I'm too quick to judge people as good or bad. I put people on a list, they don't get off the list. And he said I need to be better at that. So I sent him the judge's gavel, he's got it on the desk and again, we talk about what are the questions each morning in his mental workout that would enable him to be less judgmental. So again, this is not good or bad. You know, as Shakespeare said, there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. So that's another thing I think I've learned through this process is continuing to be disciplined and not judging things. You know immediately when I encounter them as possessing insight that leads to advantage.

Speaker 2: 41:55

If someone's listening to this podcast today or has read your book and wants to know what's that one thing, that first step I can take on that path to gaining more insight that can lead me to that advantage, whatever that might be in their own business or context, what would that thing be?

Speaker 1: 42:11

So the main thing would be how are you measuring your value? And I'm a big believer that we don't have jobs. We create and deliver value. That's what we're should be assessed on. So we need to first step back and think about who are we serving, what are the behaviors, and then what's the value that results from those behaviors, If we can think about value in objective terms.

Speaker 1: 42:37

So talk to the people that you're working with, talk to your direct reports, talk to your customers and ask them what is the value that you can receive from me and what could I be doing better to provide greater value to you in the future? If we focus on value, I think then we start to eliminate a lot of the needless activities, tasks, things that we're doing day in and day out that really don't mean things to people. Again, it's that 80-20 principle. Oftentimes there's 20% of the things that drive 80% of the value. So to me, again, we need to step back and think about what is the value I'm providing. So talk to people about how you're doing today and what you could be doing differently or better.

Speaker 2: 43:18

Bam. I love that. That's great. That could be both our intro snippet and the last thing and something in the middle and that's the whole podcast. Wow, rich, thank you so much. I really love chatting with you and just thank you for being a guest here on the Leadership Vision Podcast.

Speaker 1: 43:34

I'm just very grateful for the opportunity to chat with you all Again. You know for me to find people that love what they do and are really good at what they do and are helping other people To me, we like to think there's a lot of people out there like that, but they're not necessarily that. So I could sense that in our conversations. You know the chemistry that you all have with one another and the fact that you've got such a great track record delivering that value. For me, it's been a blessing to chat with you, so thank you so much for taking the time today.

Speaker 3: 44:04

You're welcome. This has been great. You're so accessible. I love that.

Speaker 2: 44:10

And thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If you found value from this episode or any of our other podcast episode or other online resources, we would love it if you could. Here's a bunch of stuff for you to do. You could join our email newsletter, follow us on social media, leave a reply or review in any of your podcast apps. But more importantly, and I think what would be most helpful and mean the most to us, is if you could share this episode or any of our other materials with someone that you think could benefit from growing deeper in their own strengths, knowledge, in the knowledge of their team, and how to create stronger team culture or how to create a healthier organization.

Speaker 2: 44:53

A big thank you again to Rich Horwath for just chatting, and he and I got a chance to chat for a little bit before Brian and Linda jumped on and it was just fun to get to know him, kind of non-recorded. He's a Midwest guy. I'm a Midwest, from the Midwest originally, and so it was fun to chat about some of those things. If you'd like to connect with Rich, there are links in the show notes or you can visit his website, strategyskillscom and you can learn a whole bunch more about him. Order his books. They're available, I think all on Amazon, but again, we'll have links in the show notes for some of that. I'm Nathan Friberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.