EntreLeadership - #89: Patrick Lencioni— How to Make Your Company Healthy and Wealthy

Episode Date: January 26, 2015

Is it possible to have a company where politics are minimized, clarity is king, and team members are passionate about what they do? Absolutely. And this episode’s guest, best-selling business author Patrick Lencioni, tells us how. http://www.entreleadership.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, faithful, inspiring, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the podcast of Leaders by Leaders, And four leaders.

We're thrilled to have you with us. Our feature conversation is with Pat Lincione, the New York Times bestselling author of many, many books. His new book, The Advantage, why organizational health trumps everything else in business. That is our conversation. And I'm telling you, it is fantastic. You will also hear from Christy Wright, one of our personalities.

This is a fantastic segment from a talk she gives out on the road at our Entree Leadership events on Ler, life balance that will really encourage you as we were early on in 2015. So folks, I'm thinking about this interview that I did with Pat Lincione, and I've had the honor to have interviewed Pat a handful of times over my career. I find him to be one of the most practically wise individuals I've ever talked to. You know, there's wisdom that you have to chew on sometimes for days and days. And then there's that practical wisdom. Somebody can lay something on you and it hits you right in the head like a two before, but you immediately know where to apply it.

And this idea, this title of the book, The Advantage got me thinking about what does this really mean to you and I? No matter what world you're in, so whether it be business, the nonprofit world, you are leading an organization or you are leading a division, which essentially makes you responsible for leading some type of initiative or initiatives. And I'm a sports nut. And so everything for me, usually comes back to some type of sports analogy. And I'm thinking about hockey. Here in Nashville, we have the Nashville Predators. As we

record today, middle of January, they have the best record in the NHL. And the greatest advantage in hockey is the power play, right? One or maybe two of the players

on a team are basically put in what we parents like to call timeout, right? They go sit in the penalty box, and thus there is a amount of time that they have to sit in the box and thus their team is at a disadvantage having less players than the other team. They call it the power play. And I was thinking about this because any advantage you can get is a power play for you. Right? I mean, any advantage you can possibly find in your world, an advantage over a problem that you as a nonprofit are trying to solve.

Any advantage in the sales process is any advantage in a actual product or something? service that you can provide is a power play for you can use the advantage like a power play to score and so why wouldn't you do anything you possibly could to get an advantage pat linchioni says in his book the advantage why organizational health trumps everything else in business and he makes the case and we talk about it in great detail in this conversation he says this is the advantage above all other advantages. So don't just listen to this conversation because you listen to the podcast

and it helps you and assertive, but really listen for that advantage. I think he makes the case. I think you should run and get the book because I do agree that organizational health is everything. And you can do it. Don't stick your head in the sand leaders.

This is important. So I must tell you, with that in mind, I am very excited about this conversation, can't wait to let you get to it. And by the way, stay tuned because we're going to give away 50 of the books. I'll tell you how to do that after the interview. All right, folks, before we get to our featured conversation this episode, we want to check in with our friends at InfusionSoft for our business success tip of the week.

I've got Clayt Mask, their CEO on the line. Clay, how are you today, sir? Doing great, Ken. Great to be with you. Well, it's always fun to be with you. Really enjoyed your conversation that you did. did with us and thanks for giving us the 50 books. That was great fun. All right, here's the question. How does small businesses market to their customers like the big boy businesses?

Yeah, you bet. Well, for small businesses, relationships are what give them an advantage over big corporate competitors. But that doesn't mean that you can't use some of the advantages that corporate competitors have on small business. And here's what that is. When we follow up effectively and deliver value on a consistent basis, we win business. Big businesses know that. They've got big systems to do that. So what you can do is use systems to centralize and organize your customer and prospect information so that you're sending them the right information at the right time to the right people.

You leverage personalized automated follow-ups, so nobody slips through the cracks when you're too busy and you're not able to manage the day-to-day operations. When you use systems to follow up, enhance your communication, you win, and you're able to beat out the big businesses. Clay, you are an Entree leader, and we love what InfusionSoft does for small businesses. Tell us why you exist. We're all about helping small businesses succeed, and we want to help them do that by getting their sales and marketing nailed and in place using our software so that our customers can get organized, grow sales, and save time and have the life they want.

All right, folks, we really want you to take the time to visit infusionsoft.com slash entre, and you can get some success tools there on that page. The landing page will also have four videos. You'll have one on how to attract leads, one on marketing, one on selling, and one on wow strategy. This is what Infusionsoft calls it, wow strategy. Now, you can also take the opt-in option on that site if you want more tools. And you can also opt in for a weekly email series as well as an option to learn about

infusion soft software. So do that all at infusionsoft.com slash entree. All right, folks, we are now ready for our Pat Lynch-Jenning conversation. This is so good. Let's get right to it. Well, Pat, I want to talk about the why here because our audience knows you well. I love your books. You've got an incredible track record of the books you've written. And I think it's good for us to understand the why behind this particular book. The table group is your you're an amazing company, and you've gone really deep with a lot of companies. At what point, with all of your experience, do you say yourself, it's clear. I know what the advantage is, and I've got to write this book.

What was the catalyst? You know, as everything else that came from our clients, and when I wrote my first book, I did it because clients encouraged me to do it. And then one by one, they kept saying, you know, you've got to address this topic. And at the end of the day, we had all these different books, and we had never really integrated it at all to put it together, other than that. in our practice. And so our client said, you've got to put this together so that it's easier for people to implement it. And we realized that we had a complete that people needed. So I guess

I would say it was a little bit by accident, and we didn't decide to. The decision kind of got made for us. Now, early on in the book, there's a section, Understanding Organizational Health. And I want to dive into this right here, because I think it will help inform the rest of our conversation. What does organizational health look like if you were to break that down? You can't give us the whole chapter there and all that. But what is it? look like? You know, the most important thing is it's an organization where politics are minimized. There's almost no politics. What I mean is people don't say things that they don't mean and they're not trying to manipulate one another. And confusion is gone. People know what's

going on and they know what they need to do to be successful. Those are the two biggest things that people don't feel, you know, most organizations, people say there's a lot of politics here and I'm always confused about what's going on. Those two things going away. And as a result of that, morale and productivity are very high. And I don't mean that in some kind of esoteric sense. I mean, people are psyched to come to work and they know what to do and they get a lot done when they're there. And the final quality almost never leave unless there's some overwhelming, compelling reason not to do with the... So those are the signs that an organization is healthy.

And it doesn't take a diagnostic quiz to ask people how things are going, people in the general spirit. Boy, that's so true. Your observation over time, does the pendulum swing in one way or the other, if you were to say there's most organizations, unfortunately, are unhealthy or it's 50-50, or I'm encouraged there's maybe a heavier swing towards really healthy organizations. If you were to take a snapshot picture, what's your gut on that? I think 15% of organizations are probably healthy. Wow. This is, and I believe, and I don't say that in a cynical way or like, these dumb people need to, I think just when you put together a bunch of fallible human beings in an organization, and if they're not intentionally, purposefully doing the right things, a very messy result. Now, and life is messy, but what I mean messy, I mean a lot of self-interested people doing things that, I would say it's about 15%, but the good news is this, if a leader is sincere in his or her desire to make their organization healthy and can put together a hand. handful of people at the leadership level, and they want to do it. It's immensely doable. It's even simple, conceptually. It takes a lot of hard work and persistence, but it's not complicated. So my hope, and the purpose of my company is we want that to be 85% one day. We want people

organization healthy. We have high-speed internet. We've got, you know, sound financials. Why wouldn't we make our organization? We want to make it a standard in business. And this is great. I love that you added that, you know, after you told us, here's where I think it's at. Because this is encouraging. This is very, very helpful. And so I'm glad you said that because for the audience, I want to talk to you for just a moment. Those of you who are leading and you just feel overwhelmed, like you know things aren't healthy, you've got to really lock into what Pat said. It's simple. It's to take hard work, but it's about the leadership team. And in the book, you lay out the four disciplines model. I want to just hit these very quickly, and then we'll go a little deeper.

discipline one you say is build a cohesive leadership team you just address that very briefly discipline two create clarity discipline three over communicate clarity and discipline four reinforce clarity that is like you have hit the bell hard on clarity we'll get to that in a moment but let's talk about building a cohesive leadership team again you are in the weeds with organizations on this every day that's what the table group does how do we find Cohesive leadership teams? What are the elements and then maybe what are some of the steps to assembling that cohesiveness? Well, the first thing you have to do, and I mean the first thing, and the first part of all of this is building trust among the people who leave that team.

But the kind of trust I'm talking about is vulnerability-based trust. People that are willing to say to one another on a regular basis and in complete sincerity, things like, I don't know the answer to this, or I need help, or I'm not good at this, and you're are please teach me to be like you or even I'm sorry I was completely out of line with you yesterday I beg your forgiveness when human beings can come to the table and learn to be genuinely vulnerable with one another it changes everything and it is the beginning of this entire process not come to the table and be vulnerable with one another they are not going to build trust not going to be possible so that's really the tip of the spear full of people at the top

because when you build that trust, Pat, it really allows everything else to become a workable solution because we know, hey, you're for me, I'm for you, we're for the mission, we kind of know where we're going. I mean, that really is huge. That's where things break down almost every time, correct? Exactly. And you know, you asked the question before, Ken, what percentage of companies have established that level of trust and we're all in this together and we're all for each other? not very many you know it's far more common in the world for people to look out for themselves we come out of the womb

you know protecting ourselves and it's not natural for people to put others ahead of themselves and yet when they do that amazing things happen you see in the world of sports you see it in business and churches and in the military and every kind of organization when you get that of spree decor that real selflessness awesome things happen and we work with teams to try to help them do that okay you mentioned sports and disclaimer to you folks out there.

Pat and I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together kind of behind the seeds and we both love football and we get a little geeked out here. But this is important because this morning, as we record this podcast, it's the morning after Ohio State has won the national championship. And this will make Buckeye fans excited, Pat. But I've got to ask you, and I'm assuming you're familiar with their story this year. Yeah. It's extraordinary to me that they won the national championship

with a third string quarterback. Yes, the kid's talented, but I'm not taking anything away from him. But they lost one of their members of their team. Tragically died in the season. Lost the first game, I believe, of the season of Virginia Tech. I mean, unbelievable roadblocks. And one of the things that Urban Meyer said last night to ESPN's Tom Rinaldi, post-game, minutes after the final whistle, he said, this team just was unified. They were together. That speaks to organizational health. It's almost like a wonder serum, isn't it? It absolutely is. I had a chance to have dinner with Urban Meyer at a Chit-Tillay event years ago.

And he's a man of faith, and he's a man of integrity. And even though in major college football, teams hate each other, you know, Alabama and Auburn, the level of hatred, loving hatred between them is great. And he was at Florida, and people from Florida State will say he's a terrible guy. The truth of the matter is he is a guy of character. And Michigan fans, I'm a friend of Jim Harba. They're going to hate me saying that. down to and if you saw his coaches on the sideline and you know the kind of work they put into

overcoming those obstacles it's extraordinary and my sons were watching the game they said man they have the three best quarterbacks in the nation and i said well maybe they have a great coach and a great system where a new guy can step in and do really well so it was quite an amazing thing you know the other organization that is really focused on organizational health in sports is the san antonio spurs and and as it turns out 12 years ago they were reading one of my books which is a precursor to one, and I'm sure they were already great before they read it, but the point is, these kind of organizations are hungry to learn how to build trust. And seriously, then everybody sees them on the field and says, well, it must be the offense they ran or the kind of weightlifting they did,

but without that unity and without that trust, all that other stuff doesn't matter, because all the other teams are doing that weightlifting, too. That's exactly right. So it really is about creating a different kind of organization. It really is, and we can't break down all of this, but I want to keep moving on this, building a cohesive leadership team. because Pat gives us five behaviors on how we build a cohesive leadership team in the book. But I want to go to number two, which comes right behind trust. Mastering conflict, I mean, my gosh, there are a few people in this world that are okay stepping in conflict. It's like a sport for them.

They're good at it or they like it and it's how they're wired. But generally speaking, no one really likes to deal with conflict. But when there's trust, Pat, conflict becomes a lot easier, right? Because we're not on edge. We're not guarding our back. We're just fighting for what we believe in. Exactly. If you know that the people care about you and you care about them and you would never say anything that would break down the team or break them down, then when you get into an argument, even if it's a little uncomfortable, you know it's for the right reason and you know you're going to be able to recover. So trust makes conflict the pursuit of truth. Whereas without trust, conflict is politics. I'm trying to win. And you're right. People do not like to engage in conflict. I think it's one of the norms in our society is to always be nice. But nice isn't always kind because you're not telling people that they're not. things they need to hear to get better.

Society really hurts teams and ultimately leads to really... Okay, folks, listen, you know I do this. Pat just said something that we cannot fly by. Pat, I'm going to say what I think you said. It's almost word for word, but let's make sure we get it right. I want you all to write this down. You can tweet it, give Pat credit for it. This is unbelievable.

You said that trust makes conflict the pursuit of truth. Is that right? Absolutely. That is some huge truth, right? right there. That's big, folks, if you get that. Unbelievable. Trust makes conflict about the pursuit of truth, not anything else. That is unbelievable. All right, I got to keep... If you go into a company where people trust each other and go to one of their meetings, they're going to have discussions that look like arguments that are going to make you think

they hate each other. And at the end of that meeting, they're going to be laughing, and they're going to talk about why that was a great decision, because nobody was ever trying to tear anybody down. They were just trying to get it truth, and they get at it faster and more effectively because they're not editing themselves. They're not holding back their opinions, and everybody knows that. It's efficient, it's effective, and it's, frankly, a lot more engaging than meetings where people are sitting back, calculating the cost of conflict, holding back their opinions, not saying what they want out of fear that people will take it the wrong way or that they'll be found out. To me, it's one of the greatest competitive advantages. If I had to assess any organization large or small can, look, I wouldn't talk to their customers.

The first thing I would do is I would go to their meetings and see if they really engage with one another. if they debated and argued well, because that to me is a sign that they're going to make the decisions. Yes. And, you know, there's some derivatives off of this as well because we all desire to be significant. And when you come into a room, Pat, and you feel like you threw out everything you had from your chest, and it may not have been the right answer or the best answer, but you walk out of the meaning going, you know what? Truth one, but at least I've got my say in. And now people don't walk away with resentment or not feeling like they have a voice. That's a real positive derivative that, again, bolsters health. Yeah, and you know, Ken, you just reminded me of something.

Another great sign that I should have put in the book, I put about it in different parts. A healthy organization is going to be the one where people don't have anything left to say in the hallways after a meeting. Oh, that's it. That's right. You're exactly right. Wow. So good. Okay.

Let's move into clarity because Pat hits the bell hard of the four disciplines. Three of them are about clarity. I'll review. Discipline two. Create clarity. discipline three over communicate clarity and discipline four reinforce clarity. Oh my goodness, Pat. We as human beings want to know where we stand, right?

That's why this is so huge. Yeah, and the thing about it is most organizations are good at clarity on the nuances and the details of their business, but not at that simple stuff. It's like families that, you know, well, we have a tutor and we have a financial planner and we have all these people trying to give us clarity in all these specific areas, but we've never defined what we stand for. and what we want to become and why we're doing what we're doing. And when I talk about clarity in an organization,

it's answering six really simple, a organization we go into, so busy dealing with the details of their business and the subtle nuances of their specialty. Boy, it's true. And folks, the six questions, I'm not going to go through them all. You've got to get the book, but he's right.

They're simple but profound. But let's keep going here. You've got to create the clarity, and then over-communicating it, which I think we get. but what is reinforcing the clarity look like on a day-to-day basis for leadership? Well, this is the structures that people put in place in organizations around people, whether it's hiring and firing or managing or setting goals or compensation, all of those things.

And unfortunately, too many organizations have these around those things. In other words, they get a performance review that's 12 pages long that they borrowed from some world-class company. Employees hate filling it out. They hate getting feedback. Lawyers try to make it so that you'll never get sued by it. and suddenly became this bureaucratic process that has nothing to do with reinforcing the purpose of the organization. What I mean is this, build every Q management to setting goals, to compensation,

everything you do, and you should customize everything you do, so every time an employee has any sort of process, simple organization. All right, I want to talk about two key areas that every leader has to confront, has to deal with, and has to do well. And this is under the Discipline 4 section of the book, reinforced clarity. First one is recognition. I think this is so vital, but I'm an admitted rah-rah guy, high emotion. I'm a D.I. I'm an extrovert. I think it's really important,

but what do you think is so important about recognition and how it's done? Formal. You know, so many companies have employee recognition programs, and we give them a, you know, a crystal trinket with, and we vote on it, and it's, and it doesn't really get tied to anything in particular. I think the key is this. What are our values? What are the key imperatives in our organization? Constantly catch people doing the right things and celebrating them. And the truth is, giving somebody a $500 gift certificate in a very bad way doesn't go very far. But calling people out in a meeting or inviting an employee into your executive staff meeting

to tell them that you think they embody the values and that they are extremely valuable, creative, the time. Catch people doing the right things, break them that feel genuine. Now, the only way to do that is if you know what, what the right things are. So if you don't have a clear set of values, you know, Southwest Airlines, their values are a warrior spirit, the servant's heart, and a fun-loving attitude.

Those are the three things they're looking for when they hire it. That's what they recognize people for. That's what they manage for. And that's what they let people go if they don't have. If you don't know what those three things are, you can't really have a good... This is something I'm just curious about. Have you seen a pattern,

or is there a natural blind spot for leadership? to not recognize the top performers because they think, well, you know, they're getting a lot of attention anyway by just their natural performance. They're making a lot of money, yada, yada, yada. Do you see that? Or I'm just curious? I do.

When people forget that money, it's a satisfying. In other words, people need enough money to feel good. But after a certain point, it's not enough. They need to be, what people never get enough of is recognition for doing the right thing. And so when we say, well, he makes a lot of money or he's famous. So I see this in professional athletes. I've worked with some teams. And the coaches think, well, he made the Pro Bowl, and he has a huge contract.

I don't need to kind of tell him that I'm proud of him. And I've asked coaches about that, and I'll say, well, this is professional sports. It's a business, Pat. They don't need that. It's like, what are you kidding? We're human beings. We never get tired of people saying, you did that well, and I appreciate it. And yet, monetary compensation and benefits and perks.

And the truth is people don't get out of bed in the morning for that. They want another human being to say that I appreciate what you've done. Nobody ever gets tired of that, and nobody ever leaves a company because they've been recognized too much. Well said. All right, let's talk about firing. I'm really curious to know what your thoughts are on this because a lot of leaders don't do this well. They'll keep somebody around because they're a good person or they've been with us forever, and it's not fun to do. I don't care how many times you've done it.

What are your thoughts on firing? I have so many strong feelings about that. I think it's a win-win situation, actually. Here's what happens too often. We have an employee that's difficult. And in a relatively small organization, and by the way, I know a lot of people listening to this might be working in small organizations

because that's where most Americans work. Organizational help is a bigger benefit to a small organization because it can transform it fast. And an unhealthy organization for small business because it can crush it fast. And so when it comes to firing people, you have a difficult employee in your organization. Most of us think of this as a decision science.

I either have to keep them or fire them. What should I do? Black or white. Truth of the matter is, and I just had this happen with a church the other day. I was with a church staff, and they have an employee that is not doing a good job. He runs maintenance and facilities for this company.

Fire him or not. Just like a company. And I said to them, no, no, no, no, no. First, you tell him every single time he does something that doesn't meet your values or live up to your expectations. Do you go? And usually they say, well, we told him once, and, well, we complain about him a lot to each other.

We vent to our husbands and wives about him. We talk about him. I'm like, no, but every time you see him do something that doesn't measure up to what you want, you have to go remind him. I know you hate doing it, but you have to tell him, if you have to tell him for 12 days in a row that he's not doing it, the right to make a decision. Because if you do that, if you deal with a difficult employee that you're trying to figure out how to fire, or if you should fire them, if you tell them over and over and over again,

one of two things is almost always going to happen. They are going to change their behavior because they are so tired of being reminded that they're not doing the right thing because they realize they can't be successful. Now, both of those are good things because if that person leaves, they're going to be happier because they're going to go someplace where they fit. And you can love them right out the door. You can help them find that next thing. They're eventually going to say, listen, I can't do this.

I don't belong here. And you're going to say, that's okay. We'll help you in your next thing. The problem is when we don't tell them every day because we don't like the discomfort of it, they don't either get better or leave. And then we have to get HR involved in a lawyer, and then it crushes their spirit, and then it sends a terrible message to the rest of the organization. So if you have an employee that you're thinking about firing,

have you told them incessantly that they need to get better, and have you invited them to make a decision about changing or leaving? You can leave. They can be your best friend after they leave. They'll thank you and call you and say thank you for helping me figure out I didn't belong there. But if you're not telling them, and this kind of gets back to that conflict thing, Ken, if you're not telling them on a regular basis that they're not living up to your expectations. So true. And it's an ultimate act of selfishness on a leader's part to say, well, I told them once, and I told them in their performance review.

And now I pretty much avoid them. And then to fire them, it's pretty cruel. Keeping them is cruel, too. That's exactly right. I want to ask a very practical question to the leader that's listening to this, and they're going, I've not done this well. and I know I've got to make a change, but I've not done the incessant thing. You just gave us to the blueprint.

What's the right period of time for those who need to do it now, and then for people, once you realize there's a problem, what's the proper timeline before you say, all right, it's over? Well, first of all, if you're not doing it, don't feel badly. You're in a big club. Most of us don't like to do it. This is not human nature. Human nature is to avoid difficult situations.

But if you haven't been doing that, and you sit down with somebody and you say, listen, here's the deal. I've not done a very good job. of letting you know about some things, and I need to start doing that now. So starting today, I want to tell you, this is what I don't see,

this is what I think you need to get better. Here's how your behaviors don't align with our values or our goals or our standards, and I really want you to make it here, but I'm going to start telling you every day. You will know in a matter of business in or out. Now, but only if you go back the next day and say, how are you doing?

Let me see what you're working on. Let me see. I think there's still still some things to improve on. Basically, they will probably make the decision for you. They will say, okay, I appreciate you telling me I want to get better or you know something, this is just going to be too hard. I think you're going to know in two or three weeks

if that person should be there or not. Now, if the answer is the person doesn't want to be there, then you say, how do we help you make the transition? How do I support you? I want you to be happy in your work. I want to help you find something else. It may take a month or two to do that improve that person is not going to be bitter.

They're not going to be spreading that bitterness throughout the rest of the company, and you are going to have a far and more productive transition, then waiting for six months to pull the trigger on somebody who feels surprised. So I'd say two or three weeks. You'll know the answer, and probably, you know, a month or two, it'll be done. Pat, you let off our conversation by encouraging us that this idea of creating a healthy organization is simple.

It's going to take some hard work, but it can be done. And I want to get a final thought from you, from your head and heart to encourage our audience those who know their organization isn't as healthy as they'd like it to be. At the end of the book, you simply tell us, look, it starts with the leader. The leader has got, it's a simple idea, it's obvious, but many of us don't do this, encourage those at the top who are overseeing organizations that aren't as healthy as they'd like them to be on that first foray, this new beginning to step into what is going to be difficult but can be done. What would you say?

You know, I was thinking about this morning. I had kind of an original thought this morning once a week or so. I have an original thought. And it was this, the flesh with yourself, and not feeling bad about admitting what you've not done well. And you alluded to that, but I think when a leader looks at things and says, oh, we're fine, we're fine. We have a few areas.

If there's things that need to improve, the first step is the leader, sitting down with him or herself and saying, it's okay some work to do here. And I'm going to take responsibility for that. I'm going to feel guilty about it. I'm just going to start today. If the leader cannot do that, if they're afraid because they feel too insecure to admit what they haven't done, it's probably going to block the effort. The courage to say, yes, I have not been a great leader, or yes, I've let our company down in this area. And when you demonstrate that kind of self-awareness,

and then you go to your organization and you tell them you're vulnerable enough to admit it, first step, and have the courage to admit when you've struggled. The book is The Advantage, and for those of you who have heard us talk about the summit coming up this May, it is going to be a phenomenal event. Pat will be joining Dave Ramsey, of course, John Maxwell, Rabbi Daniel Lap, and Henry Cloud. It's going to be a phenomenal event. Pat, give us maybe a snapshot on what you will be presenting and why you're excited to join us for this special event. Anytime I get to hang out with people like Dave and Henry Cloud, and John and folks like that, it's a blast because the kind of people that listen to them are the kind of people I love to meet with because they're hungry to improve.

And I'm going to be talking about how to make your, or simplify things so that you can wake up every day and not feel overwhelmed. And it just fits so well into the simple wisdom that Dave presents and that Henry presents and everybody else does. So I can't wait to go. It's going to be, to me, I'm a kid in a candy store when I go to those events. And it's because of the people listening to this podcast who are just so hungry. It's just a joy to work with people like that. Well, it's going to be fun, brother. I get to host that event, and it's like being a weaner in a steakhouse,

but it'll be good to see you and give you a hug and hang out with you and talk sports again. It's always a blast. We appreciate you so much. Your books, what you have done to help the organization in America is absolutely huge, and you need to hear that sometime. I know you've sold a lot of books, but we value you greatly. Your dear friend to our organization, and I know our podcast listeners are grateful for your time today. Thank you, Kim. God bless you and all the listeners.

All right, thanks again to Pat Lynchione. Leaders. If that doesn't set you on fire, you shouldn't be leading. And if you want to join us at the summit, we still have some space. Is that right? Eric, the producer, we do have some space. And you can find out everything you want to know and sign up to come join Pat Lynchioni, John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Chris Hogan, and Christy Wright, and myself, I'll be there. there as well. Enjoying this unbelievable leadership. The event, of course, is the Entree Leadership Summit.com slash summit. We'd love to see you there. All right. We also said we were to give away 50 more books. Eric, this blows me away. I can't believe publishers and these authors keep

saying, yes, we'll do this. People, don't you ever forget that Eric and I love you? 50 more books. Here's how you do it. You know how. Here's the phrase that you have to tweet to qualify. The At-Auntre Leadership Podcast gives me an advantage. I like that one. The At-A-Lentre Leadership Podcast gives me an advantage. You tweet that, you're qualified. Eric, the producer, put your name in a hat. And I don't know what happens from there, but I know we have a lot of happy listeners that are getting free books. So there it is. really exciting stuff. I'm really happy to end our podcast with this. Don't you think about fast forwarding or going anywhere. Christy Wright, one of our personalities here at Ramsey Solutions, speaks at our

Entree leadership one-day events. Many of you have heard her speak. And she is probably one of the most effective people I know. She's always growing. She's on purpose. She's a great communicator. And we asked her recently if she would allow us to take some of one of her recent talks, on life balance and play a bit for you. She chose a wonderful excerpt for you, and I think you're really going to be encouraged. So take a listen, and I'll be right back. Instead of spending your life reacting to everyone else's demands of you,

I want you to do something different. I want you to use your values to create qualifiers for decision-making. Your values become this compass that help you determine what you say yes to and what you say no to. For example, our team, our leadership team, read a great book by Patrick Lynchione. It's called The Advantage. It's a great business book. And in this book, he talks about the need for strategic anchors.

And what he describes these anchors as is a strategy for success. It helps you as a business, as a business, make decisions so that you're proactive instead of reactive. It kind of sets up guardrails for you to say, this is what we're about, and we're We're going to run in this lane. And so we did this. We actually created three strategic anchors that every new project must go through this litmus test to qualify if it goes forward. They are team first.

We want to make sure that any new project or initiative is in line with top-down company initiatives. The second one is collaboration. We want to make sure that we are encouraged to work cross-departmentally. And the last one is innovation. We want to be leaders in the marketplace. And so what this does is any new project. Any new idea, any new initiative that comes across the table for consideration has to go through

this litmus test to determine if it moves forward. And what this does is it helps us stay focused on what we're about. It gives us some guardrails and boundaries so that we can run in our lane and we put all of our time and our attention and our resources on what is most important to us these things. Do this with your life. Do this with your life. so that you're proactive instead of reactive, so that you manage your time and commitments

instead of your time and commitments managing you. Because I can tell you all, the list of needs in this world is very long. Your list of talents is very long. But just because you can do something does not mean that you should. Just because someone needs you doesn't obligate you. Did you hear that?

Just because someone needs you does not obligate you. Your life and your time is not owed to anyone else. So I want to ask you, what are your qualifiers? What determines what you say yes to and what you say no to? If you will simply decide in advance, it will take away so much of that mental angst of trying to decide in the moment every single time when you're pulled in multiple different competing directions. It helps you make those decisions

ahead of time. That was just a portion of Christy Wright's talk Living in the Tension. You can hear it at our Entree Leadership One Day Events. And of course, we're offering it to you for $10 on Dave Ramsey.com. All you have to do is type in the title of the talk,

Living in the Tension, in the search bar on Dave Ramsey.com. It's also in our show notes on the podcast page at entreleadership.com. I want to thank Christy for that. Great talk. It will really challenge you.

So take that opportunity. $10 on Dave Ramsey.com. Well, folks, this has been a fantastic learning experience. I want to thank Christy Wright. I want to thank Pat Lincione. And on behalf of our producer, Eric Anthony, and the rest of the Entree leadership team, thank you so much for listening.

We'll talk with you again very soon.