0:10

Welcome to another episode of At the Table with

0:12

Patrick Lynchoni where everything we talk about is related

0:14

to organizational health and the world of work. I'm

0:17

your host, Pat Lynchoni, joined by the

0:19

regular full crew of Bo, Cody, Tracy,

0:21

how are you? You're great.

0:24

That's fantastic. Matt's behind the curtain or

0:26

the glass. He's producing. He's sitting next

0:28

to me, which I really like. And

0:30

Cody, what are we talking about today? Strategy

0:34

takes courage. That's

0:36

right. And this is a pretty literal

0:38

title, but one that

0:40

a lot of people don't understand. To be strategic,

0:43

most people think strategy is an intellectual thing.

0:45

Like, oh, we have to be clever and

0:48

outthink the competition. And

0:50

there's an element of that for sure.

0:52

But far more is based on having

0:54

the courage to actually take bold action,

0:56

to differentiate yourself, to

0:58

give yourself a better chance to succeed

1:01

than your competitors. And more

1:03

often than not, the most

1:05

strategic companies are the ones that have

1:07

courage. And that's what we're

1:09

going to talk about today. And this came about because I

1:12

was doing a webinar recently for a

1:14

bunch of priests, pastors who were running

1:16

parishes. And I've talked to ministers about

1:18

this. And if

1:21

you want to have the very best

1:23

possible organization, in their case, a parish,

1:26

you have to have the courage not

1:28

to be generic. And

1:31

yet it's so easy to just

1:33

do things the way they've always been done or do

1:35

things the way people in your industry do them. And

1:38

the best companies in the world have the strategy to be

1:40

or the courage to be strategic. And that's what we're going

1:43

to talk about. I

1:45

love the way you open that up, Pat, because

1:47

I think you said, hey, to take bold action

1:50

takes courage. But the other part of

1:52

strategy is what you say no to. And

1:55

that takes courage. Because so many of

1:57

those parishes that you talk to or

1:59

businesses think. Oh, the courage thing

2:01

is for us to take every opportunity that comes

2:03

along and we're just going to bootstrap it and

2:05

make it work and then they become generic because

2:08

they don't know what to say no to. And

2:10

I think that's an important piece of this courage part

2:12

too. You know, Cody, I think

2:14

it might be worthwhile to actually talk about because

2:17

a lot of people say strategy. What is strategy?

2:19

And I worked at a strategic management consulting

2:21

firm for my first two years out of college

2:23

and I didn't really know what strategy was. And

2:26

so when we started the table group 27 years

2:28

ago, we decided let's go figure it out. So

2:30

we read all these books about strategy. The word

2:32

gets used for different things and essentially what it

2:34

is being strategic

2:37

means you are going to make

2:40

intentional decisions that

2:42

differentiate you from others who do what

2:45

you do, otherwise known as competitors, and

2:47

that will give you a better chance

2:49

to succeed than

2:52

they have because you've

2:54

had that courage to do that. So

2:56

that's what we're talking about. How can

2:58

you be intentionally differentiated so

3:00

that you will succeed and others will

3:03

want what you have? Does that make

3:05

sense? So what's

3:07

the connection between what you're talking

3:09

about and simplicity? Is strategy

3:12

all, is some of the strategy that courage

3:14

you're talking about the courage to be more

3:16

simple or is that not

3:18

necessarily the case? That maybe somebody's strategy

3:20

is actually complex

3:23

or are you saying simplicity

3:26

takes courage? I

3:29

think that's I hadn't considered that. I

3:31

think that simplicity does take courage but

3:33

that's not to say that simplicity is

3:35

the answer. I mean it's like that's

3:37

the only thing. It's

3:39

being different and doing something that you don't know for

3:42

sure if it's going to be successful

3:44

and that you might actually get made fun of

3:46

or exposed if you do it and it doesn't

3:48

work and you're going to say no we think

3:50

this is the right thing so we're going to

3:52

do it anyway but you make

3:54

a great point it usually comes down

3:57

to being simpler because the

3:59

idea The idea of complexity is that we

4:01

get to cover all of our bases and it's harder

4:03

to tell if we failed. But

4:06

to make a simple, bold, strategic move

4:09

leaves you open to the possibility of failure

4:11

and embarrassment, I suppose, and that's where courage

4:13

comes in. I

4:16

also hear this idea in your comments

4:18

about action, that strategy is

4:20

not just a document that lives

4:22

in a computer. Strategy

4:24

is a verb. Strategy

4:27

is go do it, go start. The

4:30

bold action of a new creative idea or

4:33

new product or the decision to simplify, all

4:36

of that gets lived in

4:38

this do it now. You

4:40

are not strategic if it's just living on

4:42

a whiteboard. You are strategic if it's going,

4:45

moving, driving. I was

4:48

working with the executive team of a

4:50

university recently, wonderful people. It's

4:52

a really unique school. They

4:56

were talking about when they go into

4:58

the strategic planning process, it's very tempting

5:00

to want to make it really deep

5:02

and really mechanical so everybody knows exactly

5:05

what to do. The

5:07

president said, maybe what

5:09

we need to do, and we were

5:11

talking about this, is just make it

5:13

so simple. He said, here's the

5:15

three things we believe. Of course, those are your

5:17

strategic anchors. We

5:20

talked about how a good strategy empowers

5:22

the people in the organization to look

5:24

at those three things and make good

5:27

decisions for themselves. To

5:29

do that, it takes courage because if you get

5:31

it right, now everybody's rowing in the same direction.

5:34

People will say, oh, but if we get it wrong,

5:37

let's put a lot more detail in it to

5:39

protect ourselves. That usually

5:41

means it actually doesn't get put

5:44

into action very easily. It's interesting.

5:46

I hadn't thought about this until both

5:48

of you used this word in the

5:50

last couple minutes. You said a

5:53

lot of companies think of it as a strategic

5:55

plan. The idea of

5:57

saying strategy versus strategic plan.

6:00

is kind of interesting to me because strategy

6:03

is this alive thing that we, you

6:05

know, if we've simplified it in our

6:07

own, I was just thinking like

6:09

we've never sat in a room and actually

6:11

done a strategic plan where we've mapped all

6:13

this out. What we've done is we've sat

6:15

in a room and said, does this fit

6:18

in our strategic anchors? Do we say yes

6:20

to this? And if the answer is yes,

6:22

then let's move forward in the parameters of

6:24

the strategy. And it is sort

6:27

of interesting, even the language that we're using

6:29

is like, if you're going in and executing

6:31

on a strategic plan, that feels you might

6:33

just say that's a plan versus

6:35

a strategy, right? Yes. A

6:37

plan is a document. A strategy is an

6:40

approach. So here's

6:42

a real life way that this has played out in

6:44

the last eight days at the table group is I

6:46

love this distinction, Cody, between a strategic plan

6:49

and strategic action. So we were on a

6:51

Zoom call yesterday talking about some things related

6:53

to working genius and how we might grow

6:55

that. And Cody in the middle of

6:57

the meeting said, OK, we're going to stop

6:59

talking about it. We're going to spend five minutes doing it.

7:02

And we all then left the Zoom call

7:04

and went and spent five minutes calling people,

7:06

making some, you know, doing a little bit

7:09

of galvanizing, a little bit of tenacity. And

7:12

there's something about the decision to say, we're going

7:14

to take strategic action. We're not going to try

7:16

to perfect this. We're not going to try to

7:19

get it perfectly codified in a Word document.

7:21

We're just going to go do it and

7:23

come back. That felt like strategy.

7:26

And part of the strategy there is a quickness

7:29

to learn because chances

7:32

are something in our Word document would be

7:34

wrong. Something about the way we wrote it

7:36

would be wrong. And in literally five minutes,

7:38

we were able to pivot quickly to be

7:41

more in line with those strategic anchors. Yeah,

7:44

publishing a document or writing a white paper doesn't

7:46

usually take a lot of courage, but actually acting

7:48

on it and putting yourself out there, I think

7:50

it does. You know, I

7:52

want to use an example. And I'm going to use an example.

7:54

I think we talk about Southwest

7:56

Airlines for years had the

7:58

most amazing strategy. that differentiated

8:00

themselves from everybody. And we talk about their

8:03

strategic anchors, and they were like, we're gonna

8:05

make our planes on time. We're gonna

8:07

keep the fares low, and we're gonna

8:10

have really loyal customers. And that was

8:12

their strategic outlook,

8:14

plan, approach. And everything

8:16

they did came down to those

8:18

things. And yeah, if they had gotten

8:20

those wrong, if people weren't interested in lower fares, or

8:23

quick turnaround, or loyal customers, that could have been a

8:25

bad thing. But they said, we're gonna do that. And

8:27

it took Herb Kelleher in 1969 courage to do that,

8:31

because it was very different than the other

8:33

airlines. Well, so I was working with this

8:35

church, right? And

8:38

the pastor of this church. And after

8:41

COVID, a lot of people stopped

8:43

going to this church. And so

8:45

they were like, because it was a parish that

8:48

was in a downtown area, and most

8:50

of the people started then just going to church near

8:52

their house, if they went, and then when

8:54

they opened up after COVID, this parish

8:56

was really struggling. So they

8:59

brought in a new pastor, and

9:01

he said, okay, what are we gonna

9:03

do to make this? And they embraced

9:05

an entirely different, because in the Catholic

9:07

world, one parish is like another

9:09

parish is like another parish. And they kind of start to

9:12

look generic. And in fact, over the years, a lot of

9:14

them just do that. Well, we'll just do what the one

9:16

down the street does. And he said,

9:18

how are we gonna be different? Because

9:21

we're located in the downtown area, not in

9:23

a suburb. We don't

9:25

have a vibrant families all around us

9:27

that come here. And so

9:29

they're leaning into the fact that we're actually

9:31

the church in

9:33

a downtown commercial area. And

9:36

we're gonna have masses for people that are going

9:38

to work and wanna go there after work or

9:40

during the day. And we're gonna

9:42

actually live into the fact

9:45

that we are not serving

9:47

like most of the parishes around us, but

9:49

we're gonna be the church of business people

9:51

and people going shopping and things

9:54

like that. Now they're in the throes

9:56

of this right now, and it's gonna take great courage

9:59

because everybody that works works there is used to

10:01

doing things like the generic

10:03

perish. And they're gonna stick their nose

10:05

out and say, we

10:07

are gonna do it differently. And

10:10

people are gonna accuse us of being crazy.

10:13

And financially, we don't exactly know how it's

10:15

gonna work. But we think this is what

10:17

we need to do. And it's not

10:19

about them intellectually getting it, it's about are

10:21

we going to risk failure for

10:24

the sake of something great? I hope that makes sense. Well,

10:26

I think that's an absolutely great

10:29

example. And you even mentioned

10:31

you like through Herb Keller

10:33

in there. And I

10:35

think like, because we got an opportunity to

10:38

meet Alan Maloli and he was at Boeing

10:40

when Herb was starting up, I remember this

10:42

moment where Herb had an opportunity to

10:44

use his strategy. And basically they were selling

10:47

them planes. They were selling them 737s. And

10:50

he said, basically the sentiment in the conversation

10:52

was, oh, you're cute little

10:55

new startup plane company. Once you

10:57

graduate from the 737, you

10:59

could end up buying the 777 and

11:02

have a first class and do all these other things.

11:04

And Herb in that moment, he didn't

11:06

take out the strategic plan and check what the

11:09

document said about what they were gonna do 10 years

11:11

from now. He said, oh, no, no, no, we're only

11:13

gonna have one plane. Cause our strategy is on time

11:15

and that's gonna help us. He's like, we're never gonna

11:17

buy your 777. And

11:19

what was crazy is the sentiment in the room

11:21

that I love is they kind of laughed at

11:23

him. Oh, isn't

11:25

that quaint? What sort of the thing, the same

11:27

as your parishes like, oh, you're gonna try something

11:30

different. And that is actually on a

11:32

live strategy. He didn't have to pull it and

11:34

dust off the document to see what the answer

11:36

to that question was. He knew it in his

11:38

bones. And that's what I

11:40

think is the distinction. That strategy is alive

11:42

in every decision you're making. Not

11:44

that you have to go dust it off the shelf and

11:47

figure out what the plan is based on some document we

11:49

wrote up. Exactly, and you know what I was

11:51

thinking as you were saying that Cody is, You

11:53

don't feel safe when you have a bold strategy

11:56

cause playing it safe is covering all your bases,

11:58

trying to be all things to all people. People.

12:00

And preventing anybody from criticized me of and

12:03

plenty of businesses got a business because they

12:05

play it safe and they don't really get

12:07

criticized because like well you played it safe

12:09

with just didn't work out. That's.

12:12

Why this is about courage? Has.

12:15

Been. Oh no risk, no reward.

12:17

And. That's not just financial. It's like you have

12:20

to do something. That. Others would probably

12:22

say that's just too risky for me. So

12:24

if you're a leader or a manager and you're hearing

12:26

this and you want to. Motivate.

12:28

Or inspire people to take some like

12:31

heard, how do you Do that How

12:33

do you literally encourage the people that

12:35

are around you Encourage your managers Beyond

12:37

saying you can go, Do it. What

12:39

is it that we can do to

12:41

give more courage? To. The people

12:43

around us to to act like this to

12:45

think like this or or or before your

12:47

for about. I would say maybe there's a

12:49

question even before that question but because I

12:52

think there's probably a bunch of people who

12:54

are listening to this to say hey that

12:56

sounds great I love for my company to

12:58

have a simple search. Strategies we don't. We

13:00

have strategic plans. People are all over the

13:02

place how to even get to that spot

13:04

and so that then we can have courage

13:06

around it Covered that sort of a prerequisite

13:08

right. You have to know what be your

13:10

strategy is to them to I'll be courageous

13:12

rabbit. I'm glad. He said that could he

13:14

says? I wasn't sure. Also like buffs because

13:16

I think most of the time if it

13:18

doesn't exist above. I mean most companies don't.

13:21

Know. They they don't fail to encourage

13:23

people to act on their strategy, They don't even

13:25

have a bull's one less You know the stand

13:27

ups. Let me let me tell you another example

13:29

because I love when it when you get down

13:31

to the tactics of this and maybe this will

13:34

get at what you're saying. But so this one

13:36

church they have a woman that that works there

13:38

and she's she does what's called as I don't

13:40

have people know by like confirmation it's a sacrament

13:42

the Catholic Church and and her job is to

13:45

get these kids in high school to come together

13:47

and spend a year learning and studying and then

13:49

they get they get confirmed. Okay and. It's a

13:51

program and a process. would. they had no

13:53

families live in Assists Paris. it was a

13:56

downtown Pierce. They had three kids and confirmation.

13:58

You know how many churches. What?

14:00

And you can apply this to business. Continue

14:02

to employ somebody to work with those three

14:04

or four kids. And I said

14:06

no, no, no. Send those kids to

14:08

a different pairs to get confirmed and

14:10

elect know, but they belong to our

14:12

parish. It's like yeah, but you're wasting

14:14

resources and just say we're not a

14:16

parish for teens. We don't have any

14:18

teenagers here. We're going to let them

14:20

do that. And. We're going to

14:23

use this woman to do something that actually

14:25

serves this the local business and commercial community.

14:27

And they were really when I suggested this,

14:29

this woman was like. Oh no you're

14:31

pretty me on have a job a complete your

14:33

sameness and I said wouldn't you rather. Use.

14:36

Your time and energy to doing something that was going

14:38

to actually make a difference in Bear Fruit. Been working

14:40

with those same three or four kids for a year

14:42

and feeling like all this is a waste of time

14:44

and energy. And. They were all

14:47

actually relieved to think we could

14:49

do this. No other people are gonna

14:51

go up. Yeah, But as for kids a good I have a church.

14:53

Maybe they're can start going to church they're in. They're not gonna put

14:55

money in the basket at this and it's like. Take

14:57

that risk. but if you're

15:00

unwilling to let go of

15:02

something. And. If you're

15:04

unwilling to make that person who's in charge of

15:06

that uncomfortable. You're. Never gonna. And

15:08

so that the question is, why do

15:10

we hesitate? Have a bold strategy to

15:12

somebody is gonna lose out in the

15:14

short term. We're gonna risk losing a

15:16

customer or an employee. And. So we

15:19

go. Oh well. we're going to have to keep doing

15:21

what we've done in the past, and that's that's a

15:23

recipe for mediocrity himself. That.

15:26

Feels to me like part of the key of that

15:28

story is the decision not to say oh, we're not

15:30

going to do that. But to say here's the thing

15:32

we're running board boldly towards. But it's not just the

15:34

restaurant same we're not going to drive through because we

15:37

don't want to do drive through. It's like, know, We.

15:39

Serve great food that's going to taste better.

15:41

So we decide we can't do that a

15:43

drive through because it's gonna hurt the experience

15:45

or the business. That says, now we're going

15:48

to keep having somebody on the phones were

15:50

knocked him use. You. Know a

15:52

third party to have the votes because we're

15:54

protecting were doing something. Boldly. In

15:56

a direction.just cutting things. Yes And you have

15:58

to know what you want. The first but

16:00

you can't get there first and a lot of people

16:02

will say well let's let's try that and if that

16:05

succeeds in will let go of the other ones. Know

16:07

you will not succeed until you let go of the

16:09

other one. So. Because you're right

16:11

it they say well let's keep doing this and

16:13

then we'll We'll try to use her to do

16:15

something else and is that starts to work than

16:18

will let go of it. Now you have to

16:20

let go like the trapeze are. You have to

16:22

let go of the last. Wrong.

16:25

And. And spend some time in the air before you reach

16:27

the next one And most of us think, well, let's just

16:29

make it. In. Easy transfer like Build

16:31

Bridges has and transition management. You have to

16:33

let go of the last thing you were

16:35

doing before you get comfortable with the next

16:38

thing. And that's not

16:40

human nature, but it's what separates

16:42

great organizations from others. And

16:45

it is interesting. but even after fifteen minutes

16:47

of conversation proud to have used the word

16:49

courage and the way that you're describing A

16:52

because. The. If. There

16:54

is no risk them bird, there's no requirement

16:56

of courage. you know, like if you feel

16:58

like. He is So everything you've

17:00

just described, both from the church and the business

17:02

side of like there's a risk their. Otherwise,

17:05

It wouldn't take courage and so strategy

17:07

requires courage. And like the or otherwise,

17:09

you're just like we have the plan.

17:11

We do everything that we're confident about

17:13

like you know and and I even

17:15

think back couple years ago on our

17:17

own business there was a thriving you

17:19

know network of consultants that we were

17:21

you know, stewarding and it was. It

17:23

actually be. In terms of revenue

17:25

and experience an impact he was all going

17:27

gray and it was. It didn't quite meet

17:29

our strategy and we idea they were and

17:31

have the courage to risk by and shut

17:33

it down. And. Then two years you

17:35

know in the rearview mirror like oh man,

17:37

so much of this content as getting out

17:39

in ways that it never would have had

17:41

we just been beholden to something that works

17:43

like if we didn't want to take the

17:45

risk of doing at a different way turn

17:47

disrupt you know I think is really interesting

17:49

cause we talk about his word empowerment and

17:51

the best way to empower people to say

17:53

this is our bold strategy. Here are the

17:55

guide that the guard rails are the guidelines

17:57

Now go do whatever you think is right

17:59

within. guardrails. But that

18:01

requires letting go of some control

18:04

to the employees. You're still getting to give them

18:06

the boundaries, but you're saying you

18:08

get to make decisions within those boundaries

18:10

versus we're going to tell you, we're

18:12

going to micromanage you along the way.

18:14

And that alone feels risky. But

18:17

it is, you know, when you work at a company

18:19

that has a bold strategy that

18:21

says, this is what's most important. It's

18:23

even at the risk of failure, it's far more

18:26

important, it's better working there. And if you work

18:28

at a company that says, we're going to mitigate

18:30

our risks, working there feels

18:32

like I have to check with a bunch of people, I

18:34

have to cover my butt. And it

18:36

you you end up playing defense all the

18:38

time instead of offense. And

18:41

and another thing about this, and war is not

18:43

something to be looked at lightly. It's a horrible

18:45

thing. And I'm thank God that most

18:48

of us aren't doing having to do that. There's people

18:50

in the world that are and I hope that peace

18:52

prevails and and all that. I mean, because I don't

18:54

want to use a war analogy. But they say in

18:57

war, that when you're not sure what to do, do something

19:00

bold, and you'll learn from it. And

19:02

and and people will be at least

19:04

engaged. Because when soldiers are sitting there

19:06

going, we don't know we're waiting for

19:09

we're waiting for directives from people, they're

19:11

just sitting there and they're worrying and

19:13

they're feeling exposed. And it's

19:15

always better to take bold action after thinking

19:17

through it than to

19:19

wait for the perfect answer. Because while you're

19:21

waiting, bad things happen. All

19:24

right. So courage, more

19:27

important than intellect. Everybody thinks

19:29

it's the clever companies that's the most strategic.

19:31

It's often one that's clever enough but has

19:33

the courage to pursue something. All

19:35

right, do we is there more that we need to say? We

19:37

can wrap that up right now. Alrighty. Unpaid

19:40

ad today. I think it's

19:42

over to Bo and Cody. And

19:45

I've tried to fire Bo from this, but

19:47

I can't think of anything. So go ahead,

19:50

Bo, you you can have another shot here.

19:52

But if it's croutons or another fireball offense,

19:54

this might be your last. Before

20:01

I do the unpaid ad, I want to

20:04

just make a comment about something related to this

20:06

podcast, which is at this podcast

20:08

release about a week into something called Lent.

20:10

Now, there's a bunch of people

20:13

all across different faiths and faith interests that

20:15

listen to this podcast, and we love that.

20:18

And one of the things I've learned being next

20:20

to you, Pat, as a devout Catholic is

20:23

the importance of the Lent season. And I just

20:25

thought, this is a good moment to pause and

20:27

say, Hey, if you're a week into Lent, and

20:30

you've not given anything up, or you're not really sure

20:32

what to do, Lent is the season leading up to

20:34

Easter. I would just remind our

20:36

audience about your new podcast called the three

20:38

minute reset, which is literally a three

20:41

minute opportunity every day to

20:44

get some insight about something related to faith

20:46

in the workplace. And there's no pressure there

20:48

of or expectation, of course, but we'd love

20:50

for you to subscribe. And I think this

20:52

is a great season to say, hey, don't

20:55

miss an episode. If you've got 30 days

20:58

or 15 days left of Lent, it's

21:00

something very simple that you could do

21:02

leading up to the Easter season. Well,

21:04

the idea of Lent to is giving stuff stuff up. And

21:07

even people I know that don't have the same faith as

21:09

me or not at all, I think during Lent, they think,

21:11

Hey, I'm going to do that thing with you guys, I'm

21:13

going to give something up. And the idea there is a

21:16

little bit of suffering makes

21:19

us better. And, and it helps

21:21

us to appreciate what we have. And

21:23

it helps us understand that for

21:26

those that are Christian, this is a time of thinking

21:28

about the difficulty leading up to Easter and Good Friday

21:30

and everything else. But other people, I love the when

21:32

people in an office go, Hey, what are we all

21:34

giving up for Lent? Or what are we going to

21:36

do differently for Lent? So maybe that's the unpaid ad

21:38

today. It's for, for, for doing that.

21:40

And if it's the podcast, that's fantastic. I

21:44

love it. I was going to say the unpaid ad

21:46

today is for phone calls, because I think

21:49

we before the days of zoom, we all

21:51

would pick up the phone. And now the

21:53

world of zoom, we wait to have everything

21:55

scheduled. And I think it actually sometimes limits

21:58

courage. It limit it slows things down. down.

22:00

And I love hearing when somebody just picks up

22:02

the phone and says, Hey, let's just talk for

22:04

five minutes. So I was going to say today's

22:07

unpaid ad is for phone calls. All

22:10

right. So that's great.

22:12

I like that one. Thanks, Bo. Nice.

22:15

All righty. Thanks everybody for listening. Have

22:17

courage, be strategic, be bold. And

22:20

we'll talk to you next time on at the table.

22:22

God bless. Mhm.