Enter the Danger

Pat Richie - Founder of Sports Leadership Group

• Zac Wilcox • Episode 46

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Hello, friends, my name is Zach, and welcome to the Enter the Danger Podcast, where we have conversations to help us grow in our skill, to enter into difficult conversations with kindness, empathy, and curiosity, so that we can be more effective in our jobs and have deeper and more meaningful relationships. My guest this week is Pat Richie. Prior to joining the Table Group as one of their first consultants in 2004, pat had extensive experience in helping build high performing teams as a part of five Super Bowl champions with San Francisco 49 ERs. He also worked with San Francisco Giants for 13 years. Currently, pat works with CEOs and executive teams to quickly and effectively apply the concepts captured in all of Pat's books. His clients span a broad spectrum of industries, including but not limited to, private equity and portfolio companies, energy, healthcare, and technology. I'm really excited about this conversation. I'm excited to share it with you. Pat says, really simply and clearly a lot of things that we all need to hear, so let's jump right in. Hey Pat, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. I appreciate it Glad to be here, Zach. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, gonna gonna jump right in here. First question, pat, what's one event that affects how you enter the danger with others? Well, I think mostly it's the, the framework of where it is, the, the setting and, and really number one, the dynamic between the people that are entering the danger. Do they have trust with each other? If they don't have trust with each other, they're only gonna be shooting bullets at each other. Almost invariably. They may try to have an honest conversation, but still it's hard to, to have to have it put everything on the table. People will still hold back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What's a struggle or a weakness that you have when it comes to entering the danger? Oh, I like to be liked, so I, I don't, I don't like to bring up things that people aren't gonna want to hear, or maybe they won't like me for saying it. Uh. I think that's a pretty com. I'm, I, I'm originally from Minnesota and it's kind of a core value of all Minnesotans to be nice and to be liked. As a matter of fact, I go, gave a speech once to a bunch of college girls on dating. I go, look, you're from Minnesota. You know the first question, any girl's gonna ask me you come back from a date on in the dorm? Is, was he nice? That's the number one question you'll ask, and it's every time. And if you, if you, if you have controversial conversations, you're not gonna be considered nice. How do you still have the necessary conversations despite that desire to be liked? Well, I think at some point you're, you know, it says you, you, you can almost do any what if you know the why. Mm-hmm. So if, if I know the why, we have to have the conversation. I can do the what, which is a difficult conversation. So knowing the why, actually. Animates and puts you past any difficult way. So if there isn't, if there isn't a clear why or if maybe I'm like a little uncertain of like, let's say you've asked me to do something and I'm not really sure, why does that lessen my likelihood to be able to challenge you on that if I don't agree? When I say, you've gotta know the why, why should I enter the danger with this person? Is what I'm asking? Not so much for the change, but is it for their good? Is it why? Why would I even bother going into that? So that's the why I'm talking about now, if I, obviously if you ask somebody to do something and they don't understand the why of that. Then, then you have to explain that to'em, that yeah, but here's why it'll be better for you, better for the company, better for our team. Uh, something we've already agreed to. So you, you can certainly explain that. But the number one why is to overcome your fear is you have to know why it's important to have this conversation with this person at this time. Yeah. It seems like the, there has to be some considerable alignment. In a lot of different areas, the first thing that comes to my mind is, is values. For instance, if I'm, if I'm to summon the courage, um, because if there's a value misalignment, then maybe that why will be less relevant. Am I on the right track there? Could you say more about that? Well, I mean, people do have different values and sometimes that can be the source of, you know, sometimes people really are precise and they wanna get things done crossing every t dotting every I, other people have a value of speed, so they're like, you know, look, I can ask for a little bit of forgiveness rather than permission where the other people like, gosh, you gotta have permission before you. Even move forward. So that kind of setting's pretty common and uh, you don't just have to have a conversation about why we still have to make a decision on T crossing or not T crossing, uh, I'm not sure if that answers your question, but values the more deeper question is, do you value having open, honest conversations? With those around you, if you don't value that, even though one person may be willing to engage in that, the other person may not be willing to. In fact, sometimes they see it as an existential threat to their character. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So is it, if this other person doesn't value having deep, honest conversations, I, I imagine that sets a pretty significant cap on the depth of their relationships. Yep. So how, how can we, oh, did you have more to say? Well, I was just gonna say, look, a lot of people grow up in homes where. Uh, they don't have hard conversations. They don't see their parents doing that, the family doing it, then they tend to have a hard time being vulnerable themselves because Yeah, they didn't grow up around that. This is a little bit of my issue too, is I, I, I have a hard time being vulnerable. I think I'm better in the business setting when I'm consulting than I am with close friends or family. Hmm. And I find, I find myself, you know, pausing a little bit there, uh, walking, you know, pretty gingerly. How, if we aren't short of short of becoming a therapist, I think mm-hmm. If, how can we help people and how can we train people? And I think especially as leaders, this is probably an important skill to have, is helping people see the value and understand how important having honest conversation is. Can you give maybe some tips, some advice? On how we can help people see that value. Well, look a, a major league baseball general manager called me one day and he had a question and he said, pat, what causes people to change? And I said, well, pain. And he goes, pain, gosh, our team furnish way under 500. Our farm system is one of the worst in baseball. We got a lot of pain around here. I go, well, then you might be willing to, to change. So when you go into these conversations, sometimes you have to show them the pain of the failure to have the conversation. One question, we at the table group always ask our clients is the most. The most important and difficult conversations in your team meetings, you have the most important and difficult conversations, and people answer that on a scale of one to five, but it's not a a quantitative assessment. It's actually qualitative. Three means sometimes five means almost always. One means almost never. And a lot of times these teams will come up, we'll aggregate their scores on the questions. They'll come up with a 2, 7 7, and they'll go, Hey, not great, but it's almost average, right? I said, it's not average. This is a qualitative survey, so let's do this. When you have your next, uh, meeting with Wall Street Analyst, I just want you to put in your notes. We remember they had a two seven. I just had this conversation with a Fortune 50 company, with the CEO and the executive team. When you get'em together, say, Hey, by the way, here's the financials. Here's our forecast. This is what we're looking at. Here's the store, historical information, other information we ask the executive team, uh, that dur during your team meetings, the most important and difficult issues are discussed, and we want you to know. Uh, wall Street Analyst that the executive team answered doggone it almost sometimes, and I just leave it sit in the room. Yeah, because that's what you answered here. Almost sometimes. Yeah. I, when I, I, I said it once to a port, a portfolio company of a big private equity firm. I knew this private, I always refer to that private equity firm as your benevolent overlords because they're very different. I'm being nice. Yeah. I said, why don't you just tell your private equity firm that's invested$50 million in this executive team over the last two years that when we, we have meetings, we talk about the most difficult and poor issues almost sometimes. We're getting close to. Sometimes one guy goes, we'd all get fired. I go, yeah, you'd all get fired. Yeah. But that's what you're doing. And that question goes directly towards conflict. Are we willing to engage in conflict? Talking about the controversial subjects, when you don't get that, then you get the elephant in the room. Mm-hmm. The thing we all know is there, but we can't talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I would have to go elephant hunting. Right. We do that. I, it's one of the things I do in my offsites with teams. We, uh, we usually do two days and after night one. I'll have gathered from everybody. What are the issues on the company that are difficult and you don't talk about? I'll take those handwritten notes. I'll, uh, put them, you know, transcribe them into print. I'll say to the CEO, EO, here's uh, the 20 things that came up. I think these are the five of you gotta tackle. And this one should be the first one.'cause it's the messiest. And thorniest gonna be the most difficult one. So they sit down. We tell the restaurant this is gonna be a fast dinner, we're gonna go back up to the, I ask the CEO always to get a suite sit down and like around a fireplace and we start going through the elephants. Hmm. Is that, is that, um,'cause I, I guess I've often thought, hey, if we're gonna be approaching several difficult conversations in a row. Let's kind of work our way up to it and start with something a little simpler to kind of build some trust and some confidence as we're going along, but, but you just said the opposite. Let's start with the thorniest and the messiest. Can you say more about why, why we start with that big, heavy one first? So remember I didn't say we start with that on day one. I said that is after day one of a two day offsite. So they've already had eight hours Yeah. Of building trust vulnerability, talking about their Myers-Briggs, understanding the ground rules for healthy conflict, why we have healthy conflict. So we, we don't do the, we don't start the session. Well, I, we start this session with the very, um, dangerous question. Uh, what's your favorite team, movie or musical? And people can, if they don't have any of those, I then, we'll let'em say, book Nobody's Reads, read a book in 20 years, it seems like, except for the five Dysfunctions of the team, the Advantage and other excellent pat ly books. Yeah. But the, you know, we, we start that low, uh, yeah. With what's your favorite team and, you know, university of Alabama. Okay. Or whatever it might be. USC or the, you know, the Red Wings, whatever they wanna tell us. Yeah. I'm gonna, so when it comes to this, so we've talked a little bit about courage. I know we've talked about courage, we've talked about values, and I think maybe there's some interplay there where if, if we have those aligned values, then that enables us to have the courage to then speak up. Is there another behavior, another characteristic that we're missing that we have to have? Well, you know, who is it? Socrates, that said, the courage is the most basic of all virtues because upon that, all other virtues stand. Hmm. So I, I, I don't know if there is something else. Um, then that, because it takes courage to be vulnerable, uh, because you can get hurt. That's kind of the very point of vulnerability is you can get hurt. Yeah. If you are putting something out there that this is one of the problems that school districts have or universities have. I have a daughter, it's a college professor, and over in, in the uk and I'm working with a big school district, fourth biggest school district in America right now. And the problem is, you know what? It's, it's when people have been there so long, they're tenured. People go, I have no problem telling people what I think. I go, are you tenured? They go, yeah, you got a problem. You have to figure out how to be vulnerable because you're not vulnerable. So you really have a hard time. You think you can go in guns a blazing? It doesn't mean people trust you. So how do you know you're actually getting healthy conflict? Because you're tenured. Tenure's. Tenure's a problem can be a blocker, and we give people tenure so they can speak freely, but. If, if the people around you don't have that same tenure and at the same level, they're probably not gonna engage in conflict with you. Hmm. What, what might tenure? I, I'm thinking, I'm thinking now about my relationship with my daughter, for instance, what might be an equivalent example to having tenure with my, with my relationship with her, because I could very easily see myself coming in and saying. These are all the things you are doing wrong, Lucy, and mm-hmm. And this is how you need to be a, you know, you need to make sure you're making your bed and you need to clear dishes off the table and you need to do all that. Mm-hmm. Kind of stuff. Um, is there a, maybe a, maybe a first question is there, is there a similarity there between having tenure at, at a school or something and, and how I relate with my daughter. Uh, you know, young people especially, they always want to know. The answer to the question why? Why should, why should I do that? Matter of fact, one, one writer already said, you know, there's generation X and after that, you know, there was the baby boomers, baby busters, generation X, and then generation Y. But our problem is, it's really not the letter, it's WHY question mark. Generation Y. It's actually WHY. And why, why should I do that? So I think it's important to have conversations when you're giving directives or, you know, certainly this is, if somebody's in danger, we're gonna jump in and we may not do it in the most, uh oh. And here's the reason why you shouldn't put your hand over the flame anymore. We're gonna stop that right away. But typically when you're asking somebody to clean the table or to make their bed or whatever it is, uh. You'll have to give him a reason why, like why would I have to do it? Simon Sinek would be very proud of you if you did that. Yeah. You started with why. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I, I mean, I wanna jump back something you said, um, earlier about the settings of how of, um, that, that were in impact, how we entered the danger. And I, and I'd really love to kinda understand, maybe impact that a little bit because my first thought was. That seems like a whole lot of willingness to adapt or, or an ability to adapt if I'm, if we have to change how we enter the danger, depending on the setting. So my first question was, is that, did I have I under have I understood you right. And we have to be willing to adapt that depending on the setting. It's not so much about locale as it's about the dynamic. Yeah. So that's why we start with trust. Right when you can, when you start building trust early on, and it. It now gives you the ability to be in almost any setting and be able to have a difficult conversation. One of the, one of the things that, you know, I have a background in professional football, professional sports, and a lot of times people will watch the dynamic on a sideline and they will go and the camera will go right on there. Especially when a friend of mine was head coach of the Chargers, his quarterback is a future hall of famer, Philip Rivers, and they go, look, the two of'em aren't getting along at other, they're yelling at each other. And I'm thinking it's a football game. Yes. They're yelling, they probably have a disagreement. They don't hate each other. They're just like, we shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't be doing that. You gotta do that. You gotta, I go that, that was nothing. That was, it's, yeah, it looked bad on tv. I, because Anthony's a good friend. I go, what, what app with, with? Uh, Philip, he goes, he thought we should have called a different blocking scheme on that one. I goes, were you mad at him? He goes, no. Was he mad at you? No. We were just, yeah, we, we were talking in the middle of a NFL football game. So you, yeah. You can't, you, you what what actually looks like on the outside and look, and, and we have different styles of conflict. You know, there's, I always say. University of Miami football players are gonna have conflict with each other. It's gonna look different than a group of Lutheran pastors in Michigan. Yeah. They, they're just going to have a different style of conflict and we need to understand each other's conflict style. Yeah. Does that, because, you know, I, I like that example, and I'm thinking even, hey, even in that setting of professional sports teams, for instance. Um, you know, I I, I, we hear all the time about how Tom Brady yelled at people and, um, and, and the passion I think that that professional athletes have is, is so high. They care so much and they wanna win so much. Not that, uh, other people don't wanna win, but as you were saying, um, it shows up in different ways, I think. Mm-hmm. How do we, um. Even in football teams, um, I think that can differ. Is that right? So going from one football team to another one, those standards and norms might be different. Um, is that important to, to, like, should we spend time in reflection when we get to a new system? Like, Hey, what's going on here? Do we ask questions? What's the best way to kind of figure out how, how do we engage in dangerous conversations here? Yeah, I, I'm not sure any pro of sports, pro sports team is a great example there.'cause we have only 32 companies in the NFL. Right, right. And whatever, 34 in, in major league baseball. But it's important to establish the culture as early as you can. You reap the benefits later on. So I, I just said this to a group of executives the other day. Do you think anybody ever goes to Bridgewater and doesn't know the culture? Of radical truth and radical transparency, I guess? No, because for the most part, they're hiring MBA students that came out with their, you know, master's of Business administration from an Ivy League school or, you know, equivalent like Stanford or Duke. And they know, they know what they're getting into. They know when they get to McKinsey, they know what they get in when they're going into oil and gas and different oil and gas companies might be a little bit different, but they're not tremendously different from each other. So, but that means that be zoom's. Establish culture where we have these conversations with each other. So that's when you go into an organization and you don't have that, it's actually a little bit more important to understand what country you're in. It is. There's some countries where they just, it would be seen as quite appropriate to have open. Conversations with each other. You see this in some of the eastern countries, and when their executives or their people come to an American company, we, we have to coach'em to say, it's okay to disagree with your boss or to disagree with somebody that's older than you, because that, that's how we get the best ideas on the table. So, a matter of fact, before you go, I'm gonna read to you what I think is the greatest quote in the history. Any literature ever on healthy conflict, it's by a guy named Colin Powell. You might recognize the name. He was a US general and actually the, the chairman of the 20 Chiefs of staff, if I remember right, he wrote a book called, it Works for Me, and I read this to all my clients, Colin Powell, in this piece, he writes, I encouraged all of my subordinate commanders and staff to feel free to argue with me. My guidance was simple. Disagree with me. I. Do it with feeling. Try to convince me that you are right and I'm about to go down the wrong path. You owe that to me. That's why you are here. But don't be intimidated when I argue back. A moment will come what I have heard enough and I make a decision at that very instant. I expect all of you to execute my decision as if it were your idea. Don't damn the decision with faint praise. Don't mumble under your breath. We all move out together. To get the job done and don't argue with me anymore unless you have new information, or I realized I goofed and I come back to you. He finishes with this. Loyalty is disagreeing strongly, and loyalty is executing faithfully. The decision is not about you or your ego. It's about gathering all the information, analyzing it, and trying to get to the right answer. I still love you, so get mad and get over it. Hmm. Yeah, that's, that's, uh, powerful. Thanks for reading that, pat. I appreciate it. It's important for people to know and, and for one, and I, I do consult, you know, mostly to Fortune 500 companies or companies that are in excess of a billion dollars or so. But when I do work with professional coaches, the number one value of coaches is loyalty. And that sometimes holds him back. And when I read that to him, it's usually the head coach that will go, absolutely, yeah. I don't want you holding back. Yeah. How do we, so, so it was, it was pretty easy to hear in this case that Colin Powell had some very specific ideas of how he wanted people to engage with him. I, I walk into a lot of organizations when I start working with them and I say, Hey. What does conflict look like here? And they say, we don't have it, or we don't have any norms or things like that. Mm-hmm. And, and one of my first questions is, I think you do have some norms. You just may not know what they are. Right. How do we, how do we, especially if we have a, a relationship that maybe has been going on, like a men, I have my men's group here at my house, for instance. Mm-hmm. How do we uncover those norms when we may not be aware of what they are? Well, I, you know, I, I actually think you could ask a group of people, what do you think our norms are? How do we actually behave? And, um, most times they can come up with it. Now, certainly if you have a, a guest or somebody that shows up a couple times as an, uh, observer, um, they'll tell you they can, here's what I saw. Just say, here's what I saw. And I, but I think most people kind of are aware of it, that if you ask a, you know, if you've got a group and let's say. Eight guys are meeting at a men's group, somebody's gonna know what we're, what's going on, be all. We have different personalities and we, uh, perceive different things a little bit more intuitively or more observationally than others. And, um, yeah, I don't think that's a big problem. Yeah. Okay. So, so it's, it, it doesn't have to be, uh, if people are unsure. It doesn't have to because, because I, and I ask this question'cause I often hear, man, I don't even know where to start. So it can be as simple as. Just ask that question. What, how do you think we engage in, in conflict? What do you think our norms are? Yeah. And a lot of times people are really honest. I go, well, I think we're really nice to each other, and I think we candy coat things with each other and we don't really tell each other. What we think. I, I just, I had a couple days with one of our former players and he had, he had a bone to pick with me. And you know, when you're the team chaplain, usually the players are not picking a bone back at you. I'm usually the one holding him accountable. And I'll tell you what, he, he didn't hold any bars back, but you know, a little bit of a football culture, you do that a little bit more and he goes, I'm sorry I did that. I go, no. We have to be able to have those kind of con, you have to be transparent with us. Otherwise we're wearing a mask. There's a great book called The Cure by John Lynch and others where we, what we do is we tend to hide behind a mask instead of taking that mask off and just letting Christ be through us, who we really are.'cause he loves us just as we are. And if we, if we leave the mask on, people love the mask, not us. Yeah, I, um, I've recently been rereading, talking about Simon Sinek earlier the Infinite Game. And I'm curious if there's a correlation and if you might have seen a correlation between people who have a finite mindset and their willingness to enter into, into the danger with others and those who have a finite mindset. And, and I'm curious as to your thoughts,'cause I've been thinking about this a little bit myself, how that might impact how we enter the danger. Oh, definitely. I mean, if, if, if people have a closed mindset right, versus an open mindset, they're, it's gonna be much more difficult for them to consider other possibilities. Sometimes it's very difficult for some people to consider the fact that they're wrong. Yeah. Um, I, I, I've got, there's, there's sometimes there's people where I use the saying to myself, you know what? They're often wrong, but they're never in doubt. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Unfor, unfortunately. Yeah. Um, there comes up, so when you say that, that, that makes me think there comes a point sometimes, especially, uh, with people who might be wrong, but never in doubt mm-hmm. Where entering the danger maybe does moham good? Mm-hmm. How do we, how do we. Um, I don't wanna say give up, but, but maybe that's kind of what we do. How do we decide, Hey, actually this is not gonna benefit the relationship, this isn't gonna benefit the business. How do we determine where that is? Because we can only do so much. We could coach perfectly, not that we do. Mm-hmm. But we could say all the right things and they're still not gonna make the right decision. How do we find that line? And then the second part I think of this question is, what comes next after that? Well, I think at some point we have to determine the importance of the relationship and the, and the subject that we're talking about. Like this morning I had a conversation with a person at the gym who was very upset about renaming the Gulf of America, and I was like, it, that's just not something that's gonna get me upset. It. To me, that was incremental. I'm not gonna have an argument with them about is it right or wrong? It just didn't make a difference. Now, if you have a conversation with your child about. How late they're gonna stay out on their first date when they're 15 or 16 years old, that's maybe a little more consequential. So, you know, you, you have to decide, is this a battle I need to fight or not? Hmm. And some battles I'm going, I just, uh, 95% of the political ones are to me, are just not worth fighting. That's not a thing I'm gonna fight about. Yeah. So if we determine it is a, is a fight that we're worth. That's worth having. Mm-hmm. For instance, my daughter stays out till midnight on her first date. Mm-hmm. And, and I said, Hey, be back by 10 or something. Um, how do we do, we should, we always, if, if we haven't been able to come to, like, let's say I have responded with curiosity and I have asked questions and it's still not working. Mm-hmm. How do I go on from there? Well, I mean, this is, you know. Uh, Trent and Cloud have, you know, are the ones that wrote the, you know, the well-known Boundaries book. Yeah. And, you know, they, they have a good book on difficult conversations as well, and their thing has always been pretty much the same, uh, that you have to lay out here's, you know, here's, here's the, the, the. The paradigm. This is the parameters, and if this line gets crossed, there's gonna be a consequence for that. Yeah. And then you have to follow through on that. Yeah. It's can be hard. Can be difficult. But you know, those two guys and I. I've known John Trent pretty well. Uh, but, but I've, I knew Henry Cloud before he even got his PhD. They're smart guys and some of the stuff that they put out. And Henry's done a really good job of this particularly business. Um, it's good. It's, it's solid. I think it's really solid stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I, by the way, um, I'm gonna put a link to that book and, and both the other books that Pat has mentioned, um, it works for me by Colin Powell, and you said it was The Cure by John Lynch. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I, I'll put there, there's three guys, but, but The Cure will be, John Lynch is the easiest name to remember. Just'cause there's a, yeah. A football player with the same name, but it's a different guy. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever work with, uh, John Lynch when he was at the Buccaneers or, or elsewhere? Well, John's now at the 49 ERs, if I remember right, where he says, my old team. And you know, the funny thing is, I, I've thought about this. I kind of think I, I worked with him or knew him when he was at Stanford as a student, if I remember when he played both football and baseball. And I was the chaplain of the sports teams there. And, um, I, I can't tell you that I did. I mean, I remember on my recruiting trip in 1981, they introduced me to the sophomore quarterback. A guy named John Elway that they thought would be good and that, that that's how old that is. My first day at work at the 49 ERs was the same first day as Ronnie Lot. And the, and the person that said, yeah, we'd love to have you come. Wasn't Sean McVay or his father? It was his grandfather. So it was pretty long ago. Yeah. Yeah. How do you, um, when you have people who are on top of their game. And who are excellent. Uh, do they, do you find that there's a pretty common trend between, like you mentioned Ronnie La John Lynch, John Elway? Is there a common trend between these high performers and, and I say these names'cause they're well known sports names. If you could use any, any of your CEOs that maybe you work with, maybe people don't know as well, um, and having a high tolerance for difficult conversations. Oh, absolutely. They do have a high tolerance for difficult conversations, otherwise they burn out. I mean, there's other athletes I work with. One was probably the be greatest baseball player I'd ever played. He didn't have a high tolerance for that. He also never won a World Series. So there's, there, there is a place where you, you, I think, I think what I see in these really high perform, or, I mean I, I worked with Bill Walsh who was our head coach. I remember meeting. The World Champion Rodeo Cowboy, and also had an interaction with the guy that was the main performer in the Barnum and Bailey Circus. He was a French clown and he emceed the whole thing, and I was close enough to all three of those guys to see something in their eyes to go. I mean, they, I, I got picked outta the crowd and was put in the middle of a big arena for the circus. And this guy that was the mc, he gave me real quietly in my ear, a couple of directions to do, and he said it with such confidence. And I, I could see, I'm like, whatever you say I'll do. Right. Yeah. And that, that cowboy humble, but. He, he, he, he, he broke, you know, two ton bulls for a living and was confident. So I think what was kind of, I see true is the strength of confidence. You see it in Tony Dungy, who, again, has a very different personality than like a, uh, some louder, you know, more than Vince Lombardi. Yeah, but you, there was still, there's that confidence that that's inside. And there's also a place where they can learn. Even Vince Lombardi was told by Bart Starwood, you can't talk to me like that in front of those guys. Nobody will have confidence in me. And he is like, and he thought he would get, he'd get cut at that moment. And Vince Lombardi said, I think you're right. Yeah. They all have a little, there is that humility that sits underneath that confidence, I think that allows them to grow. Yeah. Yeah. That's excellent. Um, I, I love the humility underneath the confidence. I, I, I love that, uh, that point. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna end in there. We've got a lightning round. I'd really love to get into Pat if you're willing. Sure. Great. Your favorite, you've already shared this, so maybe pick a different one, but your but your favorite leadership quote. Yeah, that's the one that would be my favorite. I mean, we've talked about a whole bunch of'em. Let me see if there's other ones. Um. You know, one of the things that Len told me when he, he recruited me into this, he didn't have consultancy and another, have another guy in the office did it. But then he expanded and we met many years ago, 20 years ago. He said, pat, when you believe with all your heart that this is gonna work, you're gonna be successful. And I thought, wow, there is something to having complete confidence Yeah. In what you're doing that will make you successful. And I've never forgotten that. And I often, and the other one I really like actually comes from tell your brand story. Uh, it's the same Christian, it's the guy that writes the Christian books, but he wrote this business book, and when they've asked me to give advice to new consultants, so we only have 40 of us worldwide, um, I said, remember, you're not the hero. Yeah. The the client is, we're just the guide. You can never go in as a consultant thinking you're the hero. You are not. Yeah. Your client is. I love that you are. What's one underrated skill in leadership? Boy, coaching. Coaching. You'd be surprised how many bad coaches there are in executive teams out there. There's a lot. It's the number one, it's the number one problem. An HR person will tell you that they have. They, they that executives dunno how to coach. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a favorite author besides Pat? If, I mean, if he hears this, it's definitely Pat. Um, um, uh, I, I'm a really big fan of the, the Cure, the guys that wrote that, that, yeah. I think that all their stuff is good and, um, and I do like Townsend and, and Cloud a lot. I guess they, yeah. Pick up their stuff. I, I, I really like, uh, VJ God's book, 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators. He and I were the plenary speakers for General Dynamics maybe 15 years ago. And, um, I remember sitting in the audience before I spoke, thinking I, I could listen to this guy for 10 hours. VJ is, he's the chairman of the tech school at Dartmouth. Really great writers. Yeah. Speaker. I'll put links to all those in the show notes as well. Yeah. Uh, the most frustrating excuse someone can make for not entering the danger, it's not worth it. They go, I'm just not gonna do it. It's not worth it. And sometimes it's not worth it, but a lot of times they're just abdicating out of fear. Yeah. Yeah. Your favorite question to ask other people, what's the, uh, one thing that's true about you? Most people miss. Hmm. But know the real you One thing to know the real you that most people miss. Yeah. Had a, i I ventured some actors, and I can remember this young guy was dating a gal and they, we had just, they were both in Hamilton, they were the original cast of Hamilton. Yeah. And he wanted me to meet her. So we, we, I go to the show and then we're having dinner afterwards and I say that to her. I go, I asked her, I said. What's the one thing most people missed about knowing the real you, but they missed it. They don't see it. And I could see him. They, they just started dating and he was like, oh, I'm leaning in going, I want to hear the answer to this question. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. I must steal it, pat. I do, I stole it from somebody. Yeah. We all steal. Yeah. Uh, what, what's something you do to make sure you're always learning? I. Well, you know, I do read every day and I start my day with that. It's very rare that I'm not reading every day. So I, I, I think, you know, um, leaders are readers and yeah, usually the more voracious, the read of a reader person is the better leader they are. Yeah. Um. So favorite podcast, we'll assume that Pat's listening. So obviously at the table on the working genius. It's terrific, both of them. Life changing. Yeah. Outside of those two, outside of those two, I, you know, for me, I consume a, uh, I, I think a fair amount, even though I don't argue politics, a fair amount of political information. So I'll go everywhere from, uh, Rachel Maddow.'cause I think she's got a good mind, uh, to all the way to Steve Bannon. So Bannon's podcast, he does a good job of laying out his arguments for his worldview, and I think Rachel Bado does, uh, on the opposite end. So I, Yeah, I mean, I like listening to smart people that, uh, that have a good, you know, strong points of view. And even if I don't agree with them, I really like it when both of'em could do this, where I go, oh, I hadn't thought of that. That's a good point. I should think about that. So I do want them to challenge my, my, my thinking and I try not to get caught up in style or even somebody having a bias towards thing I think is right. I try to listen. Just listen. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, a book that you keep on rereading. Oh, the, the Cure. Okay. Uh, what's a quality you see in others that makes you excited to get to know them? I, I, I'm really, well, authenticity is, is the number one thing. And I think when you can put Authe authenticity together with a kind of a, a joyous, happy spirit Yeah. That knocks it outta the park for me. Yeah. Yeah. Your favorite way to build trust with other people. I, I actually like, uh, conversations in small groups that are really not big on tables of six or eight. I'm, I'm really good with, uh, three or four people. I think that's kind of the ideal group I like to be around. Yeah. How does gratitude impact your life? I, I know when I'm, I'm not thankful. That I go to a kind of a dark place, and so I, I typically am a, you know, glass half full kind of a person. Uh, so it doesn't usually happen, but I, I know, um, when it does that, you know, I'm, I'm at the. I'm not, I'm not a nice person. I should, yeah. I have to move then to, you know, a part of the country where people are not nice. I can't stay in Minnesota. They'd kick me out. Yeah. They, you're not nice. Gotta go live somewhere else. Yeah. Uh, how do you stay sharp at work? Oh, I think the biggest thing is concentration. Especially for me as a consultant, I'm in a lot of meetings. You just really never find people that go, you know. Professionally, I go to meetings and I just love it. And, uh, so there sometimes conversations, if it's, let's say it's a chemical company or some part of the world of science or geology or I know nothing about, I really have to work hard to stay engaged, to listen, to pick up things. I don't maybe understand the, uh, the letters that they're using or the, you know, the. The, the elemental chart that they're talking about. But I'm looking at the dynamic. So I think that's, staying sharp at work is really an effort of concentration for me. Yeah. And not let my mind water wander. I'm better at it at work than I'm at home. Yeah. Like, you know, somehow I'll go, oh, that's an interesting headline. Maybe I'll look at that instead of finishing a spreadsheet. Yeah. Yeah. What do you do to rest? Um, I. I like sitting in my backyard. Hmm. I probably, my favorite thing is at the end of the day is just sit down and, and I have a nice view out of my backyard and I enjoy that. Yeah. I love it. Last question, pat, is white chocolate really? Chocolate? Oh, no sir. It's not. That's great. How can it be like, I've asked this question myself several times. This is like really quiet and I've, and somebody, I think somebody told me it's not so I, I think yeah. You know, if, if it doesn't have cocoa in it, I don't know that it can be. Yeah. I think it's just sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Pat. I'd love to ask, is there anything that you're working on that, that you'd like to share? And if people wanna get ahold of you, how can they do that? Um, I, you know, the most important work that is happening around here is actually my wife just got a contract to write a book on That's awesome. Women in the Bible, and she's doing a great job on writing using sanctified imagination, which is a little bit what we see in the chosen. We're like, Hey, that's, that's not in the Bible. No, but. It could have happened. Philip and Jesus might have had that conversation at that spot. Right. Yeah. It could have happened because you know the circumstances and the time and all that stuff. So she's done a really good job of that. So I I, that hopefully will come out this summer and it's seeing God in your story by Nico or Nicolette Richie. I'm not sure what the title's gonna be, but it's already, she's already got a contract for it. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. I will, you said this summer, I think this summer. Yeah. Great. Awesome. I will put a link towards that direction if I can, if I can. Yeah, if, if you can find it. I know it's, uh, I, I believe the summary is called the Bible Seminary of Katy, Texas is the one, so they must have a publishing house on their website? Yeah. Okay. Uh, and if people wanna get ahold of you, pat, how could they do that? Yeah, probably the best thing is go to, uh, table group. And the, there's a page for consultants, and you can see all of them are by good looking consultants. But pick me, I'm on there and, uh, pat ri and it just, it's got my email and all that. So, but by email is very simple. It, it's very long. Pat dot Richie, R-I-C-H-I e@tablegroupconsulting.com. Awesome. And Table Group. Table Group. The table group.com is a great website for anybody interested in organizations. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Hey, uh, pat, thank you again. I'm really grateful for this conversation, uh, and I look forward to the next time we get to chat. All right, well, thanks Zach. You have a great day and say goodbye to your cat. I'll do that. Okay. Alright. All right. Take care. All. Okay. Bye-bye. What an awesome conversation. Thank you Pat so much for joining me this month on the podcast. I really appreciate it. I know that everyone listening has been really blessed by your wisdom. My guest next month is going to be my good friend Dahan Brown. I'm actually really honored to share next month's episode Because Dathan was such a generous, kind mentor to so many people, and he passed away suddenly late last year, and I really think that this episode of the podcast is a really cool testament to the man that he was, the generosity that he had, how he cared for other people, and how he sought to live. So I'm really excited to share, uh, this episode with you. I hope you all come back and join me next month for this episode with DA Brown. thank you all so much for joining me this month on the Enter The Danger Podcast. I really appreciate you being here with me, and I'm grateful for your time. If you enjoyed the podcast, I'd also appreciate it if you left a review or rate it wherever you consume your podcasts. But more than that, I'd really appreciate it if you shared the podcast with someone else. If you have any advice to me, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at Zach, that's ZA c@zwilcoxconsulting.com. That's also my website, z wilcox consulting.com, or you could call me at(559) 387-6436. I also take texts if you don't like to call or if you just wanna talk about entering the danger as well and what that means, how to implement that in a better way in your own life. Please let me know. I'd love to connect and chat. I love meeting new people. I love talking about this topic of entering the danger. Thank you friends for being here again. Until next time, let's remember to choose kindness. Empathy and curiosity.

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