All right, what is up and welcome in to another
episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host,
Jackson Callum, and I'm so excited to have Dr.
Kevin Lewis in the house. We're going to be talking
about leadership and engineering elite teams
and the hidden drivers of high performance. And
let's take a quick look at behind the scenes
of how we arrived at this point of having this
legend on our show. I'm 72. I just look a lot
younger. I'm at the top of my game, Jackson.
That's what's frustrating. My major professor
at University of Texas at Austin. industrial
psychologist he was also lds i never even knew
that till i went to his funeral i knew he was
a christian but i didn't know he was lds right
his name was oscar mink m -i -n -k my vision
is for my clients to be as effective as they
can possibly be as human beings in an organization
my vision is basically is that they're successful
period it's a personal change especially if you're
losing a job or a major thing in your life how
will i be involved will i have a job what you
did for me those kinds of things once you get
through the personal change you're pretty much
over the hump i mean i said many years ago if
you want me to go to ecuador or go around the
world i'll do whatever you want to do you're
real not mine and that didn't happen but you
know i tried to be as good a steward as i can
in all my organization will work and in my consulting
and try to be a model and i'm going to continue
that and i get this sense many times i'm not
done with you yet you know so that's that's kind
of where i'm coming from All right, my friends,
you got to see behind the scenes of the types
of interviews I do. I'm here to kind of grow
my guests before they get on this stage. I want
to make sure they're legitimately good at what
they do, that they've got strong backgrounds,
that they have the foundation necessary to help
us win. So without further ado, Kevin Lewis,
thank you for joining me live on Vision Pros.
Great to be here. Appreciate it. Oh man. So glad
to have you back. And we're going to be talking
about how to move past the luck factor, right?
There's a science behind high performance cultures.
Let me lead with, let me let you lead with that
aspect. I know you have a book as well. Please
feel free to tell us about everything you're
up to put some background behind. I also know
you have a PhD. What's the, what's the PhD stand
for? And what'd you get your doctorate in? Well,
Some people used to say BS, MS, and pilot higher
and deeper, but that's not the way it should
really be. It's adult human resource development
leadership, which is a big mouthful. So I just
say organizational development. Basically, we
learn to intervene in an organization at three
levels, individual, team, and macro. So I've
done org design, redesign, work with leaders,
C -suite people. But I love being down in the
trenches with the people who really do the work.
Because if you're not connected with those people,
then you shouldn't even be getting your paycheck.
Absolutely. And that type of leadership, you
know, being on the front lines is something that
we often hear about. And sometimes it's hard
to know how to execute that in a company. So
let's dive into that science behind the high
performance cultures. What, from your opinion,
what does that look like? What are some of the
base key points that companies are overlooking
or perhaps just not embracing as fully as they
can? You know, it's funny. I thought a lot about
this before we got on the air and I did a little
more poking around. And I haven't done a lot
of, I've done a little bit of work on culture,
but I'm usually like a laser on, you know, coaching
or leadership development, that kind of thing.
And then I took a step back and I thought, you
can be a team leader with a tremendous team in
a really crummy culture, but it's a heck of a
lot easier if the whole organization has a great
culture. There's some really interesting work
that I didn't, there's a guy named Gustavo Grodnitsky.
I've never met this guy, but I did some work
with him or looking at his work a few years ago.
It was all about culture trumps everything. He's
been on TED Talks and he's got all these videos
and all this stuff. but what i really loved about
the what he looked at the metrics and he compared
companies like uh from good to great back up
but they came out in 2000 and he tracked the
metrics on that and then he talked about uh culture
and the and the some certain companies that he
worked with they really focused a lot on culture
and treating people you know really really well
and taking care of the customers first the internal
customers and then they have far exceeded Those
other companies that are a lot more command and
control. So that's a big thing. But from teams
itself, it's really more common sense around
teams need, and there's a lot of research behind
this, three basic things. They need to be very
clear on what is the team trying to accomplish,
okay? And then being very clear on roles and
responsibilities. and then having good internal
team processes. And I'm just going to hold this
up real quick. And this is my model. It's called
the team triangle, right? It's not really sophisticated.
It's a piece of paper, right? And this came from
just a lot of work. And again, my mentor from
UT, Oscar Mink, he wrote a book called Groups
at Work. And his engineer, he had this quote
that basically said, you know, teams, you can
do touchy -feely stuff, but if the team is not
real clear. on what they're trying to accomplish
it's like trying to build a house on sand and
not having that foundation so the foundation
is i mean you can work with a team and do the
myers -briggs and do truss falls and run in the
woods and take sailboats and all that stuff but
and that might be a lot of fun but until you
get very nitty -gritty around what what is the
team really supposed to do what's the accomplishment
of it uh or at least a goal for it that's the
first thing so what's the team trying to do and
then Who's supposed to do the what? Very, very
clear on roles and relationships. And then how
good are the internal processes? Like how do
they make decisions together? How do they solve
problems? How good are their meetings? Basic
stuff like that. You wouldn't believe how many
teams I worked with. Their meetings were absolute.
I won't even use a very good word, okay? Just
terrible. Because people would just go on and
they would wander around. And it also depends
on what kind of team it is. And just real quick.
A standing team may be building a software team
or a team doing marketing or whatever. They're
very clear on what they're trying to do. Sometimes
they kind of lose their way, but they'll get
along really well because they like each other,
right? Project management teams sometimes are
the opposite because they're very clear on what
they're trying to do, but because people come
in and out during the phases of the project,
they don't make any kind of personal connection,
right? it's sometimes sort of like a laser beam
clear on on the task of the project but who's
supposed to do it and if there's some issues
politically they're not really good at that so
some there's some foundations for all teams but
there's some nuances that people don't think
about let's get those three triangle angles again
you said roles responsibilities it's first it's
task and that's basically what's the purpose
of the team what are we really trying to do here
okay it can be vision mission that kind of stuff
just a nitty gritty why does the team even exist
okay that's really what it comes down to all
right and then the way to think about it jackson
this is the what the task this is the who the
roles responsibilities and this is the how the
interaction right and the other thing that's
kind of interesting is and this is on my website
people can look at it but this little rectangle
down here is kind of interesting too where it
says task and relationship if you're going to
have five people who are going to meet for an
hour to figure out where the holiday party is
going to be you know they don't have to love
each other it's a very discreet task but the
longer these people work together the more important
the relationship is and the more interdependency
there is then you know that's much more important
uh that's a really good point yeah well and that's
that makes a lot of sense from a longevity standpoint
um you know you It's like working at a seminar
in group sessions. It's like usually that starts
out really well because everybody comes ready
to focus on the task. But as emotions get involved,
relationships develop over time, the task becomes
almost less important than relationships do in
certain regards. And so then, you know, it can
lead to a lot of different outcomes. It can lead
to marriage and it can lead to extreme divorce
type situations with team members. I hadn't thought
about that before. It's so funny. I frankly got
so tired of working with teams. For a long time,
I just focused on executive coaching one -on
-one. And invariably, if the C -suite or the
executive or the manager really liked me, after
we would make some connections and we worked
a little bit, they'd say, hey, can you come work
with my team? And I'd say, okay, here we go again.
And it's just amazing to me how many teams are
so, I don't want to say dysfunctional, but they're
just like, A lot of it's just... I'll say dysfunctional.
I'll say it. That's fine. I'll bridge the gap.
But people won't speak up. That's the issue.
And there's just a lot of research around that
as well. And because we're social creatures,
right? And there was a guy named Jerry Harvey
who wrote a book called The Abilene Paradox,
a Texan. okay and he says videos on this he has
a website and uh he came down he spent the weekend
with his files at ut but basically a lot of times
in any kind of a team situation people will not
speak up because they don't want to be ostracized
by the team everybody kind of wants to be buddies
or at least you know uh not a complete idiot
or jerk so they'll they'll not speak because
they don't want to be uh maybe uh too hard on
a teammate, so then they collude as a team, right?
And the classic example was the shuttle when
it blew up. You know, there was a Morton Thiokol
guy in the room that they knew if you try to
boost those boosters, those solid rocket boosters
that were on the shuttle, anything under 32 degrees,
it wouldn't seal properly, you know? But NASA
was very hard to push that thing to go up there
because, you know, they had a schedule to make.
And he was in a meeting. and he had the he brought
it up and said that we can't do this we can't
launch it everybody said i'm gonna be fine and
like 10 minutes later it blew up right so having
the moral courage in a team to speak up and damn
the consequences If you get fired, you get fired.
If someone doesn't like you, whatever. But you've
got to get issues on the table. It's that simple.
Huge. And that's for Malcolm Gladwell. And Talking
with Strangers, guys, that's a very difficult
book to read. It's not a matter of like educational.
No, it's emotionally very draining. So I recommend
it with caution. But he talks about the holy
fool. And the holy fool is a person in society
that predicts things like the 9 -11 attacks or
the things like that. I mean, they have to be
somewhat crazy to be willing to do that. But
every society. needs that type of checks and
balances that exist and so we can find ways to
create more holy fools without making people
crazy that would be awesome too um but it is
it is super important to be able to find our
voices and i think that's another big key is
how can we step more into that role of making
sure that we're doing what's necessary for the
projects to be able to be successful and i guess
let's dive into that kevin so if we want to inspire
more people to do that you know what i want to
bring up one other thing but keep maybe you marinate
on that while i bring up what you were pointing
out you talked about how you switched to not
wanting to work with teams and i've seen a lot
of executive coaches that make that same shift
and i i do get it because teams are very very
difficult and we live in a society now where
transformational cultures are becoming mainstream
to talk about if they're very difficult to implement
and most people are still on the transactional
side of of relationships but you alluded to the
reality that it doesn't really become worthwhile
or fun to work with a team unless that bond is
strong unless that transformation has taken place
but now we live in a society where like we're
not going to return to transactional work not
not my generation not the gen z's not the younger
no the value of being appreciated and having
work that matters and living with purpose and
so the the transition to transformation is kind
of forced on those who may not have grown up
with with these books um with these these concepts
but on the younger side we got to be careful
not to fall into the young rhino category where
we disrupt production We don't become profitable
and we're demanding $30 an hour minimum wage
salaries. Okay, maybe some news articles came
out this week about this. But like, holy crap,
like there's got to be a balance because if we're
all just, oh no, I'm not going to work with them
unless I feel really good. We're not going to
have a functional society. There's got to be
some type of balance on this. What are your thoughts
on that, Kevin? You're exactly right. And, you
know, I have a 33 year old son, a 30 year old
daughter, a 26 year old son. We talk business
all the time. And so, yeah, we want you to be
happy and all that. But it's called work. You
know, it's not called fun. Now, I met some of
my very best friends at work. I met my wife at
work, my very best friend at work. Unfortunately,
he passed away about five years ago. So, you
know, sometimes you get that. It's a blessing.
But I think it used to be a mission or vision
of a company would be like, I'll give you an
example. I worked for Chevron for a long time.
Then I went off on my own and came back. But
their old mission used to be to increase shareholder
value so people make a lot of money. I'm paraphrasing,
right? And then finally, they changed it to something
like bringing energy to the world or something
like that. So I think especially people your
age and my adult children, they want to actually
buy into the culture and the mission, right?
And I'll give you my two favorite missions. This
is a classic one. You'll love this one. When
I was in Austin, when I got my degree, we did
a little project at Seton Medical Center in Austin,
Texas. And it was run by the Daughters of Charity.
So the nuns started it. They called it a purpose
statement. But you can say mission. Their purpose
was to treat, this is a hospital, to treat every
person, every patient, as if we were treating
Christ himself. Wow. Now, that's the most powerful
mission I probably ever heard. The other one
I love is Andy Anderson, Cancer in Houston, which
is making cancer history. And they put an X over
it. Eliminating it, but making history by, I
mean. If that doesn't get you motivated, what
will? So I think readers need to model that kind
of stuff at the very top. And it's like, it's
not just about money, people. It's about people
and, you know, the whole bit. I mean, look at
another classic example was Gordon Bethune. You
know, Continental Airlines loved it before they
merged with United. That's another story. But
he wrote a book called, hang on a second, I had
it written down. It was, oh, From Worst to First.
They went through Chapter 11 three times. OK.
And when he took over the same airplanes, the
same pilots, same flight attendants. And within
about two years, they were like the number one
airline. And just the way how he treated people,
the way he was on that in the cockpit, when he
would talk to customers, you know, so it all
starts at the top, man. Man, that is awesome.
We're going to come back. We're going to dive
in even deeper on engineering elite teams. We
want to take a little break so I can get a little
bit of water. And of course, Dr. Kevin Lewis
is here to help us. He's got more than 30 years
of experience, let's say, in life. He's got more
than 30 years in the workforce as well. And he
also had a beautiful marriage for many, many,
many, many decades as well that I want to honor
because my friends, it's one thing to do it in
the workplace. It's another to have success in
the home life. And then it's another entirely
to be able to have success in both. So we're
in for a treat today. All right. Welcome in to
Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your
show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary
entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there. Hey guys, again,
I hope you're enjoying this podcast so far. It
started by showing you the development of my
relationship with Dr. Kevin Lewis, and he has
so much knowledge when it comes to engineering
elite teams and unpacking the hidden drivers
of high performance. I hope that you take the
opportunity to not just listen, but to also reach
out to him about these concepts. We've already
talked about the balance between transactional
relationships and transformational relationships
and how it's so important to move towards transformation,
but also not lose sight of the value of work.
That is something. that is very, very hard for
society to get right now. And then we also talked
about the cultures and how culture plays into
success and how we can engineer that. We want
to dive into the repeatable patterns a little
bit more as well as. what leaders do differently
to sustain performance over time at companies
that are truly doing that. I'm not talking about
fly -by -night companies or young guns that don't
have experience over decades. I'm talking about
his brilliance over decades of being able to
evaluate and see what's going on in the business
world and help us see that. He's got a book as
well. We'll talk about that. But I'm going to
bring Kevin back on and we're going to dive into
this aspect of what is it that leaders are doing
differently to sustain performance over time.
We got more than 10 days of experience with this.
We got decades. of experience with it, Kevin.
Let's dive right back into that. Yeah, we can.
And I think the irony is some teams don't even
need a team leader, self -managed teams, okay?
So if they're clear on task and the roles and
all that good stuff. But the leaders that I've
seen who are really, really good, I think the
one thing they have in common is they're absolute
straight shooters and they can show their vulnerability,
okay? They're always a human being. before they're
the boss, before they're the team leader, right?
And those who embrace that, people, look, people,
if you blow smoke, people can see it in a heartbeat,
right? You just can't get away with that stuff.
So I always convince or suggest leaders to do
that. And I can, I've told the story on other
podcasts, but it's a really powerful one. So
what... a lot of companies ge started this 30
years ago but they have a thing called new leader
assimilation so if you're a new team leader and
or a new manager new boss whatever uh the first
couple months after you've been working with
the team they get they sit down with the team
and i do this i do a little uh like a little
google survey thing but it's like what do we
what are we going to know about jackson if you're
with the boss uh what does he need to know about
the team uh You know, what are Jackson's biggest
strengths? What are some of his background things?
Can I come to his office? Does he use texting?
Does he do, you know, all that kind of stuff,
nitty gritty. But I would always say to the leader,
okay, this is the day before we're doing the
next day. And I was working with a leader. I
heard he was a pretty tough guy. So I said to
him, and I'm going to use this exact wording
he said. His name was Todd. I said, Todd, when
you meet with your team tomorrow, can you say
something just about yourself so they know you
are a human being, not just the boss? He goes,
yeah. I said, what's that? He goes, well, I used
to be a real asshole, but I changed. I said,
really? Why? He said, well, my wife got cancer
and I almost lost her, breast cancer. I said,
okay. And he said, in fact, she told me, my wife,
this is him talking to him, she goes, my getting
breast cancer is the best thing that ever happened
to you because it forced him to evaluate what's
important in his life. and he told me that i
said dude that's really powerful i said would
you be okay telling that to the team tomorrow
at the right time because no problem it was amazing
jackson there were about eight people on his
team six men two women and especially the women
he stood up there and told that story and you
could just see them melting oh he loves his wife
and he has his priorities straight yeah it was
powerful it doesn't always have to be that that
crazy but it could just be what you like to do
for fun what kind of books you like to read you
know movies whatever but it's important the leader
is seen As a human being versus the boss. And
one time I did that and a lady came up to me,
a subordinate of the team, and she said, you
know, I don't really care about that kind of
stuff. I just want the work. I said, well, maybe
you don't need that, but your other team members
do. Right. It's a balancing act for sure. And
it's one of those things that I do recommend.
In fact, we have a couple of ways we strive to
do that here at First Class Business on the Vision
Bros team. I'm a very driven person, Kevin. I
like to like I'm happiest in the fourth quarter
when the game is close, like let's crush it.
And over time, like I'm even more excited. Like
this is this is the time to shine. And that doesn't
always work for a culture. You know, there's
a balancing act of of being highly driven and
also being personable. We use we use a company
meeting on Fridays called Level Up, Calm Down.
And so on level up, calm down, we have an hour
and a half. And this is something I wish more
virtual teams would implement because most virtual
work resides around like, what'd you do for me
today? Did you get it done? It's very transactional.
There's not a lot of team for personal development.
Well, we take that hour and a half as our back
office break room time to be able, nobody's allowed
to talk about anything urgent. Nobody's allowed
to talk about anything stressful. We take care
of all of that in the morning. And then we come
in at 1 o 'clock. No, it's 2 o 'clock in the
afternoon. And we have an hour and a half. And
we might even karaoke during that time sometimes.
Sometimes we need that. Other times, again, we
talk about projects that aren't. like deathly
important and we do show and tell you know and
we start with the person who's youngest in the
room being the person who's newest to the company
that way they get a chance to lead and present
their value and they don't feel intimidated by
everybody else and we tell them don't forget
at the end of your presentation to pass the ball
pass the ball to the next person that way i don't
have to keep interrupting or facilitating it's
just it's kind of lead and they do that and it
creates an amazing environment because my team
members after that and a half they either go
have lunch But whatever happens, they come back
to finish their work really well on a Friday
because they got that unplug feeling. And I spend
the rest of my day checking in on making sure
everybody's happy going into the weekend. Because
if they're happy going into the weekend, they're
usually happy coming back on Monday. And so Monday
kicks off with even greater force. So there are
lots of ways. as individuals where we can tap
into opportunities like this and say, you know,
what's done is some of the best cultures in the
world, AI, and how can we implement this stuff
in our lives? So super, super well said about
that. Going into the. I don't want to just talk
about the why in this one. The question was why
building elite teams requires more than just
a blueprint. Let's talk about the blueprint first
of, you know, if we have one. Do we have a blueprint?
Do you have a blueprint, Kevin, or do we make
this up? Well, no. I mean, I have my model that
I showed you. And then I think a charter is pretty
important, too, in writing. You know, so here's
what we're trying to do. Here are our customers,
here are our stakeholders. They kind of divide
the work up. So, yeah, let's break that down
slowly then for myself and others because I want
to be able to capitalize on that. And then, my
friends, I'm also going to reveal afterwards,
you know, why it's not enough. What are some
of the other obstacles you might run into with
these opportunities to build? And, of course,
Kevin, you can double down with me on that. Well,
to take a step back, sometimes a team isn't needed.
OK, now I have a little team workshop I've done
for a long time and there's a really good book
called The Wisdom of Teams. It's been around
a long time. They have a new edition came out
a few years ago and I don't have the courage
with me. But what I do is it's like sometimes
just a group of people can do work organically
and they don't need to be, quote unquote, a team.
OK, and then sometimes the boss will say for
political correctness, I want you to be a team.
And maybe all they share is a coffee pot and
a charge code. it's like really and then what
they do is they try to if they're at this level
of productivity they start to try to be a team
and they actually lose productivity because they're
doing team stuff they don't really need to do
you know yeah you know role roles and i said
well i don't even know what this guy does oh
no but you're a team now it's like it's just
unbelievable I can see the bureaucracy problems
in that. It's just like, really, people? See,
I come from the startup world where most solopreneurs
think they don't need a team and they're trying
to do way too much on their own. And so we loosely
use the word team as like, you need people who
can help you. You can't lift all this by yourself
and scale. But on the flip side, no, I can see
how, yeah, that would get real awkward. And one
of the key things is that people want to know
on any team is, I'll say, how interdependent
are the team members? In other words, I would
want to know if I'm on a team, what can I do
alone? And when do I have to work with Jackson
or Judy or Tom? Okay. He said, oh, and you thought
about that, right? So it's almost like the team
leader wants teamwork, but they don't really
have to be a team to do that. So sometimes it's
like, like I said, it's just kind of force and
people know it's like, okay, it's a waste of
time. And I'll ask you a trick question. I've
seen a few high performing teams. Do you know
why most teams? that I've seen in large organizations
never get to high performance. Why? Because they
move people too quickly off the team. They come
on, they come off. It's common sense, but you
don't have to be high performance. You can be
good and knock it out of the park, right? But
usually, and I had a podcast with another guy
a couple months ago, and he said, man, that happened
to me. I was running some kind of auto shop or
something, and people were stealing his people
at the time. They were so good. And if you have
seven or eight people, a team and a couple of
people leave, you're not starting all over. But
the dynamics are totally different. Right. Right.
And I can see a lot of companies falling victim
of having one bad apple in the bunch and then
making the decision like, OK, well, we're just
not going to rotate teams fast. We don't have
that experience happen. But there's other ways
to address these realities. But let's let's play
devil's advocate real quick. I love what you
said about how in some. some elements like the
team is not required. Is there a specific industry
or a specific division where you find that it's,
it's more, I guess it's more helpful to focus
on the individual work rather than forcing the
team concept. Like I can see how in a, maybe
I'm wrong, but maybe in a financial department
or where people like to do spreadsheet type stuff,
maybe they don't necessarily. The nature of the
work should drive how much interaction there
should be. It shouldn't be from political. correctness
right if somebody i mean the classic is the old
software developer now people just buy objects
now it's all yeah but back in the day when they
would write code you know you'd have somebody
there just you know they'd want to be there for
like 24 hours a day and you'd kind of stick a
pizza under the door and spray some deodorant
in there it was all good right i mean really
so but i think so much work now is it's there's
so many people who were doing two and three jobs
they have to share the work and be able to do
it so i think it's just getting crazy crazy crazy
meaning you have to at least be able to collaborate
whether it's a team or not that's good that that's
legend i love that okay i have a i have a great
example though of a leadership team when the
she was a cio fifa expansion officer and she
had seven people the team she called me one day
she goes i think we need my team needs team building
and for me that's always a big old red flag okay
here we go right Because sometimes they don't
need that. So long story short, I interviewed
her and we talked and I said, tell me about all
your team members, leadership team, and they're
all managers. There were seven of them. Five
of them were great, but two of them were not
getting along at all, like nitro and glycerin.
So it's in my book. And I basically say, I'm
not going to drag the whole first grade class
out and be punished because one person or two
people are acting out, right? So basically I
did a one -on -one assessment with each of them.
And after I did it with the leader first, she
understood the tool I use. And it was obvious
they were never going to work very well together.
So one on one, I sat down with them. And one
was in Australia, one was in Houston. And we
did a little thing. And I said, look, I'm your
friendly internal consultant. But if you people
don't get your act together, you're going to
be on a PIP, a performance improvement plan.
And if you go on a PIP in a large organization
and there's layoffs next year, guess who gets
to go first? So I told them there were three
behaviors where they were just like this. And
I showed it on a graph very visually. And I gave
some examples. And within two weeks, they didn't
love each other. They didn't even like each other,
but they could work together. And I didn't have
to drag six of their peers out of there because,
you know, somebody wanted to do team building.
I'm very surgical about that stuff. Wow. Let's
talk about Teams, Tools, and Trials, your book.
I'd love to hear about it, Kevin. The main reason
I wrote it. was those three adult children who
i love never really knew what i did for a living
dad would get on an airplane he'd go to australia
and dad's getting it now and now he's going to
south america i come back and you know have to
move the grind and you know cut the lawn right
so i said to myself when i'm long gone i want
my children to know what i did for a living that
was my first objective and the second was i have
was blessed with tremendous mentors leaders uh
world the lions in this industry and i said i
think i have a lot of knowledge god gave me a
great brain in my opinion and i'm going to share
that knowledge as best i can and put it out there
guys well i can't i can't emphasize the importance
of this enough but i i need to try uh kevin will
give you a little break one more time as well
because i want to talk about that i also want
to give some shout outs to some other uh individuals
that are are warranted for the visionaries who
are listening in so my friends uh kevin lewis
just told us the book that he wrote is like him
packaging all of his wisdom and knowledge for
the sake of his children having success in their
life. That's how important. this stuff is for
each and every one of us is we got decades of
leadership wisdom to learn from with that. I
also want to introduce you guys to some other
leaders. I hope that you connect with Kevin Lewis,
by the way, directly. It has been such a pleasure
and pleasure and honor to meet him and to talk
to him and to pick his brain about what could
help first class business with our growth. So
let's shift gears real quick for health. Anybody
who starts struggling with health problems, I
highly recommend connecting with journey to wellness
plan .com. This is Dr. Shannon and Dr. Justin
Pierce. I've been friends with them for over
eight years. I've sent three people their way.
These are people who had illnesses that were,
that were kind of beyond what their doctors had
told them that they could get help with. And
I had heard that Shannon was a bit of a miracle
worker. So I sent them her way. I followed up
with all three and all three came back with glowing
reviews of like, my goodness, like she knows
her stuff. She helped me in ways that other people
can't. I've heard she's been able to help with
things like Crohn's disease and the Epstein -Barr
virus, as well as Hashimoto's. Again, I don't
want to put a technical spin on this because
I'm not a doctor, but I know that if I had a
loved one who's in some type of critical condition
or is out of hope when it comes to doctors. I
would want somebody to tell me about Shannon.
So definitely check out what they're up to and
how they're going about it. She's not waving
a magic wand. She just does the right type of
research and the right types of tests. And she
also went through a life -threatening illness
situation herself. So she understands the value
and the importance of bringing this to the world.
That's why she has more than a quarter million
followers. Then there's Practice Makes Permanent.
And Jennifer Reed, who runs Practice Makes Permanent,
she's also a full -time employee, just like a
lot of you guys are as visionaries. She's only
launched this company a year and a half ago,
but she's been employed. employed in government
agencies for more than 20 years. And I can't
think of a more difficult place personally to
practice. culture and leadership development
and she works with the executive teams i'm not
going to say what division she works for right
now but you can find that out on your own what
i would ask you to focus on is when you're talking
to people about professional growth and moving
your own brands forward lean in with people who
have a personal why that's strong and why do
i do that because those people they're resilient
and they're almost relentless about their pursuit
for success for the sake of making a difference
in the world and i would challenge you Bring
a couple of Kleenexes when you talk to Jennifer,
because you're going to be bawling your eyes
out when you hear her story of why she believes
so strongly in emotional intelligence and spiritual
intelligence and bringing that to the workforce.
She's a world -class facilitator, and I highly
recommend talking to her if you're in a position
where you can benefit from leadership, profitability,
and growth. Then there's the Water Project. The
Water Project is an initiative that we contribute
to on a monthly basis, and it's something that
Kind of blew my mind when I remember the team
member a long time ago, we were actually supporters
of Operation Underground Railroad. And we were
helping with the process of raising awareness
for kids who are affected by trafficking. And
so this person told me, you know, Jackson, I'd
like to see us lean into something with with
greater. connection to more people who need it
in the world. And we had a little bit of a battle
as a team about it. But as I started to lean
into this, I saw pictures like this where these
kids are pulling water out of who knows where.
And I started to think about my kids. I was like,
man, there's millions of people out there who
suffer without clean drinking water. And how
would that affect me as a person who's trying
to provide for my family? How would that affect
my kids who have to leave these schools in order
to go find water? And I said, you know what?
It's not hard to switch gears and also talk about
this too. I see these kids celebrating water
like my kids celebrate Christmas Day. And that
humbling thought made me realize I can do something
to help out with this, too. And so we continue
to talk about it. My hope is if you're not in
a financial position to contribute to one of
these projects, which only takes 10 to 20 dollars,
then by all means, do me a favor. Just share
this with somebody. Talk to people about it over
dinner. You never know who you talk to or who
you share this with. Might be somebody who invests
in one of these. one of these wells or one of
these sand dams that they build. It is really
neat to learn about what happens. And what's
cool about this is I love their transparency.
When you give money to it, they actually show
you the project come to fruition that you decided
to invest in, just like a Kickstarter project
or another crowdfunding project. So my friends,
we got 8 billion people to help in this world.
And if you know a cause that makes more sense
to you that to give back to, maybe you're like,
Jackson, you should talk about this instead.
drop the link in the comments. Let me take a
look at the cause. I might bring it up on this
show as well and talk about it. And I might contribute
from my own pocket as well. If we can, we will.
So thanks again for hearing us out on that. Let's
go right back to Kevin. Kevin, I just want to
give you kind of a broad stroke, open opportunity.
We've talked a lot about different angles of
leadership and elite teams and high performance
and what's there. What are some of the areas
that you'd like to go into where it's like, man,
my audience is going to miss out if we don't
talk about these aspects? I think it's just kind
of a pet peeve for me is a lot of large organizations
try to identify their high potential employees
their hypos right and uh i was kind of like skeptical
that they were really taking it seriously uh
because there's a social science term called
homophily when latin means lovers are the same
so if you walk into a room with 100 people and
you're an accountant and there's five accountants
there within 30 seconds you're going to bump
into each other you know it's just out of brain
waves whatever it is right so i think a lot of
times companies would just you know hire somebody
who kind of looks like them or maybe you know
whatever so i tested it so this was a chevron
story i'll tell you real quick so uh they have
a very still do have a very large refinery in
pescagoula mississippi and they were having a
hypo summit or something like that so i found
out about it i'm going to look at this for a
second uh it's kind of interesting the uh and
i said hey and the guy the hr manager there was
a guy named bobby patton really nice guy and
i said i want to do a little experiment with
you he goes what do you mean because my press
my mentor oscar mink said the best research goes
on in organizations that nobody knows about it's
not published or anything this is a great example
of that so i said uh OK, I said, you said you
have a hypo summit, right? He goes, yeah. I said,
give me six hypos and tell me, give me two that
you really think are hypos, two that they really
aren't and get up to in the middle. But don't
tell me who's who. OK, so I use this psychometric
tool called the 16 personality factor. They took
it. I did a one on one assessment with each one
of them. And out of those five of them, I identified
one. There were like, I think, four men, two
women. identified one guy. I said, there's no
doubt in my mind this guy's a hypo. Now, this
company who has the instrument was based in Chicago.
And here's what I did. They have an industrial
psychologist, Ralph Wharton, chief psychologist.
He retired now. And I said, I sent him the reports.
He didn't even know these people. I said, I want
you to look at the reports for these six people.
Tell me if you think there's a hypo. We both
chose the same guy. And he didn't even see him.
OK, so here's my point for an organization to
identify hypos without using any kind of valid
assessment is just ridiculous. Right. So that's
been something I've been kind of pushing for
a long time. So I think there are some tools
because here's the deal. It's in a lot of organizations.
Once a hypo, always a hypo. OK, they best they
get the best. uh overseas assignments they get
the best training they get all this good stuff
so it becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy they're
there maybe 18 months two years then they leave
you don't even know what you already did someone
else comes in and cleans up your mess right so
one way to to fix that and Schlumberger does
this I had a lunch with a guy a few years ago
it's either every year or every other year the
hypos have to earn back into it it's like it's
like the NFL quarterback has to be earned back
in so they're not just on the list forever they
can actually churn and some companies just started
to do that so it's not like you got the silver
spoon in your mouth and then you can never make
any mistakes right because you know why companies
don't move the hypos or don't admit they made
a mistake because somebody brought them in and
they don't want to make a mistake and say oh
i didn't i thought jackson was a hypo he didn't
do that very well who who brought him in well
I don't know, man. So everybody's just kind of
covered each other. So that's kind of a, it's
just an interesting thing that I've always been
thought about a lot. That is super important.
I will, for those of you who are newer visionaries
to listening in, or you're not at the levels
where there's thousands of people involved in
organizations, one of the invitations that I'd
make for all of you, take this conversation,
the dialogue, the transcript, you can take it
right off of YouTube, guys. Take it off of there.
go to your favorite ai source whether i like
to use claude that's one that i go for and say
i would like to understand all of the value that
Dr. Kevin Lewis is throwing down. And I would
like to know, how does this relate to my circumstances
with my brand? And if you do that, it will actually
help because it's going to go research who Dr.
Kevin Lewis is, what he's done in different companies.
It'll look at the whole show notes from everything
that we've talked about. And then it can start
to help you build a personalized plan and process
for how this applies to your environment. Because
you may not have enough team members to worry
about setting up multiple teams. not have the
understanding of well what hypo language is or
high performers and and working with with high
performers and and how do you evaluate that and
we mentioned one tool with the 16 personality
metric tool that i believe uh kevin has we've
also got colby assessment um that's one that
i i would recommend looking at and seeing as
part of the process you got strengths finder
2 .0 um by by the Tom Rath and the Gallup Institute.
And I'm a big fan of what my area manager told
me at Lifetime Fitness a long time ago. We'd
pull him in the office and he said, for a specific
reason, he said, Jackson, look, I can teach you
how to sell, but I can't teach you integrity.
And he was pointing out he hires based on values
and I hire based on love, patience, persistence,
consistency, and reliability. Those are the attributes
that I look for in people, but I would never
turn down a 16 -point assessment or the Colby.
Or the StrengthsFinder. Those are all things
that I would stack in my favor in order to make
sure I find the best people possible. And I also
empower the people as best I can who are working
with me. And like you said, Kevin, giving people
the opportunity to develop long -term relationships
rather than fragmenting, we've got to become
better at that too. So as we wrap up the episode
today, any final thoughts, any final words of
wisdom you'd like to share with visionaries out
there? This is very tactical. If you're in an
organization and you're not a happy camper, I
tell people always have two strategies, an internal
parallel strategy and an external parallel strategy,
because anybody can get taken out anytime. It
happened to me twice, you know, and I got stronger
out of it. And I made a big decision that it's
one reason I got my doctorate as an insurance
policy. I said, if I ever get taken out again,
I will be so networked. so confident and so confident
that it'll just be a nuisance. It won't be a
life -threatening thing. So don't be dumb, fat
and happy. You don't want to be paranoid. You
know, you got to trust God and the whole thing
as far as I'm concerned, but have that dual strategy
at all times and then just go for it. I love
that. And I agree with it. I think that God honors
us super well when we decide to put our plans
into place. They say, if you want to make God
smile, put a plan into place. And I agree with
both realities on that. One, he's always going
to have a better plan for us than we can see.
But two, if we're not doing our part to earn
that plan, then... Why is he going to give me
the ability to move forward? For instance, I
used to say as a visionary, I don't care about
the money. I used to say that years ago. And
I realized that was pretty much making my prayers
in vain. Because as I said, hey, I want to help
your children. Please send me money to help.
It's like, well, you just told me you weren't
going to take care. You don't care about the
money and you're not going to take care of it.
So we can't just be all philanthropic. We've
got to be responsible stewards and what we do
to as well, visionaries. And I want to also empower
you all with one final resource based on what
Kevin just said. He's right. We've got to have
our internal and our external plans. And we've
got the AI .firstclassbusiness .io, the AI marketplace
coming out right now. now. It is coming out this
week. This is about empowering you with the expertise
you already have. A lot of people are scared
about AI and what's coming. And there's a huge
white collar layoff process that's already started.
We lost 75 ,000 jobs last year alone. And this
year, it's already turning into millions. And
I don't mean to make light of that. What I mean
to do is help you understand that even if you
do get laid off, if you've ever, for instance,
left a review, on online or you've ever curated
a playlist on spotify you have ai training and
you just don't know how to put it on your resume
so we built this to help professionals understand
how to reposition themselves in this market to
get raises and to take advantage of the tools
that can empower you at new heights we also built
a similar track for business owners to be able
to recognize their bottlenecks. And so the cool
thing about this ecosystem is those of you who
are in the market to become a better professional
and may want to launch your own businesses, et
cetera, this is going to help position you to
do that. And on the business owner side, you
get to explore that market and say, which of
these people are, as Kevin talked about, high
performers who could help me build out my systems
a little bit better because AI is going to need
people to help with the processes for a long
time. We need to lean into our emotional intelligence.
capacities we need to lean into our ability to
think through things and ask great questions
and those are really the fundamental truths that
most ai experts are so busy playing with bananas
that create images somehow that they're overlooking
the reality that really what we need is great
Let's lean into our leadership. Kevin, I really
appreciate you coming on the show and helping
us do that today. My friends, you can find Kevin's
book on Amazon. You can also go to his website.
You can Google. You can probably look on AI and
see. Tell me more about Kevin Lewis and find
some really cool stuff out. But he's still at
the top of his game as a consultant. He's still
taking clients on. He's still providing wisdom
to the world. Again, one final fortune cookie,
Kevin. If you had to create a fortune cookie
for life, for visionaries, what would it be?
I would say Romans 8, 28. Say that again. Romans
8, 28. You know, all things. God makes all things
good for those, you know, who believe in him.
And, you know, I've screwed up the quote, but,
you know, it's 8, 28. Look it up. He can turn
anything around, anything around. And, you know,
what someone else may have intent bad for you.
God will make it good. Every time I had a setback.
All I did was make me stronger and that's just
the way it works. Thank you for leaving us with
those words. I believe as much as well. And look
at that. I'm one -upping you on the human category
of to error is human. Visionaries, we all make
mistakes. We love you. We look forward to seeing
your visions come to fruition. We'll see you
on the next episode of Vision Pros Live. Thank
you for being here today. I'm really happy that
you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. invite people to participate in the
show and thank you for giving us your time and
attention. Have an excellent time building out
your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.