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Applying Peer Group Learnings to Business Teams with Leo Bottary

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan’s guest Leo Bottary, founder and managing partner of Peernovation, LLC, gives you a different way of thinking about the culture of accountability. The conversation centers around applying the learnings from peer groups into teams in your business. Leo explains how peer groups can help with employee retention and engagement, AND retention of information taught in training!!!

When Evan asked Leo, how he decided to take what he learned about peer groups and recreate it inside an organization? he explained the concept has been a decade in the making. That in looking at what made a peer group effective and what made a team effective—there were a lot of similarities. In peer groups you have “individuals who come together to help one another achieve their individual goals. While a team comes together to achieve a collective goal or shared work product.”

Evan asked Leo to tell us what he’s learned about peer (groups) that can be brought into an organization?

One of the things that Leo touched on is the concept of psychological safety being fundamental to peer groups. That when people come together as a group, they need to trust each other and feel that they can safely talk about what they don’t know, what they’re afraid of and what mistakes they’ve made. Leo continued by explaining, “When they come together, they’re sharing, often times deep personal and business issues with one another, they have trust that what happens in the room stays in the room. And that they’re helping one another in that way. And in teams it’s not a lot different, you’ve got to be able to share and be open with one another as peer groups do.”

Leo shared five things that he thinks are important learnings from peer groups that can be applied to teams, as well as the best way to roll out the concept to your organization. Listen to the entire interview to hear them all… and remember to stay to the end to hear his one big tip!

About Our Guest

Leo Bottary is the founder and managing partner of Peernovation, LLC. He is a sought-after thought leader on Peer Advantage and Peernovation, emerging disciplines dedicated to strategically engaging peers to achieve personal and organizational excellence. A popular author, keynote speaker, and workshop facilitator, he also serves as an instructor for Rutgers University and Opinion Columnist for CEOWORLD Magazine.

Prior to teaching for Rutgers, Leo was an adjunct professor for Seton Hall University, where he led graduate-level online learning teams and on-campus residencies in the areas of leadership and strategic communication. In April 2015, he was named adjunct teacher of the year for its College of Communication and the Arts.

Earlier in his career, Leo served in senior leadership positions at Mullen and Hill & Knowlton, where he was also Director of Client Service for the US. In the mid-1990s, he founded a public relations agency that a leading industry trade publication hailed as a regional powerhouse, new media pioneer, and great place to work. Leo earned a BA from Jacksonville University, an MA in Strategic Communication and Leadership from Seton Hall University, and completed his doctoral coursework at Northeastern University.

Establishing a Noble Purpose with Elizabeth Lotardo

In this energizing episode of Training Unleashed, Evan speaks with Elizabeth Lotardo, VP of Client Services at McLeod & More (and self-proclaimed training nerd) about the concept of noble purpose behind the book, “Selling with Noble Purpose,” that Elizabeth co-authored. According to Elizabeth, purpose-driven organizations score high in customer retention, employee engagement and other quantitative metrics.

Evan kicked off the interview by asking Elizabeth, “what is a noble purpose?”

Elizabeth’s response, “A noble purpose is a declarative statement about the impact you make on someone else. You’ll hear a lot in business we talk about the why, the higher calling, some people call it a mission or a vision, we call it the noble purpose. It is the essence of why you exist as a business or why you exist as a person.”

Evan continued the conversation by asking, “what was the genesis of the idea” of a noble purpose?

“The genesis of the idea is that people want to feel good. Beyond food and shelter we have core needs as human beings for belonging and significance. We want to be part of something greater than ourselves and we want our work to matter.”

Elizabeth continued, “[t”he crux of nobel purpose, Selling with Noble Purpose, the first edition which obviously came first, was born out of a research study which identified how that feeling of pride how that impact lens played out in a sales capacity. What we know is that sales is really measurable and you can see now from the research a clear difference in sales and in other professions of the people who do keep that purpose at the fore of their heart who show up every day to make an impact on their colleagues and customers and the people who are only focused on their own individual metrics.

“The difference in performance is really clear on an individual level and of course an organizational level. We’re seeing all kinds of data that the organizations who operate as purpose-driven businesses hit it out of the park on metrics like customer retention, innovation metrics, employee engagement, all those quantitative things we work so hard to adjust.”

Elizabeth notes that being a purpose-driven leader or being a purpose driven employee is a learnable practice and the way you learn it is by through closely connecting with the impact you have on others. She shares an exercise to help people find their purpose or connect to the purpose of your organization. But, you’ll need to tune into the episode to get her recommended exercise.

And, don’t forget to listen to the end of the episode for Elizabeth’s tip!

Elizabeth’s Giveaway

If you think your sales team could use a little more purpose, check out our assessment: Creating a Tribe of True Believers today!

About Our Guest

Elizabeth Lotardo is a consultant, researcher, and co-author of Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work that Makes You Proud.

As the VP of Services at sales leadership consultancy McLeod & More, Elizabeth leads sales transformation initiatives for clients like Oracle, G Adventures, and Fiserv. She is a popular LinkedInLearning author, and her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and on NPR.

With an undergraduate degree in advertising from Boston University and a Master’s in Organizational Psychology, Elizabeth has enabled firms to drive employee engagement, competitive differentiation, and ultimately revenue.