The Peering Podcast

Ep11 The Hijack Episode with Tom Adams & Mike Richardson
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[00:00:36] Mike Richardson: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Peering Podcast. If you want to see the future, let's peer into it together. I'm delighted today to have my very, very, very good friend and colleague Tom Adams with me because we are gonna do a little bit of what we call a hijack episode. I'm gonna introduce Tom briefly in a moment, and then I'm gonna let him hijack the rest of the episode and he's gonna engage me in some questions about the work I most love to do around peer groups, peer forums, collective intelligence, agility, being future proofed and everything else.

But Tom, Tom is known for. Being an awesome podcaster and he will always throw me some curve balls. So listen out and look out for those everybody. Uh, Tom has become a very dear friend of mine and colleague. Uh, we've actually known each other for nearly 20 years.

He is a CEO entrepreneur, coach, and uh, and just thought leader. Around all of leadership kinds of things, and not least of all, he is a co-host with me on the Prompt and Circumstance Podcast, which is all about AI, and he is blazing the trail of doing real AI stuff. Welcome Tom.

[00:01:52] Tom Adams: Oh, I'm delighted to be here, Mike. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm excited to, uh, turn the tables on you a little bit because, um, you know, you're, you're, you're doing this, I'm watching you do this because, uh, we, we have this podcast, uh, interaction that we have and watching you do what you're doing. So, uh, I just decided that I was gonna sort of force you into being your own.

Uh, your own guest instead of you always hosting, because I think your story is as cool to anybody who's in your world. And I think a lot of times, uh, as hosts, we don't always tell our story. So I'm gonna hijack the episode and just kind of drag outta you a little bit more of your story. But, but when we get started, I just thought it'd be kind of cool because I, I know I've listened to you enough times that you tell your CEO aerospace story and you tell your.

Petroleum engineer story. But I wanna go back because obviously you have this British accent and I wanna go back, back, back, back. And I wanna go back to your childhood. So let's, as let you know, I'm, I'm gonna assume you were a kid in the uk. Tell me a little bit about where you grew up, but tell me how you thought as a human being, as a little, as a little human, like what, what, what was your kid essence like?

Like you do the work you do today because you're that kind of human and yeah, you've grown and you've learned and you've had all these experiences, but there's this, there's this seed of you back there. So what was the seed? Tell me a little bit about the seed.

[00:03:26] Mike Richardson: a question. What a question. So, yeah, English, uh, born in the northwest of England in a, a coastal town called Blackpool, sort of north of Manchester and Liverpool, up in on, in a county called Lancaster. But

at a very young age, we moved south to a county called Somerset in the Southwest and grew up in a little town called Ville, uh, where my father was a policeman.

[00:03:49] Tom Adams: Oh,

[00:03:49] Mike Richardson: my mother was a, a, a secretary slash admin assistant at a hospital. We had a very, very, very, like many, many, many people, of course, had a very working class, you know, upbringing. Uh, we lived in a police home for some time, uh, which my dad got as part of his job. That was, you know, not a great place to live.

But eventually, as my dad. Um, you know, car went on his career. We managed to sort of trade up into a slightly nicer home and a slightly nicer car. And I'm most proud of my father because, uh, he actually became a member of what in the UK is called Special Branch, uh, which means that unusually for a British policeman, he carried a gun.

Uh, or would draw, would draw a gun, you know, for special arra special, uh, situations like royalty passing through the county or

visiting or dignitaries and things like that. So there are pictures of him. You know, uh, doing a very modest kind of secret service, you know,

walk around with royalty and things like that.

So I was very proud of him. Uh, and of course, mom and dad had a phenomenal work ethic. And I suppose those are the seeds of things that you're beginning to talk about. I, I, I, I have a pretty good work ethic, Tom, and I think that's where it comes from.

[00:05:11] Tom Adams: Yeah. So, so, um, again, I, I've observed you over the years and you go a hundred miles an hour, like, you, you, and, and I know that you, you, you are committed to taking holidays off and, and those kind of things, but that work ethic is there, but like this, like agility's been a big, big word in your world, like did, was there, was there seeds of agility as a kid?

[00:05:37] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Somewhat. Yeah, somewhat. That's a good question. Yeah, I have two speeds, a hundred miles an hour and zero miles an hour. I'm, I'm either on or off as it were. Uh, and I find ways to sort of live in the middle of both of those things where I might be traveling and doing some business and having some vacation and spending some quality time, all that kind of stuff.

But

back to your question of agile. When I look, you know, I love this idea that we live life forwards, and yet we understand it

backwards. So as I look backwards now into my childhood,

of course we'll talk about, we'll talk about drilling rigs and things in a minute. But yes, as a, as a, as a, as a 14, 15, 16-year-old at school, I got involved with a project team where we would build and race hovercraft

[00:06:27] Tom Adams: Oh,

[00:06:27] Mike Richardson: and we would go away for weekends to like a country house or a country castle that would have, you know, a lot of rolling hills in the lake. They'd set up this whole course, you know, partly on land, partly on water, and all these sort of, uh, hovercraft would race around. And as you can imagine, Tom steering a hovercraft is both an art and a science, right. You know, it's a

very intricate things, lots of nuances to it. And so I think that's where I first began to. Get hold of, you know, this concept of living in the agile middle, right? You can't, when you are, when you are flowing a hovercraft, you know, round a course, you can't sort of, um, overly think it, you can't under think it, you've gotta kind of just be in the flow of this journey. And I think that, that, that was the seed of where my agile thinking has come from.

[00:07:21] Tom Adams: And so, uh, at that point in time, and I mean, you know, as a teenage boy, you're raging with hormones. There's all lot going on. You're not necessarily thinking that it's just being embedded, right?

[00:07:33] Mike Richardson: happening. Yes, it's happening. Yeah. And, you know, I, frankly, I wasn't a great student at school. I really wasn't. I mean, I, I didn't sort of wake up and realize, you know, that I had to be a studious, you know, um, you know, apply myself studiously, uh, age 14, 15, 16. So I kind of did okay, you know, at that.

At that phase of getting some early qualifications in the uk. And then I did better, you know, between 16 and 18. And then I, and then I went to university and I did really well. I, I, I was in a small class, 20 people. I did geophysics, geology, physics, and maths, which was of perfect training for the oil and gas business

that we'll talk about in a moment. Uh, but, you know, I got a first class degree. I, I came top of my class and so I gradually discovered. Uh, this work ethic applied to academic things and, thought leadership things, um, uh, progressively. And then, you know, managed to, because of that, I managed to get a job with Shell International, joined their international staff, moved, moved overseas to the Netherlands and started my career.

[00:08:44] Tom Adams: And, I've heard glimpses. In other conversation of being out on rigs, like tell me a little bit about the, the evolution of you. You get your degree, uh, and then, then you get a job, and then what's happening in that flow? Like how are you getting to this place of being out on the rigs and what are some of the lessons you're learning along the way?

[00:09:09] Mike Richardson: Yeah, so obviously, you know, shell International amongst many others, came around the universities. I applied to Shell, I went through their, you know, multiple interview process. Ended up going out to the Hague in the Netherlands for the final interview, and they ended up offering me a job to become what's called a petroleum engineer. which would've been a career long, you know, path for me. But they have a fantastic graduate intake program where they put you in the field for two years to kind of learn the trade and, uh, depending on whether you're gonna be an engineer, you know, upstream in. Offshore and onshore oil and gas, exploration and development or downstream in terms of field engineering and that kind of stuff. I was gonna be upstream and so I, they put you out in the field for two years. I worked on onshore oil and gas drilling rigs for two, for a year and a half. And then I worked offshore, uh, for about six months as. In both cases as one of two company personnel that would be overseeing 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 contractors who are working shifts. But as the two company personnel we're working 24 7, we're

weak on. Week off in the case of offshore, helicopter out, helicopter back.

Uh, and when you are on, you are on 24 7. You sleep if and when you can. And it ju was just a phenomenal kind of almost bootcamp experience, uh, where you know, you really learn how to stay composed in the face of craziness. And how to be agile and go with the flow, how to catnap here and catnap there and just, you know, stare down. Oh my gosh, you know, I'm gonna be pulling my second all-nighter in a row. I've barely had a handful of hours of sleep, but I'm somehow gonna come up with the goods and get through it

and then, you know, continue on.

And so it was, it was, yeah. I look back now and realize that's where I really learned, began to learn about agility.

[00:11:07] Tom Adams: Right. And so, so what were like, like what, what were some of the, the big lessons, you talk about learning agility, but the underlying lesson that, that, that particular environment, like what were some of the ones that are like just so deeply embedded now because of the complexity? The intensity of that?

[00:11:26] Mike Richardson: Well, yeah, I mean obviously it is all about communication, coordination, and collaboration. That's what it's all about. you're doing really heavy stuff in possibly very bad weather with possibly a supply boat that's been delayed. Uh, a heavy piece of equipment that's broken and is being repaired. And, you know, you're on the very limited real estate and of an offshore oil and gas drilling rig, and you're on calls every day with corporate asking about how are we doing versus budget and versus

schedule, and of course, versus safety,

right.

That's the number one priority. And so you just have to keep figuring it out. You

just have to keep figuring out, how do we keep moving here? Staying safe. How do we keep moving? We come across all kinds of unanticipated problems, all kinds of uncertainties. You know, the supply boat, didn't get here in time because of the weather or a mechanical issue, had to go back to port. Okay, what, what can we do now to adjust and adapt and still find a pathway forward and keep the operation, you know? On track in some way, shape, or form. Always, always, always safe, obviously that that was the

backstop to everything. We never compromised safety, we never compromised quality, but how do we keep it all moving and keep it flowing?

And so yeah, just learned those kind of real time skills and and because. You know, it's all about communication, coordination, collaboration. Obviously we have to huddle a lot,

uh, every single day. We're having a morning meeting, we're having an evening meeting, you know, all the senior people are coming together. And, you know, I often, now, Tom, when I stand in front of audiences, you know, giving keynotes or whatever, I ask a question when agile leaders get busier with more. To triage. I like to use the word

triage, right? So they've got more to triage in less time because the weather changed, the supply boat is late.

A piece of equipment just broke when they've got more to triage. In less time. Do agile leaders have more meetings or less meetings? Hands up if you think less. Two thirds of the hands go up. Hands up if you think more. One third of the hands go up. The right answer is more, we have more short, sharp huddle kinds of meetings, right? Everybody disappear for an hour to go do what we've just agreed to do. Then come back, we'll re huddle, we'll take stock again, and then we'll disappear for an hour and, and come back. And you have no choice except to do that. You have to, you have to have a. A loop, a cadence that's operating inside the loop of chaos that's coming at you.

Otherwise, you, you're gonna live in disorganized chaos, not organized chaos. And that has really become, one of the core concepts of, of the agility operating system that I sort of gradually revealed.

[00:14:28] Tom Adams: So, in that environment, is, is that something that, that the company is teaching you, or are you like extrapolating that just from the, the, the craziness of your work and adding that into the, into your model? Or is that just something that was part and parcel of being on a rig?

[00:14:46] Mike Richardson: it's like anything, you know, the, the, uh, when you go to the training class, you get the basics. Of course we did,

right? We got all the basics. But you don't get the advanced stuff

Right,

You don't get the mastery

stuff. Uh. So instead for, for that, what they would do is, you know, once you come out of training class for six months, then they put you out on the rigs for three weeks.

So six weeks in total, week on, week off, week on, week off, week on, week off, shadowing another guy,

shadowing an experienced guy

or girl. And okay, now I begin to see how they put this into practice.

How they go with the flow, how they shape the flow, how they steer the flow. How they've got to be an agile leadership presence, not a fragile leadership presence in the face of craziness.

And, you know, three weeks later, three shifts later, um, okay, Mike, you are signed off and you are good to

go. You'll be flying solo yourself, uh, next week. Um, and they had a great rule.

They said, look, they said, look, you can make any mistake once. Within the, within the rails of, of,

of safety and, and, and, you know, you know outside the rails?

No. If you, okay, you did something that was just unsafe, that's, that's

silly.

right,

But inside the rails, you can make any mistake once, just don't make it

twice.

[00:16:09] Tom Adams: Yeah. So fast forward a little bit. You obviously leave petroleum and, and working on, on oil rigs and you move into aerospace. So tell me a little bit about that, that journey. 'cause there's journey there and then what do you, what happened in that world that starts to amplify this insight for you?

[00:16:30] Mike Richardson: So I, I, I, I realized quickly after two, two years on the drilling rig, they, they bring you into the office as an analyst, the technical analyst supporting everybody else out in the field, out in the field. And I quickly realized, yeah, I'm not cut out to be a technical analyst. And so I did it for a couple of years and at the five year point.

With a year or two of pre-planning, I, I quit

and, um, went back and did, you know, the classic two year MBA in the eighties? And then I was looking around and I, I happened upon the aerospace industry and landed myself a job as a program manager, then a product support manager, then a commercial manager, then a sales and marketing vp.

And then I got headhunted to be a CEO of a small subsidiary company of a corporate. And then, uh, I. I, uh, got promoted to run the aerospace division of that, of that British public company, and, um, which subsequently rebranded itself and recruited a new very contemporary CEO who went on an acquisition trail. And I made three acquisitions on behalf of the corporation, all of which were in North America, and that's what brought me to North America.

So during that phase of my career. I was running high technology, aerospace companies. I ran a, a, a series of them and then I ended up running a division of them inside of a public company share price sensitive environment.

So I, I lived in this pressure cooker. Doing very innovative, entrepreneurial, high technology stuff, some of the least predictable stuff that you can do inside of a share price sensitive environment that wants the most predictable performance

that you can give it. And so I lived in that kind of paradox, that kind of pressure cooker. And I had a lot of coaches and consultants and trainers coming through my office. Some of the big guys, some of the small guys, and, and some of them can gimme the 30,000 foot view of life, but not the ground truth. Some of them can give me the ground truth, but not the 30,000 foot view of life. Some of them could gimme a little bit of both, but they couldn't give me the third dimension, which is this longitudinal journey that I'm on

that is just crazy topsy-turvy, and I've got to stay in traction on. Profitable growth trajectory with my, with my p and l and I, I just became increasingly dissatisfied, Tom, that I couldn't find the book I wanted to write.

Um, I wanted to read, so I decided in the spring of 2002. I'm gonna take the leap from the corporate world and I'm gonna do my own thing. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna start writing the book that I want to read. I'll write it myself around agility, what I came to call agility and the agility operating system. And that's what I did. And I finally got that book published in 2011.

[00:19:23] Tom Adams: So be, before we move forward from there, just, when did you know that the thing that was brewing in your head that it, it's kind of like you've got all these disparate things happening. You're learning lessons, you're gaining insights, you're listening to consultants who have. 30,000 and boots on the ground stuff.

But in the middle of that, you're going, there's this third dimension. Is it starting to, uh, is it starting to come together in your head as a logical structure? Because obviously you write the book and now you've got, you, you know, the book comes out with very clear process and stuff like that. So tell me a little bit about just sort of getting that f those frameworks, uh, not just being something you live, but something that you're structuring as a way to.

Teach as a way to share.

[00:20:09] Mike Richardson: yeah. So I, I did indeed. I had this huge sense of void. There's a vacuum, there's something missing here.

[00:20:15] Tom Adams: Yeah.

[00:20:16] Mike Richardson: Um, and I, you know, when I took the leap, I decided I'm gonna fill that void. And the first thing I had to do, of course, was to sort of crystallize the architecture of the void, and it crystallized into sort of three dimensions. And then I, and then I started to fill that, that those three dimensions with an architecture of what I came to call an agility operating system. It took me, it took me three or four or five years to have a realization of arriving at. The concept of agility and how much complexity is packed into the simplicity of

that word, which was perfect.

Right? That was perfect. Um, so I arrived at the word agility and, and then the concept of an agility operating system. Uh. Then gradually, yeah, it just all started to kind of crystallize and all the peace parts started to fall into place. And then some of the sort of core concepts behind the scenes of all of that started to crystallize.

And, you know, I've ended up developing a whole body of wisdom and body of work and, uh, toolbox and just love to share that every which way that I can.

[00:21:18] Tom Adams: So you leave corporate and what, what's the, what's the. Sort of the path to discovering your passion for facilitating peer groups. 'cause that's a huge part of what you do. Not, I mean, you've got a lot of other stuff you've written, the books you've written, you've done other things. But this facilitation of peer groups for CEOs and executives, how, how did you get there?

How did you

[00:21:42] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Yeah, so I went independent in the spring of 2002 and, and started obviously building a practice around coaching and facilitating and speaking and writing and, and all of that kind of stuff. And then I ran into the concept of peer groups

or peer forms or peer advisory boards, and I'd never heard of it before.

And I'm thinking to myself, where have you been all my life?

[00:22:08] Tom Adams: yeah.

[00:22:12] Mike Richardson: I've never had access to something like this. And I joined one of the big organizations, um, that I'll mention their name, Vistage,

that um, uh, I became a Vistage chair. I ran four Vistage groups in San Diego. I had 50, 60, 70 CEO members at any one time. I became a. Vistage speaker as well, and I, uh, about agility, of course, my core concept. And I spoke to 400, you know, CEO groups around the country and around the world in five different countries. And I became, I became known as, you know, the, the agility

guy in the global, in the global community. And, um, and and I was just having a blast facilitating my peer groups of, of diverse CEOs. Just gradually, you know, I came to sort of organize the group around the backdrop of the framing of how do you be future-proofed

in business, professionally, personally, and in life. With the agility required, what does it take to be to be able to sort of be quietly composed, cool, calm, confident that no matter what. Not only can you survive, but you can thrive.

And so that became the organizing principle. It became a sort of coming together, um, you know, that idea, Tom, that everything I ever did was preparation to do this. That's how I feel about, uh, facilitating peer groups. As you know, I went back and ran a, after 15 years of all of that, I went back and ran a global company for three years. And when I pivoted back from that, I went looking for. Okay, who, I'm going back to peer groups now. What I wanna look for is who is on the leading edge of what's next with peer groups. And I found that ref, REF, formerly Renaissance Executive Forums. And I'm now a, an equity partner with REF in San Diego, uh, and also here in Temecula, Marietta. Again, you know, have lots of CEO and executive members, a number of different forms, and just love, love, love doing the work. I'll never retire, Tom, because why?

Why would I ever want to retire from my passionate purpose of doing this kind of work?

[00:24:35] Tom Adams: Yeah. So, so the interesting to me is, um, you know, you, you develop this whole agility framework or way of thinking, and you're known as the agility guy. Um, you do that in the context of peer advisory groups and you, you do a lot of work in that area, but, but this underlying, like, you always, every time I ever talk to you, you come with a, a way of thinking about the world.

That's, that's not just I'm in it. I have a, I have a structure around it. I think about this I mean, you've already used a number of, sort of three word structures. Um. But one of the ones I've heard you talking a lot about recently is leaders powered by Collective Intelligence. And, and this, this is a phrase that you use a lot, uh, collective intelligence, but in the context of this work that you do, in this structure of peer advisor groups, tell me a little bit more about your mantra of Leaders powered by Collective Intelligence.

Tell

[00:25:35] Mike Richardson: Yeah,

[00:25:35] Tom Adams: that.

[00:25:36] Mike Richardson: Again, that's a long thread. That goes all the way back to, to working not least of all to working on drilling rigs where clearly, of course,

when you're working on a drilling rig, you, you have to tap into all the intelligence that's available to you and and collectively to make sure that we are, you know, out executing. Uh, everything that's coming at us, the weather, the mechanical problems, the supply, boat problems, everything. We've gotta be out executing to keep this thing on track. So, collective intelligence has been a long thread to, to my thought process. And then, uh, one of the reasons why REF grabbed my attention is that phrase, lead US powered by collective intelligence is ref's mantra. And I was really attracted, of course, to the word collective intelligence, and I started to research it more and more and more. And to some degree, Tom, you know, not, not quite so much anymore because AI has exploded in terms of,

you know, being a domain of research and technology, et cetera. But to some degree, before that. Um, the concept of collective intelligence was a domain of research almost as rich as the domain of artificial intelligence. For instance, MIT has a center for collective intelligence,

and of course, it's all about the wisdom of crowds and how you can, you can tap into this organic, bigger level of intelligence. Collectively over and above just the individual players. And of course that's what a peer group is all about. And most peer groups will use a phrase like, you know, you know, no one of us is as smart as all of

us. And that's fantastic. And what I do now is I say, great, that's a level one collective intelligence.

How do we get to level five? Collective intelligence. How can we really tap into this, this, this additional asset that's in this peer group room called our collective intelligence, and how can we help that power your leadership back in your business? Because of course, your agility. Has to be powered by collective intelligence, enterprise wide enterprise deep, top down, bottom up.

Back to front, front to back, left to right, right to left. We're back to that sort of three dimensional Rubik's cube, right? I'm trying to solve this. Three-dimensional puzzle at speed to out execute the future with the agility required. That's, that's indeed where my, where my, uh, where my head has arrived at Tom, from all, from all of these things coming together over the course of my career.

[00:28:23] Tom Adams: So, uh, it seems to me though that it in peer groups and you're talking collective intelligence, and you said level one. Um, but there, there's an element when you talk about collective intelligence, that there, that, that, that they're powered by it. So how do you plug into that? Right? Like to me, to me, if you're powered by something, there is a electrical.

Wire that goes into where the electricity comes from. So what, what, give me a little bit more about how that operates for people, for members to, you know, why they miss it when, like you said, when you were in, in the aerospace industry, you go, how, how come I don't

have this? Right? So tell me a little bit more about the plugging in process.

[00:29:09] Mike Richardson: What we say is when you create the conditions, the magic can happen. And so when you create the conditions of confidentiality, when you create the conditions of no competitors, when you create the conditions of people caring for each other, not just in business, but also in life, when you create the conditions of some of the methodologies and some of the tools and some of the processes that we use to engage these peer groups, uh, then. You can really create a very special place like no other. It's amazing, Tom, I've been doing this work now for 20 more,

more than 20 years, and it's amazing. You know, the number of times that I'll have a new member in the room for the first time, right? They've just come to their first ever peer group experience in their whole life. And, you know, we're, we're landing the plane at the end of the session and I'll turn to them and I'll say, so how was it for you? They'll typically say something like, wow, I had no idea that something like this even existed. it's amazing. I only just met all of you, and yet I feel like we're soulmates

because we're all going through the same stuff. And typically, whenever I can. With a brand new member in the room, I will tee them up to bring what we call a case. And that is where with, with preparation in advance, we frame up, uh, a real time, real life issue problems, challenge opportunity that's right in front of them right now. And we take it through, when we do a fully leaded version of it, we take it through a one hour methodology that we call case issue processing, which taps into that collective intelligence. Of all the other members in the room listening to the, to the o to the situation, asking clarifying questions about it, and then sort of giving their experiences, their own stories, their input, and then sort of asking the person, well, what, what's, what's, what's, uh, landing with you? And, you know, what do you think you're gonna do first?

Whatcha gonna do next? Whatcha gonna do after that? And my favorite question that I've asked for 23 years, I've been doing this work. Tom, especially with a brand new member that's doing a case for the first time at the end of that hour. The last question I will ask them for 23 years is, where else do you have that?

You can go and do what we just did with you for the last hour? And typically, unless they've got something else in their life remotely, like a peer group, typically they'll say something like, uh, I don't

have anywhere else that I can do what I just did. I mean, I can't do that with my board, not as transparently as I

just did here. I can't do it with my management team. I can't frankly even do it with my spouse, partner, significant other 'cause I'll freak them out.

[00:32:11] Tom Adams: right, right,

[00:32:12] Mike Richardson: So actually really. I don't have anywhere else. Yeah, I got my buddies down the golf club, but they don't give me the time and space. They tell me to snap out

of it and drink another beer. So I really don't have anywhere else that I can go. This was amazing that I was able to come here and again, what a new member will typically say is, I'm just amazed. None of you know me. You don't know my business. You don't know my industry. We're none. None of us are competitors, and yet you gave me such profound input. It's amazing. And of course, the realization, realization is, well, that's because 95% of the issues are all the same

[00:32:53] Tom Adams: Right.

[00:32:54] Mike Richardson: issues of strategy, execution, people, process, culture, core values, you know, agility, uh, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:33:02] Tom Adams: So you talked to a new member who comes into this world. What about the person who's been around for a while? Like how, why? Why do they stay? What's their why for not just joining and experiencing this aha moment of, oh man, I don't get this anywhere else, but if you've done issue processing 30 times or 20 times, or whatever, why do those people hang for such a long time?

[00:33:27] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Well, because of course these days the goalposts are constantly shifting.

Right. And you know, whatever your issues were last year, they're different this

year, last quarter. They're different this quarter, last month. They're different this

month. And so it's a never ending journey of new and novel circumstances that, uh, and situations that, um, members face, of course, not just in business, but also professionally,

personally, and in life. Um, you know, over the 20 something years I've been doing this, people have brought cases, issues to be processed. That, you know, span the whole spectrum from, you know, do I buy, do I sell? Do I stay? Do I go, do I hire, do I fire all the way through to, oh my goodness, me, my teenage son is on drugs.

What the heck do I do? And of course, health and wealth and. Love and loss and, and, and marriage and divorce and, and births and deaths and you name it. I mean, I can't say I've seen it all, but I've seen a lot it just becomes a place. For members that is so rare and so precious and so unlike anything else they typically experience anywhere else. And of course they get strategic value out of it. They get tactical value out of it, but really at the bottom line, they get human value out of it where they just. Somehow plumb greater depth of resiliency and composure and self-confidence that no matter what, with a little bit of luck here and there, and a lot of hard work things will not only be fine.

They will be good. They will be great. Let's get going.

[00:35:24] Tom Adams: Yeah, so I, I, I realize this is kind of a. Coming at it a slightly different way, but why, why do it in a facilitated environment versus I just hang out with people that I call my friends and we chat about things Like what's, what's the distinction there? Is there a distinction?

[00:35:44] Mike Richardson: Yeah, very much so. you know, over the years, of course, you know, occasionally people will ask me, well, can't we just do this ourselves?

[00:35:53] Tom Adams: Yep.

[00:35:54] Mike Richardson: And, and well, sure if you want to give it a shot, of course. The, the most nuanced thing of all is how do you create an equation of accountability with CEOs and or executives who are, you know, hard charging a type personalities. And, you know, you've got to facilitate enough of a structure, not too much, but also not too little. Uh, and, um, you know, again, create the conditions for the magic to

happen. And those conditions are fragile in themselves, right?

They're very special. They happen by design, not by accident. And, um. You know, I mean, I've had members for, you know, I've been doing this for 20 something years.

I've had members with me for as long as 15 years in some of my peer groups. You know, representing a substantial investment of time, of course,

and yes, money to some degree, and they keep coming back for more and more and more, not because there's some kind of long-term contractual commitment, which there isn't, but because the return

on that investment for their time and their money. Such that they, they vote with their wallets and their

feet and they vote to stay and keep coming back because it becomes indispensable

and irreplaceable. Uh, again, unlike anything else they can find anywhere else.

[00:37:26] Tom Adams: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I, I often ask people who do what you do, um, who provide this context for people. Um, who's your peer forum? How do you ensure that you get what you're giving? Um, Mark Cohen, I don't know if you know that, uh, that musician, but he has this ra, this album called The Rainy Season. And in that album he sings a song, uh, called Medicine Man.

And Medicine Man is who's gonna Save the Medicine Man. And a lot of times, you know, as a, as a leader. You, uh, you know, and, and CEOs that you're managing know this, like they're, they're doing it for everybody else, but they need to come to a peer forum to get that juice for themselves and get all that value and all that benefit.

How do you continue to gain that benefit for yourself?

[00:38:16] Mike Richardson: Yeah. So, uh, it happens at many levels and at the first level, actually, I get as much value out of facilitating peer forums as I

put in. And, um, occasionally, you know, when I've got something big in front of me, I will ask the group's permission. Can I bring a case

to

[00:38:34] Tom Adams: that's really cool.

[00:38:36] Mike Richardson: Uh, to be processed and can I sit down and someone else stand up to facilitate

that?

And they've been through enough cases themselves that they know how to do it. And, um, I've done that a number of times. I remember distinctly, uh, I did it once when, uh, we were moving

here. Actually. I.

live in a wine country. Uh, in southern California called Temecula Valley, and we were considering fulfilling a dream of having a wine country home.

But it's quite a distance from, you know, there's the metropolitan areas of San Diego and Los Angeles. And, and so I took it to the group,

uh, and processed it as an issue. And, um, they asked me all the great clarifying questions you would expect. You know, well, how will you make it work? Why, what's driving you to do this?

What's your dream? Et cetera, et cetera. How will you make it work logistically and financially and all this kind of stuff? And, uh, at the end of the day, you know, 95% of them said, go do it. You seem very, very clear. Go do it. And so we did, um, another time. Uh, I was, uh, you know, we were very, very, very stressed about our oldest boy during his teenage years and in particular when he got to college. And I took that issue to the group and, um, the group was phenomenal. And they, they, they held a mirror up to

me. Like never before

and, uh, you know, suggested that I needed to stop enabling some things. And so, uh, uh, my wife and I made the call the following day and, uh, and that, you know, uh, pivoted the situation in a more favorable direction. So I, I get that

at level one, level two. Tom, I have partners.

I have. I have my tribe. Uh, we, we go, you know, to an annual retreat, uh, you know, 80 or a hundred of us. Um, I have local partners, uh, and, and that, and then at the top level, Tom, I have people like you and, and our co-hosts on, uh, on, on, uh, you know, the Prompt and Circumstance podcast, mark and Ryan. And then, you know, I like you. Do I have other

people that, you know, play with me at, at your kind of level. I think in combination, you know, those, those three levels, I feel surrounded by a sufficient ecosystem of support, you know, for me to be benefiting in a similar way to, to the way that my members do.

[00:41:05] Tom Adams: Beautiful. Beautiful. So what did we not talk about that we should have? Because, uh, I kind of hijacked you, but, uh, what, what, what did we miss? Because I feel like we've, we, we got a little bit of the. The directional focus. We talked a little bit about your, your, the, the role you play, but also your belief system underlying that and the importance of that.

What, what would you say that we, you didn't say, would you

[00:41:31] Mike Richardson: Yeah, I think perhaps the last thing, Tom, you've heard me talk about this, is, you know, everybody, um, the accelerating world of artificial intelligence that we live in, um, that is just going to go exponential at warp speed. Beyond that comprehension. It already is

in many ways, actually doesn't reduce the need for the human intelligence side of the equation.

It enhances the

need for that. And that's why I love the concept of collective intelligence. 'cause I talk about collective intelligence equals artificial intelligence plus human intelligence. And as AI rises up, human intelligence will need to rise up alongside it. Like it always has done in every previous era of technology breakthrough. And so there are many, many, many authors and speakers and thought leaders out there who are, who are saying that as AI rises up peer. Power peer groups, peer advisory boards, um, sometimes called mastermind groups, sometimes called circles of trust will rise up. Why? Because it's already the case that the number one reason why members join and stay for so long is because of the old cliche.

That is also a reality. It's lonely at

the top. And guess what? Everybody with AI. It's only going to get a lot lonelier, a lot. You know, very, very big, very fast, very soon. And so there's got to be an antidote to that where people feel that they are part of a human support ecosystem. Yes, you've got agents supporting you, you've got AI of all kinds supporting you, but, but also having that human support system will be crucial. And, uh, there was a study a couple of years ago, of thousands and thousands of CEOs that concluded that 71% of USA based CEOs, um, uh, were experiencing, you know, that that concept of imposter syndrome and, and the, the blog that kind of positioned that research was entitled, it's Lonely at the top and it's only gonna get

[00:43:54] Tom Adams: Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, I have had the, uh, the luxury, I would say that the luxury and the, the, the gift of knowing you for many years and, I've had that luxury of actually sitting in occasionally on some of your peer group sessions, and, uh, I just think anybody who kind of circles your orbit gets writ is, is really.

Uh, lucky. And so I wanna thank you for the, the amazing work you do in the world, Mike. Every day you show up and you deliver way, you know, punching way above your weight. And, uh, I just appreciate how much you give to the world and, and make people's lives better and, and make the world a better place. And, uh, you, you are truly a gift.

So thank you.

[00:44:38] Mike Richardson: Oh, thank you man, and thanks for coming in, hijacking my podcast here. I really appreciate it.

[00:44:45] Tom Adams: Thank you

[00:44:46] Mike Richardson: Awesome. Thanks everybody. Thanks for being here, and we'll catch you next time.