50: Build Trust with Dave Turano

25
Jun

Dave Turano is the President of JCE Consulting, helping organizations improve leadership, communication, and sales, and the host of Cut Through the Noise Podcast. We talk about the habits of highly successful businesses, the overlooked benefits of daily standup meetings, and why great leaders don’t tolerate mediocrity.  

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Build Trust with Dave Turano

Our guest is Dave Turano, the president of JCE Consulting, providing coaching and training services to organizations that want to improve effectiveness in leadership, communication, and sales. Dave is the host of the Cut Through the Noise podcast, where he peeks behind headlines and current events. So Dave, welcome to the show.

Steve, thanks for having me. You’ve got the tables turned on me this week.

That’s right. I visited your show a few weeks ago, and now it’s my chance to ask you some penetrating questions and find out about your thought about management blueprints and generally, you know, helping leaderships and helping teams get much healthier. So let’s start with your journey. So what’s been your entrepreneurial journey and what made you decide to go on your own and how’s it going?

Well, it’s going well. That’s a good question to get started. It’s going well. It’s been eight years this fall. I’ll be out on my own. I started JCE Consulting, which is JCE stands for the names of my kids, Jack, Chris, and Emma. And the journey, I wish I could say I had a master plan, Steve. I didn’t. I can just say that over the course of my career, as the years went by, I started to become antsy, you know, and I got to the point in my life and within the jobs that I had where I just wanted to do things my own way.

I got tired of kind of listening to other people. And so finally, and it was getting worse and worse and worse to the point where I was almost kind of unemployable. I just wanted to do things my own way. I had no choice but to just finally say, put up or shut up and do it. And so that’s what I did. And in 2013, I took the plunge and I’m still here. So it’s been a great ride.

That’s awesome. Well, you know, I hear this unemployable thing often I certainly feel like that once you taste the freedom of entrepreneurship, however challenging it is often You don’t want to go back, right?

Never. I get the chance to talk to so many really really good people smart people who have great jobs And a lot of them, you know, a lot of them are very happy in their jobs, but there are a good percentage of them that aren’t. And they’re completely, for lack of a better phrase, they’re trapped by the paycheck, or they’re imprisoned by the idea that they have to report or work for somebody else. And it’s hard to get people to consider that being independent is actually liberating. And it’s not as scary as it seems before you do it. So I’m sure you probably had those same feelings before you got started too.

I actually, I could, yeah, absolutely. So I felt totally trapped and, you know, I tried to rationalize this idea of the intrapreneurship that it’s a thing, that it’s possible to be entrepreneurial inside an organization until I got the rug pulled out from under me one day and I realized that I just had a job and I had the team, you know, there was a team, there was kind of a business that we were building, but it I could just be pushed out and someone else took over from me.

So definitely, definitely relate to that. So let’s talk a little bit about how you built JC Consulting and my favorite topic, management blueprints. So any management blueprints such as e-myth, scaling up, great game of business, have you used any such blueprints or any frameworks or was there a business, Brook, that particularly inspired you and kind of implemented some of the concepts? Please talk to me about that.

Well, you’re talking to somebody who really didn’t do any reading through high school. So I would do anything not to read a book as a kid. I probably read four books in high school and then everything else was, I don’t know if they still exist, but Cliff Notes. So they were like shorthanded books on, rather than read the book, you just read this little short book. But then about, I’d say 18 years ago, 17, 18 years ago, I had a boss who started buying books for me because she thought I was smart and she thought, oh Dave would like this book or this book reminded me of Dave and she would visit me and bring me books and thinking that she was doing like good and all I thought was oh my I got to read this thing now.

Now next time she comes back I’m going to have to tell her what the book was about. But that actually got me into an unbelievable pattern of starting to read. And then over the last 18, 20 years, I’ve just become relentless. And there’s so many books that I could point to and say, that was the best book I read, or this was the best book I read. Most of what I gravitate to is focused on business, communication, leadership, sales.

Everything that I talk about on a regular basis is what I typically read, but depending on the subject, like a lot of the stuff, like for example, like a book that always has stood out to me is Tribal Leadership. I love that book. I don’t want to get into all the details of the book, but from a leadership perspective, I always, that book always resonated with me. A flip side to that could be Delivering Happiness. I enjoyed that Zappos book. I read that a number of years ago. And then there’s all the traditional books, the Jim Collins stuff and Good to Great and all that. But that to me, although valuable, they felt a little bit more mechanical.

As far as just other books I’ve read, just anything to do with building positive habits, like The Power of Habit or Grit or The Slight Edge are books that I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed over the years. And I’ve got piles of books here, piles of books there, and then downstairs. But as far as a blueprint goes, I have read so many things that it’s just a hodgepodge of all that, and then I’ve eventually just found my own way of doing things. Candidly, my way has evolved over the years. So whatever I created last year has evolved this year. It’s never a standard, it’s just something that I’m constantly adjusting and tweaking. So I don’t know if that answered your question, but that’s what came to mind when you asked it.

But I can always ask a second one, right? The follow-up question. So you talk about, two things that stood out for me from what you mentioned here or kind of rattled off. One is this idea of habits, that you can create habits and essentially it becomes a mechanism for you to run your business or to basically run yourself. Can you, can you mention a couple of ones that have really worked for you?

Just in general in life or in business?

Well, in business.

In business. Anything, anything can be a habit. But, say for example, if you’re a manager, you’re managing a team, a habit of steady communication with your people would be something that I would highly recommend. A lot of companies inside of organizations, there is a disconnect. It’s not unusual to have a disconnect between employee and manager or the management team. And oftentimes that’s because the steady communication is broken.

So the habit of a one-to-one meeting, you know, once a week or twice a month, the habit of a standing team meeting once a day, even for 10 minutes, the habit of a group meeting that’s more strategic on a monthly basis would be something that I would recommend but if I were coaching, say, a salesperson, a habit of using your phone to connect with somebody versus the habit of hiding behind a text, for example, or a blanketed email would be examples of things that I would highly encourage.

Anything that opens up, I mean, I’m a communication coach. I focus on managers and leaders and salespeople, and I help resolve conflicts between departments. The habits that I always encourage are those that are embedded in communication. What are we doing to open the lines? And when those things aren’t happening, when the communication lines aren’t open, is when other problems start to result. So that’s where I would pick to go first.

In business, any action can become a habit. Steady communication, like weekly one-to-one meetings or daily stand-ups, bridges the common disconnect between employees and management. Click To Tweet

So, I have a specific question on this and then a broader one. So the specific one is you mentioned the stand-up meeting. What do you see as the main benefit of having a daily stand-up meeting?

If you’re going to have a daily stand-up meeting, it’s really about what are we doing today? What do we need to get done today? If you and I were partners, for example, and I would say on the delivery side of the company, and you were say on the sales side of the company, you and I getting together at the beginning of each day to talk about what’s on my plate, what’s on your plate, How are we gonna communicate? How are we gonna get this done between now and five o’clock or tomorrow morning, allows us to trust that I’ve got it, I know what I need to do, you know what you need to do, we know what we need from each other.

And it just allows for a little bit of peace of mind and it gives us the chance to have a focus each day versus letting the day happen to us. So, you know, in every environment is that necessary? I don’t know, but most of the time in a selling environment, I would say it’s never gonna hurt.

Okay, so that’s the stand up. So stand up is all about what should we do today or how do we get something done today? And what about the broader question would be what kind of other meetings are there that you would recommend for companies to embrace other than the standup, the daily standup?

Well, like I said earlier, the thing that I would absolutely do is I would have some form of a one-to-one with your staff. If you’re managing a group of people, you owe it to them to spend one-to-one time with them. What that looks like, you can decide with them what that should look like and how often that should be. But at the very least, I would recommend a couple of times a month where somebody has your undivided attention for whatever, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, where you know you get to know them a little bit more.

You get to deal with whatever has been going on over that week or those two weeks. Those meetings are not always about performance. Those meetings are sometimes coaching meetings or meetings to help resolve a problem that’s kind of maybe something you’ve tabled. Highly recommend that. As far as other meetings, there’s so many that you could have. I would say though, that in my experience, a lot of the meetings that take place in many organizations are a waste of time.

And that’s because there’s no plan or there’s no agenda or maybe it’s one person running the meeting. I’ve done podcasts on meetings before. But it’s the meetings that don’t involve the team’s participation or if it’s always a one-way street often don’t go anywhere and things don’t get done as a result of them. So those I’d discourage unless they’re planned and that everybody’s participating at some level.

Okay, so definitely the agenda is important. It’s the engagement that it’s like a multiple multi directional communication is important. What do you think about peer accountability because one of the things that, you know, several of these management groupings teach is to have to use group meetings for creating the accountability so that the boss doesn’t have to hold individual diary reports directly accountable in one-on-one meetings because it’s always easy to wiggle out and to come up with an excuse.

Whereas in a group setting where the group is holding each other accountable then all excuses become invalid because everyone cannot come up with an excuse. So essentially they cancel each other out. Do you think that’s a helpful thing to do?

You’re speaking my language, Steve. That’s the intention. I run a leadership workshop, and it’s called Building and Leading Self-Directed Teams. I’ve run it for years. And that’s the whole purpose of it, is helping people stand on their own, all the way down to the ground level, so that when you go into a meeting, it’s not the boss deciding the agenda. It’s not the boss dictating the pace. It’s not the boss putting you in your place. It’s your peers. But there’s a lot that needs to happen in order for that dynamic to work.

And like, for example, we do a ton of training and coaching on this, but the simple concept of trust has to be present in order for peers to feel comfortable going back and forth with one another. But there’s so many other things. The company needs to know where it’s headed. It has to be clear to the team. The people on the team need to know what they’re responsible for and why they’re responsible for it and how they should communicate it and what’s expected of them and all those things.

And part of, you know, and when I talk about expectations, I, you know, if I work in an organization and I want my team to hold each other accountable, well, that’s something I’m gonna have to discuss on the front end with that team. If you and I work together and I bring in somebody else, I’ve gotta tell you, both of you guys, I expect you to hold one another accountable. I expect you to challenge one another, and it’s a good thing. And if you remain silent or you don’t do that, I’m gonna grow concerned.

We’ve gotta create an environment where we all feel comfortable pushing on one another, challenging one another, making one another better. And it takes a lot. It’s easier said than done. And the thing that gets in the way of it most is a lack of trust, a fear of judgment, a fear of losing my job or whatever. And I spend my day after day, week after week, trying to create these environments inside of organizations. And it starts with the people and the communication and trust between people, first and foremost, in order for that dynamic to actually work. What’s your take on that? You asked me that for a reason, so you brought that up.

I agree that there has to be a vision, there has to be a purpose, a vision, a strategy, you know, people have to know where they are going, as you say, and they have to be clear on what their roles and responsibilities are so that they are not stepping on each other’s toes, they’re not going to be afraid of infringing on each other’s territory, so it’s clear accountability and empowerment.

And you obviously, you’re emphasizing the trust element, so I’d like to ask you about how do you create that trust? How do you facilitate or build that trust with a team that is lacking trust? They bring you in because communication is clunky and, you know, people are kind of not – they are in their silos, they’re trying to do their own thing and not worry about – maybe they are frustrated about how other people behave. How do you break the ice and how do you start the ball rolling?

Yeah, it’s not an easy thing. It’s such a simple concept because everyone I’ve ever met in my life, every client that I’ve ever taken on knows what trust is. There’s nobody that doesn’t know what it is and we know when it’s there and we know when it’s not there. The problem that usually exists is when it’s not there, when an organization isn’t functioning properly, it’s because they’ve ignored the fact that it’s not there, or they’ve tolerated the fact that it’s not there, and they’ve let it go for so long that they don’t know how to get back into the conversation, or it’s just too uncomfortable.

And so when I go in, oftentimes I’m inheriting what exists. And the only way for me to even resonate with the audience is to not come in as the expert. I’ve got to recognize, you know, from my angle, that not everybody in the organization might want me there in that moment. Most of them might not have even asked for me to be there. So, for example, I might say that right out of the gate to let them know, I likely get what you’re thinking right now and this could be harder than it needs to be.

But when it comes to say, working between say, employee and boss or colleagues that don’t get along, it really starts with defining what it is. And without putting anybody on the spot, especially in a training session, you’ve got to define what trust is and what it isn’t. And a lot of people, they say they know what it is, but you know, the best book I read on it, I thought was Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey, or Stephen Covey’s son, he’s got like some initials next to his name.

But he just, he basically defines trust as confidence. And I totally, that totally resonated with me. If we have trust with each other, you and I have never actually met each other face to face, we’ve met on two of these Zoom calls. But when you have trust with people, you have confidence and comfort with people. And when that’s present, it’s obvious because the conversations flow. But when the conversations don’t flow, or I’m holding back, or I’m being judgmental, then I know it’s not there. So it’s helping people to recognize when confidence isn’t present, and then helping them understand or pinpoint why.

And then in really dealing with that, and dealing with it is kind of a separate thing. Training is creating an awareness around it. Dealing with it is more in a one-to-one coaching capacity where you help people develop the skills to navigate the challenging conversations. Actually, I’m going off on a tangent here, but one of the best books I’ve read on navigating a tough conversation is, actually I have it right here, I have it with me all the time. Kim Scott’s the author, it’s called Radical Candor.

I don’t know if you’ve read that book, but I recommend it to everyone. And it helps people to deal with things that are uncomfortable. Without judgment, you let people know you care about them and then you deal with them candidly. And that’s pretty much what I do, is I help people recognize when those things are missing, help people maintain a level of care with another person, and then tell them the truth. And then hopefully through that, they’re able to work through some of these challenges. I don’t know if that even answered your question. I went off on a tirade there.

Trust is the foundation of effective teamwork. Recognizing the absence of trust and defining what it is and isn't are crucial steps toward creating an environment where colleagues can confidently communicate and collaborate. Click To Tweet

So, when you’re talking about building trust in a one-on-one, then you are building the trust between these two people, or you are actually can transfer the trust on the organization. So I’m the CEO. I feel like we have a trust issue on the team. I sit down one-on-one with my four direct reports and kind of work on the relationship. Is it going to solve the team issue or is it just going to solve my bilateral trust issue with that person?

This is such a complex question, but if there’s an inherent trust issue in a company, it always starts at the top. And so there’s often a disconnect between CEO and the executive team that’s unspoken. And then when that happens, then you’ll start to see departments or business units operate independently. Because if you and I are peers, but we don’t quite see eye to eye and you’re favored by the CEO, she, you know, she’s, you’re her favorite.

I might be in unintentionally working against you and deliberately doing things against you, which causes my department to kind of separate out. And then, and rather than really doing what’s best for the company and the customer and the culture, I’m more interested in not doing what you’re doing. And then I basically condition a team to behave this way. That’s just a silly example, but it does happen all the time.

So the only way to really, in my mind, is for the person at the top to say, I’ve allowed something to exist. I’ve tolerated something. I’ve ignored something. There’s a lack of trust in my organization, and it’s because of me. Even if I’m an honest person, which I am, but even if I’m being honest, if I’ve allowed my team to behave dishonestly, or if I’ve allowed them to allow their people to behave dishonestly or ignore that, ignore backstabbing, ignore water cooler talk, or whatever that is, tolerate a bad attitude, then it’s my fault.

You condone what you tolerate, right?

100%. And that’s where it goes. I mean, a lot of you talked about purpose earlier and mission and vision. Companies need to have that. But if they don’t live, and they need to communicate it, but if they don’t live it, it’s worthless. I could lose trust in you immediately. If I’m interviewing you to be part of my executive team and I sell you on the story of my company and then you come in to lead, you’re all fired up to whatever, lead the charge into whatever territory.

And then all of a sudden I do something or say something that’s counter to what I told you during the interview, your desire to do that goes away almost immediately. You start to doubt yourself. I thought I knew this guy. Is this guy not what, is he not what he projected during that interview. I don’t even know if I have the conviction to talk to my team right now. These are all things that kind of run inside.

And I’ve seen many VP neutralized in front of their teams because of how they now feel about their boss. I’ve seen many mid-level managers neutralized strictly because of the way their VP speaks to them and so on and so forth. And that’s how trust erodes in an organization. And it always erodes from the top. I know that saying the fish rots from the head down is just so overused, but it’s true. And every company that is not able to work through this stuff has a leader that’s screwing it up.

Companies must live their purpose and vision, not just communicate it. Trust erodes when leaders deviate from what they portrayed, causing doubt and hesitation in the team. Click To Tweet

What about this concept of the pet plancho and it talks about the five dysfunctions of a team, he talks about this vulnerability-based approach that you can build trust by enhancing people’s comfort level with being vulnerable with each other in a group setting. And then, you know, if they kind of they grew to learn to trust each other because they are exposing themselves to each other. Do you believe that’s a solution that works or you think that, you know, it still depends on the leader being vulnerable with everyone else first. Otherwise, the whole thing’s going to crumble.

Well, it’s only going to be as effective as the leader. It’s only going to be as effective as a leader. So even if the group is willing to be vulnerable with one another, if they work for a leader that doesn’t show vulnerability or that they fear or that they feel like they can’t be candid with, then they’re gonna be working in like, it’s almost like a little separate company inside the organization. So that might feel better here. But in the end, I don’t believe they’ll ever feel true connection to the leader or the company.

But the thing about that, Steve, to me is the vulnerability has to be real. I’ve worked in organizations that preach vulnerability and it’s not real. You know, like where vulnerability becomes my escape for accountability. If I’m vulnerable with you, that doesn’t absolve me of what I’m responsible for. I could sit there and tell you I’m going through a tough time. I’m really having a, you know, I’m dealing with imposter syndrome and you feel bad for having a hard time at home. And you’re soaking it all in.

But that vulnerability is only gonna take me as far as you’ve gotta see me willing to deal with my vulnerability or deal with whatever I am kind of projecting is in my way. But I’ve seen plenty of people over the years use vulnerability as a weapon to get out of responsibility. And that’s when they lose credibility with their people and their teams or with their peers. So it depends. Are you weaponizing vulnerability or are you just saying, look, I screwed up, all right, and you genuinely mean it and you give the person the ability to kind of say, hey, yeah, you did screw up, and I know I got to not do that anymore. Help me not do that anymore instead of, you know, using it as a way to get out of something. And so I have seen that, unfortunately.

I’ve never heard this articulated, but it is so true. People use that and they make you feel guilty and essentially let them off the hook. And that’s terrible. That’s manipulation, right?

It is. And, you know, every organization that I’ve been in wants to perform better. Every one of them says they want to grow. Right. and they put expectations and plans and quotas and whatever on their people to achieve whatever goals. But a lot of them are not willing to make the tough decisions on those that aren’t getting it done because they’ve got a bad attitude, because they’re lazy, because whatever, because they’re just not looking to get it done. They don’t wanna be there, but they’re unemployed. They’re mentally unemployed, but they’re physically employed. And when the team sees that, you lose credibility. That’s another way to disrupt trust.

If we start making exceptions for people, well, it’s just Steve. Steve’s going through a tough time. Or Steve’s attitude, you’ve got to be careful around him. I don’t know how he’s going to receive this. And then the organization sees me working around you and then trying to hold them to this standard while I absolve you from the standard, I get a problem because they’re going to see me as an enabling leader and not one that embraces vulnerability. They see me as somebody who embraces excuses for other people and then I lose my credibility. And then it makes it okay for everyone in the organization to make an excuse about anything.

I mean, that’s a huge issue. And I have got a couple of clients who are struggling with this idea of not making the tough decision because they feel that maybe they feel attached to some people that have been with them for forever. And they like them as people. And they kind of make exceptions for them. They tolerate the lack of results or lack of even trying or dysfunction or whatever it is. And then it basically demotivates everyone else in the organization, it makes the players leave and then they’re stuck with B and C players and they get into the situation where the whole organization gets stuck in this survival mode. And that’s a terrible predicament. So these are good people who feel because they don’t want to hurt anyone, they are actually hurting the company.

And some of the people they hold on to, and I see this all the time. Ever since I started, even before I started my company, I think about some of the, I’ve had some great bosses over the years, and I’ve had some really weak bosses over the years. And that’s where I would struggle as the employee is when I was reporting to somebody who just didn’t get it or who didn’t relate to the team. The person that the team looked at and said, does this guy even know what he’s doing? How is this person in charge?

And the organization, and I see this now, has a difficult time moving on from the kind person, the nice person, the happy-go-lucky person that they assumed could manage or they assumed could lead and they pay them whatever, whatever they’re paying, 200 grand, 300, whatever they’re paying them, the team will see this person is not, there’s no value in this person to me and then they hold on to them. That’s the tough part. I think they hold on to people that they like.

You know, they might have just, they just might have them in the wrong seat or they just might have hired somebody who’s just not built to lead this team. That team needs more than this individual. And when we just, when we keep people around just because we like them or just because we feel bad for them, in the end, they end up leaving worse off. They don’t leave the organization confidently. They leave feeling let down. They leave feeling what happened. They don’t know. And that’s where we are really falling short in business is we don’t tell people the truth. We make assumptions, we hire way too casually. And then we get people in, we think they’re gonna be something.

And when we’re not, when they’re not, we keep them too long. You know, and sometimes we, and I’ve seen this happen and it’s so cruel where we make it so hard on somebody that we wish we didn’t hire, that we just push them to quit and they quit and they leave really in a bad place or we fire them in anger for something that maybe we should have realized a long time ago, which was we shouldn’t have hired them. What we did was wrong and they leave less confident. They go on to that next job search wondering, where do I fit? Will I even be able to make this money?

Keeping people in leadership roles just because we like them or feel bad for them is a common pitfall. The team suffers when leaders aren't equipped for the role, and it hampers organizational growth. Click To Tweet

Yeah, because the longer they stay in that position and not being successful, the more it erodes their confidence and the less the chance is gonna be for a restart and being successful somewhere else.

Exactly, exactly. So I’m always gonna be toughest on the people at the top. They should know better. Yeah. And if not, they need to know how to know better and how to get in front of that stuff so it doesn’t continue to perpetuate year after year after year.

Do you think it’s some kind of a self-sabotage when they do that, that perhaps they don’t have enough courage to desire something more because it would require out of their comfort zone and they use it as a crutch to basically sabotage themselves with substandard people because then they don’t have to really go for it and push for something bigger, which is going to be scary. It’s going to involve some pain. It would be a much better thing, but it’s uncomfortable.

Well, I mean, every case is different. You know, I can’t label everyone as this way who’s in this situation. I do know C-level executives that have self-sabotaged, business owners that have self-sabotaged. In their minds, they haven’t. But in their minds, I’m just really, really, really smart. My people just, they can’t quite keep up with me. Their egos are so massive that in their heads, their people, no matter who they hire or where they come from or what they’ve done, it’s never going to be quite what they’ve done. And so as a result of having that attitude, the company never outgrows their perception of what could be.

But they hide behind, I’m already at the point and I just can’t quite get them there. So we’ve gotten to where we, but really what’s in the way is the way they treat people and the way they perceive people. That’s often what’s in the way. And there are others that would rather, like they’ve become so comfortable pointing the finger that their people aren’t quite what they need to be or could be, that it just becomes such a habit that that’s what they do, they just complain. And quite frankly, they usually get to that place if they’re making enough money. If the executive has built a company that allows them and affords them the lifestyle that they want, they’ll tolerate mediocrity and problems all day long because it’s still affording them the lifestyle.

Yeah.

So, and again, this is not everyone, but as we’re going through this conversation, the organizations that struggle often, they struggle for some of the things that we’re talking about right now.

I totally see that. So they get the lifestyle they want, they don’t really have a strong desire to get something more. So it doesn’t make sense really for them to really strive for more. And they also possibly, part of the kind of perk of having a business is to be that important person that everyone around you is all the time, you know, eating from your hands. And they like it probably. They like it. They think it’s part of the success that they are the smartest person in the room, and they want to enjoy it. And they get the lifestyle, and they get that adulation. And it’s kind of a mesmerizing cocktail for some of them.

It is, but I’ve learned to run for the hills. I say these things because I’ve experienced it in the past. And, you know, early, I’ve taken on clients I wish I never took on early on. I’ve got really great clients right now. So this is not about any of the existing clients, but when I pick up that quality in somebody, I’ve got to address it head on. I was introduced to a CEO just two or three weeks ago, and I had a Zoom call with the guy. He was a really nice, he was a good person, but he was so critical of his people and his team and all that they weren’t and very concerned about letting me know where he went to school and what he knows and what he’s accomplished and how much money he’s got.

I had to put him in his place immediately because I knew that if I had agreed with him and just assumed that he was right, that this would be a painful relationship for me. And I basically said to him, I think you’re the problem. You’re gonna hate hearing me say, I think you’re the problem. And I think until you recognize that, no one’s gonna be able to help you. And I think that you’ve hid behind your ego and it’s allowed you to enable your team and it’s allowed you not to address the things that you should have been addressing, which is you’ve tolerated mediocrity because you’ve been afraid to address it. That’s the problem.

And until you face that, I can’t help you. And I have to step out. And so again, that’s the exception. And I think those are the things I look for as I take on clients is, are you open-minded? Do you really think you know everything? And I’d say, right now, here we are having this conversation and I’m no expert. I do this stuff for a living and every year I look back and I say, I can’t believe I didn’t know this stuff. Every single book I read, I finish it and I say, God, there’s something else I didn’t know. You know, I know we’re not, we talked about books earlier. I think that’s what I’ve realized. The older I get, the more I realize. Say that again?

I like to say the older I get, the less I know.

The less I know, but I also realize how little people are reading and learning. You know, they get to a point in their life and their career and it’s, oh no, I’m here, I’m good at this. I know this now, but what if you don’t know it? What if there’s another way to look at it? And that’s what I’m always trying to figure out is what’s the next thing I don’t know because I know it’s infinite. What’s next, what’s next, what’s next? How do I evolve this?

Well, listen, that’s a, this is a fascinating conversation. And obviously it’s clear that this is the world that you live in, you work with companies, you help them figure out their trust issues, their leadership issues. So if people would like to get more of you, find out more what you do and like to connect with you, where should they go?

Well, if I didn’t scare anybody away, the best way to reach, I would just say, the best way to reach me is just connect on LinkedIn, Dave Turano, LinkedIn, T-U-R-A-N-O. If you want to do any, want any information on our services, J-C-E-G-R-P.com. Just look us up on the web, go on to services, you’ll see some of the stuff we do. And listen to the podcast. I know you were an awesome guest last week, Steve. I think last week is when our episode came out, but listen to Cut Through the Noise, podcast on Apple or Google or wherever you listen, and you’ll get a feel for what it is that we talk about, we think, and don’t hesitate to message or reach out. Those are the three best avenues to connect with me.

Okay, well, definitely Cut Through the Noise is a great podcast. I highly recommend it. Thanks for listening, and check out Dave Turano on LinkedIn. And also, if you enjoyed this episode, please review us so that more people can get access to us and to this podcast. And David, thank you for coming to the show. I really enjoyed it. And all the listeners stay tuned next week. We’ll have another exciting entrepreneur joining me. We’ll have another exciting entrepreneur joining me. Have a great day.

Thank you Steve.

 

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